Latest / The History of Germany: Kingdoms, War, and Rebuilding Europe — Fexingo History / Metternich's German Confederation: Order After Napoleon
Transcript
- Lucas: So after the Battle of Leipzig in 1813, the Sixth Coalition finally broke Napoleon's hold on Germany. But the question was—what replaces the Holy Roman Empire, which had been dissolved in 1806? Luna: Right, it's like a power vacuum right in the middle of Europe. Lucas: Exactly. And the answer came at the Congress of Vienna in 1814–1815. This was the great peace conference where Austria's foreign minister, Klemens von Metternich, basically orchestrated a new order for the continent. For Germany, they created the German Confederation, or Deutscher Bund—a loose union of 39 sovereign states, including Austria and Prussia, but with no central executive or army to speak of. Luna: So more like a club than a country? Lucas: That's a good way to put it. The Confederation's only permanent institution was the Federal Convention, or Bundesversammlung, meeting in Frankfurt. It was essentially a congress of delegates appointed by the individual states. And it was designed to be weak on purpose—Metternich wanted to prevent any one power from dominating, and above all to suppress the kind of nationalism that had stirred up the Wars of Liberation. Lucas: Austria held the presidency, but Prussia was a close rival. The two had very different ideas for Germany: Prussia wanted a more unified state with itself at the head, while Austria—especially Metternich—wanted to keep things fragmented and conservative. They compromised on a structure that did just enough to satisfy the princes but gave no real power to the people. Luna: So what about the people? Were they happy with this? Lucas: Not at all. Many Germans, especially students and intellectuals, had fought in the Wars of Liberation expecting a unified German nation. Instead they got a patchwork of monarchies. That disappointment fuelled a new movement: the Burschenschaften, or student fraternities, which held a major rally at the Wartburg Castle in 1817, calling for unity and liberal reforms. They even burned reactionary books—symbolically, of course. Lucas: That scared the authorities. And when a student named Karl Sand murdered the conservative playwright August von Kotzebue in 1819, Metternich used it as a pretext to crack down. He pushed through the Carlsbad Decrees, which imposed strict censorship on newspapers, banned the Burschenschaften, and placed universities under surveillance. It was the beginning of what historians call the Vormärz—the period leading up to the 1848 revolutions. Luna: Wait, so the Decrees were in 1819? That's only a couple years after Wartburg. Lucas: Right, it was a very rapid tightening of the screws. The Carlsbad Decrees were actually agreed by the ministers of the major German states, meeting in Carlsbad, and then rubber-stamped by the Federal Convention. They created a central investigation commission in Mainz to hunt down 'demagogues'—anyone suspected of revolutionary activity. For the next thirty years, the Confederation became a police network for the conservative order. Luna: It's interesting that the Confederation lasted until 1866—it kept things stable for a long time, but at a cost. Lucas: Yes, and that stability was brittle. You have to remember that the German Confederation was never meant to respond to the people's wishes. It was a conservative safety valve. Meanwhile, economic forces were pushing the other way. The Zollverein, or customs union, which Prussia started in 1834, created a free-trade zone that excluded Austria—and that economic integration laid the ground for political unification later on. So the Confederation was already showing its cracks. Lucas: And of course, the 1848 revolutions would ultimately challenge everything. But that's a story for another episode. The legacy of the Congress of Vienna and the German Confederation is that it bought Europe thirty years of peace, but it also bottled up nationalism without letting any steam escape. Luna: Speaking of the show's story—I know we keep things ad-free, and that's possible because a handful of listeners chip in through buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo. It really helps keep these deep dives coming. Lucas: Yeah, honestly, it's just a few people who pitch in monthly, and that's what funds the research and production. No ads, no sponsors—just listeners who care about history. Lucas: Anyway, back to the Confederation—there's a fascinating figure behind its creation: Wilhelm von Humboldt, the Prussian diplomat and linguist, actually helped draft the constitution for the Confederation. But his vision was more liberal, with some representative elements, and Metternich sidelined it. Luna: So even inside the Congress there were different ideas on how Germany should be organised. Lucas: Exactly. Humboldt wanted a federal state with a parliament, but the princes weren't having it. So the Confederation ended up as a sort of diplomatic convenience, not a nation. That tension—between the idea of a united Germany and the reality of a princes' alliance—would define the next fifty years of German history.