Modern German History

The history of the modern German region is complicated, detailed, richly documented and has many interesting nodes for any explorer. This piece is a very high-level simplification of marking the years with names of the leaders and the type of organisation that existed in the region. I have relied on Wikipedia for facts and opinions are my own.


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“modern German history, opening with Bismarck’s founding of the Wilhelmine empire in 1871, and concluding with the downfall of the Third Reich.”

Otto von Bismarck oversaw the unification of Germany through “blood and iron” and served as its first Chancellor from 1871 to 1890.

Before its unification, Central Europe was a fragmented collection of over 300 entities that evolved into a loose confederation of independent states. These states, German speaking lands existed under the Holy Roman Empire for centuries until its dissolution in 1806 under pressure from Napolean who believed that the ancient empire was an outdated political relic. (This period from c. 800/ 962 AD to 1806 is also referred to as the First Reich or the First Empire). In 1815, after the Napoleonic Wars, the Congress of Vienna was established, a loose union consisting of 37 principalities and 4 free cities, dominated primarily by the rivalry between its largest two powers, Kingdom of Prussia and Austria Empire. This lasted until 1866 when Prussia won over Austria in Seven Weeks’ War and the old confederation was dissolved, while forming a North Germany Confederation.

Eventually Bismarck championed a “Lesser Germany” solution unifying under Prussian dominance without the multi-ethnic Austria. There were rapid unification wars, and on January 18, 1871, following the defeat of France, German Empire was officially proclaimed in the Hall of Mirrors in Versailles.

As an aside, this time of hundreds of states would have been a rich ground and setting for weaving tales of political intrigue, drama and alliances. There must have been a range of princes and kings, and royals and political players. A little bit of War & Peace alludes to it, because of the Napoleonic Wars. But I think of all the tales of royal dramas, both fantastic and real. And then the strife was not just amongst the states, but between the old order and the rising ideas and ideals of democracy.

Perhaps it was the time, the increasing complexity of economic, linguistic, cultural and legal tradition. Increasing travel, business, mixing, transport and the idea of European liberalism “offered an intellectual basis for unification by challenging dynastic and absolutist models of social and political organization;”

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So on January 18, 1871, Bismarck read the proclamation, and King Wilhelm I of Prussia was crowned the first German Emperor (Kaiser). Perhaps the wonder here is after unification, why still have royal authority? He did not abolish the monarchy because German unification was a conservative, "top-down" process led by the Prussian state and its King, rather than a democratic revolution.

“The new German Empire was not a unitary republic, but a federation of 25 states. This structure allowed existing kings, dukes, and princes (such as those of Bavaria, Saxony, and Württemberg) to keep their local crowns and internal autonomy in exchange for swearing allegiance to the Prussian-led federal framework. Bismarck despised liberalism, socialism, and parliamentary democracy. He used the prestige and authority of the King of Prussia to balance against the newly formed, elected national parliament (the Reichstag), ensuring the executive branch answered to the Crown rather than a democratic majority”

This period which begins on January 18, 1871 is also known as the beginning of Second Reich or the Second empire. The collapse of the Second Reich happened in November Revolution of 1918 when Germany became a republic.

During its 47 years of existence, the German Empire became an industrial, technological, and scientific power in Europe, and by 1913, Germany was the largest economy in continental Europe and the third largest in the world (British being the top economic powers, followed by United States).

The period of the second Reich or the German Empire began with a period of peace works and a stability, a period of alliances until the more ambitious Wilhelm II ascended the throne in 1888. So far Bismarck was getting used to exercising authority by being accountable only to Wilhelm I rather than an elected democratic council, but once Wilhelm II took over the throne, the idea of being a nominal figurehead did not appeal to him, and he overthrew Bismarck. Kind of undoing some of the work on the peace front.

That led Germany to a more volatile, militaristic path. That period, from 1888 to 1918 is also called the Wilhelmine era, the reign of Kaiser Wilhelm II over the German empire. The era was marked by a massive naval buildup (sparking an arms race with Great Britain), Germany rapidly surpassed Great Britain in steel production, chemical manufacturing, and heavy industry, becoming the dominant economic and military power on the European continent. It also saw aggressive colonial expansion, and a foreign policy (Weltpolitik) that aimed to establish Germany as a global superpower.

In 1914, following the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in 1914, Germany offered a "blank check" of unconditional support to its main ally, Austria-Hungary, leading to eventual war in Europe. By 1916, there was military dictatorship in Germany. And in late 1918, exhausted by war and economic collapse, German naval sailors mutinied, followed by widespread domestic revolution. Kaiser Wilhelm II abdicated the throne and fled to Netherlands.

“A provisional government led by the Social Democratic Party declared a republic and signed the Armistice on November 11, 1918, ending the war. The German Empire was officially replaced by the democratic Weimar Republic, soon to face the heavy penalties of the 1919 Treaty of Versailles.”

This drew the curtain on the Second Reich.

