Latest / The History of Germany: Kingdoms, War, and Rebuilding Europe — Fexingo History / The Zollverein: How a Customs Union United Germany
Transcript
- Lucas: When we think about German unification, our minds go straight to Bismarck, to wars, to the Reichstag. But there was a quieter force at work long before 1871—the Zollverein. Luna: The customs union? I've heard the name but I don't really know what it did. Lucas: It's exactly that—a customs union. Starting in 1834, it tore down internal tariffs between dozens of German states, turning a chaos of toll booths into a single market. And it was overwhelmingly a Prussian project, though Prussia didn't get all the credit. Lucas: After Napoleon, there were still something like thirty-nine states in the German Confederation, each with its own trade barriers. A merchant shipping goods from Berlin to Munich might pay duties at a dozen borders. It stifled commerce. Luna: So Prussia basically said: let's make a free trade zone? Lucas: Yes, but with a political edge. Prussia had already formed a smaller union, the Preußisch-Hessischer Zollverein in 1828, and over time it persuaded other states to join. The key figures were two Prussian finance ministers: Friedrich von Motz and later Peter von Maassen. Lucas: Motz argued that economic unity would strengthen Prussia's hand against Austria. And Maassen actually implemented the 1834 treaty that launched the Deutscher Zollverein. They designed a common tariff—moderate on imported goods, but with an eye to protecting nascent German industry. Luna: And Austria was left out? That seems deliberate. Lucas: Very deliberate. Austria wanted its own customs union, but it included regions like Hungary and Galicia that weren't part of the German Confederation. Prussia insisted on a strictly German zone. Austria—the traditional leader of the German states—was excluded. That set up a rivalry that Bismarck would later exploit. Lucas: And you know, making shows like this that dig into these details—it's only possible because of a small group of listeners who chip in. It's something we're grateful for. Luna: Yeah, it lets us explore niche topics like a customs union without worrying about ad revenue. Lucas: Exactly. People at buymeacoffee dot com slash fexingo help us keep going ad-free. So if you find value in these conversations, that's a direct way to support. So the Zollverein grew quickly. By 1836, it included most of the middle and north German states. Only the south—Bavaria, Württemberg, Baden—held out for a bit. Lucas: They formed a rival Southern Customs Union in 1828, but by 1834 they joined too because they saw the economic logic. The result was a market of over twenty-five million people. Luna: That must have supercharged trade and industry. Lucas: It did. The Zollverein is often called the engine of German industrialization. Railways boomed—the first major line, from Nuremberg to Fürth, opened in 1835, and soon tracks crisscrossed the union. Coal and steel could move without barriers. The Ruhr region took off. Lucas: And a key intellectual force behind all this was Friedrich List. He was an economist and journalist who spent time in the United States and saw the power of a national market. His book 'The National System of Political Economy' argued for protective tariffs and internal free trade. Luna: So he's like the father of the customs union idea, even if he wasn't the one implementing it. Lucas: Exactly. List actually died in 1846, before the Zollverein reached its full potential. But his ideas shaped Prussian policy. He also pushed for a unified railway system, which the Zollverein made practical. Lucas: The Zollverein had a political dimension too. It held regular congresses—Zollverein conferences—where representatives from member states met to set policy. That created a habit of cooperation across borders. Luna: So it's like a practice run for a unified parliament. Lucas: In a way. When the 1848 revolutions swept Europe, many liberals hoped the Zollverein could be the foundation of a liberal, unified Germany. Instead, the revolution failed, but the Zollverein survived and even expanded. Lucas: By the 1850s, it included almost every German state except Austrian lands. The Zollverein also started negotiating trade treaties with other countries—effectively acting as a single trading bloc before there was a single state. Luna: That must have made Prussia the de facto leader of German economic policy. Lucas: Absolutely. And it gave Bismarck a powerful tool. In the 1860s, he used the Zollverein to isolate Austria. In 1862, the Zollverein signed a trade treaty with France that the Zollverein council approved over Austrian objections. Austria tried to break into the union later, but Bismarck blocked it. Lucas: When the North German Confederation was formed in 1866 after the Austro-Prussian War, it absorbed the Zollverein essentially. Then in 1871, the new German Empire adopted the Zollverein's customs laws as its own. The union had already made a single German economic space. Luna: So without the Zollverein, maybe Germany unifies later or differently. Lucas: I think that's right. The customs union created interdependence. It made secession economically painful. It accustomed Germans to thinking of themselves as part of a larger whole. And it funded Prussia's industrial growth, which in turn funded its military. Lucas: There's a direct line from the Zollverein to the EU. The European Coal and Steel Community of 1951 was consciously modeled on the idea of economic integration leading to political integration. The lesson: start with commerce, and peace may follow. Luna: That's a hopeful takeaway from this period. Lucas: It is. The Zollverein didn't just unite markets—it planted the idea that a German nation was not just a dream but a practical, profitable reality. And that idea eventually tore down more than toll booths.