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The Prussian Reform Movement was a series of constitutional, administrative, social and economic reforms early in nineteenth-century
In 1803,
The economic reforms of the second half of the 18th century were based on a
The Prussian Reform Movement was a series of constitutional, administrative, social and economic reforms early in nineteenth-century Prussia
Prussia, , Old Prussian: ''Prūsa'' or ''Prūsija'' was a German state on the southeast coast of the Baltic Sea. It formed the German Empire under Prussian rule when it united the German states in 1871. It was ''de facto'' dissolved by an e ...
. They are sometimes known as the Stein-Hardenberg Reforms, for Karl Freiherr vom Stein and Karl August von Hardenberg
Karl August Fürst von Hardenberg (31 May 1750, in Essenrode- Lehre – 26 November 1822, in Genoa) was a Prussian statesman and Prime Minister of Prussia. While during his late career he acquiesced to reactionary policies, earlier in his career ...
, their main initiators. German historians, such as Heinrich von Treitschke, saw the reforms as the first steps towards the unification of Germany
The unification of Germany (, ) was the process of building the modern German nation state with federal features based on the concept of Lesser Germany (one without multinational Austria), which commenced on 18 August 1866 with adoption of t ...
and the foundation of the German Empire
The German Empire (),Herbert Tuttle wrote in September 1881 that the term "Reich" does not literally connote an empire as has been commonly assumed by English-speaking people. The term literally denotes an empire – particularly a hereditary ...
before the First World War
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was List of wars and anthropogenic disasters by death toll, one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, ...
.
The reforms were a reaction to the defeat of the Prussians by Napoleon I
Napoleon Bonaparte ; it, Napoleone Bonaparte, ; co, Napulione Buonaparte. (born Napoleone Buonaparte; 15 August 1769 – 5 May 1821), later known by his regnal name Napoleon I, was a French military commander and political leader wh ...
at the battle of Jena-Auerstedt in 1806, leading to the second Treaty of Tilsit, in which Prussia lost about half its territory and was forced to make massive tribute payments to France. To make those payments, it needed to rationalize its administration. Prussia's defeat and subjection also demonstrated the weaknesses of its absolute monarchy
Absolute monarchy (or Absolutism as a doctrine) is a form of monarchy in which the monarch rules in their own right or power. In an absolute monarchy, the king or queen is by no means limited and has absolute power, though a limited constituti ...
model of statehood and excluded it from the great powers of Europe.
To become a great power again, it initiated reforms from 1807 onwards, based on Enlightenment ideas and in line with reforms in other European nations. They led to the reorganization of Prussia's government and administration and changes in its agricultural trade regulations, including the abolition of serfdom
Serfdom was the status of many peasants under feudalism, specifically relating to manorialism, and similar systems. It was a condition of debt bondage and indentured servitude with similarities to and differences from slavery, which develop ...
and allowing peasants to become landowners. In industry, the reforms aimed to encourage competition
Competition is a rivalry where two or more parties strive for a common goal which cannot be shared: where one's gain is the other's loss (an example of which is a zero-sum game). Competition can arise between entities such as organisms, ind ...
by suppressing the monopoly
A monopoly (from Greek language, Greek el, μόνος, mónos, single, alone, label=none and el, πωλεῖν, pōleîn, to sell, label=none), as described by Irving Fisher, is a market with the "absence of competition", creating a situati ...
of guild
A guild ( ) is an association of artisans and merchants who oversee the practice of their craft/trade in a particular area. The earliest types of guild formed as organizations of tradesmen belonging to a professional association. They sometim ...
s. Administration was decentralised and the nobility's power reduced. There were also parallel military reforms led by Gerhard von Scharnhorst
Gerhard Johann David von Scharnhorst (12 November 1755 – 28 June 1813) was a Hanoverian-born general in Prussian service from 1801. As the first Chief of the Prussian General Staff, he was noted for his military theories, his reforms of the Pr ...
, August Neidhardt von Gneisenau
August Wilhelm Antonius Graf Neidhardt von Gneisenau (27 October 176023 August 1831) was a Prussian field marshal. He was a prominent figure in the reform of the Prussian military and the War of Liberation.
Early life
Gneisenau was born at Schil ...
and Hermann von Boyen and educational reforms headed by Wilhelm von Humboldt
Friedrich Wilhelm Christian Karl Ferdinand von Humboldt (, also , ; ; 22 June 1767 – 8 April 1835) was a Prussian philosopher, linguist, government functionary, diplomat, and founder of the Humboldt University of Berlin, which was named afte ...
. Gneisenau made it clear that all these reforms were part of a single programme when he stated that Prussia had to put its foundations in "the three-faced primacy of arms, knowledge and the constitution".
It is harder to ascertain when the reforms ended – in the fields of the constitution and internal politics in particular, the year 1819 marked a turning point, with Restoration tendencies gaining the upper hand over constitutional ones. Though the reforms undoubtedly modernised Prussia, their successes were mixed, with results that were against the reformers' original wishes. The agricultural reforms freed some peasants, but the liberalisation of landholding condemned many of them to poverty. The nobility saw its privileges reduced but its overall position reinforced.
Reasons, aims and principles
Prussia in 1807
Prussia's position in Europe
In 1803, German Mediatisation
German mediatisation (; german: deutsche Mediatisierung) was the major territorial restructuring that took place between 1802 and 1814 in Germany and the surrounding region by means of the mass mediatisation and secularisation of a large numbe ...
profoundly changed the political and administrative map of Germany. Favourable to mid-ranking states and to Prussia, the reorganisation reinforced French influence. In 1805, the Third Coalition
The War of the Third Coalition)
* In French historiography, it is known as the Austrian campaign of 1805 (french: Campagne d'Autriche de 1805) or the German campaign of 1805 (french: Campagne d'Allemagne de 1805) was a European conflict spanni ...
formed in the hope of stopping French domination of Europe from advancing further, but the coalition's armies were defeated at Austerlitz in December 1805. Triumphant, Napoleon I
Napoleon Bonaparte ; it, Napoleone Bonaparte, ; co, Napulione Buonaparte. (born Napoleone Buonaparte; 15 August 1769 – 5 May 1821), later known by his regnal name Napoleon I, was a French military commander and political leader wh ...
continued to work towards dismantling the Holy Roman Empire
The Holy Roman Empire was a political entity in Western, Central, and Southern Europe that developed during the Early Middle Ages and continued until its dissolution in 1806 during the Napoleonic Wars.
From the accession of Otto I in 962 unt ...
. On 12 July 1806, he detached 16 German states from it to form the Confederation of the Rhine
The Confederated States of the Rhine, simply known as the Confederation of the Rhine, also known as Napoleonic Germany, was a confederation of German client states established at the behest of Napoleon some months after he defeated Austria a ...
under French influence. On 6 August the same year, Francis I of Austria was forced to renounce his title of emperor, and dissolve the Empire.
French influence had reached as far as the Prussian frontier by the time Frederick William III of Prussia
Frederick William III (german: Friedrich Wilhelm III.; 3 August 1770 – 7 June 1840) was King of Prussia from 16 November 1797 until his death in 1840. He was concurrently Elector of Brandenburg in the Holy Roman Empire until 6 August 1806, w ...
realised the situation. Encouraged by the United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and ...
, Prussia broke off its neutrality (in force since 1795), repudiated the 1795 Peace of Basel
The Peace of Basel of 1795 consists of three peace treaties involving France during the French Revolution (represented by François de Barthélemy).
*The first was with Prussia (represented by Karl August von Hardenberg) on 5 April;
*The sec ...
, joined the Fourth Coalition
The Fourth Coalition fought against Napoleon's French Empire and were defeated in a war spanning 1806–1807. The main coalition partners were Prussia and Russia with Saxony, Sweden, and Great Britain also contributing. Excluding Prussia, s ...
and entered the war against France. Prussia mobilised its troops on 9 August 1806, but two months later was defeated at Jena-Auerstedt. Prussia was on the verge of collapse, and three days after the defeat Frederick William III issued posters appealing to the inhabitants of Berlin
Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constitu ...
to remain calm. Ten days later, Napoleon entered Berlin.
The war ended on 7 July 1807 with the first Treaty of Tilsit between Napoleon and Alexander I of Russia
Alexander I (; – ) was Emperor of Russia from 1801, the first King of Congress Poland from 1815, and the Grand Duke of Finland from 1809 to his death. He was the eldest son of Emperor Paul I and Sophie Dorothea of Württemberg.
The son o ...
. Two days later, Napoleon signed a second Treaty of Tilsit with Prussia, removing half its territory and forcing Prussia's king to recognise Jérôme Bonaparte
Jérôme-Napoléon Bonaparte (born Girolamo Buonaparte; 15 November 1784 – 24 June 1860) was the youngest brother of Napoleon I and reigned as Jerome Napoleon I (formally Hieronymus Napoleon in German), King of Westphalia, between 1807 and 18 ...
as sovereign of the newly created Kingdom of Westphalia
The Kingdom of Westphalia was a kingdom in Germany, with a population of 2.6 million, that existed from 1807 to 1813. It included territory in Hesse and other parts of present-day Germany. While formally independent, it was a vassal state of the ...
, to which Napoleon annexed the Prussian territories west of the river Elbe
The Elbe (; cs, Labe ; nds, Ilv or ''Elv''; Upper and dsb, Łobjo) is one of the major rivers of Central Europe. It rises in the Giant Mountains of the northern Czech Republic before traversing much of Bohemia (western half of the Czech Rep ...
. Prussia had had nine million inhabitants in 1805, of whom it lost 4.55 million in the treaty. It was also forced to pay 120 million francs to France in war indemnities and fund a French occupying force of 150,000 troops.
Financial situation
The biting defeat of 1806 was not only the result of poor decisions and Napoleon's military genius, but also a reflection on Prussia's poor internal structures. In the 18th century the Prussian state had been the model of enlightened despotism for the rest of Germany. To the west and south, there was no single state or alliance that could challenge it. Yet in the era ofFrederick II of Prussia
Frederick II (german: Friedrich II.; 24 January 171217 August 1786) was King in Prussia from 1740 until 1772, and King of Prussia from 1772 until his death in 1786. His most significant accomplishments include his military successes in the S ...
it was a country oriented towards reform, beginning with the abolition of torture in 1740.
The economic reforms of the second half of the 18th century were based on a mercantilist
Mercantilism is an economic policy that is designed to maximize the exports and minimize the imports for an economy. It promotes imperialism, colonialism, tariffs and subsidies on traded goods to achieve that goal. The policy aims to reduc ...
logic. They had to allow Prussia a certain degree of self-sufficiency
Self-sustainability and self-sufficiency are overlapping states of being in which a person or organization needs little or no help from, or interaction with, others. Self-sufficiency entails the self being enough (to fulfill needs), and a self-s ...
and give it sufficient surpluses for export. Joseph Rovan emphasises that: Economic development also had to fund and support the military. Prussia's infrastructure was developed in the form of canals, roads and factories. Roads connected its outlying regions to its centre, the Oder
The Oder ( , ; Czech, Lower Sorbian and ; ) is a river in Central Europe. It is Poland's second-longest river in total length and third-longest within its borders after the Vistula and Warta. The Oder rises in the Czech Republic and flows ...
