Germany

GERMANY. - G. (Deutschland) embraces the greater part of central Europe.

I. GEOGRAPHY.

It is the European State that in the last eighty years, that is to say after the attainment of its political unity (1871), has undergone the widest territorial variations. Reduced by 1/7 after the First World War, it resumed with 1936 (Saarland plebiscite) its expansion, which, at the outbreak of the Second World War, had increased its dominion by more than 1/6 compared with 1913 and had tripled it in 1942, when with military victories its eastern border ran from the Gulf of Finland to the Crimea and its southern border penetrated into the Alps as far as Croatia.

Following the final defeat, and even before a peace treaty regulated the new territorial delimitation of G., what presumably will be preserved for it was divided into four occupation zones, each of which comprises a certain number of administrative units (Länder), as in the table opposite.

On 23 May 1949 the trizone occupied by the Western powers constituted itself as the German Federal Republic (Bundesrepublik Deutschland) with a democratic constitution and an elective bicameral representation; while on 7 Oct. of the same year the Länder of the Soviet zone united in the German Democratic Republic (Deutsche Demokratische Republik), of the Soviet type, which has accentuated the separation in progress between the two parts of G. controlled by the two antagonistic groups of occupiers. G. to the E. of the present German-Polish border (Oder-Neisse: 110,000 sq. km. with 9.5 million inhabitants in the pre-war period, of which less than 1 million were non-German-speaking) has been annexed to the new Poland, as compensation for the territories already po-

lish territories reclaimed by the U.S.S.R., to which the northern sector of East Prussia with Königsberg (renamed Kaliningrad) was moreover attributed, constituted as an autonomous district of the R.S.F.S.R.

G. has thus passed to 5th place among the European States by area after the U.S.S.R., France, Spain and Sweden, slightly surpassing, in this regard, Finland and Italy. No other European State, however, has contact with so great a number of neighbors (Poland, Czechoslovakia, Austria, Switzerland, France, Luxembourg, Belgium, Holland and Denmark) and, on the other hand, frontiers in an equally large part conventional.

The German territory, which coincides to the N. with the broad plain, often sterile and marshy, that joins the French lowland to the Sarmatic one, presents in the center and in the S. a varied alternation of massifs, of more or less extensive depressed zones, of plateaus and of mountains. For the greater part of its surface the plain is poor, little suited to cultivation and sparsely inhabited; only on its southern margin, in contact with the reliefs of central G., does the soil become fertile and well provided with mineral resources (salt, potash, lignite, anthracite), while the estuaries of the great rivers (Elbe, Weser) assure it an easy outlet to the most frequented sea of the continent. Central G. is a rugged and wooded region, which long remained divided into small States: the low hills and the mountains there generally have gentle forms and modest elevation (1603 m. in the Riesengebirge, 1493 in the Black Forest, 1142 in the Harz), and preserve the primitive mantle of woods, so much so that the very word (Wald) indicates both the relief and the forest. To the S. of the Danube a broad shelf, also covered with woods, dotted with lakes and sparsely populated, precedes the Alpine zone, rich in pastures, which culminates, in the limestone mass of the Bavarian Alps, with the Zugspitze (2963 m.).

The climate, relatively mild, feels the mitigating influence of the oceanic winds the less the closer one gets to the Pannonian lowland; it therefore becomes progressively more rigid and continental (that is, with increasing temperature range) rather proceeding from W. to E. than from S. to N.; in the south, moreover, the relief becomes harsher, with abundant winter snows, in the high Alpine areas. The rains, generally fairly copious, well distributed throughout the year, but with summer or autumn maxima (N.W. Germany), decrease in the same sense. It follows that the eastern rivers — except the Danube — all running from S. to N., are generally rich in water and well navigable.

The landscape of Germany has been profoundly modified by man, who has extensively reclaimed the marshy and sandy lands and replaced the original forest cover with crops; this nevertheless still covers about 1/4 of German territory.

The population, ethnically very homogeneous even before the recent territorial contraction, has been increasing at a regular pace, even if the demographic surplus had been diminishing in the pre-war period: the total (within the 1913 borders) was 24.8 million inhabitants at the beginning of the 19th century and, despite the two wartime catastrophes of our century (over 2 million human lives sacrificed in the first and 6 million in the second world war), it has by now almost quadrupled, it being possible to calculate at about 95 million the Germans scattered throughout the world (no fewer than 10 million in the U.S.A.). The migratory movement, which had exceeded 220 thousand units annually in 1881, has fallen to quite modest figures (20 thousand) after 1930. The percentage of the urban population exceeded 3/4 of the total in 1939: the tremendous destruction wrought by aerial bombardments has not prevented Germany even today, and within narrower borders, from numbering two cities with over 1 million inhabitants (Berlin and Hamburg), three with over 500 thousand (Munich, Leipzig, Essen; but there were 8 in 1939, within the present territory), 41 with more than 100 thousand (44 in 1939), and 55 with more than 50 thousand inhabitants (40 in 1939). To give an idea of the damage suffered, it will suffice to recall that in Berlin 34% of buildings were destroyed and more or less damaged 54%; after the war barely 12% of the metropolis had remained unscathed.

Agriculture and livestock raising employ a little more than 1/4 of the German population (over 1/2 at the beginning of the century). Of the territorial surface, arable land absorbs around 2/3.

and is destined above all to cereal crops, which yield, in decreasing order of production, rye (35.2 million quintals in 1947), oats (31 million quintals), wheat (20.3 million quintals), and barley (11.3 million quintals), insufficient however for domestic consumption and all the more so after the loss of the eastern territories, predominantly arable and sparsely populated. The potato (248 million quintals, destined in part to the distillation of spirits), the sugar beet, hops (beer), flax and tobacco are the most widespread industrial crops. Fruit and wine (southern Germany) are also of notable importance. Livestock raising too, although rationally managed and in extensive forms (14 million cattle; 8.4 of swine; 3.5 of sheep; 2.2 of horses in 1947), does not suffice for the domestic requirement of fats, meat and eggs. Notable sources of gain are moreover assured by silviculture and fishing (whose pre-war quantity amounted to around 600-750 thousand metric tons).

In mineral resources Germany cannot certainly be said to be exceptionally endowed: but the abundance of coal and the presence of metallic and above all ferrous minerals account for the modern development of its industries, which established themselves also thanks to advanced technology and an ever more efficient organization. On the eve of the second world war more than 2/3 of the German population was engaged in industry and Germany figured, with the U.S.A. and England, among the countries in this regard best equipped and most highly productive in the world. German industry rested, in substance, on the extraction of coal, which supplied motive power, fuel for metallurgy, and raw material for the chemical industry: its difficulties consisted above all in the necessity of importing raw materials to be processed and of always finding new markets for growing production; hence the tendency toward an ever more concrete autarky. The defeat suffered in the Second World War has greatly aggravated the difficulties of the German economy, both because of the loss of mining districts (the Silesian coal basin, the Saar, etc.) and because of the demolition of industrial equipment and the restrictions placed on production by the Allies. Nevertheless, in the Anglo-American bizone the index of this production has by now almost reached the pre-war level (1936), while nothing precise is known regarding the Soviet sector.

In the same bizone, in 1948, over 88 million tons of anthracite and 65 million tons of lignite were extracted. Much less important are the ores of iron (Siegerland, Braunschweig), copper (Harz), silver, bauxite, etc., while for lead and zinc (Rhineland, Harz, Erzgebirge) and even more for potassium salts (central Germany: 14.5 million tons of ore in the pre-war period) Germany enjoyed almost a European monopoly.

Almost all the most efficient industries before the war (steel, mechanical, chemical, etc.) have been either destroyed or greatly limited (including textiles, footwear, paper); among the free ones, besides the extractive industry, furniture-making, the glass industry, the timber industry, construction, etc., prevail, representing a very modest share of the formidable German potential.

This potential corresponded, before the war, to an adequate commercial organization, which benefited from the country's privileged geographical position - as an intermediary between Western and Eastern Europe on the one hand, and between the Mediterranean world and the Atlantic one on the other - and while it had at home excellent road networks (in 1937 there were in Germany 213,000 km of public roads) and railway networks (68,000 km), largely supplemented by navigable rivers and canals, it placed at the service of international trade a merchant fleet that was the fourth in the world (4.5 million tons in 1939) and ports among the best equipped and most frequented in Europe (Hamburg, Bremen, Emden). At present, the available shipping is reduced to insignificant proportions (294,000 tons).

It should be remembered that, before the First World War, Germany possessed a vast colonial empire (especially in Africa, and partly in Asia and Oceania): almost 3 million sq km with, at the time, 13 million inhabitants (today ca. 20), which was then entirely lost.

Giuseppe Caraci

II. CIVIL AND RELIGIOUS HISTORY.

I. IN THE ANCIENT WORLD

In the last republican age, the Roman conquest of Gaul opened the way to knowledge of the lands beyond the Rhine, the river on whose banks Caesar had brought the Romans. In 38 B.C. the Ubii moved to the left bank of the Rhine and Agrippa founded Cologne, the future metropolis of the Rhineland. But every Roman expedition was followed by the rising up of the tribes. The Usipetes, the Tencteri, the Sicambri crossed the river and carried war into Romanized Gaul. Augustus had to confront the problem of pacifying the lands between the Rhine and the Elbe in order to secure the Gallic frontier and the Danubian "limes", which could be affected by the insecurity of the former. The carrying out of the enterprise was entrusted to Drusus (13-9 B.C.) and, upon his death, was continued by Tiberius, who had the merit of having the military action accompanied, and indeed preceded, by a work of civil penetration, which achieved the best results. The failure to subdue the Marcomanni, the unrest in Illyricum and Pannonia, and the revolt of A.D. 9 among the Germans, stirred up by Arminius, chief of the Cherusci, endangered the whole work of Rome, from Caesar to Tiberius. If the loss of the legions of Quintilius Varus, in the Teutoburg Forest, could remain without graver consequences owing to the prompt return of Tiberius and, above all, to the military operations conducted by Germanicus, and to the dissensions among the insurgents, the realization of a Roman Germany from the Rhine to the Elbe was lost forever.

Toward the end of the 1st century, western and southern Germany entered the territory of the Empire and its history became, for the most part, common to that of Gaul. The insurrection of the Batavi in 69-70, the subsequent attempted proclamation of a Gallic empire, the victory won by Vespasian over the vast insurrection, are among the most dramatic episodes. For three centuries Germany remained within the orbit of Rome, and the peoples who came into contact with its legislative and civil work were drawn to civilization. From the end of the 1st century, progressively intensifying throughout the 4th, Germany was traversed by the thrill of invasions: Frisians, Franks, Saxons, Lombards, Suebi, Alemanni, Bavarians, Angles and Jutes, Thuringians and Burgundians, Rugii, Sciri, Turcilingi, Heruli, Gepids, Vandals, and then again Ostrogoths and Visigoths, pressed in from the south, from the east, from the sea. What profoundly influenced the history of Germany was the formation of the Frankish Kingdom: the end of the Kingdom of the Alemanni, marked at Tolbiac by the founder of the Frankish dynasty, Clovis, in 496, by bringing about Frankish intervention beyond the Rhine, favored the formation of a State straddling the river. The Kingdom of the Thuringians disappeared, the Saxons occupied the Harz, and the Gothic Kingdom of Italy entered into crisis, owing to Byzantine intervention: all this favored the assumption, on the part of the Franks, of a predominant position over the Germanic peoples and made the Franks a more effective bulwark against the raids of the Slavs. Even against the Avars and the Lombards, that of the Franks would have been a task of holding the line for the defense of a civilization that they inherited from Rome and that drew them to enter the orbit of the Catholic Church, and to be its observant and faithful sons.

II. THE MEDIEVAL EMPIRE

Once the Frankish conquest of Gaul was completed in the 6th century, and Gaul—together with the annexed Germanic lands—was divided into Neustria, the country of the western Franks, and Austrasia, straddling the Moselle, the Main and the Rhine, the decline of the Merovingian dynasty did not, for the time being, decisively affect the loss of Frankish influence in Germany. Beginning with Pepin of Herstal and his victorious campaigns beyond the Rhine, the Carolingians resumed the expansionist policy of the first Frankish kings: Charles Martel (v.) defeated the Frisians and Saxons and drove them back from the territory between the Rhine and the Meuse as far as the Weser; Pepin the Short renewed the struggle against the Saxons and made the Bavarians and Alemanni tributary. With Charlemagne (v.), who subdued the indomitable Saxons in a thirty-year struggle, the work of his predecessors was completed and culminated in a general settling of Germany, from which it would draw the development of its own national destiny.

When, in the name of an ideal of conquest and of faith, Charlemagne had broken (with a cruelty justified only by the continual rekindling of rebellions) the resistance of the Saxons and of their hero Widukind, he was able to extend to the territories beyond the Rhine the administrative-military system of the counties, the religious system of the bishoprics, and the judicial and civil system of the Frankish laws. Simultaneously with the breaking of Saxon unity, that of Bavaria also took place, in stages: the occasion was provided by the pro-Lombard orientation of the Agilolfing dukes, closely related by kinship to King Desiderius. Charles also subdued the Avars and broke them up, freeing the flank of the middle Danube for the expansion and settling of the Germanic peoples. Before the Slavs, however, the Emperor's initiative came to a halt, though in his last years he still found the means to settle, against the Danes, the frontier of Jutland.

An empire half Roman and half Germanic, as the very choice of a capital on the Rhine, at Aachen, showed; intimately religious and Catholic, as the sumptuous scene of Christmas in the year 800 made clear, with Charlemagne Germany was definitively won to Western civilization and, through the merit of St. Boniface (v.) and the other missionaries of the faith, to the Catholic Church. There was, in the life of the Germanic peoples, a softening of customs, a progressive drawing closer to the Romanic world, the work both of the Carolingian Empire and of the Church.

The death of Charlemagne, in 814, marks a first crack in the unity of the two parts of the Carolingian Empire; those elements of subsequent autonomy, which had existed ever since the creation of Austrasia, were bound to become more pronounced under the successors of the great Emperor, and to prevail during the struggles among the sons of Louis the Pious. These dissensions were destined also to favor the autonomist tendencies of the landed nobility: one of the two forces (the other, that of the great ecclesiastical holdings, would arise later, almost to counterbalance the first) upon which the power of the German Empire would develop. Already in 833 Louis, king of the eastern Franks, who would be called the German, gathered under his scepter the majority of the Germanic territories and peoples: Franconia and Thuringia, Saxony, Alemannia and Bavaria. In 841 Louis and Charles the Bald found themselves allied against Lothair I. The Oath of Strasbourg of 14 February 842 is at once the first document in the German language and of the differentiation of the two nationalities. Even if the supremacy of the imperial title remained with Lothair I, the Treaty of Verdun of August 842 sanctioned the respective independence of the Kingdoms of Germany and of France.

Charles the Fat renewed in 884, around his own name, the unity of the Empire already divided, during the lifetime of Louis the German, into three autonomous entities: Bavaria, Saxony and Alemannia; but in 887 his deposition at the Diet of Tribur marked a return to the autonomies already outlined. The situation of the Empire, shaken by internal dissensions and threatened from outside by the spreading of the Hungarians, the Normans and the Wends, not settled by the action of Conrad I of Franconia, elected and consecrated in 911 at Forchheim, was restored to health by the sagacious, energetic and vigilant work of Henry I, founder of the House of Saxony. His son Otto I, designated for the succession at the assembly of Erfurt (936), was the great interpreter of the matured translatio of the Empire from France to Germany. From the very beginning he inspired his action with a grandeur unknown in the past: from the consecration at Aachen to the greater detachment from the dukes called to the sovereign's personal service. He established a new administrative system, creating alongside the dukes a category of officials, the palatine dukes, and favoring the creation of a broad ecclesiastical feudalism, less dangerous than the lay one because it was not bound to the person, and useful above all for recalling to obedience to the crown the other ecclesiastical hierarchies tending to give precedence to the authority and the summons of the Pontiff.

At the death of Otto I his successor was little more than a child: the internal situation of Germany was harsh, so much so that Lothair II was emboldened to attempt its conquest from France. Otto II managed to stop the invader and to improve the internal situation: he could have renewed, with greater profit, the expansion into the eastern lands, from which his people would always hope to draw greater possibilities of life and power, and further strengthened the foundations of the monarchy. He had married (a reminder of the last, unhappy Italian campaign of Otto I and of the attempted agreement, which had also been Charlemagne's dream, with the Byzantine Empire) the Greek Theophano and, drawn by his father's ultimate design, resumed, by way of Italy, in 982, also the fatal march toward the south, against the Greeks and Saracens: defeated near Crotone, in July 983, while he was seeking to lay the foundations for the resumption of the struggle and news reached him from the German Kingdom of a new Slavic invasion, he died in Rome, not yet thirty years old, leaving the throne to his small son Otto, entrusted to the guardianship of his mother and grandmother. Otto III was drawn into the whirlwind of the Roman factions and at the same time into an atmosphere pervaded by mystical expectation of a religious reform as the millennium approached. He came to Rome, was raised to the tiara there by his cousin under the name Gregory V, and crowned emperor; he returned there in 998 to put an end to the power of Crescentius, who was defeated and killed. Between the two expeditions he had to face the Slavs on the Elbe, check the growing power of Arduin, lord of Ivrea, in the march of Turin, and hold in check the Lombard princes of southern Italy, divided and unruly: as, in the defense of the frontiers of the German Kingdom, the duke of Poland was of help to him, so in Italy the marquis of Tuscany, Hugh, was of help to him. A pupil of the learned bishop of Reims, Gerbert, whom he created archbishop of Ravenna, he drew inspiration from the ancient grandeur of Rome and from the traditions of classical culture. There was frequent talk of renovatio Imperii: the Emperor resided on the Aventine and clothed in sumptuous forms his mystical dream of renewal. He had Gerbert elected in 999 under the name Sylvester II; he found in him the other voice he needed, the spiritual one, and placed it, in the fervor of his designs, alongside the temporal voice, which he interpreted. He had extended, in the eastern lands, in Poland and in Hungary, the ecclesiastical organization, already a friend of Adalbert of Prague and of Bruno of Querfurt, who died as martyrs for the propagation of the Faith; he had assumed a title as significant as that of «servus Jesu Christi» and paid homage, at Aachen, to Charlemagne, arranging for the recognition of his body, when one of the violent and perpetual uprisings of the Romans, discontented at the failure to destroy Tivoli, was enough for Sylvester and Otto to be expelled from the city, the earthly base of their dream. Soul restless and fervent soul, in whom Greek blood prevailed over German staidness, Otto, even amid solidarity and affection with Pope Sylvester, was inclined to deny validity to the imperial donations to the Church. And, at the same time, he thought of withdrawing from the world as a hermit, or of hurling himself forth as a missionary to win new peoples to the Faith, struck by the possibility of a conflict that his religious conscience made him foresee. But then the value of the imperial function, the urgency of the tasks of the power entrusted to him, drew him to overcome his inner crisis, and he turned his mind with greater confidence to a restored ecclesiastical situation and to the possibility of perpetuating the dynasty and the throne through a new Byzantine marriage, when, at the age of twenty, he too fell (23 Jan. 1002), like his father, a victim of one of the epidemics frequent in the peninsula.

From a collateral branch of the house of Saxony, his successor, Henry II, took up the traditional policy of Otto I: the development of ecclesiastical feudalism as a counterweight to the lay. He was, moreover, led to it by a sincere religious zeal, which made him one of the greatest benefactors of the clergy and builders of churches and abbeys. Deeply sensitive to the atmosphere of religious renewal that Odo and Odilo had begun to radiate from Cluny, he became an enthusiastic champion of it. He too was attracted by Italian policy; among his expeditions south of the Alps, the last placed him face to face with the first violent outbreak of Italian communal autonomism, with the destruction of the royal palace and the assault on Pavia. When he died, in 1024, he left a Germany pacified and risen again from the disorder into which Otto III's rash impulses had thrown it. Agriculture, against the atavism of the barbarians of an earlier time, had spread throughout the country: monasteries and cities cooperated in the economic awakening, of which the great rivers were the instrument. The national language had by now come into being: its first documents survive.

