German Nationalism Johann Gottfried Herder Term Paper

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Another barrier to the development of a unified German national identity in the 19th century was a strong sense of regionalism and patriotism on the local level. This was particularly true in the southern German states, which had benefited enormously from Germany's re-ordering by the Napoleonic forces.

This resulted in many conflicts between nationalists (who typically belonged to the larger German states) and regionalists (who typically belonged to the smaller, southern German states.)

Perhaps the biggest impact on the development of nationalism in Germany was the occupation of all of Germany west of the Rhine by France between the years of 1794 and 1814. France's occupation would leave long-lasting affects upon the German judicial, legal, and administrative systems, and cause on-going disputes between the two nations long after France's occupation came to an end.

The year 1813 marked a turning point in Germany's ongoing battles with France, with the former finally beginning to emerge victorious in battles against Napoleon, beginning at Leipzig. As a result of the Congress of Vienna, the German Confederation (Deutscher Bund) was established as a replacement for the Holy Roman Empire, which France's domination had effectively destroyed. The German Enlightenment could now continue to develop outside of French influence.

It was thanks largely to the achievements of Goethe and Schiller, as well as a host of other notable Enlightenment figures, that Germany was to emerge as the nation of "poets and thinkers.

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But it also stalled the development of a uniquely German nationalism, in that many educated Germans and leading intellectuals welcomed the French Revolution - at least prior to their domination by Napoleon.

Even during the German lands' domination by the French, Hegel and other prominent German intellectuals wrote admiringly of Napoleon. In this respect, there were certainly two different views of nationalism during Herder's life and the decades to follow. Whereas the intellectual protagonists of the Enlightenment encouraged the German people to locate freedom and national identity within themselves, thus advocating personal development over what they perceived to be a vain conception of nationalism, a more extreme view was espoused by leading politicians of the era - namely, the supremacy of German culture uber alles.

Herder's conception of the Volk was to eventually become co-terminus with that of the state. This would give rise to an even more virulent form of German nationalism. Such a transition, from a progressive cultural nationalism that called for a doing-away of the old guard and furthering the cause of the Volk's constitutional liberties, to a conservative force bent on maintaining the status quo and oppressing minorities and dissident voices, would come to the forefront in the Prussian Germany of 1871 - and have detrimental effects on the subsequent development of German national identity in the century to come......

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