[HN Gopher] Was German unification inevitable?
___________________________________________________________________
Was German unification inevitable?
Author : samclemens
Score : 47 points
Date : 2021-03-18 17:49 UTC (2 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.historytoday.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.historytoday.com)
| GekkePrutser wrote:
| Well the unification of the German speaking areas mentioned in
| the article never really happened as Austria and the Swiss-German
| areas are still separate countries from Germany (and in the case
| of Switzerland always have been).
|
| So the answer is it's been avoidable and actually been avoided :)
| varispeed wrote:
| I think it will kind of happen by proxy as European Union
| members are slowly turning into administrative regions rather
| than remaining as proper countries.
| sneak wrote:
| Switzerland is not a member state of the EU.
|
| (They are part of the EEA and Schengen agreement zone, so
| people often forget this.)
| rgblambda wrote:
| Switzerland is not part of the EEA, although they have many
| treaties with the EU that more or less comprises the
| relationship the EU has with an EEA country.
| varispeed wrote:
| I am aware of that, but my prediction is that they will be
| slowly less and less sovereign over time and at one point
| there will be one unified european superstate. Who knows,
| maybe German will become the main language?
| sneak wrote:
| What mechanism do you propose causes Switzerland, which
| is 100% sovereign (and even isn't part of the EU, despite
| all their neighbors being such), to become "less and less
| sovereign over time"? Who rules them? How? Why?
| _ph_ wrote:
| There are considerations amongst the Swiss to gain full
| EU membership. I don't know whether they are a majority
| though.
| dgellow wrote:
| Nop, definitely not. We (i.e swiss people, not me
| specifically) rejected it multiple times and that's
| clearly not going to change in the near future.
| vidarh wrote:
| The question raised is specifically about the inevitability of
| the unification that _actually_ happened in 1871 and 1990, not
| about any idea of larger German state. The article does not
| mention language at all as far as I can see, nor cultural
| connections.
|
| Overall this article not really answering anything, though. The
| answers are t0o high level and short to treat the subject
| seriously.
| GekkePrutser wrote:
| True but I was mainly reacting to the tagline of the article:
|
| "The unity of the German-speaking lands goes back a long way"
|
| The third paragraph also defines unification as such.
| [deleted]
| k__ wrote:
| This.
|
| As long as Austria is missing, German unification isn't
| complete.
|
| I mean, Austria has a much lower population than Bavaria. It's
| basically a autonomous German state.
| chmod775 wrote:
| Considering most Germans alive today experienced the (1990)
| unification and the political climate during that time, it's a
| bit weird to ask four non-German _historians_.
|
| This question would be better posed to politicians of that time,
| many of which are retired now, but still alive.
|
| I can guarantee the answers would be more _interesting_ for sure.
| Animats wrote:
| Was the collapse of the Soviet Union inevitable?
|
| If the Soviet Union had hung on for another 20 years, it would
| have made it into the Internet era. A classic argument against
| Soviet-style communism is that central planning doesn't work. It
| doesn't scale. Only free markets scale.
|
| Then came the Internet. Now, companies can scale up to planetary
| scale. Amazon doesn't seem to be having scaling problems - the
| bigger it gets, the better it works. Nor does Tencent, or
| Alibaba, or Citibank, or AT&T, or Disney, or Union Pacific.
| Competition is on the way out.
|
| So today, central planning works at scale. No reason it couldn't
| work for a communist economy. China's not doing badly.
| deafcalculus wrote:
| 1. Central planning might work today but not in a democracy.
| Keeping the economy at arms length distance from politics seems
| essential in a liberal democracy. Pretty sure Amazon wouldn't
| be as successful if the leadership was elected by employees /
| customers / stakeholders.
|
| 2. The problem with autocracy + central planning is when things
| go wrong or the world changes in some important way (or
| people's preferences change). No way to correct or replace the
| administration without revolution.
|
| So, I'd still bet on liberal democracy and capitalism over the
| long term.