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The Weimar Republic, was the democratic government of Germany from 1919 to 1933, established after the collapse of the German Empire (Second Reich) in World War I and named after the city of Weimar where its national assembly wrote the constitution. Germany became a constitutional republic for the first time in history. People still knew it as Germany, though Hitler popularized the term Weimar Republic in 1930s.

The years 1919 to 1933 began with drained economy after the war and Treaty of Versailles. There was a period of hyperinflation, and a new currency was introduced. Then came the Golden Years of 1924-29 of economic recovery, stabilized foreign relations. But the depression of 1929, caused mass unemployment and political polarization.

There was an Article 48 in the constitution which allowed the president to pass emergency decrees and suspend civil liberties without parliament's consent. The Chancellors increasingly began to resort to Article 48, and eventually when Adolf Hitler came to power in 1933, he dismantled the democracy and the republic fell to dictatorship.

It is said that “The fall of the Weimar Republic (1918–1933) was caused by a combination of severe economic depression, structural weaknesses in the Weimar Republic constitution, political polarization, and the manoeuvres of conservative elites who miscalculated Adolf Hitler. Once in office, Hitler used the Reichstag Fire Decree and the Enabling Act of 1933 to suspend civil liberties, ban opposition parties, and convert the democracy into a totalitarian dictatorship”


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So then comes the dark times of the Third Reich. A totalitarian German state ruled by Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party from January 30, 1933 to May 8, 1945. They named it so, because they wished to establish the empire for 1000 years claiming it as a successor to the previous two Reich. “By August 1934, following the death of President Paul von Hindenburg, Hitler abolished the presidency and declared himself Führer (leader). All political parties except the Nazi Party were banned, and society was brought under strict state control ("coordination").”

Further: 

“Guided by racial ideology and anti-Semitism, the regime stripped Jewish people of citizenship (such as through the 1935 Nuremberg Laws) and orchestrated the Holocaust, the systematic mass murder of 6 million European Jews as well as millions of others, including Roma, people with disabilities, and political dissidents. Hitler’s aggressive expansion led to the invasion of Poland on September 1, 1939, triggering World War II in Europe. At its territorial peak, the regime controlled a vast portion of Europe.”

The regime ended in May 1945 once Allied forces invaded Berlin. Germany suffered total military defeat. Hitler died by suicide on April 30, 1945.

That marks the conclusion, the downfall of the Third Reich.



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Over the different Reich, Germany was different. There was no Germany during the First Reich, just German speaking people and countless states. There was one Germany during the Second Reich, its years of progress and aggression, but still an empire under a Kaiser. And then came a period of democracy, a brief interlude before Hitler came to power and took Germany back to a new state of unified dictatorship. There are questions about the chaotic world (multiple states) and the ambition of leaders. What perhaps is intriguing is that though democracy as an idea was thriving in the world by then, it took its time to reach Germany. Perhaps it is cultural, perhaps it is a societal aspect.

To that question about democratic thought, I found this answer: “Germany did have a major opportunity to embrace liberal democracy earlier during the 1848 Revolutions. Middle-class intellectuals and liberals gathered at the Frankfurt Parliament to draft a democratic constitution and offer a unified German crown to the Prussian King, Frederick William IV. However, the king rejected the crown, famously calling it a "crown from the gutter," and monarchical military forces successfully crushed the movement. This failure deeply demoralized German liberalism and accustomed the population to accepting authoritarian efficiency over democratic debate”



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Further to above, my questions, wonder and contemplation is around what lessons do we carry forward from this little piece of history? The era of early to mid twentieth century is marked by a pursuit of power, by leaders and nations, which inevitably led to wars and revolutions, followed by an eventual rise of democracy around the world after the wars dissolved the old empire-led world.

There is a different kind of empires today, more led by impersonal, rather dispassionate corporates, with no clear owner except a very clear profit motive, a market economy. In such times, it is important to have a healthy role of state, to ensure that those that are left behind because of the profit pursuit, are somehow taken in the fold of state and are provided for. Given the changes in the world beginning this decade with the advent of AI and the structural shifts it brings to the fundamentals of several industries, if any, this is perhaps the best time to argue for a universal basic income. I didn’t realise I would say so even until a few years ago. But the impending shifts, the market based empire building, and yet the aware democratic citizens – if the world is to live in peace, and not unrest, not disgruntled unemployed restless energy, then perhaps an argument in the greater role of state for the welfare of its citizens is needed.

This is a brief sketch of what I seem to see as of today, from where I am. It may change as I read more, it may change as I learn more. But we are heading into a period of further squeezing out of many pockets to fill a few pockets, and that doesn’t bode well for the world. It is not about unrest, but it is about the peaceful, healthy existence of the many. There are many more poor people in the world than rich. And the coming changes might increase or make it further more lopsided. We need the state to have powers enough to try to restore balance. An appreciation of what the backward most line is brought forward to. Rising entry barriers to enterprise, increasing institutional ownership of enterprise is not a healthy world.

The unrest happens when there are a few who control a lot – there is imbalance in the world, and something is needed to restore balance.