The country also felt threatened as its neighbouring country, Russia was part of the Triple Entente and was itself building up a vast army. Keeping a strong army was important to Germany because it helped to demonstrate to the rest of the world that they were a rising power. In addition, Germany was also in competition with Great Britain. At the time Britain had the largest navy; something Germany envied. Once Britain started introducing their new battleships, named the Dreadnoughts, Germany followed suit.
By 1844, because of the Zollverein, the German Confederation had gained an economic union under the leadership of Prussia and for the first time saw the states working together. This example of cooperation spread the idea of a united Germany and it encouraged the nationalists to strive for unification since they now had an example of how unity was possible. The success of the Zollverein and its economic unity outweighed the arguments for political unity; this highlighted the savings that could be made from removing some administrators. As a result of Prussia becoming economically stronger, Austria became weaker. Final evidence which suggests that the Zollverein did contribute to the cause of unification in Germany is that it isolated Austria.
The German confederation was formed after the Vienna Settlement in 1815. During the 1860’s and 1870 Bismarck came into power and led Prussia in working with the German confederation to ascend in power and unify the confederation into a country. The German country would then be led by Prussia, with Bismarck in power. By 1871, this goal was eventually achieved after many contributing factors. The wars in which Prussia fought were undoubtedly significant to the unification of Germany, but however, I feel that it was not the sole factor that contributed to the unification of Germany.
Hitler became leader of Germany because he was leader of the most popular party’ How far do you agree with this statement? By 1933 Hitler had consolidated full power over Germany, it can be argued that the main reason he was able to achieve this power was purely down to the fact that he was the leader of the most popular party. However it seems to be clear that there are other factors, which resulted in Hitler becoming leader in Germany, such as the collapse of the Weimar constitution, the effects of the Great depression and the political actions of people such as Von Papen and Schleicher. Some may argue that Hitler had become such a powerful leader due to the popularity of the Nazi party. Anti – democratic figures had seen the Nazi party as potential allies to provide popular support for an authoritarian regime.
The German public saw Hitler as god-like with his vast power and glorifying the German race as being the “master race.” When he finally reversed the power of the Treaty of Versailles and rebuilt Germany’s armed forces, the German nation basically did as he told them to do. This was seen as one of his major successes. Another would be numerous military successes. He united Germany after the humiliation of World War I and extended the Germen territory into Eastern Europe. This would be his military successes.
Pan German nationalism is the love of everything German; more specifically it means the passion and pride for the German culture, history, music and scientific achievements, (Extreme patriotism) The people that believed in this ideology were called Volk; they were a nation that believed German people deserved a place in the world that was prestige’s, a utopia for the German people. The ideology of Pan German Nationalism indicates that Nazism was not created by Hitler, but had been lingering around for hundreds of years. Hitler had only made thoughts into actions. The pan Germanics had lots of idols, but one idol stood out in particular. Otto Von Bismarck (Hitler’s hero).in 1871 Otto Von Bismarck established Germany as a country by winning the Franco Prussian war.
In 1861-1865, north of the United States won the Civil War that transformed a Union of States into a Nation. This war lifted the institution of slavery that had mocked the Declaration of Independence and compromised the cohesion of American government. Bismarck from Germany successfully effected the unification of Germany. Garibaldi also had a similar achievement in Italy. The Monarchy of Austria also established a hybrid national state.
• This meant they often backed his proposals – e.g. Reichsbank. • This was important for Bismarck as National Liberals had largest percentage of seats throughout the 1870s (31% in 1871) and passage of reforms was easier as a result. • With this alliance, Bismarck was in control of a great share of the conservative parties • Bis. could control the other large parties such as the Catholic Centre Party - able to pass the policy of ‘Kulturkampf’ in 1871 • This meant Bis.
Also there was a growth in Nationalist interest and citizens started to become proud of German culture and language which encouraged them to unite as one. The final reason why the states united was because Prussia which was the leading German state had 3 successful wars against Demark, Austria and France this showed together they were a formidable military power which also contributed to why the states united. The second Reich was a autocratic government this means that the it was solely ruled by one person who is known as the Kaiser who at this time was Wilhelm II he had the ruling of all government decisions, under him were the Reichstag which were the countries parliament, the Reichsrat who represented the 25 states and could approve laws and The chancellor who was in charge of the government and was appointed personally by the Kaiser. All of these could be undermined by the Kaiser this is an Autocracy. The strengths of the second Reich were that it had made Germany one of the economic super powers of Europe, as by 1913 the population had grown by 50% and urbanisation started to occur meaning people started moving to the cities and industry began to boom.
Hitler could not achieve the solid control over the masses which he had, if he did not have the help of the so called powerful propaganda machine. Propaganda had been vital in winning the Nazis support that helped them come into power. As Goebbels stated in 1934 “Propaganda was [their] sharpest weapon in conquering the state, and remains [their] sharpest weapon in maintaining and building up the state”. The reason why Nazis relied on propaganda was first to keep the population contented and second win support for particular policies. Another rather ambitious aim of theirs was to indoctrinate the people with their Weltanschauung or in other words they were aiming to turn the population into committed members of their Volksgemeinschaft (a community whose members would be Aryan, genetically healthy, socially useful and politically committed to the regime).