| scarmig wrote:
| The issue with central planning has never been scaling. Back in
| the mid-20th century, the Soviet Union often managed to excel
| in scaling particular metrics that were prioritized by
| leadership. The issue is price discovery and resource
| allocation, and the ability of politics to interfere with or
| undermine the price discovery mechanism.
|
| The internet has helped with market-based price discovery by
| acting as a source of legibility and homogenization, which
| allows for the mega corporations to extract a lot of the value
| provided by acting as monopoly providers of the platforms for
| price discovery. But if you look at their internal corporate
| economies, all of them have issues with substantial waste,
| resource misallocation, and politics.
| someguydave wrote:
| the unification of germany was a disaster, it should revert to
| city-states like liechtenstein
| Zenst wrote:
| How was it a disaster?
|
| When West Germany merged with East the impact upon GDP wasn't
| dramatic and it was a democratic choice.
|
| Indeed it went so well, I dare say it was a motivator towards
| more integration within the EU and will say the EU went on a
| pokemon phase not long after in member growth. Which even the
| EU phrases as "Re-unification of Europe"
| https://ec.europa.eu/neighbourhood-enlargement/policy/from-6...
|
| So the re-unification of Germany had many aspects too it that
| get overlooked.
| someguydave wrote:
| no, I mean the Prussian unification was a mistake
| Zenst wrote:
| Ah, not the first unification that springs to mind. I
| wasn't aware of that, and reading a bit about it and the
| timeline - you may be very well right. Certainly it
| interesting to look at how historical events panned out
| with hindsight and cause and effect. Whole aspect of https:
| //en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_Revolution_of_1918%E2%8...
| takes some getting your head around.
| someguydave wrote:
| I appreciate your research. As you can see from this
| thread, there isn't much knowledge of European history
| from > 40 years ago apparently.
| formerly_proven wrote:
| Fur ein Deutschland in den Grenzen von 1228 - Neapel bleibt
| unser!
| someguydave wrote:
| http://sprachlos-blog.de/westgotisches-ahnenerbe/ lol
| thenaturalist wrote:
| Don't feed the trolls, I dare suggest.
| Zenst wrote:
| How can you tell it is a troll and not some perspective
| without knowing the reasoning and workings out of that
| perspective?
| rektide wrote:
| East Germany still faces incredible far ranging economic &
| societal difficulties after the West Germans swept in, strong
| armed the state, offered little support, & privatized all
| industry.
|
| The economy was having enormous difficulties. Rather than
| support & help the population, it was GDP & GDP alone that
| was focused on.
|
| My sources for what happened then are mostly the 4-part
| netflix drama The Perfect Crime, about the assassination of
| the Trust Agency head who paved over communism with
| capitalism. Not fancy, so I'm not super well versed. The
| movie doesn't go far into the aftermath, which, if you look
| at East Germany, has many of the scariest Trumpist vibes one
| might imagine to it. People got left the heck behind. It was
| a conquest not an integration.
|
| Edit: People seem to really really hate that I cited my
| sources and it's not good enough. Perhaps a wikipedia quote
| to confirm some of my stance might make you modestly less
| skeptical? My words are radical but the situation itself was
| too:
|
| > Despite these problems, the process of unification moved
| ahead, albeit slowly. The Treuhand, staffed almost entirely
| by Germans from the west, became the virtual government of
| eastern Germany. In the course of privatization, the agency
| decided which companies would live and which would die, which
| communities would thrive and which would shrivel, and which
| eastern Lander would be prosperous and which would not. It
| also decided who might or might not buy eastern firms or
| services.
|
| I'd like to find a way to hand out more credit, to be fairer,
| and I lack that expertise. My apologies. This was an
| incredibly difficult situation. Yet, it feels very much, the
| German "reunification" was a one way integration, was one
| country taking over another, with few chances at all for the
| German Democratic Republic government & people to try to
| self-determine what path forward they wanted to take towards
| reunification.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_history_of_the_Germ.
| ..
| thomasz wrote:
| > My sources are mostly the 4-part netflix drama[...]
|
| Seriously!?
| acheron wrote:
| Given how many Internet commenters think they're experts
| on Chernobyl now, it's not like he's alone.
