The German Confederation : Germany

After the victory over Napoleon, the Congress of Vienna (September 1814 to )une 1815) redrew the map of Europe. The hopes of many Germans for a free, unitary nation-state were not fulfilled. The German Confederation (Deutscher Bund) which replaced the old Reich was a loose association of the individual sovereign states. Its sole organ was the Federal Diet (Bundestag) in Frankfurt, which was not an elected but a delegated diet. It was able to act only if the two great powers, Prussia and Austria, agreed. It saw its main task in the ensuing decades in suppressing all aspirations and efforts aimed at unity and freedom. Press and publishing were subject to rigid censorship, the universities were under close supervision, and political activity was virtually impossible.

Meanwhile a modern economic development which worked against these reactionary tendencies had begun. In the year 1834 the German Customs Union (Deutscher Zollverein) was founded, creating a unitary inland market. In 1835 the first German railway line went into operation. Industrialization began. With the factories there grew the new class of factory workers. At first they found better incomes, but the rapid growth of the population soon led to a labor surplus. And since there were no social welfare provisions, the mass of factory workers lived in great misery. Tensions exploded violently, for example in the 1844 uprising of the Silesian weavers, which was harshly put down by the Prussian military. Very hesitantly at first, a workers’ movement began to form.