The royal power passed, with Conrad II, to the ducal house of Franconia, the closest in kinship to the Ottonians. Unacceptable to the reforming clergy, to the magnates of Lorraine and Saxony, Conrad II made himself the champion of the less privileged classes, aiming to transfer the bases of central power rather to the multitude of lesser feudatories and knights, granting them too the heritability of fiefs. Central power would thus have begun to count, in every duchy, independently of the attitude of the great feudatories, on its own loyal followers. Agitations and struggles on the frontiers, among Poles and Bohemians, Danes, Slavs and Hungarians, allowed the resumption of German expansion. Of particular importance was the acquisition of Burgundy, on the death of Rudolf III. Nor did Conrad, with his two descents into Italy, forget the orientation toward the peninsula.

Over a pacified and concordant Germany, his successor, Henry III, began to make his mark in 1039: but under him, while the power of the Empire seemed enormously increased, the sharpening of autonomist demands, centered on the renewed strength of the dukes, the continuous and not always fortunate wars on the frontiers, and the rise, which brought with it the widest jealousies, of confidants and officials to the highest dignities, all showed the opening of a new crisis. Henry's own religious policy, of open favor to the Cluniac and reforming Church, his interventions in Rome, would have brought about an intense movement of reaction against German and imperial power, which would have centered on the question of lay investitures and would have undermined the long reign of his son and heir.

When he personally assumed the government, in 1065, Henry IV (v.) had before him the spectacle of a State in open and conscious anarchy, in which rebellions and endemic disorders had taken on the character of feudal opposition. But while he was proceeding along the path of restoring central authority, the struggle against lay investitures and for the internal renewal of the Church, which with Gregory VII (v.) reached its decisive turning point, stopped him abruptly and placed him face to face with the other side of the problem of the Empire: the Roman and Italian one, and likewise with the ever wider repercussions that the religious movement, opposed to German autocracy and inspired by Gregory VII, kindled everywhere in Christendom. The papal excommunication cut into the situation of latent struggle against the sovereign by the magnates of Germany. It intensified it, to the point of provoking his deposition at the Diet of Tribur and the counter-election of the duke of Swabia, Rudolf of Rheinfelden. The dukes regained the upper hand, in the attempt to resolve once and for all, as would later be possible for them, the problem of imperial election, by changing the hereditary principle into an elective one. Central power, the centralized monarchy, represented, moreover, a more modern orientation, that is, one inspired by the advantage of the collectivities, as opposed to power and feudal anarchy. This was seen in what saved Henry IV and, for the moment, the hereditary principle: the uprising of the cities, of the rural masses, of the new aristocracy of ministeriales, of a great part of the bishops, in favor of the excommunicated and deposed King. And some of the magnates likewise came to stand beside him: among them the progenitor of the Hohenstaufen, Frederick. At Hohenmölsen (1080) his rival, Rudolf, died in battle, and in vain was a successor given him in Hermann of Luxembourg. The dissensions among his enemies, the mediation of the bishops, the very length of the struggles that had spread a general weariness, extinguished the flames of revolt, allowed Henry IV's long stay in Italy, where from 1081 to 1084 he checked the nascent power of the Lombard Communes, held it in check with concessions and privileges, while, having entered Rome, he considered the struggle concluded — even the personal one that had long tormented him — with Gregory VII, with the latter's death, in exile at Salerno.

On his return from Italy, where he had stayed from 1081 to 1084, he had to face the twofold rebellion of his two sons, Conrad (1093), the firstborn, and Henry, who, victorious, would assume the Empire under the name Henry V (1105-25). With him there was a reaffirmation of the power of the magnates: nor did the act of violence and fraud help him to emerge from his near-tutelage, by which Henry imposed on the unfortunate Paschal II (v.), after the renunciation of ecclesiastical goods pertaining to the Empire — for the freedom of the Church —, the privilegium of reinstatement in the rights of investiture, which sounded as an outrage to the secular struggle for reform. The opponents gathered around Lothair, count of Supplinburg, who had become duke of Saxony, and around the archbishop of Mainz, Adalbert. With Henry the house of Franconia came to an end, after having concluded with the Concordat of Worms (23 Sept. 1122) the dispute between the Empire and the Church, thanks to a compromise that saved the prestige of the Pontiff but also that of the Emperor. In his place, Lothair of Supplinburg (1125-37) was elected emperor, belonging to the pro-Church party, thanks to which he was able to defeat the coalition between the Guelphs of Bavaria and the Ghibelline Hohenstaufen and to carry out the successful expedition against the Normans in Apulia. On his death (1127) there ascended the throne, in hatred of the dynastic principle, the Emperor's former rival, Conrad of Hohenstaufen, under whom the struggle between the two opposing parties continued and remained as a grave inheritance to his nephew Frederick Barbarossa (v.).

From the very beginning of his reign, the need to establish equal foundations for his power in Italy as well — against the now wholly autonomous and growing power of the papacy and the luxuriant flourishing of communal autonomies — drew the Emperor into a pronounced involvement in the affairs of the peninsula. Not that the general peace he proclaimed could ensure the stability of Germany's internal situation: but the Emperor provided for it in the alternation between one descent into Italy and the other, trusting, especially during his absence, in the help of the dukes, who were jointly interested in his government. Henry the Lion of Bavaria, the greatest expression of this overmighty German feudalism, along this path realized such territorial and political advantages as to be, even after a long defense, abandoned by the Emperor to the jealousy of the other great lords. His condemnation brought about, with the division of his estates, the disappearance of the greatest feudal hereditary unity, and the fragmentation into lordships resumed, no longer in favor of the central authority, but of an inexhaustible process of anarchy, which would render vain the efforts of the German emperors in their homeland and would draw them into a consequent overvaluation of Italian policy, which, from the last years of Barbarossa to the reign of his son, Henry VI, and to that of Frederick II, would mark the abandonment of the German homeland and the relegation to second place of its internal problems, in the face of the universal ones aroused by Italy and Rome. When, in 1190, drowned in the Selef, on the way to the Holy Land, where he intended to lead a new crusade, Frederick I died, he had just overcome the attempt at a vast feudal coalition stirred up against him by the Archbishop of Cologne; and when by then, because of his Italian policy, more than to the destruction of Milan and the subjection of other Lombard, Tuscan and Emilian cities, his memory was to turn to the rout of Legnano, to the peaces of Venice and Constance which had marked the victorious affirmation of the Communes, allies of the papacy. And yet, amid the difficulties of the German internal situation and of the Italian one, precisely toward the end of his life, the great Emperor had, with far-sighted political judgment, united in marriage his son Henry with the heiress of the Norman Kingdom of southern Italy, Constance of Hauteville.

Henry VI found himself, at the outset, having to fight on two fronts: because of the reappearance of Henry the Lion on the scene, in Germany, and because of the opposition of a national party to his assumption of the crown of Sicily. In both fronts the major powers of Christendom took part, and interest: the Church, England, Denmark. French neutrality, born of the hatred between Richard the Lionheart and Philip Augustus, and the extraordinary good fortune of the capture of the former, returning from the Crusade, saved Henry VI. On the death of his stubborn rival Henry the Lion, the Emperor could force the hand of the prince-electors, at the Diet of Würzburg, to obtain consent to the hereditary nature of the crown: but the subsequent oppositions determined him instead to bring about the election, at the Diet of Frankfurt, of his son, Frederick, born to him in 1194. Then, while he turned his mind, the Sicilian and Apulian rebellion having been bloodily suppressed, to vast plans of expansion in the East, Henry died in Sicily in 1197.

Once again it is a regency council (for a few months, the mother; then, by the mother's testament, the pontiff Innocent III, but in practice the turbulent feudal lords of the court and the sly Bishop of Troia, Gualtiero di Palear), that assumes control of the difficult situation. But this, in Italy. For Germany there was the election as king, sponsored by the same supporters of the Hohenstaufen, of Philip of Swabia and the reopening of the struggle with the Guelphs and their candidate, Otto of Brunswick, son of Henry the Lion, allied with England. It is the moment in which in Lorraine the conflicting interests of France and England intertwine, both tending to insert themselves, by this path, into the internal affairs of Germany. Innocent III, animated by the will to divide, for an equilibrium that would not be an obstacle to the power of the Church, the Kingdom of Sicily from the Empire, intervened in favor of the Guelph contender: but this led to the coalescing, on the basis of a solidarity that is new to German history, of the great lords of Germany, and of the episcopate itself. Otto IV was already placed in a difficult condition by the gravity of the defeat suffered at Wassenberg in 1206, when, a short distance away, the assassination of Philip of Swabia brought about, amid universal weariness, the recognition of the former, who in 1209 also assumed in Rome the imperial dignity. But this brought it about that the Pontiff, preferring a distant danger to a near one, assumed the defense of the interests of the young Frederick, causing the forces of the Hohenstaufen to rise again also in Germany. And, toward the end of 1212, Frederick II was elected king of Germany. At Bouvines, two years later, having clashed with Philip Augustus, ally of Frederick II (v.), Otto IV was defeated and disappeared from the scene. More than the young absent sovereign, and soon wholly absorbed by the Italian struggles, the situation that had arisen in Germany came to favor the uninterrupted process of disintegration of the central authority, to facilitate ever better the formation of the great territorial lordships.

Attracted by his fair Kingdom of Sicily, and by Eastern mirages, taken up again from his father and his maternal ancestors, the Normans, Frederick II pursued his immense dream of a universal empire, starting from Italy and Rome, a renewer of legislation, of culture, of the very ordering of the State, which with him lived its first hour of modernity. In Germany, after having supported himself on the power of the lay and ecclesiastical princes, in 1229 Frederick entrusted the government to his son Henry. But, in his turn, the Emperor was to find himself faced with the rebellious attitude of his son. Seven years were necessary for Frederick to cut short the seditious movement and to remedy, also with the marriage to Isabella, sister of the King of England, the situation created for him by the imprudent youth. The series of papal thunderbolts that struck the Emperor did not have the effects it had had in the time of Henry IV: the high clergy remained favorable, the minor neighboring Kingdoms returned under imperial authority. The Mongol threat suddenly grew worse over Germany; even when it vanished, through his failure to intervene, Frederick II emerged diminished in the esteem of his subjects. The violence of the struggle with the papacy received, on the other hand, fearsome fractures in the loyalty of the great feudal lords.

Toward the end of his not long life, the situation in Germany too grew worse for Frederick: the ever greater acuteness of the clash with the papacy had repercussions on the loyalty of the high clergy. A movement of revolt crept among it, which soon extended to the great lay feudal lords: Frederick II having been declared deposed at the Council of Lyon, the Landgrave of Thuringia, Henry Raspe, one of the Emperor's favorites, was elected anti-king. Once again, however, the major cities held their own against the princes in favor of the monarchy. The struggle therefore hung uncertain when death seized the Emperor at Castelfiorentino, on the edge of his flat Apulia, on 13 Dec. 1250.

The sudden end of the great Emperor had repercussions in the long anarchy of the so-called great interregnum. It is then, however, that the cities directly assume the guardianship of common interests. First a league formed among the Rhenish cities, then another among the Westphalian cities: support came to them from the statholder of Holland, William. His death put an end for the time being to federal development.

In 1273 Rudolf, Count of Habsburg, was chosen by the prince-electors as King of Germany: energetic in domestic policy but financially weak because of the ever-greater autonomy of the princes, not even he succeeded in obtaining the hereditary passage of the throne to his son, Albert. The crown passed, instead, to Adolf, Count of Nassau; after his death in battle and the killing of Albert, he was replaced by Henry VII, Count of Luxembourg, who, having secured stability for Germany through the marriage of his son John and a certain influence over Bohemia, turned his attention to Italy. The Veltro, whom Dante awaited, nevertheless fruitlessly ended, through uncertainty of forces and adversity of events, his descent into the peninsula, dying at Buonconvento in 1313. Louis the Bavarian, who succeeded him in conflict with Frederick of Austria, by his failed attempt to subjugate the authority of the Church, then governed by John XXII, brought it about, through his descent into Italy and his Roman struggles, that the German princes at last resolved to take into their own hands the exclusive right to dispose of royal and imperial power (1538). Eighteen years later, in 1356, another sovereign, Charles IV (v.), with the promulgation of the "Golden Bull" carried that will to its ultimate consequence: but to reach Charles IV and his decisive act there would have been needed the development of a national movement in Germany, perhaps the first, in which were atoned the consequences of Louis the Bavarian's awkward and fragile Italian attempt and its disastrous repercussion beyond the Alps, in the discontent of the princes. From that discontent, and following the death of Louis, the son of John of Luxembourg and grandson of Henry IV, that is the representative of the Bohemian branch of the family, Charles IV, obtained the crown. The Holy Roman Empire potentially came to an end, and an exclusively Germanic Empire replaced it.

The power of the prince-electors now has no limit: the king, and the designated emperor, is no more than an emanation, their representative. Behind the leveling of the proud imperial concept to the reality of life, the nation, the State, was born: it was, moreover, a recognizing, also in Germany, and abandoning the now meaningless suggestions of the imperial name, of the situation that had become common to the national monarchies, established in England, in France, in Spain and in the same eastern lands civilized by Germany.

Now indeed Charles IV could succeed where his predecessors had long aimed: in the transmission of the throne to the firstborn, Wenceslaus. But his reign was nonetheless marked by bitter disputes among feudal lords and cities, at times bound together in leagues, with the continual intervention of the Swiss Cantons and the major princes. Imperial authority had been emptied out, transforming itself.

What presses upon the whole body of the Empire is a crisis that is by now not merely constitutional but general — political, religious, economic: a crisis of civilization that has now reached full maturity, brought about more by the urban centers than by any intrinsic capacity embodied in the imperial institution. In Germany are reflected the antecedents and consequences of the Western Schism, in which, as in the long process of attempts at internal reform of the Church throughout the 15th century, the major antecedent of the Protestant Reformation is to be seen. It will be that Reformation, bringing to history masses hitherto unheard and inexhaustible, breaking the religious bond with Rome — which had been the bond on which the first diffusion of civilization in Germany had hinged — and then the centuries-old clash between Empire and papacy, that will finally give that beginning of nationhood and national State, until then lacking, which was to mark the decisive turning point of German history. Political motives will prevail over the initial religious ones; it will be as a last consequence of the harsh struggle over investitures that the princes' will to break away from Rome is determined, seizing the occasion of the moral crisis of the papacy and of its floundering, amid the pagan reflowering of Renaissance life, between simony and corruption, contingent and moral problems, principles of conciliarist democracy and traditional Roman centralization.

In 1438 Albert II of Habsburg, son-in-law of Sigismund, was able to unite under himself Germany, Bohemia, and Hungary: the hereditary possessions of the Habsburgs and the Luxembourgs. But he had scarcely ascended the throne when he fell on the Raab, attempting to hinder the Turkish invasion of Hungary. Frederick III succeeds him, and his election helps to affirm the hereditary principle in favor of the Habsburgs, while the axis of the Empire shifts toward the regions of Danubian Europe. But the ineptitude of the new sovereign, his remaining extraneous to the problems and interests of Germany, certainly does not favor the acquisition of a solid base popular support for the Habsburg monarchy. When, on the Rhenish frontier, contested ever since then, danger pressed, between 1442 and 1445, because of the resolute French onslaught, the indifference of the Emperor and of the princes, who let the entire burden of defense fall back upon the cities, shows even more clearly the sharpening of the constitutional problem, left unresolved. In the permanent anarchy, marked by the violence of private wars and by the clash between Wittelsbach and Hohenzollern, while the difficulty of reaching a concrete resolution in favor of a strengthening of monarchical power becomes ever more evident, owing to the obstacles posed by the tendency of the prince-electors to hold the government for themselves, Hungary first, and Bohemia afterward, withdrew from imperial authority, as did Poland, which had made itself a single kingdom with Lithuania. Maximilian I, the able successor (1493) of his father Frederick III, sought to recover the Kingdoms of Bohemia and Hungary and to check the growing French pressure on the Rhine, and appears driven by the anxiety to give a different consistency to monarchical power; along this path, he promoted, in 1487-88, the Swabian League, with aims that also included policing and a high moral and economic guardianship. Undoubted in Maximilian's direction was the attempt to orient German policy intentionally, to make Germany the greatest power in Europe. In domestic policy, Maximilian was the first to have the strength to promote truly central institutions: from the general peace to the banning of private war, from a tribunal of the Empire to a central treasury and well-determined taxation, with executive powers entrusted to the Diet. But, both in the international field and in the domestic one, Maximilian's undoubtedly perspicacious action was not crowned with success. It was to fall to the now awakened national conscience of Germany to solidarize with the centralist program.

III. GERMANY AND THE REFORMATION

What therefore determines the new face of Germany, even from the point of view of its constitution and of the relations between princes and subjects, is the Reformation (v.): the movement which, precisely while the authority of the Empire was reaching its lowest level, found its greatest protagonist in an old Augustinian, Martin Luther (v.). Around him was formed that league of princes and cities which the Empire had not known how to place on firm foundations. The right to decide its own political and religious destinies, granted to the nation as a whole, fermented advantageously, binding together the energies of Germany, which until then had been represented by the discordant rising up of ever new princely States. On the other hand, the social tendencies, by their anarchic impulse, found in Luther himself, the ally of the princes, the restraining element that would brutally break them. The new faith thereby lost its genuineness and efficacy, but the national consciousness and the State in formation gained by it. Initially, the movement went toward the alignment of princes and cities in two leagues: Protestant and Catholic. The unity, unattained at Augsburg (1530), emerged consecrated at Schmalkalden the following year by the Protestant defensive league. And the Council that would finally open in 1545 at Trent (v.), despite every effort on the part of Charles V and the papacy, would be partial: the Protestants would be absent from it. Even earlier, Charles V had realistically admitted the existence of the new order: the religious struggles, in which the figures of the Landgrave of Hesse, Philip, of Maurice of Saxony, and of the other Saxon, the Elector John Frederick, emerged, ended, in their first phase, with the imperial and Catholic affirmation: but while the long Council of Trent was being held, the Protestant princes closed their ranks and in the long run had the better of every resistance. With the Peace of Augsburg (1555), the German Protestant princes realized their aspirations for political and religious autonomy. And the end of the century saw their further strengthening: even if, on the other hand, the Counter-Reformation brought a consolidation in the Catholic camp. The adherence of the Habsburgs to the Catholic side led to an ever greater emptying of their importance for Germany. Amid continuous oscillations, dissensions, and changes of front, the second, decisive moment for the Reformation was reached: the Thirty Years' War and the Peace of Westphalia (1648), which was to represent at once the conclusion of the religious revolution and the settling of the movement of political evolution within the very channel of the territorial States. The impulse now came from the neighboring Protestant princes, such as Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden. The Baltic became a Protestant sea. Preceded by a series of separate peaces, the general peace of Münster and Osnabrück of 24 Oct. 1648 put an end to the long war, confirming the autonomy of the States, their sovereignty absolute within their relative territorial sphere; it marked a compromise and, in the end, the coexistence of the two faiths, on the basis of a principle of tolerance, moreover not everywhere and always respected. Among the Protestant princes, one emerged from the war and the peace consolidated in his already extensive domains, animated toward greater aspirations and conquests: the "Great Elector," Frederick William of Brandenburg. From then on, Prussia would tend to assume, in opposition to Bavaria, which had remained Catholic, a role of primary importance in German politics. The Holy Roman Empire, by then for some time merely Germanic, would still remain, for a century and a half, a vain name without a subject: hereditary in the sovereigns of the House of Austria, it would no longer represent anything but a memory of the past for the princes and the new peoples of Germany.

