Germany is the world's fourth largest economy, a highly developed industrial country, and its economic strength ranks first in Europe. On October 3, 1990, Germany, which had been divided for 41 years since the cold war, was reunified again. Therefore, this day was determined as Germany's national day. Why did Germany rise at the end of the 19th century? Then go and have a look with me.
Since the middle ages, Germany has been in a state of political division for a long time, with States fighting each other, numerous checkpoints and lack of a unified market. Feudal autocracy dominated for a long time, which seriously limited the development of Germany.
In the 1830s, Germany began the industrial revolution, and many industries appeared in China. In 1871, Germany completed its domestic political unification and then formed a domestic unified market. When Germany's modernization just started, Britain had completed its first industrialization process. Therefore, Germany is a rising capitalist country. It can take advantage of its late development advantages, absorb Britain's advanced technology and greatly shorten the time of industrial revolution.
After the reunification of Germany, the capitalist heavy industry and military industry have achieved amazing development. From 1860 to 1870, the average annual growth rate of German industrial production was only 2.7%, rising to 4.1% from 1870 to 1880, 6.4% from 1880 to 1890, 6.1% from 1890 to 1900 and 4.2% from 1900 to 1913. After 1870, the growth rate of German industrial production far exceeded that of Britain and France, second only to the United States, and became the leading emerging industrial power in the European continent. The rise of Germany has not only established the image of a great power in military and industry, but also reshaped the style in ideology, system, education, science and technology, and produced many giants.
At this time, its inventions in physics, electricity and medicine have exceeded the sum of Britain and France. By the end of the 19th century, the total number of German scientists also exceeded that of Britain and France. It can almost be said that the 19th century is the century of Germany.
Fundamentally speaking, every step of Germany's rise is inseparable from scientific and technological progress and ideological and cultural prosperity. Thomas K. McGraw, an American scholar, wrote: "after reunification, 'the German issue - how to deal with a new power in the heart of Europe - has become the primary issue of European politics. The reunification of Germany has changed the balance of military and economic power and increased the possibility of European war." Indeed, the rise of Germany in Europe has changed the original balance of power and is a challenge to the existing international relations in Europe.
After the Franco Prussian War ended and Germany was reunified in 1870, there was an idea in Germany that space would become more and more important for a country, large countries would gradually expand, and small countries would become insignificant. With the gradual growth of Germany and the gradual development of industry, Germany realized that its existing territory alone was not enough to make itself a big country that could control the world. At the same time, looking at the world, the whole world is almost colonized by established powers such as Britain and France. Only Africa and Germany can expand. Moreover, the resource problem also appears with the rapid industrialization of Germany. The shortage of domestic resources seriously restricts the development of Germany. The huge mineral resources in Africa can just provide Germany with a platform to continue to vigorously develop industry. At the same time, as Germany's domestic market has gradually become saturated, as a country with rapid development of capitalism, it is natural to focus on the overseas sales market, while Africa's backward economy is suitable for bringing Germany's advanced industrial products to African land for sale.
Nationalism played an important role in promoting German colonization. After the unification of Germany, the Germans realized their desire to establish a unified nation-state, but also stimulated their strong nationalist feelings in their hearts. They hoped to rely on outward expansion to make Germany a huge empire like the "sun never sets Empire", so they widely encouraged the establishment of a colonial empire at home. This eager desire to expand outward is the "national power" necessary for the German Empire to carry out its colonial policy. At that time, only Africa was not colonized by established powers, so naturally, Germany set its sights on Africa. At the same time, foreign colonization is also the Bismarck government to cater to the strong outbreak of nationalism among the domestic people and to make the rule of the German Emperor more responsive to the wishes of the people. On the eve of Bismarck's coming to power, Bismarck personally hated colonial expansion. However, due to the huge interests of colonial expansion and the relationship with other countries involved in colonial expansion, Bismarck had to change his mind and strive to wander among the powers for German colonial expansion.
At that time, the world pattern was more complex. After the unification of Germany, the East and west sides were attacked by France and Russia. Therefore, Bismarck, who was then the Prime Minister of Germany, quickly used his own foreign policy and established the alliance of the three emperors with Austria Hungary and Russia, hoping to isolate France, which had a bitter hatred with him. At the same time, due to the increasingly serious contradiction between Britain and France on some colonial issues, Germany also saw this opportunity and established a better relationship with Britain. In short, during this period, Germany established friendly relations with many powerful countries by expanding to Africa, isolating its arch enemy France
Although Germany launched its expansion plan to Africa, and this plan has brought great benefits to Germany's capitalist development and industrialization process, in Bismarck's mind, the European problem is still much more important than the African colonial problem. Colonial expansion in Africa will eventually be a pawn for Germany to become the world's overlord.
The emergence of the German nation is a process that has lasted for many centuries. It is generally believed that German history began in 919 ad. In this year, Henry I, Duke of Saxony, won the throne of the East Frankish Kingdom and established the kingdom of Germany. After Henry I's son Otto I succeeded to the throne, in order to obtain the so-called imperial power granted by God, he forced Pope John x to crown him in Rome in 962, known as the "Roman emperor", and the German kingdom was called "the Holy Roman Empire of the German nation" and "the first empire of Germany" in history. The Holy Roman Empire was never a centralized and unified country. With the increasing strength of local feudal forces, the power of the emperor continued to decline and formed many states. Germany was the first nation to defeat the Roman Empire. In this fragmented Empire, the two largest states are Prussia and Austria.