, Warta and Noteć
Noteć (; , ) is a river in central Poland with a length of (7th longest) and a basin area of . and apple-growing was developed.
However, industry remained very limited, with heavy state control. Trades were organised into monopolistic
Prussia's war against Napoleon revealed the gaps in its state organisation. Following the series of defeats in December 1806, Frederick William III fled from French armies and arrived at Ortelsburg, a small town in East Prussia. On 12 December, he composed the Declaration of Ortelsburg. Besides venting his anger over a chain of capitulations and demanding merciless punishment for those deserters, he also announced a revolutionary measure that any fighting man could be promoted into the officer corps regardless of his class, whether he was a private, warrant officer or prince. Pro-war and a strong critic of his sovereign's policies, Stein was dismissed in January 1807 after the defeat by France. However, Frederick William III saw that the Prussian state and Prussian society could only survive if they began to reform. After the treaty of Tislsit, he recalled Stein as a minister on 10 July 1807 with the backing of Hardenberg and Napoleon, the latter of whom saw in Stein a supporter of France. Queen
After his recall, Stein retired to his lands in
Stein and Hardenberg not only made a mark on later policy but also represented two different approaches to politics, with Hardenberg more steeped in Enlightenment ideas. He took the principles of the
During Stein's short period of office, decisive laws were promulgated, even if the organizational law on state administration was not published until 1808 (i.e. after Stein's fall). It was during Stein's time in office that the edict of October 1807 and the cities' organizational reforms (''Städteordnung'') of 1808 were put into effect. After a short term of office by Karl vom Stein zum Altenstein, Hardenberg regained control of policy. From 1810, he bore the title of ''
The reforms which were to be put in place were essentially a synthesis between historic and progressive concepts. Their aim was to replace the absolutist state structures which had become outdated. The state would have to offer its citizens the possibility of becoming involved in public affairs on the basis of personal freedom and equality before the law. The government's main policy aim was to make it possible to liberate Prussian territory from French occupation and return the kingdom to great-power status through modernising domestic policy.
The Prussian subject had to become an active citizen of the state thanks to the introduction of self-government to the provinces, districts (''kreise'') and towns. National sentiment had to be awakened as Stein foresaw in his Nassau work, but a citizen's duties were in some ways more important than his or her rights. Moreover, Stein's concept of self-government rested on a class-based society. A compromise between corporative aspects and a modern representative system was put in place. The old divisions into the three estates of nobility, clergy and
In parallel to the ''Staatsministerium'', Stein planned the creation of a ''Staatsrat'' or
Prior to the reforms the Prussian towns east of the
It was only after the end of the Napoleonic Wars and after the territorial reorganisation of Europe at the
The freeing of the peasants marked the start of the Prussian reforms. The kingdom's modernisation began by modernising its base, that is, its peasants and its agriculture. At the start of the 19th century, 80% of the German population lived in the countryside. The edict of 9 October 1807, one of the central reforms, liberated the peasants and was signed only five days after Stein's appointment on von Schön's suggestion. The October edict began the process of abolishing
The practical compensations in Prussia were without doubt advantageous compared to the reforms put in place in the states of the Confederation of the Rhine. In effect, they allowed the process of reform to be accelerated. Nevertheless, the 12,000 lordly estates in Prussia saw their area increase to reach around 1.5 million
The reformers aspired to free individual forces in the industrial sphere just as in the agricultural one, in their devotion to the theories of Adam Smith. To free these forces, they had to get rid of guilds and an economic policy based on mercantilism. To encourage free competition also meant the suppression of all limitations on competition.
It was in this context that the freedom of industry (''Gewerbefreiheit'') was introduced in 1810–1811. To set up an industry, one had to acquire a licence, but even so there were exceptions, such as doctors, pharmacists and hotelliers. The guilds lost their monopoly role and their economic privileges. They were not abolished, but membership of them was now voluntary, not compulsory as it had been in the past. State control over the economy also disappeared, to give way to a free choice of profession and free competition. The reform of industry unlocked the economy and gave it a new impetus. There was no longer any legal difference in the industrial sphere between the town and the countryside. Only mining remained as an exception until the 1860s.
Originally planned to encourage rural industry, the freedom of industry became the central condition for Prussian economic renewal on an industrial base. As had happened with the nobility, the citizens of the towns arose unsuccessfully opposed the reforms. Their immediate results were contradictory—early on, non-guild competition was weak, but after a period of adaptation the number of non-guild artisans rose significantly. However, in the countryside, the burdens of the artisans and other industries rose considerably. This rise in the number of artisans was not accompanied by a similar growth in the rest of the population. The number of master-craftsmen rose too, but master-craftsmen remained poor due to the strong competition. During the
For the reformers, the reform of the Prussian education system (''Bildung'') was a key reform. All the other reforms relied on creating a new type of citizen who had to be capable of proving themselves responsible and the reformers were convinced that the nation had to be educated and made to grow up. Unlike the state reforms, which still contained corporative elements, the ''Bildungsreform'' was conceived outside all class structures.
Wilhelm von Humboldt backed a new
In Humboldt's thinking, university represented the crowning glory of intellectual education and the expression of the ideal of freedom between teaching and research held an important place in it. German universities of the time were mostly mediocre. For Humboldt, "the state must treat its universities neither as gymnasia nor as specialist schools and must not serve its Academy as a technical or scientific deputation. Together, they must ..demand nothing of them which does not give it profit immediately and simply".
Students, in his view, had to learn to think autonomously and work in a scientific way by taking part in research. The foundation of
Unlike the reforms in the states of the Confederation of the Rhine, the Prussian policy was aimed against French supremacy right from the start. Also, the Prussian military reforms were much more profound than those in the south German states. They were instigated by a group of officers which had formed after the defeats of 1806 and notably included Scharnhorst, Gneisenau,
The experiences of 1806 showed that the old organisation of the Prussian army was no longer a match for the might of the French army. Compared to the French defensive tactics, Prussian tactics were too immobile. Its officers treated their soldiers as objects and punished them severely – one of the most severe punishments, the ''Spießrutenlaufen'', consisted of making a soldier pass between two ranks of men and be beaten by them. The French instead had compulsory military service and the Prussian army's adoption of it was the centre of Prussia's military reforms.
Frederick William III hesitated about the military reforms, the officer corps and nobility resisted them and even the bourgeoisie remained sceptical. The start of the
The reforms are sometimes named after their leaders Stein and Hardenberg, but they were also the fruit of a collaboration between experts, each with his own speciality. One of these experts was Heinrich Theodor von Schön – born in 1773, he had studied law at Königsberg university to follow a career in political sciences. In 1793 he entered Prussian service. Nine years later, he became financial councillor to the ''Generaldirektorium''. When the Prussian government fled to 
Schön also took part in editing the ''Rigaer Denkschrift''. In 1806 he travelled with a group of civil servants that had gathered around the just-dismissed Hardenberg – the group also included Karl vom Stein zum Altenstein, Friedrich August von Stägemann and
From 1806 onwards isolated uprisings occurred in Germany and the German-speaking countries. On 26 August 1806 the bookseller
In late 19th century historiography, the Prussian reforms and the " revolution from above" were considered by Heinrich von Treitschke and others to be the first step in the foundation of the
Today, the industrial reforms' success is also critiqued in a more nuanced way. They are considered not to have been the immediate reason for the artisans' misery, instead taken as the reduced influence of the legislation on their development. The German historian Barbara Vogel tried to address an overall concept of agricultural and industrial approaches and to describe them as a "bureaucratic strategy of modernisation". When industrial development was taken into account, the policy of reforms is seen to certainly be centred on the encouragement of rural industry in the historic Prussian territories, thus allowing the onset of Prussia's 
The historian
Life and work of Baron vom Stein
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Prussian Reform Movement (1806-1815) 1810s in Prussia Politics of Prussia Economy of Prussia Reform in Germany
guild
A guild ( ) is an association of artisans and merchants who oversee the practice of their craft/trade in a particular area. The earliest types of guild formed as organizations of tradesmen belonging to a professional association. They sometim ...
s and fiscal and customs laws were complex and inefficient. After the defeat of 1806, funding the occupation force and the war indemnities put Prussia's economy under pressure. As in the 18th century, the early 19th century reforms aimed to create budgetary margins, notably in their efforts towards economic development.
Administrative and legal situation
Frederick II of Prussia favoured both economic and political reform. His government worked on the first codification of Prussia's laws – the 19,000 paragraph ''General State Laws for the Prussian States
The General State Laws for the Prussian States (german: Allgemeines Landrecht für die Preußischen Staaten, ALR) were an important code of Prussia, promulgated in 1792 and codified by Carl Gottlieb Svarez and Ernst Ferdinand Klein, under the ...
''. Article 22 indicated that all his subjects were equal before the law: "The state's laws unite all its members, without difference of status, rank or sex". However, Frederick died in 1786 leaving the code incomplete and was succeeded by Frederick William II of Prussia
Frederick William II (german: Friedrich Wilhelm II.; 25 September 1744 – 16 November 1797) was King of Prussia from 1786 until his death in 1797. He was in personal union the Prince-elector of Brandenburg and (via the Orange-Nassau inherita ...
, who extended the same administrative structure and the same civil servants.
The absolutist system started to re-solidify under the obscurantist influence of Johann Christoph von Wöllner, financial privy councillor to Frederick William II. The reforms stalled, especially in the field of modernising society. The editing of the ''General State Laws'' was completed in 1792, but the French Revolution
The French Revolution ( ) was a period of radical political and societal change in France that began with the Estates General of 1789 and ended with the formation of the French Consulate in November 1799. Many of its ideas are conside ...
led to opposition to it, especially from the nobility. It was then withdrawn from circulation for revision and did not come back into force until 1794. Its aims included linking the state and middle class society to the law and to civil rights, but at the same time it retained and confirmed the whole structure of the Ancien Régime
''Ancien'' may refer to
* the French word for " ancient, old"
** Société des anciens textes français
* the French for "former, senior"
** Virelai ancien
** Ancien Régime
** Ancien Régime in France
{{disambig ...
. Serfdom
Serfdom was the status of many peasants under feudalism, specifically relating to manorialism, and similar systems. It was a condition of debt bondage and indentured servitude with similarities to and differences from slavery, which develop ...
, for example, was abolished in Prussia's royal domains but not in the estates of the great landowners east of the river Elbe
The Elbe (; cs, Labe ; nds, Ilv or ''Elv''; Upper and dsb, Łobjo) is one of the major rivers of Central Europe. It rises in the Giant Mountains of the northern Czech Republic before traversing much of Bohemia (western half of the Czech Rep ...
