History of Germany - Essay Example

History of Germany Germany enjoys the status of one amongst the greatest nations of the world, and has ruled over the immense geographical area and large populations at large. Its political and economic influences had never been confined to one specific region or zone of the globe; on the contrary, several European, Asian and African states had been under the German subjugation particularly during eighteenth, nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Once divided into nearly three hundred and thirty nine small Prussian states, as a shattered nation of Germania, the country witnessed its unification in 1871 after winning three decisive wars against Denmark, Austria-Hungary and France in 1864, 1866 and 1871 respectively. The credit certainly goes to the distinguished Prussian statesman and iron chancellor Otto von Bismarck, who united the entire nation under one banner and motivated them to fight jointly against the rival nations in order to re-gain their lands from them to ensure and complete the unification process. “The Schleswig-Holstein War humbled Denmark, the Austro-Prussian War ended in the defeat of Austria-Hungary and the Franco-Prussian War completed German unification by the defeat of France. (Mahajan, 1999: 212) Consequently, Germany turned out to be supreme and one of the most powerful sovereign states of the entire region in the wake of the arrest of the French Emperor and the declaration made in the Hall of Mirrors in Versailles in January 1871. Bismarck settled the aftermath of wars against Denmark and Austria-Hungary under very moderate terms and conditions; somehow, he observed unparalleled cruelty and disliking towards France. He not only inflicted upon the vanquished France with enormous war indemnity, but also snatched her most productive zones including two provinces of Alsace and Lorraine from her. It not only created boundary wall between the French nation, but also the country had to undergo serious setback after she was deprived of the most productive industrial areas. Hence, Bismarck expressed his extreme repugnance towards the entire French nation, and consequently invited the same bitter sentiments in the hearts and minds of the deprived, humiliated and downtrodden French nation. As a result, feelings of repentance, remorse, hatred and revenge started growing against the then recently united Germany in the hearts of the French, and Bismarck turned out to be the most unwanted personality for the whole French nation. The sentiments of vengeance arose among the French and the foundations of new foreign policies were laid on the principles of retaliation, uncertainty and malice. Since the German Chancellor was not unaware of the intensity sorrow and grief the French had been undergoing; on the contrary, he acknowledged the very possibility of French invasion whenever she got the opportunity of the same. Consequently, he introduced the politics of alliances in the European governmental avenues and international relations as well in the aftermath of the French humiliation at his own hands with the perils of imminent French attack on Germany. Thus, the pivot of his foreign policy was to isolate France in the arena of international politics so that she could not manage to threat or thwart Germany for the future years to come. Under such sheer state of comprehensions, Bismarck created the Dreikaiserbund or the Three Emperors League in 1873, where the Emperors of Germany, Russia and Austria-Hungary were united to co-operate with one another at the hour of the need. The alliance also reiterated the moral and strategic support of the allies provided any other state invaded on them. Thus Bismarck's individual foreign policy to isolate France led the world towards the politics of alliances and rivalries dragging these rival alliances on the way to the horrible World War I subsequently. After entering into alliances with the European powers, Bismarck considered Germany to be protected from the threats of any immediate war or clash. Thus, the iron chancellor started paying due heed to turning Germany as a great economic and strategic giant of the world. Bismarck’s alliance politics not only kept Germany and France away from war, but also the era between 1871 and 1901 is aptly viewed the era of peace, economic growth and industrial development of the entire Europe. “The period 1870-1914 is the classical era of the European dominance. If we consider Europe in its wider definition (see infra), European GDP was the 46% of world GDP by 1870, and it will increase to 47% by 1913. European population jumped to 29% from 27%. Average per capita GDP was 171% world average by 1870, and it still was 165% by 1913.” (Carreras, 2007:2) Although the era of peace turned out to be beneficial for the entire Europe, yet German economies were one of the most important beneficiaries of sustenance of peace and stability in the region. Consequently, the government devised