Liberty in Times of Occupation: The Napoleonic Era in German Central Europe

Abstract

‘In the beginning’ of modern Germany, there was neither reform absolutism nor the Prussian reforms; there was Napoleon, for it was he who introduced a new form of power politics and transformed society in a way never before experienced.1 This bon mot, with which the historian Thomas Nipperdey (ironically referring to the historic ist myth of great personalities) opened his monumental handbook on the history of nineteenth-century Germany, has been quoted often over the last three decades. It reflects the paradigm shift that has taken place since the early 1970s in research on the Napoleonic era in German Central Europe, which has led to a re-evaluation of French rule and the introduction of a new periodization. The result has been that the Prussian reforms, or the so-called wars of liberation of 1813 based on a supposed national awakening, are no longer considered as the starting point of contemporary German history. Instead, it was the invasion of the Grande Armee and the emperor’s political action that helped to unleash a modernization process with all its implied ambivalence. In particular, the years between the dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire in 1806 and the Battle of the Nations at Leipzig in 1813 are seen as a kind of laboratory of modernity in all its facets, including the invention of new technologies, the development of innovative techniques of government, the rise of a new political culture and an all-encompassing transformation of society.2