IV. THE PRUSSIAN PREDOMINANCE

Already in the first decades of the eighteenth century, the opening of the path toward the predominance in G. of the Hohenzollerns, of Prussia, is evident. What the Habsburgs had not succeeded in, and earlier still the House of Bavaria, is instead achieved by this other house, equally eccentric with respect to the lands that had been the first cradle of the medieval German Empire. What consecrates Prussia's assumption of a new role is the Seven Years' War and, even earlier, its immediate cause: the war of the Austrian Succession. With Frederick William I, in the organization of a standing army and with the establishment of provincial authorities dependent on the sovereign, the foundations of Prussian power had been laid. His son, Frederick II, warrior and shrewd politician, will give prominence and flight to the policy of the still small Prussia, will bring it, after having raised it to a parity with Austria that would until shortly before have been undreamed of, to a role of European power. The war of the Polish Succession will consecrate this role.

The French Revolution at first has a quite relative influence on the German lands: they find themselves part of the European coalitions against France, but the part they take is certainly not vigorous. Meanwhile, through the prevalence of the liberal-Romantic orientation, the new ideas are stronger than arms: but the revolutionary ferment operates in G. at a later stage above all in a patriotic and national function, differently than in Italy, leading to the struggle against Napoleonic predominance. In the face of the tangled mass of problems that G. finds itself having to sustain and resolve between the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Empire, the lack of a unified national order makes itself felt more keenly and more gravely than ever. The very thinkers and heralds of liberty, from Fichte to Hegel, reflect in their work the aspiration to unity: to this movement of minds will be due the final evolution of the German internal problem: from G., a historical and geographical expression, to G., a national State and Empire, through the predominance of Prussia and its participation in the German Confederation.

Napoleon, with his decisive intervention in the structure of G., facilitated its consolidation into large territorial complexes. The Napoleonic campaign, which culminates in the days of Jena, Eylau, Friedland, of 1806-1807, will for the time being be an entire succession of defeats: but it will serve to strengthen in the Prussian military caste the proud sense of the assumed representation of all G., which it will then maintain in the following decades, and will already then constitute the greatest impulse to contribute by force to the fall of Napoleon. It may in fact be said that the new G. emerges from the "Battle of the Nations" (Leipzig, 8 Oct. 1813) and from Waterloo, from the military effort of Blücher, with which the military tradition of Frederick the Great continued, to link up later with Moltke and Bismarck, the creators of the new German Empire. Prussia emerges from the war of coalition and presents itself at the Congress of Vienna as the moral victor, not only of Napoleon, but of the very lands of the Confederation of the Rhine, which had long been, against her, the beneficiaries of the Emperor. The German States, which reasons of European balance leave alive even after the Congress, are, besides Prussia, Bavaria, enlarged by the Palatinate, Hanover, Saxony, Hesse, the grand duchies of Oldenburg, Weimar, Mecklenburg, Luxembourg, Württemberg, Baden. Of the old Hanseatic League, the major centers (Hamburg, Bremen, Lübeck) have remained free cities, and so has Frankfurt on the Main. As an immediate consequence of the situation determined by the Napoleonic collapse and by the results of Vienna, on 8 June 1815 the constitution of a Bund, or Confederation, is reached, in which all the German States are represented, and also the States on which German territories depend: there enter into it, along with Prussia and the other minor German States, Austria, England (through the union of the two crowns of Great Britain and Ireland and of Hanover), Denmark for the duchies of Holstein and Lauenburg, Holland for Luxembourg. For the time being, a certain priority is assumed by Austria, which has nevertheless renounced the title of the Holy

Holy Roman Empire. Their example is not followed by Saxony, still feudal, and by Prussia, on account of the absolutism of its king, Frederick William III. Moreover the Prussian army, economic policy and Prussian customs union constitute the most concrete bases for the achievement — not democratic, but by force — of German unity, thanks to the Zollverein of 1834, to the revolution of 1848, to the constitution of the Empire. The two tendencies: absolutist, represented by Frederick William IV, and reformist, clash, and from the clash is born the Constituent Assembly of Frankfurt, with the task of creating German unity constitutionally. But the contrasts between Prussia and Austria, between the northern and southern principalities, between Berlin and Frankfurt do not cease for all that, so that at a certain moment Prussia opposes to the German Constituent Assembly an autonomous Prussian Constituent Assembly, cleverly conceived as a first step toward an imperial constitution, but which meets with the decided opposition of Austria.

The unitary beginning of Germany still needs a negative experience; while the conservative-reactionary position, assumed by the prince regent, William, leaves Prussia discontented and embittered. The bitterness and discontent, widespread throughout all Germany, determine the renewed unitary attempt of the Deutsches Nazionalverein. A central government of Germany is wanted: the orientation toward Prussia becomes general; the expectation that the major State will accomplish the miracle of unification becomes pressing, as in Italy from 1848. Prince William returns to his country, a liberal era seems to open, with a constitutional cabinet and a representative Chamber. Between Prussia and Austria it is now the minor States that interfere, out of the will to represent a power of their own, a third force. But between government and Parliament a bitter dissension opens, over the formation of a national army. In 1861 William I finally succeeds Frederick William, after the latter's long illness, and the political parties rapidly take shape. The parliamentary vicissitude, and the reflection of general European politics, bring about the strengthening of the party and of the progressive currents. The years immediately following see the weakening of the principal obstacles placed in the way of the further movement of evolution: the legitimism and conservatism of the King, respectful of others' sovereign prerogatives, is overcome, thanks to the chancellor, Otto von Bismarck, by a national and unitary vision; the tenacious resistance of the other princes has its limit in their progressive weakening; the long opposition of Austria, revealed in its true light of cold and calculated egoism, coalesces German national sentiment against itself. Bismarck's policy convinces, unhinges the positions of others, is conservative, but avails itself of the revolutionary forces in action, for what is the aim of his life. For this he bends all the internal forces that oppose his vast design; in foreign policy, he aims to create a void around Austria; he exploits for both ends, internal and external, the occasion offered him by the reopening of the Schleswig-Holstein question (1863-64). Against the incorporation of the two duchies into Denmark, upon the death of King Frederick VII, Bismarck, having taken up the defense of the German claims, has his first victory, obliging the powers to non-intervention and forcing the new Danish king, Christian IX, in a very rapid campaign, to recognize the autonomy and the German pertinence of the duchies; and he achieves this, a diplomatic victory no less notable, with the full support of Austria. The rivalry breaks out, as was to be expected, at the end of the war and the agitation extends to the duchies, eager to find a settlement within the framework of a Germany, as averse as they are to entry, sic et simpliciter, into the Prussian State. It is at this moment that, in the now inevitable eventuality of a direct clash with Austria, Bismarck conceives, and carries out, that alliance with Italy, which allows him its realization within no long delay. If even Napoleon III's will to turn the friction to his own ends decides Bismarck, above all an upholder of a principle of pan-German solidarity, as the attitude following the Austrian defeat would have made even clearer, at the agreement of Gastein (14 Aug. 1865), the war is only postponed, the better to prepare it. Already at the beginning of the new year, relations become tense again: the alliance with Italy is concluded, the military machine brought to readiness. And it is to it that the merit belongs of the overwhelming campaign which, once the understandings for a European congress initiated by Napoleon III had come to nothing, in the summer of 1866 leads to the great battle of Sadowa, under the leadership of von Moltke. To the renewed French interference Bismarck hastens the conclusion, with the preliminaries of Nikolsburg, of a peace intended to ensure Prussian predominance in Germany, but to leave the Habsburg power standing, for the balance of central-eastern Europe. The French claims on southern Germany and on the Rhineland constitute, meanwhile, in Bismarck's able hands, the decisive card for the adherence of the German States to his policy of unity, and for tending, precisely, in harmony with those States, toward the further decisive step toward the renewal, to the detriment of France, of a German Empire. For this, the dramatic turn is also necessary, provided by the elections of 1867, of the shift of the parliamentary majority from the progressives to the conservatives, supporters of a policy of power. In the same year, the establishment of a new Zollverein at last groups together all the German States.

V. THE GERMAN EMPIRE

Clear in the mind of Bismarck and of his King at the very moment of the armistice, and perhaps of the war, with Austria, was the necessity of a new war, intended as the welding force of national unity, against the France of Napoleon III (the coexistence of four Empires in continental Europe being impossible, even after the Austrian humiliation and amid the ever greater European isolation and Asiatic interest of Russia). The occasion does not take long to present itself: it is the candidacy of Prince Leopold of Hohenzollern to the Spanish throne, to which Napoleon III, hopeful of a more favorable solution, naturally objects. Conducted with extreme resoluteness (it has been said: cynicism) by Bismarck, the diplomatic solutions clash against a determined and manifest will, to which there corresponds, on the opposite side, an equally manifest ineptitude (Prussian renunciation, French stiffening demanding a commitment "even for the future," the Ems dispatch). The divulging of the refusal of King William to receive the French ambassador, Benedetti, any further, bitterly arranged by Bismarck, sounding as an insult to France, makes any resumption of negotiations impossible from then on. It is war. And it proves, from the outset, disastrous for France (battle of Sedan, captivity of Napoleon III, surrender of Metz). After an heroic resistance attempted in vain beneath the walls of Paris, the Republic, having succeeded the Second Empire, is forced to peace (armistice of 28 Jan. 1871: Peace of Frankfurt, of 10 May). Alsace and Lorraine pass to Germany, which, finally composed into unity by victory and consecrated as such, in the Hall of Mirrors at Versailles, by the assumption, on the part of Kaiser William I, of the imperial crown, can now pass from the transitional formula of the annexation of the southern States into the North German Confederation to a firm imperial constitution. It was, moreover, even more manifestly than for Piedmont and Italy, a kind of enlargement of the Prussian State: for Germany it would have left a rich legacy of constitutional, economic, and religious problems, while the annexation of lands also ethnically different (and of Polish, Bohemian, and Danish national groups) would have succeeded in furnishing difficult situations for the future.

Since the middle of the century, meanwhile, Germany had advanced considerably in economic development: the industrial transformation had operated there on particularly favorable ground, as in England. The unity achieved would act as a further propelling element, also in the colonial field, in which too, with so much delay compared with the Western nations, Germany would exert itself. But Bismarck's position becomes more difficult precisely in the consolidation of unity: even with the pre-existing States reduced to a framework for Prussian predominance, the parties are agitated and the Chancellor's iron fist, which continues to base itself on the conservative element, with a skillful utilization of liberal forces, clashes against the resistance especially of the clergy. Behind it there forms, from 1870, the Center party, which rapidly gains consistency.

To render the German Catholics autonomous from Rome and to create a national Catholic Church, Bismarck unleashes the often violent campaign of the Kulturkampf, which was resolved negatively and, in the last analysis, to the advantage of the Center. Only apparently does the repressive action against the new socializing tendencies, manifested most vigorously in the homeland of Marx and Engels, achieve greater effect: in reality, Bismarck succeeds in it only by conceding those laws of social defense which public opinion demanded and which place Germany in the forefront in that sector. In foreign policy, with the aim of guaranteeing the territorial aggrandizements achieved, and of warding off any possible renewed threat on the Rhine, the Chancellor determines the rapprochement with Russia and the return to collaboration with the Austro-Hungarian Empire, making himself the pivot amid the continual looming of an armed clash between these two powers motivated by Pan-Slavism in the Slavic regions of the Danubian monarchy (question of Bosnia-Herzegovina, etc.). It is the bloc of the conservative States that Bismarck strives to maintain against the West, eager for novelty and disturbing. In this framework, and in the attempt to create a diversion from Austro-Russian frictions, is to be seen the activity expended by Bismarck for the constitution of the Triple Alliance, with Austria and Italy. These are the bases of thirty years of international politics, useful, far more than to ideal aspirations, to economic and technical progress. It was all too evident that the Triple Alliance had its limit in the assumption of importance by the irredentist aspirations of the Italians still severed from the mother country and in putting an end to the Italo-French colonial frictions, which Bismarck had, since the Congress of Berlin, skillfully sharpened; in the gaining of consistency by Pan-Slavism and the other erosive forces of the Habsburg Empire; in the revival of French nationalism, exacerbated by the loss of Alsace and Lorraine. And still there is, outside, an element that does not resign itself to an exclusion from continental politics: England, with its great transmarine power. All this passes before the eyes of the negotiators, at every renewal of the Triple Alliance. And the failed guarantee of a Russo-German bilateral pact, in 1896, sounds as a further alarm signal for the Chancellor's policy. Who is, shortly after the assumption of the throne by William II, and thus already from 1889, placed before a general mutation of political orientations. The personal clash with William, incapable of adaptation and prudence, impatient of controls, but tending toward a policy of his own of intemperance and rash impulses, forces the old minister to retire (1893).

Against the policy of alliances and counter-assurances there now begins a policy of isolation, which would be disastrous for the Empire. Bismarck is barely out of public life when Russian hostility toward Austria is reflected on its ally, Germany: the latter comes to find itself between two fronts, owing to the ever greater French enmity. The Levantine question (the Baghdad railway) embitters, on the other hand, an already potential Anglo-German dissension, between two powers both tending toward thalassocracy, but in which the one, far more imbued with liberal spirits, is drawn onto positions clearly defensive of its far older colonial and mercantile expansion. Already the last years of the century see the German arms race (von Tirpitz, great naval constructions); to the insistent British warnings Chancellor Bülow opposes a policy of blindness, which the Moroccan crisis, concluded by the Algeciras Conference, its reopening, and the by then accentuated distrust, not only French but Italian, clearly reveals. There forms, amid not a few sympathies in the peninsula, the Triple Entente (Russia, France, England), which assumes, notwithstanding the attempt at a détente, on the part of the new Chancellor Bethmann-Hollweg, a threatening attitude toward the Central Powers. The majority won in the Reichstag by liberals and Social Democrats does not avail to halt the fatal road to war. And the last act of the drama of German isolation matures, with the definitive detachment of Italy from the Triple Alliance. The assassination at Sarajevo and the ultimatum to Serbia are followed, rapidly, by the world conflagration.

VI. THE WEIMAR REPUBLIC AND THE THIRD REICH

Five years of war prostrated, more than the army, Germany's internal resistance. The collapse of the Emperor's personal authority, his abdication, the assumption of power by the Social Democrat Ebert, mark the extreme stages of the defeat. For the signing of the armistice (11 Nov. 1918) a provisional government is formed. For the first time in German history a democratic revolution, while the Peace of Versailles is being signed, assumes power. From the elections of 16 Jan. 1919 and from the Weimar Constituent Assembly is born the Republic that will take its name from that city. It is a weak State, which has behind it the terrible legacy of defeat and is threatened by revolutionary groups: but, in its admirable compactness, Germany does not disintegrate and indeed the new regime assumes, over the years, greater strength. Precisely from the very harsh conditions of the peace treaty (reparations, occupation of the Ruhr, total disarmament) and from the intransigence of the Allies was to take shape the dream, then, and the reality, later, of the German recovery. For a decade, in the very grave post-war crisis, Social Democracy (animated by leading men, such as Weber) could hold the fate of the country. But, after the Treaty of Lausanne (7 July 1932) had put an end to the long question of reparations, against the policy of strict democratic observance, but of no great far-sightedness, tied to the Locarno Pact and to the name of Gustav Stresemann, the nationalist and right-wing currents aimed decisively at recovery, under the leadership of the victor of the Masurian Lakes, Hindenburg. Exploiting his Junker sentiment, Prussian orthodoxy and natural militarism, an Austrian who only at the last moment became a naturalized German, Adolf Hitler, succeeds in laying the foundations — on the crumbling of the Weimar regime and on the weak defense of democratic institutions by the Brüning and von Papen cabinets — of a State founded on his assuming both offices himself, of President and Chancellor (as soon as the succession to the deceased Hindenburg opened), on the strength of those auxiliary militias that had been the surrogate of the disbanded army and on that, latent throughout the country, of a renewed military and political power. The elections of 1932 (in particular the second ones, of 6 Nov.) give the majority to the party of the ex-combatants and of the right-wing bourgeoisie: National Socialism. And Hitler's personal regime begins, with its cult of brute force, its neo-paganism, its late-Romantic and Spenglerian legacy, and, soon, with the coups against the surviving Allied measures guaranteeing victory (remilitarization of the Ruhr, reannexation of the Saar) and the persecutions against Jews and Catholics, the dissolution and deportations of Communists (accused of the Reichstag fire) and Social Democrats. From then on, with tendencies and ambitions within the party itself extinguished in blood (putsch of late June 1934), with the greatest prominence given to the Schutz-Staffeln formations (S. S. = Protection Squads), as against the S. A. (Schutz-Abteilungen), with the Labor Front (Arbeitsfront) created, the economy unified under the control of a skilful financier, H. Schacht, the greatest authority given to the secret police, Hitler traverses, in close understanding with his major collaborators (Goering, Goebbels, Himmler, etc.), all the stages of the most unbridled centralization of power that history remembers. As soon as it had strengthened itself internally, on the other hand, the National Socialist regime, counting on the scant energy and military strength of the democratic nations and on Russia's internal problems, began the series of international aggressions that, amid the continuing military preparation, were to confront Europe with a fait accompli, but also with the question mark of the very survival of democracy. Conceived as a necessary integration of the territory of the common fatherland, first the annexation of Austria (March 1938), then that of Czechoslovakia (March 1939), in line with the previous attacks on the regime of collective security of the League of Nations (from which Germany had withdrawn) and on the sovereignty of free countries, were carried out with premeditated cynicism and with bloody ferocity. From the attempt at agreement at Munich (29-30 Sept. 1938), in the midst of the Czechoslovak crisis, all the diplomatic possibilities deployed by the Western powers to avoid, through new aggressions, the renewal of a conflagration were failing. Ideological basis, the alliance between the three right-wing totalitarian regimes: National Socialism, Fascism, Japanese militarism. Not for nothing had the road to war, opened by the very problems left by the Peace of Versailles, begun to be glimpsed from the German denunciations of the military clauses of the treaty, from the failure of the Stresa Conference (Apr. 1935) and from the attitude of close unity between Germany, ambitious for territorial revisions, and Italy, engaged in the enterprises of Europe and Spain. When, from 4 Feb. 1938, Hitler concentrated in his hands the high command of the German armed forces, Germany's internal preparation was, moreover, also complete and no doubt could any longer remain that the acts of force against Austria and Czechoslovakia would not be followed by others. A few months were enough to bring to maturity, with the crisis determined by the question of Danzig and the Polish Corridor, and with the conflict, opened on 1 Sept. 1939, the Second World War.

Characterized by an initial period of stalemate, then by a succession of German battering-ram blows against Holland, Belgium, France, the Baltic Countries (except Sweden), and by the anxious wait for a landing in England, its third phase brought about the reversal of the general situation, with the intervention of America and Russia, and with the looming defeats in the Mediterranean sector. When the military situation was by now deteriorating rapidly, especially on the Russian front, and the Anglo-American invasion of the continent was under way, the collapse, first, of the Fascist regime in Italy, then the attempt at an internal military putsch of July 1944, showed the onset of agony for Hitlerian Germany. The capitulation came, a few days after the conquest of Berlin and the end of Hitler, on 7 May 1945. Germany emerged from the war destroyed, impoverished, and, what is worse, divided into four Allied occupation zones, like Berlin itself, and deprived of vast industrialized areas (Silesia, Pomerania), in favor of Poland. There was a return to the territorial fragmentation of before unification, aggravated by foreign imposition and occupation. The conflicting Western and Russian influence determined the regrouping of the various territories into two zones, Western and Russian, corresponding to the German Federal Republic and to a People's Republic.

General histories: K. W. Witzsch, Geschichte d. deutschen Volkes bis z. Augsburger Religionsfrieden, 2nd ed., Leipzig 1892; K. Lamprecht, Deutsche Geschichte, 4th ed., Berlin 1902-1904; T. Lindner, Gesch. d. deutsch. Volkes, Stuttgart 1894; D. Schäfer, Deutsche Gesch., 9th ed., Jena 1922; K. Brandl, Deutsche Gesch., 3rd ed., Leipzig 1923; A. v. Hofmann, Politische Gesch. d. Deutschen, Stuttgart 1921-28; J. Haller, Die Epochen d. deutsch. Gesch., Stuttgart-Berlin 1931; H. Pinnow, Deutsche Gesch., new ed., Leipzig-Berlin 1934 (Italian trans., Milan 1935).

