WILFRID LAURIER UNIVERSITY
 Department of History

 HI 210: GERMAN HISTORY, 1648-1871

The 1850s: Decade of Reaction and the New Era

1.  The Historical Significance of 1848
     - Did the revolution “fail to turn”?
     - The “Sonderweg”: 1848 to 1933
     - The 1848 Liberal-democratic agendas
     - Otto von Bismarck and the “Lesson of 1848"

2.  Post-Revolutionary Reaction, 1849-1858
     - No turning back the clock to pre-1848 time
     - Institutions of Reaction: the courts and the nobility
     - Instruments of Reaction: bureaucracy, police, army
     - The “carrot and the stick” of pacification
     - What about the liberals: who were they and how did they “react to the reaction”?

3.  Socioeconomic Developments and the Liberal Challenge
     - The industrial “take-off”
     - Social stratification and the “new” class society
     - The liberal challenge and the New Era
_____________________________________________________________________________
- A.J.P Taylor  (The Course of German History, 1946)
- L.B. Namier ( “the revolution of the intellectuals”)
- Socialism (Karl Marx, Communist Manifesto, 1848)                                                                   

- Heinrich von Gagern
- Landrat (district magistrate)
- Junkers
- Police Association ( of the larger German states)
- The Prussian three-class franchise (1850-1918): tax group I:4.7%; II:12.6%; III:82.7%

- Krupp works (re: Ruhr industrial complex)
- Zollverein
- The D-Banks
- Bildungsbuergertum
- National Association
- German Reform Association
- Progressive Party