| [deleted]
| choeger wrote:
| Still, they are correct. I can tell you from first-hand
| experience that this is what happened to many east
| Germans. Mass unemployment, deserted cities and rural
| areas, general loss of perspective lead to many social
| problems, right-wing extremism one of them.
|
| I don't think, that western Germany is solely to blame,
| though. If you look into the "Klassenfeind" in eastern
| Germany, that is entrepreneurs, bourgeoise, Christians,
| even just small-scale craftsman, they all did rather well
| after a short transition. But they did so in a very
| difficult environment: The masses of workers, educated to
| be lead by and taken care of, by the state were now
| completely on their own. Underqualified faced an
| especially dire situation: In eastern Germany even the
| most inept would have some payed position, even though
| they were completely useless there. It was basically an
| alternative to unemployment. Now these, say, 5% of the
| workforce never had been told that they should have some
| qualification to get some work. They simply expected some
| simple position to be created for them (I personally met
| some of these people, btw.). These people never faced a
| chance on the labor market.
| inglor_cz wrote:
| Prior to Covid, I visited former GDR several times.
|
| Places like Hoyerswerda are the worst German-speaking
| communities I ever saw, the spirit of hopelessness
| permeates everything.
|
| Even in cities like Gorlitz that were restored to their
| original beauty, the loss of population has been so
| enormous that entire building blocks are empty, the
| windows blinded by years of dust. Ghost neighbourhoods,
| very untypical for Europe.
|
| Zittau on the Czech border has lost like a third of
| population within thirty years. Many of the remaining
| residents are over 70.
| _jal wrote:
| > Offered little support
|
| Support peaked at 1/3rd of GDP. At the time, there were a
| lot of critics (domestic and foreign) of how expensive
| Kohl's vision of rebuilding the East was.
|
| I'm not saying: the East has caught up, it was handled
| perfectly, there aren't still problems, there aren't ugly
| political problems.
|
| I am saying you have a very weirdly biased view of what
| happened, and maybe should consider not single-sourcing
| your history to tee vee shows, or at least recognize the
| limits of doing so.
| rektide wrote:
| Support was offered, on West Germany's terms. As per
| wikipedia,
|
| > Despite these problems, the process of unification
| moved ahead, albeit slowly. The Treuhand, staffed almost
| entirely by Germans from the west, became the virtual
| government of eastern Germany.
|
| I agree, I would like to have a better background on
| this. The West did face severe difficulties & extreme
| extreme burdens of it's own in trying to support &
| integrate. But it continually feels to me like the image
| of this being a take-over are not unfounded. Trying to
| figure out a way to sustain & support the economy, to
| allow space for a more graceful self-rule, under which
| terms transition could be better, more slowly explored
| would have been immensely interesting. Instead, we got a
| much fairer, nicer version of what was just starting to
| happen somewhat East of Germany, in the wake of the fall
| of the USSR ten months three weeks earlier: a sell off, a
| economic re-dividing up of spoils, a commercialization of
| a nation.
|
| There were huge huge challenges, and it's not as simple
| at all as saying capitalism is at fault here. This wasn't
| even necessarily predatory. The world continues to have
| faith above all in the GDP, in macro-economics. The drive
| to push GDP up, by all means, quickly, or else (given the
| economic troubles faced) is a very real & valid survival
| reflex; quite understandable. It's hard to imagine what
| alternatives there were, especially given the already
| fairly dire economic state of East Germany/the German
| Democratic Republic at the time, but I don't think it is
| a "very weirdly biased view" at all that I nor wikipedia
| present: that the GDR was coerced into change, rapidly,
| by external forces, with little respect to self-
| determinism & little chance given for the people to
| figure out a way forward to try to support each other, in
| a less ambitiously bottom-line oriented manner.
|
| I'm a little more aware of the contemporary situation,
| where there is an alarming rise of far-right angry-
| popularism. From the same sort of economically-left-
| behind folks who feel left out of modern society. And
| while I think their reaction is malformed, I can
| sympathize with their anger and recognize the common
| problems faced by "rural America" and much of East
| Germany.
