Why did Germany take so long to unify?

[RedRalph]

OK, I know there is a reason for each individual case, but take a step back and ask why is it that Germany took foever to unify? Most of the reasons could equally be applied to most countries which unified much earlier... why did Germany take so long?

 

[Dachs]

OK, I know there is a reason for each individual case, but take a step back and ask why is it that Germany took foever to unify? Most of the reasons could equally be applied to most countries which unified much earlier... why did Germany take so long?

Part of it has to do with that nasty Interregnum that the Holy Roman Empire got hit with after the Hohenstaufens were defeated in the 13th century. The HRE's main political leadership was essentially vacant for over a hundred years, so by the time the Habsburgs reached the imperium they were already behind England and France in terms of centralization. The Golden Bull, which was a key part of the Interregnum, has a lot to do with that: the Emperor ceded a lot of his power to the Electors, which increased particularist tendencies. But even with that in mind, the HRE came reasonably close to a modicum of centralization in the 17th century (yes, despite the Protestantism and the Peace of Augsburg that basically carved the Empire in half). Had the Edict of Restitution been fully implemented and not interrupted by the invasion of the Swedish under Gustav II Adolf, the Habsburgs had a pretty good shot at reaching a centralized HRE (well, as centralized as was possible in the 17th century, and far more so than the Empire ended up being). But the later half of the Thirty Years' War screwed that up; with the Treaties of Westphalia, it became impossible for the position of Emperor to do much more than act as a figurehead and rallying point, along with of course a good deal of prestige. Westphalia, by recognizing the theoretical sovereignty of all of the Kleinstaaterei, broke any semblance of feudal supremacy that the Emperor had over those he nominally ruled.

England, on the other hand, successfully managed to begin reforms along these lines during the Tudor dynasty, and came out of the crucible of the political unrest of the 17th century with a far stronger central political institution than it had had before. And France, unlike the HRE, was able to fight off the foreign interventions (both by Spain during the later Wars of Religion, as well as in the Thirty Years' War and the nearly coincident Franco-Spanish War) and deal with religious unrest with a much greater amount of success than could the Habsburg Emperors.

The long and short of it is, I guess, that there was no real Imperial version of the 'new monarchies' like Spain, France, England, and Muscovy, and what attempts to centralize that they had were too little too late and interrupted by the Empire's enemies and by the religious unrest that was such a huge feature of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. So they, like the Italians, had to wait until the advent of nationalism (which, in part, was due to the interventions by other powers against the centralization of the HRE - take, for example, the French plundering and destruction in the Palatinate during the War of the Grand Alliance, which aroused what can only be called a sentiment of protonationalistic outrage in the Germanic states) and the creation of other entities like the Bund of the 19th century.

 

[REDY]

Maybe it was because HRE - in short - multinational; too big; papal intervened much more than in our parts of christendom; voting weak emperors; interests of neighbours. Every mediveal kingdom suffered somewhat from this, but HRE was specifical.

 

[cool3a2]

I'd say it has something to do with the princes of all these small principalities (I think there was a time when there were 250 of them). I believe they wanted to keep their power which would be in conflict with merging their principality with another. They even were in war against each other. Finally you can see this in a limited way till today. Germany is still very decentralized, in my opinion too much.

 

[EnlightenmentHK]

The biggest sticking point was the Bavarian bread preservation law. (some refer to it as the beer purity law, but whatever) Other parts of what would become Germany objected to being arbitrarily dictated to by self-righteous Bavarians about what actually qualifies as beer and what it should contain. They would not be crushed under this oppressive beer fascism that came to dominate Bavaria and than Germany for centuries.

But alas, at some point the threats from outside became too great. Germany had to unite even if it meant sentencing their domestic beer industry to a century of stagnation.

Now don't get me wrong, the Germans still make fine beer. But of a very limited variety of styles and they lag behind the more progressive and innovative beer producing states like Belgium and the US due to their strict adherence to the 'old ways' of doing things.

People will offer explanations dealing with wars, religion, princes v. emperors...all crap. Its the beer. It was always the beer.