. The nobility also held onto its position in the army and administration. In 1797 Frederick William III succeeded his father Frederick William II, but at the time of his accession he found society dominated by the old guard, apart from the ''General State Laws'' promulgated in 1794. His own idea of the state was absolutist and he considered that the state had to be in the hands of the sovereign. Before 1806, several observers and high-level civil servants such as Heinrich Friedrich Karl vom Stein and Karl August von Hardenberg
Karl August Fürst von Hardenberg (31 May 1750, in Essenrode- Lehre – 26 November 1822, in Genoa) was a Prussian statesman and Prime Minister of Prussia. While during his late career he acquiesced to reactionary policies, earlier in his career ...
underlined the fact that the Prussia state needed restructuring. As Minister of Finances and the Economy, Stein put some reforms in place, such as standardising the price of salt (then a state monopoly) and partially abolishing the export-import taxes between the kingdom's territories. In April 1806, he published ''Darstellung der fehlerhaften Organisation des Kabinetts und der Notwendigkeit der Bildung einer Ministerialkonferenz'' (literally ''Exposé on the imperfect organisation of the cabinet and on the necessity of forming a ministerial conference''). In it, he wrote:"There should be a new and improved organisation of state affairs, to the measure of the state's needs born of circumstances. The main aim is to gain more strength and unity across the administration."
Start of the reforms
Trigger – the defeat of 1806
Prussia's war against Napoleon revealed the gaps in its state organisation. Following the series of defeats in December 1806, Frederick William III fled from French armies and arrived at Ortelsburg, a small town in East Prussia. On 12 December, he composed the Declaration of Ortelsburg. Besides venting his anger over a chain of capitulations and demanding merciless punishment for those deserters, he also announced a revolutionary measure that any fighting man could be promoted into the officer corps regardless of his class, whether he was a private, warrant officer or prince. Pro-war and a strong critic of his sovereign's policies, Stein was dismissed in January 1807 after the defeat by France. However, Frederick William III saw that the Prussian state and Prussian society could only survive if they began to reform. After the treaty of Tislsit, he recalled Stein as a minister on 10 July 1807 with the backing of Hardenberg and Napoleon, the latter of whom saw in Stein a supporter of France. Queen Louise of Mecklenburg-Strelitz
Duchess Louise of Mecklenburg-Strelitz (Luise Auguste Wilhelmine Amalie; 10 March 1776 – 19 July 1810) was Queen of Prussia as the wife of King Frederick William III. The couple's happy, though short-lived, marriage produced nine chil ...
also supported Stein's re-appointment – indeed, she was more in favour of reform than her husband and was its main initiator. Aided by Stein, Hardenberg and others, she had convinced her husband to mobilise in 1806 and in 1807 she had even met with Napoleon to demand that he review the hard conditions imposed in the treaty. Hardenberg wrote the same year:« I believe that queen Louise could tell the king what the queen of Navarre, Catherine de Foix, said to her husband Jean d'Albret – "If we were born, your dear Catherine and my dear Jean, we would not have lost our kingdom"; for she would have listened to men of energy and asked advice, she would have taken them on and acted decisively. What he kinglacks in personal strength is replaced in this way. An enterprising courage would have replaced a tolerant courage.»Stein set certain conditions for his taking the job, among which was that the cabinets system should be abolished. In its place, ministers had to win their right to power by speaking to the king directly. After this condition had been satisfied, Stein took up his role and was thus directly responsible for the civil administration as well as exercising a controlling role over the other areas. Frederick William III still showed little inclination to engage in reforms and hesitated for a long while. The reformers thus had to expend much effort convincing the king. In this situation, it was within the bureaucracy and the army that the reformers had to fight the hardest against the nobility and the conservative and restorationist forces. The idealist philosophy of
Immanuel Kant
Immanuel Kant (, , ; 22 April 1724 – 12 February 1804) was a German philosopher and one of the central Enlightenment thinkers. Born in Königsberg, Kant's comprehensive and systematic works in epistemology, metaphysics, ethics, and ...
thus had a great influence on the reformers – Stein and Hardenberg each produced a treatise describing their ideas in 1807.
''Nassauer Denkschrift''
After his recall, Stein retired to his lands in Nassau
Nassau may refer to:
Places Bahamas
*Nassau, Bahamas, capital city of the Bahamas, on the island of New Providence
Canada
*Nassau District, renamed Home District, regional division in Upper Canada from 1788 to 1792
*Nassau Street (Winnipeg), ...
. In 1807, he published the ', whose main argument was the reform of the administration. In contrast to the reforms in the states of the Confederation of the Rhine
The Confederated States of the Rhine, simply known as the Confederation of the Rhine, also known as Napoleonic Germany, was a confederation of German client states established at the behest of Napoleon some months after he defeated Austria a ...
, Stein's approach was traditionalist and above all anti- Enlightenment, focussing instead on critiquing absolutism. Stein followed English models such as the Glorious Revolution
The Glorious Revolution; gd, Rèabhlaid Ghlòrmhor; cy, Chwyldro Gogoneddus , also known as the ''Glorieuze Overtocht'' or ''Glorious Crossing'' in the Netherlands, is the sequence of events leading to the deposition of King James II and ...
of 1688 and was sceptical of a centralised and militarised bureaucracy, favouring a decentralised and collegiate administration. With his collaborators, he followed (in his own words) a "policy of defensive modernisation, not with Napoleon but against him".
According to Stein, the administration should be split up by field and no longer by geographical area. Thus the administration had to be divided into two branches – the public revenue branch and the top-level state-policy branch (''oberste Staatsbehörde''). One of the main aims of this concept was to rationalise the state financial system to raise the money to meet its war indemnities under the Treaties of Tilsit
The Treaties of Tilsit were two agreements signed by French Emperor Napoleon in the town of Tilsit in July 1807 in the aftermath of his victory at Friedland. The first was signed on 7 July, between Napoleon and Russian Emperor Alexander, when ...
. Rationalising the state finances would allow the state to raise revenue but limit losses due to poor administrative organisation.
Stein was an anti-absolutist and an anti-statist, suspicious of bureaucracy and central government. For him, civil servants were only men paid to carry out their task with "indifference" and "fear of innovation". Above all, he set out to decentralise and form a collegiate state. Stein thus gave more autonomy to the provinces, Kreise and towns. Thanks to the different posts he had previously held, Stein, realised that he had to harmonise the government of the provinces. He had recourse to the old corporative constitution, as he had experienced in Westphalia
Westphalia (; german: Westfalen ; nds, Westfalen ) is a region of northwestern Germany and one of the three historic parts of the state of North Rhine-Westphalia. It has an area of and 7.9 million inhabitants.
The territory of the regio ...
. The landowner, according to Stein, was the keystone to local self-government – "If the landowner is excluded from all participation in the provincial administration, then the link which links him to the fatherland remains unused".
However, it was not only functional considerations which played a role for Stein. He felt he first had to educate the people in politics and provincial self-government was one of the most useful things in this area. On landowners' participation in the provincial administration, he wrote: In his reform projects, Stein tried to reform a political system without losing sight of the Prussian unity shaken by the defeat of 1806.
''Rigaer Denkschrift''
Stein and Hardenberg not only made a mark on later policy but also represented two different approaches to politics, with Hardenberg more steeped in Enlightenment ideas. He took the principles of the French Revolution
The French Revolution ( ) was a period of radical political and societal change in France that began with the Estates General of 1789 and ended with the formation of the French Consulate in November 1799. Many of its ideas are conside ...
and the suggestions created by Napoleon's practical policy on board more deeply than Stein. Hardenberg was a statist who aspired to reinforce the state through a dense and centralised administration. Nevertheless, these differences only represented a certain change of tendency among the reformers. The initiatives put in place were very much things of their own time, despite the latter umbrella concept of the 'Stein-Hardenberg reforms'.
The ''Rigaer Denkschrift'' was published the same year as Stein's work and presented on 12 September 1807. It bore the title 'On the reorganisation of the Prussian state'. Previously a resident of Riga
Riga (; lv, Rīga , liv, Rīgõ) is the capital and largest city of Latvia and is home to 605,802 inhabitants which is a third of Latvia's population. The city lies on the Gulf of Riga at the mouth of the Daugava river where it meets the ...
, Hardenberg had been summoned in July by the king of Prussia under pressure from Napoleon. Hardenberg developed ideas on the overall organisation of the Prussian state that were different from those of his fellow reformers. The main editors of the ''Rigaer Denkschrift'' were Barthold Georg Niebuhr
Barthold Georg Niebuhr (27 August 1776 – 2 January 1831) was a Danish–German statesman, banker, and historian who became Germany's leading historian of Ancient Rome and a founding father of modern scholarly historiography. By 1810 Niebuhr wa ...
, an expert financier, Karl vom Stein zum Altenstein, a future minister of Finances and Heinrich Theodor von Schön. These three men concluded that the Revolution had given France a new impetus: "All the sleeping forces were re-awakened, the misery and weakness, the old prejudices and the shortcomings were destroyed." Thus, in their view, Prussia had to follow France's example:
The authors thus favoured a revolution "im guten Sinn" or "in the right sense", which historians later described as " revolution from above". Sovereigns and their ministers thus put in place reforms to gain all the advantages of a revolution without any of the disadvantages, such as losing their power or suffering from setbacks or outbreaks of violence.
As in Stein's Denkschrift, the ''Rigaer Denkschrift'' favours reviving national spirit to work with the nation and the administration. Hardenberg also sought to define society's three classes – the nobility, the middle class and the peasants. For him, the peasants took part in "the most numerous and most important but nevertheless the most neglected and belittled class in the state" and added that "the peasant class has to become the main object of our attention". Hardenberg also sought to underline the principle of merit which he felt had to rule in society, by affirming "no task in the state, without exception, is for this or that class but is open to merit and to skill and to the ability of all classes".
Overview
Within fourteen months of his appointment, Stein put in place or prepared the most important reforms. The major financial crisis caused by the requirements of Tilsit forced Stein into a radical austerity policy, harnessing the state's machinery to raise the required indemnities. The success of the reforms begun by Stein was the result of a discussion already going on within the upper bureaucracy and Stein's role in putting them in place was variable – he was almost never, for example, involved in questions of detail. Many of the reforms were drafted by others among his collaborators, such as Heinrich Theodor von Schön in the case of the October decree. However, Stein was responsible for presenting the reforms to the king and to other forces opposed to them, such as the nobility.
