The concept of Germany as a distinct region in central Europe can be traced to Roman commander Julius Caesar, who referred to the unconquered area east of the Rhine as ''Germania'', thus distinguishing it from Gaul (France), which he had conquered. The victory of the Germanic tribes in the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest (AD 9) prevented annexation by the Roman Empire. Following the fall of the Roman Empire, the Franks conquered the other West Germanic tribes. When the Frankish Empire was divided among Charlemagne's heirs in 843, the eastern part became East Francia. In 962, Otto I became the first emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, the medieval German state.

In the High Middle Ages, the dukes and princes of the empire gained power at the expense of the emperors. Martin Luther led the Protestant Reformation against the Catholic Church after 1517, as the northern states became Protestant, while the southern states remained Catholic. They clashed in the Thirty Years' War (1618–1648), which was ruinous to the twenty million civilians. 1648 marked the effective end of the Holy Roman Empire and the beginning of the modern nation-state system, with Germany divided into numerous independent states, such as Prussia, Bavaria and Saxony.

After the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars (1803–1815), feudalism fell away and liberalism and nationalism clashed with reaction. The 1848 March Revolution failed. The Industrial Revolution modernized the German economy, led to the rapid growth of cities and to the emergence of the Socialist movement in Germany. Prussia, with its capital Berlin, grew in power. German universities became world-class centers for science and the humanities, while music and the arts flourished. Unification was achieved with the formation of the German Empire in 1871 under the leadership of Prussian Chancellor Otto von Bismarck. The Reichstag, an elected parliament, had only a limited role in the imperial government.

By 1900, Germany's economy matched Britain's, allowing colonial expansion and a naval race. Germany led the Central Powers in the First World War (1914–1918) against France, Great Britain, Russia and (by 1917) the United States. Defeated and partly occupied, Germany was forced to pay war reparations by the Treaty of Versailles and was stripped of its colonies as well as Polish areas and Alsace-Lorraine. The German Revolution of 1918–19 deposed the emperor and the kings, leading to the establishment of the Weimar Republic, an unstable parliamentary democracy.

In the early 1930s, the worldwide Great Depression hit Germany hard, as unemployment soared and people lost confidence in the government. In 1933, the Nazis under Adolf Hitler came to power and established a totalitarian regime. Political opponents were killed or imprisoned. Nazi Germany's aggressive foreign policy took control of Austria and parts of Czechoslovakia, and its invasion of Poland initiated the Second World War. After forming a pact with the Soviet Union in 1939, Hitler's blitzkrieg swept nearly all of Western Europe. In the Holocaust, the Jews in Germany and German-occupied areas, as well as eleven million Poles, Romanies, Slavs, Soviets, and others were systematically killed. In 1941, however, the German invasion of the Soviet Union failed, and after the United States entered the war, Britain became the base for massive Anglo-American bombings of German cities. Following the Allied invasion of Normandy, the German army was pushed back on all fronts until the final collapse in May 1945.

Under occupation by the Allies, German territories were split off, denazification took place, and the Cold War resulted in the division of the country into democratic West Germany and communist East Germany. Millions of ethnic Germans fled from Communist areas into West Germany, which experienced rapid economic expansion, and became the dominant economy in Western Europe. West Germany was rearmed in the 1950s under the auspices of NATO, but without access to nuclear weapons. The Franco-German friendship became the basis for the political integration of Western Europe in the European Union. In 1989, the Eastern bloc collapsed and East Germany was reunited with West Germany in 1990.

Germanic tribes 750BC-600AD

The ethnogenesis of the Germanic tribes is assumed to have occurred during the Nordic Bronze Age, or at the latest during the Pre-Roman Iron Age. From southern Scandinavia and northern Germany, the tribes began expanding south, east and west in the 1st century BC, coming into contact with the Celtic tribes of Gaul as well as Iranian, Baltic, and Slavic tribes in Eastern Europe.

Little is known about early Germanic history, except through their recorded interactions with the Roman Empire, etymological research and archaeological finds.

In the first years of the 1st century, Roman legions conducted a long campaign in Germania, the area north of the Upper Danube and east of the Rhine, in an attempt at a further major expansion of the Empire's frontiers, and a shortening of its frontier line. They subdued several Germanic tribes, such as the Cherusci. The tribes became familiar with Roman tactics of warfare while maintaining their tribal identity. Modern Germany, east of the Rhine remained outside the Roman Empire. By AD 100, the time of Tacitus' ''Germania'', Germanic tribes settled along the Rhine and the Danube (the Limes Germanicus), occupying most of the area of modern Germany; Austria, southern Bavaria and the western Rhineland, however, were Roman provinces. The 3rd century saw the emergence of a number of large West Germanic tribes: Alamanni, Franks, Chatti, Saxons, Frisii, Sicambri, and Thuringii. Around 260, the Germanic peoples broke through the Limes and the Danube frontier into Roman-controlled lands.

Since the 15th century German historians have celebrated the victory of Arminius, a chieftain of the Cherusci, who in 9 AD defeated a Roman army in the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest, as the birth of German history.

Seven large German-speaking tribes, the Visigoths, Ostrogoths, Vandals, Burgundians, Lombards, Saxons and the Franks moved west and took part in the transformation of the peoples of the old Western Roman Empire.

The Stem Duchies & Marches

The Stem Duchies (tribal duchies) in Germany was mainly the areas of the old German tribes of the region. These strains were originally the Franks, the Saxons, the Alemanni, the Burgundians, the Thuringians, and the Rugians. In the 5th Century the Burgundians moved into Roman territory and would have been in 443 and 458 in the area, then Lower Burgundy. The area they had occupied in Germany, along with the Saxons, was occupied by the Franks. The Rugians which Odoacer destroyed in 487 formed a new confederation of Germans in their place, the Bavarians. All of these strains in Germany were finally subdued by the Franks, the Alamanni in 496 and 505, the Thuringia in 531.

The Franks

The Merovingian kings of the Germanic Franks conquered northern Gaul in 486 AD. In the 5th and 6th centuries the Merovingian kings conquered several other Germanic tribes and kingdoms and placed them under the control of autonomous dukes of mixed Frankish and native blood. Frankish Colonists were encouraged to move to the newly conquered territories. While the local Germanic tribes were allowed to preserve their laws, they were pressured into becoming Christians.

Frankish Empire

After the fall of the Western Roman Empire the Franks created an empire under the Merovingian kings and subjugated the other Germanic tribes. Swabia became a duchy under the Frankish Empire in 496, following the Battle of Tolbiac. Already king Chlothar I ruled the greater part of what is now Germany and made expeditions into Saxony while the Southeast of modern Germany was still under influence of the Ostrogoths. In 531 Saxons and Franks destroyed the Kingdom of Thuringia. Saxons inhabit the area down to the Unstrut river.

During the partition of the Frankish empire their German territories were a part of Austrasia. In 718 the Franconian Mayor of the Palace Charles Martel made war against Saxony, because of its help for the Neustrians. The Franconian Carloman started in 743 a new war against Saxony, because the Saxons gave aid to Duke Odilo of Bavaria.

In 751 Pippin III, mayor of the palace under the Merovingian king, himself assumed the title of king and was anointed by the Church. The Frankish kings now set up as protectors of the pope, Charles the Great launched a decades-long military campaign against their heathen rivals, the Saxons and the Avars. The Saxons (by the Saxon Wars (772–804)) and Avars were eventually overwhelmed and forcibly converted, and their lands were annexed by the Carolingian Empire.

Middle Ages

After the death in 768 of the Frankish King Pepin the Short, his son Charles consolidated his control over his kingdom and became known as "Charles the Great" or "Charlemagne." From 771 until his death in 814, Charlemagne extended the Carolingian empire into northern Italy and the territories of all west Germanic peoples, including the Saxons and the Bajuwari (Bavarians). In 800, Charlemagne's authority was confirmed by his coronation as emperor in Rome. Imperial strongholds (''Kaiserpfalzen'') became economic and cultural centres, of which Aachen was the most famous.

Between 843 and 880, after fighting between Charlemagne's grandchildren, the Carolingian empire was partitioned into several parts in the Treaty of Verdun (843), the Treaty of Meerssen (870) and the Treaty of Ribemont. The German region developed out of the East Frankish kingdom, East Francia. From 919 to 936 the Germanic peoples (Franks, Saxons, Swabians and Bavarians) were united under Duke Henry of Saxony, who took the title of king. For the first time, the term Kingdom (Empire) of the Germans ("Regnum Teutonicorum") was applied to a Frankish kingdom, even though Teutonicorum at its founding originally meant something closer to "Realm of the Germanic peoples" or "Germanic Realm" than realm of the Germans.

Otto the Great

In 936, Otto I the Great was crowned at Aachen; his coronation by the Pope at Rome in 962 inaugurated the Holy Roman Empire, which comprised the German peoples. Otto strengthened the royal authority by re-asserting the old Carolingian rights over ecclesiastical appointments. Otto wrested from the nobles the powers of appointment of the bishops and abbots, who controlled large land holdings. Additionally, Otto revived the old Carolingian program of appointing missionaries in the border lands. Otto continued to support the celibacy rule for the higher clergy. Thus, the ecclesiastical appointments never became hereditary. By granting land to the abbotts and bishops he appointed, Otto actually made these bishops into "princes of the Empire" (''Reichsfürsten''). In this way, Otto was able to establish a national church. Outside threats to the kingdom were contained with the decisive defeat of the Magyars of Hungary at the Battle of Lechfeld in 955. The Slavs between the Elbe and the Oder rivers were also subjugated. Otto marched on Rome and drove John XII from the papal throne and for years controlled the election of the pope, setting a firm precedent for imperial control of the papacy for years to come.

During the reign of Conrad II's son, Henry III (1039 to 1056 ), the Holy Roman Empire supported the Cluniac reform of the Church - the Peace of God, the prohibition of simony (the purchase of clerical offices) and required the celibacy of priests. Imperial authority over the Pope reached its peak. In the Investiture Controversy which began between Henry IV and Pope Gregory VII over appointments to ecclesiastical offices, the emperor was compelled to submit to the Pope at Canossa in 1077, after having been excommunicated. In 1122 a temporary reconciliation was reached between Henry V and the Pope with the Concordat of Worms. The consequences of the investiture dispute were a weakening of the Ottonian church (''Reichskirche''), and a strengthening of the Imperial secular princes.

The time between 1096 and 1291 was the age of the crusades. Knightly religious orders were established, including the Templars, the Knights of St John and the Teutonic Order.

Towns and cities

The German lands had a population of about 5 or 6 million. The great majority were farmers, typically in a state of serfdom under the control of nobles and monasteries. A few towns were starting to emerge. From 1100, new towns were founded around imperial strongholds, castles, bishops' palaces and monasteries. The towns began to establish municipal rights and liberties (see German town law). Several cities such as Cologne became Imperial Free Cities, which did not depend on princes or bishops, but were immediately subject to the Emperor. The towns were ruled by patricians (merchants carrying on long-distance trade). The craftsmen formed guilds, governed by strict rules, which sought to obtain control of the towns; a few were open to women. Society was divided into sharply demarcated classes: the clergy, physicians, merchants, various guilds of artisans; full citizenship was not available to paupers. Political tensions arose from issues of taxation, public spending, regulation of business, and market supervision, as well as the limits of corporate autonomy.

Cologne's central location on the Rhine river placed it at the intersection of the major trade routes between east and west and was the basis of Cologne's growth. The economic structures of medieval and early modern Cologne were characterized by the city's status as a major harbor and transport hub upon the Rhine. It was the seat of the archbishops, who ruled the surrounding area and (from 1248 to 1880) built the great Cologne Cathedral, with sacred relics that made it the destination for many worshippers. By 1288 the city had secured its independence from the archbishop (who relocated to Bonn), and was ruled by its burghers.

Hanseatic League

Long-distance trade in the Baltic intensified, as the major trading towns came together in the Hanseatic League, under the leadership of Lübeck. thumb|Main trading routes of the Hanseatic League It was a business alliance of trading cities and their guilds that dominated trade along the coast of Northern Europe and flourished from the 1200 to 1500, and continued with lesser importance after that. The chief cities were Cologne on the Rhine River, Hamburg and Bremen on the North Sea, and Lübeck on the Baltic.

The Hanseatic cities each had its own legal system and a degree of political autonomy.

Eastward expansion

The German colonisation and the chartering of new towns and villages began into largely Slav-inhabited territories east of the Elbe, such as Bohemia, Silesia, Pomerania, and Livonia. Beginning in 1226, the Teutonic Knights began their conquest of Prussia. The native Baltic Prussians were conquered and Christianized by the Knights with much warfare, and numerous German towns were established along the eastern shore of the Baltic Sea.

Church and state

Henry V (1086–1125), great-grandson of Conrad II became Holy Roman Emperor in 1106 in the midst of a civil war. Hoping to gain complete control over the church inside the Empire, Henry V appointed Adalbert of Saarbruken as archbishop of Mainz in 1111 Adalbert began to assert the powers of the Church against secular authorities, that is, the Emperor. This precipitated the "Crisis of 1111", part of the long-term Investiture Controversy. In 1137 the magnates turned back to the Hohenstaufen family for a candidate, Conrad III. Conrad III tried to divest Henry the Proud of his two duchies, leading to war in southern Germany as the Empire divided into two factions. The first faction called themselves the "Welfs" after Henry the Proud's family name which was the ruling dynasty in Bavaria. The other faction was known as the "Waiblings." In this early period, the Welfs generally represented ecclesiastical independence under the papacy plus "particularism" (a strengthening of the local duchies against the central imperial authority). The Waiblings on the other hand stood for control of the Church by a strong central Imperial government.

Between 1152 and 1190, during the reign of Frederick I (Barbarossa), of the Hohenstaufen dynasty, an accommodation was reached with the rival Guelph party by the grant of the duchy of Bavaria to Henry the Lion, duke of Saxony. Austria became a separate duchy by virtue of the Privilegium Minus in 1156. Barbarossa tried to reassert his control over Italy. In 1177 a final reconciliation was reached between the emperor and the Pope in Venice.

In 1180 Henry the Lion was outlawed and Bavaria was given to Otto of Wittelsbach (founder of the Wittelsbach dynasty which was to rule Bavaria until 1918), while Saxony was divided.

From 1184 to 1186 the Hohenstaufen empire under Barbarossa reached its peak in the ''Reichsfest'' (imperial celebrations) held at Mainz and the marriage of his son Henry in Milan to the Norman princess Constance of Sicily. The power of the feudal lords was undermined by the appointment of "ministerials" (unfree servants of the Emperor) as officials. Chivalry and the court life flowered, leading to a development of German culture and literature (see Wolfram von Eschenbach).

Between 1212 and 1250 Frederick II established a modern, professionally administered state from his base in Sicily. He resumed the conquest of Italy, leading to further conflict with the Papacy. In the Empire, extensive sovereign powers were granted to ecclesiastical and secular princes, leading to the rise of independent territorial states. The struggle with the Pope sapped the Empire's strength, as Frederick II was excommunicated three times. After his death, the Hohenstaufen dynasty fell, followed by an interregnum during which there was no Emperor.

The failure of negotiations between Emperor Louis IV with the papacy led in 1338 to the declaration at Rhense by six electors to the effect that election by all or the majority of the electors automatically conferred the royal title and rule over the empire, without papal confirmation.

Between 1346 and 1378 Emperor Charles IV of Luxembourg, king of Bohemia, sought to restore the imperial authority.

Around 1350 Germany and almost the whole of Europe were ravaged by the Black Death. Jews were persecuted on religious and economic grounds; many fled to Poland.

The Golden Bull of 1356 stipulated that in future the emperor was to be chosen by four secular electors (the King of Bohemia, the Count Palatine of the Rhine, the Duke of Saxony, and the Margrave of Brandenburg) and three spiritual electors (the Archbishops of Mainz, Trier, and Cologne).

After the disasters of the 14th century, early-modern European society gradually came into being as a result of economic, religious and political changes. A money economy arose which provoked social discontent among knights and peasants. Gradually, a proto-capitalistic system evolved out of feudalism. The Fugger family gained prominence through commercial and financial activities and became financiers to both ecclesiastical and secular rulers.

The knightly classes found their monopoly on arms and military skill undermined by the introduction of mercenary armies and foot soldiers. Predatory activity by "robber knights" became common. From 1438 the Habsburgs, who controlled most of the southeast of the Empire (more or less modern-day Austria and Slovenia, and Bohemia and Moravia after the death of King Louis II in 1526), maintained a constant grip on the position of the Holy Roman Emperor until 1806 (with the exception of the years between 1742 and 1745). This situation, however, gave rise to increased disunity among the Holy Roman Empires territorial rulers and prevented sections of the country from coming together and forming nations in the manner of France and England.

During his reign from 1493 to 1519, Maximilian I tried to reform the Empire: an Imperial supreme court (''Reichskammergericht'') was established, imperial taxes were levied, the power of the Imperial Diet (''Reichstag'') was increased. The reforms were, however, frustrated by the continued territorial fragmentation of the Empire.

Science and culture

In the 12th century, German Benedictine abbess Hildegard von Bingen (1098–1179), who kept referring to herself being part of the "weaker sex", wrote several influential theological, botanical and medicinal texts, as well as letters, liturgical songs, poems, and arguably the oldest surviving morality play, while supervising brilliant miniature Illuminations. Ca. 100 years later, Walther von der Vogelweide (c. 1170-c. 1230) became the most celebrated of the Middle High German lyric poets. Around 1439, Johannes Gutenberg, a citizen of Mainz, was the first European to use movable type printing and became the global inventor of the printing press, thereby starting the Printing Revolution. Gutenberg's inventions and works (e.g. the Gutenberg Bible) would play key roles for the development of the Reformation and the Scientific Revolution. Around the transition from the 15th to the 16th century, Albrecht Dürer from Nuremberg established his reputation across Europe as painter, printmaker, mathematician, engraver, and theorist when he was still in his twenties and secured his reputation as one of the most important figures of the Northern Renaissance.

Early modern Germany

:''see List of states in the Holy Roman Empire for subdivisions and the political structure'' The German population reached about twenty million people; the great majority were peasant farmers.

Reformation

In the early 16th century there was much discontent occasioned by abuses such as indulgences in the Catholic Church, and a general desire for reform.

In 1517 the Reformation began with the publication of Martin Luther's 95 Theses; he had posted them in the town square, and gave copies of them to German nobles, but it is debated whether he nailed them to the church door in Wittenberg as is commonly said. The list detailed 95 assertions Luther believed to show corruption and misguidance within the Catholic Church. One often cited example, though perhaps not Luther's chief concern, is a condemnation of the selling of indulgences; another prominent point within the 95 Theses is Luther's disagreement both with the way in which the higher clergy, especially the pope, used and abused power, and with the very idea of the pope.

In 1521 Luther was outlawed at the Diet of Worms. But the Reformation spread rapidly, helped by the Emperor Charles V's wars with France and the Turks. Hiding in the Wartburg Castle, Luther translated the Bible from Latin to German, establishing the basis of the German language. A curious fact is that Luther spoke a dialect which had minor importance in the German language of that time. After the publication of his Bible, his dialect suppressed the others and evolved into what is now the modern German.

In 1524 the German Peasants' War broke out in Swabia, Franconia and Thuringia against ruling princes and lords, following the preachings of Reformist priests. But the revolts, which were assisted by war-experienced noblemen like Götz von Berlichingen and Florian Geyer (in Franconia), and by the theologian Thomas Münzer (in Thuringia), were soon repressed by the territorial princes. It is estimated that as many as 100,000 German peasants were massacred during the revolt, usually after the battles had ended. With the protestation of the Lutheran princes at the ''Reichstag'' of Speyer (1529) and rejection of the Lutheran "Augsburg Confession" at Augsburg (1530), a separate Lutheran church emerged.

From 1545 the Counter-Reformation began in Germany. The main force was provided by the Jesuit order, founded by the Spaniard Ignatius of Loyola. Central and northeastern Germany were by this time almost wholly Protestant, whereas western and southern Germany remained predominantly Catholic. In 1547, Holy Roman Emperor Charles V defeated the Schmalkaldic League, an alliance of Protestant rulers.

The Peace of Augsburg in 1555 brought recognition of the Lutheran faith. But the treaty also stipulated that the religion of a state was to be that of its ruler (Cuius regio, eius religio).

In 1556 Charles V abdicated. The Habsburg Empire was divided, as Spain was separated from the Imperial possessions.

In 1608/1609 the Protestant Union and the Catholic League were formed.

Literacy

The Reformation was a triumph of literacy and the new printing press. Luther's translation of the Bible into German was a decisive moment in the spread of literacy, and stimulated as well the printing and distribution of religious books and pamphlets. From 1517 onward religious pamphlets flooded Germany and much of Europe. By 1530 over 10,000 publications are known, with a total of ten million copies. The Reformation was thus a media revolution. Luther strengthened his attacks on Rome by depicting a "good" against "bad" church. From there, it became clear that print could be used for propaganda in the Reformation for particular agendas. Reform writers used pre-Reformation styles, clichés, and stereotypes and changed items as needed for their own purposes. Especially effective were Luther's ''Small Catechism'', for use of parents teaching their children, and ''Larger Catechism,'' for pastors. Using the German vernacular they expressed the Apostles' Creed in simpler, more personal, Trinitarian language. Illustrations in the newly translated Bible and in many tracts popularized Luther's ideas. Lucas Cranach the Elder (1472–1553), the great painter patronized by the electors of Wittenberg, was a close friend of Luther, and illustrated Luther's theology for a popular audience. He dramatized Luther's views on the relationship between the Old and New Testaments, while remaining mindful of Luther's careful distinctions about proper and improper uses of visual imagery.

Thirty Years War

From 1618 to 1648 the Thirty Years' War ravaged in the Holy Roman Empire. The causes were the conflicts between Catholics and Protestants, the efforts by the various states within the Empire to increase their power and the Catholic Emperor's attempt to achieve the religious and political unity of the Empire. The immediate occasion for the war was the uprising of the Protestant nobility of Bohemia against the emperor, but the conflict was widened into a European War by the intervention of King Christian IV of Denmark (1625–29), Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden (1630–48) and France under Cardinal Richelieu. Germany became the main theatre of war and the scene of the final conflict between France and the Habsburgs for predominance in Europe.

