page_title: Influence of the French Revolution
section_title: Germany
hierarchical_section_title: Influence of the French Revolution / Impact on Europe / Germany
caption_attribution_description: Deutsch: Karte des Rheinbundes 1812 English: Map of Confederation of the Rhine 1812
context_page_description: The French Revolution had a major impact on Europe and the New World. Historians widely regard the Revolution as one of the most important events in history. In the short-term, France lost thousands of its countrymen in the form of émigrés, or emigrants who wished to escape political tensions and save their lives. A number of individuals settled in the neighboring countries, however quite a few also went to the United States. The displacement of these Frenchmen led to a spread of French culture, policies regulating immigration, and a safe haven for Royalists and other counterrevolutionaries to outlast the violence of the French Revolution. The long-term impact on France was profound, shaping politics, society, religion and ideas, and polarizing politics for more than a century. The closer other countries were, the greater and deeper was the French impact, bringing liberalism and the end of many feudal or traditional laws and practices. However, there was also a conservative counter-reaction that defeated Napoleon, reinstalled the Bourbon kings, and in some ways reversed the new reforms.
context_section_description: German reaction to the Revolution swung from favorable at first to antagonistic. At first it brought liberal and democratic ideas, the end of guilds, of serfdom and of the Jewish ghetto. It brought economic freedoms and agrarian and legal reform. German intellectuals celebrated the outbreak, hoping to see the triumph of Reason and  The Enlightenment.  There were enemies as well, as the royal courts in Vienna and Berlin denounced the overthrow of the king and the threatened spread of notions of liberty, equality, and fraternity.
  By 1793, the execution of the French king and the onset of the Terror disillusioned the "Bildungsbürgertum" (educated middle classes). Reformers said the solution was to have faith in the ability of Germans to reform their laws and institutions in peaceful fashion.
  After Prussia was humiliated by Napoleon opinion swung against France and stimulated and shaped German nationalism.
  France took direct control of the Rhineland 1794–1814 and radically and permanently liberalized the government, society and economy.
  The French swept away centuries worth of outmoded restrictions and introduced unprecedented levels of efficiency. The chaos and barriers in a land divided and subdivided among many different petty principalities gave way to a rational, simplified, centralized system controlled by Paris and run by Napoleon's relatives. The most important impact came from the abolition of all feudal privileges and historic taxes, the introduction of legal reforms of the Napoleonic Code, and the reorganization of the judicial and local administrative systems. The economic integration of the Rhineland with France increased prosperity, especially in industrial production, while business accelerated with the new efficiency and lowered trade barriers. The Jews were liberated from the ghetto. One sour point was the hostility of the French officials toward the Roman Catholic Church, the choice of most of the residents. Much of South Germany felt a similar but more muted influence of the French Revolution, while in Prussia and areas to the east there was far less impact. The reforms were permanent. Decades later workers and peasants in the Rhineland often appealed to Jacobinism to oppose unpopular government programs, while the intelligentsia demanded the maintenance of the Napoleonic Code (which was stayed in effect for a century).
caption: The Confederation of the Rhine, composed of client states under Napoleon's control, 1806 to 1813; most German states belonged except Prussia (in the northeast) and Austria (in the southeast). The map text is in German
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