During Stein's short period of office, decisive laws were promulgated, even if the organizational law on state administration was not published until 1808 (i.e. after Stein's fall). It was during Stein's time in office that the edict of October 1807 and the cities' organizational reforms (''Städteordnung'') of 1808 were put into effect. After a short term of office by Karl vom Stein zum Altenstein, Hardenberg regained control of policy. From 1810, he bore the title of ''Staatskanzler
Chancellor ( la, cancellarius) is a title of various official positions in the governments of many nations. The original chancellors were the of Roman courts of justice—ushers, who sat at the or lattice work screens of a basilica or law cou ...
'', retaining it until 1822. Thanks to him, land reform was completed via the Edicts of Regulation (''Regulierungsedikten'') of 1811 and 1816 as well as the ''Ablöseordnung'' (literally the ''redemption decree'') of 1821. He also pushed through the reforms of trade regulation such as the edict on professional tax of 2 November 1810 and the law on policing trades (''Gewerbepolizeigesetz'') of 1811. In 1818 he reformed the customs laws, abolishing internal taxes. As for social reform, an edict to emancipate Jewish citizens was promulgated in 1812. Despite the different initial situations and aims pursued, similar reforms were carried out in the states of the Confederation of the Rhine, except for the military and educational reforms. The Restoration put a stop to the reformist policy in Prussia around 1819 or 1820.
Main reforms
The reforms which were to be put in place were essentially a synthesis between historic and progressive concepts. Their aim was to replace the absolutist state structures which had become outdated. The state would have to offer its citizens the possibility of becoming involved in public affairs on the basis of personal freedom and equality before the law. The government's main policy aim was to make it possible to liberate Prussian territory from French occupation and return the kingdom to great-power status through modernising domestic policy.
The Prussian subject had to become an active citizen of the state thanks to the introduction of self-government to the provinces, districts (''kreise'') and towns. National sentiment had to be awakened as Stein foresaw in his Nassau work, but a citizen's duties were in some ways more important than his or her rights. Moreover, Stein's concept of self-government rested on a class-based society. A compromise between corporative aspects and a modern representative system was put in place. The old divisions into the three estates of nobility, clergy and bourgeoisie
The bourgeoisie ( , ) is a social class, equivalent to the middle or upper middle class. They are distinguished from, and traditionally contrasted with, the proletariat by their affluence, and their great cultural and financial capital. Th ...
were replaced by divisions into nobility, bourgeoisie and peasants. The right to vote also had to be expanded, particularly to free peasants, which would be one of the bases for the freeing of the peasants in 1807.
The new organisation of power in the countryside and reform of industry were factors in the liberalisation of the Prussian economy. In this respect, the Prussian reforms went much further than those in the states of the Confederation of the Rhine
The Confederated States of the Rhine, simply known as the Confederation of the Rhine, also known as Napoleonic Germany, was a confederation of German client states established at the behest of Napoleon some months after he defeated Austria a ...
and were much more successful. The 1806 financial crisis, intensified by the indemnities, the occupation costs and other war costs, gave the necessary impetus for these changes – in all, Prussia had to pay France 120 million francs. The freeing of the peasants, the industrial reforms and the other measures removed economic barriers and imposed free competition. The Prussian reforms relied on the economic liberalism of Adam Smith
Adam Smith (baptized 1723 – 17 July 1790) was a Scottish economist and philosopher who was a pioneer in the thinking of political economy and key figure during the Scottish Enlightenment. Seen by some as "The Father of Economics"——� ...
(as propounded by Heinrich Theodor von Schön and Christian Jakob Kraus
Christian Jakob Kraus (; 27 July 1753 – 25 August 1807) was a German comparative and historical linguist.
Biography
A native of Osterode (East Prussia), Kraus studied at the universities of Königsberg and Göttingen. In 1782 he became a pr ...
) more heavily than the south German reformers. The Prussian reformers did not actively seek to encourage Prussian industry, which was then under-developed, but to remedy the crisis in the agricultural economy.
State and administration
The reformers' top priority was to reorganise the administration and the state. Before 1806, there was not really a single Prussian state, but a multiplicity of states and provinces, mostly only held together by the single person of the king himself. There was no unified administration – instead there were the two parallel structures of decentralised administrations (each responsible for all portfolios within a single given territory) and a centralised administration (responsible for a single portfolio across the whole of Prussia). This double structure made any coordinated action difficult. The government also had no overview of Prussia's economic situation and its government ministers had little clout faced with the king's cabinet, where they had less power than the king's private political councillors.Bureaucracy and leadership
The start of the Stein era saw the unification of the Prussian state, with the old system of cabinets being abolished. A ministry of state (''Staatsministerium'') was introduced on 16 December 1808 in place of a top-level administration poorly defined as the ''Generaldirektorium''. This reform was completed in 1810. Now the administration was ruled according to the principle of portfolios. The ''Staatsministerium'' included five major ministries – minister of the interior, minister for foreign affairs, minister for finances, minister for justice and minister of war, all responsible to the king alone. These modifications could not take full effect, however, until a more effective statist model of leadership was created. This was done by replacing Prussian absolutism with a double domination of king and bureaucracy, in which the ministers had an important role, reducing the king's influence and meaning he could now only reign through his ministers' actions. In Stein's era, the ''Staatsministerium'' was organised in a collegiate way without a prime minister – that post was set up under Hardenberg, who received the title of ''Staatskanzler'' or State Chancellor in June 1810 along with control over the ministers' relations with the king. The role of the head of state was also considerably modified. From 1808, Prussia was divided into districts. The different governments of these districts were set up according to the principle of portfolios, as with the national ministers of state. Each region was given an '' Oberpräsident'' for the first time, directly subordinate to the national ministers and with the role of stimulating public affairs. Their rôle, which even went as far as putting up sanitary cordons in the event of an epidemic, was similar to that of Frenchprefect
Prefect (from the Latin ''praefectus'', substantive adjectival form of ''praeficere'': "put in front", meaning in charge) is a magisterial title of varying definition, but essentially refers to the leader of an administrative area.
A prefect's ...
s – that is, to represent regional interests to the central government. The post was abolished in 1810 but revived in 1815 to play an important part in political life. It was in this context that justice and administration were separated once and for all. On the establishment of administrative acts, the people concerned thus had a right of appeal. Nevertheless, there was no judicial control on the administration. Aiming to reduce any influence on the administration, this was reinforced by different administrative acts. The organisation that the reformers put in place served as a model for other German states and to major businesses.
National representation
In parallel to the ''Staatsministerium'', Stein planned the creation of a ''Staatsrat'' or Privy Council
A privy council is a body that advises the head of state of a state, typically, but not always, in the context of a monarchic government. The word "privy" means "private" or "secret"; thus, a privy council was originally a committee of the mo ...
. However, he had had no opportunity to set up a correctly functioning one by 1808 and it was Hardenberg who set it up in 1810. The text of the relevant law stated: The members of the Council of State
A Council of State is a governmental body in a country, or a subdivision of a country, with a function that varies by jurisdiction. It may be the formal name for the cabinet or it may refer to a non-executive advisory body associated with a head o ...
had to be current ministers or former ministers, high-level civil servants, princes of the royal house or figures nominated by the king. A commission was also formed to function as a kind of parliament, with major legislative rights. As a bastion of the bureaucracy, the Council of State had to prevent any return to absolutism or any moves to reinforce the interests of the Ancien Régime
''Ancien'' may refer to
* the French word for " ancient, old"
** Société des anciens textes français
* the French for "former, senior"
** Virelai ancien
** Ancien Régime
** Ancien Régime in France
{{disambig ...
. The Council of State also had to subroge all laws and administrative and constitutional procedures.
In the same way as the towns' self-government, Hardenberg foresaw the establishment of a national representative body made up of corporative
Corporatism is a Collectivism and individualism, collectivist political ideology which advocates the organization of society by Corporate group (sociology), corporate groups, such as agricultural, labour, military, business, scientific, or guil ...
and representative elements. The first assembly of notable figures was held in 1811 and the second in 1812. These were made up of a corporative base of 18 aristocratic landowners, 12 urban property owners and nine representatives from among the peasants. This corporative composition was based partly on the traditional conception of society and partly on practical and fiscal considerations – in order to be able to pay its war indemnities to France, the Prussian state had to have massive recourse to credit contracts issued by the aristocrats and to gain credit in foreign countries the different states had to offer themselves as guarantors.
After the summoning of the provisional assemblies, it quickly became clear that their deputies' first priority was not the state's interests but more defending their own classes' interests. The nobility saw the reforms as trying to reduce their privileges and so blocked them in the assemblies, led by figures such as Friedrich August von der Marwitz
Friedrich August Ludwig von der Marwitz (29 May 1777, in Berlin – 6 December 1837, in Friedersdorf) was a Prussian nobleman, officer and opponent of the Prussian reforms of Heinrich Friedrich Karl vom Stein.
From ''Caroline Francisca'' (* 2 ...
and Friedrich Ludwig Karl Fink von Finkenstein. Their resistance went so far that the cabinet resorted to imprisoning them at Spandau
Spandau () is the westernmost of the 12 boroughs () of Berlin, situated at the confluence of the Havel and Spree rivers and extending along the western bank of the Havel. It is the smallest borough by population, but the fourth largest by land ...
. The historian Reinhart Koselleck has argued that the establishment of a corporative national representative body prevented all later reforms. At the end of the reforming period, the districts and the provincial representative bodies (such as the ''Provinziallandtage'') remained based on corporative principles. Prussia was prevented from forming a true representative national body, with considerable consequences on the internal development of Prussia and the German Confederation
The German Confederation (german: Deutscher Bund, ) was an association of 39 predominantly German-speaking sovereign states in Central Europe. It was created by the Congress of Vienna in 1815 as a replacement of the former Holy Roman Empire, w ...
. Thus, while the states of the Confederation of the Rhine located in southern Germany became constitutional states, Prussia remained without a parliament until 1848.
Reform of the towns
Prior to the reforms the Prussian towns east of the river Elbe
The Elbe (; cs, Labe ; nds, Ilv or ''Elv''; Upper and dsb, Łobjo) is one of the major rivers of Central Europe. It rises in the Giant Mountains of the northern Czech Republic before traversing much of Bohemia (western half of the Czech Rep ...
were under the state's direct control, with any surviving instances of self-government retaining their names and forms but none of their power. Stein's reform of the towns used this former tradition of self-government. All rights specific to a certain city were abolished and all the cities put under the same structures and rule – this even came to be the case for their courts and police. Self-government was at the centre of the town reforms of 1808, with the towns now no longer subject to the state and their citizens given a duty to participate in the towns' political life. This was the strongest indication of Stein's rejection of a centralised bureaucracy – self-government had to awaken its citizens' interest in public affairs in order to benefit the whole Prussian state.