In the 17th-18th century, they all developed into powerful countries in the European continent at that time. In the early 19th century, when Napoleon occupied Germany, he cancelled the title of the Holy Roman emperor of Germany, and the nominal Holy Roman Empire no longer existed. In the latter half of the 19th century, Prussia realized the unification of Germany under Prussian control through three dynastic wars. After the war against Denmark in 1864, Prussia (Germany) and Austria forced Denmark to cede the Schleswig Holstein region. Austria was defeated in the war between Prussia and Austria in 1866, so Austria had to leave the German Confederation.
After the disintegration of the German Confederation, it was replaced by the Prussian led North German Confederation, including all States north of the main river. Prussia defeated France in the Franco Prussian War in 1870. On January 18 of the following year, King William I of Prussia was crowned emperor of Germany at Versailles Palace, France, as "the Second Reich of Germany", which was the first real reunification of Germany. The first World War broke out in 1914 and ended with the defeat of Germany and the disintegration of the German Empire. The war also led to the establishment of a federal republic in Germany for the first time, known as the "Weimar Republic" in history. On January 30, 1933, Hitler established the fascist dictatorship and declared the end of the Weimar Republic. This fascist Germany ruled by Adolf Hitler is known as the "Third Reich of Germany". In March 1939, the fascist German army entered Czechoslovakia; On September 1, 1939, the German army suddenly attacked Poland and launched the Second World War. A total of 61 countries and regions participated in the world war, more than 2 billion people were involved, and more than 90 million soldiers and civilians were killed and injured, plunging the world into darkness. On May 8, 1945, Germany signed the surrender.
After the defeat of Nazi Germany in World War II, according to the agreement of China, Britain, the United States, France and the Soviet Union in the Potsdam Conference, it was decided to divide Germany into four after its defeat, which were occupied by four victorious countries respectively, and form a top management unit, the allied Control Council (ACC), to govern German affairs. However, due to differences in ideas, the Western camp dominated by the United States gradually alienated from the Communist camp dominated by the Soviet Union after the war. In March 1948, the United States, Britain and France held a meeting in London and preliminarily decided to merge the German territories managed by the three countries into a political power in western Germany. In view of this, the Soviet Union made counter-measures and first withdrew from acc, And then announced plans to set up an East German regime.
However, the fuse that directly led to the separation of East and West Germany was the monetary restructuring plan in the Western occupied areas on June 20, 1948. At that time, the currencies originally issued in the occupied areas of the three western countries were integrated, but excluding the Soviet occupied areas, the so-called West German mark was issued, and the Soviet occupied areas also issued the East German mark just three days later, just like a symbol of the formal separation of East and West Germany.
After the separation of East and West Germany, East Germany began to blockade the West Berlin area using the West German mark for 11 months in mid-1948, hoping to achieve the purpose of fully controlling the whole Berlin area, but it did not come true with the support of Berlin air transportation continuously carried out by western countries. On May 23, shortly after the lifting of the Berlin blockade (May 12, 1949), West Germany (Federal Republic of Germany) was officially established.
Compared with the West Germany formed by the Anglo American and French occupied areas, the East Germany joined the NATO led by the United States, while the East Germany joined the Warsaw Pact, the socialist camp organization led by the Soviet Union. The situation in the Democratic Republic of Germany changed dramatically in 1989. Since May of the same year, a large number of citizens have left the Federal Republic of Germany. At the beginning of October, demonstrations of various sizes broke out in many cities one after another, calling for the relaxation of restrictions on overseas travel and new media. On October 18, the president of the Democratic Republic of Germany, henak, announced his resignation. On November 9, the Berlin Wall opened. On November 28, Kohl of the Federal Republic of Germany put forward a ten point plan for the reunification of two Germany. From February 13 to 14, 1990, Modero, a democratic Germany, visited the Federal Republic of Germany for the first time. On March 18, the people's assembly of democratic Germany held free elections. After de mezier took office, the pace of reunification between the two Germany has greatly accelerated. On May 18, the two countries signed a national Treaty on the establishment of monetary, economic and Social Union in Bonn. On August 31, the two sides signed the unification treaty between Germany and China in Berlin. On September 24, the National People's army of democratic Germany officially withdrew from the Warsaw Pact. On October 3, the Democratic Republic of Germany officially joined the Federal Republic of Germany. The constitution, the people's assembly and the government of the Democratic Republic of Germany were automatically abolished. In order to adapt to the establishment of the Federal Republic of Germany, the original 14 special districts were changed into five states, which were incorporated into the Federal Republic of Germany, and the two Germany, which had been divided for more than 40 years, were reunified. With the Federal Republic of Germany (BRD) as the surviving unit, East Germany became a country that no longer existed.
On a bleak winter day in 1970, Brandt, the newly appointed Federal Republic of Germany, came to the Jewish monument in Warsaw, Poland. During World War II, 2.5 million Jews in Poland suffered from pain and despair in concentration camps and finally died helplessly. In the cold wind, Brandt walked step by step to the tombstone of the victims. Under the eyes of the whole world, the heroic anti Nazi fighter in World War II made an action that shocked everyone: he knelt to the ground.
One reporter wrote: "he didn't have to do this. He knelt for all those who had to kneel but didn't kneel."
Brandt knelt down and Germany stood up. After World War II, the Federal Republic of Germany began to pay huge compensation to the victims of German Fascist persecution and their survivors. The education department listed fascist atrocities as the central content of history textbooks, emphasizing that "the key task is to educate the next generation" and "take the responsibility of preventing the recurrence of historical tragedies as its own responsibility".
Germany, which has the courage to shoulder historical responsibilities, has returned to the embrace of Europe and the world stage.
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