For the pre-Roman and Roman age: E. Wahle, Vorgeschichte d. deutschen Volkes, Leipzig 1924; F. Dahn, Urgeschichte d. german. u. roman. Völker, Berlin 1886-89; L. Schmidt, *Allgemeine

Geschichte d. german. Völker bis zur Mitte d. sechsten Jh., ibid. 1909; id., Gesch. d. german. Frühzeit. Der Zeitwöhrungsgang d. Nation bis zur Begründung d. fröhlichen Universalmonarchie durch Chlodowach, Bonn 1925; K. Mülkenhoff, Deutsche Altertumskunde, 2nd ed., Berlin 1920; F. Kaufmann, Deutsche Altertumskunde, Munich 1931-23; T. Mommsen, Le Procène romane de Cesare a Diocleziano*, trans. E. De Ruggiero, Rome 1887-90.

On the Frankish age: A. Dopsch, Wirtschaftliche u. soziale Grundlagen der europäischen Kulturentwicklung aus d. Zeit von Cäser bis Karl d. Gr., 3rd ed., Vienna 1923-24; H. v. Sybel, Entstehung d. deutschen Königstums, 2nd ed., Frankfurt 1881; H. T. T. T. T. T. T. T. T. T. T. T. T. T. T. T. T. T. T. T. T. T. T. T. T. T. T. T. T. T. T. T. T. T. T. T. T. T. T. T. T. T. T. T. T. T. T. T. T. T. T.

On the medieval Empire: W. v. Giesebrecht, Geschichte d. deutschen Kaiserzeit, 5th ed., Leipzig 1891-90; K. Hampe, Deutsche Kaisergesch. in der Zeit der Salier u. Stafer, 2nd ed., ibid. 1912; F. Schneider, Rom u. Rongenbuke im Mittelalter, Munich 1926; G. v. Below, Die italienische Kaiserpolitik des deutschen Mittelalters, ibid. 1927; P. E. Schramm, Kaiser, Rom u. Renovatio, Leipzig 1929; R. Holtzmann, Geschichte d. tächsischen Kaiserzeit, Munich 1941; J. Jastrow-G. Winter, Deutsche Geschichte im Zeitalter der Hohenstaufen, Berlin 1897-1901; F. W. Schurmacher, Die letzten Hohenstaufen, Gottlinga 1871; P. Scheffer-Boichorst, Zur Gesch. d. 12. u. 13. Jh., Berlin 1897; G. Wendt, Die Germanisierung der Länder östlich d. Elbe, Liegnitz 1911; R. Morghen, Il tramonto della potenza sveva in Italia, Rome 1936.

On the age from the Hohenstaufen to the Reformation: O. Lorenz, Deutsche Geschichte im 13. u. 14. Jh., Vienna 1863-67; E. Michael, Geschichte d. deutschen Volkes vom 13. Jh. bis zum Ausgang d. Mittelalters, Freiburg 1897-1915; J. Kempf, Gesch. d. deutschen Reiches während des Grossen Interregums (1235-73), Würzburg 1893; A. Leroux, Recherches critiques sur les relations politiques de la France avec l'Allemagne de 1291 à 1378, Paris 1882; C. Ullmann, Reformatoren vor der Reformation, 2nd ed., Gotha 1866; E. Gothein, Politische u. relig. Vollabewegungen vor der Reformation, Breslau 1878; G. v. Buchwald, Deutsches Geistesleben im eudenden Mittelalter, Kiel 1885-87; K. Burdach, Vom Mittelalter zur Reformation, Halle 1894; J. Bühler, Das deutsche Geistesleben im Mittelalter, nach zeitgenössischen Quellen, Leipzig 1897.

On the age of the Reformation: G. Wolf, Quellenkunde der deutschen Reformationsgesch., Gotha 1915-23 and F. Schnabel, Deutschlands geschichtliche Quellen u. Darstellungen der Neuzeit, 1: 1500-1530, Leipzig 1931 (repertories); L. v. Ranke, Deutsche Gesch. im Zeitalter d. Reformation, ibid. 1867-81, critical ed., Munich 1925; id., Zur deutschen Gesch. vom Religionsfrieden bis zum 30-jähr. Krieg, in Sämtl. Werke, VII, Leipzig 1881; F. v. Bezold, Gesch. d. deutschen Reformation, Berlin 1890; id., Staat u. Gesellschaft im Reformationszeitalter, in Kultur der Gegenwart, 1. 2. Berlin-Leipzig 1908; G. Egelhaf, Deutsche Gesch. im XVI. Jh. bis z. Augsburger Religionsfrieden, Stuttgart 1887-93; G. Mentz, Deutsche Gesch. im Zeitalter der Reformation, Gegenreformation u. des dreissigjährigen Krieges (1593-1648), Tübingen 1913; K. Brandl, Deutsche Reformation u. Gegenreformation, Leipzig 1927-30 (ed. 1941, in a voll. separati); M. Ritter, Deutsche Gesch. im Zeitalter der Gegenreformation u. d. 30-jähr. Krieges, Stuttgart 1889-1908; G. Wolf, Deutsche Gesch. im Zeitalter d. Gegenreformation, Berlin 1890-1908; E. Gothein, Staat u. Gesellschaft d. Zeitalters d. Gegenreform., Italian trans., Venice 1928.

On the age of absolutism: B. E. Erdmann-Dörffer, Deutsche Gesch. vom westfälisch. Frieden bis zum Regierungsantritt Friedrichs d. Grossen, Berlin 1892-93; H. v. Zwiedineck-Südenhorst, Deutsche Gesch. im Zeitalter d. Gründung d. preussischen Königstums, Stuttgart 1890-94; B. Auerbach, La France et le St Empire Romain Germanique depuis la paix de Westphalia jusqu'à la Révolution française, Paris 1912; G. Kuntzel, Die drei grossen Hohenzollern u. der Aufstieg Preussens im 17. u. 18. Jh., Stuttgart 1922; W. Oncken, Das Zeitalter Friedrichs d. Gr., Berlin 1880; A. Dove, Das Zeitalter Friedrichs d. Gr. u. Josephs II., Gotha 1883; K. Th. v. Heigel, D. Gesch. vom Tode Friedrichs d. Gr. bis z. Auflösung d. alten Reichs, Stuttgart 1811-12; H. v. Sybel, Gesch. d. Revolutionszeit, 2nd ed., Frankfurt 1882; H. Hüffer, Diplomatische Verhandlungen aus d. Zeit d. franzöi, Reo., Bonn 1868-79; H. v. Srbik, Das österr. Kaisertum u. das Ende d. heil. röm. Reiches, 1804-1806, Berlin 1927; A. Rapp, Der deutsche Gedanke, seine Entwickel. im polit. u. geistigen Leben seit dem 18. Jh., Bonn 1920; H. Schmidt, Gesch. der kathol. Kirche Deutschlands von der Mitte des 18. Jh., Münster 1920.

On Prussian preponderance: G. G. Gervinus, Gesch. d. XIX. Jh. seit d. Wiener Verträge, Leipzig 1855-69; C. Bule, Gesch. d. neusten Zeit 1815-85, 2nd ed., ibid. 1886-87; A. Stern, Gesch. Europas seit den Verträgen v. 1815 bis zum Frankfurter Frieden von 1871, Stuttgart 1890-1934; F. Schnabel, Deutsche Gesch. im XIX. Jh., vol. I: Die Grundlagen, Freiburg 1920; H. v. Zwiedineck-Südenhorst, Deutsche Gesch. u. der Auflösung des alten bis zur Gründung d. neuen Reichs, Stuttgart 1897-1905; H. v. Treitschke, Deutsche Gesch. im XIX. Jh., Leipzig 1897-94; G. Egelhaf, Gesch. d. XIX. Jh. vom Wiener Kongress bis z. Frankf. Frieden, Stuttgart 1925; H. v. Sybel, Die Begründung des deutschen Reiches durch Wilhelm J., Munich-Leipzig 1879-94; E. Brandenburg, Die Reichsgründung, 2nd ed., Berlin 1922; G. Cavaignac, La formation de la Prusse contemporaine (1866-73), Paris 1891-98; G. S. Ford, Stein and the era of reform in Prussia, Princeton 1922; F. Meinecke, Das Zeitalter d. deutschen Erhebung, Bielefeld 1924; ed., Preussen u. Deutschland im XIX. u. XX. Jh., Munich 1914 (Italian trans., Perugia 1929); O. Lorenz, Kaiser Wilhelm u. die Begründung d. Reiches 1866-73, Jena 1902.

On the German Empire 1871-1918: L. Bergsträsser, Gesch. d. politischen Parteien in Deutschland, 5th ed., Mannheim 1928; E. Zechlin, Bismarck u. d. Grundlegung d. deutschen Grossmacht, Stuttgart 1930; H. W. Dawson, The German Empire 1867-1914, London 1919; G. Gorgon, L'Allemagne religiose, 5th ed., Paris 1905-1908; H. Brisch, Gesch. d. kath. Kirche in Deutschland im XIX. Jh., 5th ed., Mainz 1902-1908; H. Fredjung, D. Zeitalter d. Imperialismus, 1881-1914, Berlin 1919-22; K. Lamprecht, Deutsche Gesch. d. jüngsten Vergangenheit u. Gegenwart, 1912-13; J. Hohlfeld, Gesch. d. deutschen Reiches 1871-1914, Leipzig 1926; A. Wahl, Deutsche Gesch. von der Reichsgründung bis z. Anbruch d. Weltkrieges, 1871-1914, Stuttgart 1926; A. Rosenberg, Die Entstehung d. deutschen Republik, Berlin 1928; E. Hartung, Die grosse Politik der europ. Kabinette 1871-1914; ed., Deutsche Gesch. vom Frankfurter Frieden bis zum Vertrag vom Versailles 1871-1919, Bonn 1929; F. Stieve, Deutschland u. Europa, Berlin 1925.

On the most recent period: M. Baumont, La faillite de la paix (1918-39), 2nd ed., Paris 1945; L. Fraser, Germany between two Wars, Oxford 1945; L. Salvatorelli, Vent'anni fra due guerre, 2nd ed., Rome 1946; F. Friedensburg, Die Weimarer Republik, Berlin 1946; S. W. Halperin, Germany tried democracy: A pol. hist. of the Reich from 1918 to 1933, New York 1946; F. Meinecke, Die deutsche Katastrophe, Zurich 1946.

Pier Fausto Palumbo

III. LEGAL CONDITION OF THE CHURCH.

I. CONCORDATS

1. Premises

The juridical condition of the Church in Germany is at present determined by the four Concordats in force: with Bavaria, of 24 Jan. 1925; with Prussia, of 13 Aug. 1929; with Baden, of 11 March 1933; with the German Reich, of 10 Sept. 1933. The latter, according to the provision of art. 2, has force for the entire territory of the Republic, with the exception of that of the three aforementioned regions. For these provinces the provisions of the Concordat with the Reich have force "insofar as they concern matters that were not regulated (in the respective particular Concordats) or complete the order already established."

2. Concordat with Bavaria

The first Concordat that the Holy See stipulated with one of the German States, after the First World War, is that with Bavaria.

The Concordat stipulated between Pius VII and Maximilian Joseph on 5 July 1817 no longer corresponded to the situation determined by the Weimar Constitution of 9 Aug. 1919 and by that particular to the State of Bavaria, of the same year (14 Aug. 1919). In the first months of 1920 negotiations began, to give new norms to the relations between Church and State in Bavaria. Owing to difficulties of various kinds they dragged on until 1924. On 20 March of that year the solemn pacts could be signed. The plenipotentiary for the Holy See was the apostolic nuncio in Bavaria, the then Msgr. Eugenio Pacelli. After the approval of the Bavarian Parliament, the Concordat was notified on 24 Jan. 1925, and entered into force the same day.

The Bavarian Concordat is a admirable example of wise ordering of the matters concerning religious instruction, benefices, and religious institutes.

3. Concordat with Prussia

In this country certain ecclesiastical questions, such as the delimitation of the boundaries of the dioceses, the provision of ecclesiastical offices and benefices and their endowment, had formed the object of particular agreements, made between Pius VII and Frederick William III of Prussia, between the same and the princes of the Upper Rhine, and between Leo XII and George IV, king of Hanover: the conclusions of these agreements were contained in the bulls De salute animarum (1821), Provida solensque (1821) and Impenna Romanorum Pontificum (1824). The new conditions that followed the war of 14-18 made new conventions necessary here too, as in Bavaria, with the difference that here the Protestant percentage was stronger, embracing 2/3 of the population. Thus the negotiations, begun at once, encountered greater difficulties and only after a decade (14 June 1920) was the signature reached: the signatory on the part of the Holy See was the apostolic nuncio, the then Msgr. Eugenio Pacelli. There followed on 9 July the approval of the Landstag and on 13 Aug. the ratification, which was followed by two letters exchanged between the high contracting parties on the school question, of which no mention was made in the Concordat. These two letters were added to the acts.

4. Concordat with Baden

In Baden, where the religious matter was previously regulated by two bulls, Provida solensque and Ad Dominici gregis custodium (1827), the first agreed between Pius VII and certain German princes, the second between Leo XII and the princes of the Upper Rhineland (the bull of Pius IX Aeterni Pastoris of 1859 had remained a dead letter owing to non-approval by the Diet of Baden), the negotiations for a new concordat were begun in 1920. After many difficulties the Concordat properly so called, together with an additional protocol, was signed by the plenipotentiaries on 12 Oct. 1932 and an additional protocol on 7 Nov. 1932: signatories for the Holy See the apostolic nuncio, who was still Msgr. Eugenio Pacelli, and for the Supreme Council of the Republic of Baden, the ministers: Joseph Schmitt, Eugen Baumgartner and Wilhelm Mattes.

These three acts, approved by a narrow margin by the Diet of Baden, entered into force upon the exchange of ratifications, on 11 March 1933.

5. Concordat with Germany

The necessity of filling the gaps remaining in the three Concordats already concluded with Bavaria, Prussia and Baden, and still more of regulating the relations between the Catholic Church and the State in the other countries of the German Confederation, which did not have a concordat of their own, induced the Holy See and the German government to arrive at a general concordat for all of Germany. Indeed attempts of this kind, or at least talks, had taken place on this subject from as early as 1919 and a draft had been elaborated, but the conclusive phase occurred from 9-10 Apr. 1933 onward, that is, after the rise to power of the Nazi party, which saw in these negotiations a means of consolidating itself and of devaluing the Center party, and at the same time of harnessing it ever more to the government cart.

The negotiations proceeded so rapidly that already on 20 July 1933 the signing of the Concordat could take place, ratified on 10 Sept.: among the plenipotentiaries, Card. Eugenio Pacelli, then Secretary of State, on the one side and Franz von Papen, vice-chancellor of the German Reich on the other. The principal points of this Concordat which, as has been said, is integrative of the first three and has the value of a single concordat for the other territories, may be summarized as follows: a) freedom of religion and legal protection for the free exercise of the Catholic religion throughout the territory of the Reich (art. 1); b) full freedom for the Church in its internal regime (ibid.); c) particularly favorable to the school problem is the Concordat with Germany, recognizing there the Catholic religion as a subject of instruction in elementary, middle and higher schools (art. 21), with guarantees in the choice of teachers, especially in elementary schools (art. 22, 24), while the Bavarian Concordat goes still further and places this instruction under the full supervision and direction of the Church (art. 8, cf. also arts. 3 ff., 9); d) more labored is the regulation of the matrimonial matter, the civil marriage being maintained, which in general should precede the religious one (Concordat with Germany, art. 26). Likewise art. 31 betrays the State's concern not to leave the Catholic organizations too free in their activities, especially of a social order; e) advantageous conditions are made to the clergy for state subsidies in Bavaria (art. 10 ff.), less favorable in Baden (art. 6) and in Prussia (art. 4).

From the outset, however, the Nazi government (of which the Church had always been doubtful, but to which it had not been able to refuse its hand, when it pretended to want a peaceful understanding) lacked the will to carry out seriously the Concordat concluded, and on the morrow of the signing it was already attempting to violate one by one the most vital articles. Thus there followed, according to a plan preordained and maneuvered from above, the progressive destruction of the Catholic schools; an insidious and systematic work of denigration of the Church, of the clergy, of the Catholic laity; the continuous creation of pretexts for the closing or confiscation of religious houses; the constant and progressive elimination of Catholic newspapers, periodicals and press and of Catholic book production.

Against these abuses the Supreme Pontiff, Pius XI, raised his voice proudly, with the letter Mit brennender Sorge of 14 March 1937 (AAS, 29 [1937], pp. 145-67; Ital. trans., pp. 168-88), echoing the frank and courageous protests of the German episcopate, among which shone the intrepid figure of Card. Michael de Faulhaber, archbishop of Munich (cf. the Pontifical Allocution of 2 June 1945, in AAS, 37 [1945], pp. 159-68).

The persecutions nevertheless continued and were not even interrupted by the great war of '39-'45, which on the contrary increased the concentration camps, the prisons, the confiscations, and the insults against members of the clergy, of the religious Orders and against the most influential persons of the Catholic laity. There were other glorious episodes of intrepid resistance, such as those of Cardinal Adolf Bertram, Archbishop of Breslau, and of the Bishop of Münster, later cardinal, Clemens August von Galen.

6. Western and Eastern G

Once the Nazi regime was dissolved, under the weight of defeat (May 1945) and with the Allied and Russian military occupation having followed, along with the division of G. into Beutzungszonen, the old and new enemies of the Church debated the validity of the Concordat, or rather of the Concordats. Matters have worked out differently in the Bundesrepublik Deutschland (German Federal Republic, or so-called Western G.), which formed its first government on Sept. 20, 1949, and in the Russian occupation zone.

In the so-called "basic law," the provisional Constitution of Western G. (Bonn Republic), approved on May 8, 1949 by 53 votes to 12, Article 123 was inserted, whereby the German Federal Republic undertakes to recognize all international treaties concluded with other powers. Among these international treaties is also the Concordat of Sept. 10, 1933, along with the earlier ones of Bavaria, Prussia and Baden.

It is therefore along this line, which has met with the full consent of the Bonn government, that relations between Church and State in Western G. are to be considered. Since, however, the Bonn government has not so far been granted the right of legation, there is no apostolic nuncio (in Frankfurt am Main there is only a regent) and there is no minister of G. at the Vatican.

On the contrary, in the Russian zone, the Deutsche demokratische Republik, which became on March 19, 1949 the XXIX Republic of the U.S.S.R., relations between Church and State — more than by the Constitution (which that Republic has given itself, and in which religious and conscientious freedom is verbally enshrined) — are governed, judging from the little that is known, by the arbitrary will of the Volkspolizei (people's police), which rules brutally over a population living under a regime of Bolshevik terror.

In fact, as is evident from a letter of the Bishop of Berlin, Cardinal Preysing, in the state schools children are educated according to the atheistic spirit, and the State has a monopoly on schooling, so that it is not possible to turn elsewhere. The textbooks in these schools go so far as to deny the historical existence of Jesus Christ. The Catholic press practically does not exist. The episcopal ordinariates and commissariats have no official organ. The circulation of ecclesiastical periodicals printed outside the territory of the Republic is forbidden. A provision issued at the end of 1949 lays down the duty of informing the authorities of the various activities of the Church.

