Young Hegelians
It was the outcry caused by David Strauss' "The Life of Jesus" in 1835 which first made the 'Young Hegelians' aware of their existence as a distinct group, and it was their attitude to religion that distinguished the left and right from then onwards (August Cieszkowski is a possible exception to this rule). Despite the lack of political freedom of speech in Prussia at the time, King Wilhelm III, under the influence of his relatively enlightened minister of religion, health and education Altenstein, allowed pretty much anything to be said about religion so long as there was practical obedience to his enforced merging of Calvinism and Lutheranism and spreading of Protestantism in Catholic areas. Thus the Young Hegelians at first found it easier to direct their critical energies towards religion than politics.