|
| Anyhow, you've rather told me I'm full of shit, and I'd
| like rather much if you could find something beyond
| criticism to offer to this conversation. Do you have any
| materials or suggestions for the readers here?
| inglor_cz wrote:
| One of the obvious problems is that Ossis are still
| massively underrepresented in the German elite. Only a
| tiny proportion of big business owners are Eastern, the
| proportion of Easterners among university professors or
| judges is smaller than expected, even in the new Lander,
| the same applies in culture.
|
| This cannot really be compensated by money, especially if
| that money flows back into Western corporations (such as
| construction companies that build infrastructure).
| _ph_ wrote:
| I am not a historian, but I grew up in the western part of a
| split Germany. Everyone did consider Germany a split nation. All
| of the older people living had lived in the pre-War Germany which
| was unified. That meant that many families were spread across
| both halves of Germany before the war and consequently separated
| due to the split. In several cases (not only Berlin) the border
| whould run across cities.
|
| If most people considered Germany a split country, how can a
| reunification not be inevitable? The fact that the border had to
| be guarded against the East German citizens from leaving is
| another idicator. Finally, after the border opened, Eastern
| Germany was on the brink of civil collapse, as a lot of people
| would just leave for the West, due to the economic imbalance and
| probably not so much trust to keep their freedom in the future.
| Reunification was the one way to stop this.
| PeterisP wrote:
| "how can a reunification not be inevitable?" - for a
| contrasting example, look at Koreas; the same arguments you
| list apply also there, and at least there reunification does
| not seem inevitable; and with every generation of separation
| the ties grow weaker.
| _ph_ wrote:
| Well, assuming of course, the regime which holds its
| population hostage, fails. Which happened in eastern Germany.
| Of course, if the countries had stayed separate for 100
| years, anything might happen. With Korea, it depends on how
| long the north keeps the border closed and if and how the
| regime fails.
| ptmcc wrote:
| Something that was beaten into us as history majors was to be
| highly skeptical of anyone suggesting that an historical event
| was "inevitable".
|
| It's easy to look back on the past and think that you see
| "obvious" trends and patterns but so much of that is influenced
| by your modern perspective and how selectively history is
| preserved and told.
|
| Like any humanities or social science, history is not objective.
| Part of studying and analyzing history necessarily involves
| studying and analyzing the context and biases of sources,
| stories, and narratives.
| ForHackernews wrote:
| I guess it depends on your perspective: If you believe in hard
| determinism then you could argue that literally everything that
| has ever happened and will happen is "inevitable".
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| https://dilbert.com/strip/2008-11-04
|
| I particularly like the phrasing "I'd have to say" :D
| billfruit wrote:
| Why was the Holy Roman Empire never restablished in the post-
| Napoleonic era? If I remember the last HRE was still around for
| many years after the outster of Napoleon.
| monoideism wrote:
| > Why was the Holy Roman Empire never restablished in the post-
| Napoleonic era
|
| Well, that was one of the ideas behind the "Third Reich" (Roman
| Empire, HRE, then German Reich). Of course, it was under
| Hitler, not any hereditary emperor.
|
| > If I remember the last HRE was still around for many years
| after the outster of Napoleon.
|
| No, the last recognized HRE (Francis II) was defeated by
| Napolean.
|
| But technically, there still is an heir, although his family
| has renounced any claim to that or any other title (among other
| reasons, because Hungary and Austria don't permit the use of
| such titles): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_von_Habsburg
| cat199 wrote:
| Neither German nor historian, but -
|
| The Austro-Hungarian empire was considered to be a successor
| state and claimed the title for a time, and basically the
| German Empire and Austro-Hungarian empire were somewhat viewed
| as successors along protestant and catholic lines - unifying
| the division of the two under a 'new' ideology was a big part
| of third reich ideology (irrespective of how bad naziism was,
| this is a huge part of the history of the broader topic of
| 'german unification') .