The fighting often was out of control, with marauding bands of hundreds or thousands of starving soldiers spreading plague, plunder, and murder. The armies that were under control moved back and forth across the countryside year after year, levying heavy taxes on cities, and seizing the animals and food stocks of the peasants without payment. The enormous social disruption over three decades caused a dramatic decline in population because of killings, disease, crop failures, declining birth rates and random destruction, and the out-migration of terrified people. One estimate shows a 38% drop from 16 million people in 1618 to 10 million by 1650, while another shows "only" a 20% drop from 20 million to 16 million. The Altmark and Württemberg regions especially hard hit. It took generations for Germany to fully recover. The war ended in 1648 with the Peace of Westphalia. Imperial territory was lost to France and Sweden and the Netherlands officially left the Empire. The imperial power declined further as the states' rights were increased.

Science

Decisive scientific developments took place during the 16th and 17th centuries, especially in the fields of astronomy, mathematics and physics. In 1543, Polish astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus from Toruń (Thorn) published his work ''De revolutionibus orbium coelestium'' and became the first person to formulate a comprehensive heliocentric cosmology which displaced the Earth from the center of the universe. Almost 70 years after Copernicus' death and building on his theories, mathematician, astronomer and astrologer Johannes Kepler from Stuttgart would be a key figure in the 17th century scientific revolution. He is best known for his eponymous laws of planetary motion, codified by later astronomers, based on his works ''Astronomia nova'' and ''Harmonices Mundi''. These works also influenced contemporary scientist Galileo Galilei and provided one of the foundations for Isaac Newton's theory of universal gravitation.

1648-1815

From 1640, Brandenburg-Prussia had started to rise under the Great Elector, Frederick William. The Peace of Westphalia in 1648 strengthened it even further, through the acquisition of East Pomerania. From 1713 to 1740, King Frederick William I, also known as the "Soldier King", established a highly centralized, militarized state with a heavily rural population of about three million (compared to the nine million in Austria).

In terms of the boundaries of 1914, Germany in 1700 had a population of 16 million, increasing slightly to 17 million by 1750, and growing more rapidly to 24 million by 1800. Wars continued, but they were no longer so devastating to the civilian population; famines and major epidemics did not occur, but increased agricultural productivity led to a higher birth rate, and a lower death rate.

Wars

Louis XIV of France conquered parts of Alsace and Lorraine (1678–1681), and had invaded and devastated the Palatinate (1688–1697) in the War of Palatinian Succession. Louis XIV benefited from the Empire's problems with the Turks, which were menacing Austria. Louis XIV ultimately had to relinquish the Palatinate.thumb|[[Frederick II of Prussia|Frederick II, the Great, of Prussia (1712-1786)]] Afterwards Hungary was reconquered from the Turks; Austria, under the Habsburgs, developed into a great power.

In the War of Austrian Succession (1740–1748) Maria Theresa fought successfully for recognition of her succession to the throne. But in the Silesian Wars and in the Seven Years' War she had to cede Silesia to Frederick II, the Great, of Prussia. After the Peace of Hubertsburg in 1763 between Austria, Prussia and Saxony, Prussia became a European great power. This gave the start to the rivalry between Prussia and Austria for the leadership of Germany.

From 1763, against resistance from the nobility and citizenry, an "enlightened absolutism" was established in Prussia and Austria, according to which the ruler governed according to the best precepts of the philosophers. The economies developed and legal reforms were undertaken, including the abolition of torture and the improvement in the status of Jews; the emancipation of the peasants slowly began. Compulsory education began.

In 1772–1795 Prussia took part in the partitions of Poland, occupying western territories of Polish–Lithuanian commonwealth, which led to centuries of Polish resistance against Germanization.

Smaller states

Completely overshadowed by Prussia and Austria, the smaller German states were generally characterized by political lethargy and administrative inefficiency, often compounded by rulers who were more concerned with their mistresses and their hunting dogs than with the affairs of state. The smaller states failed to form coalitions with each other, and were eventually overwhelmed by Prussia. Bavaria was especially unfortunate in this regard; it was a rural land with very heavy debts and few growth centers. Saxony was in economically good shape, although its government was seriously mismanaged, and numerous wars had taken their toll. In Württemberg the duke lavished funds on palaces, mistresses, great celebration, and hunting expeditions.

In Hesse-Kassel, the Landgrave Frederick II, ruled 1760-1785 as an enlightened despot, and raised money by renting soldiers (called "Hessians") to Great Britain to help fight the American Revolutionary War. He combined Enlightenment ideas with Christian values, cameralist plans for central control of the economy, and a militaristic approach toward diplomacy.

Hanover did not have to support a lavish court—its rulers were also kings of England and resided in London. George III, elector (ruler) from 1760 to 1820, never once visited Hanover. The local nobility who ran the country opened the University of Göttingen in 1737; it soon became a world-class intellectual center. thumb|150px|Karl Friedrich ruled Baden 1738-1811 Baden sported perhaps the best government of the smaller states. Karl Friedrich ruled well for 73 years (1738–1811) and was an enthusiast for The Enlightenment; he abolished serfdom in 1783. Many of the city-states of Germany were run by bishops, who in reality were from powerful noble families and showed scant interest in religion. None developed a significant reputation for good government.

Between 1807 and 1871, Prussia swallowed up many of the smaller states, with minimal protest, then went on to found the German Empire. In the process, Prussia became too heterogeneous, lost its identity, and by the 1930s had become an administrative shell of little importance.

Nobility

In a heavily agrarian society, land ownership played a central role. Germany's nobles, especially those in the East called Junkers, dominated not only the localities, but also the Prussian court, and especially the Prussian army. Increasingly after 1815, a centralized Prussian government based in Berlin took over the powers of the nobles, which in terms of control over the peasantry had been almost absolute. To help the nobility avoid indebtedness, Berlin set up a credit institution to provide capital loans in 1809, and extended the loan network to peasants in 1849. When the German Empire was established in 1871, the Junker nobility controlled the army and the Navy, the bureaucracy, and the royal court; they generally set governmental policies.

Peasants and rural life

Peasants continued to center their lives in the village, where they were members of a corporate body and help manage the community resources and monitor the community life. In the East, they were serfs who were bound prominently to parcels of land. In most of Germany, farming was handled by tenant farmers who paid rents and obligatory services to the landlord, who was typically a nobleman. Around 1800 the Catholic monasteries, which had large land holdings, were nationalized and sold off by the government. In Bavaria they had controlled 56% of the land Peasant leaders supervised the fields and ditches and grazing rights, maintained public order and morals, and supported a village court which handled minor offenses. Inside the family the patriarch made all the decisions, and tried to arrange advantageous marriages for his children. Much of the villages' communal life centered around church services and holy days. In Prussia, the peasants drew lots to choose conscripts required by the army. The noblemen handled external relationships and politics for the villages under their control, and were not typically involved in daily activities or decisions.

The emancipation of the serfs came in 1770–1830, beginning with Schleswig in 1780. The peasants were now ex-serfs and could own their land, buy and sell it, and move about freely. The nobles approved for now they could buy land owned by the peasants. The chief reformer was Baron vom Stein (1757–1831), who was influenced by The Enlightenment, especially the free market ideas of Adam Smith. The end of serfdom raised the personal legal status of the peasantry. A bank was set up so that landowner could borrow government money to buy land from peasants (the peasants were not allowed to use it to borrow money to buy land until 1850). The result was that the large landowners obtained larger estates, and many peasant became landless tenants, or moved to the cities or to America. The other German states imitated Prussia after 1815. In sharp contrast to the violence that characterized land reform in the French Revolution, Germany handled it peacefully. In Schleswig the peasants, who had been influenced by the Enlightenment, played an active role; elsewhere they were largely passive. Indeed, for most peasants, customs and traditions continued largely unchanged, including the old habits of deference to the nobles whose legal authority remains quite strong over the villagers. Although the peasants were no longer tied to the same land like serfs had been, the old paternalistic relationship in East Prussia lasted into the 20th century.

The agrarian reforms in northwestern Germany in the era 1770–1870 were driven by progressive governments and local elites. They abolished feudal obligations and divided collectively owned common land into private parcels and thus created a more efficient market-oriented rural economy. It produced increased productivity and population growth. It strengthened the traditional social order because wealthy peasants obtained most of the former common land, while the rural proletariat was left without land; many left for the cities or America. Meanwhile the division of the common land served as a buffer preserving social peace between nobles and peasants. In the east the serfs were emancipated but the Junker class maintained its large estates and monopolized political power.

Enlightenment

Before 1750 the German upper classes looked to France for intellectual, cultural and architectural leadership; French was the language of high society. By the mid-18th century the "Aufklärung" (The Enlightenment) had transformed German high culture in music, philosophy, science and literature. Christian Wolff (1679–1754) was the pioneer as a writer who expounded the Enlightenment to German readers; he legitimized German as a philosophic language. Johann Gottfried von Herder (1744–1803) broke new ground in philosophy and poetry, as a leader of the Sturm und Drang movement of proto-Romanticism. Weimar Classicism ("Weimarer Klassik") was a cultural and literary movement based in Weimar that sought to establish a new humanism by synthesizing Romantic, classical and Enlightenment ideas. The movement, from 1772 until 1805, involved Herder as well as polymath Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832) and Friedrich Schiller (1759–1805), a poet and historian. Herder argued that every folk had its own particular identity, which was expressed in its language and culture. This legitimized the promotion of German language and culture and helped shape the development of German nationalism. Schiller's plays expressed the restless spirit of his generation, depicting the hero's struggle against social pressures and the force of destiny.

German music, sponsored by the upper classes, came of age under composers Johann Sebastian Bach (1685–1750), Franz Joseph Haydn (1732–1809), and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756–1791).

In remote Königsberg philosopher Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) tried to reconcile rationalism and religious belief, individual freedom and political authority. Kant's work contained basic tensions that would continue to shape German thought—and indeed all of European philosophy—well into the 20th century.

The German Enlightenment won the support of princes, aristocrats and the middle classes and permanently reshaped the culture.

French Revolution 1789-1815

German intellectuals celebrated the outbreak of the French Revolution, hoping to see the triumph of Reason and The Enlightenment. The royal courts in Vienna and Berlin denounced the overthrow of the king and the threatened spread of notions of liberty, equality, and fraternity. By 1793 the execution of the French king and the onset of the Terror disillusioned the Bildungsbürgertum (educated middle classes). Reformers said the solution was to have faith in the ability of Germans to reform their laws and institutions in peaceful fashion.

Europe was racked by two decades of war revolving around France's efforts to spread its revolutionary ideals, and the opposition of reactionary royalty. The German lands saw armies marching back and forth, bringing devastation (albeit on a far lower scale than the Thirty Years War), but also bringing new ideas of liberty and civil rights for the people. War broke out in 1792 as Austria and Prussia invaded France, but were defeated at the Battle of Valmy. Prussia and Austria ended their failed wars with France but (with Russia) partitioned Poland among themselves in 1793 and 1795. The French took control of the Rhineland, imposed French-style reforms, abolished feudalism, established constitutions, promoted freedom of religion, emancipated Jews, opened the bureaucracy to ordinary citizens of talent, and forced the nobility to share power with the rising middle class. Napoleon created the Kingdom of Westphalia (1807–1813) as a model state. These reforms proved largely permanent and modernized the western parts of Germany. When the French tried to impose the French language, German opposition grew in intensity. A Second Coalition of Britain, Russia, and Austria then attacked France but failed. Napoleon established direct or indirect control over most of western Europe, including the German states apart from Prussia and Austria. The old Holy Roman Empire was little more than a farce; Napoleon simply abolished it in 1806 while forming new countries under his control. In Germany Napoleon set up the Confederation of the Rhine comprising most of the German states except Prussia and Austria.

Prussia tried to remain neutral while imposing tight controls on dissent, but with German nationalism sharply on the rise the small nation blundered by going to war with Napoleon in 1806. Its economy was weak, its leadership poor, and the once mighty Prussian army was a hollow shell. Napoleon easily crushed it at the Battle of Jena. Napoleon occupied Berlin and Prussia paid dearly. Prussia lost its recently acquired territories in western Germany, its army was reduced to 42,000 men, no trade with Britain was allowed, and Berlin had to pay Paris heavy reparations and fund the French army of occupation . Saxony changed sides to support Napoleon and join his Confederation of the Rhine; its elector was rewarded with the title of king and given a slice of Poland taken from Prussia. After Napoleon's fiasco in Russia in 1812, including the deaths of many Germans in his invasion army, Prussia joined with Russia. Major battles followed in quick order, and when Austria switched sides to oppose Napoleon his situation grew tenuous. He was defeated in a great Battle of Leipzig in late 1813, and Napoleon's empire started to collapse. One after another the German states switched to oppose Napoleon, but he rejected peace terms. Allied armies invaded France in early 1814, Paris fell, and in April Napoleon surrendered. He returned for 100 days in 1815, but was finally defeated by the British and German armies at Waterloo. Prussia was the big winner at the Vienna peace conference, gaining extensive territory.

German Confederation

The German Confederation () was the loose association of 39 states created in 1815 to coordinate the economies of separate German-speaking countries. It acted as a buffer between the powerful states of Austria and Prussia. Britain approved of it because London felt that there was need for a stable, peaceful power in central Europe that could discourage aggressive moves by France or Russia. According to Lee (1985), most historians have judged the Confederation to be weak and ineffective, as well as an obstacle to German nationalist aspirations. It collapsed because the rivalry between Prussia and Austria (known as German dualism), warfare, the 1848 revolution, and the inability of the multiple members to compromise. It was replaced by the North German Confederation in 1866.

Society and economy

Population

The population of the German Confederation (excluding Austria) grew 60% from 1815 to 1865, from 21,000,000 to 34,000,000. The era saw the Demographic Transition take place in Germany. It was a transition from high birth rates and high death rates to low birth and death rates as the country developed from a pre-industrial to a modernized agriculture and supported a fast-growing industrialized urban economic system. In previous centuries, the shortage of land meant that not everyone could marry, and marriages took place after age 25. The high birthrate was offset by a very high rate of infant mortality, plus periodic epidemics and harvest failures. After 1815, increased agricultural productivity met a larger food supply, and a decline in famines, epidemics, and malnutrition. This allowed couples to marry earlier, and have more children. Arranged marriages became uncommon as young people were now allowed to choose their own marriage partners, subject to a veto by the parents. The upper and middle classes began to practice birth control, and a little later so too did the peasants.

Industrialization

Before 1850 Germany lagged far behind the leaders in industrial development, Britain, France and Belgium by a wide margin. By midcentury, the German states were catching up, and by 1900 Germany was a world leader in industrialization, along with Britain and the United States. In 1800, Germany's social structure was poorly suited to entrepreneurship or economic development. Domination by France during the era of the French Revolution (1790s to 1815), produced important institutional reforms, including the abolition of feudal restrictions on the sale of large landed estates, the reduction of the power of the guilds in the cities, and the introduction of a new, more efficient commercial law. Nevertheless, traditionalism remained strong in most of Germany. Until midcentury, the guilds, the landed aristocracy, the churches, and the government bureaucracies had so many rules and restrictions that entrepreneurship was held in low esteem, and given little opportunity to develop. From the 1830s and 1840s, Prussia, Saxony, and other states reorganized agriculture, introducing sugar beets, turnips, and potatoes, yielding a higher level of food production that enabled a surplus rural population to move to industrial areas. The beginnings of the industrial revolution in Germany came in the textile industry, and was facilitated by eliminating tariff barriers through the Zollverein, starting in 1834.

Urbanization

Industrialization brought rural Germans to the factories, mines and railways. The population in 1800 was heavily rural, with only 10% of the people living in communities of 5000 or more people, and only 2% living in cities of more than 100,000. After 1815, the urban population grew rapidly, due primarily to the influx of young people from the rural areas. Berlin grew from 172,000 in 1800, to 826,000 in 1870; Hamburg grew from 130,000 to 290,000; Munich from 40,000 to 269,000; and Dresden from 60,000 to 177,000. Offsetting this growth, there was extensive emigration, especially to the United States. Emigration totaled 480,000 in the 1840s, 1,200,000 in the 1850s, and 780,000 in the 1860s.

Railways

The takeoff stage of economic development came with the railroad revolution in the 1840s, which opened up new markets for local products, created a pool of middle managers, increased the demand for engineers, architects and skilled machinists and stimulated investments in coal and iron. Political disunity of three dozen states and a pervasive conservatism made it difficult to build railways in the 1830s. However, by the 1840s, trunk lines did link the major cities; each German state was responsible for the lines within its own borders. Economist Friedrich List summed up the advantages to be derived from the development of the railway system in 1841: : # As a means of national defence, it facilitates the concentration, distribution and direction of the army. # It is a means to the improvement of the culture of the nation. It brings talent, knowledge and skill of every kind readily to market. # It secures the community against dearth and famine, and against excessive fluctuation in the prices of the necessaries of life. # It promotes the spirit of the nation, as it has a tendency to destroy the Philistine spirit arising from isolation and provincial prejudice and vanity. It binds nations by ligaments, and promotes an interchange of food and of commodities, thus making it feel to be a unit. The iron rails become a nerve system, which, on the one hand, strengthens public opinion, and, on the other hand, strengthens the power of the state for police and governmental purposes.

Lacking a technological base at first, the Germans imported their engineering and hardware from Britain, but quickly learned the skills needed to operate and expand the railways. In many cities, the new railway shops were the centres of technological awareness and training, so that by 1850, Germany was self sufficient in meeting the demands of railroad construction, and the railways were a major impetus for the growth of the new steel industry. Observers found that even as late as 1890, their engineering was inferior to Britain’s. However, German unification in 1870 stimulated consolidation, nationalisation into state-owned companies, and further rapid growth. Unlike the situation in France, the goal was support of industrialisation, and so heavy lines crisscrossed the Ruhr and other industrial districts, and provided good connections to the major ports of Hamburg and Bremen. By 1880, Germany had 9,400 locomotives pulling 43,000 passengers and 30,000 tons of freight a day, and forged ahead of France.

Science and culture

German artists and intellectuals, heavily influenced by the French Revolution and by the great German poet and writer Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832), turned to Romanticism after a period of Enlightenment. Philosophical thought was decisively shaped by Immanuel Kant (1724–1804). Ludwig van Beethoven (1770–1827) was the leading composer of Romantic music. His use of tonal architecture in such a way as to allow significant expansion of musical forms and structures was immediately recognized as bringing a new dimension to music. His later piano music and string quartets, especially, showed the way to a completely unexplored musical universe, and influenced Franz Schubert (1797–1828) and Robert Schumann (1810–1856). In opera, a new Romantic atmosphere combining supernatural terror and melodramatic plot in a folkloric context was first successfully achieved by Carl Maria von Weber (1786–1826) and perfected by Richard Wagner (1813–1883) in his Ring Cycle. The Brothers Grimm (1785-1863 & 1786-1859) not only wrote the popular Grimm's Fairy Tales, but were among the founding fathers of German philology and German studies.

At the universities high-powered professors developed international reputations, especially in the humanities led by history and philology, which brought a new historical perspective to the study of political history, theology, philosophy, language, and literature. With Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831) in philosophy, Friedrich Schleiermacher (1768–1834) in theology and Leopold von Ranke (1795–1886) in history, the University of Berlin, founded in 1810, became the world's leading university. Von Ranke, for example, professionalized history and set the world standard for historiography. By the 1830s mathematics, physics, chemistry, and biology had emerged with world class science, led by Alexander von Humboldt (1769–1859) in natural science and Carl Friedrich Gauss (1777–1855) in mathematics. Young intellectuals often turned to politics, but their support for the failed Revolution of 1848 forced many into exile.

Politics of restoration and revolution

After the fall of Napoleon, Europe's statesmen convened in Vienna in 1815 for the reorganisation of European affairs, under the leadership of the Austrian Prince Metternich. The political principles agreed upon at this Congress of Vienna included the restoration, legitimacy and solidarity of rulers for the repression of revolutionary and nationalist ideas.

The German Confederation (''Deutscher Bund'') was founded, a loose union of 39 states (35 ruling princes and 4 free cities) under Austrian leadership, with a Federal Diet (''Bundestag'') meeting in Frankfurt am Main. It was a loose coalition that failed to satisfy most nationalists. The member states largely went their own way, and Austria had its own interests.

In 1819 a student radical assassinated the reactionary playwright August von Kotzebue, who had scoffed at liberal student organisations. In one of the few major actions of the German Confederation, Prince Metternich called a conference that issued the repressive Carlsbad Decrees, designed to suppress liberal agitation against the conservative governments of the Germany states. The Decrees terminated the fast-fading nationalist fraternities '(Burschenschaften),' removed liberal university professors, and expanded the censorship of the press. The decrees began the "persecution of the demagogues", which was directed against individuals who were accused of spreading revolutionary and nationalist ideas. Among the persecuted were the poet Ernst Moritz Arndt, the publisher Johann Joseph Görres and the "Father of Gymnastics" Ludwig Jahn.

In 1834 the Zollverein was established, a customs union between Prussia and most other German states, but excluding Austria. As industrialisation developed, the need for a unified German state with a uniform currency, legal system, and government became more and more obvious.

1848

Growing discontent with the political and social order imposed by the Congress of Vienna led to the outbreak, in 1848, of the March Revolution in the German states. In May the German National Assembly (the Frankfurt Parliament) met in Frankfurt to draw up a national German constitution.

But the 1848 revolution turned out to be unsuccessful: King Frederick William IV of Prussia refused the imperial crown, the Frankfurt parliament was dissolved, the ruling princes repressed the risings by military force and the German Confederation was re-established by 1850. Many leaders went into exile, including a number who went to the United States and became a political force there.

1850s

The 1850s were a period of extreme political reaction. Dissent was vigorously suppressed, and many Germans emigrated to America following the collapse of the 1848 uprisings. Frederick William IV became extremely depressed and melancholy during this period, and was surrounded by men who advocated clericalism and absolute divine monarchy. The Prussian people once again lost interest in politics. Prussia not only expanded its territory but began to industrialize rapidly, while maintaining a strong agricultural base.

Bismarck takes charge, 1862-66

In 1857, the king had a stroke and his brother William became regent and became King William I in 1861. Although conservative, William I was far more pragmatic. His most significant accomplishment was naming Otto von Bismarck as chancellor in 1862. The combination of Bismarck, Defense Minister Albrecht von Roon, and Field Marshal Helmut von Moltke set the stage for victories over Denmark, Austria and France, and led to the unification of Germany. The obstacle to German unification was Austria, and Bismarck solved the problem with a series of wars that united the German states north of Austria.

In 1863-64, disputes between Prussia and Denmark grew over Schleswig, which was not part of the German Confederation, and which Danish nationalists wanted to incorporate into the Danish kingdom. The dispute led to the short Second War of Schleswig in 1864. Prussia, joined by Austria, defeated Denmark easily and occupied Jutland. The Danes were forced to cede both the duchy of Schleswig and the duchy of Holstein to Austria and Prussia. In the aftermath, the management of the two duchies caused escalating tensions between Austria and Prussia. The former wanted the duchies to become an independent entity within the German Confederation, while the latter wanted to annex them. The Seven Weeks War between Austria and Germany broke out in June 1866 and in July the two armies clashed at Sadowa-Koniggratz in Bohemia in an enormous battle involving half a million men. The Prussian breech-loading needle guns carried the day over the Austrians with their slow muzzle-loading rifles, who lost a quarter of their army in the battle. Austria ceded Venice to Italy, but Bismarck was deliberately lenient with the loser to keep alive a long-term alliance with Austria in a subordinate role. Now the French faced an increasingly strong Prussia.

North German Federation

In 1866, the German Confederation was dissolved. In its place the North German Federation (German ''Norddeutscher Bund'') was established, under the leadership of Prussia. Austria was excluded from it. The Austrian influence in Germany that had begun in the 15th century finally came to an end.

The North German Federation was a transitional organisation that existed from 1867 to 1871, between the dissolution of the German Confederation and the founding of the German Empire. The unification of the German states into a single economic, political and administrative unit excluded the Austrian territories and the Habsburgs.

German Empire

After Germany was united by Otto von Bismarck into the "Second German Reich", he determined German politics until 1890. Bismarck tried to foster alliances in Europe, on one hand to contain France, and on the other hand to consolidate Germany's influence in Europe. On the domestic front Bismarck tried to stem the rise of socialism by anti-socialist laws, combined with an introduction of health care and social security. At the same time Bismarck tried to reduce the political influence of the emancipated Catholic minority in the Kulturkampf, literally "culture struggle". The Catholics only grew stronger, forming the Center (Zentrum) Party. Germany grew rapidly in industrial and economic power, matching Britain by 1900. Its highly professional army was the best in the world, but the navy could never catch up with Britain's Royal Navy.

In 1888, the young and ambitious Kaiser Wilhelm II became emperor. He could not abide advice, least of all from the most experienced politician and diplomat in Europe, so he fired Bismarck. The Kaiser opposed Bismarck's careful foreign policy and wanted Germany to pursue colonialist policies, as Britain and France had been doing for decades, as well as build a navy that could match the British. The Kaiser promoted active colonization of Africa and Asia for those areas that were not already colonies of other European powers; his record was notoriously brutal and set the stage for genocide. The Kaiser took a mostly unilateral approach in Europe with as main ally the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and an arms race with Britain, which eventually led to the situation in which the assassination of the Austrian-Hungarian crown prince could spark off World War I.

Age of Bismarck

Disputes between France and Prussia increased. In 1868, the Spanish queen Isabella II was expelled by a revolution, leaving that country's throne vacant. When Prussia tried to put a Hohenzollern candidate, Prince Leopold, on the Spanish throne, the French angrily protested. In July 1870, France declared war on Prussia (the Franco-Prussian War). The debacle was swift. A succession of German victories in northeastern France followed, and one French army was besieged at Metz. After a few weeks, the main army was finally forced to capitulate in the fortress of Sedan. French Emperor Napoleon III was taken prisoner and a republic hastily proclaimed in Paris. The new government, realising that a victorious Germany would demand territorial acquisitions, resolved to fight on. They began to muster new armies, and the Germans settled down to a grim siege of Paris. The starving city surrendered in January 1871, and the Prussian army staged a victory parade in it. France was forced to pay indemnities of 5 billion francs and cede Alsace-Lorraine. It was a bitter peace that would leave the French thirsting for revenge.

During the Siege of Paris, the German princes assembled in the Hall of Mirrors of the Palace of Versailles and proclaimed the Prussian King Wilhelm I as the "German Emperor" on 18 January 1871. The German Empire was thus founded, with 25 states, three of which were Hanseatic free cities, and Bismarck, again, served as Chancellor. It was dubbed the "Little German" solution, since Austria was not included. The new empire was characterised by a great enthusiasm and vigor. There was a rash of heroic artwork in imitation of Greek and Roman styles, and the nation possessed a vigorous, growing industrial economy, while it had always been rather poor in the past. The change from the slower, more tranquil order of the old Germany was very sudden, and many, especially the nobility, resented being displaced by the new rich. And yet, the nobles clung stubbornly to power, and they, not the bourgeois, continued to be the model that everyone wanted to imitate. In imperial Germany, possessing a collection of medals or wearing a uniform was valued more than the size of one's bank account, and Berlin never became a great cultural center as London, Paris, or Vienna were. The empire was distinctly authoritarian in tone, as the 1871 constitution gave the emperor exclusive power to appoint or dismiss the chancellor. He also was supreme commander-in-chief of the armed forces and final arbiter of foreign policy. But freedom of speech, association, and religion were nonetheless guaranteed by the constitution.

Bismarck's domestic policies as Chancellor of Germany were characterised by his fight against perceived enemies of the Protestant Prussian state. In the so-called Kulturkampf (1872–1878), he tried to limit the influence of the Roman Catholic Church and of its political arm, the Catholic Centre Party, through various measures—like the introduction of civil marriage—but without much success. The Kulturkampf antagonised many Protestants as well as Catholics, and was eventually abandoned. Millions of non-Germans subjects in the German Empire, like the Polish, Danish and French minorities, were discriminated against and a policy of Germanisation was implemented.

Classes

Germany's middle-class, based in the cities, grew exponentially, although it never gained the political power it had in France, Britain or the United States. The Association of German Women's Organizations (BDF) was established in 1894 to encompass the proliferating women's organizations that had sprung up since the 1860s. From the beginning the BDF was a bourgeois organization, its members working toward equality with men in such areas as education, financial opportunities, and political life. Working-class women were not welcome; they were organized by the Socialists.

The rise of the Socialist Workers' Party (later known as the Social Democratic Party of Germany, SPD), declared its aim to establish Peacefully a new socialist order through the transformation of existing political and social conditions. From 1878, Bismarck tried to repress the social democratic movement by outlawing the party's organisation, its assemblies and most of its newspapers. When it finally was allowed to run candidates the Social Democrats were stronger than ever.

Bismark built on a tradition of welfare programs in Prussia and Saxony that began as early as in the 1840s. In the 1880s he introduced old age pensions, accident insurance, medical care and unemployment insurance that formed the basis of the modern European welfare state. His paternalistic programs won the support of German industry because its goals were to win the support of the working classes for the Empire and reduce the outflow of immigrants to America, where wages were higher but welfare did not exist. Bismarck further won the support of both industry and skilled workers by his high tariff policies, which protected profits and wages from American competition, although they alienated the liberal intellectuals who wanted free trade.

Kulturkampf

In 1871-1878 Bismarck launched the "Kulturkampf" in Prussia to reduce the power of the Catholic Church in public affairs, and keep the Poles under control. Thousands of priests and bishops were harassed or imprisoned, with large fines and closures of Catholic churches and schools. The Kulturkampf did not extend to the other German states such as Bavaria. Bismarck sought to appeal to liberals and Protestants but he failed because the Catholics were unanimous in their resistance and organized themselves to fight back politically, using their strength in other states besides Prussia. German nationalists feared the Polonization of the Prussian East. Bismarck saw the Kulturkampf as a means of stopping this trend, which was led by the Catholic clergy in West Prussia, Poznania and Silesia. The Poles were subjected to harassment in the fields of education, economic activity and the administration; in German was declared to be the only official language, but in practice the Poles only adhered more closely to their traditions.

There was little or no violence, but the new Catholic Center Party won a fourth of the seats in the Reichstag (Imperial Parliament), and its middle position on most issues allowed it to play a decisive role in the formation of majorities. The culture war gave secularists and socialists an opportunity to attack all religions, an outcome that distressed the Protestants, including Bismarck, who was a devout pietistic Protestant. The Catholic anti-liberalism was led by Pope Pius IX; his death in 1878 allowed Bismarck to open negotiations with Pope Leo XIII, and led to the abandonment of the Kulturkampf in stages in the early 1880s.

Foreign policy

Bismarck's post-1871 foreign policy was conservative and basically aimed at security and preventing the dreaded scenario of a Franco-Russian alliance, which would trap Germany between the two in a war.

The Three Emperor's League (''Dreikaisersbund'') was signed in 1872 by Russia, Austria and Germany. It stated that republicanism and socialism were common enemies and that the three powers would discuss any matters concerning foreign policy. Bismarck needed good relations with Russia in order to keep France isolated. In 1877–1878, Russia fought a victorious war with the Ottoman Empire and attempted to impose the Treaty of San Stefano on it. This upset the British in particular, as they were long concerned with preserving the Ottoman Empire and preventing a Russian takeover of the Bosporous Straits. Germany hosted the Congress of Berlin, whereby a more moderate peace settlement was agreed to. Afterwards, Russia turned its attention eastward to Asia and remained largely inactive in European politics for the next 25 years. Germany had no direct interest in the Balkans however, which was largely an Austrian and Russian sphere of influence, although King Carol of Romania was a German prince.

In 1879, Bismarck formed a Dual Alliance of Germany and Austria-Hungary, with the aim of mutual military assistance in the case of an attack from Russia, which was not satisfied with the agreement reached at the Congress of Berlin. The establishment of the Dual Alliance led Russia to take a more conciliatory stance, and in 1887, the so-called Reinsurance Treaty was signed between Germany and Russia: in it, the two powers agreed on mutual military support in the case that France attacked Germany, or in case of an Austrian attack on Russia. In 1882, Italy joined the Dual Alliance to form a Triple Alliance. Italy wanted to defend its interests in North Africa against France's colonial policy. In return for German and Austrian support, Italy committed itself to assisting Germany in the case of a French military attack.

For a long time, Bismarck had refused to give in widespread public demands to give Germany "a place in the sun", through the acquisition of overseas colonies. In 1880 Bismarck gave way, and a number of colonies were established overseas: in Africa, these were Togo, the Cameroons, German South-West Africa and German East Africa; in Oceania, they were German New Guinea, the Bismarck Archipelago and the Marshall Islands. In fact, it was Bismarck himself who helped initiate the Berlin Conference of 1885. He did it to "establish international guidelines for the acquisition of African territory," (see Colonisation of Africa). This conference was an impetus for the "Scramble for Africa" and "New Imperialism".

Bismarck dismissed by new Kaiser

In 1888, the old emperor William I died at the age of 90. His son Frederick III, the hope of German liberals, succeeded him, but was already stricken with throat cancer and died three months later. Frederick's son William II then became emperor at the age of 29. He was the antithesis of old, conservative Germans like Bismarck, addicted to the new imperialism that was taking place in Asia and Africa. He sought to make Germany a great world power with a navy to rival Britain's. Bismarck hoped to marginalise him just as he had marginalised his grandfather, but William II desired to be his own master. Having a left arm withered by childhood polio, he was painfully insecure and desired above all to be loved by the people. Bismarck's schemes to dominate the emperor and hold onto his own power failed, and he was forced to resign in March 1890.

Wilhelminian Era

Alliances and diplomacy

The young Kaiser sought aggressively to increasing Germany's influence in the world (''Weltpolitik''). After the removal of Bismarck, foreign policy was in the hands of the erratic Kaiser, who played an increasingly reckless hand, and the powerful foreign office, under the leadership of Friedrich von Holstein. The foreign office argued that long-term coalition between France and Russia had to fall apart, secondly Russia and Britain would never get together; finally that Britain would eventually seek an alliance with Germany. Germany refused to renew its treaties with Russia. But Russia did form a closer relationship with France by the Dual Alliance of 1894, since both were worried about the possibilities of German aggression. Furthermore, Anglo German relations cooled as Germany aggressively tried to build a new empire and engaged in a naval race with Britain; London refused to agree to the formal alliance that Germany sought. Berlin's analysis proved mistaken on every point, leading to Germany's increasing isolation and its dependence on the Triple Alliance, which brought together Germany, Austria-Hungary and Italy. The Triple Alliance was undermined by differences between Austria and Italy, and in 1915 Italy switched sides.

Meanwhile the German Navy under Admiral Alfred von Tirpitz had ambitions to rival the great British Navy, and dramatically expanded its fleet in the early 20th century to protect the colonies and exert power worldwide. Tirpitz started a programme of warship construction in 1898. In 1890, Germany had gained the island of Heligoland in the North Sea from Britain in exchange for the African island of Zanzibar and proceeded to construct a great naval base there. This posed a direct threat to British hegemony on the seas, with the result that negotiations for an alliance between Germany and Britain broke down. The British however kept well ahead in the naval race by the introduction of the highly advanced new ''Dreadnought'' battleship in 1907.

In the First Moroccan Crisis of 1905, Germany nearly came to blows with Britain and France when the latter attempted to establish a protectorate over Morocco. The Germans were upset at having not been informed about French intentions, and declared their support for Moroccan independence. William II made a highly provocative speech regarding this. The following year, a conference was held in which all of the European powers except Austria-Hungary (by now little more than a German satellite) sided with France. A compromise was brokered by the United States where the French relinquished some, but not all, control over Morocco.

The Second Moroccan Crisis of 1911 saw another dispute over Morocco erupt when France tried to suppress a revolt there. Germany, still smarting from the previous quarrel, agreed to a settlement whereby the French ceded some territory in central Africa in exchange for Germany renouncing any right to intervene in Moroccan affairs. This confirmed French control over Morocco, which became a full protectorate of that country in 1912.

Economy

The economy continued to industrialize and urbanize, with heavy industry (coal and steel especially) becoming important in the Ruhr, and manufacturing growing in the cities, the Ruhr, and Silesia. Perkins (1981) argues that more important than Bismarck's new tariff on imported grain was the introduction of the sugar beet as a main crop. Farmers quickly abandoned traditional, inefficient practices for modern new methods, including use of new fertilizers and new tools. The knowledge and tools gained from the intensive farming of sugar and other root crops made Germany the most efficient agricultural producer in Europe by 1914. Even so farms were small in size, and women did much of the field work. An unintended consequence was the increased dependence on migratory, especially foreign, labor.

Based on its leadership in chemical research in the universities and industrial laboratories, Germany became dominant in the world's chemical industry in the late 19th century. At first the production of dyes was critical.

Colonies

In the course of ongoing imperialistic aspirations in all European great powers, a general tendency towards colonial imperialism also existed in the German states since ca. 1848. As part of the "Weltpolitik" (''global policy''), the German Empire demanded its "Platz an der Sonne" (''Place in the sun''). Bismark began the process, and by 1884 had acquired German New Guinea. By the 1890s, German colonial expansion in Asia and the Pacific (Kiauchau in China, the Marianas, the Caroline Islands, Samoa) led to frictions with Britain, Russia, Japan and the United States. The construction of the Baghdad Railway, financed by German banks, was designed to eventually connect Germany with the Turkish Empire and the Persian Gulf, but it also collided with British and Russian geopolitical interests. The largest colonial enterprises were in Africa, where the harsh treatment of the Nama and Herero in what is now Namibia in 1906-07 led to charges of genocide against the Germans.

World War I

Ethnic demands for nation states upset the balance between the empires that dominated Europe, leading to World War I, which started in August 1914. Germany stood behind its ally Austria in a confrontation with Serbia, but Serbia was under the protection of Russia, which was allied to France. Germany was the leader of the Central Powers, which included Austria-Hungary, the Ottoman Empire, and later Bulgaria, arrayed against the Allies, which comprised chiefly Russia, France, Britain, and in 1915 Italy. The United States joined with the Allies in April 1917. Fighting was most ferocious on the stalemated Western Front. More wide open was the fighting on the Eastern Front, which Germany controlled by 1917 as Russia was forced out of the war.

British security issues

In explaining why neutral Britain went to war with Germany, Kennedy (1980) recognized it was critical for war that Germany become economically more powerful than Britain, but he downplays the disputes over economic trade imperialism, the Baghdad Railway, confrontations in Eastern Europe, high-charged political rhetoric and domestic pressure-groups. Germany's reliance time and again on sheer power, while Britain increasingly appealed to moral sensibilities, played a role, especially in seeing the invasion of Belgium as a necessary military tactic or a profound moral crime. The German invasion of Belgium was not important because the British decision had already been made and the British were more concerned with the fate of France (pp. 457–62). Kennedy argues that by far the main reason was London's fear that a repeat of 1870—when Prussia and the German states smashed France—would mean Germany, with a powerful army and navy, would control the English Channel, and northwest France. British policy makers insisted that would be a catastrophe for British security.

Western Front

In the west, Germany sought a quick victory by encircling Paris using the Schlieffen Plan. But it failed due to Belgian resistance, Berlin's diversion of troops, and very stiff French resistance on the Marne, north of Paris. The Western Front became an extremely bloody battleground until early 1918, with forces moving a few hundred yards at best. In the east there were decisive victories against the Russian army, the trapping and defeat of large parts of the Russian contingent at the Battle of Tannenberg, followed by huge Austrian and German successes led to a breakdown of Russian forces in 1917 and an imposed peace on the newly created USSR under Lenin. The British imposed a tight naval blockade in the North Sea which lasted until 1919, sharply reducing Germany's overseas access to raw materials and foodstuffs. Food scarcity became a serious problem by 1917. The entry of the United States into the war in 1917 following Germany's declaration of unrestricted submarine warfare marked a decisive turning-point against Germany.

1918

By defeating Russia in 1917 Germany was able to bring hundreds of thousands of combat troops from the east to the Western Front, giving it a numerical advantage over the Allies. By retraining the soldiers in new storm-trooper tactics, the Germans expected to unfreeze the Battlefield and win a decisive victory before the American army arrived in strength. However, the spring offensives all failed, as the Allies fell back and regrouped, and the Germans lacked the reserves necessary to consolidate their gains. In the summer, with the Americans arriving at 10,000 a day, and the German reserves exhausted, it was only a matter of time before multiple Allied offenses destroyed the German army.

Meanwhile, conditions deteriorated rapidly on the home front, with severe food shortages reported in all urban areas. The causes involved the transfer of so many farmers and food workers into the military, combined with the overburdened railroad system, shortages of coal, and the British blockade that cut off imports from abroad. The winter of 1916-1917 was known as the "turnip winter," because that vegetable, usually fed to livestock, was used by people as a substitute for potatoes and meat, which were increasingly scarce. Thousands of soup kitchens were opened to feed the hungry people, who grumbled that the farmers were keeping the food for themselves. Even the army had to cut the rations for soldiers. Morale of both civilians and soldiers continued to sink.

The end of October 1918, in Kiel, in northern Germany, saw the beginning of the German Revolution of 1918–19. Units of the German Navy refused to set sail for a last, large-scale operation in a war which they saw as good as lost, initiating the uprising. On 3 November, the revolt spread to other cities and states of the country, in many of which workers' and soldiers' councils were established. Meanwhile, Hindenburg and the senior commanders had lost confidence in the Kaiser and his government.

The Kaiser and all German ruling princes abdicated. On 9 November 1918, the Social Democrat Philipp Scheidemann proclaimed a Republic. On 11 November, the Compiègne armistice ending the war was signed. In accordance with the Social Democratic government by early 1919 the revolution was violently put down with the aid of the nascent Reichswehr and the Freikorps.

1918 was also the year of the deadly 1918 Spanish Flu pandemic which struck hard at a population weakened by years of malnutrition.

Weimar Republic

On 28 June 1919 the Treaty of Versailles was signed. Germany was to cede Alsace-Lorraine, Eupen-Malmédy, North Schleswig, and the Memel area. All German colonies were to be handed over to the British and French. Poland was restored and most of the provinces of Posen and West Prussia, and some areas of Upper Silesia were reincorporated into the reformed country after plebiscites and independence uprisings. The left and right banks of the Rhine were to be permanently demilitarised. The industrially important Saarland was to be governed by the League of Nations for 15 years and its coalfields administered by France. At the end of that time a plebiscite was to determine the Saar's future status. To ensure execution of the treaty's terms, Allied troops would occupy the left (German) bank of the Rhine for a period of 5–15 years. The German army was to be limited to 100,000 officers and men; the general staff was to be dissolved; vast quantities of war material were to be handed over and the manufacture of munitions rigidly curtailed. The navy was to be similarly reduced, and no military aircraft were allowed. Germany and its allies were to accept the sole responsibility of the war, in accordance with the War Guilt Clause, and were to pay financial reparations for all loss and damage suffered by the Allies.

The humiliating peace terms provoked bitter indignation throughout Germany, and seriously weakened the new democratic regime. The greatest enemies of democracy had already been constituted. In December 1918, the Communist Party of Germany (KPD) was founded, and in 1919 it tried and failed to overthrow the new republic. In January 1919 the German Workers' Party was formed; it was soon taken over by Adolf Hitler as the National Socialist German Workers' Party (NSDAP), and the Nazis tried and failed in a coup in 1923. Both parties, as well as parties supporting the republic, built militant auxiliaries that engaged in increasingly violent street battles; in both cases electoral support increased after 1929 as the Great Depression hit the economy hard, producing many unemployed men who became available for the paramilitary units. The Nazis, with a mostly rural and lower middle class base, overthrew the Weimar regime and rules 1933-1945; the KPD with a mostly urban and working class base came to power (in the East) in 1945-1989.

On 11 August 1919 the Weimar constitution came into effect, with Friedrich Ebert as first President.

On December 30, 1918, the Communist Party of Germany was founded by the Spartacus League, who had split from the Social Democratic Party during the war. It was headed by Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht, and rejected the parliamentary system. In 1920, about 300.000 members from the Independent Social Democratic Party of Germany joined the party, transforming it into a mass organization. The Communist Party had a following of about 10 % of the electorate.

In the first months of 1920, the Reichswehr was to be reduced to 100,000 men, in accordance with the Treaty of Versailles. This included the dissolution of many Freikorps – units made up of volunteers. In an attempt at a coup d'état in March 1920, the Kapp Putsch, extreme right-wing politician Wolfgang Kapp let Freikorps soldiers march on Berlin and proclaimed himself Chancellor of the Reich. After four days the coup d'état collapsed, due to popular opposition and lack of support by the civil servants and the officers. Other cities were shaken by strikes and rebellions, which were bloodily suppressed.

Faced with animosity from Britain and France and the retreat of American power from Europe, in 1922 Germany was the first state to establish diplomatic relations with the new Soviet Union. Under the Treaty of Rapallo, Germany accorded the Soviet Union ''de jure'' recognition, and the two signatories mutually cancelled all pre-war debts and renounced war claims.

When Germany defaulted on its reparation payments, French and Belgian troops occupied the heavily industrialised Ruhr district (January 1923). The German government encouraged the population of the Ruhr to passive resistance: shops would not sell goods to the foreign soldiers, coal-mines would not dig for the foreign troops, trams in which members of the occupation army had taken seat would be left abandoned in the middle of the street. The passive resistance proved effective, insofar as the occupation became a loss-making deal for the French government. But the Ruhr fight also led to hyperinflation, and many who lost all their fortune would become bitter enemies of the Weimar Republic, and voters of the anti-democratic right. See 1920s German inflation.

In September 1923, the deteriorating economic conditions led Chancellor Gustav Stresemann to call an end to the passive resistance in the Ruhr. In November, his government introduced a new currency, the Rentenmark (later: Reichsmark), together with other measures to stop the hyperinflation. In the following six years the economic situation improved. In 1928, Germany's industrial production even regained the pre-war levels of 1913.

On the evening of 8 November 1923, six hundred armed SA men surrounded a beer hall in Munich, where the heads of the Bavarian state and the local ''Reichswehr'' had gathered for a rally. The storm troopers were led by Adolf Hitler. Born in 1889 in Austria, a former volunteer in the German army during World War I, now a member of a new party called National Socialist German Workers' Party (NSDAP or Nazi Party), he was largely unknown until then. Hitler tried to force those present to join him and to march on to Berlin to seize power (Beer Hall Putsch). Hitler was later arrested and condemned to five years in prison, but was released at the end of 1924 after less than one year of detention.

The national elections of 1924 led to a swing to the right. Field Marshal Paul von Hindenburg was elected President in 1925.

In October 1925 the Treaty of Locarno was signed by Germany, France, Belgium, Britain and Italy; it recognised Germany's borders with France and Belgium. Moreover, Britain, Italy and Belgium undertook to assist France in the case that German troops marched into the demilitarised Rheinland. Locarno paved the way for Germany's admission to the League of Nations in 1926.

The stock market crash of 1929 on Wall Street marked the beginning of the worldwide Great Depression, which hit Germany as hard as any nation. In July 1931, the ''Darmstätter und Nationalbank'' - one of the biggest German banks - failed, and, in early 1932, the number of unemployed soared to more than 6,000,000.

On top of the collapsing economy came a political crisis due to the inability by the political parties represented in the Reichstag to build a governing majority in the facing of escalating extremism from the far right (the Nazis) and the far left (the Communists). In March 1930, President Hindenburg appointed Heinrich Brüning Chancellor. To push through his package of austerity measures against a majority of Social Democrats, Communists and the NSDAP (Nazis), Brüning made use of emergency decrees and dissolved Parliament. In March and April 1932, Hindenburg was re-elected in the German presidential election of 1932.

The NSDAP was the largest party in the national elections of 1932. On 31 July 1932 the NSDAP had received 37.3% of the votes, and in the election on 6 November 1932 it received less, but still the largest share, 33.1, making it the biggest party in the Reichstag. The Communist KPD came third, with 15%. Together, the anti-democratic parties of far right and far left were now able to hold the majority of seats in Parliament, but they were at sword's point with each other, fighting it out in the streets. The NSDAP was particularly successful among Protestants; among unemployed young voters; among the ''petite bourgeoisie'' (lower middle class) which had lost its assets in the hyperinflation of 1923; and among the rural population. It was weakest in Catholic areas and in large cities. On 30 January 1933, pressured by former Chancellor Franz von Papen and other conservatives, President Hindenburg appointed Hitler Chancellor.

Weimar Republic Results of Elections 1919–1933, Elections 1932, 1933

Science and culture

The Weimar years saw a flowering of German science and high culture, before the Nazi regime resulted in a decline in the scientific and cultural life in Germany and forced many renowned scientists and writers to flee. German recipients dominated the Nobel prizes in science. Germany dominated the world of physics before 1933, led by Hermann von Helmholtz, Joseph von Fraunhofer, Daniel Gabriel Fahrenheit, Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen, Albert Einstein, Max Planck and Werner Heisenberg. Chemistry likewise was dominated by German professors and researchers at the great chemical companies such as BASF and Bayer and persons like Fritz Haber. Theoretical mathematicians included Carl Friedrich Gauss in the 19th century and David Hilbert in the 20th century. Carl Benz, the inventor of the automobile, was one of the pivotal figures of engineering.

Among the most important German writers were Thomas Mann (1875–1955), Hermann Hesse (1877–1962) and Bertolt Brecht (1898–1956). The pessimistic historian Oswald Spengler wrote ''The Decline of the West'' (198-23) on the inevitable decay of Western Civilization, and influenced intellectuals in Germany such as Martin Heidegger, Max Scheler, and the Frankfurt School, as well as intellectuals around the world.

After 1933, Nazi proponents of "Aryan physics," led by the Nobel Prize-winners Johannes Stark and Philipp Lenard, attacked Einstein's theory of relativity as a degenerate example of Jewish materialism in the realm of science. Many scientists and humanists emigrated; Einstein moved permanently to the U.S. but some of the others returned after 1945.

Nazi Germany

The Nazi regime restored economic prosperity and ended mass unemployment using heavy spending on the military, while suppressing labor unions and strikes. The return of prosperity gave the Nazi Party enormous popularity, with only minor, isolated and subsequently unsuccessful cases of resistance among the German population over the 13 years of rule. The Gestapo (secret police) under Heinrich Himmler destroyed the liberal, Socialist and Communist opposition and persecuted the Jews, trying to force them into exile, while taking their property. The Party took control of the courts, local government, and all civic organizations except the Protestant and Catholic churches. All expressions of public opinion were controlled by Hitler's propaganda minister, Joseph Goebbels, who made effective use of film, mass rallies, and Hitler's hypnotic speaking. The Nazi state idolized Hitler as its Führer (leader), putting all powers in his hands. Nazi propaganda centered on Hitler and was quite effective in creating what historians called the "Hitler Myth"--that Hitler was all-wise and that any mistakes or failures by others would be corrected when brought to his attention. In fact Hitler had a narrow range of interests and decision making was diffused among overlapping, feuding power centers; on some issues he was passive, simply assenting to pressures from whomever had his ear. All top officials reported to Hitler and followed his basic policies, but they had considerable autonomy on a daily basis.

Establishment of the Nazi regime

In order to secure a majority for his NSDAP in the Reichstag, Hitler called for new elections. On the evening of 27 February 1933, a fire was set in the Reichstag building. Hitler swiftly blamed an alleged Communist uprising, and convinced President Hindenburg to sign the Reichstag Fire Decree. This decree, which would remain in force until 1945, repealed important political and human rights of the Weimar constitution. Communist agitation was banned, but at this time not the Communist Party itself.

Eleven thousand Communists and Socialists were arrested and brought into concentration camps, where they were at the mercy of the Gestapo, the newly established secret police force (9,000 were found guilty and most executed). Communist Reichstag deputies were taken into ''protective custody'' (despite their constitutional privileges).

Despite the terror and unprecedented propaganda, the last free General Elections of 5 March 1933, while resulting in 43.9% failed to bring the majority for the NSDAP that Hitler had hoped for. Together with the German National People's Party (DNVP), however, he was able to form a slim majority government. With accommodations to the Catholic Centre Party, Hitler succeeded in convincing a required two-thirds of a rigged Parliament to pass the Enabling act of 1933 which gave his government full legislative power. Only the Social Democrats voted against the Act. The Enabling Act formed the basis for the dictatorship, dissolution of the Länder; the trade unions and all political parties other than the Nazi Party were suppressed. A centralised totalitarian state was established, no longer based on the liberal Weimar constitution. Germany left the League of Nations. The coalition parliament was rigged on this fateful 23 March 1933 by defining the absence of arrested and murdered deputies as voluntary and therefore cause for their exclusion as wilful absentees. Subsequently in July the Centre Party was voluntarily dissolved in a ''quid pro quo'' with the Pope under the ''anti-communist'' Pope Pius XI for the Reichskonkordat; and by these manoeuvres Hitler achieved movement of these Catholic voters into the Nazi party, and a long-awaited international diplomatic acceptance of his regime. It is interesting to note however that according to Professor Dick Geary the Nazis gained a larger share of their vote in Protestant than in Catholic areas of Germany in elections held between 1928 to November 1932 The Communist Party was proscribed in April 1933 . On the weekend of 30 June 1934, he gave order to the SS to seize Röhm and his lieutenants, and to execute them without trial (known as the Night of the Long Knives). Upon Hindenburg's death on 2 August 1934, Hitler's cabinet passed a law proclaiming the presidency vacant and transferred the role and powers of the head of state to Hitler as Führer und Reichskanzler (leader and chancellor).

However, many leaders of the Nazi SA were disappointed. The Chief of Staff of the SA, Ernst Röhm, was pressing for the SA to be incorporated into the army. Hitler had long been at odds with Röhm and felt increasingly threatened by these plans and in the "Night of the Long Knives" in 1934 killed Röhm and the top SA leaders using their notorious homosexuality as an excuse.

The SS became an independent organisation under the command of the ''Reichsführer SS'' Heinrich Himmler. He would become the supervisor of the ''Gestapo'' and of the concentration camps, soon also of the ordinary police. Hitler also established the Waffen-SS as a separate troop.

Jews

The regime showed particular hostility towards the Jews, which were the target of unending propaganda attacks. In 1933 all Jewish civil servants and academics were fired. In September 1935, the Reichstag passed the Nuremberg race laws. Jews lost their German citizenship, and were banned from marrying non-Jewish Germans. About 500,000 individuals were affected by the new rules. About half of Germany's 500,000 Jews fled before 1939, after which escape became almost impossible.

Military

Hitler re-established the Luftwaffe (air force) and reintroduced universal military service. This was in breach of the Treaty of Versailles; Britain, France or Italy issued notes of protest. Hitler had the officers swear their personal allegiance to him. In 1936 German troops marched into the demilitarised Rhineland. Britain and France did not intervene. The move strengthened Hitler's standing in Germany. His reputation swelled further with the 1936 Summer Olympics, which were held in the same year in Berlin, and which proved another great propaganda success for the regime as orchestrated by master propagandist Joseph Goebbels.

Women

Historians have paid special attention to the efforts by Nazi Germany to reverse the gains women made before 1933, especially in the relatively liberal Weimar Republic. It appears the role of women in Nazi Germany changed according to circumstances. Theoretically the Nazis believed that women must be subservient to men, avoid careers, devote themselves to childbearing and child-rearing, and be a helpmate of the traditional dominant father in the traditional family. However, before 1933, women played important roles in the Nazi organization and were allowed some autonomy to mobilize other women. After Hitler came to power in 1933, the activist women were replaced by bureaucratic women who emphasized feminine virtues, marriage, and childbirth. As Germany prepared for war, large numbers were incorporated into the public sector and with the need for full mobilization of factories by 1943, all women were required to register with the employment office. Hundreds of thousands of women served in the military as nurses, and support personnel, and another hundred thousand served in the Luftwaffe helping to operate the anti—aircraft systems. Women's wages remained unequal and women were denied positions of leadership or control.

Foreign policy

Hitler's diplomatic strategy in the 1930s was to make seemingly reasonable demands, threatening war if they were not met. When opponents tried to appease him, he accepted the gains that were offered, then went to the next target. That aggressive strategy worked as Germany pulled out of the League of Nations (1933), rejected the Versailles Treaty and began to re-arm (1935), won back the Saar (1935), remilitarized the Rhineland (1936), formed an alliance ("axis") with Mussolini's Italy (1936), sent massive military aid to Franco in the Spanish Civil War (1936–39), seized Austria (1938), took over Czechoslovakia after the British and French ''appeasement'' of the Munich Agreement of 1938, formed a peace pact with Joseph Stalin's Soviet Union in August 1939, and finally invaded Poland in September 1939. Britain and France declared war and World War II began - somewhat sooner than the Nazis expected or were ready for.

After establishing the "Rome-Berlin axis" with Benito Mussolini, and signing the Anti-Comintern Pact with Japan – which was joined by Italy a year later in 1937 – Hitler felt able to take the offensive in foreign policy. On 12 March 1938, German troops marched into Austria, where an attempted Nazi coup had been unsuccessful in 1934. When Hitler entered Vienna, he was greeted by loud cheers. Four weeks later, 99% of Austrians voted in favour of the annexation (Anschluss) of their country to the German Reich. After Austria, Hitler turned to Czechoslovakia, where the 3.5 million-strong Sudeten German minority was demanding equal rights and self-government. At the Munich Conference of September 1938, Hitler, the Italian leader Benito Mussolini, British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain and French Prime Minister Édouard Daladier agreed upon the cession of Sudeten territory to the German Reich by Czechoslovakia. Hitler thereupon declared that all of German Reich's territorial claims had been fulfilled. However, hardly six months after the Munich Agreement, in March 1939, Hitler used the smoldering quarrel between Slovaks and Czechs as a pretext for taking over the rest of Czechoslovakia as the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia. In the same month, he secured the return of Memel from Lithuania to Germany. Chamberlain was forced to acknowledge that his policy of appeasement towards Hitler had failed.

In six years, the Nazi regime prepared the country for World War II. The Nazi leadership attempted to remove or subjugate the Jewish population of Nazi Germany and later in the occupied countries through forced deportation and, ultimately, genocide now known as the Holocaust. A similar policy applied to the various ethnic and national groups considered subhuman such as Poles, Roma or Russians. These groups were seen as threats to the purity of Germany's Aryan race. There were also many groups, such as homosexuals, the mentally handicapped and those who were physically challenged from birth, which were singled out as being detrimental to Aryan purity.

After annexing the Sudetenland border country of Czechoslovakia (October 1938), and taking over the rest of the Czech lands as a protectorate (March 1939), the German Reich and the Soviet Union invaded Poland on first September 1939 predominantly as part of the Wehrmacht operation codenamed ''Fall Weiss''. The invasion of Poland began World War II.

World War II

At first Germany's military moves were brilliantly successful, as in the "blitzkrieg" invasions of Poland (1939), Norway (1940), the Low Countries (1940), and above all the stunningly successful invasion and quick conquest of France in 1940. Hitler probably wanted peace with Britain in late 1940, but Winston Churchill, standing alone, was dogged in his defiance. Churchill had major financial, military, and diplomatic help from President Franklin D. Roosevelt in the U.S., another implacable foe of Hitler. Hitler's emphasis on maintaining high living standards postponed the full mobilization of the national economy until 1942, years after the great rivals Britain, Russia, and the U.S. had fully mobilized.

Germany invaded the Soviet Union in June 1941 – weeks behind schedule – but swept forward until it reached the gates of Moscow. The tide turned in December 1941 when the invasion stalled in cold weather and the United States joined the war. After losing the Battle of Stalingrad in 1942–43, the Germans were on the defensive. By late 1944, the United States and Great Britain were closing in on Germany in the West, while the Soviets were closing from the East. In May 1945, Nazi Germany collapsed when Berlin was taken by the Red Army in May, 1945, after a fight to the death in the city streets. Hitler committed suicide.

By September 1945, the German Reich (which lasted only 13 years) and its Axis partners (Italy and Japan) had been defeated, chiefly by the forces of the Soviet Union, the United States, and the United Kingdom. Much of Europe lay in ruins, over sixty million people had been killed (most of them civilians), including approximately six million Jews and five million non-Jews in what became known as the Holocaust. World War II resulted in the destruction of Germany's political and economic infrastructure and led directly to its partition, considerable loss of territory (especially in the east), and historical legacy of guilt and shame.

Germany 1945-1990

As a consequence of the defeat of Nazi Germany in 1945 and the onset of the Cold War in 1947, the country was split between the two global blocs in the East and West, a period known as the division of Germany. Millions of refugees from eastern Europe moved west, most of them to West Germany. Two states emerged: West Germany was a parliamentary democracy, a NATO member, a founding member of what since became the European Union and one of the world's largest economies, while East Germany was a totalitarian Communist dictatorship that was a satellite of Moscow. With the collapse of Communism in 1989, reunion on West Germany's terms followed.

No one doubted Germany's economic and engineering prowess; the question was how long bitter memories of the war would cause Europeans to distrust Germany, and whether Germany could demonstrate it had rejected totalitarianism and militarism and embraced democracy and human rights.

Post-war chaos

The total of German war dead was 8% to 10% out of a prewar population of 69,000,000, or between 5.5 million and seven million people. This included 4.5 million in the military, and between one and two million civilians. There was chaos as 11 million of foreign workers and POWs left, while 14 million of displaced refugees from the east and soldiers returned home.

At the Potsdam Conference, Germany was divided into four military occupation zones by the Allies and did not regain independence until 1949. The provinces east of the Oder and Neisse rivers (the Oder-Neisse line) were transferred to Poland, Lithuania and Russia (Kaliningrad oblast), and the 6.7 million Germans living in Poland, and the 2.5 million in Czechoslovakia, were forced to move west; most had already left when the war ended.

Denazification removed, imprisoned or executed most top officials of the old regime, but most middle and lower ranks of civilian officialdom were not seriously affected. In accordance with the Allied agreement made at the Yalta conference millions of POWs were used as forced labor by the Soviet Union and other European countries.

In the East, the Soviets crushed dissent and imposed another police state, often employing ex-Nazis in the dreaded Stasi. The Soviets extracted about 23% of the East German GNP for reparations, while in the West reparations were a minor factor.

In 1945-46 housing and food conditions were bad, as the disruption of transport, markets and finances slowed a return to normal. In the West, bombing had destroyed the fourth of the housing stock, and over 10 million refugees from the east had crowded in, most living in camps. Food production was only two-thirds of the prewar level in 1946-48, while grain and meat shipments which usually supplied 25% of the food no longer arrived from the East. Furthermore the large shipments of food seized from occupied nations that had sustained Germany during the war ended. Coal production was down 60%, which had cascading negative effects on railroads, heavy industry and heating. Industrial production fell more than half and reached prewar levels only at the end of 1949

Allied economic policy originally was one of industrial disarmament plus building the agricultural sector. In the western sectors most of the industrial plants had minimal damage from the bombing the Allies dismantled 5% of the industrial plant for reparations. Deindustrialization became impractical and the U.S. instead called for a strong industrial base in Germany so it could stimulate European economic recovery. The U.S. shipped in food 1945-47 and made a $600 million loan in 1947 to rebuild German industry. By May 1946 the removal of machinery had ended thanks to lobbying by the U.S. Army. The Truman administration finally realised that economic recovery in Europe could not go forward without the reconstruction of the German industrial base on which it had previously been dependent. Washington decided that an "orderly, prosperous Europe requires the economic contributions of a stable and productive Germany."

East Germany

In 1949 the Soviet zone became the "Deutsche Demokratische Republik" - "DDR" ("German Democratic Republic" - "GDR", simply often "East Germany"), under control of the German Communist Party. Neither country had a significant army until the 1950s, but East Germany built the Stasi a powerful secret police that infiltrated every aspect of the society.

East Germany was an Eastern bloc state under political and military control of the Soviet Union through her occupation forces and the Warsaw Treaty. Political power was solely executed by leading members (''Politburo'') of the communist-controlled Socialist Unity Party (SED). A Soviet-style command economy was set up, later the GDR became the most advanced Comecon state. While East German propaganda was based on the benefits of the GDR's social programs and the alleged constant threat of a West German invasion, many of her citizens looked to the West for political freedoms and economic prosperity.

Walter Ulbricht (1893–1973) was the party boss 1950-71. In 1933, Ulbricht fled to Moscow, where he served as a Comintern agent loyal to Stalin. As the war was ending Stalin assigned him the job of designing the postwar German system that would centralize all power in the Communist Party. Ulbricht became deputy prime minister in 1949 and secretary (chief executive) of the Socialist Unity (Communist) party in 1950. Some 2.6 million people had fled East Germany by 1961 when he built the Berlin Wall to stop them—shooting those who attempted it. What the GDR called the "Anti-Fascist Protective Wall" was a major embarrassment for the program during the Cold War, but it did stabilize East Germany and postpone its collapse. Ulbricht lost power in 1971, but was kept on as a nominal head of state. He was replaced because he failed to solve growing national crises, such as the worsening economy in 1969-70, the fear of another popular uprising as had occurred in 1953, and the disgruntlement between Moscow and Berlin caused by Ulbricht's détente policies toward the West. The transition to Erich Honecker (1912–1994) led to a change in the direction of national policy and efforts by the Politburo to pay closer attention to the grievances of the proletariat. Honecker's plans were not successful, however, with the dissent growing among East Germany's population. In 1989, severe economic problems and growing emigration towards the west were finally among the main reasons leading to this socialist regime lasting for only 40 years.

West Germany

In 1949 the three western occupation zones (American, British and French) formed the "Federal Republic of Germany" (FRG, West Germany) under Chancellor Konrad Adenauer and his conservative CDU/CSU coalition. The capital was Bonn until it was moved to Berlin in 1990.

Economic miracle

West Germany enjoyed prolonged economic growth beginning in the early 1950s (''Wirtschaftswunder'' or "Economic Miracle"). Industrial production doubled from 1950 to 1957, and gross national product grew at a rate of nine or 10% per year, providing the engine for economic growth of all of Western Europe. Labor union support of the new policies, postponed wage increases, minimized strikes, supported technological modernization, and enjoyed a policy of co-determination (Mitbestimmung), which involved a satisfactory grievance resolution system as well as requiring representation of workers on the boards of large corporations. The recovery was accelerated by the currency reform of June 1948, U.S. gifts of $1.4 billion Marshall Plan aid, the breaking down of old trade barriers and traditional practices, and the opening of the global market. West Germany gained legitimacy and respect, as it shed the horrible reputation Germany had gained under the Nazis. West Germany played a central role in the creation of European cooperation; it joined NATO in 1955 and was a founding member of the European Economic Community in 1958.

1948 currency reform

The most dramatic and successful policy event was the currency reform of 1948. Since the 1930s, prices and wages had been controlled, but money had been plentiful. That meant that people had accumulated large paper assets, and that official prices and wages did not reflect reality, as the black market dominated the economy and more than half of all transactions were taking place unofficially. On June 21, 1948 the Western Allies withdrew the old currency and replaced it with the new Deutsche Mark at the rate of one new per 10 old. This wiped out 90% of government and private debt, as well as private savings. Prices were decontrolled, and labor unions agreed to accept a 15% wage increase, despite the 25% rise in prices. The result was the prices of German export products held steady, while profits and earnings from exports soared, and were poured back into the economy. The currency reforms were simultaneous with the $1.4 billion in Marshall plan money coming in from the United States, which primarily was used for investment.

In addition, the Marshall plan forced German companies, as well as those in all of Western Europe, to modernize their business practices, and take account of the international market. Marshall plan funding helped overcome bottlenecks in the surging economy caused by remaining controls (which were removed in 1949), and Marshall Plan business reforms opened up a greatly expanded market for German exports. Overnight, consumer goods appeared in the stores, because they could be sold for realistic prices, emphasizing to Germans that their economy had turned a corner.

The success of the currency reform angered the Soviets, who cut off all road, rail and canal links between the western zones and West Berlin. This was the Berlin Blockade that lasted from June 24, 1948 to May 12, 1949. In response, the U.S. and Britain launched an airlift of food and coal and distributed the new currency in West Berlin as well. The city thereby became economically integrated into West Germany.

Adenauer

Konrad Adenauer (1876–1967) was the dominant leader in West Germany. He was the first chancellor (top official) of the FRG, 1949–63, and until his death was the founder and leader of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), a coalition of conservatives, ordoliberals, and adherents of Protestant and Catholic social teaching that dominated West Germany politics for most of its history. During his chancellorship, the West Germany economy grew quickly, and West Germany established friendly relations with France, participated in the emerging European Union, established the Bundeswehr, the country's armed forces, and became a pillar of NATO as well as firm ally of the United States. Adenauer's government also commenced the long process of reconciliation with the Jews and Israel after the Holocaust.

Erhard

Ludwig Erhard (1897–1977) was in charge of economic policy as economics director for the British and American occupation zones and was Adenauer's long-time economics minister. Erhard's decision to lift many price controls in 1948, despite opposition from both the social democratic opposition and Allied authorities and his advocacy of free markets, helped set the Federal Republic on its strong growth from wartime devastation. Norbert Walter, a former chief economist at Deutsche Bank, argues that "Germany owes its rapid economic advance after World War II to the system of the Social Market Economy, established by Ludwig Erhard." Erhard was politically less successful when he served as the CDU Chancellor from 1963 until 1966. Erhard followed the concept of a social market economy, and was in close touch with professional economists. Erhard viewed the market itself as social and supported only a minimum of welfare legislation. However Erhard suffered a series of decisive defeats in his effort to create a free, competitive economy in 1957; he had to compromise on such key issues as the anti-cartel legislation. Thereafter, the West German economy evolved into a conventional west European welfare state.

Meanwhile in adopting the Godesberg Program in 1959, the SPD largely abandoned Marxism ideas and embraced the concept of the market economy and the welfare state. Instead it now sought to move beyond its old working class base to appeal the full spectrum of potential voters, including the middle class and professionals. Labor unions cooperated increasingly with industry, achieving labor representation on corporate boards and increases in wages and benefits.

Grand coalition

In 1966 Erhard lost support and Kurt Kiesinger (1904–1988) was elected as Chancellor by a new CDU/CSU-SPD alliance combining the two largest parties. Socialist (SPD) leader Willy Brandt was Deputy Federal Chancellor and Foreign Minister. The Grand Coalition lasted 1966-69 and is best known for reducing tensions with the Soviet bloc nations and establishing diplomatic relations with Czechoslovakia, Romania and Yugoslavia.

Guest workers

With a booming economy short of unskilled workers, especially after the Berlin Wall cut off the steady flow of East Germans, the FRG negotiated migration agreements with Italy (1955), Spain (1960), Greece (1960), and Turkey (1961) that brought in hundreds of thousands of temporary guest workers, "Gastarbeiter." In 1968 the FRG signed a guest worker agreement with Yugoslavia, that employed additional guest workers. They were young men who were paid full-scale wages and benefits, but were expected to return home in a few years.

The agreement with Turkey ended in 1973 but few workers returned because there were few good jobs in Turkey. By 2010 there were about 4 million people of Turkish descent in Germany. The generation born in Germany attended German schools, but had a poor command of either German or Turkish, and had either low-skilled jobs or unemployment.

Brandt and Ostpolitik

Willy Brandt (1913–1992) was the leader of the Social Democratic Party, 1964–87, and Chancellor 1969–1974. Under his leadership, the German government sought to reduce tensions with the Soviet Union and improve relations with the German Democratic Republic, a policy known as the Ostpolitik. Relations between the two German states had been icy at best, with propaganda barrages in each direction. The heavy outflow of talent from the east forced the building of the Berlin Wall in 1961, which worsened Cold War tensions and prevented East Germans from travel. Although anxious to relieve serious hardships for divided families and to reduce friction, Brandt's ''Ostpolitik'' was intent on holding to its concept of "two German states in one German nation."

Ostpolitik was opposed by the conservative elements in Germany, but won Brandt an international reputation and the Nobel Peace Prize in 1971. In September 1973, both West and East Germany were admitted to the United Nations. The two countries exchanged permanent representatives in 1974, and, in 1987, East Germany's leader Erich Honecker paid an official state visit to West Germany.

Economic crisis of 1970s

After 1973, Germany was hard hit by a worldwide economic crisis, soaring oil prices, and stubbornly high unemployment, which jumped from 300,000 in 1973 to 1.1 million in 1975. The Ruhr region was hardest hit, as its easy-to-reach coal mines petered out, and expensive German coal was no longer competitive. Likewise the Ruhr steel industry went into sharp decline, as its prices were undercut by lower-cost suppliers such as Japan. The welfare system provided a safety net for the large number of unemployed workers, and many factories reduce their labor force and began to concentrate on high-profit specialty items. After 1990 the Ruhr moved into service industries and high technology. Cleaning up the heavy air and water pollution became a major industry in its own right. Meanwhile, formerly rural Bavaria became a high-tech center of industry.

A spy scandal forced Brandt to step down as Chancellor while remaining as party leader. He was replaced by Helmut Schmidt (b. 1918), of the SPD, who served as Chancellor 1974–1982. Schmidt continued the ''Ostpolitik'' with less enthusiasm. He had a PhD in economics and was more interested in domestic issues, such as reducing inflation. The debt grew rapidly as he borrowed to cover the cost of the ever more expensive welfare state. After 1979 foreign policy issues grew central as the Cold War turned hot again. The German peace movement mobilized hundreds of thousands of demonstrators to protest against American deployment in Europe of new medium-range missiles. Schmidt supported the deployment but was opposed by the left wing of the SPD and by Brandt.

The pro-business Free Democratic Party (FDP) had been in coalition with the SPD, but now it changed direction. Led by Finance Minister Otto Graf Lambsdorff (1926–2009) the FDP adopted the market-oriented "Kiel Theses" in 1977; it rejected the Keynesian emphasis on consumer demand, and proposed to reduce social welfare spending, and try to introduce policies to stimulate production and facilitate jobs. Lambsdorff argued that the result would be economic growth, which would itself solve both the social problems and the financial problems. As a consequence the FDP switched allegiance to the CDU, and Schmidt lost his parliamentary majority in 1982. For the only time in West Germany's history, the government fell on a vote of no confidence.

Kohl

Helmut Kohl (b. 1930) brought the conservatives back to power with a CDU/CSU-FDP coalition in 1982, and served as Chancellor until 1998. After repeated victories in 1983, 1987, 1990 and 1994 he was finally defeated by a landslide that was the biggest on record, for the left in the 1998 federal elections, and was succeeded as Chancellor by Gerhard Schröder of the SPD. Kohl is best known for orchestrating reunification with the approval of all the Four Powers from World War II, who still had a voice in German affairs.

Reunification

During the summer of 1989, rapid changes known as ''peaceful revolution'' or ''Die Wende'' took place in East Germany, which quickly led to German reunification. Growing numbers of East Germans emigrated to West Germany, many via Hungary after Hungary's reformist government opened its borders. Thousands of East Germans also tried to reach the West by staging sit-ins at West German diplomatic facilities in other East European capitals, most notably in Prague. The exodus generated demands within East Germany for political change, and mass demonstrations in several cities continued to grow.

Unable to stop the growing civil unrest, Erich Honecker was forced to resign in October, and on 9 November, East German authorities unexpectedly allowed East German citizens to enter West Berlin and West Germany. Hundreds of thousands of people took advantage of the opportunity; new crossing points were opened in the Berlin Wall and along the border with West Germany. This led to the acceleration of the process of reforms in East Germany that ended with the German reunification that came into force on 3 October 1990.

Recent history (1990 to present)

The SPD in coalition with the Greens won the elections of 1998. SPD leader Gerhard Schröder positioned himself as a centrist "Third Way" candidate in the mold of Britain's Tony Blair and America's Bill Clinton. Schroder, in March 2003, reversed his position and proposed a significant downsizing of the welfare state, known as Agenda 2010. He had enough support to overcome opposition from the trade unions and the SPD's left wing. Agenda 2010 had five goals: tax cuts; labor market deregulation, especially relaxing rules protecting workers from dismissal and setting up Hartz concept job training; modernizing the welfare state by reducing entitlements; decreasing bureaucratic obstacles for small businesses; and providing new low-interest loans to local governments.

Merkel

From 2005 to 2009, Germany was ruled by a grand coalition led by the CDU's Angela Merkel as chancellor. Since the 2009 elections, Merkel has headed a centre-right government of the CDU/CSU and FDP.

Together with France and other EU states, Germany has played the leading role in the European Union. Germany (especially under Chancellor Helmut Kohl) was one of the main supporters of admitting many East European countries to the EU. Germany is at the forefront of European states seeking to exploit the momentum of monetary union to advance the creation of a more unified and capable European political, defence and security apparatus. The German chancellor Schröder expressed an interest in a permanent seat for Germany in the UN Security Council, identifying France, Russia and Japan as countries that explicitly backed Germany's bid. Germany formally adopted the Euro on January 1, 1999 after permanently fixing the Deutsche Mark rate on December 21, 1998

The German Bundeswehr since 1990 has participated in a number of peacekeeping and disaster relief operations abroad. Since 2002, German troops formed part of the International Security Assistance Force in the war in Afghanistan, resulting in the first German casualties in combat missions since World War II.

In the worldwide economic recession that began in 2008, Germany did relatively well. However, the economic instability of Greece and several other EU nations in 2010-11 forced Germany to reluctantly sponsor a massive financial rescue. In the wake of the disaster to the nuclear industry in Japan following its 2011 earthquake and tsunami, German public opinion turned sharply against Nuclear power in Germany, which produces a fourth of the electricity supply. In response Merkel has announced plans to close down the nuclear system over the next decade, and to rely even more heavily on wind and other alternative energy sources, in addition to coal and natural gas.

Sonderweg debate

A major historiographical debate about the German history concerns the ''Sonderweg'', the alleged “special path” that separated German history from the normal course of historical development, and whether or not Nazi Germany was the inevitable result of the ''Sonderweg''. Proponents of the ''Sonderweg'' theory such as Fritz Fischer point to such events of the Revolution of 1848, the authoritarian of the Second Empire and the continuation of the Imperial elite into the Weimar and Nazi periods. Opponents such as Gerhard Ritter of the ''Sonderweg'' theory argue that proponents of the theory are guilty of seeking selective examples, and there was much contingency and chance in German history. In addition, there was much debate within the supporters of the ''Sonderweg'' concept as for the reasons for the ''Sonderweg'', and whether or not the ''Sonderweg'' ended in 1945.

Historians

Johann Gustav Droysen (1808–1884)

Johann Gottlieb Fichte (1762–1814)

Johann Gottfried Herder (1744–1803)

Karl Lamprecht (1856–1945)

Gottfried Leibniz (1646–1716)

Karl Marx (1818–1883)

Samuel von Pufendorf (1632–1694)

Leopold von Ranke (1795–1886)

Friedrich Carl von Savigny (1779–1861)

*German Historical School

Beatus Rhenanus (also known as Beatus Bild) (1485–1547)

Heinrich von Treitschke (1834–1896)

20th century scholars in Germany

Bielefeld School quantitative social history

Martin Broszat, Nazi era

Werner Conze

Fritz Fischer - World War I

Klaus Hildebrand

Andreas Hillgruber

Eberhard Jäckel - Nazi era

Jürgen Kocka - Bielefeld school; social history

Hartmut Kaelble

Friedrich Meinecke (1862–1954)

Hans Mommsen

Wolfgang Mommsen

Thomas Nipperdey (1927–1992) 1800 to 1918

Ernst Nolte

Detlev Peukert

Gerhard Ritter

Oswald Spengler - world history

Michael Sturmer -20c; geography

Klemens von Klemperer - Nazi era

Hans-Ulrich Wehler Bielefeld School; new social history; 19c

Michael Wolffsohn

Rainer Zitelmann - Nazi era

outside Germany

Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881) - Frederick the Great Alan Bullock - Hitler Gordon A. Craig - Army, politics Richard J. Evans - Nazi era Ian Kershaw, Hitler Claudia Koonz - Women in Nazi era Timothy Mason -Nazis George Mosse --19c-20c culture Steven Ozment Reformation

Hans Rothfels - military

Fritz Stern - cultural Henry Ashby Turner - 20c esp business

Holocaust

Yehuda Bauer

Martin Broszat

Christopher Browning

Lucy Dawidowicz

Norman Finkelstein

Henry Friedlander

Saul Friedländer

Daniel Goldhagen

Raul Hilberg

Michael Marrus

Hans Mommsen

R. J. Rummel

See also

Territorial changes of Germany

Military history of Germany

Names of Germany for terminology applied to Germany

Medieval East Colonisation by German noblemen and farmers

German exodus from Eastern Europe

History of German settlement in Eastern Europe

References

Further reading

Surveys

Biesinger, Joseph A. ''Germany: a reference guide from the Renaissance to the present'' (2006)

Bithell, Jethro, ed. ''Germany: A Companion to German Studies'' (5th ed. 1955), 578pp; essays on German literature, music, philosophy, art and, especially, history. online edition

Buse, Dieter K. ed. ''Modern Germany: An Encyclopedia of History, People, and Culture 1871-1990'' (2 vol 1998)

Clark, Christopher. ''Iron Kingdom: The Rise and Downfall of Prussia, 1600-1947'' (2006)

Detwiler, Donald S. ''Germany: A Short History'' (3rd ed. 1999) 341pp; online edition

Fulbrook, Mary. ''A Concise History of Germany'' (2004)

Holborn, Hajo. ''A History of Modern Germany'' (3 vol 1959-64); vol 1: The Reformation; vol 2: 1648-1840; vol 3. 1840-1945

Maehl, William Harvey. ''Germany in Western Civilization'' (1979), 833pp; focus on politics and diplomacy

Ozment, Steven. ''A Mighty Fortress: A New History of the German People'' (2005), focus on cultural history

Raff, Diether. ''History of Germany from the Medieval Empire to the Present'' (1988) 507pp

Reinhardt, Kurt F. ''Germany: 2000 Years'' (2 vols., 1961), stress on cultural topics

Sagarra, Eda. ''A Social History of Germany 1648-1914'' (2002)

Schulze, Hagen, and Deborah Lucas Schneider. ''Germany: A New History'' (2001)

Taylor, A. J. P. ''The Course of German History: A Survey of the Development of German History since 1815.'' (2001). 280pp; online edition

Watson, Peter. ''The German Genius'' (2010). 992 pp covers many thinkers, writers, scientists etc. since 1750; ISBN 9780743285537

Medieval

Arnold, Benjamin. ''Medieval Germany, 500-1300: A Political Interpretation'' (1998)

Arnold, Benjamin. ''Power and Property in Medieval Germany: Economic and Social Change, C.900-1300'' (Oxford University Press, 2004) online edition

Barraclough, Geoffrey. ''The Origins of Modern Germany'' (2d ed., 1947)

Fuhrmann, Horst, and Timothy Reuter. ''Germany in the High Middle Ages: c.1050-1200'' (1986)

Haverkamp, Alfred, Helga Braun, and Richard Mortimer. ''Medieval Germany 1056-1273'' (1992)

Innes; Matthew. ''State and Society in the Early Middle Ages: The Middle Rhine Valley, 400-1000'' (Cambridge U.P. 2000) online edition

Jeep, John M. ''Medieval Germany: An Encyclopedia'' (2001), 928pp, 650 articles by 200 scholars cover AD 500 to 1500

Nicholas, David. ''The Northern Lands: Germanic Europe, c.1270–c.1500'' (Wiley-Blackwell, 2009). 410 pages.

Reuter, Timothy. ''Germany in the Early Middle Ages, C. 800-1056'' (1991)

Reformation

see also Martin Luther

Bainton, Roland H. ''Here I Stand: A Life of Martin Luther'' (1978; reprinted 1995)

Dickens, A. G. ''Martin Luther and the Reformation'' (1969), basic introduction

Holborn, Hajo. ''A History of Modern Germany: vol 1: The Reformation'' (1959)

Junghans, Helmar. ''Martin Luther: Exploring His Life and Times, 1483–1546.'' (book plus CD ROM) (1998)

MacCulloch, Diarmaid. ''The Reformation'' (2005), influential recent survey

Ranke, Leopold von. ''History of the Reformation in Germany'' (1905) 792 pp; by Germany's foremost scholar complete text online free

Smith, Preserved. ''The Age of the Reformation'' (1920) 861 pages; complete text online free

Early Modern to 1815

Asprey, Robert B. ''Frederick the Great: The Magnificent Enigma'' (2007)

Atkinson, C.T. ''A history of Germany, 1715-1815'' (1908) old; focus on political-military-diplomatic history of Germany and Austria online edition

Clark, Christopher. ''Iron Kingdom: The Rise and Downfall of Prussia, 1600-1947'' (2006)

Gagliardo, John G. ''Germany under the Old Regime, 1600-1790'' (1991) online edition

Heal, Bridget. ''The Cult of the Virgin Mary in Early Modern Germany: Protestant and Catholic Piety, 1500-1648'' (2007)

Holborn, Hajo. A History of Modern Germany: vol 2: 1648-1840'' (1962)

Hughes, Michael. ''Early Modern Germany, 1477-1806'' (1992)

Ozment, Steven. ''Flesh and Spirit: Private Life in Early Modern Germany'' (2001)

1815–1890

Blackbourn, David. ''The Long Nineteenth Century: A History of Germany, 1780-1918'' (1998) excerpt and text search

Blackbourn, David, and Geoff Eley. ''The Peculiarities of German History: Bourgeois Society and Politics in Nineteenth-Century Germany'' (1984) online edition

Brose, Eric Dorn. ''German History, 1789-1871: From the Holy Roman Empire to the Bismarckian Reich.'' (1997) online edition

Nipperdey, Thomas. ''Germany from Napoleon to Bismarck'' (1996), very dense coverage of every aspect of German society, economy and government

Pflanze Otto, ed. ''The Unification of Germany, 1848-1871'' (1979), essays by historians

Sheehan, James J. ''German History, 1770-1866'' (1993), the major survey in English

Steinberg, Jonathan. ''Bismarck: A Life'' (2011)

Taylor, A.J.P. ''Bismarck: The Man and the Statesman'' (1967) online edition

Wehler, Hans-Ulrich. ''The German Empire 1871-1918'' (1984)

1890–1933

Berghahn, Volker Rolf. ''Modern Germany: society, economy, and politics in the twentieth century'' (1987) ACLS E-book

Berghahn, Volker Rolf. ''Imperial Germany, 1871-1914: Economy, Society, Culture, and Politics'' (2nd ed. 2005)

Cecil, Lamar. ''Wilhelm II: Prince and Emperor, 1859-1900'' (1989) online edition; vol2: ''Wilhelm II: Emperor and Exile, 1900-1941'' (1996) online edition

Craig, Gordon A. ''Germany, 1866-1945'' (1978) online edition

Herwig, Holger H. ''The First World War: Germany and Austria–Hungary 1914–1918'' (1996), ISBN 0340573481

Kolb, Eberhard. ''The Weimar Republic'' (2005)

Mommsen, Wolfgang J. ''Imperial Germany 1867-1918: Politics, Culture and Society in an Authoritarian State'' (1995)

Peukert, Detlev. ''The Weimar Republic'' (1993)

Retallack, James. ''Imperial Germany, 1871-1918'' (Oxford University Press, 2008)

Scheck, Raffael. “Lecture Notes, Germany and Europe, 1871-1945” (2008) full text online, a brief textbook by a leading scholar

Nazi era

Surveys

Burleigh, Michael. ''The Third Reich: A New History.'' (2000). 864 pp. Stress on antisemitism;

Evans, Richard J. ''The Coming of the Third Reich: A History.'' 2004. 622 pp., a major scholarly survey; ''The Third Reich in Power: 1933-1939.'' (2005). 800 pp.; ''The Third Reich at war 1939-1945'' (2009)

Overy, Richard. ''The Dictators: Hitler's Germany and Stalin's Russia'' (2004). comparative history

Roderick, Stacke. ''Hitler's Germany: Origins, Interpretations, Legacies'' (1999)

Zentner, Christian and Bedürftig, Friedemann, eds. ''The Encyclopedia of the Third Reich.'' (2 vol. 1991). 1120 pp.; see Encyclopedia of the Third Reich

Special topics

Bullock, Alan. ''Hitler: A Study in Tyranny, '' (1962) online edition

Friedlander, Saul. ''Nazi Germany and the Jews, 1933-1945'' (2009) abridged version of the standard two volume history

Kershaw, Ian. ''Hitler, 1889-1936: Hubris.'' vol. 1. 1999. 700 pp. ; vol 2: ''Hitler, 1936-1945: Nemesis.'' 2000. 832 pp.; the leading scholarly biography.

Koonz, Claudia. ''Mothers in the Fatherland: Women, Family Life, and Nazi Ideology, 1919-1945.'' (1986). 640 pp. The major study

Speer, Albert. ''Inside the Third Reich: Memoirs'' 1970.

Stibbe, Matthew. ''Women in the Third Reich,'' 2003, 208 pp.

Tooze, Adam. ''The Wages of Destruction: The Making and Breaking of the Nazi Economy'' (2007), highly influential new study; online review by Richard Tilly; summary of reviews

Thomsett, Michael C. ''The German Opposition to Hitler: The Resistance, the Underground, and Assassination Plots, 1938-1945'' (2nd ed 2007) 278 pages

Since 1945

Bark, Dennis L., and David R. Gress. ''A History of West Germany Vol 1: From Shadow to Substance, 1945-1963'' (1992); ISBN 9780631167877; vol 2: ''Democracy and Its Discontents 1963-1988'' (1992) ISBN 9780631167884

Berghahn, Volker Rolf. ''Modern Germany: society, economy, and politics in the twentieth century'' (1987) ACLS E-book online

Hanrieder, Wolfram F. ''Germany, America, Europe: Forty Years of German Foreign Policy'' (1989) ISBN 0300040229

Jarausch, Konrad H.''After Hitler: Recivilizing Germans, 1945-1995'' (2008)

Junker, Detlef, ed. ''The United States and Germany in the Era of the Cold War'' (2 vol 2004), 150 short essays by scholars covering 1945-1990 excerpt and text search vol 1; excerpt and text search vol 2

Schwarz, Hans-Peter. ''Konrad Adenauer: A German Politician and Statesman in a Period of War, Revolution and Reconstruction'' (2 vol 1995) excerpt and text search vol 2; also full text vol 1; and full text vol 2

Smith, Gordon, ed, '' Developments in German Politics'' (1992) ISBN 0822312662, broad survey of reunified nation

Weber, Jurgen. ''Germany, 1945-1990'' (Central European University Press, 2004) online edition

GDR

Fulbrook, Mary. ''Anatomy of a Dictatorship: Inside the GDR, 1949-1989'' (1998)

Jarausch, Konrad H.. and Eve Duffy. ''Dictatorship As Experience: Towards a Socio-Cultural History of the GDR'' (1999)

Jarausch, Konrad H., and Volker Gransow, eds. ''Uniting Germany: Documents and Debates, 1944-1993'' (1994), primary sources on reunification

Pritchard, Gareth. ''The Making of the GDR, 1945-53'' (2004)

Ross, Corey. ''The East German Dictatorship: Problems and Perspectives in the Interpretation of the GDR'' (2002)

Steiner, André. ''The Plans That Failed: An Economic History of East Germany, 1945-1989'' (2010)

Historiography

Berghahn, Volker R., and Simone Lassig, eds. '' Biography between Structure and Agency: Central European Lives in International Historiography'' (2008)

Evans, Richard J. ''Rereading German History: From Unification to Reunification, 1800-1996'' (1997) online edition

Hagemann, Karen, and Jean H. Quataert, eds. ''Gendering Modern German History: Rewriting Historiography'' (2008)

Hagemann, Karen. "From the Margins to the Mainstream? Women's and Gender History in Germany," ''Journal of Women's History,'' Spring 2007, Vol. 19 Issue 1, pp 193–199

Jarausch, Konrad H., and Michael Geyer, eds. ''Shattered Past: Reconstructing German Histories'' (2003)

Klessmann, Christoph. ''The Divided Past: Rewriting Post-War German History'' (2001) online edition

Lehmann, Hartmut, and James Van Horn Melton, eds. ''Paths of Continuity: Central European Historiography from the 1930s to the 1950s'' (2003)

Perkins, J. A. "Dualism in German Agrarian Historiography, ''Comparative Studies in Society and History,'' Apr 1986, Vol. 28 Issue 2, pp 287–330,

Stuchtey, Benedikt, and Peter Wende, eds. ''British and German Historiography, 1750-1950: Traditions, Perceptions, and Transfers'' (2000)

Category:History of the Germanic peoples

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Coordinates	30°19′10″N81°39′36″N
alt	A mid-twenties African American man wearing a sequined military jacket and dark sunglasses. He is walking while waving his right hand, which is adorned with a white glove. His left hand is bare.
background	solo_singer
birth name	Michael Joseph Jackson
alias	Michael Joe Jackson, MJ, King of Pop
birth date	August 29, 1958
birth place	Gary, Indiana, U.S.
death date	June 25, 2009
death place	Los Angeles, California, U.S.
instrument	vocals, guitar, drums, percussion, keyboards
genre	R&B;, pop, rock, soul, dance, funk, disco, new jack swing
occupation	Singer-songwriter, musician, composer, dancer, choreographer, record producer, actor, businessman, philanthropist
years active	1964–2009
label	Motown, Epic, Legacy
associated acts	The Jackson 5
relatives	Janet Jackson (sister)
website	130pxMichael Jackson's signature }}

Michael Joseph Jackson (August 29, 1958 – June 25, 2009) was an American recording artist, entertainer, and businessman. Often referred to as the King of Pop, or by his initials MJ, Jackson is recognized as the most successful entertainer of all time by Guinness World Records. His contribution to music, dance, and fashion, along with a much-publicized personal life, made him a global figure in popular culture for over four decades. The seventh child of the Jackson family, he debuted on the professional music scene along with his brothers as a member of The Jackson 5, then the Jacksons in 1964, and began his solo career in 1971.

In the early 1980s, Jackson became a dominant figure in popular music. The music videos for his songs, including those of "Beat It", "Billie Jean", and "Thriller", were credited with transforming the medium into an art form and a promotional tool, and the popularity of these videos helped to bring the relatively new television channel MTV to fame. Videos such as "Black or White" and "Scream" made him a staple on MTV in the 1990s. Through stage performances and music videos, Jackson popularized a number of complicated dance techniques, such as the robot and the moonwalk, to which he gave the name. His distinctive musical sound and vocal style have influenced numerous hip hop, post-disco, contemporary R&B;, pop and rock artists.

Jackson's 1982 album ''Thriller'' is the best-selling album of all time. His other records, including ''Off the Wall'' (1979), ''Bad'' (1987), ''Dangerous'' (1991), and ''HIStory'' (1995), also rank among the world's best-selling. Jackson is one of the few artists to have been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame twice. He was also inducted into the Dance Hall of Fame as the first (and currently only) dancer from the world of pop and rock 'n' roll. Some of his other achievements include multiple Guinness World Records; 13 Grammy Awards (as well as the Grammy Legend Award and the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award); 26 American Music Awards (more than any other artist, including the "Artist of the Century"); 13 number-one singles in the United States in his solo career (more than any other male artist in the Hot 100 era); and the estimated sale of over 750 million records worldwide. Jackson won hundreds of awards, which have made him the most-awarded recording artist in the history of popular music.

Life and career

Early life and The Jackson 5 (1958–1975)

Michael Jackson was born on August 29, 1958, the eighth of ten children in an African American working-class family who lived in a small 3-room house in Gary, Indiana, an industrial city near Chicago. His mother, Katherine Esther Scruse, was a devout Jehovah's Witness, and his father, Joseph Walter "Joe" Jackson, was a steel mill worker who performed with an R&B; band called The Falcons. Jackson had three sisters: Rebbie, La Toya, and Janet, and five brothers: Jackie, Tito, Jermaine, Marlon, and Randy. A sixth brother, Brandon, died shortly after birth.

Jackson had a troubled relationship with his father, Joe. In 1980, Jackson won three awards at the American Music Awards for his solo efforts: Favorite Soul/R&B; Album, Favorite Soul/R&B; Male Artist, and Favorite Soul/R&B; Single for "Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough". That year, he also won Billboard Year-End for Top Black Artist and Top Black Album and a Grammy Award for Best Male R&B; Vocal Performance, also for "Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough". Jackson again won at the American Music Awards in 1981 for Favorite Soul/R&B; Album and Favorite Soul/R&B; Male Artist. Despite its commercial success, Jackson felt ''Off the Wall'' should have made a much bigger impact, and was determined to exceed expectations with his next release. In 1980, he secured the highest royalty rate in the music industry: 37 percent of wholesale album profit.

''Thriller'' and ''Motown 25'' (1982–83)

In 1982, Jackson contributed the song "Someone In the Dark" to the storybook for the film ''E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial''; the record won a Grammy for Best Recording for Children in 1984. In the same year he won another seven Grammys and eight American Music Awards (including the Award of Merit, the youngest artist to win it), making him the most awarded in one night for both award shows. The album topped the ''Billboard'' 200 chart for 37 weeks and was in the top 10 of the 200 for 80 consecutive weeks. It was the first album to have seven ''Billboard'' Hot 100 top 10 singles, including "Billie Jean", "Beat It," and "Wanna Be Startin' Somethin'." ''Thriller'' was certified for 29 million shipments by the RIAA, giving it Double Diamond status in the United States. The album won also another Grammy for Best Engineered Recording – Non Classical in 1984, awarding Bruce Swedien for his work. Thanks to the ''Bad'' album, Bruce Swedien and Humberto Gatica won one Grammy in 1988 for Best Engineered Recording – Non Classical and Michael Jackson won one Grammy for Best Music Video, Short Form for "Leave Me Alone" in 1989. ''HIStory'' received a Grammy nomination for Album of the Year. However, the sales for ''Invincible'' were lower than those of his previous releases, due in part to a lack of promotion, no supporting world tour and the label dispute. The album also came out at a bad time for the music industry in general. Jackson rehearsed in Los Angeles in the weeks leading up to the tour under the direction of choreographer Kenny Ortega. Most of these rehearsals took place at the Staples Center, which was owned by AEG. With ''Thriller'', Christopher Connelly of ''Rolling Stone'' commented that Jackson developed his long association with the subliminal theme of paranoia and darker imagery. Allmusic's Stephen Thomas Erlewine noted this is evident on the songs "Billie Jean" and "Wanna Be Startin' Somethin'". In "Billie Jean", Jackson sings about an obsessive fan who alleges he has fathered a child of hers. In "Wanna Be Startin' Somethin'" he argues against gossip and the media. "Beat It" decried gang violence in an homage to ''West Side Story'', and was Jackson's first successful rock cross-over piece, according to Huey. He also observed that the title track "Thriller" began Jackson's interest with the theme of the supernatural, a topic he revisited in subsequent years. In 1985, Jackson co-wrote the charity anthem "We Are the World"; humanitarian themes later became a recurring theme in his lyrics and public persona.

In ''Bad'', Jackson's concept of the predatory lover can be seen on the rock song "Dirty Diana". The lead single "I Just Can't Stop Loving You" is a traditional love ballad, while "Man in the Mirror" is an anthemic ballad of confession and resolution. "Smooth Criminal" was an evocation of bloody assault, rape and likely murder. Allmusic's Stephen Thomas Erlewine states that ''Dangerous'' presents Jackson as a very paradoxical individual. He comments the album is more diverse than his previous ''Bad'', as it appeals to an urban audience while also attracting the middle class with anthems like "Heal the World". The first half of the record is dedicated to new jack swing, including songs like "Jam" and "Remember the Time". The album is Jackson's first where social ills become a primary theme; "Why You Wanna Trip on Me", for example, protests against world hunger, AIDS, homelessness and drugs. ''Dangerous'' contains sexually charged efforts such as the multifaceted love song, "In the Closet". The title track continues the theme of the predatory lover and compulsive desire. The second half includes introspective, pop-gospel anthems such as "Will You Be There", "Heal the World" and "Keep the Faith"; these songs show Jackson opening up about various personal struggles and worries. In the ballad "Gone Too Soon", Jackson gives tribute to his friend Ryan White and the plight of those with AIDS.

''HIStory'' creates an atmosphere of paranoia. Its content focuses on the hardships and public struggles Jackson went through just prior to its production. In the new jack swing-funk-rock efforts "Scream" and "Tabloid Junkie", along with the R&B; ballad "You Are Not Alone", Jackson retaliates against the injustice and isolation he feels, and directs much of his anger at the media. In the introspective ballad "Stranger in Moscow", Jackson laments over his "fall from grace", while songs like "Earth Song", "Childhood", "Little Susie" and "Smile" are all operatic pop pieces. In the track "D.S.", Jackson launched a verbal attack against Tom Sneddon. He describes Sneddon as an antisocial, white supremacist who wanted to "get my ass, dead or alive". Of the song, Sneddon said, "I have not—shall we say—done him the honor of listening to it, but I've been told that it ends with the sound of a gunshot". ''Invincible'' found Jackson working heavily with producer Rodney Jerkins. It is a record made up of urban soul like "Cry" and "The Lost Children", ballads such as "Speechless", "Break of Dawn" and "Butterflies" and mixes hip-hop, pop and R&B; in "2000 Watts", "Heartbreaker" and "Invincible".

Vocal style

Jackson sang from childhood, and over time his voice and vocal style changed noticeably. Between 1971 and 1975, Jackson's voice descended from boy soprano to high tenor. Jackson first used a technique called the "vocal hiccup" in 1973, starting with the song "It's Too Late to Change the Time" from The Jackson 5's ''G.I.T.: Get It Together'' album. Jackson did not use the hiccup technique— somewhat like a gulping for air or gasping— fully until the recording of ''Off the Wall'': it can be seen in full force in the "Shake Your Body (Down to the Ground)" promotional video. With the arrival of ''Off the Wall'' in the late 1970s, Jackson's abilities as a vocalist were well regarded. At the time, ''Rolling Stone'' compared his vocals to the "breathless, dreamy stutter" of Stevie Wonder. Their analysis was also that "Jackson's feathery-timbred tenor is extraordinarily beautiful. It slides smoothly into a startling falsetto that's used very daringly". 1982 saw the release of ''Thriller'', and ''Rolling Stone'' was of the opinion that Jackson was then singing in a "fully adult voice" that was "tinged by sadness".

A distinctive deliberate mispronunciation of "come on", used frequently by Jackson, occasionally spelled "cha'mone" or "shamone", is also a staple in impressions and caricatures of him. The turn of the 1990s saw the release of the introspective album ''Dangerous''. ''The New York Times'' noted that on some tracks, "he gulps for breath, his voice quivers with anxiety or drops to a desperate whisper, hissing through clenched teeth" and he had a "wretched tone". When singing of brotherhood or self-esteem the musician would return to "smooth" vocals. When commenting on ''Invincible'', ''Rolling Stone'' were of the opinion that—at the age of 43—Jackson still performed "exquisitely voiced rhythm tracks and vibrating vocal harmonies". Nelson George summed up Jackson's vocals by stating "The grace, the aggression, the growling, the natural boyishness, the falsetto, the smoothness—that combination of elements mark him as a major vocalist".

Music videos and choreography

Referred to as the King of Music Videos, Steve Huey of Allmusic observed how Jackson transformed the music video into an art form and a promotional tool through complex story lines, dance routines, special effects and famous cameo appearances; simultaneously breaking down racial barriers. Before ''Thriller'', Jackson struggled to receive coverage on MTV, allegedly because he was African American. Pressure from CBS Records persuaded MTV to start showing "Billie Jean" and later "Beat It", leading to a lengthy partnership with Jackson, also helping other black music artists gain recognition. MTV employees deny any racism in their coverage, or pressure to change their stance. MTV maintains that they played rock music, regardless of race. The popularity of his videos on MTV helped to put the relatively young channel "on the map"; MTV's focus shifted in favor of pop and R&B.; His performance on ''Motown 25: Yesterday, Today, Forever'' changed the scope of live stage show; "That Jackson lip-synced 'Billie Jean' is, in itself, not extraordinary, but the fact that it did not change the impact of the performance is extraordinary; whether the performance was live or lip-synced made no difference to the audience" thus creating an era in which artists re-create the spectacle of music video imagery on stage. Short films like ''Thriller'' largely remained unique to Jackson, while the group dance sequence in "Beat It" has frequently been imitated. The choreography in ''Thriller'' has become a part of global pop culture, replicated everywhere from Indian films to prisons in the Philippines. The ''Thriller'' short film marked an increase in scale for music videos, and has been named the most successful music video ever by the ''Guinness World Records''.

In the 19-minute music video for "Bad"—directed by Martin Scorsese—Jackson began using sexual imagery and choreography not previously seen in his work. He occasionally grabbed or touched his chest, torso and crotch. When asked by Oprah in the 1993 interview about why he grabbed his crotch, he replied, "I think it happens subliminally" and he described it as something that was not planned, but rather, as something that was compelled by the music. "Bad" garnered a mixed reception from both fans and critics; ''Time'' magazine described it as "infamous". The video also featured Wesley Snipes; in the future Jackson's videos would often feature famous cameo roles.

}} ;Bibliography

George, Nelson (2004). ''Michael Jackson: The Ultimate Collection'' booklet. Sony BMG.

Further reading

External links

Michael Jackson Live: Best Pics – slideshow by ''Life magazine''

Michael Jackson at MTV

FBI file on Michael Jackson

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Coordinates	30°19′10″N81°39′36″N
Region	Western Philosophy, German philosophy
Era	19th century philosophy
Color	#B0C4DE
Name	Karl Heinrich Marx
Birth date	5 May 1818
Birth place	Trier, Kingdom of Prussia
Death date	March 14, 1883 (bronchitis/pleurisy)
Death place	London, United Kingdom
Religion	Protestantism; later, none (atheist)
School tradition	Marxism, Communism, Socialism, Hegelianism
Signature	Karl Marx Signature.svg
Main interests	Politics, economics, philosophy, sociology, labour, history, class struggle
Influences	Hegel, Feuerbach, Spinoza, Proudhon, Stirner, Smith, Voltaire, Ricardo, Vico, Rousseau, Goethe, Helvetius, d'Holbach, Shakespeare, Dante, Chaucer, Fourier, Robert Owen, Balcescu, Hess, Hupay, Guizot
Influenced	Lenin, Stalin, Trotsky, Mao, Tito, Hoxha, Castro, Guevara, Ceaușescu, Ho, Christofias, Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, Luxemburg, Lukács, Gramsci, Korsch, Kropotkin, Bakunin, Chomsky, Bookchin, Arendt, Marcuse, Lyotard, Tzara, Foucault, Deleuze, Debord, Frankfurt School, Negri, Taussig, Roy and others
Notable ideas	Co-founder of Marxism (with Engels), surplus value, contributions to the labor theory of value, alienation and exploitation of the worker, ''The Communist Manifesto,'' ''Das Kapital,'' materialist conception of history |}}

Karl Heinrich Marx (5 May 1818 – 14 March 1883) was a German philosopher, sociologist, economic historian, journalist, and revolutionary socialist who developed the socio-political theory of Marxism. His ideas have since played a significant role in the development of social science and the socialist political movement. He published various books during his lifetime, with the most notable being ''The Communist Manifesto'' (1848) and ''Capital'' (1867–1894), many of which were co-written with his friend, the fellow German revolutionary socialist Friedrich Engels.

Born into a wealthy middle class family in Trier, Prussia, Marx went on to study at both the University of Bonn and the University of Berlin, where he became interested in the philosophical ideas of the Young Hegelians. In 1836, he became engaged to Jenny von Westphalen, marrying her in 1843. Following the completion of his studies, he became a journalist in Cologne, writing for a radical newspaper, the ''Rheinische Zeitung'', where he began to use Hegelian concepts of dialectical materialism to influence his ideas on socialism. Moving to Paris in 1843, he began writing for other radical newspapers, the ''Deutsch-Französische Jahrbücher'' and ''Vorwärts!'', as well as writing a series of books, several of which were co-written with Engels. Exiled to Brussels in Belgium in 1845, he became a leading figure of the Communist League, before moving back to Cologne, where he founded his own newspaper, the ''Neue Rheinische Zeitung''. Exiled once more, in 1849 he moved to London together with his wife Jenny and their children. In London, where the family was reduced to poverty, Marx continued writing and formulating his theories about the nature of society and how he believed it could be improved, as well as campaigning for socialism and becoming a significant figure in the International Workingmen's Association.

Marx's theories about society, economics and politics, which are collectively known as Marxism, hold that all societies progress through the dialectic of class struggle. He was heavily critical of the current socio-economic form of society, capitalism, which he called the "dictatorship of the bourgeoisie", believing it to be run by the wealthy middle and upper classes purely for their own benefit, and predicted that, like previous socioeconomic systems, it would inevitably produce internal tensions which would lead to its self-destruction and replacement by a new system, socialism. Under socialism, he argued that society would be governed by the working class in what he called the "dictatorship of the proletariat", the "workers state" or "workers' democracy". He believed that socialism would, in its turn, eventually be replaced by a stateless, classless society called pure communism. Along with believing in the inevitability of socialism and communism, Marx actively fought for the former's implementation, arguing that both social theorists and underprivileged people should carry out organised revolutionary action to topple capitalism and bring about socio-economic change.

While Marx remained a relatively unknown figure in his own lifetime, his ideas and the ideology of Marxism began to exert a major influence on socialist movements shortly after his death. Revolutionary socialist governments following Marxist concepts took power in a variety of countries in the 20th century, leading to the formation of such socialist states as the Soviet Union in 1922 and the People's Republic of China in 1949, whilst various theoretical variants, such as Leninism, Stalinism, Trotskyism and Maoism, were developed. Marx is typically cited, with Émile Durkheim and Max Weber, as one of the three principal architects of modern social science. Marx has been described as one of the most influential figures in human history, and in a 1999 BBC poll was voted the "thinker of the millennium" by people from around the world.