Pietro Palazzini

II. ECCLESIASTICAL DISTRICTS

According to the Annuario Pontificio of 1950, Germany has 9 metropolitan sees and 19 suffragan sees distributed as follows: 1) Bamberg (1 Nov. 1006; metropolitan 1 Apr. 1818) with the suffragan sees: Eichstätt (745); Speyer (4th century), Würzburg, Erbiopoli (741). 2) Breslau (10th century; metropolitan 13 Aug. 1930) with the suffragan sees: Berlin (13 Aug. 1930); Warmia (13th century) and the prelature nullus. Schneidemühl (13 Aug. 1930). 3) Cologne (2nd century; metropolitan 8th century) with the suffragan sees: Aachen (29 Nov. 1901; suppressed on 16 July 1821 and re-established on 13 Aug. 1930); Limburg (16 Aug. 1821); Münster (800); Osnabrück (772); Trier (1st century). 4) Freiburg im Breisgau (16 Aug. 1821) with the suffragan sees: Mainz (4th century; metropolitan 747; suffragan: 1801); Rottenburg (16 Aug. 1821). 5) Munich and Freising (739) in Freising; sees united and metropolitan 5 June 1817) with the suffragan sees: Augsburg (6th century); Passau (737); Regensburg (739). 6) Paderborn (805; metropolitan 13 Aug. 1930) with the suffragan sees: Fulda (1752); Hildesheim (800).

Immediately subject to the Holy See: Meissen (2 Jan. 968; suppressed in 1581; re-established on 24 June 1921).

Total: 6 archbishoprics, 19 bishoprics, 1 prelature nullus.

III. CATHOLIC CULTURAL AND SOCIAL ACTIVITIES

Among the various religious groups found in Germany, the most compact and organized, even though it suffers from numerical inferiority, is the Catholic group, firmly united with its pastors, which has known how to weather storms and overcome painful and difficult situations, without ceasing each time to regain strength and vigor.

Theology, outside the seminaries established for that purpose, was taught both in theological faculties attached to the state universities (Würzburg from 1402; Freiburg im Breisgau from 1457; Tübingen from 1477; Breslau from 1702; Münster in Westphalia from 1771; Bonn from 1777; Munich from 1826, transferred there from Ingolstadt [1459]); and in academies and higher schools of philosophy and theology (Augsburg, Bamberg, Braunberg, Dillingen, Eichstätt, Frankfurt am Main, Freising, Fulda, Mainz, Paderborn, Passau, Regensburg, Trier).

Closely connected with the teaching, on the part of the theological faculties attached to the state universities, was the publication of important periodicals and collections, marked by high culture; the following should be mentioned in chronological order: Theologische Quartalschrift (1819) at Tübingen; Biblische Studien (1896), Biblische Zeitschrift (1903), Freiburger theologischen Studien (1910) at Freiburg im Breisgau; Theologische Revue (1902), Biblische Zeitfragen (1908), Neutestamentliche Abhandlungen (1908), Alttestamentliche Abhandlungen (1909) at Münster; Theologie und Glaube (1909) at Paderborn; Breslauer Studien zur historischen Theologie (1922) at Breslau; Bonner Bibel (1903) at Bonn.

Among the associations, besides those along the lines of Catholic Action and its various groups, the following should be remembered: the Bonifatiusverein für das katholische Deutschland (founded at Regensburg in 1849, through the efforts of I. Döllinger and organized by J. Stolberg-Stolberg in 1849), for the defense and deepening of religion, with a separate branch for university graduates: Akademischer Bonifatiusverein; the Deutsche Caritasverband (founded at Freiburg im Breisgau by L. Werthmann in 1897), which groups together all charitable institutions; the Volksverein für das katholische Deutschland (founded at M. Gladbach in 1890 by F. Brandts and F. Hitze, with the cooperation of L. Windthorst) for the Christian-social propaganda of the masses; the Borromäusverein (founded at Bonn in 1844 by A. Reichensperger, M. von Löe, H. von Wittgenstein, F. X. Dieringer, F. Walter and Aschbach), for the good press; the Görresgesellschaft (founded in 1876 at Bonn) for high culture in the service of Christianity.

Many of these institutions and publications remained suspended or damaged by World War II, but little by little the lost time and ground are being tenaciously recovered.

Celestino Testore

IV. LITERATURE.

I. FROM THE EARLIEST BEGINNINGS TO THE 12TH CENTURY

If it is to be believed that among the ancient Germans, from the most remote times, there developed, as happened among all other peoples, a primitive poetic literature made up of religious and warlike songs, funeral laments and love songs, it is equally certain that on the foundation of their myths there arose, in distant centuries, an entire extemporaneous poetic literature. But of all this poetry, which was handed down orally, nothing or almost nothing has survived, because it was never entrusted to any written tradition, neither at its birth nor later, and because the Romans, who could have handed it down, showed little interest in it.

Nevertheless Tacitus reports that the Germans had carmina in which they celebrated the god Tuiato and invoked Donnar; Jordanes, the historian of the Goths, also speaks of prisca carmina, while from Tacitus himself we learn that these warlike songs were called barditus, a name perhaps derived from the fact that the warriors held their shields (bardi) before their mouths to strengthen the sound of their voices. The songs in praise of the dead must also have been choral, and the opinion is entirely credible that precisely all these songs constituted the genesis of the sagas or heroic legends that later formed around the principal figures of princes and warriors.

The first monument of the Germanic language is the famous Gothic translation of the Bible, made by Ulfilas (311-81). Consecrated at the age of thirty, in 341, bishop of the Arian Goths, he led his people, who were the first among the Germanic populations to adhere to it, to embrace Christianity. His translation, of which only notable fragments have been preserved, was carried out in full, with the exception, if the legend is accurate, of the Book of Kings. It accompanied the Goths in their migrations into Italy and Spain, then all memory of it was lost, until, in the 17th century, the portion of the Gospels was traced in a manuscript (codex argenteus), the work of Italian copyists, preserved at Uppsala. Other parts were rediscovered subsequently, and among the fortunate finders was also Cardinal Angelo Mai, who in 1819 discovered in the library of the monastery of Bobbio a manuscript containing the translation of the Epistles of St. Paul.

Apart from the extraordinary literary importance of this translation, it was above all for the Germanic peoples a grandiose work of religious propaganda and civilization, because Christianity spread wherever the Bible of Ulfilas could reach, which is, one might say, the greatest monument of civilization of the Goths.

Even after the fall of the Western Roman Empire, Rome continued to rule over the Germanic populations by virtue of Christianity. Toward the end of the 7th century the Irishman St. Columbanus became the apostle of the Alemanni; other fervent missionaries proceeded with the evangelization of Bavaria and Thuringia, until, in the 8th century, there arose, not so much to extend the conquests already made by Christianity as to consolidate them with a severe monastic discipline and absolute obedience to the ecclesiastical authority of Rome, the figure of St. Boniface, the apostle of Germany. He carried out his work of apostolate especially in Thuringia, Hesse and Saxony. To him are owed the institution of many bishoprics in Germany and the foundation of various monasteries, among which the most famous was that of Fulda. There St. Boniface installed as abbot his beloved disciple, the Bavarian Sturmio, educated in Rome and at Montecassino. During his work of evangelization of the pagan part of Frisia, he won there the palm of martyrdom (754); his remains rest in the monastery of Fulda.

This work of Christian penetration in Germany, by virtue of fervent missionaries and bishops, found favor and support on the part of the Frankish kings and especially of Charlemagne, under whom the evangelization of Saxony was completed. So that, even if it was able to hinder to some extent the establishment and spread of a literature inspired by pagan myths and legends, on the other hand it undoubtedly favored the flourishing of a religious poetry and contributed above all to uniting a large part of the Germanic populations in a single religious and civil ideal.

Nevertheless the sources of epic poetry never died out, even if to trace some original testimony of them one must make a leap from the 4th century, when the translation of Ulfilas appeared, to the 8th century, at the end of which is found a fragment of a poem about the kingdom of Theodoric, known by the title of Hildebrandlied, in which the sentiment of honor and that of blood kinship are in conflict.

Also at the end of the 8th century the gigantic work of unification of the Germanic populations took place, and Charlemagne marks one of the peaks of the medieval German renaissance: a political and cultural renaissance. His work, in this field, especially after the campaign in Italy that brought him into direct contact with the superior Latin civilization, is among the most important. His court indeed represents the most conspicuous center of culture of the time; there are found, among others, the philosopher, theologian and humanist Alcuin, of Anglo-Saxon origin but educated in Rome, the Lombard Paul the Deacon, the historian of his people, and the historian Einhard. Aachen was to become, in Charlemagne's intention, the center of this cultural renaissance, as Athens and Rome once had been.

However, such fervor for humanistic studies did not at all mean the stifling of the original German language and poetry; on the contrary, Charlemagne himself, as seems certain, had heroic songs collected and transcribed, which until then had been entrusted only to the memory of wandering singers. In any case the very important fact remains that under him, and throughout the 9th century, by virtue of the direction he had given, poetry and prose, however much their predominantly religious content was far from the spirit of national literature, made use by preference of the vernacular, whereas the use of Latin would be entirely prevalent in the production of the following century. During the 8th-9th centuries, indeed, little can be recalled that is of interest to vernacular literature; only poetry of religious inspiration and content offers a nucleus of works, which have, however, also remained in fragments, such as a Wessobrunner Gebet, of Christian inspiration, written at the beginning of the 9th century in alliterative verse and in Old High German, and the fragment of the so-called Muspilli, likewise in alliterative verse and in Old High German, which probably dates back to the middle of the 9th century and in which is described, as the title says, the end of the world. More important from the historical and also artistic point of view are, from this same century, two messiads, one in the Saxon language, by an unknown poet, Heliand, the other, Evangelienharmonie, written in rhymed verse in Old High German, by the Benedictine monk Otfrid von Weissenburg. The two messiads express the highest theological culture of the time and represent respectively a popular and a learned attempt at popularizing Christianity.

In the poetic production of the following century, which is instead written - as has been said - in overwhelmingly Latin, mention should be made of a poem composed in Latin hexameters by the monk of St. Gall Ekkehard and dedicated to the Germanic saga of Walter of Aquitaine (Waltharius manus fortis), which is the most notable, if not the only, connecting link remaining from the Hildebrandlied to the Nibelung epic.

But if the poetic literature of the 10th century is characterized by a classical imitation and by the almost exclusive use of the Latin language, this does not prevent motives of inspiration drawn from the heroic legends, always alive in the popular consciousness, from rising again, especially under the impulse of the renewed political power of the Saxon emperors. So that the taste for the Latin writers had not yet died out at the beginning of the 11th century, when a monk, probably Bavarian, wrote in leonine hexameters, under the title Rudlieb, the first romance of adventure, which provides a copious body of material concerning the usages and customs of the society of the time. Most of the ecclesiastical poets do not seek notoriety and still less glory; their poetry is only in the service of God. Thus only by chance is the name of a poetess, Ava, known; while a single true poet stands out from all the others for vigor of genius and artistic perfection: Heinrich von Melk, who left a didactic poem entitled Erinnerung an den Tod, in which an ideal of ascetic life that prepares man for death is set forth.

II. FROM THE «MINNESANG» TO THE «REFORMATION»

The not brief period of time that runs from the first dawnings of German literature to the beginnings of the movement that issues in the «Reformation» can be divided into two periods: in the first, down to about 1300, literature develops under the action of feudal society and is its expression, with the rich flowering of the love lyric and of heroic and chivalric poetry; in the second, which comprises the 14th-15th centuries, the bourgeoisie appears in the political and literary movement.

The love lyric (Minnesang), which sinks its roots into reality, marks the most important part of the lyric production of this time. The love song begins with a first uncertain and timid period of formation inspired by courtliness and the cult of the lady. Not strong passions, therefore, not vehement outbursts of the soul; the Minnesänger, almost coldly, directs his song to a vague and impersonal figure. The source of the inspiration is nothing concrete and real; it is the Minne, the amorous thought, something indeterminate and fluctuating that stirs in his imagination as in his feeling and that yet procures for him now pleasure, now pain, as a real thing.

The Minnesang reaches its greatest splendor around the middle of the 13th century. Songs of nearly two hundred Minnesänger are preserved, in whole or in part, of whom mention is made here of Frederick von Hausen, Henry von Morungen and the most glorious of them, Walther von der Vogelweide (1168-1230), who wrote songs in a lapidary style, without any ornament, chaining within the compass of a few thoughts a pathos not seldom very lofty. He was a fervent and convinced Christian, yet not sparing, in his invectives, those who are Christians only in words, and he fiercely combated the interference of the Popes in political questions, faithful to the principle: «render to Caesar what is Caesar's» and exalting the idea of the Reich.

German epic poetry can be distinguished into heroic epic and chivalric epic; the first is the impersonal expression of the collective popular and national feeling that the anonymous poets draw from the rough-hewn matter of the Germanic sagas; the second, on the other hand, is the individual work of poets who draw their matter from foreign sources. Works of precursors of the true and proper German epic, which, often written by religious, strongly bear the marks of Christian influences, are the Annolied, the Alexanderlied and Herzog Ernst; entirely unfolding in the pagan Germanic world are the principal epics Nibelungenlied and Gudrun; the first brings onto the scene all the peoples who were engaged in the Germanic struggles of the heroic times: the conquest of a treasure, symbol of ruin and death, the treacherous killing of Siegfried and the terrifying vengeance of Kriemhild, his spouse, represent the most salient parts of the poem. There is never a ray of human pity that illumines these gloomy and tragic events.

The principal sources of the chivalric epic are in various cycles of sagas: ancient cycle, Breton cycle of King Arthur, cycle of the Grail. Among the first representatives are Henry von Veldeke and Hartmann von Aue (1170?-1220?), to whom are owed two poems of a moralizing character and of religious edification, Der arme Heinrich and Gregorius auf dem Stein. Far more notable, from the artistic point of view, are Parzifid by Wolfram von Eschenbach, in which the cycle of King Arthur interweaves with the cycle of the Grail, and the poem, left unfinished, of Gottfried von Strassburg: Tristan und Isolde.

The period that runs from the first decades of the 14th century through the whole of the 15th century is dominated by the appearance of the bourgeoisie; the heroic and chivalric world that had nourished poetry in the preceding centuries sets; the nobility, already decimated by the Crusades and made uneasy by the new conditions created for the bourgeois, is no longer guided by that sentiment of courtliness that had been the soul of chivalric poetry and of the Minnesang; in the castles the environment that had been so favorable to the hospitality of poets and singers is transformed. The poetic inheritance, passing from the nobility to the bourgeoisie, is transformed and decays. The literary institutions typical of this period are the associations of master singers (Maistersänger), as many as there are cities, among which Nuremberg, Augsburg, Ulm hold the foremost place. The work of the master singers issues from the bourgeoisie and the crafts and addresses itself to them. No amorous content nor chivalric sentiment; the subjects reflect saints' feasts or civil and labor solemnities and return again and again with a monotony not overcome by the metrical and linguistic devices that soon crystallize into rigid forms.

III. FROM LUTHER TO FREDERICK THE GREAT

Almost all the spiritual manifestations of the 16th century are dominated by two great facts: humanism and the "Reformation." It should be noted at once that the humanistic movement in Germany was not destined to take on great prominence, inasmuch as its adherents, rather than penetrating deeply into the spirit of antiquity, limited themselves to a superficial and rhetorical imitation of the Latin writers. It is not in the German humanists that we find the desire, and still less any effort, toward a new conception of life, of which a higher humanitas would be the direct expression. They remain always men of the Middle Ages, turned above all to heavenly things. There is in them a constant preoccupation with the hereafter; beyond fleeting enjoyment, they see the eternal abyss and everywhere the threatening finger of God. Hence a continual need to instruct and moralize. Among the principal humanists, mention must be made of Erasmus of Rotterdam (1467-1536) and Johann Reuchlin (1455-1522), who concentrated his activity on questions of a theological and speculative character, as his Hebrew studies testify.

The "Reformation" cannot be considered as a solely religious movement; it is also a great and profound national revolution that involves all the manifestations of Germany's life. It is a duel between two cultures, two civilizations. Germany had never, during the Middle Ages, openly accepted the current of civilization that spread from Rome over all the peoples of Europe; she had rather suffered it, remaining always attached to the old spirit of her race. Now the occasion presented itself to break with the world by which a notable part of her felt threatened, after the Roman tradition had been grafted onto the ever more vigorous trunk of the Catholic Church. It is the Los von Rom. It is natural therefore that when Luther appeared, however much he was the least revolutionary man of his time, he suddenly found himself at the head of a revolution. He then did not take long to impose himself, above all through the pertinacity of his will. To him are owed, besides the translation of the Bible which had a great linguistic and literary effect, the Kirchenlieder, imitated or freely translated, and many other writings of a polemical character.

The tone given by Luther to religious poetry had innumerable imitators and continuators, to whom the new forms of Protestant worship gave impulse; but in opposition to the Protestants there arose numerous Catholic poets and also satirical writers, among them the Franciscan Thomas Murner, the most notable imitator of Sebastian Brant, who wrote Von dem grossen luterischen Narren, in which the subversive character of Lutheran doctrine is often shown with dramatic pathos.

That measure of epic elements which still radiated throughout the 15th and 16th centuries and the best and most characteristic dramatic production culminate in a single person, in Hans Sachs (1494-1576), who is a rare example of poetic fecundity and expresses, on the whole, all the most salient characteristics of his time. One of his merits was that of reconnecting with the virgin springs of national popular sentiment, at the same time placing himself in a position to interpret and express its subsequent development dominated by the movement of the "Reformation."

The theater too feels the influence of the "Reformation," and just as the religious song of the adherents of Protestantism was a stimulus to Catholic poets to set other songs against it, so too it happened in dramatic production, with the representations of biblical subject matter taking on new vigor.

In the satirical field, with also moralizing tendencies, mention must be made of Johann Fischart (1550?-90), who took particular aim at the Roman Church and the religious Orders, especially the Jesuits, often rising to the coarse tone of the libelist.

The civil and political conditions of the 17th century were bound to hinder every literary movement. Germany had to endure the Thirty Years' War which had broken every moral energy, offering an all too long spectacle of destruction. The violent religious disputes showed no sign of abating, the nation seemed to have lost consciousness of itself; far off was the literary glory of the past, it was inevitable that it should orient itself toward foreign literatures, especially the French. Thus there was a colorless production, without relief, mannered and academic. But it was precisely to the academies, founded on the model of the Italian ones, that recourse was had when a remedy was sought for the general decadence of literature and especially of poetry. At the very moment when in several regions the only literary activity was represented by the linguistic societies, there was a poetic awakening in Silesia through the work of the poet Martin Opitz (1597-1639), who exercised a remarkable influence on his time, so much so as to be considered a head of school.

Indeed there were several poets who set out on his footsteps; among them Paul Fleming (1609-40) deserves mention, even if he gave not a few lyrics the stamp of the taste for "concetti." In the field of religious poetry, J. Hermann, the pietist Spener and Paul Gerhardt (1607-76) reconnect to Opitz, the latter reaching the greatest lyrical elevation in Protestant church song. Catholicism too did not remain extraneous to the Opitzian movement. Toward the end of the 17th century, while every ardor of struggle was calming, Protestants and Catholics, at least in the field of poetry, found themselves again singing the praises of the same God and the hymns of the same Christian faith. The Jesuit Friedrich Spee (1591-1635), who dedicated his life to works of charity and exercised an apostolate of tolerance that shone especially in the struggle against the ferocious executions of witchcraft trials, left a book of edification, Guldenes Tugendbuch, and a collection of religious songs, Trutz-Nachtgall, which continues the tone of fervor and love of mysticism. An imitator of his was Johann Scheffler, better known under the pseudonym Angelus Silesius (1624-49), converted from Protestantism to Catholicism, who in his Cherubinischer Wandersmann, a collection of brief poetic compositions, reflects precisely the poet's detachment from Lutheran rigorism and his yearning for new ways to reach God. Closer to Spee's religious song of idyllic tone is Silesius in the Heilige Seelenlust, in which the life of Christ, the waiting for him, his coming, his death and his Resurrection are exalted in mystical ardor.

A lyric poet of sacred and profane subject matter was Andreas Gryphius (1616-64), whose name however is entrusted above all to the tragedies, which imitate the external texture of Greek tragedies and introduce the chorus, and also to the comedies.

Like religious song, satire and the epigram are among the most genuine expressions of the German soul. For the latter form an example was given by Friedrich von Logau, author of over three thousand epigrams (Sinngedichte), while for satire mention must be made of H. Michael Moscherosch, who now violently attacks fremde Thorheit, now raises inexorable reproach against the vices and abjection of the time, especially in his Wunderliche und wahrhaftige Geschichte Philanders and Sitteswald, and finally the most famous of the Catholic preachers of the time, Abraham a Sancta Clara.