The ''Städteordnung'' (Municipal Ordinance) of 1808 defined a citizen (or at least a citizen in the sense of the inhabitant of a town or city) as "a citizen or member of an urban community which possesses the right of citizenship in a town". The municipal councillors were representatives of the town and not of an order or estate. These councillors could be elected by all landowning citizens with a taxable revenue of at least 15 taler. A councillor's main task was to participate in the election of a municipal council or ''Magistrat'', headed by a mayor. The election of the mayor and the members of the council had to be ratified by the central government. Different officials were put in place to carry out administrative portfolios. The council managed the municipal budget and the town also managed its own police.
Despite some democratic elements, the town administrations retained large corporative elements – the groups were differentiated according to their estates and only citizens had full rights. Only landowners and industrial property-owners had a right to citizenship, though it was in principle also open to other people, such as ''Eximierten'' (bourgeois people, mostly those in state service) or ' (members of the lower classes without full citizenship rights). The costs linked to a citizen's octroi dissuaded many people. It was only the new reform of 1831 which replaced the 1808 assemblies of ''Bürger'' (citizens) with assemblies of inhabitants. Until the Vormärz
' (; English: ''pre-March'') was a period in the history of Germany preceding the 1848 March Revolution in the states of the German Confederation. The beginning of the period is less well-defined. Some place the starting point directly after the ...
, self-government in the towns was in the hands of artisans and established businessmen. In the cities and large towns, the citizens with full rights and their families represented around a third of the total population. Resistance by the nobility prevented these reforms from also being set up in the countryside. These reforms were a step towards modern civic self-government.
Customs and tax reforms
Tax reform was a central problem for the reformers, notably due to the war indemnities imposed by Napoleon, and these difficulties marked Hardenberg's early reforms. He managed to avoid state bankruptcy and inflation by increasing taxes or selling off lands. These severe financial problems led to a wholesale fiscal reform. Taxes were standardised right across Prussia, principally by replacing the wide variety of minor taxes with main taxes. The reformers also tried to introduce equal taxation for all citizens, thus bringing them into conflict with aristocratic privileges. On 27 October 1810, the king proclaimed in his ''Finanzedikt'': Excises were raised the following year on appeals. In 1819, excise (originally only raised by the towns) was suppressed and replaced with a tax on the consumption of beer, wine, gin and tobacco. In the industrial sphere, several taxes were replaced with a progressively spread-out professional tax. Other innovations were an income tax and a tax on wealth based on a tax evaluation carried out by the taxpayer. 1820 saw protests against a tax on classes, the tax being defined by the taxpayer's position in society. This tax on classes was an intermediate form betweenpoll tax
A poll tax, also known as head tax or capitation, is a tax levied as a fixed sum on every liable individual (typically every adult), without reference to income or resources.
Head taxes were important sources of revenue for many governments f ...
and income tax. The towns had the possibility of retaining the tax on cattle and cereal crops. The results for fiscal policy remain controversial. The nobility was not affected by the taxes as the reformers had originally planned, so much so that they did not managed to put in place a 'foncier' tax also including the nobility. The poorest suffered most as a result of these measures.
It was only after the end of the Napoleonic Wars and after the territorial reorganisation of Europe at the Congress of Vienna
The Congress of Vienna (, ) of 1814–1815 was a series of international diplomatic meetings to discuss and agree upon a possible new layout of the European political and constitutional order after the downfall of the French Emperor Napoleon ...
that Prussia's customs duties were reformed. At the Congress Prussia regained its western territories, leading to economic competition between the industrialised part of these territories such as the Rhine Province
The Rhine Province (german: Rheinprovinz), also known as Rhenish Prussia () or synonymous with the Rhineland (), was the westernmost province of the Kingdom of Prussia and the Free State of Prussia, within the German Reich, from 1822 to 1946. ...
, the Province of Westphalia
The Province of Westphalia () was a province of the Kingdom of Prussia and the Free State of Prussia from 1815 to 1946. In turn, Prussia was the largest component state of the German Empire from 1871 to 1918, of the Weimar Republic and from 191 ...
and the territories in Saxony on the one hand and the essentially agricultural territories to the east of the Elbe on the other. Customs policy was also very disparate. Thus, in 1817, there were 57 customs tariffs on 3,000 goods passing from the historic western territories to the Prussian heartland, with the taxes in the heartland not yet having spread to the formerly French-dominated western provinces.
This was one of the factors that made customs reform vital. That reform occurred on 26 May 1818, with the establishment of a compromise between the interests of the major landowners practicing free-exchange and those of the still-weak industrial economy asking for protectionist
Protectionism, sometimes referred to as trade protectionism, is the economic policy of restricting imports from other countries through methods such as tariffs on imported goods, import quotas, and a variety of other government regulations. ...
custom duties. They therefore only took on what would now be called a tax for protecting internal markets from foreign competition and customs duties for haulage were lifted. The mercantile policy instituted by Frederick II thus came to an end. Export bans were lifted. The customs laws and duties put in place by the reformers proved so simple and effective over time that they served as a model for taxation in other German states for around fifty years, and their basic principles remained in place under the German Empire
The German Empire (),Herbert Tuttle wrote in September 1881 that the term "Reich" does not literally connote an empire as has been commonly assumed by English-speaking people. The term literally denotes an empire – particularly a hereditary ...
. The Prussian customs policy was one of the important factors in the creation of the Deutscher Zollverein
The (), or German Customs Union, was a coalition of German states formed to manage tariffs and economic policies within their territories. Organized by the 1833 treaties, it formally started on 1 January 1834. However, its foundations had b ...
in the 1830s.
Society and politics
Agricultural reforms
Agriculture was reformed across Europe at this time, though in different ways and in different phases. The usefulness of existing agricultural methods came into doubt and so theAncien Régime
''Ancien'' may refer to
* the French word for " ancient, old"
** Société des anciens textes français
* the French for "former, senior"
** Virelai ancien
** Ancien Régime
** Ancien Régime in France
{{disambig ...
's and Holy Roman Empire
The Holy Roman Empire was a political entity in Western, Central, and Southern Europe that developed during the Early Middle Ages and continued until its dissolution in 1806 during the Napoleonic Wars.
From the accession of Otto I in 962 unt ...
's agricultural structures were abolished. Peasants were freed and became landowners; and services and corvée
Corvée () is a form of unpaid, forced labour, that is intermittent in nature lasting for limited periods of time: typically for only a certain number of days' work each year.
Statute labour is a corvée imposed by a state for the purposes of ...
s were abolished. Private landownership also led to the breakdown of common land
Common land is land owned by a person or collectively by a number of persons, over which other persons have certain common rights, such as to allow their livestock to graze upon it, to collect wood, or to cut turf for fuel.
A person who has ...
s – that is, to the usage of woods and meadows 'in common'. These communal lands were mostly given to lords in return for lands acquired by the peasants. Some meadow reforms had already taken place in some parts of Prussia before 1806, such as the freeing of the peasants on royal lands in the 18th century, though this freeing only fully came into force in 1807.
The landowning nobility successfully managed to oppose similar changes. The government had to confront aristocratic resistance even to the pre-1806 reforms, which became considerable. The ''Gesindeordnung'' of 1810 was certainly notable progress for servants compared to that proposed in the ''General State Laws'', but still remained conservative and favourable to the nobility. The nobility's opposition to this also led to several privileges being saved from abolition. The rights of the police and the courts were controlled more strongly by the state, but not totally abolished like religious and scholarly patrongage, hunting rights and fiscal privileges. Unlike the reforms in the Kingdom of Bavaria
The Kingdom of Bavaria (german: Königreich Bayern; ; spelled ''Baiern'' until 1825) was a German state that succeeded the former Electorate of Bavaria in 1805 and continued to exist until 1918. With the unification of Germany into the German ...
, the nobles were not asked to justify their rank. The reformers made compromises, but the nobility were unable to block the major changes brought by the reforms' central points.
Edict of October 1807
The freeing of the peasants marked the start of the Prussian reforms. The kingdom's modernisation began by modernising its base, that is, its peasants and its agriculture. At the start of the 19th century, 80% of the German population lived in the countryside. The edict of 9 October 1807, one of the central reforms, liberated the peasants and was signed only five days after Stein's appointment on von Schön's suggestion. The October edict began the process of abolishing serfdom
Serfdom was the status of many peasants under feudalism, specifically relating to manorialism, and similar systems. It was a condition of debt bondage and indentured servitude with similarities to and differences from slavery, which develop ...
and its hereditary character. The first peasants to be freed were those working on the domains in the ''Reichsritter'' and on 11 November 1810 at the latest, all the Prussian serfs were declared free: However, though serfdom was abolished, corvée
Corvée () is a form of unpaid, forced labour, that is intermittent in nature lasting for limited periods of time: typically for only a certain number of days' work each year.
Statute labour is a corvée imposed by a state for the purposes of ...
s were not – the October edict said nothing on corvées.
The October edict authorised all Prussian citizens to acquire property and choose their profession, including the nobles, who until then could not take on jobs reserved for the bourgeoisie: The principle of " dérogeance" disappeared.
The peasants were allowed to travel freely and set up home in the towns and no longer had to buy their freedom or pay for its with domestic service. The peasants no longer had to ask their lord's permission to marry – this freedom in marriage led to a rising birth rate and population in the countryside. The freeing of the peasants, however, was also to their disadvantage – lordly domains were liberalised and major landowners were allowed to buy peasants' farms (the latter practice having been illegal previously). The lords no longer had an obligation to provide housing for any of their former serfs who became invalids or too old to work. This all led to the formation of an economic class made up of bourgeois and noble entrepreneurs who opposed the bourgeoisie.
Edict of regulation (1811)
After the reformers freed the peasants, they were faced with other problems, such as the abolition of corvées and the establishment of properties. According to the ''General State Laws'', these problems could only be solved by compensating the financiers. The need to legally put in place a "revolution from above" slowed down the reforms. The edict of regulation of 1811 solved the problem by making all peasants the owners of the farms they farmed. Rather than buying back these lands (which was financially impossible), the peasants were obliged to compensate their former lords by handing over between a third and a half of the farmed lands. To avoid splitting up the lands and leaving areas that were too small to viably farm, in 1816 the buy-back of these lands was limited to major landowners. The smaller ones remained excluded fromallodial title
Allodial title constitutes ownership of real property (land, buildings, and fixtures) that is independent of any superior landlord. Allodial title is related to the concept of land held "in allodium", or land ownership by occupancy and defense ...
. Other duties linked to serfdom, such as providing domestic service and the authorisation taxes on getting married, were abolished without compensation. As for corvées and services in kind, the peasants had to buy back from their lords for 25% of their value.
The practical compensations in Prussia were without doubt advantageous compared to the reforms put in place in the states of the Confederation of the Rhine. In effect, they allowed the process of reform to be accelerated. Nevertheless, the 12,000 lordly estates in Prussia saw their area increase to reach around 1.5 million Morgen
A morgen was a unit of measurement of land area in Germany, the Netherlands, Poland, Lithuania and the Dutch colonies, including South Africa and Taiwan. The size of a morgen varies from . It was also used in Old Prussia, in the Balkans, ...
