briefly trace the process of German unification . Explain the nation building process of Germany after 1848
Answers
The East German government started to falter in May 1989, when the removal of Hungary's border fence with Austria opened a hole in the Iron Curtain. It caused an exodus of thousands of East Germans fleeing to West Germany and Austria via Hungary. The Peaceful Revolution, a series of protests by East Germans, led to the GDR's first free elections on 18 March 1990, and to the negotiations between the GDR and FRG that culminated in a Unification Treaty.[1] Other negotiations between the GDR and FRG and the four occupying powers produced the so-called "Two Plus Four Treaty" (Treaty on the Final Settlement with Respect to Germany) granting full sovereignty to a unified German state, whose two parts were previously bound by a number of limitations stemming from their post-World War II status as occupiedregions.
The 1945 Potsdam Agreement had specified that a full peace treaty concluding World War II, including the exact delimitation of Germany's postwar boundaries, required to be "accepted by the Government of Germany when a government adequate for the purpose is established." The Federal Republic had always maintained that no such government could be said to have been established until East and West Germany had been united within a free democratic state; but in 1990 a range of opinions continued to be maintained over whether a unified West Germany, East Germany and Berlin could be said to represent "Germany as a whole" for this purpose. The key question was whether a Germany that remained bounded to the east by the Oder–Neisse line could act as a "united Germany" in signing the peace treaty without qualification. Under the "Two Plus Four Treaty" both the Federal Republic and the Democratic Republic committed themselves and their unified continuation to the principle that their joint pre-1990 boundaries constituted the entire territory that could be claimed by a Government of Germany, and hence that there were no further lands outside those boundaries that were parts of Germany as a whole.
The united Germany is not a successor state, but an enlarged continuation of the former West Germany. As such, the enlarged Federal Republic of Germany retained the West German seats in international organizations including the European Community (later the European Union) and NATO, while relinquishing membership in the Warsaw Pactand other international organizations to which only East Germany belonged. It also maintains the United Nations membership of the old West Germany.
Answer:
After 1848, nationalism in Europe moved away from its association with democracy and revolution.
This can be observed in the process by which Germany and Italy came to be unified as nation-states.
Nationalist feelings were widespread among middle-class Germans.
This liberal initiative to nation-building was, however, repressed by the combined forces of the monarchy and the military, supported by the large landowners of Prussia.
Prussia took on the leadership of the movement.
Three wars overseen years-with Austria, Denmark, and France-ended in Prussian victory and completed the process of unification.
The nation-building process in Germany had demonstrated the dominance of Prussian state power.
The new state placed a strong emphasis on modernising the currency, banking, legal and judicial systems in Germany.