long term development plans for the socioeconomic, technological and strategic growth of the country. “Germany beat Britain and France in industrial growth after 1871, e.g. Germany 3: Britain 2: France 1. The German State embarked upon an extensive education program; it specialized in technical areas and so there was a greater push in that direction. It produced more and better scientists, and so Germany began her industrial advance. Also, the French threat, even if it was superficial, spurred the Germans in authority into action, and made them make Germany stronger and superior.” (cyberdelix.net) It was partly due to the fact that the world had already witnessed the German war supremacy during 1863-1871, and the formula of one sword keeps the other in sheath also applied there. Hence, every country intended to make complete war preparations, which certainly depended upon superior financial position and rapid economic growth. The German statesmen were well aware of these realities. As a result, they focused their concentration on trade, commerce and industry of the country. Within few years, Germany surpassed the entire region in growth rate. “The net domestic product (NPD) of Germany saw a moderate rise from 1860s onward, before it began to shoot up steeply from 1890s. By 1890 it had reached the level of 20 billion Reichsmark (RM), and by the outbreak of WWI the figure had more than doubled again.” (Berghahn, 2005: 1) It was the age of fast industrialization technical advancements, where Europe had begun relying upon machinery and industry in order to sell their finished products to the rest of the world by obtaining raw material from the subjugated Asian and African states. England was the pioneer in this race, and it had also introduced the exercising of atrocities and cruelties upon the Africans and Asians just for capturing and plundering the wealth and resources of those countries. The neighboring nations also imitated the British footprints, and had access to the defenseless Asian and African states. Consequently, all the raw material obtained from the third world was used to promote the European industries. The same was the case in Germany, the intelligent leadership of which also paid heed to the industrialization process. During 1870s, the agriculture, forestry, fisheries and other non-industrial sectors observed tremendous boost. Somehow, from the mid of 1880s onward, industrial sector was at constant rise and growth; eventually it gradually surpassed all other sectors by the beginning of twentieth century. Hence, the primary sectors fell from 40% share in economy to nearly 25%; while industry, including mining, crafts and others, touched 45% share in the economic growth of the country. (Berghahn, 2005: 3) The government installed factories and mills, with latest machinery and equipments. The thrashing machines, tractors and other equipments related to agriculture and industry were introduced for socioeconomic uplift of the country, while machinery was also introduced to prepare war planes, ships and ammunition for the defense of the country. As a result, Germany entered the new century as a great economic and strategic giant of the world at large. On the one side, Bismarck spent time in the development of German economy, and on the other side, he did never display any negligence towards the changing political scenario of the region. The situation of French political isolation witnessed status quo until Bismarck was at the helm of the German government. His dismissal in 1890 gave way to the Franco-Russian alliance and Britain also joined it in the beginning of the twentieth century. “The changing scenario of European political situation changed with the accession to the throne of new German Emperor Wilhelm II in 1888 and his dismissal of Bismarck two years later. In light of later events, Bismarck's dismissal has appeared as a fatal mistake. Wilhelm II, however, had good reasons to dismiss the chancellor, who had become stubborn and self-righteous.” (Colby.edu) The tradition of making alliances had divided the European nations in two explicit blocks i.e. Triple Alliance comprising of Germany, Austria-Hungary and Italy and Triple Entete comprised of England, France and Russia. It left indelible imprints on the individual, state and international relationships. Wilhelm II of Germany was also very arrogant who yearned to cow down Britain in the Mediterranean by preparing huge size war ships. Britain was also not unaware of such war preparations and made two ships in comparison with one ship of Germany. British politicians were very sharp and had command over the calculations regarding the strength and loyalty of their allies. On the other hand, Wilhelm II of Germany was very haughty and emotional. He wanted world dominance at any cost since his accession to the German throne in 1888. It is therefore he dismissed the seasoned politician Bismarck in order to impose his own political schemes in international