Biography

Early life: 1818–1835

Karl Heinrich Marx was born on 5 May 1818 at 664 Brückergasse in Trier, a town located in the Kingdom of Prussia's Province of the Lower Rhine. His ancestry was Jewish, with his paternal line having supplied the rabbis of Trier since 1723, a role that had been taken up by his own grandfather, Merier Halevi Marx; Merier's son and Karl's father would be the first in the line to receive a secular education. His maternal grandfather was a Dutch rabbi. Karl's father, Hirschel Marx, was middle-class and relatively prosperous, owning a number of Moselle vineyards; he converted from Judaism to the Protestant Christian denomination of Lutheranism prior to his son's birth, taking on the German forename of Heinrich over Hirschel. In 1815, he began working as an attorney and in 1819 moved his family from a five-room rented apartment into a ten-room property near the Porta Nigra. A man of the Enlightenment, Heinrich Marx was interested in the ideas of the philosophers Immanuel Kant and Voltaire, and took part in agitations for a constitution and reforms in Prussia, which was then governed by an absolute monarchy. Karl's mother, born Henrietta Pressburg, was a Dutch Jew who, unlike her husband, was only semi-literate. She claimed to suffer from "excessive mother love", devoting much time to her family, and insisting on cleanliness within her home. She was from a prosperous business family. Her family later founded the company Philips Electronics: she was great-aunt to Anton and Gerard Philips, and great-great-aunt to Frits Philips.

Little is known about Karl Marx's childhood. He was privately educated until 1830, when he entered Trier High School, which was then run by the headmaster Hugo Wyttenbach, a friend of his father. Wyttenbach had employed many liberal humanists as teachers, something which angered the government, and so the police raided the school in 1832, discovering what they labelled seditious literature espousing political liberalism being distributed amongst the students. In 1835, Karl, then aged seventeen, began attending the University of Bonn, where he wished to study philosophy and literature, but his father insisted on law as a more practical field of study. He was able to avoid military service when he turned eighteen because he suffered from a weak chest. Being fond of alcoholic beverages, at Bonn he joined the Trier Tavern Club drinking society (''Landsmannschaft der Treveraner'') and at one point served as its co-president. Marx was more interested in drinking and socialising than studying law, and due to his poor grades, his father forced him to transfer to the far more serious and academically oriented University of Berlin, where his legal studies became less significant than excursions into philosophy and history.

Hegelianism and early activism: 1836–1843

In 1836, Marx became engaged to Jenny von Westphalen, a baroness of the Prussian ruling class who broke off her engagement with a young aristocratic second lieutenant in order to be with him. Their eventual marriage was controversial for breaking three social taboos of the period; it was a marriage between a daughter of a noble background and a man of Jewish origin as well as being between individuals who belonged to the middle and upper class (aristocracy), respectively, and between a man and an older woman. Such issues were lessened by Marx's friendship with Jenny's father, Baron Ludwig von Westphalen, a liberal thinking aristocrat. Marx dedicated his doctoral thesis to him. The couple married seven years later, on 19 June 1843, at the ''Pauluskirche'' in Bad Kreuznach.

Marx became interested in, but critical of, the work of the German philosopher G.W.F Hegel (1770–1831), whose ideas were widely debated amongst European philosophical circles at the time. Marx wrote about falling ill "from intense vexation at having to make an idol of a view I detested." He became involved with a group of radical thinkers known as the Young Hegelians, who gathered around Ludwig Feuerbach and Bruno Bauer. Like Marx, the Young Hegelians were critical of Hegel's metaphysical assumptions, but still adopted his dialectical method in order to criticise established society, politics and religion. Marx befriended Bauer, and in July 1841 the two scandalised their class in Bonn by getting drunk, laughing in church, and galloping through the streets on donkeys. During that period, Marx concentrated on his criticism of Hegel and certain other Young Hegelians.

Marx also wrote for his own enjoyment, writing both non-fiction and fiction. In 1837, he completed a short novel, ''Scorpion and Felix''; a drama, ''Oulanem''; and some poems; none of which were published. He soon gave up writing fiction for other pursuits, including learning English and Italian.

He was deeply engaged in writing his doctoral thesis, ''The Difference Between the Democritean and Epicurean Philosophy of Nature'', which he finished in 1841. The essay has been described as "a daring and original piece of work in which he set out to show that theology must yield to the superior wisdom of philosophy", and as such was controversial, particularly among the conservative professors at the University of Berlin. Marx decided to submit it instead to the more liberal University of Jena, whose faculty awarded him his PhD based on it.

From considering an academic career, Marx turned to journalism. He moved to the city of Cologne in 1842, where he began writing for the radical newspaper ''Rheinische Zeitung'', where he expressed his increasingly socialist views on politics. He criticised the governments of Europe and their policies, but also liberals and other members of the socialist movement whose ideas he thought were ineffective or outright anti-socialist. The paper eventually attracted the attention of the Prussian government censors, who checked every issue for potentially seditious material before it could be printed. Marx said, "Our newspaper has to be presented to the police to be sniffed at, and if the police nose smells anything un-Christian or un-Prussian, the newspaper is not allowed to appear." After the paper published an article strongly criticising the monarchy in Russia, the Russian Tsar Nicholas I, an ally of the Prussian monarchy, requested that the ''Rheinische Zeitung'' be banned. The Prussian government shut down the paper in 1843. Marx wrote for the Young Hegelian journal, the ''Deutsche Jahrbücher'', in which he criticised the censorship instructions issued by Prussian King Friedrich Wilhelm IV. His article was censored and the newspaper closed down by the authorities shortly after.

In 1843, Marx published ''On the Jewish Question'', in which he distinguished between political and human emancipation. He also examined the role of religious practice in society. That same year he published ''Contribution to Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right'', in which he dealt more substantively with religion, describing it as "the opiate of the people". He completed both works shortly before leaving Cologne.

Paris: 1843–1845

Following the government-imposed shutdown of the ''Rheinische Zeitung'', Marx got involved with a new radical newspaper, the ''Deutsch-Französische Jahrbücher'' (''German-French Annals''), which was then being set up by Arnold Ruge, another German socialist revolutionary. The paper was based not in Germany, but in the city of Paris in neighbouring France, and it was here that both Marx and his wife moved in October 1843. They initially lived with Ruge and his wife communally at 23 Rue Vaneau, but finding these living conditions difficult, the Marxes moved out following the birth of their daughter Jenny in 1844. Although it was intended to attract writers from both France and the German states, the ''Deutsch-Französische Jahrbücher'' was dominated by the latter, with the only non-German writer being the exiled Russian anarcho-communist Michael Bakunin. Only one issue was ever published, but it was relatively successful, largely due to the inclusion of Heinrich Heine's satirical odes on King Ludwig of Bavaria, which led to those copies sent to Germany being confiscated by the state's police force.

It was in Paris that, on 28 August 1844, Marx met German socialist Friedrich Engels at the Café de la Régence after becoming interested in the ideas that the latter had expressed in articles written for the ''Rheinische Zeitung'' and the ''Deutsch-Französische Jahrbücher''. Although they had briefly met each other at the offices of the ''Rheinische Zeitung'' in 1842, it was here in Paris that they began their friendship that would last for the rest of their lives. Engels showed Marx his recently published book, ''The Condition of the Working Class in England in 1844'', which convinced Marx that the working class would be the agent and instrument of the final revolution in history. Engels and Marx soon set about writing a criticism of the philosophical ideas of Marx's former friend, the Young Hegelian Bruno Bauer, which would be published in 1845 as ''The Holy Family''. Although critical of Bauer, Marx was increasingly influenced by the ideas of the other Young Hegelians Max Stirner and Ludwig Feuerbach, but eventually also abandoned Feuerbachian materialism as well.

In 1844 Marx wrote ''The Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts'', a work which covered numerous topics, and went into detail to explain Marx's concept of alienated labour. A year later Marx would write ''Theses on Feuerbach'', best known for the statement that "the philosophers have only interpreted the world, the point is to change it". This work contains Marx's criticism of materialism (for being contemplative), idealism (for reducing practice to theory) and overall, criticising philosophy for putting abstract reality above the physical world. It thus introduced the first glimpse at Marx's historical materialism, an argument that the world is changed not by ideas but by actual, physical, material activity and practice.

After the collapse of the ''Deutsch-Französische Jahrbücher'', Marx, still living on the Rue Vaneau, began writing for what was then the only uncensored German-language radical newspaper in Europe, ''Vorwärts!''. Based in Paris, the paper had been established and was run by many activists connected to the revolutionary socialist League of the Just, which would come to be better known as the Communist League within a few years. In ''Vorwärts!'', Marx continued to refine his views on socialism based upon the Hegelian and Feurbachian ideas of dialectical materialism, whilst at the same time criticising various liberals and other socialists operating in Europe at the time. However in 1845, after receiving a request from the Prussian king, the French government agreed to shut down ''Vorwärts!'', and furthermore, Marx himself was expelled from France by the interior minister François Guizot.

Brussels: 1845–1847

Unable either to stay in France or move to Germany, Marx decided to emigrate to Brussels in Belgium, but had to pledge not to publish anything on the subject of contemporary politics in order to enter. In Brussels, he associated with other exiled socialists from across Europe, including Moses Hess, Karl Heinzen and Joseph Weydemeyer, and soon Engels moved to the city in order to join them. In 1845 Marx and Engels visited the leaders of the Chartists, a socialist movement in Britain, using the trip as an opportunity to study in various libraries in London and Manchester. In collaboration with Engels he also set about writing a book which is often seen as his best treatment of the concept of historical materialism, ''The German Ideology''; the work, like many others, would not see publication in Marx's lifetime, only being published in 1932. He followed this with ''The Poverty of Philosophy'' (1847), a response to the French anarcho-socialist Pierre-Joseph Proudhon's ''The Philosophy of Poverty'' and a critique of French socialist thought in general.

These books laid the foundation for Marx and Engels's most famous work, a political pamphlet that has since come to be commonly known as ''The Communist Manifesto''. First published on 21 February 1848, it laid out the beliefs of the Communist League, a group who had come increasingly under the influence of Marx and Engels, who argued that the League must make their aims and intentions clear to the general public rather than hiding them as they had formerly been doing. The opening lines of the pamphlet set forth the principal basis of Marxism, that "The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles." It goes on to look at the antagonisms that Marx claimed were arising between the clashes of interest between the bourgeoisie (the wealthy middle class) and the proletariat (the industrial working class). Proceeding on from this, the ''Manifesto'' presents the argument for why the Communist League, as opposed to other socialist and liberal political parties and groups at the time, was truly acting in the interests of the proletariat to overthrow capitalist society and replace it with socialism.

Later that year, Europe experienced a series of protests, rebellions, and often violent upheavals, the Revolutions of 1848. In France, a revolution led to the overthrow of the monarchy and the establishment of the French Second Republic. Marx was supportive of such activity, and having recently received a substantial inheritance from his father of either 6000 or 5000 francs, allegedly used a third of it to arm Belgian workers who were planning revolutionary action. Although the veracity of these allegations is disputed, the Belgian Ministry of Justice accused him of it, subsequently arresting him, and he was forced to flee back to France, where, with a new republican government in power, he believed that he would be safe.

Cologne: 1848-1849

Temporarily settling down in Paris, Marx transferred the Communist League executive headquarters to the city and also set up a German Workers' Club with various German socialists living there. Hoping to see the revolution spread to Germany, in 1848 Marx moved back to Cologne where he began issuing a handbill entitled the ''Demands of the Communist Party in Germany'', in which he argued for only four of the ten points of the ''Communist Manifesto'', believing that in Germany at that time, the bourgeoisie must overthrow the feudal monarchy and aristocracy before the proletariat could overthrow the bourgeoisie. On 1 June, Marx started publication of the daily ''Neue Rheinische Zeitung'' ("New Rhenish Newspaper"), which he helped to finance through his recent inheritance from his father. Designed to put forward news from across Europe with his own Marxist interpretation of events, Marx remained one of its primary writers, accompanied by other fellow members of the Communist League who wrote for the paper, although despite their input it remained, according to Friedrich Engels, "a simple dictatorship by Marx", who dominated the choice of content.

Whilst editor of the paper, Marx and the other revolutionary socialists were regularly harassed by the police, and Marx was brought to trial on several occasions, facing various allegations including insulting the Chief Public Prosecutor, an alleged press misdemeanor and inciting armed rebellion through tax boycotting, although each time he was acquitted. Meanwhile, the democratic parliament in Prussia collapsed, and the king, Frederick William IV, introduced a new cabinet of his reactionary supporters, who implemented counter-revolutionary measures to expunge leftist and other revolutionary elements from the country. As a part of this, the ''Neue Rheinische Zeitung'' was soon suppressed and Marx was ordered to leave the country on 16 May. Marx returned to Paris, which was then under the grip of both a reactionary counter-revolution and a cholera epidemic, and was soon expelled by the city authorities who considered him a political threat. With his wife Jenny expecting their fourth child, and not able to move back to Germany or Belgium, in August 1849 he sought refuge in London.

London: 1849–1883

Marx moved to London in May 1849 and would remain in the city for the rest of his life. It was here that he founded the new headquarters of the Communist League, and got heavily involved with the socialist German Workers' Educational Society, who held their meetings in Great Windmill Street, Soho, central London's entertainment district. Marx devoted himself to two activities: revolutionary organising, and an attempt to understand political economy and capitalism. For the first few years he and his family lived in extreme poverty. His main source of income was his colleague, Engels, who derived much of his income from his family's business. Marx also briefly worked as correspondent for the ''New York Tribune'' in 1851.

From December 1851 to March 1852 Marx wrote ''The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Napoleon'', a work on the French Revolution of 1848, in which he expanded upon his concepts of historical materialism, class struggle and the dictatorship of the proletariat, advancing the argument that victorious proletariat has to smash the bourgeois state.

The 1850s and 1860s also marks the line between what some scholars see as idealistic, Hegelian young Marx from the more scientifically-minded mature Marx writings of the later period. This distinction is usually associated with the structural Marxism school. Nor do all scholars agree that it indeed exists.

In 1864 Marx became involved in the International Workingmen's Association (also known as ''First International''). He became a leader of its General Council, to whose General Council he was elected at its inception in 1864. In that organisation Marx was involved in the struggle against the anarchist wing centred around Mikhail Bakunin (1814–1876). Although Marx won this contest, the transfer of the seat of the General Council from London to New York in 1872, which Marx supported, led to the decline of the International. The most important political event during the existence of the International was the ''Paris Commune of 1871'' when the citizens of Paris rebelled against their government and held the city for two months. On the bloody suppression of this rebellion, Marx wrote one of his most famous pamphlets, ''The Civil War in France'', a defense of the Commune.

Given the repeated failures and frustrations of workers' revolutions and movements, Marx also sought to understand capitalism, and spent a great deal of time in the reading room of the British Museum studying and reflecting on the works of political economists and on economic data. By 1857 he had accumulated over 800 pages of notes and short essays on capital, landed property, wage labour, the state, foreign trade and the world market; this work did not appear in print until 1941, under the title ''Grundrisse''. In 1859, Marx published ''Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy'', his first serious economic work. In the early 1860s he worked on composing three large volumes, the ''Theories of Surplus Value'', which discussed the theoreticians of political economy, particularly Adam Smith and David Ricardo. This work is often seen as the fourth book of ''Capital'', and constitutes one of the first comprehensive treatises on the history of economic thought. In 1867 the first volume of ''Capital'' was published, a work which analyzed the capitalist process of production. Here, Marx elaborated his labour theory of value and his conception of surplus value and exploitation which he argued would ultimately lead to a falling rate of profit and the collapse of industrial capitalism. Volumes II and III remained mere manuscripts upon which Marx continued to work for the rest of his life and were published posthumously by Engels.

During the last decade of his life, Marx's health declined and he became incapable of the sustained effort that had characterised his previous work. He did manage to comment substantially on contemporary politics, particularly in Germany and Russia. His ''Critique of the Gotha Programme'' opposed the tendency of his followers Wilhelm Liebknecht and August Bebel to compromise with the state socialism of Ferdinand Lassalle in the interests of a united socialist party. This work is also notable for another famous Marx's quote: "From each according to his ability, to each according to his need."

In a letter to Vera Zasulich dated 8 March 1881, Marx even contemplated the possibility of Russia's bypassing the capitalist stage of development and building communism on the basis of the common ownership of land characteristic of the village ''mir''. While admitting that Russia's rural "commune is the fulcrum of social regeneration in Russia", Marx also warned that in order for the mir to operate as a means for moving straight to the socialist stage without a preceding capitalist stage, it "would first be necessary to eliminate the deleterious influences which are assailing it (the rural commune) from all sides." Given the elimination of these pernicious influences, Marx allowed, that "normal conditions of spontaneous development" of the rural commune could exist. However, in the same letter to Vera Zaulich, Marx points out that "at the core of the capitalist system ... lies the complete separation of the producer from the means of production."

Death

Following the death of his wife Jenny in December 1881, Marx developed a catarrh that kept him in ill health for the last 15 months of his life. It eventually brought on the bronchitis and pleurisy that killed him in London on 14 March 1883. He died a stateless person; family and friends in London buried his body in Highgate Cemetery, London, on 17 March 1883. There were between nine to eleven mourners at his funeral.

Several of his closest friends spoke at his funeral, including Wilhelm Liebknecht and Friedrich Engels. Engels's speech included the passage: }} Marx's daughter Eleanor and Charles Longuet and Paul Lafargue, Marx's two French socialist sons-in-law, were also in attendance. Liebknecht, a founder and leader of the German Social-Democratic Party, gave a speech in German, and Longuet, a prominent figure in the French working-class movement, made a short statement in French. Two telegrams from workers' parties in France and Spain were also read out. Together with Engels's speech, this constituted the entire programme of the funeral. Non-relatives attending the funeral included three communist associates of Marx: Friedrich Lessner, imprisoned for three years after the Cologne communist trial of 1852; G. Lochner, whom Engels described as "an old member of the Communist League" and Carl Schorlemmer, a professor of chemistry in Manchester, a member of the Royal Society, and a communist activist involved in the 1848 Baden revolution. Another attendee of the funeral was Ray Lankester, a British zoologist who would later become a prominent academic.

Marx's tombstone bears the carved message: "WORKERS OF ALL LANDS UNITE", the final line of ''The Communist Manifesto,'' and from the 11th ''Thesis on Feuerbach'' (edited by Engels): "The philosophers have only interpreted the world in various ways—the point however is to change it". The Communist Party of Great Britain had the monumental tombstone built in 1954 with a portrait bust by Laurence Bradshaw; Marx's original tomb had had only humble adornment. In 1970 there was an unsuccessful attempt to destroy the monument using a homemade bomb.

The later Marxist historian Eric Hobsbawm remarked that "One cannot say Marx died a failure" because, although he had not achieved a large following of disciples in Britain, his writings had already begun to make an impact on the leftist movements in Germany and Russia. Within 25 years of his death, the continental European socialist parties that acknowledged Marx's influence on their politics were each gaining between 15 and 47% in those countries with representative democratic elections.

Marx's thought

Inspirations

Marx's thought demonstrates influences from many thinkers, including but not limited to: Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel's philosophy; The classical political economy (economics) of Adam Smith and David Ricardo; French socialist thought, in particular the thought of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Henri de Saint-Simon and Charles Fourier; Earlier German philosophical materialism, particularly that of Ludwig Feuerbach; The working class analysis by Friedrich Engels.

Marx's view of history, which came to be called historical materialism (controversially adapted as the philosophy of dialectical materialism by Engels and Lenin) certainly shows the influence of Hegel's claim that one should view reality (and history) dialectically. However, Hegel had thought in idealist terms, putting ideas in the forefront, whereas Marx sought to rewrite dialectics in materialist terms, arguing for the primacy of matter over idea. Where Hegel saw the "spirit" as driving history, Marx saw this as an unnecessary mystification, obscuring the reality of humanity and its physical actions shaping the world. He wrote that Hegelianism stood the movement of reality on its head, and that one needed to set it upon its feet.

Though inspired by French socialist and sociological thought, Marx criticised utopian socialists, arguing that their favoured small scale socialistic communities would be bound to marginalisation and poverty, and that only a large scale change in the economic system can bring about real change.

The other important contribution to Marx's revision of Hegelianism came from Engels's book, ''The Condition of the Working Class in England in 1844'', which led Marx to conceive of the historical dialectic in terms of class conflict and to see the modern working class as the most progressive force for revolution.

Marx believed that he could study history and society scientifically and discern tendencies of history and the resulting outcome of social conflicts. Some followers of Marx concluded, therefore, that a communist revolution would inevitably occur. However, Marx famously asserted in the eleventh of his ''Theses on Feuerbach'' that "philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways; the point however is to change it", and he clearly dedicated himself to trying to alter the world.

Philosophy and social thought

Marx polemic with other thinkers often occurred through critique, and thus he has been called "the first great user of critical method in social sciences." He criticised speculative philosophy, equating metaphysics with ideology. By adopting this approach, Marx attempted to separate key findings from ideological biases. This set him apart from many contemporary philosophers.

Human nature

Fundamentally, Marx assumed that human history involves transforming human nature, which encompasses both human beings and material objects. Humans recognise that they possess both actual and potential selves. For both Marx and Hegel, self-development begins with an experience of internal alienation stemming from this recognition, followed by a realisation that the actual self, as a subjective agent, renders its potential counterpart an object to be apprehended. Marx further argues that, by molding nature in desired ways, the subject takes the object as its own, and thus permits the individual to be actualised as fully human. For Marx, then, human nature—''Gattungswesen'', or species-being—exists as a function of human labour. Fundamental to Marx's idea of meaningful labour is the proposition that, in order for a subject to come to terms with its alienated object, it must first exert influence upon literal, material objects in the subject's world. Marx acknowledges that Hegel "grasps the nature of ''work'' and comprehends objective man, authentic because actual, as the result of his ''own work''", but characterises Hegelian self-development as unduly "spiritual" and abstract. Marx thus departs from Hegel by insisting that "the fact that man is a ''corporeal'', actual, sentient, objective being with natural capacities means that he has ''actual, sensuous objects'' for his nature as objects of his life-expression, or that he can only ''express'' his life in actual sensuous objects." Consequently, Marx revises Hegelian "work" into material "labour", and in the context of human capacity to transform nature the term "labour power".

