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The South German Customs Union () was an attempt by various states in the
German Confederation The German Confederation ( ) 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, which had been dissolved ...
to create a unified
customs area Customs is an authority or Government agency, agency in a country responsible for collecting tariffs and for controlling International trade, the flow of goods, including animals, transports, personal effects, and hazardous items, into and out ...
, in the early stages of
German unification The unification of Germany (, ) was a process of building the first nation-state for Germans with federal features based on the concept of Lesser Germany (one without Habsburgs' multi-ethnic Austria or its German-speaking part). It commenced ...
. After several failed attempts to bring in other states, a customs treaty was agreed between the
Kingdom of Bavaria The Kingdom of Bavaria ( ; ; spelled ''Baiern'' until 1825) was a German state that succeeded the former Electorate of Bavaria in 1806 and continued to exist until 1918. With the unification of Germany into the German Empire in 1871, the kingd ...
and the
Kingdom of Württemberg The Kingdom of Württemberg ( ) was a German state that existed from 1806 to 1918, located within the area that is now Baden-Württemberg. The kingdom was a continuation of the Electorate of Württemberg, which existed from 1803 to 1806. Geogr ...
in 1828. It was incorporated into the Prussian-led ''
Zollverein The (), or German Customs Union, was a coalition of States of the German Confederation, German states formed to manage tariffs and economic policies within their territories. Organized by the 1833 treaties, it formally started on 1 January 1 ...
'' in 1834.


First negotiation in 1820

On 19 May 1820, the south German states of
Baden Baden (; ) is a historical territory in southern Germany. In earlier times it was considered to be on both sides of the Upper Rhine, but since the Napoleonic Wars, it has been considered only East of the Rhine. History The margraves of Ba ...
, Bavaria,
Hesse-Darmstadt The Landgraviate of Hesse-Darmstadt () was a State of the Holy Roman Empire, ruled by a younger branch of the House of Hesse. It was formed in 1567 following the division of the Landgraviate of Hesse among the four sons of Landgrave Philip I. ...
, and Württemberg, along with some small
central German Central German or Middle German () is a group of High German languages spoken from the Rhineland in the west to the former eastern territories of Germany. Central German divides into two subgroups, West Central German and East Central Ger ...
states signed the Vienna Punctation, a declaration of intent, in which they obliged themselves to negotiate the establishment of a customs union. These negotiations took place in September of the same year in
Darmstadt Darmstadt () is a city in the States of Germany, state of Hesse in Germany, located in the southern part of the Frankfurt Rhine Main Area, Rhine-Main-Area (Frankfurt Metropolitan Region). Darmstadt has around 160,000 inhabitants, making it the ...
. However, in these negotiations, it became clear that the interests of the different states differed greatly. Bavaria and Württemberg pushed for a protectionist union with high external tariffs, while Baden, Nassau, and Hesse-Darmstadt wanted a
free trade Free trade is a trade policy that does not restrict imports or exports. In government, free trade is predominantly advocated by political parties that hold Economic liberalism, economically liberal positions, while economic nationalist politica ...
agreement. The only thing that all states were in agreement on was their fear of political and economic dominance by
Prussia Prussia (; ; Old Prussian: ''Prūsija'') was a Germans, German state centred on the North European Plain that originated from the 1525 secularization of the Prussia (region), Prussian part of the State of the Teutonic Order. For centuries, ...
. At the end of November 1820, the Badian civil servant and economist Karl Friedrich Nebenius presented a draft treaty to serve as a basis for negotiations. Due to various geographic and economic factors, no agreement was reached. Nebenius' draft proposed that the total income from tolls by divided between member states on the basis of their population and the length of their borders, which clearly favoured Baden. Bavaria, the largest state by area, responded by pushing for division on the basis of population and area. Another point of contention was where the toll would be levied. The greatest obstacle of all, however, was the divergent economic interests of the participating states. The states on the
Rhine The Rhine ( ) is one of the List of rivers of Europe, major rivers in Europe. The river begins in the Swiss canton of Graubünden in the southeastern Swiss Alps. It forms part of the Swiss-Liechtenstein border, then part of the Austria–Swit ...
were interested in free trade policies as a natural result of their geographic situation, while states that were not on key internal trade routes had an interest in high, protective tariffs, so that their local industries, which had supplied their local markets without problem up to this point, would not be threatened. Added to this was the "Sponheim question", a conflict between Bavaria and Baden over territories that had been divided between them in the Palatinate, which strained the relationship between the two states. As negotiations had become totally bogged down, the Hessian hosts of the meeting ended their participation on 3 July 1823, in favour of modernising their own customs system, since they no longer believed that an interstate agreement was likely to be agreed. The negotiations finally failed when the small
Thuringia Thuringia (; officially the Free State of Thuringia, ) is one of Germany, Germany's 16 States of Germany, states. With 2.1 million people, it is 12th-largest by population, and with 16,171 square kilometers, it is 11th-largest in area. Er ...
n states agreed the Treaty of Arnstadt amongst themselves in December 1822, seeking first to unify themselves, before engaging with larger projects. In the following period, there were several bilateral agreements. For example, Hesse-Darmstadt and Baden agreed a trade treaty on 10 September 1824 (although this did not last long). It provided for customs-free, low-tariff trade in various products and provided for further revision of the customs law. These efforts led most states to consider making another attempt at forming a customs union.