arena. The first decade of the twentieth century was the period of war preparations as well as the tests and trials of the commitment and dedication of the allies. It was Britain which supported her ally France at all international forums, while the nations that were part of Triple Alliance i.e. Austria-Hungary and Italy displayed serious reservations and betrayal to Germany on various occasions and issues. Italy openly opposed German war schemes and subsequently forsook her allies during the course of World War I in 1915. The international politics from 1888 onward was revolving around the ambitions of one single personality i.e. Wilhelm II of Germany. Wilhelm always discouraged Britain's advances regarding making an alliance with Germany. He not only humiliated Britain in this regard, but also showed such preparations of war that revealed him as the direct threat to Britain. The entire world was mobilized according to the political measures taken by the German Emperor between 1888 and 1914. He supported Turkish Ottoman Empire against the Balkan states and condemned Russian support to Yugoslavia against Austria-Hungary. Had he not been mobilized his forces against the Russian advances towards Austria-Hungary and tried to solve the issue in an amicable way, the map of the world and strategy of international relations must have been different. He not only committed blunders before the World War I, but also displayed lack of wisdom and foresight during the course of war. The attack of German war ships on the US merchant ship was the turning point of the war, where the US got an opportunity to enter the war from the side of Triple Entete leading towards the defeat and humiliation of Germany. Wilhelm II was not ready to abdicate even after loosing the war against the Allies. It provided the cruel and clever British Prime Minister Lloyd George to apply his own method of sharing the dividend between the triumphed nations leaving Germany and her allies in a state of complete destruction, dejection, disappointment and turmoil. The Great War of 1914—1918 had actually startled the world because of the profound thrashing of the most active and productive age-group of the European population along with the ruination of infrastructure and military bases of the warring countries. Every participant country of WWI, whether vanquished or winner, looked mourning the huge death causalities as well as mental and physical disabilities faced by an imperative proportion of society. Before the beginning of WWI, the British leaders and common people had great enthusiasm for war, as they mistakenly considered it the source of bending the enemy states before them through the use of power. The British and French leaders and subjects took war against the central Powers as an easy pill to swallow like subjugation and conquest of the poor Asian and African colonial areas. On the contrary, this time they had to face the powerful and strong enemy in the form of the Unified Germany. “Europeans of all stripes,” according to the historian Peter Gay, “joined in greeting the advent of war with a fervor bordering on a religious experience. The pacifist philosopher Bertrand Russell writes of discovering, "to my amazement," as he wandered the streets of London, "that average men and women were delighted at the prospect of war." In August 1914, the war's ghastly end was unforeseeable and unimaginable. On November 11, 1920, its jubilant beginnings were unimaginable. On that sad November day, millions of Englishmen confronted not merely grief but guilt, and modern Europe was born.” (Gelernter, 2002: 31) The Allies treated Germany with unabated humiliation and hatred. The German delegation was behaved like prisoners, and they were not allowed to argue against any imposition, penalty and degradation inflicted upon their vanquished country. Germany had to surrender all her territories she contained in Africa, Asia and Oceania; in addition, she was bound to surrender all the lands she had captured before the commencement of WWI. She had to pay a huge war indemnity to the Allies for committing the crime of commencing the war. She was banned to construct any naval base or prepare any air force altogether. Consequently, she could only maintain little and fixed number of army, which must have no proper equipments or armaments to defend her from any foreign threats. Additionally, the new political administration had to surrender war preparation too altogether. Opening and running o any military school had been declared prohibited in Germany by the Allies. In brief, she was afflicted with fines, penalties, deprivations of land and relinquish of throne. As a result, German economy witnessed awkward bankruptcy and startling inflation, and her financial system and social infrastructure underwent painful blow in its real sense. Additionally, Germany had to surrender the productive zones of Alsace and Lorraine to France, while she also had to surrender the Saar