Escolar Documentos
Profissional Documentos
Cultura Documentos
1) How did Napoleon change Germany politically, geographically, and emotionally (i.e.
Nationalism)? What types of changes did he inspire in Prussia and what was the significance of
these reforms?
Geographically, it can be surmised that well over 100 unrecognizable city/states were
dissolved and re-forged into 36 regional councils, opening a pathway to political organization
that would not have been possible in many other ways. The prostrate humiliation which ensued
following the defeat at Napoleon’s hands, struck deep at the German national identity. Though
providing a common enemy, Napoleon’s conquest provided Germany more with the motive for
unification than militarization – and, truth be told – the Napoleonic simplification of the
disorderly German agglomeration was key to her re-union and national recovery. Hated though
he was (by the Prussian elite), Napoleon eliminated forever the feudal states and disorganized
the ecclesiastical states which would have left Germany behind the modern world for decades if
not longer; a deed for which the German Reich must acknowledge as catalyst to their greatest
Napoleons image, he was by and large hailed as a great reformer by the majority of newly
unified Germany. And, it is believed, Prussian leadership was quite taken with the order of the
French revolution – which they attributed to Napoleon. Add to this a new and sensical system of
1
Pinson, Koppel, Modern Germany. Macmillan, 1966
1
History of Germany Max Quayle
weights and measures and the appearance in France of a thriving and orderly nation and
Germany became suddenly – if only internally – a dedicated student of all things French.
Political organization was one of the early products of the Napoleonic period, wherein the
Prussian agenda may be observed to gain a quasi-representative political voice, and where the
roots of national fervor were nourished – perhaps purposefully – as the potential of unified
A romantic period quietly followed the absolved Prussian rulership, and Germany may
also thank the efforts of Napoleon for some of her finest literary scripts and prose. Pinson writes
of a national inward consciousness and an attitude of self-importance and self reliance. To give
all credit to Napoleon is to err, but to say that his conquest inspired and release the sleeping lion
of the German political and national psyche is in fact. Disunity began to dissolve and the
2) Was Germany's historical path in the nineteenth century "normal" or "abnormal"? Can later
My historical course work to-date has unerringly led me to conclude that the century
nineteenth was the one in which the majority of the latter-day industrial nations found
capitalism and based their economies upon national production, but where Germany – though
2
History of Germany Max Quayle
and diffuse an over-potent national Hubris within her national consciousness. A precision alloy
of raw intellect, and manual skill accreted, and merged brutally with burning hatred and the old
world feudal hierarchical order. The resultant bastard, the ‘Reich’, was and is as yet the most
abominable example of the a natural will of man run riot – plying his inherent goodness and
“Abnormal” is a compliment, when it is said of the rise of the Reich. Its course is set forth in the
writings of the time; from Kant – with stoic reverence of the critical reason – to Nietzsche with
his counter-thinking (the mysterious German Industrial Military Complex seemed ever able to
turn all voices to their ends) and off-hand dismissal of the militarist philosophy. Somehow this
singular nation was able to push the limits of knowledge in such fields ad Mathematics,
Physics, Music, and more, to never before seen depths and simultaneously maintain a rigid
inner commitment to the accumulation of power and every opportunity to make, display and
No, Germany’s path through the upheaval of the Nineteenth century was not normal. It
was as a multiple personality might pass through a day switching as needed to the most
appropriate façade while carefully nurturing the last fragments of sanity in the deepest bunker
of her mind – a constitution to never again be humiliated, beaten or even suspect of weakness.
The path of German evolution must be questioned as the bloodline of the greatest atrocities ever
shown one human to another in the brutal wars of the twentieth century. She alone seemed, for a
3
History of Germany Max Quayle
while, most willing to employ the full strength of weaponry technology, and bred herself to be
Strangely, Germany’s path somewhat follows the dictates of Karl Marx in his belief that
revolution must come from the most populous group. The German bourgeoisie was indeed at
the fore of all discovery, research and musical prowess, but somehow this force was led to
revolt against unseen enemies and misperceived threats – further evidence that a master mind or
group of controllers were actually guiding and directing the fate of this potentially great world
power. The seeds of much German accomplishment (or destruction) in the Twentieth century
were surely sown in the upheaval and calculated reorganization of the century nineteenth: