Information about Greater Germany

This article is part of the series: Territorial changes of Germany History of Germany
Background
German settlement in Eastern Europe
Unification of Germany
World War I
Treaty of Versailles
Silesian Uprisings
Polish corridor
Interbellum
Return of the Saar region
Rhineland Remilitarization
Anschluss (Austria)
Munich Agreement
World War II
Grodeutschland
Polish areas annexed by Nazi Germany
Yalta Conference
Potsdam Conference
Post-World War II
Former eastern territories of Germany
Territorial changes & Oder-Neisse line
Treaty of Zgorzelec (1950)
Treaty of Warsaw (1970)
Treaty of Prague (1973)
4+2 Treaty (1990)
German-Polish Border Treaty (1990)
See also
Territorial changes of Poland
Recovered Territories

Großdeutschland (German for "Greater Germany" or "Large Germany") is a term referring to the concept of one German nation-state. The counter-concept is known as Kleindeutschland ("Lesser Germany", "Small Germany", or "Little Germany").

History

In the 19th century, Großdeutschland was the idea of a unified Germany including Austria, as opposed to the Prussian-promoted alternative of Kleindeutschland, which excluded Austria. With the foundation of the German Empire in 1871, which did not include Austria, the Kleindeutschland solution was put into practice.

Others proposed a unified Germany including all lands of the Austrian Empire. One of the main obstacles to this vision was the large Hungarian and Slavic component of the Austrian Empire (including Poles, Czechs, Slovaks, Rusyns, Ukrainians, Slovenians, Croatians, and Serbs) that had no desire to be united with the German speaking lands. For this reason, the liberals of 1848 proposed an alternative Großdeutschland vision which would include Austria proper, Bohemia-Moravia-Silesia and the Austrian Slovenian lands, but not the lands of the Kingdom of Hungary (Hungary and Croatia) or Galicia. However, this would have required the dismantling of the Austrian Empire, and the Czechs anyway rejected the idea.

After World War I, the Austrian National Assembly and the German National Assembly supported the unification of the successor-states of the two reichs, but this was prohibited by the Allies. In a reference to the earlier concept of Großdeutschland, after the Anschluss (attachment) of Austria to the Deutsches Reich (German Reich) in 1938, the state was first informally and from 1943 formally renamed to Großdeutsches Reich.

Initially, the movement can be understood as part of a more general nation-building process in Europe in the 19th and 20th centuries when the multi-national Austro-Hungarian, Russian, and Ottoman empires were replaced by nation-states. The German nation-building process can be compared to similar movements in Italy (Italia irredenta), Hungary, Serbia, and in pre-1914 Poland. A century later, with the Nazi movement in power, it became a propaganda screen to dominate other, non-German countries.

Creating a German national state integrating the German-speaking territories in Austria, i.e. Großdeutschland, was also an attempt to balance the power of the authoritarian Prussian monarchy within a future Germany by a larger weight of the more liberally-minded South German states. In fact, the large weight of Prussia within Germany became a political problem for all German governments up to 1933.

Großdeutschland became a reality after the Anschluss with Austria by Nazi Germany in 1938. During the war, Nazi Germany directly annexed Alsace-Lorraine and Eupen-Malmedy which were lost in 1919 but also took over Luxembourg, the Sudentenland portions of the present-day Czech Republic, and large parts of Poland. The areas annexed by German were considered part of a Greater German state, in contrast to parts of Poland under the General Government and the Protectorate of Bohemia-Moravia, both of which were German controlled, but not part of Greater Germany. This came to an end with the Surrender of Germany to the Allies in 1945.

Because of its association with Nazi Germany there are no mainstream political groups in Austria or Germany that endorse the concept of Greater Germany today, and those that do are considered Fascist or Neo-Nazi.

The idea of Großdeutschland translates the idea of nationality based on a common culture and language, contrary to the idea of nationality based on the birth on the national territory, such as in France.

Nazi propaganda poster

National assembly meeting in St. Paul's Church, 1848/49

Germany's way to "Greater Germany" between 1937 and 1939 (Animation)

See also

References