coalmines to allies for the time being. The country also underwent the disruption of traditional commercial relationships with other countries. The Allies had also stopped the foreign customers to purchase German products at international market. Moreover, Germany was also deprived of the Ruhr valley, which was undoubtedly the heart of German industry, which not only turned thousands of the Germans unemployed, but also destroyed the entire German economy for the future years to come. As a result, German mark witnessed dreadful devastation in the aftermath of outrageous inflation in every part of the country. Thus, there was death, destruction, defoliation, darkness and despair in political, strategic, economic, corporate and eve public sectors and circles of the entire German nation. Somehow, Dawes Plan (1925) announced some relief for Germany by mitigating the burden of penalties on her very back. It helped in respect of providing some relief to the country. Somehow, the economy also underwent great depression by the end of 1930, which collapsed its infrastructure and unemployment was at its climax. “In 1931 the German economy was hit by a banking crisis that led to a banking holiday and by a currency crisis that resulted in the imposition of exchange controls. Several committees convened by the Bank of International Settlements (BIS) and the League of Nations stated that international cooperation was necessary in order to prevent the collapse of the German economy, and that the rescue of the German economy was crucial for the health of a world economy bound by the rules of the gold exchange standard.” (Adalet, 2003:1) At such an uncertain state of affairs, there rose a person to the occasion, which made all clouds of despair to be vanished away, and infused hope, ambition, passion and patriotism into the fast diminishing ailing body of the German nation. It was Adolf Hitler, who played vital role in the resurgence of German economic and political position and crushed the wishes of Great Britain and France to let Germany down forever and ever. Actually, Germany had borne the brunt in the form of humiliation in WWI; consequently, she blamed the powerful lobbies that compelled the USA enter the war against Germany from the side of Allies. The Nazi Germany considered the Jewish community as the responsible for the ruination of German plans of WWI. Hence, lobbying against German on the part of Jews was also irritating for the Nazi Party, which levied several unnecessary and unjust taxes upon the Jews, besides shifting them to the labor camps for obtaining free labor services from them. As a result, the Jews started migrating to the USA, UK, Russia, France and other parts of the world. “Along with artists such as Martin Bloch” Muggeridge believes, “there were other Germans who wanted to come to Britain in the 1930s. Some of them, like trade unionists and socialists, were escaping political persecution. The largest groups of Germans to arrive in Britain in the 1930s were Jewish. In the years after the Nazis came to power in 1933, life for German Jews became more and more difficult. In 1935 a law was passed that excluded Jews from many jobs and forbade them from marrying non-Jewish Germans.” (1997: 193) In addition, Hitler gave attention to all governmental and private sectors, and asked them to work diligently for the best interest of the country. Furthermore, Hitler entered into contracts with England, and sought permission for the extension of her military strength in 1935. The Treaty of Versailles had reduced Germany’s armed forces to a tiny proportion of what they had been during the First World War, but Hitler wanted a strong and powerful army to take revenge of German humiliation at the hands of Allies. Hence, he secretly started rearmament strategy in his country. “German rearmament began secretly at first, but by 1935 Hitler had introduced conscription and shown off his new armed forces in a massive military parade. Acting without French or Italian knowledge, the British signed Anglo-German Naval Agreement in 1935. British knew that Germany was rebuilding her navy and could do little to stop it other than going to war, which she was not prepared to do. (docstoc.com) As soon as Chamberlain allowed him relief in the sanctions imposed in 1919 on Germany, and Hitler annexed Austria-Hungary with Germany the next year in 1936 and further advanced towards Czechoslovakia, Switzerland and then Poland and captured the most parts of these countries. Chamberlain stuck to his famous appeasement policy, but Hitler’s demands found no satiety altogether. Capture of Poland turned out the last straw on the patience of the European Powers, which declared war on Germany in September 1939, and thus the world was dragged to the most horrible bloodshed and turmoil subsequently. Churchill was at the helm of government in England during the course of war. Japan and Italy joined hands with Hitler and defeated the British in