page_title: German nationalism
section_title: 19th century
hierarchical_section_title: German nationalism / History / 19th century
context_page_description: German nationalism is an ideological notion that promotes the unity of Germans and German-speakers into a nation state. German Nationalism emphasizes and takes pride in the national identity of Germans. The earliest origins of German nationalism began with the birth of romantic nationalism during the Napoleonic Wars when Pan-Germanism started to rise. Advocacy of a German nation-state began to become an important political force in response to the invasion of German territories by France under Napoleon.
  In the 19th century Germans debated the German Question over whether the German nation state should comprise a "Lesser Germany" that excluded Austria or a "Greater Germany" that included Austria. The faction led by Prussian Chancellor Otto von Bismarck succeeded in forging a Lesser Germany.
  Aggressive German nationalism and territorial expansion was a key factor leading to both World Wars. Prior to World War I, Germany had established a colonial empire in hopes of rivaling Britain and France.
context_section_description: It was not until the concept of nationalism itself was developed by German philosopher Johann Gottfried Herder that German nationalism began. German nationalism was Romantic in nature and was based upon the principles of collective self-determination, territorial unification and cultural identity, and a political and cultural programme to achieve those ends. The German Romantic nationalism derived from the Enlightenment era philosopher Jean Jacques Rousseau's and French Revolutionary philosopher Emmanuel-Joseph Sieyès' ideas of naturalism and that legitimate nations must have been conceived in the state of nature. This emphasis on the naturalness of ethno-linguistic nations continued to be upheld by the early-19th-century Romantic German nationalists Johann Gottlieb Fichte, Ernst Moritz Arndt, and Friedrich Ludwig Jahn, who all were proponents of Pan-Germanism.
  The invasion of the Holy Roman Empire (HRE) by Napoleon's French Empire and its subsequent dissolution brought about a German liberal nationalism as advocated primarily by the German middle-class bourgeoisie who advocated the creation of a modern German nation-state based upon liberal democracy, constitutionalism, representation, and popular sovereignty while opposing absolutism. Fichte in particular brought German nationalism forward as a response to the French occupation of German territories in his Addresses to the German Nation (1808), evoking a sense of German distinctiveness in language, tradition, and literature that composed a common identity.
  After the defeat of France in the Napoleonic Wars at the Congress of Vienna, German nationalists tried but failed to establish Germany as a nation-state, instead the German Confederation was created that was a loose collection of independent German states that lacked strong federal institutions. Economic integration between the German states was achieved by the creation of the Zollverein ("Custom Union") of Germany in 1818 that existed until 1866. The move to create the Zollverein was led by Prussia and the Zollverein was dominated by Prussia, causing resentment and tension between Austria and Prussia.
caption: Johann Gottfried Herder, the founder of the concept of nationalism itself, although he did not support its program.
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