(around 38,000 hectares), mostly made up of common land, of which only 14% returned to the peasants, with the rest going to the lords. Many of the minor peasants thus lost their means of subsistence and could only sell their indebted lands to their lords and become agricultural workers. Some jachère lands were made farmable, but their cultivation remained questionable due to their poor soil quality. The measures put in place by the reformers did have some financial success, however, with Prussia's cultivated land rising from 7.3 to 12.46 million hectares in 1848 and production raised by 40%.
In the territories east of the Elbe, the agricultural reforms had major social consequences. Due to the growth of lordly estates, the number of lordly families rose greatly, right up until the second half of the 19th century. The number of exploited lands remained the same. A very important lower social class was also created. According to region and the rights in force, the number of agricultural day workers and servants rose 2.5 times. The number of minor landowners, known as ''Kätner'' after their homes (known as ''Kotten''), tripled or even quadrupled. Many of them were dependent on another job. Ernst Rudolf Huber, professor of public law, judged that the agricultural reforms were:
Reform of industry and its results
The reformers aspired to free individual forces in the industrial sphere just as in the agricultural one, in their devotion to the theories of Adam Smith. To free these forces, they had to get rid of guilds and an economic policy based on mercantilism. To encourage free competition also meant the suppression of all limitations on competition.
It was in this context that the freedom of industry (''Gewerbefreiheit'') was introduced in 1810–1811. To set up an industry, one had to acquire a licence, but even so there were exceptions, such as doctors, pharmacists and hotelliers. The guilds lost their monopoly role and their economic privileges. They were not abolished, but membership of them was now voluntary, not compulsory as it had been in the past. State control over the economy also disappeared, to give way to a free choice of profession and free competition. The reform of industry unlocked the economy and gave it a new impetus. There was no longer any legal difference in the industrial sphere between the town and the countryside. Only mining remained as an exception until the 1860s.
Originally planned to encourage rural industry, the freedom of industry became the central condition for Prussian economic renewal on an industrial base. As had happened with the nobility, the citizens of the towns arose unsuccessfully opposed the reforms. Their immediate results were contradictory—early on, non-guild competition was weak, but after a period of adaptation the number of non-guild artisans rose significantly. However, in the countryside, the burdens of the artisans and other industries rose considerably. This rise in the number of artisans was not accompanied by a similar growth in the rest of the population. The number of master-craftsmen rose too, but master-craftsmen remained poor due to the strong competition. During the Vormärz
' (; English: ''pre-March'') was a period in the history of Germany preceding the 1848 March Revolution in the states of the German Confederation. The beginning of the period is less well-defined. Some place the starting point directly after the ...
, tailors, cobblers, carpenters and weavers were the main over-subscribed trades. The rise in the lower classes in the countryside accentuated the 'social question and would be one of the causes of the 1848 Revolution
The Revolutions of 1848, known in some countries as the Springtime of the Peoples or the Springtime of Nations, were a series of political upheavals throughout Europe starting in 1848. It remains the most widespread revolutionary wave in Europe ...
.
Jewish emancipation
By the Edict of Emancipation of 11 March 1812, Jews gained the same rights and duties as other citizens: To gain civil rights, all Jews had to declare themselves to the police within six months of the promulgation of the edict and choose a definitive name. This Edict was the result of a long reflection since 1781, begun by Christian Wilhelm von Dohm, pursued by David Friedländer in a thesis to Frederick William II in 1787 (Friedländer approved the Edict of 1812). Humboldt's influence allowed for the so-called "Jewish question
The Jewish question, also referred to as the Jewish problem, was a wide-ranging debate in 19th- and 20th-century European society that pertained to the appropriate status and treatment of Jews. The debate, which was similar to other " national ...
" to be re-examined.
Article 8 of the Edict allowed Jews to own land and take up municipal and university posts. The Jews were free to practise their religion and their traditions were protected. Nevertheless, unlike the reforms in the Kingdom of Westphalia
The Kingdom of Westphalia was a kingdom in Germany, with a population of 2.6 million, that existed from 1807 to 1813. It included territory in Hesse and other parts of present-day Germany. While formally independent, it was a vassal state of the ...
, the Edict of Emancipation in Prussia did have some limitations – Jews could not become army officers or have any government or legal role, but were still required to do military service.
Even if some traditionalists opposed the Edict of Emancipation, it proved a major step towards Jewish emancipation in the German states during the 19th century. The judicial situation in Prussia was significantly better than that in most of southern and eastern Germany, making it an attractive destination for Jewish immigration.
Other areas
Education
New organisation
For the reformers, the reform of the Prussian education system (''Bildung'') was a key reform. All the other reforms relied on creating a new type of citizen who had to be capable of proving themselves responsible and the reformers were convinced that the nation had to be educated and made to grow up. Unlike the state reforms, which still contained corporative elements, the ''Bildungsreform'' was conceived outside all class structures. Wilhelm von Humboldt
Friedrich Wilhelm Christian Karl Ferdinand von Humboldt (, also , ; ; 22 June 1767 – 8 April 1835) was a Prussian philosopher, linguist, government functionary, diplomat, and founder of the Humboldt University of Berlin, which was named afte ...
was the main figure behind the educational reform. From 1808, he was in charge of the department of religion and education within the ministry of the interior. Like Stein, Humboldt was only in his post for a short time, but was able to put in place the main elements of his reforms.
Humboldt developed his ideas in July 1809 in his treatise ''Über die mit dem Königsberger Schulwesen vorzunehmende Reformen'' (''On reforms to execute with the teaching in Königsberg''). In place of a wide variety of religious, private, municipal and corporative educational institutions, he suggested setting up a school system divided into ''Volksschule'' (people's schools), '' Gymnasiums'' and universities. Humboldt defined the characteristics of each stage in education. Elementary teaching "truly only need be occupied with language, numbers and measures, and remain linked to the mother tongue being given that nature is indifferent in its design". For the second stage, that of being taught in school, Humboldt wrote "The aim of being taught in school is to exercise pupil'sability and to acquire knowledge without which scientific understanding and ability are impossible. Finally, he stated that university had to train a student in research and allow him to understanding "the unity of science". From 1812, a university entry had to obtain the ''Abitur
''Abitur'' (), often shortened colloquially to ''Abi'', is a qualification granted at the end of secondary education in Germany. It is conferred on students who pass their final exams at the end of ISCED 3, usually after twelve or thirteen ye ...
''. The state controlled all the schools, but even so it strictly imposed compulsory education and controlled exams. To enter the civil service, performance criteria were set up. Education and performance replaced social origin.
New humanism
Wilhelm von Humboldt backed a new humanism
Humanism is a philosophical stance that emphasizes the individual and social potential and agency of human beings. It considers human beings the starting point for serious moral and philosophical inquiry.
The meaning of the term "human ...
. Unlike the utilitarian teaching of the Enlightenment, which wished to transmit useful knowledge for practical life, Humboldt desired a general formation of man. From then students had to study antiquity and ancient languages to develop themselves intellectually. Not only would they acquire this humanistic knowledge, they would also acquire other knowledge necessary for other jobs. The state would not seek to form citizens at all costs to serve it, but it did not entirely let go of that aim:
Unlike Humboldt, for whom the individual was at the centre of the educational process, the republican Johann Gottlieb Fichte
Johann Gottlieb Fichte (; ; 19 May 1762 – 29 January 1814) was a German philosopher who became a founding figure of the philosophical movement known as German idealism
German idealism was a philosophical movement that emerged in Germany in ...
rather leaned towards national education to educate the whole people and thus to affirm the nation in the face of Napoleonic domination.
In paying professors better and improving their training, the quality of teaching in the ''Volksschule''s was improved. The newly founded ''gymnasia'' offered a humanist education to ready pupils for university studies. In parallel ''Realschule''s were set up to train men in manual trades. Some schools for officer cadets were allowed to remain. Despite stricter state influence and control, the religious authorities retained their role in inspecting schools.
Universities
In Humboldt's thinking, university represented the crowning glory of intellectual education and the expression of the ideal of freedom between teaching and research held an important place in it. German universities of the time were mostly mediocre. For Humboldt, "the state must treat its universities neither as gymnasia nor as specialist schools and must not serve its Academy as a technical or scientific deputation. Together, they must ..demand nothing of them which does not give it profit immediately and simply".
Students, in his view, had to learn to think autonomously and work in a scientific way by taking part in research. The foundation of Berlin University
Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin (german: Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, abbreviated HU Berlin) is a German public research university in the central borough of Mitte in Berlin. It was established by Frederick William III on the initiative o ...
served as a model. It was opened in 1810 and the great men of the era taught there – Johann Gottlieb Fichte
Johann Gottlieb Fichte (; ; 19 May 1762 – 29 January 1814) was a German philosopher who became a founding figure of the philosophical movement known as German idealism
German idealism was a philosophical movement that emerged in Germany in ...
, the physician Christoph Wilhelm Hufeland, the historian Barthold Georg Niebuhr
Barthold Georg Niebuhr (27 August 1776 – 2 January 1831) was a Danish–German statesman, banker, and historian who became Germany's leading historian of Ancient Rome and a founding father of modern scholarly historiography. By 1810 Niebuhr wa ...
and the jurist Friedrich Carl von Savigny
Friedrich Carl von Savigny (21 February 1779 – 25 October 1861) was a German jurist and historian.
Early life and education
Savigny was born at Frankfurt am Main, of a family recorded in the history of Lorraine, deriving its name from the cast ...
.
In practice, the educational reforms' results were different from what Humboldt had expected. Putting in place his ideal of philological
Philology () is the study of language in oral and written historical sources; it is the intersection of textual criticism, literary criticism, history, and linguistics (with especially strong ties to etymology). Philology is also defined as t ...
education excluded the lower classes of society and allied the educational system to the restorationist tendencies. The major cost of education rendered the reforms in this area ineffective. The reformers had hoped that people would rise through the social scale thanks to education, but this did not happen so well as they had hoped.
Military
Unlike the reforms in the states of the Confederation of the Rhine, the Prussian policy was aimed against French supremacy right from the start. Also, the Prussian military reforms were much more profound than those in the south German states. They were instigated by a group of officers which had formed after the defeats of 1806 and notably included Scharnhorst, Gneisenau, Boyen Boyen may refer to:
* Govert Boyen (born 1977), Belgian football goalkeeper
* Guillaume Boyen (Willem Boy, 1520-1592), Flemish painter, sculptor, and architect
* Hermann von Boyen (1771-1848), Prussian army officer
* Boyen Fortress, a former Pruss ...
, Grolman and Clausewitz
Carl Philipp Gottfried (or Gottlieb) von Clausewitz (; 1 June 1780 – 16 November 1831) was a Prussian general and military theorist who stressed the "moral", in modern terms meaning psychological, and political aspects of waging war. His m ...
.