Of the so-called adventure novel the most authoritative representative was H. J. C. Grimmelshausen (1625-76), who, rather than using violent satire, looked higher, yearning for and also advocating a profound moral reconstruction. His Der Abentenerliche Simplicius Simplicissimus, the most important and significant literary work of the 17th century, is a true Bildungsroman, such as can arise in a tragic epoch, in which he indicates the path that was to lead to the national and human rebirth of Germany.

In the field of lyric poetry, among the poets who, more than the luxuriant images of the continuators of the Opitzian school, aim at substance, mention must be made of Heinrich Brockes, whose poems form the greater part of the collection entitled Irdisches Vergnügen in Gott, and in particular of G. Christian Günther (1695-1723) for the sincerity of feeling and the vividness of expression, so much so that he seems to stand outside his own time.

IV. THE ENLIGHTENMENT AND «STURM UND DRANG»

The long and ruinous Thirty Years' War had convulsed Germany morally and economically; it was natural, therefore, that it should be followed by a period of withdrawal in which the people, still lacking any force of national cohesion, thought only of restoring their own economy; thought thus remained inert, devoid of creative impulses and of great ideals. While, however, Germany was gradually rising again and around the figure of the Great Elector Frederick William the first nucleus of a great nation was being formed, united in one same faith and one same ideal, the accession to the Prussian throne of Frederick II and the victorious Seven Years' War were a cause of exaltation for the German people and gave impulse to a vibrant patriotic poetry. It is true that the same king remained an admirer of the French, denying to the Germans the possibility of creating anything truly original and great in the field of literature, but it is also true that he, by fighting for the political emancipation of Germany, indirectly favored and hastened the great literary reaction against France. Foreign imitation, in fact, gradually weakens until it disappears, and there appear in the front rank certain great spirits who attain the original expression of the soul of the nation, implicitly performing work of universal importance.

The religious epic of Klopstock, expressing one of the deepest sentiments of the Germanic soul, the rich and restless production of Wieland, the enthusiastic amorous divinations of Winckelmann on the Hellenic world and Greek art, the sagacious penetration and the limpid artistic vision of Lessing, the broad historical gaze of Herder worthily prepare and are a well worthy frame to the universal work of Wolfgang Goethe and to that eclectic, but profoundly human, work of Friedrich Schiller.

But before arriving at the full affirmation of these great spirits, while almost the whole age of Frederick the Great is still dominated by Enlightenment thought and consequently by French influence in the field of culture and poetry, the first signs of a reaction to this dominance already arise, which soon become open and resolute struggle, chiefly through the work of G. Bodmer and G. G. Breitinger, who engage, against the prevailing aesthetic conception of G. G. Gottsched, a thoroughgoing battle. A follower of rationalist philosophy, Gottsched was convinced that true poetry should spring not from the imagination, but from the scrupulous observance of rules dictated by reason; he therefore advocated the imitation of French literature, in which he saw the example of perfection, and at the same time set forth the vague and indeterminate principle that poetry should be an imitation of nature. The opponents, on the other hand, of the so-called Zurich school, opposed a greater freedom in the field of inspiration and gave great value to the imagination, which necessarily had to orient them toward the English poets. This explains how, when in 1748 the first cantos of the Messias of F. G. Klopstock (1724-1803) appeared, greeted with general enthusiasm, the two heads of the Swiss school believed their work accomplished with the advent of a great poet.

Different is the judgment passed today on Klopstock's poem: the emphatic tone of many passages, which only rarely leaves room for sublime mystical elevation, the disharmony in the general texture of the work, the boldness of the images and of the syntactic constructions, the very unkempt richness of the language make its reading at the very least quite laborious. But Klopstock's name is entrusted above all to the odes, in which are reflected the highest sentiments that illumined his life: religion, the cult of the fatherland and of liberty, the sentiment of friendship and of love.

Not without reason is G. Ephraim Lessing (1729-81) customarily set against Klopstock, a balanced intellect, most acute, conscious of himself, of the intellectual demands that surrounded him and of the goal he wished to reach. He was a prudent guide for German literature; in the Hamburgische Dramaturgie he fought the first great battle against the literary dominance of France, turning once again to the English; and while the culmination of his activity as a critic is marked by the aesthetic treatise Laokoon, he attained a quite remarkable place as a dramatist, writing the comedy Minna von Barnhelm, which begins a new era in the German theater, and two dramatic masterpieces, Emilia Galotti and Nathan der Weise, in which is exalted the concept of humanity, raised above and beyond every religious or confessional competition.

One of the first places among German poets and prose writers for elegant freshness of diction and for a comic and witty substratum of philosophy of life is assigned to C. Martin Wieland (1733-1813), author of poems, such as the heroic-chivalric one entitled Oberon, and of certain novels, such as Don Silvio von Rosalva, Agathon, Die Abderiten. He is one of those writers who have the rare gift of knowing how to derive from others everything that is akin to their artistic temperament, preserving that originality which does not disdain to make treasure of spiritual attitudes expressed by the work of others.

Lessing's criticism had not caused the name and work of Klopstock to be forgotten, and a group of young men of Göttingen set out to continue his ideals of art, publishing every year a collection of poems inspired by him. Thus the Musenalmanach appeared, and soon afterward arose the Hainbund, a sort of new Arcadia, which however had nothing of the Arcadian affectations. There immediately emerged for poetic worth Heinrich Voss, Matthias Claudius, Peter

Hebel and, above all, G. August Bürger (1747-94), considered one of the best representatives of popular poetry. And excellent he was in the ballad, a genre of rapid and dramatic lyrical narration, in which he knew how to treasure elements of popular inspiration, animating them with simple exquisiteness of taste. Famous have remained the ballads Lenore, Der Kaiser und der Abt and Der wilde Jäger.

The culminating moment of German literature had an immediate preparation in the intellectual conquests of one of the greatest modern thinkers, Immanuel Kant, and in a movement of agitation to which, at the outset, Goethe himself adhered: it is the tempestuous period called Sturm und Drang. To the spirits of this literary revolution the present world seemed too narrow, stifled by views and by now old rules, in which creative thought was necessarily bound to drown. Broader horizons were wanted, and a freer breath. Already the thought of Georg Hamann, who, especially in his affirmation of the superiority of faith over reason, exercised so great an influence on the spirit of Herder, and that of Jacobi had claimed for man this freedom, combating the Enlightenment and maintaining that everything must proceed from the individual and from the whole complex of his forces. The concept of freedom, without restraints, is what appears most evident in the program of the Sturm und Drang, in life as in art. Moreover the literary revolt, which rejected every model and therefore every rule, was necessarily bound to lead back to nature, itself also undergoing the influence of Rousseau. The popular current too, whose first manifestations had already been seen in England with the publication of the Ossianic songs, then found a wide echo in Germany; but it was fated that these elements should degenerate into formlessness and, especially the cult of freedom, into a kind of moral anarchy, such as Wertherism and Rüberism.

No slight influence was exercised on this movement by one of the most universal and profound minds of his time, J. G. Herder (1744-1803), who advocated the rise of a national literature, revived the tradition of the popular songs of Germany (Stimmen der Völker in Liedern), while in the work Vom Geist der hebräischen Poesie he demonstrates that the Old Testament constitutes the most ancient poetry, the simplest and most natural, springing spontaneously from the soul of a people whom ardent faith places in immediate contact with God. This work is almost the germ and introduction of the work of philosophy of history, Ideen zur Philosophie der Geschichte der Menschheit. Herder was also a poet, but, above all, a critic of broad vision and acute intuitions; his spirit plunges deep to investigate the primordial nature of things, to listen to their first mysterious voice, from which he succeeds in wresting the most recondite secrets.

V. CLASSICISM

In the most luxuriant flowering of this literary period it is not always possible to distinguish the various tendencies and the various art forms, which often coexist in one and the same writer, and therefore even less possible to classify poets neatly into classical and romantic. Goethe, in fact, began as a Stürmer und Dränger and was a classic par excellence, yet not a few romantic elements are found in his work; the same may be said of Schiller. Within the orbit of the Sturm und Drang were born the novel Die Leiden des jungen Werther, the drama Goetz von Berlichingen, and the lyrics and rhapsodies that represent the breaking of the harmony of things and of the happy soul, such as Prometheus, and that immediately follow the serene pantheistic vision (Mailed, Ganymed, Mahomets Gesang). Two events contributed to bringing Goethe's genius to the full manifestation of its maturity: the stay in Weimar and the journey to Italy. The former represented a progress in his lyric production, while the poet sought new paths toward a calmer and more serene art that was to stand in contrast with the unbridled fever of his early youth; the latter represents the true rebirth of the man and of the artist, whose fruits were, among others, Tasso and Iphigenie auf Tauris. In the tone of this last work, in the sweet harmony of its impeccable verse and in the admirable balance of its parts, the tragic sense that nonetheless pervades the whole fades and is lost; the line and the texture of the drama seem to have the motionless composure of a Greek statue. Works of his maturity were the novel Wilhelm Meister and Die Wahlverwandtschaften, the most gentle idyll in epic lines Hermann und Dorothea, Die römischen Elegien, the Italienische Reise and Faust, the work on which the poet labored for about sixty years. Goethe found the legend of Faust alive in popular tradition, but, rethinking it in his own spirit, he raised its value to a universal symbol of the eternal position of the human mind (whether Faust inquiring, or Mephistopheles denying, or Margaret in the throes of sorrow) before the terrible unknowns of the mystery of life. Apart, however, from the unattainable splendors of its form, in the dramatic poem a new morality is evident, which, exalting action for action's sake and man's unappeased and unappeasable craving for ever new conquests, without considering the value of the means used to achieve them, makes possible the salvation of Faust, precisely because «he who strove forever in longing» can be redeemed. It is a morality that sits ill with the final intervention of the Virgin and the angels, inasmuch as it represents a contaminatio of Christian ethics. In any case this is all that Goethe's genius could give us, within the sphere of thought and in the face of the general problem of existence, since he did not possess that faith which is ready to satisfy reason with a formula of feeling.

Goethe's reflective, objective, universal intellect is contrasted by the nature of Friedrich Schiller (1759-1805), dominated by feeling, even when he granted a truce to works of imagination and poetry by composing works of philosophy and history. His poetic production, for fervor of inspiration, for richness of motifs, for the ideal unity that illumines it, seems dominated by a foreboding of the poet's brief life. He lives his whole work intensely, drawing it from the deep roots of his own imagination and his own soul, almost without indulging in gathering the experience of reality. Schiller is therefore a subjective spirit, eminently lyrical, even when, writing for the theater, he sets up the action on a groundwork of historical elements that he colors and idealizes with the ardor of feeling and the impetus of imagination, governed by a constant and single rein: an adamantine probity that never belies itself.

Still very young, he established himself in the theater with his first great tragedy Die Räuber, to be regarded as a product of the Sturm und Drang, for the undisciplined impetuosity that dominates it; there followed at once Die Verschwörung des Fiesko, the bourgeois tragedy Luise Miller and the most tormented dramatic work, Don Carlos. The series of dramatic masterpieces begins with the Wallenstein trilogy, a human representation idealized by historical elements; in Maria Stuart Schiller is concerned above all with portraying human characters, while in Die Jungfrau von Orléans the dramatic action moves even further away from historical reality, nor is the element of the marvelous and supernatural absent from it. The last completed drama, Wilhelm Tell, which sums up in admirable synthesis the poet's two great loves: the love of the beauty of nature and the love of liberty.

All of Schiller's work is dominated by an ethical principle, by a moral idea. To all his heroes he gives the impetuosity of a magnanimous or reckless passion, but he never deprives them of the flame of faith and of the sense of moral responsibility. This is clear even in the unbridled demolitions of the early dramas; these, like those of his maturity, exclude any discord between the self and the world, between man and God, between necessity and freedom, but are rather the representation of human life in its struggles and its sorrows, idealized by the poet's conscience and dramatized by his passion.

Schiller's rich lyric production, too, moves within the orbit of a moral ideality. Here every discord between ethics and aesthetics seems to dissolve: the world and life show themselves to the poet in a luminous clarity (Die Ideale, Das Ideal und das Leben, Der Spaziergang, the ballads, and the much celebrated Lied von der Glocke).

It would be exaggerated to affirm that Lessing, Goethe and Schiller gave Germany a true national theater; nevertheless they had a great number of imitators, who, although far from equaling their models, sometimes enjoyed resounding successes on the stage, such as A. W. Iffland, H. J. Collin and above all August von Kotzebue, who was the true master of the theater at the end of the 18th century.

Prose, on the other hand, especially humorous prose, takes on in this period characteristics of strong originality through the work of various writers, one of whom is great: J. Paul Richter, who called himself in literary matters Jean Paul (1765-1825). Among his novels, mention should be made of Die unsichtbare Loge, Hesperus, Titan and Flegeljahre, besides the delightful tale Maria Wuz in Auenthal. For anyone who wishes to penetrate the humorous flavor of this narrator, a careful analysis of his style must come to his aid, a style in which bold foreshortenings and not infrequent whimsicalities form an intimate whole with his thought. And it is precisely from this fusion that his inexhaustible and original humorous vein springs.

VI. ROMANTICISM

Romanticism was born directly from the political conditions of the time and, far more, from a broad philosophical movement that prepared it and followed it over a long span of years. Among the thinkers to whom the greatest credit for this preparation is due is J. G. Fichte. He has absolute faith in man's creative activity and affirms the dogma of personality: man exists insofar as he is conscious of himself, and knowledge has no boundaries and tends to expand without limit, gradually conquering the world that lies outside itself. A disciple of Fichte, Friedrich Schelling turned Fichtean idealism toward a broad and profound pantheism. His entire philosophical system is the fruit of the ardent imagination of a poet, so that the Romantics found chiefly in his affirmations a mirror of their doctrines and their tastes, which tended toward the vague in the free fields of fantasy, unrestrained by the rigid control of reason and criticism. The triad of philosophers is completed by Georg W. F. Hegel, who returns once more to Spinozistic pantheism, replacing the static fundamental principle of substance with the dynamic concept of the Idea, which contains within itself every creative impulse.

But the fertile seeds of the Romantic movement do not ripen only in the bosom of philosophical thought; they are already found, without wishing to go further back, in the pantheistic mysticism of Böhme, wholly intent and yearning for the conquest of the divinity diffused throughout nature, in the struggle for liberation from French influence, in the affirmation of the rights of fantasy (Bodmer and Breitinger), in the conception of poetry as an outpouring of feeling (Klopstock), in the exaltation of the individual wrought by the Sturm und Drang, in the dismantling of Horace's aesthetic canon ut pictura poësis (Lessing), in the cult of Shakespeare, in the recognition that poetry is the voice of nature (Herder). The Romantics will therefore shun everything that is present and real; what they will strive to express will not be concrete thoughts, nor mature feelings, but fleeting images barely sketched, throbs of feeling just blossoming from the poet's soul, thoughts caught in the most hidden mysteries of life and fleetingly expressed.

Definition, perfection do not answer to the Romantic ideal; its life is Sehnsucht, which tends toward the infinite and the eternal and thus has no possibility of fulfillment. Here is the intimate reason for the drama of the Romantic soul, which, at bottom, is the same drama as that of German idealism. Yet it is clear that their sleepless Streben tends toward a solution, toward a conquest of unity and harmony; and this is sought in two directions: the Dionysian and the Christian, and one would wish to call the one immanent, the other transcendent — that is, the one toward the absolute, in the mad attempt to overcome life and to scorn its unbreakable laws, and the one of renunciation; the first is also that of a heroic titanism and a heroic decline; the second that of a resigned settling within the bosom of a religious confession. Dionysian Romantics can thus be considered Hölderlin and Kleist, Christian ones Schlegel, Brentano, Tieck, Runge and Novalis. But how and in what do the immanentist and the transcendental conception substantially diverge? Because here precisely arises the problem of religion among the Romantics, insofar as a revealed religion, with its dogmas and its rigid norms, is it not in irreconcilable contrast with the Romantic spirit, open to all impulses, yearning for all goals? And in fact religion, whatever it may be, is always more or less in service of the Romantic conception. So too Christianity. If indeed Christ were felt, in the orthodox sense, as the savior of humanity, every soul would find in him easy and full fulfillment, whereas Christianity not only brings no peace or harmony to any Romantic spirit, but rather serves only to illuminate, through deviations or kindred attitudes, other sides of its sleepless and restless aspiration. Love, for example, is considered as a religious expression; but it is not divorced from voluptuousness, which satisfies the Romantic aspiration to unity, that is, to bringing the divine closer to the human, heaven to earth, spirit to the senses. And this mysticism of love was necessarily bound to link the Romantics to the religion of Christ in its two fundamental elements, of love and of sin: sin, as the strongest goad to love; love, as the highest aspiration of a return to God. Thus religion, love, voluptuousness are equivalent, but it is important to note that it is love in its fullness that creates and nourishes and characterizes religion; and since this religion is Christianity, it is once again clear that we are far from any orthodoxy and likewise from Christian morality.

Romantic ethics, in fact, confirms an absolute independence from all norms deriving from a revealed religion. Besides spiritualized love and the voluptuousness of sin, the Romantics were attracted to Christianity as to a religion of death, insofar as death opens to all Christians, as to the Romantics, a higher and better world, outside the real and the present, in an otherworldly life that is precisely the realization of the infinite and the eternal. So that, rather than of religion, one must speak, in the Romantics, only of religiosity, that is, of a sentiment inherent in their vision of the world and of life, which is extraneous or distant from a true and profound religious faith.

The affirmation of the Romantic movement received its greatest impulse from the critical work of the brothers Schlegel, Wilhelm and Friedrich, who were its sagacious and bold theorists. To the first are owed the famous Vorlesungen über schöne Literatur und Kunst, which, together with the Vorlesungen über dramatische Kunst und Literatur, contain the fundamental principles of Romanticism; to the second, among other things, a Geschichte der alten und neuen Literatur and a novel, Lucinde, which raised no small protests for the exaltation made in it of sensuality romantically pushed to the extreme limit.

Among the poets of greatest prominence, Friedrich Hölderlin (1770-1843) is easily placed among the classics of German literature, while it is undoubted that his poetic-lyrical world is born entirely in the atmosphere of the Romantic ideal, whether in the passionate and vain aspiration to create a unified vision of life, or in the flight from the real and the transitory that also imposes on him a material detachment from the woman he loved, even if his illusion of having reached or at least glimpsed a goal beyond which desire ceases appears anti-Romantic, as in Hyperion or in the Archipelagus or in the tragedy of Empedocles itself. A prolific but less original poet, lyricist and prose writer, is Ludwig Tieck (1773-1853), who, especially in his dramatic tales, makes extensive use of Romantic irony, a marvelous dialectical play that arises from the awareness of a continual overcoming and, at the same time, from the disillusioned desire to satisfy every ideal demand. His friend Wackenroder, who died at only twenty-five, who in the Herzensergiessungen eines kunstliebenden Klosterbruders pours out the passionate impulses of his youthful soul, above all for the cult of art, can be considered the Winckelmann of the Romantic school, while Friedrich von Hardenberg (Novalis: 1772-1801) is its most distinguished lyric poet. A natural and profound tendency to mysticism, veiled in disconsolate sadness, inspires his Geistliche Lieder, so full of abandonment and simplicity as to be considered the songs of a Christian community, and those marvelous Hymnen an die Nacht, in which the poet, animated by the force of his love for the lost girl and of his desire to reach her, is confident that she can break and overcome the iron laws of human life.