|
| This article mentions neither historical austria-hungary, the
| reformation, the anschluss, or modern day austria, so it seems
| more than a bit lacking from my perspective. But again, not a
| German nor a Historian so I could be missing something..
| k__ wrote:
| Because of the rivaly between Austria and Prussia.
| AlexCoventry wrote:
| Tim Weiner's new book _The Folly and the Glory_ , on US/Russian
| political warfare since 1945, makes a compelling case that it was
| not inevitable at all. Most of Europe was opposed to the idea,
| and the only enthusiastic supporters were the US and the
| Germanies.
|
| Russia was virulently opposed, and according to the book, West
| Germany paid Russia $2T to remove all of its soldiers from East
| German territory. The book makes the case that the reunification
| of Germany is one of the foundations of Russian resentment
| towards the US, since the Bush I administration gave them
| categorical assurances that the borders of NATO would not move
| "an inch Eastward."
| pram wrote:
| Yeah that fact about the Russian soldiers blew my mind when I
| stumbled across it. Germany also provided money for housing
| when the soldiers got back. It was basically bribery haha. They
| didn't leave until 1994 iirc
| gumby wrote:
| The Russians negotiated a three (or four?) year stand down.
| Allegedly the soldiers liked the German posting because of the
| chocolate and generally better life in Germany than in Russia.
|
| I remember back around '92 or '93 looking out from the window
| of an in-law who lived in the Harz mountains and seeing an old
| border watch tower. Then I commented that it looked like there
| were people up there. "Oh yes, those are the Russians" I was
| told. "Even though there is no border they keep up the
| procedures because they're afraid that if they just sit around
| they'll be sent home".
| Synaesthesia wrote:
| What about the fact that Stalin offered the West a unified
| Germany in 1953, on the (reasonable) condition that she not
| join a hostile alliance. (Stalin note)
| older wrote:
| > the Bush I administration gave them categorical assurances
| that the borders of NATO would not move "an inch Eastward."
|
| Where you are quoting from? As far as I know such promises were
| never given and not even discussed at that time.
| Someone wrote:
| https://www.spiegel.de/international/world/nato-s-
| eastward-e...:
|
| _After speaking with many of those involved and examining
| previously classified British and German documents in detail,
| SPIEGEL has concluded that there was no doubt that the West
| did everything it could to give the Soviets the impression
| that NATO membership was out of the question for countries
| like Poland, Hungary or Czechoslovakia.
|
| On Feb. 10, 1990, between 4 and 6:30 p.m., Genscher spoke
| with Shevardnadze. According to the German record of the
| conversation, which was only recently declassified, Genscher
| said: "We are aware that NATO membership for a unified
| Germany raises complicated questions. For us, however, one
| thing is certain: NATO will not expand to the east." And
| because the conversion revolved mainly around East Germany,
| Genscher added explicitly: "As far as the non-expansion of
| NATO is concerned, this also applies in general."
|
| Shevardnadze replied that he believed "everything the
| minister (Genscher) said."_
|
| Edit: https://books.openedition.org/ceup/2759?lang=en says:
|
| _In the session with Baker on February 9, 1990, Gorbachev
| discussed various forms of German unification and association
| with NATO. Although he could not accept it publicly, he
| agreed with Baker's argument that the presence of U.S. troops
| in Europe was a factor in overall European stability, which
| implicitly meant accepting the idea of Germany's eventual
| membership in the Western alliance. It was during this
| conversation that Baker offered Gorbachev guarantees (that is
| the word used in the Russian memorandum of conversation--
| garantii) that NATO would not "spread an inch eastward," and
| the Soviet leader accepted the statement as sufficient on the
| basis of the trust he felt had been built between him and the
| U.S. leadership--never asking for a written pledge.