Chief of staff since 1806, Scharnhorst became head of the military reorganisation commission set up by Frederick William III in July 1807. For him, every citizen was a born defender of the state. His main aim was to drive out the French occupiers. In close contact with Stein, Scharnhorst managed to convince the king that the military needed reform. Like the civil administration, the military organisation was simplified, via the creation of a Prussian ministry of war and of an army staff on 25 December 1808. Scharnhorst was at the head of the new ministry and he aimed his reforms at removing the obstacles between army and society and at making the army ground itself in the citizens' patriotism.
Military service
The experiences of 1806 showed that the old organisation of the Prussian army was no longer a match for the might of the French army. Compared to the French defensive tactics, Prussian tactics were too immobile. Its officers treated their soldiers as objects and punished them severely – one of the most severe punishments, the ''Spießrutenlaufen'', consisted of making a soldier pass between two ranks of men and be beaten by them. The French instead had compulsory military service and the Prussian army's adoption of it was the centre of Prussia's military reforms.
Frederick William III hesitated about the military reforms, the officer corps and nobility resisted them and even the bourgeoisie remained sceptical. The start of the German campaign of 1813
The German campaign (german: Befreiungskriege , lit=Wars of Liberation ) was fought in 1813. Members of the Sixth Coalition, including the German states of Austria and Prussia, plus Russia and Sweden, fought a series of battles in Germany ag ...
was the key factor. On 9 February 1813 a decree replaced the previous conscription system with an obligation to serve by canton (''Kantonpflichtigkeit''), and this new system had to last for the whole war. Thus it looked to restore the pride and position of the common soldier in adapting army discipline to civil law. The punishments and in particular the 'schlague' (consisting of a soldier being beaten) were abolished. The social differences had to disappear. The Treaty of Tilsit had reduced the Prussian army to 42,000 men, but Scharnhorst put in place the "Krümper system", which consisted of training a number of soldiers in rotation without ever exceeding the numbers authorised by the Treaty. Between 30,000 and 150,000 supplementary men were also trained – the training system changed several times and so it is difficult to work out precise numbers. Compulsory military service was ordered by Frederick William III on 27 May 1814 then fixed by a military law on 3 September the same year:
Other
The officer corps was also reformed and the majority of officers dismissed. The nobility's privilege was abolished and a career as an officer was opened up to the bourgeois. The aristocrats disliked this and protested, as withLudwig Yorck von Wartenburg
Johann David Ludwig Graf Yorck von Wartenburg (born von Yorck; 26 September 1759 – 4 October 1830) was a Prussian '' Generalfeldmarschall'' instrumental in the switching of the Kingdom of Prussia from a French alliance to a Russian allia ...
. In practice a system of co-opting of officers was put in place which generally favoured the nobility, even if there remained some (albeit minor) bourgeois influence. Starting with the regiment of chasseurs on campaign, chasseur and protection units were set up. It was Yorck von Wartenburg
''Yorck'' is a 1931 German war film directed by Gustav Ucicky and starring Werner Krauss, Grete Mosheim and Rudolf Forster.Noack p.59 It portrays the life of the Prussian General Ludwig Yorck von Wartenburg, particularly his refusal to serve in ...
who from June 1808 occupied on their training. In the officer corps, it was now the terms of service not the number of years served which determined promotion. The Prussian Academy of War also provided better officer training than before – dissolved after the defeat at Jena, it had been refounded in 1810 by Scharnhorst.
Starting in 1813–1814 with the line infantry troops, we also see the Landwehr, which served as reserve troops to defend Prussia itself. It was independent in organisation and had its own units and its own officers. In the ''Kreise'' (districts), commissions organised troops in which the bourgeois could become officers. The reformers' idea of unifying the people and the army seems to have succeeded. Volunteer chasseur detachments (''freiwillige Jägerdetachements'') were also formed as reinforcements.
Main leaders
The reforms are sometimes named after their leaders Stein and Hardenberg, but they were also the fruit of a collaboration between experts, each with his own speciality. One of these experts was Heinrich Theodor von Schön – born in 1773, he had studied law at Königsberg university to follow a career in political sciences. In 1793 he entered Prussian service. Nine years later, he became financial councillor to the ''Generaldirektorium''. When the Prussian government fled to Königsberg
Königsberg (, ) was the historic Prussian city that is now Kaliningrad, Russia. Königsberg was founded in 1255 on the site of the ancient Old Prussian settlement ''Twangste'' by the Teutonic Knights during the Northern Crusades, and was ...
after its defeat at Jena
Jena () is a German city and the second largest city in Thuringia. Together with the nearby cities of Erfurt and Weimar, it forms the central metropolitan area of Thuringia with approximately 500,000 inhabitants, while the city itself has a po ...
, he followed Stein there. It was there that he brought to bear his expertise on serfdom
Serfdom was the status of many peasants under feudalism, specifically relating to manorialism, and similar systems. It was a condition of debt bondage and indentured servitude with similarities to and differences from slavery, which develop ...
and it was his treatise that would help Stein write the October edict. Unlike Stein, Schön backed a greater liberalisation of landowning – for him, economic profitability had to take first priority, even if this was to the peasants' disadvantage. From 1816, Schön became ''Oberpräsident'', a post he held for around 40 years, and devoted himself to the economic and social life of the provinces which he governed.
Schön also took part in editing the ''Rigaer Denkschrift''. In 1806 he travelled with a group of civil servants that had gathered around the just-dismissed Hardenberg – the group also included Karl vom Stein zum Altenstein, Friedrich August von Stägemann and Barthold Georg Niebuhr
Barthold Georg Niebuhr (27 August 1776 – 2 January 1831) was a Danish–German statesman, banker, and historian who became Germany's leading historian of Ancient Rome and a founding father of modern scholarly historiography. By 1810 Niebuhr wa ...
. Niebuhr had studied law, philosophy and history at the university of Kiel between 1794 and 1796. In 1804 he was made head of the Danish national bank. His reputation as a financial expert quickly spread to Prussia. On 19 June 1806, Niebuhr and his family left for Riga with other civil servants to work with Hardenberg when he was dismissed. On 11 December 1809, he was made financial councillor and section chief for state debt. In 1810, he edited a note to the king in which he expressed strong doubts on whether a financial plan put in place by Hardenberg could be realised. Its tone he employed was so strong that the king disavowed him and so Niebuhr retired from politics.
The three other civil servants present at Riga – Karl vom Stein zum Altenstein, Wilhelm Anton von Klewitz and Friedrich August von Stägemann – also played important rôles in the reforms. Altenstein became high financial councillor in the ''Generaldirektorium''. When Stein was dismissed in 1807, Altenstein and the minister of finances Friedrich Ferdinand Alexander zu Dohna-Schlobitten put in place the state reform conceived by Stein. In 1810, Klewitz and Theodor von Schön edited the ''Verordnung über die veränderte Staatsverfassung aller obersten Staatsbehörden'' (''Decree on the new constitution of all the high portfolios of state''). Other collaborators took part in the reforms, such as Johann Gottfried Frey (chief of police in Königsberg
Königsberg (, ) was the historic Prussian city that is now Kaliningrad, Russia. Königsberg was founded in 1255 on the site of the ancient Old Prussian settlement ''Twangste'' by the Teutonic Knights during the Northern Crusades, and was ...
and the real author of the ''Städteordnung''), Friedrich Leopold Reichsfreiherr von Schrötter (who collaborated with Stein on the ''Städteordnung''), Christian Peter Wilhelm Beuth (in Prussian service since 1801, who had collaborated with Hardenberg on the fiscal and industrial laws) and Christian Friedrich Scharnweber (who had some influence on Hardenberg).
Resurgence of Prussia
From 1806 onwards isolated uprisings occurred in Germany and the German-speaking countries. On 26 August 1806 the bookseller Johann Philipp Palm
Johann Philipp Palm or Johannes Philipp Palm (17 December 1768 – 26 August 1806) was a German bookseller and a strong anti-French agitator and freedom fighter executed during the Napoleonic Wars at Napoleon's orders.
He was born at Schorndo ...
was shot for publishing an anti-Napoleon pamphlet, to a strong public outcry. In 1809, Andreas Hofer launched an insurrection in the Tyrol, but met the same fate as Palm. Anti-Napoleonic feeling developed little by little, with Germans feeling their spirits weighed down by the French occupation and Prussia still paying huge indemnities to the French. When Napoleon's 1812 invasion of Russia met with disaster, it lit a glimmer of hope in Germany and above all in Prussia. On 30 December 1812, Yorck von Wartenburg
''Yorck'' is a 1931 German war film directed by Gustav Ucicky and starring Werner Krauss, Grete Mosheim and Rudolf Forster.Noack p.59 It portrays the life of the Prussian General Ludwig Yorck von Wartenburg, particularly his refusal to serve in ...
signed the convention of Tauroggen, by which Prussia in effect turned against Napoleon and repudiated the Treaty of Tilsit.
On 13 March 1813 Frederick William III made his 'An Mein Volk
The proclamation ''An Mein Volk'' ("To my People") was issued by King Frederick William III of Prussia on 17 March 1813 in Breslau (present-day Wrocław, Poland). Addressed to his subjects, ''Preußen und Deutsche'' ("Prussians and Germans" &mdash ...
' speech, making an appeal:
The following 27 March Prussia declared war on France and the following 16–19 October saw the beginning of the end for Napoleonic power with the battle of Leipzig
The Battle of Leipzig (french: Bataille de Leipsick; german: Völkerschlacht bei Leipzig, ); sv, Slaget vid Leipzig), also known as the Battle of the Nations (french: Bataille des Nations; russian: Битва народов, translit=Bitva ...
. On 1 October 1815 the Congress of Vienna opened and at it Harbenberg represented the victorious Kingdom of Prussia.
Historiography
Early analyses
In late 19th century historiography, the Prussian reforms and the " revolution from above" were considered by Heinrich von Treitschke and others to be the first step in the foundation of the German Empire
The German Empire (),Herbert Tuttle wrote in September 1881 that the term "Reich" does not literally connote an empire as has been commonly assumed by English-speaking people. The term literally denotes an empire – particularly a hereditary ...
on the basis of a 'small-Germany' solution. For Friedrich Meinecke
Friedrich Meinecke (October 20, 1862 – February 6, 1954) was a German historian, with national liberal and anti-Semitic views, who supported the Nazi invasion of Poland. After World War II, as a representative of an older tradition, he crit ...
, the reforms put in place the conditions necessary for the future evolution of Prussia and Germany. For a long time, under the influence of Leopold von Ranke
Leopold von Ranke (; 21 December 1795 – 23 May 1886) was a German historian and a founder of modern source-based history. He was able to implement the seminar teaching method in his classroom and focused on archival research and the analysis ...
, the era of reforms was presented first and foremost as a story of the deeds and destinies of "great men", as shown by the large number of biographies written about the reformers – Hans Delbrück wrote about Gneisenau and Meinecke about Boyen, for example.
