The Changing Nature of the German Question

Abstract

The ‘German Question’ has been a central problem of international relations in Europe since long before the end of the Second World War. Historically, the idea of German national unity was never universally accepted; it always posed problems. Arguments about the precise meaning of ‘Germany’ did not begin in 1945. For over three hundred years there has been no period when Germany has not to some degree formed an essential part of the European system of states, either through formal alliances or through the more indirect exertion of power. The German Question emerged as a wider European issue with the Peace of Westphalia in 1648, which gave an international legal framework to the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation, a fragmented grouping of territories large and small, under varied sovereignty or foreign influence. A neutralized central Europe, without a focus of political power, remained a first principle for the preservation of peace until the beginning of the nineteenth century. At the Congress of Vienna in 1815, after the collapse of Napoleon’s policy of European hegemony, the Great Powers again agreed on a rearrangement of German states in a new, looser grouping, the German Confederation, which they would guarantee.KeywordsForeign PolicyFederal RepublicGerman StateGerman PeoplePeace MovementThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.