Europe, Africa and Asia. Germany defeated France within 2 days only and bombarded on England with destructive weapons. However, once again USA came to her rescue and Hitler’s invasion on Russia turned the tables in the favor of the Allies. The USA committed the most horrible crime of invading on Japan with atomic bombs, which forced Japan to surrender. Thus, Germany was defeated once again and was divided into parts i.e. East and West Germany. Actually the Allies divided Germany into four military occupation zones – French in the southwest, British in the northwest, United States in the south, and Soviet in the east. The East Germany was controlled by the Soviet Union of Russia, while the West Germany had influence of England, France and western culture. Somehow, instead of inflicting the harsh terms of 1919 on Germany, the Allies displayed prudence towards her, and controlled her affairs in collaboration with the USA. Gradually, the Allies vacated most part of West Germany, and she joined various international contracts and alliances including Cento, SEATO, NATO and others. On the other hand, East Germany remained under the influence of socialist Russia, and thus made little advancement in science, technology and ammunition. In all communist states, Marxism-Leninism prevailed, and almost all the institutions were under the control and command of the government. In the absence of free trade and commerce, as well as no space for private investment and business ventures, the economy and infrastructure of East Germany remained poor like other countries of Eastern Europe, and thus its per capita income and GDP was miserable in comparison to West Germany. On the contrary, West Germany combated with the western development schemes, and adopted all the cultural and technological advancements had been in vogue in the advanced states of Europe. World War II had united Russia, USA and UK under anti-Nazi platform, and the alliance ended along with the war in 1945, and Cold War era commenced in its aftermath, were the world was divided into capitalist and socialist states. East Germany was bound to follow socialism, while West Germany observed capitalistic economic system. Russia maintained sheer desire for reaching the warm waters at any cost; it is therefore it invaded on Afghanistan in 1979. The USA and her allies paved impediments of the Russian advancements, which ended in the disintegration of Soviet Russia in 1989. Hence, influence of socialism on the eastern part of Germany came to an end, and both the parts united in 1990. Apparently, the unification process looked really a hard nut crack, as the nearly half century separation and gap between both the wings had created cultural, social, economic, political and technological differences. Hence, a considerable proportion belonging to both the parts declared reunion as a dream. Somehow, the passion, enthusiasm and dedication of the majority of the population from both the sides made the journey easy and possible towards breaking the barriers on their way. Though both the wings sacrificed several privileges and comforts to make their differences disappear, yet still the people undergo several divergences between the two. “Twenty years after German unification, two parallel societies exist. Two identities that exist next to each other due to their different histories that took place over forty years. A “great story” that looks into the future cannot ignore these conflicting identities and their historical origin. The questions of who we are, who we are not, and what kind of cohabitation should prevail in a united Germany are thus still prevalent, even in the twentieth year of German unity.” (Kuczynski, 2010:2) Somehow, the strong and unabated passion and zeal would be helpful in strengthening the ties between the masses of German nation. It is therefore Germany has been making progress in all fields of life by leaps and bounds for the last two decades, and is gaining the status of a great strategic and economic power of the world. References Adalet, Muge. Fundamentals, Capital Flows and Capital Flight: the German Banking Crisis of 1931 2003 Retrieved from http://elsa.berkeley.edu/pub/users/webfac/gourinchas/e281_f03/adalet.pdf Berghahn, Volker Rolf Imperial Germany, 1871-1914: economy, society, culture, and politics Berghahn Books 2005 2-17 Gelernter, David. The Roots of European Appeasement: It is 1920s All over Again The weekly Standard Volume 8 No. 02 September 23, 2002 26-39 Kuczynski, Rita German Unity – A Project American Institute for Contemporary German Studies John Hopkins University 2010 Retrieved from http://www.aicgs.org/documents/pubs/kuczynski.atp09.pdf Mahajan, V. D. International Relations since 1871 Chand Publications urdu bazaar New Delhi 2002 2-344 Muggeridge, Malcolm The Thirties in Great Britain Orion Publishing Group 1997 107-193 German industrialization: 1871 - 1914 May 20, 1988 Retrieved from http://www.cyberdelix.net/studies/germnote.htm Read More