The dispersal of the first representatives of Romanticism and the spread of the movement led to the creation of various centers of Romantic life and poetry, such as that of Heidelberg with Clemens and Bettina Brentano and Achim von Arnim, characterized by the tendency to give literature a more distinctly national character, drawing motifs from popular tradition (Des Knaben Wunderhorn); and that of Berlin with the poets A. von Chamisso and F. de la Motte Fouqué, likewise characterized by a living and sincere cult of poetry, not however confined within the exclusive circle of Romantic theories. Younger than his Heidelberg friends is J. von Eichendorff, author of a delightful tale, Aus dem Leben eines Taugenichts, and of exquisite Lieder, which have a rare grace of feeling and of sound and are pervaded by an intimate religious sense, with which all of Eichendorff's poetry loves to be imbued.

One of the elements of the Romantic movement had also been the sentiment of liberty, often coupled with an ardent patriotism. This sentiment, which had given rise to a patriotic poetry during the Seven Years' War and which had become irrepressible in the Sturm und Drang and in early Romanticism with Schiller's dramas, with Fichte's vibrant appeals (Reden an die deutsche Nation) and the biting articles of Görres, could not diminish when Napoleon's victories cast dismay from one end of Europe to the other, threatening every aspiration to liberty. Then Romanticism, setting aside its fantasticalities and its irony and itself swept along by an impetuous national current, became patriotic and produced the impassioned songs of Arndt, of Schenkendorf, of Rückert, and the heartfelt and tempestuous ones of the youngest German lyric poet, Theodor Körner.

But it is above all the Romantic drama that gives us a clearer and more precise idea of the immense favor that Romantic doctrines encountered everywhere, informing the literature of the time. For if there is a literary genre that shrinks from unreality and from vagueness of form, it is precisely the drama. Thus Romanticism worked the miracle of making the Schicksalstragödien, the fatalistic dramas, of Zacharias Werner (1768-1823), such as Der vierundzwanzigste Februar, applauded on the stage, while Romantic elements, such as the fantastic, the marvelous, the terrible, determined by a more intimate and profound analysis of the characters, enter into the dramas of Heinrich von Kleist (1777-1811), together with a marked tendency toward the absolute, which impressed, at least upon his first dramas (Die Familie Schroffenstein and especially Penthesilea), the mark of an excessive personality. The same terribleness, at times even monstrous, that is noted in some Kleistian tragedy is found again in the dramatic work of C. Grabbe, while it is carefully avoided in the dramas of Franz Grillparzer (1791-1872), who does not seek to analyze the characters, obeying a preconceived idea, nor ever subordinates the action to philosophical considerations, making his creatures into symbols or abstractions, but infuses into them a real life and makes them move on the stage as they would move in life. Nevertheless it is easy to note that the poet often intervenes in the course of the action to prevent his characters, following the impulse of their own passions, from pushing too far; and the bridle that the Verstandeswuch, of the most balanced and tenacious kind, opposes to the poet of agitated and overflowing fantasy — something that does not happen in his fatalistic dramas such as Die Ahnfrau or even in the trilogy Das goldene Vlies.

In lyric poetry, on the other hand, the Romantic elements gradually grow weaker, marking deviations and even reactions. Thus in the cult of form and in the intention of introducing new metrical attitudes into the language and in the inspiration of the suggestive phantoms of the Oriental world, Friedrich Rückert (1788-1866) and August von Platen (1796-1835) found themselves in agreement, the latter essentially Romantic in his first lyric collections and anti-Romantic in two comedies in Aristophanic imitation, while his conversion to the cult of classical form asserts itself in the later lyrics, especially in the Sonette aus Venedig, of exquisite workmanship. The Swabian poets, among whom Ludwig Uhland (1787-1862) stands foremost, author of ballads, rhapsodies and romances very popular for their ingenuousness and spontaneity of inspiration and for their concision of style, constitute an artistic group that has a physiognomy of its own, while nevertheless all of them had in common the aim of drawing from the Romantic current the greatest possible profit, disregarding every exaggeration. And beside him Eduard Mörike deserves to be remembered, great above all in his lyrics of an intimate character and most harmonious, in which the Romantic echo is felt, although the poet strives to reconcile Romanticism and classicism. The lyric poetry of Nikolaus Lenau (1802-50) also links back to the Swabian school, a poet of a vibrant originality and seductive for the immediacy and sincerity of his inspiration, for the coloring and the richness of his images, for the broad and profound sense of human sorrow that pervades it all and not rarely assumes the character of a Weltschmerz. He seeks sorrow as necessary nourishment for his life and his poetry, and this sorrow sharpens, spreads through all things, until he feels the soul of the world weeping as his own soul weeps: a symbolism of nature, typically Romantic. And a "deconsecrated" Romantic was the definition given to another far greater poet, the Jew Heinrich Heine (1797-1856), great in lyric poetry, especially of the Buch der Lieder, as in the prose of the Reisebilder, as also in the satirical epos Atta Troll. Heine may truly be considered the last Romantic; of a restless and aggressive spirit, he personifies, with typical and salient traits, the tendencies, the contradictions, the skeptical rebellions, the delirious and fleeting enthusiasms of modern man, when the environment has not yet rediscovered its equilibrium. He does not have the tragic sense of the world, but rather a tragic consciousness of his world and of his life; thus he does not have the faith or the sentiment of resignation of the believer, he has only the tormented consciousness of man's impotence before the inaccessible power that governs life, and it is precisely this consciousness that recreates for him his God, the terrible antagonist in the tragedy of a man who loves life and cannot enjoy it, who knows he must die and does not want to die, and who therefore makes himself humble and rebellious, prays and blasphemes, supplicates and mocks. It is his tragedy that is reflected in the poet's last songs.

VII. REALISM

The speculative thought that had prepared and followed the movement may be said to have run its course with a series of epigones of Hegel's philosophy, some of whom, strict continuators, limited themselves to a cold exegesis of his works, while others, more daring continuators, pushed the master's doctrine to the extreme limit of exaggeration. This group gathered under the name of the "Hegelian left," and in it Luigi Feuerbach and Federico Strauss, author of a Life of Jesus, were preeminent, while the Hegelians found a violent and sagacious opponent in Arthur Schopenhauer, who returned to Kant's philosophy, though arriving at pessimistic conclusions.

Science and historiography reached their most fruitful results in Germany in the 19th century, by virtue of a renewal of all the auxiliary studies and a rigorous revision of the problems concerning method. Similarly, the philosophical and linguistic studies of the brothers Grimm and the studies of literature and comparative history of languages of the brothers Humboldt prepared the rise of a new and deeper vision of historical facts.

Toward the middle of the century poetry presents itself with a markedly political character which, far from a total vision of life, is likewise attached to the particular and contingent reality of the moment. Already from the political upheavals of 1830, a great ideal was increasingly asserting itself in Germany, one that finds a reflection also in political literature: to form national unity and to conquer liberty. It gave life to a literary association (Das junge Deutschland), which has evident points of contact with Romanticism through its pronounced tendency to individualism, but departs clearly from it in its essential significance: the politico-liberal tendency. It is the same tendency that gives life to a patriotic lyric poetry, which flourished around the political upheavals of '48 with Hoffmann von Fallersleben, Ferdinand Freiligrath, Georg Herwegh.

Outside any school, on the other hand, and a poetess in the most genuine and noble sense of the word, was Annette von Droste-Hülshoff (1797-1848). All her lyric production (Das geistliche Jahr and Letzte Gaben) is pervaded by a sincere and profound religious sentiment. She is intimately Catholic, but one would search her verses in vain for the echo of the preceding confessional struggles; in her there breathes only a breath of peace, diffused through all the creatures of earth and nature, and a pure, intimate sense of humanity, softened by a breath of frankly feminine tenderness, rises from her every song.

In narrative literature, and in particular in the novel, modern life is increasingly reflected, or at least, in historical novels, the events that provide the occasion for the tale are considered with the eyes of men aware of the tendencies of life that aim at psychological analysis and realistic representation. Thus a conscientious observer of life is Gustav Freitag (in Soll und Haben), while vast readings on various historical periods, such as the Reformation in Germany and the Renaissance in Italy, were precious to C. Ferdinand Meyer for creating the backgrounds of many of his works. The social novel is worthily represented by Friedrich Spielhagen (Problematische Naturen); a delicate poet of nature who feels and describes with a fine artist's touch the landscape and life of his homeland, Bohemia, is Adalbert Stifter; a delightful novelist who above all loves small things (Immensee) is Theodor Storm, and also very notable narrators are likewise Friedrich Reuter, full of naturalness and vivacity, Theodor Fontane, who to a frankly naturalistic narration joins a profound knowledge of life and of the German soul, Berthold Auerbach, whose tales are pervaded by a profound sense of humanity, Gottfried Keller, a Swiss, who knows how to raise himself from the simple and objective narration of rustic life and from the vivid and colorful description of nature to a broader concept of humanity and of pure poetry (Die Leute von Seldwyla), and finally a true master of the novella, Paul Heyse, in love with Italy, where he dwelt a long time and where the action of many of his tales unfolds; and the Styrian Peter Rosegger, a most popular writer of autobiographical tales, very great in the small world of his native land (Waldheimat, Die Schriften eines Waldschulmeisters).

The theater likewise undergoes, in the second half of the 19th century, attitudes analogous to those of narrative, orienting itself increasingly toward the analysis of sentiments and the realistic representation of modern life. Hence a greater and more immediate contact of the writer with the public: literature becomes popular. Thus, while narrative prose, in an accurate and particular study of settings and characters, creates the village tale, the theater, also inspired by the observation of the facts of daily life, will bring us to the realistic representations of Freitag and of Anzengruber. But already before the latter, Friedrich Hebbel (1813-63), in a fairly copious series of tragedies (Judith, Maria Magdalena, Herodes und Marianne) and of comedies, reveals himself as a modern writer, concerned with arousing the spectator's attention by means of the analytical originality of his thought, even if through excess he does not always succeed in achieving his aim. Hebbel is the creator of a new dramatic form; he considers the drama the faithful representation of human life. The tragic, for him, is an element inherent in our life, it springs ineluctably from it, because to live means to will and to act, and to will and to act can only mean to suffer and to sin. And always the idea of original sin weighs through the centuries on humanity, like an invincible fatality. While the prose theater was thus seeking its way, Richard Wagner (1813-1883) accomplished the reform of musical drama, in comparison with which the merit — great in itself, moreover, if one thinks of the unitary conception he had of theatrical spectacle — of having himself composed the poems that he then set to music, drawing them from the remote and genuine popular tradition (Tannhäuser, Lohengrin, Tristan und Isolde, Nibelungenlied, Meistersänger von Nürnberg, Parsifal), takes second place.

Naturalism, at the end of the 19th century, dominates the theater almost exclusively. What is required of the dramatic author is that he be able to bring to the stage a work that acts on the spectator like a fact of real life and gives him the illusion of reality. The subject and the technique are subordinated to the necessity that governs this illusionism on the stage. The principal representatives of naturalistic drama are Hermann Sudermann (1857-1928) and Gerhart Hauptmann (1862-1946): the former oscillated among different formulas, without managing to free himself from a certain French influence, but there is no doubt that many of his dramas (Die Ehre, Stein unter Steinen) are constructed on a strong framework and have had full success; Hauptmann, more individual, more profound, has a broad and penetrating gaze for observing the contrasts of social classes (Vor Sonnenaufgang, Einsame Menschen, Die Weber). He is also a poet who does not disdain even symbolic attitudes derived from Ibsen's theater; such a ready and precise stage technique and such an agile effectiveness of thought and sentiment assist him that his theater maintains a wholly distinctive physiognomy.

A clear detachment from naturalistic theater is marked by the dramas of Arthur Schnitzler, who undergoes the influence of Freudian doctrines in scrutinizing the depths of the human soul in its most mysterious aspects, as in its strongest passions (Fräulein Else), while in his last years he seems to become grave and thoughtful before the mystery of the death (a sense of fearful expectation is in fact present in his last works). Fundamentally skeptical and pessimistic, without any reconstructive capacity, Frank Wedekind remains instead, delighting in treating in his dramas the most scurrilous and brutal subject matter, without a ray of sunlight ever appearing in them. He certainly cannot be considered a moralist, as some critics believe, but rather a precursor of expressionist theater, which is immoral and dissolvent.

The naturalistic current, which claimed to annul at a stroke or at least to disregard the entire poetic tradition after Sturm und Drang, from Romanticism to Junges Deutschland, declined very soon, without having produced any great poet, and, indeed, arousing more or less strong reactions on the part of poets endowed with originality and personality, among them Detlev von Liliencron, who attempted the novel and the theater but succeeded only in lyric poetry, and Richard Dehmel, who sang above all of love conceived as the cause and fulcrum of every manifestation of life, to the point of assuming the value of a symbol. A more pronounced reaction to naturalism is found in the work of Friedrich Nietzsche, more remarkable as a lyric poet than as a thinker, and in that of Stefan George, a fervent champion of a renewal of German poetry, in whose lyric collections, beyond a profound Nietzschean influence, one senses, together with a vague cosmopolitanism, the desire to reconcile the classical world with the Germanic one, which however leads to a clear affirmation of Germanism, while from a pure aestheticism, in which poetry is reduced only to images and sounds, he arrives, in his last songs, at the affirmation of an art not devoid of its own particular ethical content. Contrary to George, Hugo von Hofmannsthal, who likewise belonged to the ranks of the neo-Romantics gathered around the George circle and the Blätter für die Kunst, withdraws from all contact with present reality and turns, by preference, to the world of myths in an intoxication of fanciful forms splendid with sounds, in which the influences of D'Annunzio are felt. Rainer Maria Rilke (1875-1926) too, having set out on the artistic path under George, soon distances himself from it in order to transfer his own poetic world into an intimate penetration of nature and a mystical isolation of the spirit. Through the soul of things, whose life he listens to and understands, he tends incessantly toward God, a God however immanent, who creates in him the desire for love and spiritual communion with the world, a God whom he knows he can never fully possess nor reach, but to whom he nevertheless gives himself in full abandonment.

If naturalism with its revolutionism and social reformism had failed in its aim of creating a great poetry, and neo-Romanticism with its cultural effort and its interior and transcendental vision had likewise not concretely achieved it, then the gradual breaking of faith in the cosmic order, naturalistic and romantic, led to or at least favored the rise of the revolt characterized by Expressionism, a new Sturm und Drang of the first thirty years of the 20th century. And without doubt a great part of German literature of the pre-war period and almost all of that which followed the First World War are imbued with the expressionist Weltanschauung. At its center is still an ethical problem; for if Expressionism has, in the field of poetry, very often borne perishable fruits, it assumes particular prominence as a spiritual movement that contains within itself a great negating and dissolvent part. Thus what strikes one most in it is the impetus of revolt against the past; this irruption into the course of traditional literature of a turbid, muddy, screaming current, which ignores or wishes to sweep away everything that was the object of lofty aspirations, of love and faith, and that constituted a secular norm of life within the orbit of family and society. And one is dismayed before the impetuosity with which one generation hurls itself against another, children against parents (recall Hasenclever's drama Der Sohn); before the most foul forms of sexual perversion (recall certain dramas of Kaiser); before the deliriums of a language that itself reveals not only the violent detachment from all formal completeness, but a true aggression against the solid traditional linguistic organism. Writers who in certain respects attach themselves to the expressionist current, but reveal more or less eminent qualities as artists, are Döblin and Däubler, the brothers Thomas and Heinrich Mann (the former's is the great novel Die Buddenbrooks), Wassermann, von Unruh, Werfel and Stefan Zweig.

The expressionist revolt had attempted to change the relations between things, but had not been able to abolish things themselves. It was easy to foresee, then, that one would return to looking at them through the control of the intelligence. Man had thrown himself disorderly, one might say blindly, into the conquest of the universe; but soon he fell back upon himself, to prepare himself anew to know, and to substitute the reality of knowledge for the illusion of ecstasy, so that faith in the future might rise again and poetry might resume the old eternal motifs of love for creatures, of the enchantment of nature and of elevation toward God. Already in the early years of the decade from 1920 to 1930 a new tendency had thus come to assert itself with more real and simpler contents and forms and at the same time more intimate and genuine. It is the Neue Sachlichkeit, that is, approximately, neo-realism, a current that has not had its full and consistent development, diverted and contaminated in the last years by a literature directly or indirectly linked to the ideology of National Socialism, with its well-known motifs of inspiration, such as the idea of the Reich and the historical becoming of the German people, the exaltation of race and the intimate relation between blood and soil and between stock and landscape, but which slowly shows itself already resuming its course, as some of the most gifted contemporary poets testify, among whom Ernst Wiechert and Hans Carossa are remembered.

Rodolfo Bottacchiari

Archaeology. — Archaeological studies relating to early Christianity in G. can normally be taken into consideration in those countries on this side of the Danube and the Rhine that were occupied by the Romans. In these regions the principal military and commercial stations also became the most important ecclesiastical centers and as such nuclei of paleochristian culture attested by buildings of worship, cemeteries, objects, furnishings and inscriptions, which were created under Roman influence up to the Carolingian period. Here are the principal cities in which ancient Christian monuments were found.

Aachen (v.). — Alzey: early Christian bread stamp with the busts of the emperors Valentinian II, Valens and Gratian (F. Drexel, in Germania, 13 [1929], p. 187; 14 [1930], p. 38). — Andernach (Antunacum): sepulchral inscription with the expression "meruit sanctorum esse consortem" (F. X. Kraus, Die altchristlichen Inschriften der Rheinlande, Freiburg im Breisgau 1890, p. 133, no. 275). — Augsburg (v.: Augusta Vindelicorum): remains of a 4th-century baptistery (L. Ohlenroth, in Forschungen und Fortschritte, 6 [1930], pp. 169-70). — Bingen (Bingium): Christian sepulchral inscriptions (F. X. Kraus, op. cit., pp. 32-33, no. 89; G. Behrens, in Germania, 10 [1926], pp. 146-

148). — Bonn: beneath the pavement of the Romanesque crypt of the basilica of Sts. Cassius and Florentius, today St. Martin, there was discovered in 1928 a Christian cemetery area near the ancient Roman castrum of the 4th century and a cemetery church of the 4th-5th century (G. P. Kirsch, in Riv. di arch. crist., 9 [1932], pp. 151-58. For the Christian inscriptions found in Bonn, v. F. X. Kraus, op. cit., p. 137, n. 282; p. 138, n. 284). — Boppard (Baudobrica): some Christian sepulchral inscriptions are known, among them one of a «famulus Dei» (F. X. Kraus, op. cit., p. 131, n. 267) and the other of a «Nonnus presbyter» (id., op. cit., p. 133, n. 272). — Koblenz (Confluentes): Christian sepulchral inscription on a limestone slab of a «Leuradus lector» (id., op. cit., p. 130, n. 265). — Cologne (v.: Colonia Agrippina). — Gondorf: Christian sepulchral inscriptions (J. Klein, in Bonner Jahrbücher, 84 [1887], p. 241). — Güttingen (on Lake Constance): there were found a cross in gold leaf, a silver fibula on which is engraved a horseman supporting a processional cross, a bronze vessel with allegorical motifs, among them the scene of the Baptism, and a Greek inscription (G. Kraft, in Badische Fundberichte, 1 [1928], p. 267; 2 [1929], p. 21; F. Garscha and F. W. Volbach, in Germania, 17 [1933], pp. 36-37; J. Sauer, Frühchristliche Funde in Deutschland aus den letzten 25 Jahren, in Atti del III Congresso internazionale di arch. crist., Vatican City 1934, p. 179, fig. 6). — Hintschingen, on the Danube: there were discovered a cross in gold leaf, a gold ring with a gold coin of Justin II and a spur with an engraved cross (E. Wagner, in Römisch-Germanisches Korrespondenzblatt, 9 [1919], pp. 1-8; I. Sauer, op. cit., p. 177, fig. 5). — Lehmen, on the Moselle: a Christian sepulchral inscription (F. X. Kraus, op. cit., p. 128, n. 261). — Mainz (v.: Magontiacum). — Müngersdorf: a cemetery of the 6th-7th century A.D. with 149 tombs and another with stone sarcophagi; there were collected glass and metal furnishings with pagan and Christian subjects (F. Fremersdorf, in Bullettino del Museo dell'Impero romano, 1 [1930], pp. 171-72). Very well known is the blue glass cup with scenes of Noah in the ark, Moses striking the rock, Jonah cast into the sea and at rest, and Daniel among the lions; these scenes alternate with four medallions in which F. Fremersdorf recognized the sons of Constantine: Crispus, Constantine, Constantius and Constans (I. Sauer, op. cit., p. 176, fig. 4). Also at Müngersdorf were found two silver spoons of the year 370 with the inscription: «Deo gratias» (G. Behrens, in Germania, 11 [1927], p. 148). — Neuss (Novaesium): four gilded glasses with the representation of the apostles Peter and Paul, of Job, of St. Hippolytus and of St. Sixtus II (F. X. Kraus, op. cit., p. 152, n. 302). - Passau (Castra Batavia): a sanctuary founded by St. Severinus, protector and apostle of the Roman provinces of Raetia and Noricum. Beneath the medieval church, remains from the 8th century have appeared (H. Horman, St. Severin zu Passau, Die Kirche und ihre Baugeschichte nach neuen Ausgrabungen und Untersuchungen, Passau 1935). - Pflaidt, near Andernach: a Christian inscription (F. X. Kraus, op. cit., p. 134, n. 274). - Regensburg (v.; Regina Castra). - Remagen (Ricomagus): a Christian sepulchral inscription (F. X. Kraus, op. cit., p. 136, n. 279). - Saalburg: a horn flask with the inscription: "Annius fidelis in g"; it is a soldier of the XXII legion (H. Leclercq, s. v. in DACL, VI, I, col. 1209, fig. 5261). - Seligenstadt on the Main: basilica erected by Einhard (v.) in honor of the relics of the Roman martyrs Marcellinus and Peter, whose plan has been identified and is of the type of those of St. Praxedes in Rome (A. Schuchert, in Riv. di arch. crist., 15 [1937], pp. 141-46). - Trier (v.). - Worms (v.). - Wiesbaden (Aquae Mattiacae): eight Christian sepulchral inscriptions are known, along with a stamp (pastillum aeneum) with the wording "Fl. Paulini g" (F. X. Kraus, op. cit., pp. 27-30, nn. 47-55). - Xanten (v.).