| Gorbachev's reasoning could partially be explained by the
| domestic dilemma he faced: how could he tell the Politburo
| that he had asked for written guarantees that NATO would not
| expand to the territories of the Warsaw Pact while the Pact
| was still in existence? That would have meant he had already
| accepted the idea that the socialist alliance was on its
| deathbed. In this conversation, Baker was not trying to
| mislead Gorbachev in any way; he was merely expressing the
| official position of the U.S. government at the time, which
| was fully shared by other Western leaders, talking
| specifically about the NATO presence on East German soil, but
| by implication also about any future expansion. However, the
| Bush administration would change that position very soon--
| without providing any notification to Gorbachev._
| older wrote:
| So, basically, someone said something in discussions but no
| documents were signed?
| ivan_gammel wrote:
| Here's more information on this topic, unfortunately only in
| Russian (you can use Google Translate): https://ru.m.wikipedi
| a.org/wiki/Vopros_o_sushchestvovanii_dogov...
| w0de0 wrote:
| A better source than Russian Wikipedia:
| https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/russia-
| programs/2017...
| _ph_ wrote:
| If I remember correctly, the number was rather 30 billion
| Deutsche Mark. But still, it was a good deal for the Sovjet
| Union. Personally, I think that Gorbatchew was very aware of
| the pure financial state of the Sovjet Union and this was the
| ability to get rid of the DDR not only at no costs, but having
| all costs of relocating the military covered by the west.
| Still, he managed to delay the collapse of the Sovjet Union
| only by a few years.
| cpleppert wrote:
| The $2T cited in the book does not refer to the direct costs
| paid to Russia but to the total amount spent on reunification
| which came out to something like $100 billion per year for
| twenty years.
|
| The opposition of the rest of Europe and Russia has to be put
| in context. Russia would not have been able to support the East
| German economy nor would it have been able to afford to
| maintain a pointless troop presence that would no longer have
| local support. The rest of europe might have been opposed
| because of historical reasons having to do with security but
| not allowing unification would have created a massive roadblock
| for the european economy. Short of reunification, there was not
| an acceptable legal regime to end Germany's limited
| sovereignty(which the rest of europe supported).
|
| Given that Germany strongly supported reunification and the US
| was in support for obvious geopolitical reasons there was no
| way for any other power to stop the process. Russia could
| either be paid to leave or get nothing and spend money it
| doesn't have to maintain the troop presence to boot. Poor
| relations with Germany would have had a catastrophic impact on
| the Russian economy. The UK was never really serious about
| stopping reunification and barely tried to bluff. Similar
| reasons apply to France which could not oppose reunification
| and support European integration.
|
| For all these reasons I find the the focus on contingency to be
| rather overdrawn. It was not inevitable in the sense that it
| had to happen(you can come up scenarios where the soviet union
| continues into the 21st century) but given the collapse of the
| Warsaw Pact it's hard to understand how unification could have
| been ultimately prevented.
|
| You can see a similar dynamic taking place in South Korea where
| unification is broadly supported by the younger population in
| the face of titanic security and economic concerns. German
| unification has been supported for hundreds of years for
| comparable reasons.
| quietbritishjim wrote:
| > UK was never really serious about stopping reunification
|
| Why would the UK have even pretended to want to stop it?
| Weren't their foreign policies, at least towards communism,
| heavily aligned with the US?
| HeckFeck wrote:
| Reunification meant that Germany's power in the EU
| increased. Becoming a bigger country with a larger
| population got more seats and pushed the bloc more in its
| direction. Thus reducing Britain's influence there.
| UweSchmidt wrote:
| Source on the $2T?
| rolandm wrote:
| Not in the trillions, but more like "25-40 billion euros or
| $31-50 billion" https://www.dw.com/en/how-kohl-and-gorbachev-
| sealed-the-deal...
|
| Helmut Kohl negotiated a very good deal. Money was not an
| issue for Germany but speed and total withdrawl of the
| Russian troops. Germany would have paid much more. A year
| later and it might be too late for the reunification
| (Gorbachev was kicked out of the Kremlin).
| markvdb wrote:
| https://archive.is/J6Hkj
|
| The Washington Post mentions 14 * 10^9 DEM, or ~7.2 _10^9 EUR
| or ~9_ 10^9 USD at the time.
| _ph_ wrote:
| Your last number is off, 7 billion Euros would be like 9
| billion USD.