 

[RedRalph]

enlightenment are you serious? German beer is about a billion times nicer than american beer...

thansk for the answers lads, esp Dachs

 

[Sharwood]

Picking up where Dachs left off, after Westphalia Prussia emerged as a political and military rival to Austria, the state most likely to unify Germany. After that, it was in the best interests of both sides to keep the other from gobbling up or allying with the other German states, even after nationalism took hold in those states. This situation lasted until Prussia was in a position to decisively defeat Austria without having to fear outside interference, after which the Balance of Power firmly shifted in Prussia's favour, allowing Bismarck to manipulate the situation in order to bring about German unification, under Prussian leadership.

 

[cool3a2]

Only to add something to the german beer. AFAIK the Reinheitsgebot (that is the law about what can be in beer) doesn't apply for german beer that gets exported.

 

[RedRalph]

Only to add something to the german beer. AFAIK the Reinheitsgebot (that is the law about what can be in beer) doesn't apply for german beer that gets exported.

I know.... German beer IN GERMANY is supreme, over here its still greta but does give a hangover unlike in Germany

 

[RedRalph]

I wonder what Germany owuld have been like if it had been unified under Austrian leadership? Less militaristic?

 

[Agent327]

The unification of Germany (1866-1871) actually was only slightly later than that of Italy. But the main reason would be that for any nation to unify, there first has to be the idea of being a nation. Then ofcourse there has to be unifying force, without which it might indeed take forever.

 

[Verbose]

Both Italy and Germany were "cultural nations" waaay before they became politically unified. German Renaissance Humanists of the 16th c. were already putting the props in place in the form of an idea about the greatness of the German nation as a whole.

 

[Arwon]

Even though the idea of a German nation kinda screwed the Czechs, Jews and Poles who lived in the same places as Germans.

That's the danger of having an ethnically rather than politically defined nation (like France or the USA).

 

[REDY]

The biggest sticking point was the Bavarian bread preservation law. (some refer to it as the beer purity law, but whatever) Other parts of what would become Germany objected to being arbitrarily dictated to by self-righteous Bavarians about what actually qualifies as beer and what it should contain. They would not be crushed under this oppressive beer fascism that came to dominate Bavaria and than Germany for centuries.

But alas, at some point the threats from outside became too great. Germany had to unite even if it meant sentencing their domestic beer industry to a century of stagnation.

Now don't get me wrong, the Germans still make fine beer. But of a very limited variety of styles and they lag behind the more progressive and innovative beer producing states like Belgium and the US due to their strict adherence to the 'old ways' of doing things.

People will offer explanations dealing with wars, religion, princes v. emperors...all crap. Its the beer. It was always the beer.

Hmm same is said here and they see progresiveness in Germany, in both good or bad way. I personally dont like these cannabis or raspberry beer ideas but I had never courage to try it.

 

[Agent327]

Both Italy and Germany were "cultural nations" waaay before they became politically unified. German Renaissance Humanists of the 16th c. were already putting the props in place in the form of an idea about the greatness of the German nation as a whole.

Hindsight vision I'd say. The question is: how well-spread where these ideas and, more importantly, did they have any political backup?

 

[Dachs]

I wonder what Germany owuld have been like if it had been unified under Austrian leadership? Less militaristic?

Hrm, maybe. Depends highly on the circumstances under which it was done. The Thirty Years' War/Edict of Restitution option would certainly have involved far less inherent militarism than that of the Junkers (though their own influence on German militarism is actually kind of interesting, nebulous, and highly time-sensitive)...Austria's lack of the same kind of military aristocracy as Prussia would certainly play a huge role in decreasing that. Interesting Austria-unites-Germany scenarios can be found starting here, and in this map. (Courtesy of das, natch.)

Hindsight vision I'd say. The question is: how well-spread where these ideas and, more importantly, did they have any political backup?

Though I don't pretend to know nearly so much about this as others...Martin Luther? Referring to the HRE as Holy Roman Empire [of the German Nation]...there was a limited amount of political support for these ideas, I suppose, but it wasn't consistent from what I know.

 

[Lockesdonkey]

During the Middle Ages, Germany did not unify because the HRE was a multiethnic empire, and the emperors wanted to keep it that way (more land for us). True German unification would likely anger the Slavic, Hungarian, and Dutch elements of the Empire, and these lands, for various reasons, were seen as vital to the Empire.

However, that medieval history could easily have been overturned by strong emperors, which the HRE appears to have gotten in several of the fifteenth- and sixteenth-century Habsburgs (Charles V comes to mind). However, the Reformation and the Thirty Years' War made things such that unification became impossible. I'll elaborate.

1. Neighboring powers. Especially in the seventeenth century, France and Sweden did not want any threat to their power. Both knew that a unified Germany could kick both of their asses simultaneously, and that not only would a strong HRE be capable of doing so, it would have to do so out of concern for its own security. Naturally, these powers intervened on the side of the Protestants to keep the Habsburgs from uniting Germany.

2. The Germans were condemned to two centuries of disunion by the Peace of Westphalia and the state system it created. The Peace guaranteed to each prince final rule over each of his lands: no authority, neither Pope nor Emperor, could overrule a prince's political authority within his territory. Nor could any prince meddle in the affairs of another prince's lands: The King of Bavaria could no more legislate for Prussia then than the Parliament of Portugal for Canada today. Both of these principles were jealously guarded by each prince, and they formed the basis of the system of states that exists today: Every modern state has final and exclusive political authority over its territory. At this point, it becomes clear why the German states would not unite until Prussia essentially forced them to at gunpoint: they were all sovereign states, an a state, once sovereign, won't very well give up its sovereignty unless it is induced to by coercion or cooperation, and the latter is very hard to build indeed.

 

[cool3a2]

Somebody asked what would have happened if Germany would have unified under sustrian leadership and asked if it could have been less militarisitc. I don't want to balm all Austrians, but let me remind you that Hitler was actually an Austrian, not German...

 

[EnlightenmentHK]

enlightenment are you serious? German beer is about a billion times nicer than american beer...

Than you quite simply haven't had decent American beer. The American craft brew industry is exploding and has been for a decade. Your most unique, experimental, extreme, and innovative varieties of beers these days are almost exclusively American or Belgian, with some contributions from the Canadians. (Those Quebecies have a few exceptional brewers) The quality is top notch. The variety covering everything under the sun, with a heavy concentration on ales. Portland now has more breweries within the metro area than any other metro area in the world. It is the new beer mecca.

We dominate the Imperial Stouts. Along with some distinctively top notch other varieties of stout. Our IPA's are a class unto themselves. Quality pale ales are popping up with increasing frequency. The catch-all category of overly strong beers known as barleywines, ours. There are a number of exceptional Belgian styles that are comparable in quality to the actual belgian brews they're imitating. We make many of the best porters even though that's barely a focus of the American craft brew movement. Our wheats aren't yet in Germany or Belgium's class, but they're getting there.

Germans of course still dominate the lager. They do some pretty exceptional things with them. But when it comes down to it, the lager is a quite limited and often rather boring style. There's just not as much that can be done with it as the ales and certainly not the drastic differences in flavor.

Right now I would place the best American beers against the best German ones without hesitation. The only place in the world I have the slightest concern that we couldn't top is Belgium.

Of course if you're not American or if you haven't traveled extensively through America and tried these beers, you wouldn't know them. Most of these quite simply aren't exported yet. Hell, many corners of the US still can't get the better ones yet.

But...
Stone
Rogue
Bell's
Founders
Three Floyds
Dogfishhead
Anchor
Brooklyn Brewing
Unibroue (yeah, I'm claiming the Canadian one too)

These brewers and many others make without a doubt some of the best beer in the world. If you're a fan of beer and haven't had them, you're missing out.

 

[Arwon]

But for those of us without the time, money and inclination to obsess over boutique little microbrews that seems a little inconvenient and pointless and something like the equivalent of people saying "my favourite band is cool because nobody has heard of them". I think comparing mainstream easily available beers to mainstream easily available beers is a perfectly valid rubrick.

And in that spirit I'm gonna go ahead and claim that the easily available mainstream or semi-boutique Aussie beers are BETTER than in America without any real evidence just because I can. If you do ever come here, look out for James Squires and Little Creatures.