Labour, class struggle and false consciousness

)}} Marx had a special concern with how people relate to that most fundamental resource of all, their own labour power. He wrote extensively about this in terms of the problem of alienation. As with the dialectic, Marx began with a Hegelian notion of alienation but developed a more materialist conception. Capitalism mediates social relationships of production (such as among workers or between workers and capitalists) through commodities, including labour, that are bought and sold on the market. For Marx, the possibility that one may give up ownership of one's own labour—one's capacity to transform the world—is tantamount to being alienated from one's own nature; it is a spiritual loss. Marx described this loss as commodity fetishism, in which the things that people produce, commodities, appear to have a life and movement of their own to which humans and their behavior merely adapt.

Commodity fetishism provides an example of what Engels called "false consciousness", which relates closely to the understanding of ideology. By "ideology", Marx and Engels meant ideas that reflect the interests of a particular class at a particular time in history, but which contemporaries see as universal and eternal. Marx and Engels's point was not only that such beliefs are at best half-truths; they serve an important political function. Put another way, the control that one class exercises over the means of production includes not only the production of food or manufactured goods; it includes the production of ideas as well (this provides one possible explanation for why members of a subordinate class may hold ideas contrary to their own interests). An example of this sort of analysis is Marx's understanding of religion, summed up in a passage from the preface to his 1843 ''Contribution to the Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right'':

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Whereas his Gymnasium senior thesis argued that religion had as its primary social aim the promotion of solidarity, here Marx sees the social function of religion in terms of highlighting/preserving political and economic status quo and inequality.

Economy, history and society

Marx thoughts on labour were related to the primacy he gave to the economic relation in determining the society's past, present and future (see also economic determinism). Accumulation of capital shapes the social system. Social change, for Marx, was about conflict between opposing interests, driven, in the background, by economic forces. This became the inspiration for the body of works known as the conflict theory. In his evolutionary model of history, he argued that human history began with free, productive and creative work that was over time coerced and dehumanised, a trend most apparent under capitalism. Marx noted that this was not an intentional process; rather, no individual or even no state can go against the forces of economy.

The organisation of society depends on means of production. Literally those things, like land, natural resources, and technology, necessary for the production of material goods and the relations of production, in other words, the social relationships people enter into as they acquire and use the means of production. Together these compose the mode of production, and Marx distinguished historical eras in terms of distinct modes of production. Marx differentiated between base and superstructure, with the base (or substructure) referring to the economic system, and superstructure, to the cultural and political system. Marx regarded this mismatch between (economic) base and (social) superstructure as a major source of social disruption and conflict.

Despite Marx's stress on critique of capitalism and discussion of the new communist society that should replace it, his explicit critique of capitalism is guarded, as he saw it as an improved society compared to the past ones (slavery and feudal). Marx also never clearly discusses issues of morality and justice, although scholars agree that his work contained implicit discussion of those concepts.

Marx's view of capitalism was two sided. On one hand, Marx, in the 19th century's deepest critique of the dehumanising aspects of this system, noted that defining features of capitalism include alienation, exploitation and reoccurring, cyclical depressions leading to mass unemployment; on the other hand capitalism is also characterised by "revolutionizing, industrializing and universalizing qualities of development, growth and progressivity" (by which Marx meant industrialisation, urbanisation, technological progress, increased productivity and growth, rationality and scientific revolution), that are responsible for progress. Marx considered the capitalist class to be one of the most revolutionary in history, because it constantly improved the means of production, more so than any other class in history, and was responsible for the overthrow of feudalism and its transition to capitalism. Capitalism can stimulate considerable growth because the capitalist can, and has an incentive to, reinvest profits in new technologies and capital equipment.

According to Marx capitalists take advantage of the difference between the labour market and the market for whatever commodity the capitalist can produce. Marx observed that in practically every successful industry input unit-costs are lower than output unit-prices. Marx called the difference "surplus value" and argued that this surplus value had its source in surplus labour, the difference between what it costs to keep workers alive and what they can produce. Marx's dual view of capitalism can be seen in his description of the capitalists: he refers to them as to vampires sucking worker's blood, but at the same time, he notes that drawing profit is "by no means an injustice" and that capitalists simply cannot go against the system. The true problem lies with the "cancerous cell" of capital, understood not as property or equipment, but the relations between workers and owners – the economic system in general.

At the same time, Marx stressed that capitalism was unstable, and prone to periodic crises. He suggested that over time, capitalists would invest more and more in new technologies, and less and less in labour. Since Marx believed that surplus value appropriated from labour is the source of profits, he concluded that the rate of profit would fall even as the economy grew. Marx believed that increasingly severe crises would punctuate this cycle of growth, collapse, and more growth. Moreover, he believed that in the long-term this process would necessarily enrich and empower the capitalist class and impoverish the proletariat. In section one of ''The Communist Manifesto'' Marx describes feudalism, capitalism, and the role internal social contradictions play in the historical process:

Marx believed that those structural contradictions within capitalism necessitate its end, giving way to socialism, or a post-capitalistic, communist society:

Thanks to various processes overseen by capitalism, such as urbanisation, the working class, the proletariat, should grow in numbers and develop a class consciousness, in time realising that they have to change the system. Marx believed that if the proletariat were to seize the means of production, they would encourage social relations that would benefit everyone equally, abolishing exploiting class, and introduce a system of production less vulnerable to cyclical crises. Marx argued that capitalism will end through the organised actions of an international working class:

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In this new society the self-alienation would end, and humans would be free to act without being bound by the labour market. It would be a democratic society, enfranchising the entire population. In such a utopian world there would also be little if any need for a state, which goal was to enforce the alienation. He theorised that between capitalism and the establishment of a socialist/communist system, a dictatorship of the proletariat—a period where the working class holds political power and forcibly socialises the means of production—would exist. As he wrote in his "Critique of the Gotha Program", "between capitalist and communist society there lies the period of the revolutionary transformation of the one into the other. Corresponding to this is also a political transition period in which the state can be nothing but the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat." While he allowed for the possibility of peaceful transition in some countries with strong democratic institutional structures (such as Britain, the US and the Netherlands), he suggested that in other countries with strong centralised state-oriented traditions, like France and Germany, the "lever of our revolution must be force."

Personal life

Marx married Jenny von Westphalen in 1843. Together had seven children, but partly due to the poor living conditions they were forced to live in whilst in London, only three survived to adulthood. The children were: Jenny Caroline (m. Longuet; 1844–83); Jenny Laura (m. Lafargue; 1845–1911); Edgar (1847–1855); Henry Edward Guy ("Guido"; 1849–1850); Jenny Eveline Frances ("Franziska"; 1851–52); Jenny Julia Eleanor (1855–98) and one more who died before being named (July 1857). There are allegations that Marx also fathered a son out of wedlock by his housekeeper, Helene Demuth.

Marx frequently used pseudonyms, often when renting a house or flat, apparently to make it harder for the authorities to track him down. Whilst in Paris, he used that of 'Monsieur Ramboz', whilst in London he signed off his letters as 'A. Williams'. His friends referred to him as 'Moor', due to his dark complexion and black curly hair, something which they believed made him resemble the historical Moors of North Africa, whilst he encouraged his children to call him 'Old Nick' and 'Charley'. He also bestowed nicknames and pseudonyms on his friends and family as well, referring to Friedrich Engels as 'General', his housekeeper Helene Demuth as 'Lenchen' or 'Nym', whilst one of his daughters, Jennychen, was referred to as 'Qui Qui, Emperor of China' and another, Laura, was known as 'Kakadou' or 'the Hottentot'.

Legacy

Widespread influence

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Marx has widely been thought of as one of the most influential thinkers in history, who has had a significant influence on both world politics and intellectual thought. Marx's biographer Francis Wheen considered the "history of the twentieth century" to be "Marx's legacy", whilst Australian philosopher Peter Singer believed that Marx's impact could be compared with that of the founders of the two major world religions, Jesus Christ and Muhammad. Singer noted that "Marx's ideas brought about modern sociology, transformed the study of history, and profoundly affected philosophy, literature and the arts." Marx's ideas led to him becoming "the darling of both European and American intellectuals up until the 1960s", and have influenced a wide variety of disciplines, including archaeology, anthropology, media studies, political science, theater, history, sociological theory, cultural studies, education, economics, geography, literary criticism, aesthetics, critical psychology, and philosophy.

In July 2005, 27.9% of listeners in a BBC Radio 4 series ''In Our Time'' poll selected Marx as their favorite thinker.

The reasons for Marx's widespread influence revolve around his ethical message; a "morally empowering language of critique" against the dominant capitalist society. No other body of work was so relevant to the modern times, and at the same time, so outspoken about the need for change. In the political realm, Marx's ideas led to the establishment of governments using Marxist thought to replace capitalism with communism or socialism (or augment it with market socialism) across much of the world, whilst his intellectual thought has heavily influenced the academic study of the humanities and the arts.

Marxism

Followers of Marx have drawn on his work to propose grand, cohesive theoretical outlooks dubbed "Marxism". This body of works has had significant influence on the both political and scientific scenes. Nevertheless, Marxists have frequently debated amongst themselves over how to interpret Marx's writings and how to apply his concepts to their contemporary events and conditions. The legacy of Marx's thought has become bitterly contested between numerous tendencies which each see themselves as Marx's most accurate interpreters, including (but not limited to) Leninism, Stalinism, Trotskyism, Maoism, Luxemburgism, and libertarian Marxism. In academic Marxism, various currents have developed as well, often under influence of other views, resulting in structuralist Marxism, historical Marxism, phenomenological Marxism and Hegelian Marxism.

Moreover, one should distinguish between "Marxism" and "what Marx believed"; for example, shortly before he died in 1883, Marx wrote a letter to the French workers' leader Jules Guesde, and to his own son-in-law Paul Lafargue, accusing them of "revolutionary phrase-mongering" and of lack of faith in the working class. After the French party split into a reformist and revolutionary party, some accused Guesde (leader of the latter) of taking orders from Marx; Marx remarked to Lafargue, "if that is Marxism, then I am not a Marxist" (in a letter to Engels, Marx later accused Guesde of being a "Bakuninist").

Founder of social science

Marx is typically cited, along with Émile Durkheim and Max Weber, as one of the three principal architects of modern social science. In contrast to philosophers, Marx offered theories that could often be tested with the scientific method. Both Marx and Auguste Comte set out to develop scientifically justified ideologies in the wake of European secularisation and new developments in the philosophies of history and science. Whilst Marx, working in the Hegelian tradition, rejected Comtean sociological positivism, in attempting to develop a ''science of society'' he nevertheless came to be recognised as a founder of sociology as the word gained wider meaning. In modern sociological theory, Marxist sociology is recognised as one of the main classical perspectives. For Isaiah Berlin, Marx may be regarded as the "true father" of modern sociology, "in so far as anyone can claim the title."

Criticism

Predictions and theories

While many Marxist concepts are still of importance for modern social science, some specific predictions Marx made have been shown to be unlikely. Marx is often criticised for expecting a wave of socialist revolutions, originating in the most highly industrialised countries, to overturn capitalism. However others, pointing to Marx's encounter with late 19th-century Russian populism and Marx and Engels' preface to the second Russian edition of the ''Manifesto of the Communist Party'' (1882), have argued that Marx evinced a growing conviction in his late writings that revolution could in fact emerge first in Russia. Marx predicted the eventual fall of capitalism, to be replaced by socialism, yet since the late 20th century state socialism is in retreat, as the Soviet Union collapsed, and the People's Republic of China shifted towards a market economy. Additionally, his argument that profits are generated only through surplus labour has been challenged by the counterclaim that profits also come from investments in human capital and technology. Marx predicted that over time, inequality would grow (correctly) but also that this would mean growing impoverishment of the growing worker class, increasingly exploited by the capitalists. The latter has not borne true, as in the developed world, through liberal reforms, trade unions won many concessions, improving the situation of the workers (something that Marx considered very unlikely). The working class is also growing smaller, as the industrial sector is replaced by the service sector, and worldwide poverty has decreased since the end of the 19th century. (It should be noted that scholars have debated whether Marx's comments about the proletariat can be analyzed in the context of the working class). In addition to specific predictions, certain of Marx's theories, such as his labour theory of value, have also been criticised. However, in the wake of the economic crisis of 2008 some thinkers like Terry Eagleton, David Harvey, and David McNally have given renewed impetus to the debate on whether Marx was right that capitalism inherently tends towards crisis (which Marx discussed as the "contradictions of capital").

Marxism as the ideology of totalitarian states

While Marxist thought may be used to empower marginalised and dispossessed people, it has also been used to prop up governments who have utilised violence to remove those seen as impeding the revolution. In some instances, his ultimate goals have been used as justification for the end justifies the means logic. Moreover, contrary to his goal, his ideas have been used to promote dogmatism and intolerance. Polish historian Andrzej Walicki noted that Marx's and Engels's theory was the "theory of freedom", but a theory that, at the height of its influence, was used to legitimise the totalitarian socialist state of the Soviet Union. This abuse of Marx's thought is perhaps most clearly exemplified in Stalinist Marxism, described by critics as the "most widespread and successful form of mass indoctrination... a masterly achievement in transforming Marxism into the official ideology of a consistently totalitarian state." The controversy is further fueled as some left-wing theorists have tried to shield Marxism from any connection to the Soviet regime. Lastly, the undue focus on the Marxist thought in the former Eastern Bloc, often forbidding social science arguments from outside the Marxist perspective, led to a backlash against Marxism after the revolutions of 1989. In one example, references to Marx drastically decreased in Polish sociology after the fall of the revolutionary socialist governments, and two major research institutions which advocated the Marxist approach to sociology were closed.

Selected bibliography

''The Philosophical Manifesto of the Historical School of Law'' (1842)

''Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right'', 1843

''On the Jewish Question'', 1843

''Notes on James Mill'', 1844

''Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844'', 1844

''The Holy Family'', 1845

''Theses on Feuerbach'', 1845

''The German Ideology'', 1845

''The Poverty of Philosophy'', 1847

''Wage-Labour and Capital'', 1847

''Manifesto of the Communist Party'', 1848

''The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Napoleon'', 1852

''Grundrisse'', 1857

''A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy'', 1859

''Writings on the U.S. Civil War'', 1861

''Theories of Surplus Value'', 3 volumes, 1862

''Value, Price and Profit'', 1865

''Capital'', Volume I (''Das Kapital''), 1867

''The Civil War in France'', 1871

''Critique of the Gotha Program'', 1875

''Notes on Wagner'', 1883

''Capital'', Volume II (posthumously published by Engels), 1885

''Capital'', Volume III (posthumously published by Engels), 1894

See also

Karl Marx House

Marx Memorial Library

Marx’s method

Marx's notebooks on the history of technology

Marxian Class Theory

Marxian economics

Pre-Marx socialists

References

Footnotes

Bibliography

;Academic and Popular Books |year= 2002 |publisher=Wiley-Blackwell |location= Oxford |isbn=978–0631213475 |nopp=|ref=Cal02}} |year= 2010 [1983] |publisher=Bookmarks |location= Bloomsbury, London |isbn=978–1905192687 |nopp=|ref=Cal10}} |year= 2011 |publisher=Little, Brown |location= London |isbn=978–1408702871 |nopp=|ref=Hob11}} |year= 1967 [1913]|publisher=Foreign Languages Press |location= Peking |isbn=|nopp=|ref=Len67|url=http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1914/granat/index.htm}} |year= 1980 |publisher=Oxford University Press |location= Oxford |isbn=978–0192875105 |nopp=|ref=Sin80}} |year= 2004 |publisher=Index Books |location= Kettering |isbn=978–0572029357 |nopp=|ref=Sto04}} |year= 1973 |publisher=Verlag Die Wirtschaft |location= |isbn= |nopp=|ref=Vyg73|url=http://www.marxists.org/archive/vygodsky/1965/discovery.htm}} |year= 2001 |publisher=Fourth Estate |location= London |isbn=978–1857026375 |nopp=|ref=Whe00}}

Further reading

Althusser, Louis and Balibar, Étienne. ''Reading Capital''. London: Verso, 2009.

Avineri, Shlomo, ''The Social and Political Thought of Karl Marx'' (Cambridge University Press, 1968) ISBN 0–521–09619–7

Axelos, Kostas, ''Alienation, Praxis, and Techne in the Thought of Karl Marx'' (translated by Ronald Bruzina, University of Texas Press, 1976).

Barnett, Vincent, ''Marx'' (Routledge, 2009)

Blackledge, Paul. ''Reflections on the Marxist Theory of History'' (Manchester University Press, 2006)

Bottomore, Tom, ed. ''A Dictionary of Marxist Thought''. Oxford: Blackwell, 1998.

Alex Callinicos, ''The Revolutionary Ideas of Karl Marx'' (Bookmarks, 1983)

Isaiah Berlin, ''Karl Marx: His Life and Environment'' (Oxford University Press, 1963) ISBN 0–19–520052–7

G. A. Cohen, ''Karl Marx's Theory of History: A Defence'' (Princeton University Press, 1978) ISBN 0–691–07068–7

Andrew Collier, ''Marx'' (Oneworld, 2004)

Hal Draper, ''Karl Marx's Theory of Revolution'' (4 volumes) Monthly Review Press

Ronald Duncan and Colin Wilson, (editors) ''Marx Refuted'', (Bath, UK, 1987) ISBN 0–906798–71–X

Fine, Ben. ''Marx's Capital.'' 5th ed. London: Pluto, 2010.

Foster, John Bellamy. ''Marx's Ecology: Materialism and Nature''. New York: Monthly Review Press, 2000.

Stephen Jay Gould, ''A Darwinian Gentleman at Marx's Funeral – E. Ray Lankester'', Page 1, Find Articles.com (1999)

Harvey, David. ''A Companion to Marx's Capital.'' London: Verso, 2010.

Harvey, David. ''The Limits of Capital''. London: Verso, 2006.

Georg G. Iggers, "Historiography: From Scientific Objectivity to the Postmodern Challenge."(Wesleyan University Press, 1997, 2005)

Leszek Kołakowski, ''Main Currents of Marxism'' Oxford: Clarendon Press, OUP, 1978

Daniel Little, ''The Scientific Marx'', (University of Minnesota Press, 1986) ISBN 0–8166–1505–5

Mandel, Ernest. ''Marxist Economic Theory''. New York: Monthly Review Press, 1970.

Mandel, Ernest. ''The Formation of the Economic Thought of Karl Marx''. New York: Monthly Review Press, 1977.

McLellan, David ''Marx before Marxism'' (1980), Macmillan, ISBN 978–0–333–27882–6

McLellan, David. ''Karl Marx: his Life and Thought'' Harper & Row, 1973 ISBN 978–0–06–012829–6

Franz Mehring, ''Karl Marx: The Story of His Life'' (Routledge, 2003)

Miller, Richard W. ''Analyzing Marx: Morality, Power, and History''. Princeton, N.J: Princeton University Press, 1984.

Boris Nicolaevsky and Otto Maenchen-Helfen (translator), ''Karl Marx: Man and Fighter'' (Penguin Books, 1976) ISBN 0–14–021594–8

Postone, Moishe. ''Time, Labour, and Social Domination: A Reinterpretation of Marx's Critical Theory.'' Cambridge [England]: Cambridge University Press, 1993.

Murray Rothbard, ''An Austrian Perspective on the History of Economic Thought Volume II: Classical Economics'' (Edward Elgar Publishing Ltd., 1995) ISBN 0–945466–48–X

Maximilien Rubel, ''Marx Without Myth: A Chronological Study of his Life and Work'' (Blackwell, 1975) ISBN 0–631–15780–8

Saad-Filho, Alfredo. ''The Value of Marx: Political Economy for Contemporary Capitalism''. London: Routledge, 2002.

Schmidt, Alfred. ''The Concept of Nature in Marx''. London: NLB, 1971.

Jerrold Seigel, ''Marx's fate: the shape of a life'' (Princeton University Press, 1978) ISBN 0–271–00935–7

Thomas T. Sekine, ''The Dialectic of Capital. A Study of the Inner Logic of Capitalism'', 2 volumes (preliminary edition), Tokyo 1986; ISBN 4924750449 (vol. 1), ISBN 4–924750–34–4 (vol. 2)

Paul Strathern, "Marx in 90 Minutes", (Ivan R. Dee, 2001)

Thomas, Paul. ''Karl Marx and the Anarchists''. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1980.

Walker, Frank Thomas. 'Karl Marx: a Bibliographic and Political Biography''. (bj.publications), 2009.

Amy Wendling, ''Karl Marx on Technology and Alienation'' (Palgrave Macmillan, 2009)

Francis Wheen, ''Karl Marx: A Life'', (Fourth Estate, 1999), ISBN 1–85702–637–3

Francis Wheen, ''Marx's Das Kapital'', (Atlantic Books, 2006) ISBN 1–84354–400–8

External links

Bibliography and online texts

Works by Karl Marx at Zeno.org

Karl Marx at Libcom.org

Marxists.org, homepage of the Marxists Internet Archive

Works by Karl Marx in audio format from LibriVox

Articles and entries

Dead Labour: Marx and Lenin Reconsidered by Paul Craig Roberts

Hegel, Marx, Engels, and the Origins of Marxism, by David North

''In Praise of Marx'' Terry Eagleton synopsising his ''Why Marx was right'' chronicle.com 10 April 2011.

Karl Marx: Did he get it all Right? by Philip Collins, ''The Times'', 21 October 2008

''Karl Marx'' ,Ernest Mandel

''Karl Marx and the Iroquois'' by Franklin Rosemont

Liberalism, Marxism and The State, by Ralph Raico

Marx, Mao and mathematics: the politics of infinitesimals, by Joseph Dauben

Marx Was Right

Marxism and Ethics from ''International Socialism'' Paul Blackledge (2008)

Marxmyths.org Various essays on misinterpretations of Marx

Portraits of Karl Marx (International Institute of Social History)

Paul Dorn, The Paris Commune and Marx' Theory of Revolution

The Top Seven Reasons why Marx was Right by ''Green Left Weekly''

Why Marx is the Man of the Moment

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