| bryanrasmussen wrote:
| >is one of the foundations of Russian resentment towards the US
|
| surely one of the reasons for continuation of Russian
| resentment, not a foundation?
| coldtea wrote:
| Hopefully not. Let's see if it will split again.
| barbazoo wrote:
| I very much doubt that. There is no serious movement with that
| goal.
| k__ wrote:
| I don't think so, at least not in the near future.
|
| The most unhappy states are the poorest who get subsidized by
| the rich states. So if they would leave, they wouldn't get
| money anymore.
| Svip wrote:
| The answer is probably no. While Pan-German and Pan-Italian
| nationalists[0] were successful (well, the German ones partially
| successful, what with Austria being left out), Pan-Scandinavians
| were not.
|
| I doubt many things in history were inevitable. I do feel like
| German re-unification were probably more likely following the
| Second World War than German unification was after the Congress
| of Vienna, even if it looked bleaker for re-unification from the
| outset.
|
| [0] To be clear, Italian and in particular German unification
| were not the success of pan-nationalists movement but rather
| strong political forces (like Bismarck) exploiting a popular
| movement for political gains. Put another way, German unification
| was not for the benefit of Germans, but for the benefit of
| Prussia.
| te_chris wrote:
| Yeah, under Bismarck it was more "one nation, under Prussia".
| It's also quite well known that there was resistance to
| unification from the West, due to not wanting that again.
| fakedang wrote:
| > It's also quite well known that there was resistance to
| unification from the West, due to not wanting that again.
|
| If that was so well known, then why was it that the first
| thing the West did was to unify their pieces of Germany into
| West Germany? Surely it would have been beneficial to them to
| keep Germany separate if they shared your assumption.
| cpleppert wrote:
| I don't think those cases are really comparable. Scandinavian
| countries had separate state institutions (even when countries
| were part of the same empire or composite monarchy) in a way
| that didn't apply to the former Holy Roman Empire/German
| Confederation which were nominally part of the same political
| unit and saw themselves as having much closer ethnic ties. The
| HRE was seen as an entirely german political entity and had
| almost no non-german kings in its entire history. The fact that
| German states jealously guarded their sovereignty does not mean
| they did not see themselves as fundamentally german.
|
| Similar reasons apply to Italy. Because of the geography of the
| Italian peninsula a unified Italian nation state would be much
| more successful economically than a patchwork of small
| entities. Once Italy's maritime commercial decline began states
| had less incentive to block unification.
|
| >> Put another way, German unification was not for the benefit
| of Germans, but for the benefit of Prussia.
|
| The rest of Germany not only strongly benefited economically
| from german unification but also supported protective tariff
| policies after unification that had the effect of tying their
| economies much closer to Prussia (and vice-versa of course). If
| they didn't believe it was in their interest why in the world
| would they do that? If anything, the rest of the German states
| probably engaged in free-riding off of Prussia's military
| support. This once again benefits both sides.
| Svip wrote:
| The states, sure, but the people? Some of them still felt a
| little betrayed after 1848.
|
| While the discussion about why Scandinavian unification never
| happened, while Italian and German did, is indeed an
| interesting one, the broader point is that I do not believe
| it is reasonable to say either the Italian and German ones
| were inevitable.
|
| It was by no means certain in 1820 that Prussia would be able
| to beat Austria over German hegemony, hence whether it was
| probably not inevitable. The article kind of asks whether
| German unification the way it happened was inevitable. It is
| not unreasonable to think of a timeline where Austria learns
| some real lessons of 1848, and becomes a political
| powerhouse, while Prussia withers.
| fakedang wrote:
| Scandinavia was basically Sweden fighting for independence from
| Denmark-Norway, and Finland fighting for independence from
| Sweden and Russia. There was no hope for the Kalmar Union to
| even continue (which didn't happen anyways).
| fakedang wrote:
| Why is everyone here forgetting the last dictatorship of West
| Europe here - Liechtenstein?
|
| You can only get complete German unification if you unite parts
| of Switzerland, Austria and Liechtenstein. And Schleswig.
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