Second negotiation in 1825

Bavaria and Württemberg agreed a shared proposal in October 1824 and in November of the same year Hesse-Darmstadt and Baden agreed a shared procedure in the Heidelberg protocol. In general, the states had learnt from the earlier negotiations in Darmstadt and were prepared to compromise. Thus, new negotiations began in February 1825 in
Stuttgart Stuttgart (; ; Swabian German, Swabian: ; Alemannic German, Alemannic: ; Italian language, Italian: ; ) is the capital city, capital and List of cities in Baden-Württemberg by population, largest city of the States of Germany, German state of ...
on a South German Customs Union between Baden, Bavaria, Hesse-Darmstadt, Nassau, and Württemberg. However, once more there was no agreement on tariff policy. The relationship between Baden and Bavaria was still so fraught as a result of the Sponheim Question, that an agreement between these two rivals was not a possibility. Baden abandoned the Stuttgart conference on 6 August 1825, Nassau and Hesse-Darmstadt followed shortly thereafter. The changes made to the Badian customs system when it was realised that the Stuttgart conference would collapse led the Hessian government to cancel their agreement with Hesse at the beginning of 1826 and found the
Prussian-Hessian Customs Union The Prussian-Hessian Customs Union () was a customs union between the Kingdom of Prussia and the Grand Duchy of Hesse that was established in 1828. Several other states joined over the following years, most notably the Electorate of Hesse. The unio ...
instead. Nevertheless, this conference further deepened the efforts to unify the customs systems of Bavaria and Württemberg. Thus, on 12 April 1827, another preliminary treaty was agreed. The government of Baden, Hesse-Darmstadt, and Nassau were invited to join, but refused. After this, Bavaria and Württemberg signed the treaty founding the South German Customs Union on 18 January 1828. From 20 December 1829, the
Circle of the Rhine The Circle of the Rhine or Rhine Circle (), sometimes the Bavarian ( or ), was the name given to the territory on the west bank of the Rhine from 1816 to 1837 which was one of 15 (later 8) administrative districts of the Kingdom of Bavaria. Befo ...
(the large Bavarian exclave on the Rhine), was completely integrated into the South German Customs Union as well.