Indeed, it was the military reforms which first gained the researchers' interest. It was only with the biography of Max Lehmann that Stein's life and actions were analysed. Unlike Stein, the biographers paid little attention to Hardenberg. Despite the significant differences between Stein and Hardenberg, historiography saw a fundamental continuity between their approaches that made them one single unified policy.
Some authors, such as Otto Hintze, underlined the role of reform programmes such as the ''General State Laws'' of 1794. One such continuity confirmed the theory that the reformers were already a distinct group before the reforms occurred. Thomas Nipperdey
Thomas Nipperdey (27 October 1927, Cologne – 14 June 1992, Munich) was a German historian best known for his monumental and exhaustive studies of Germany from 1800 to 1918. As a critical follower of Leopold von Ranke's famous ideal of writing ...
resumed the debate by writing that there had been reform plans before the disaster of 1806, but that those behind them had lacked the energy to put them into force and also lacked internal cohesion. As for the agricultural reforms, the works of Georg Friedrich Knapp aroused a controversy at the end of the 19th century – he criticised the reform policy, stating that it favoured the aristocrats' interests and not the peasants' interests. He held Adam Smith's liberal interest responsible for the evolution of certain problems. Research later led to a global critique which could not be maintained. After all, the peasants' properties were developed, even if the lands they gained were most often revealed to be poor soil.
Nuances in criticism
Today, the industrial reforms' success is also critiqued in a more nuanced way. They are considered not to have been the immediate reason for the artisans' misery, instead taken as the reduced influence of the legislation on their development. The German historian Barbara Vogel tried to address an overall concept of agricultural and industrial approaches and to describe them as a "bureaucratic strategy of modernisation". When industrial development was taken into account, the policy of reforms is seen to certainly be centred on the encouragement of rural industry in the historic Prussian territories, thus allowing the onset of Prussia's industrial revolution
The Industrial Revolution was the transition to new manufacturing processes in Great Britain, continental Europe, and the United States, that occurred during the period from around 1760 to about 1820–1840. This transition included going f ...
.
Reinhart Koselleck tried to give a general interpretation of the reform policy in view of the 1848 revolution, in his work ''Preußen zwischen Reform und Revolution'' (''Prussia between Reform and Revolution''). He distinguished three different processes. The ''General State Laws'' represented – at the time of its publication – a reaction to social problems, but remained attached to corporative elements. Koselleck saw the birth of an administrative state during the reform era and during the reinforcement of the administration between 1815 and 1825 as an anticipation of the later constitution. However, in his view, the following decades saw the political and social movement suppressed by the bureaucracy. After the end of the reform period, Koselleck underlined that there was a rupture in the equilibrium between the high level civil servants and the bourgeois of the 'Bildungsbürgertum' who could not become civil servants. According to him, the bureaucracy represented the general interest against the individual interest and no national representative body was set up for fear of seeing the reforming movement stopped.
The historian Hans Rosenberg
Hans Rosenberg (February 26, 1904–June 26, 1988) was a German refugee historian whose works influenced a whole generation of post-war German scholars.
Life
Rosenberg was born in Hannover. Though of Jewish ancestry, he was raised as a Prote ...
and later the representatives of the Bielefeld School
The Bielefeld School is a group of German historians based originally at Bielefeld University who promote social history and political history using quantification and the methods of political science and sociology.Lorenz, Chris "Wehler, Hans-Ul ...
supported the theory that the end of the process which would have led to a constitution in Prussia was one of the reasons for the end to its democratisation and for the ''Sonderweg
(, "special path") refers to the theory in German historiography that considers the German-speaking lands or the country of Germany itself to have followed a course from aristocracy to democracy unlike any other in Europe.
The modern school of ...
''. Hans-Jürgen Puhle, professor at Frankfurt University, even held the Prussian regime to be "in the long term programmed for its own destruction". Other writers more orientated towards historicism
Historicism is an approach to explaining the existence of phenomena, especially social and cultural practices (including ideas and beliefs), by studying their history, that is, by studying the process by which they came about. The term is widely ...
such as Thomas Nipperdey
Thomas Nipperdey (27 October 1927, Cologne – 14 June 1992, Munich) was a German historian best known for his monumental and exhaustive studies of Germany from 1800 to 1918. As a critical follower of Leopold von Ranke's famous ideal of writing ...
underlined the divergence between the reformers' intentions and the unexpected later results of the reforms.
Several decades ago, the Prussian reforms from 1807 to 1819 lost their central position in historical study of 19th-century Germany. One contributing factor to this decline was that the reforms in the states of the Confederation of the Rhine were considered similar by several historians. Another is that the Prussian regions – dynamic in industry and society – belonged to the French sphere of influence directly or indirectly until the end of the Napoleonic era
The Napoleonic era is a period in the history of France and Europe. It is generally classified as including the fourth and final stage of the French Revolution, the first being the National Assembly, the second being the Legislativ ...
.
Memorials to the reformers
Statues
Several statues of the reformers were set up, especially of Stein. In 1870 a statue of Stein by Hermann Schievelbein was put up on the in Berlin. Around its base can be read "To minister Baron vom Stein. The recognition of the fatherland.". A statue of Hardenberg by was also erected beside it in 1907. Stein's statue now stands in front of theLandtag of Prussia
The Landtag of Prussia (german: Preußischer Landtag) was the representative assembly of the Kingdom of Prussia implemented in 1849, a bicameral legislature consisting of the upper House of Lords (''Herrenhaus'') and the lower House of Represe ...
in Berlin.
Cologne memorial
One of the most important monuments to the reformers is that in the Heumarkt inCologne
Cologne ( ; german: Köln ; ksh, Kölle ) is the largest city of the German western state of North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) and the fourth-most populous city of Germany with 1.1 million inhabitants in the city proper and 3.6 millio ...
, made up of an equestrian statue of Frederick William III by Gustav Blaeser on a base surrounded by statues of important figures of the era, including several Prussian reformers: Stein, Hardenberg, Gneisenau, Scharnhorst, Humboldt, Schön, Niebuhr and Beuth. The monument's design process had been launched in 1857 and it was inaugurated on 26 September 1878, with a medal marking the occasion bearing William I of Germany and his wife on the obverse and the monument and the phrase "To king Frederick William III, the Rhine states recognise him" on the reverse. The monument recalled the Berlin equestrian statue of Frederick the Great, designed by Christian Daniel Rauch
Christian Daniel Rauch (2 January 1777 – 3 December 1857) was a German sculptor. He founded the Berlin school of sculpture, and was the foremost German sculptor of the 19th century.
Life
Rauch was born at Arolsen in the Principality of ...
, master of Blaeser.
Other
Stein featured on commemorative stamps in 1957 and 2007 and Humboldt in 1952, whilst several streets are now named after the reformers, especially in Berlin, which has a Humboldtstraße, a Hardenbergstraße, a Freiherr-vom-Stein-Straße, a Niebuhrstraße, a Gneisenaustraße and a Scharnhorststraße.Further reading
History of Prussia
* Jean Paul Bled, ''Histoire de la Prusse'' (History of Prussia), Fayard, 2007 * Otto Büsch/Wolfgang Neugebauer (Bearb. u. Hg.): ''Moderne Preußische Geschichte 1648–1947. Eine Anthologie'', 3 volumes, Walter de Gruyter, Berlin, New York, 1981 * Wolfgang Neugebauer, ''Die Geschichte Preußens. Von den Anfängen bis 1947'', Piper, Munich, 2006 * Thomas Nipperdey, ''Deutsche Geschichte 1800–1866. Bürgerwelt und starker Staat'', Munich, 1998 * Eberhard Straub, ''Eine kleine Geschichte Preußens'', Siedler, Berlin, 2001,Reforms
* Christopher Clark, ''Iron Kingdom – The Rise and Downfall of Prussia, 1600–1947'', London, 2006, chapters 9 to 12, pp. 284 to 435 * Marion W. Gray, ''Prussia in Transition. Society and politics under the Stein Reform Ministry of 1808'', Philadelphia, 1986 * René Bouvier, ''Le redressement de la Prusse après Iéna'', Sorlot, 1941 * Godefroy Cavaignac, ''La Formation de la Prusse contemporaine (1806–1813). 1. Les Origines – Le Ministère de Stein, 1806–1808'', Paris, 1891 * Gordon A. Craig, ''Das Scheitern der Reform: Stein und Marwitz. In: Das Ende Preußens. Acht Porträts''. 2. Auflage. Beck, München 2001, pp. 13–38 * Walther Hubatsch, ''Die Stein-Hardenbergschen Reformen''. Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1989 * Paul Nolte, ''Staatsbildung und Gesellschaftsreform. Politische Reformen in Preußen und den süddeutschen Staaten 1800–1820'', Frankfurt/New York, Campus-Verlag, 1990 * Maurice Poizat, ''Les Réformes de Stein et de Hardenberg et la Féodalité en Prusse au commencement du XIXe siecle'', thèse pour le doctorat, Faculté de Droit, Paris, 1901 * Barbara Vogel, ''Preußische Reformen 1807–1820'', Königstein, 1980Aspects of the reforms
* Christof Dipper, ''Die Bauernbefreiung in Deutschland 1790–1850'', Stuttgart, 1980 * Georg Friedrich Knapp, ''Die Bauernbefreiung und der Ursprung der Landarbeiter in den älteren Teilen Preußens T. 1: Überblick der Entwicklung'', Leipzig, 1887 * Clemens Menze, ''Die Bildungsreform Wilhelm von Humboldts'', Hannover, 1975 * Wilhelm Ribhegge, ''Preussen im Westen. Kampf um den Parlamentarismus in Rheinland und Westfalen''. Münster, 2008 * Hans-Ulrich Wehler, ''Deutsche Gesellschaftsgeschichte. Erster Band: Vom Feudalismus des alten Reiches bis zur defensiven Modernisierung der Reformära''. 1700–1815. München: C.H. Beck, 1987 * Theodor Winkler/Hans Rothfels, ''Johann Gottfried Frey und die Enstehung der preussischen Selbstverwaltung'',Kohlhammer Verlag
W. Kohlhammer Verlag GmbH, or Kohlhammer Verlag, is a German publishing house headquartered in Stuttgart.
History
Kohlhammer Verlag was founded in Stuttgart on 30 April 1866 by . Kohlhammer had taken over the businesses of his late father-in-l ...
, 1957
Notes
References
Bibliography
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Richter, Hedwig (2017): Moderne Wahlen. Eine Geschichte der Demokratie in Preußen und den USA im 19. Jahrhundert. Hamburg: Hamburger Edition. * * * * * * * *External links
Life and work of Baron vom Stein
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Prussian Reform Movement (1806-1815) 1810s in Prussia Politics of Prussia Economy of Prussia Reform in Germany