|
East Germany Liberal Reform Movement
The movement for liberal reform (including constitutional,
parliamentary government, economic freedom, and civil liberties)
initiated during the Napoleonic era survived during the so-called
Vormärz (1815-48), a period of struggle between absolutism
and rising liberalism. The July 1830 French revolution incited
the German liberal intelligentsia--lower government officials,
men of letters, professors, and lawyers--to organize local clubs
and assume leadership of the reform effort. The liberal
intelligentsia, however, did not succeed in overthrowing
absolutism in the "revolution of the intellectuals," which took
place in March 1848 following the February revolution in France
of the same year. Averse to revolutionary violence, the people
did not oppose the Prussian troops that marched into Berlin to
establish order.
In May 1848, shortly after the revolutionary outbreak in
Berlin, delegates from all of the German states convened at the
Frankfurt Assembly to prepare for the formation of a united and
constitutional German nation-state. Controversial issues that had
divided Germany for centuries caused disputes among the
delegates. To the religious and cultural antagonisms between
north and south, Prussia and Austria, Catholics and Protestants,
the question concerning the establishment of a "greater Germany,"
which would include Austria, or a "smaller Germany," which would
be under Prussian leadership and exclude Austria, had recently
been added. The compromise proposal adopted during the assembly,
which provided that only the German provinces of the Habsburg
monarchy be included in the new nation-state, caused Austria to
recall its delegates. The Frankfurt constitution established
Germany as a federal union, which was to be headed by a monarch
having an imperial title. The imperial crown was offered to
Frederick William IV, King of Prussia, who refused it, stating
that he could be elected only by the German princes. After the
failure of the Frankfurt Assembly, a disagreement between
moderate and radical liberals facilitated the restoration of
monarchical conservatism, and the German Confederation was
renewed in 1851. In the Treaty of Olmütz (1851), Prussia agreed
to relinquish plans for a German union founded on liberalism
under its leadership.
Data as of July 1987
|