Provisions

The provisions of the South German Customs Union were as follows: * The toll stations on the shared borders were closed and all further tolls, both at the borders and at internal toll stations were paid into a shared account. * Both governments repealed regulations and treaties with states that did not belong to the union. * The profit from the tolls was divided between the states based on their population, which was determined by a full census every three years. * In each state, there was a single, independent customs administration and each of these had a permanent general plenipotentiary from the other state with clearly defined authority for inspections and investigations. * There was a unified administration for checking toll payments in both states. * The annual settlement took place between the customs administrations on the basis of monthly records. * General ordinances could only be made together, except in urgent cases. * Customs employees came under the exclusive oversight of their own state, but they were answerable to the union through a defined formula. * The costs of general administration, pensions, leave payments and other administrative costs were paid by the income of the Union. * Police jurisdiction over market visits, small-scale trade, and details of commercial privileges remained under the control of the individual state administrations. * Recouping the cost of all customs exemptions was the responsibility of the government that issued them. * All existing storage and packaging rights were abolished. For warehouses and customs offices, a maximum was set for each state and transgressions could be charged to the offending state. * Tolls on roads, waterways, bridges, , cranes, shipyards, and similar fees remained in private hands, but tolls on roads and waterways could never exceed 2 Pf. in a hundred. * Tolls on bridges and paved streets were never to be levied for profit. * Consumer contributions that were charged at specific internal points of use could be charged at the same amount by either state of the Union, even on objects of the same type which came from a country bordering the Union. * The (salt-mining right) was maintained in both states and special limitations on the importation and transport of salt were introduced. * For the discussion of common affairs of the Union, there was an annual general congress, attended by two representatives of each state, with a rotating chair. This congress was tasked with agreeing necessary changes to the basic treaty, administrative organisation, customs ordinances, and tariff rates, with checking the administrative accounts, with establishing the total income, setting the budget, and resolving complaints and disputes. In the final case, the congress was the venue for concluding informed compromises. * Bavarian weights and measures were used as the basis for tariffs and tolls.


End of the Union

The South German Customs Union faced significant problems. 44% of its income was lost to administrative costs. The union's
per capita ''Per capita'' is a Latin phrase literally meaning "by heads" or "for each head", and idiomatically used to mean "per person". Social statistics The term is used in a wide variety of social science, social sciences and statistical research conte ...
income was only 9.5
Groschen Groschen (; from "thick", via Old Czech ') is the (sometimes colloquial) name for various coins, especially a silver coin used in parts of Europe including Kingdom of France, France, some of the Italian states, and various states of the Holy R ...
, while the Prussia-Hessian Customs Union made 24 Groschen per capita. The total area of the participating states was proved too small to sustain their own union. Since it was clear that there would be no union between Austria and Prussia, Bavaria and Württemberg had to choose one of them as a partner. Since Austria could not give up its own closed system, joining Prussia was the only remaining option. Therefore, Bavaria and Württemberg signed a treaty uniting their customs union with that of Prussia and Hesse-Darmstadt on 22 March 1833. On 1 January 1834, the treaty came into effect and the new
German Customs Union 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 ...
(the ''Zollverein'') was formed. The South German Customs Union was responsible for the introduction of the systematic census. It also played a role in the unification of German weights and measures, a process which the German Customs Union of 1834 brought to completion.


References


Bibliography

* * (Zugleich: Frankfurt am Main, Univ., Diss., 1982). * C. F. Nebenius: ''Denkschrift für den Beitritt Badens zu dem zwischen Preußen, Bayern, Würtemberg, den beiden Hessen und mehren andern deutschen Staaten abgeschlossenen Zollverein.'' C. F. Müller, Karlsruhe 1833. *
Heinrich von Treitschke Heinrich Gotthard von Treitschke (; 15 September 1834 – 28 April 1896) was a German historian, political writer and National Liberal member of the Reichstag during the time of the German Empire. He was an extreme nationalist, who favored Ger ...
: ''Die Gründung des Deutschen Zollvereins''. Voigtländer, Leipzig 1913 * *


External links


Süddeutscher Zollverein auf HGIS Germany
{{DEFAULTSORT:Suddeutscher Zollverein 1828 establishments in the German Confederation Customs unions Kingdom of Württemberg Kingdom of Bavaria 1834 disestablishments in the German Confederation