The oldest Christian architectural monument preserved on German soil is the central structure of Charlemagne's Palatine Chapel in Aachen (796-805). There the first aspects of Western art can be recognized, in the medieval transformation, which was then beginning, of the archetypes offered by the Christian faith and by ancient tradition. In place of the modes proper to ancient statics, a grave massing of walls takes over, while the ancient corporeality in sculpture and painting comes to be, as it were, abstracted into elusive signs of figures.

In the Franco-Saxon territory the Christian basilica, oriented from west to east, develops the apse between the 8th and 9th centuries (Centula). Of Carolingian monumental painting (v. CAROLINGIA, ARTE), which already possessed all the thematic motifs of medieval art, only fragmentary and isolated testimonies remain in Germany, while numerous manuscripts still hand down the whole manifold richness of miniatures: Ada school: Ada manuscript, around 800 (Trier); Palace school: Treasury Evangelary, beginning of the 9th century (Vienna); Reims school: Utrecht Psalter, first half of the 9th century; St. Gall school: Golden Psalter, second half of the 9th century. Large sculptures were not produced in this period; of great importance, however, are the ivory carvings and goldsmith work (Milan, S. Ambrogio: Altar frontal; the binding of the Codex aureus of St. Emmeram in Regensburg, Munich, etc.).

Carolingian art constitutes the foundation of German art, of which one can properly speak only after the second half of the 10th century, with the art of the Ottonians. It is an eminently aristocratic art, determined by the personalities who founded and sustained the Roman-German Empire. In comparison with ancient classical art it is much more independent than the Carolingian. Its impressive monumentality, its harmonious figurative power, its force of spiritual expression embodied the profound religiosity and at the same time the earthly confidence of this period. In the architectural field the structures then become clearer, while the unity of the masses underlines the harmony of spaces and walls. The architectural system is bound to schematic principles, such as the double end of the choir and the doubling of the transverse naves, while the unitary sense of the entire building is accentuated by the bell towers (Gernrode, St. Cyriacus, built in 961; Cologne, St. Pantaleon with monumental apse, consecrated in 980; Hildesheim, St. Michael, basilica with two choirs and two naves, 1000-33; Cologne, St. Maria in Campidoglio, 1049; Limburg on the Ardt, west facade with two bell towers, between 1025 and 1045).

The various schools of miniature painting of the Ottonian period differ in content and in style; Reichenau (Codex of Egbert, around 980 [Trier], Evangeliary of Otto III [Munich], Apocalypse of Bamberg, beginning of the 11th century); Trier; Echternach (Codex aureus Epternacensis, around 1020 [Coburg]); Cologne (Codex of Hilda, beginning of the 11th century [Darmstadt]); Regensburg (Codex of Uta, 1002-25 [Munich]). The Gerokreuz of the cathedral of Cologne is one of the first German documents of great plastic art (around 970). The first German cycle of plastic figures is instead admired on the two bronze portals of Bernward, in the cathedral of Hildesheim (completed in 1015). The goldsmith's art, for clarity and fineness of figuration, detaches itself from the sparkling variety of the Carolingian period (portable altar of Andrew, 975-93 [Trier], antependium of Basel, 1002-24 [Paris], the ornaments of the empress Gisela, beginning of the 11th century, bindings of the great manuscripts of Reichenau, preserved in Munich).

From the middle of the 11th century the properly Romanesque art, for firmness of form, originality of content, and strength of structural cohesion, differs from that of the Ottonians. Thus in the architectural school of Hirsau. Thus in the imperial cathedrals of Mainz and of Speyer (around 1082 transformed into a basilica with arches where cross vaults then made their first appearance in G. in the central nave, linked to a firmer structure of the walls of the nave and of the entire external construction). Thus in the church of the abbey of Maria Laach (1092-1156). In sculpture that impetuous expressive force of the period around the year 1000 is lost to the advantage of an archaically severe monumentality (cf. the golden Madonna of Essen, of the end of the 10th century, with the Madonna of Bishop Imad of 1060 [Paderborn]). In the second half of the 11th century the first sculpture with an architectural function appears in the niches (atrium of St. Emmeram, Regensburg, 1048-64). In the 12th century a strong plastic feeling is expressed in the relief of the forms of the bodies (tomb of Rudolf of Swabia, d. in 1080 [Merseburg]; tomb of Frederick von Wettin, d. in 1152 [Magdeburg]).

From the middle of the 12th century the new sense of contentment and joy proper to the time of the Hohenstaufen, the time of the heroic epic and of the chivalric Minnesänger, is reflected in an architecture of robust features and pleasant ornaments (Schwarzrheindorf, double chapel, consecrated in 1151; Cologne, Sts. Apostles, building enlarged in the eastern part, after 1192; Worms, cathedral, end of the 12th century-beginning of the 13th century; Strasbourg, Münster, Ostbau, after 1176; cathedral of Bamberg, 1185-1237; Limburg a. d. Lahn, Collegiate church, consecrated in 1235). Pleasant naturalness and a capacity for wholly interior expression are noted in painting and in sculpture: thus in the frescoes of the choir at Prüfening near Regensburg, around 1170. Thus in the representations of sacred subject such as at Cologne in St. Gereon, in the Chapel of the Baptistery. Thus in the schools of miniature painting of Regensburg (Praise of the Holy Cross, 1170-85 [Munich]), in the Bavarian conventual one (Matutinal Book of the abbot Conrad of Scheyern, beginning of the 13th century [Munich]), in that of the upper Rhine (Hortus deliciarum of Herrad of Landsberg, ca. 1170), in the other of the middle Rhine (Liber Scivias of St. Hildegard of Bingen from the beginning of the second half of the 12th century [Wiesbaden]), in that of Thuringia (Psalter of the Landgrave Hermann, 1211-13 [Stuttgart]). In the field

In sculpture, particular mention deserves the lectern of Freudenstadt, of about 1150; at Hildesheim, in St. Michael's, the reliefs of the choir stalls, of about 1186; at Halberstadt in the Liebfrauenkirche the group of the Triumph of the Cross, around 1220. At Hildesheim in the Cathedral the bronze baptismal font, around 1213-25. The sculptures of the cathedral of Strasbourg, around 1230 (Flights of angels, Church, Synagogue, Death and Coronation of Mary) and those of the cathedral of Bamberg 1235-40 (the choir stalls of St. George, Mary and Elizabeth, Adam's Portal, Princes' Portal, Knights) and the others by the Master of Naumburg, around 1235-60 (Knights of Bassenheim, types of Mainz, of Naumburg and figures of founders). Characteristic too is the flowering of the art of goldsmithing, in which field one recalls the work of great masters such as Roger of Helmarshausen (about 1100), Gilbert of Cologne (beginning of the second half of the 12th century), Wibert of Aachen (1160-65), the author of the shrine of Anno, Cologne (around 1170) and Nicholas of Verdun (Altar of Klosterneuburg, 1181) and the author of the shrine of the three kings of the cathedral of Cologne (before 1200-30).

Gothic art in G. begins almost a century after its appearance in its French homeland. It established itself there at the decline of chivalry, when the rising urban bourgeoisie received its inheritance.

Trier, Liebfrauenkirche (1242-53): central construction with a basilical plan. Marburg, church of St. Elizabeth (1235-83): of the Hallenkirche type with a trefoil-shaped choir. Strasbourg, Cathedral: from the middle of the 13th century. New construction of the longitudinal part according to the model of St-Denis; the western facade planned with two bell towers from 1276. Cologne, Cathedral: choir (1248-1322). Regensburg, church of the Dominicans, second half of the 13th century. Soest, St. Mary on the Meadow, founded in 1343: atrium supported by four columns. Peter Parler von Gmünd, from 1352 architect of the cathedral of St. Vitus in Prague (choir), the last great cathedral. Hans Stethaimer of Burghausen, around 1360-1432: numerous Hallenbauten in Bavaria (e.g., St. Martin in Landshut). Amberg, St. Martin (1421, 1421-83): a porticoed construction whose colonnades are gathered toward the interior. Annaberg, church of St. Anne (1499-1520): Hallenkirche in which neither the longitudinal direction nor the great height any longer has any importance. Gothic constructions, in eastern Germany, in brick: Chorin, church of the Cistercians, consecrated in 1334; Lübeck, church of St. Mary, 13th-14th century; Danzig, church of St. Mary, middle of the 14th century, end of the 15th.

In sculpture, from the end of the 13th century, figures increasingly lose their static quality and corporeality (mysticism) and come to assume a rhythmic and slender line, stripped of all heaviness. Strasbourg, Cathedral: Prophets of the west portal, around 1290. Cologne, choir of the Cathedral, statues, around 1322. Freiburg, Cathedral:

Holy Sepulchre, around 1330. Oberwesel, Collegiate church: winged altar, around 1330-40 (document of the oldest altars of this form so characteristic of Germany), Bamberg, Cathedral: tomb of Archbishop Frederick of Hohenlohe (d. 1352). Groups of Christ and John - the oldest are from 1300 - which, like the representations of the Pietà, were born from mystical thought. Toward the middle of the century, in place of agile and slender figures there came more marked and stocky figures, which sometimes again give a sense of heavy corporeality (Gmünd, church of the Holy Cross: Prophets and wise and foolish virgins, in the choir, around 1350. Works of Parler's workshop at Cologne, Prague and Nuremberg. Claus Sluter, from 1385 in the service of Philip the Bold, active in Dijon). The sculpture of the "soft style" at the beginning of the 15th century is characterized by small dimensions, and by an uninterrupted flow of lines, by vagueness and gracefulness of expression. "Beautiful Madonnas" (e.g., those of Krumau in Vienna). Mainz, Cathedral: sculpture of the "Portal of Memory", around 1410. Limburg, Pietà of Dernbach, around 1400. Münster, Pietà of Unna, around 1420. Munich, Madonna of Secon, around 1430 (Hans Multscher, 1400-67, Ulm). German sculpture of the late Gothic reaches a culminating point in the period from 1460 to 1520 (Nikolaus Gerhaert of Leiden, 1463-73, probably in Trier, Strasbourg and Wiener-Neustadt. Jörg Syrkin, 1425-93, Ulm. Michael Pacher, around 1435/40-98, Austria. Erasmus Grasser, around 1450-1518, Munich. Gregor Erhart at Ulm and Augsburg. Bernt Notke, around 1435/40-1509 at Lübeck. Veit Stoss, around 1445-1533, Nuremberg, Kraków etc. Tilman Riemenschneider, around 1460-1531, Franconia. Peter Vischer the Elder, around 1460-1520: bronze founder, of Nuremberg. Hans Leinberger, around 1480/85-1531, Landshut. Meister Hl: High Altar of Breisach, 1523-26).

Panel painting, which in the 13th century still appeared only in isolated manifestations, acquires great importance in the 14th century, and the influences of French painting (miniature) and of Italian painting (Giotto and the Sienese: back of the altarpiece of Klosterneuburg, 1324-39) are perceptible. School of Cologne, school of Bohemia (altars of Hohenfurth, around 1340, and of Wittingau, around 1380-90). Master Bertram of Minden, probably 1367-1415. Painters of the "soft style" are Konrad of Soest and Master Franke in Hamburg: his last disciples: Lukas Moser with the altar of Tiefenbronn (1431) and Stephan Lochner in Cologne. Konrad Witz, together with Hans Multscher a representative of the new realism from 1430, paints in the Geneva altarpiece of 1444 the first image of a landscape that really exists. Martin Schongauer of Colmar deserves a particular mention for the art of printmaking that developed from 1440. The Master of the Life of Mary, around 1470-80, Cologne. Michael Pacher. Bernhard Strigel, around 1460-1528, at Ulm. Hans Holbein the Elder, around 1465-1524, Augsburg. Hans Baldung, born near Grien, 1483/84-1545, in the upper Rhine. Lucas Cranach, 1472-1553, and Albrecht Dürer, 1471-1528, propagator of Italian art beyond the Alps.

The 16th century and the first decades of the 17th are characterized by the Reformation and the Counter-Reformation. Alongside religious architecture, secular architecture also takes on particular interest. Thus, alongside the religious figurations of sculpture and painting there now stand those entirely earthly and mythological. Augsburg, Fugger chapel, 1509-18: the first building derived from the Italian Renaissance in G. Munich, Jesuit church, St. Michael, 1583-97: on the model of the Gesù in Rome, but in the tradition of the German pillar churches of the late Gothic period, the impressive architecture of the German churches of the Counter-Reformation. Cologne, Jesuit church (St. Mary Assumed, 1618-27): principal example of the late Gothic style cultivated by the western German Jesuits. Flowering of small-scale sculpture in bronze, lead, carving wood and stone. Konrad Meit of Worms, around 1480-1550. Peter Floetner, around 1490-1546, Nuremberg. Hans Schwarz, medallist, Augsburg. Hans Krumper, around 1570-1634: bronze sculptures at the Munich court. Jörg Zuern: High Altar of Überlingen, 1613-19 (enlargement of the narrow Gothic altar table). Ludwig Münstermann, around 1575-1638: representative of an expressive religious Mannerism. In painting the art of portraiture flourishes. The eminent master of the first half of the century is Hans Holbein the Younger (Augsburg 1497-98, London 1541). The German creator of ideal landscapes, which he often enlivens with small ornamental religious figures, is Adam Elsheimer of Frankfurt (1578-1610).

The age of the Baroque and especially of the Rococo once again embraces in G. all the creative forces in a grandiose display. In the 18th century there is once again a fusion of all the arts as in the medieval workshop, since ceiling painting, altars and sculptural works, carving and stucco work serve only to complete the architect's work. Johann Bernhard Fischer von Erlach (1656-1723), Lukas von Hildebrandt (Vienna, 1668-1745), Christoph Dientzenhofer (Prague, 1689-1751), architectural school of Vorarlberg with Caspar Mosbrugger, Franz Beer and Peter Thumb. In Bavaria: Cosmas Damian (1686-1739) and Egid Quirin Asam (1692-1750); Dominikus Zimmermann (1685-1766); Johann Michel Fischer (1691-1766), Johann Balthasar Neumann (1687-1753), Franz Baehr: Frauenkirche in Dresden (1726-38, Protestant central building with galleries). For sculpture and painting too the centre of gravity is in southern G. Johann Meinrad Guggenbichler (Salzkammergut, 1649-1723), Balthasar Permoser (1651-1733), Georg Raphael Donner (Vienna, 1693-1741), Paul Egell (Mannheim, 1691-1752), Egid Quirin Asam, Johann Baptist Straub (Munich, 1704-84), Ignaz Günther (Munich 1725-1775), Joseph Anton Feuchtmayer (Bodensee, 1696-1770). The religious painting of the 17th century culminates in the pathetic visions of the martyrs and in the sacred figurations of the Silesian Michael Willmann (1630-1706). In the 18th century ceiling painting triumphs: Cosmas Damian Asam, Franz Anton Maulbertsch (1724-96, Austria).

Romanticism attempts to express with sentimental enthusiasm its longing for renewal and purity in style, orienting itself toward the old masters. Karl Friedrich Schinkel builds, in 1824-28, the Werdersche Kirche in Berlin in Gothic forms. The Nazarenes (Karl Friedrich Overbeck, Peter von Cornelius, Julius Schnorr von Carolsfeld) want to renew religious painting by taking inspiration from Raphael. But only Caspar David Friedrich (1774-1840) succeeds in doing something new with his landscapes: allegories full of religious sentiment. The 19th century in the field of Christian art brought no real contributions. In the contemporary age architects such as Hans Bartning and Dominikus Boehm concern themselves with the new Christian architecture. The sculptors Ernst Barlach and Gerhard Marcks, the painter Emil Nolde have depicted the ancient Christian motifs in the spirit of the 20th century.

1914; A. Feulner, Bayerisches Rokoko, Munich 1920; M. Hautmann, Geschichte der kirchlichen Baukunst in Bayern, Franken und Schwaben 1559-1780, ibid. 1921; J. Braun, Meisterwerke der deutschen Goldschmiedekunst der vorgotischen Zeit, 2 vols., ibid. 1922; A. Haupt, Die Baukunst der Renaissance in Deutschland, Berlin-Neubabelsberg 1923; H. Beenken, Romanische Shulptur in Deutschland, Leipzig 1924; W. Pinder, Die deutsche Plastik vom Ausgang des Mittelalters bis zum Ende der Renaissance, 2 vols., Wildpark-Potsdam 1924-29; C. Glaser, Die altdeutsche Malerei, Munich 1924; H. Hildebrandt, Die Kunst des 19. und 20. Jahrh., Wildpark-Potsdam 1924; P. Frankl, Die Frühmittelalterliche und romanische Baukunst, ibid. 1926; A. Feulner, Deutsche Plastik des 17. Jahrh., Munich 1926; S. Meller, Die deutschen Bronzestatuetten der Renaissance, ibid. 1926; M. Sauerlandt, Die deutsche Plastik des 18. Jahrh., ibid. 1926; E. F. Bange, Die Kleinplastik der deutschen Renaissance in Holz und Stein, ibid. 1928; C. Einstein, Die Kunst des 20. Jahrh., 3rd ed., Berlin 1929; G. Dehio, Geschichte der deutschen Kunst, 8 vols., 4th ed., ibid. 1930-34; E. Gall, Karolingische und ottonische Kirchen, Burg bei Magdeburg 1930; A. Boeckler, Abendländische Miniaturen bis zum Ausgang der romanischen Zeit, Berlin-Leipzig 1930; J. Baum, Malerei und Plastik des Mittelalters in Deutschland, Frankreich und Italien, Wildpark-Potsdam 1930; C. H. Clasen, Die gotische Baukunst, ibid. 1930; A. Stange, Deutsche Malerei der Gotik, 3 vols., Berlin-Leipzig 1934-38; W. Pinder, Deutscher Barock, Die grossen Baumeister des 18. Jahrh., Königstein i. T. 1938; R. Benz-A. v. Schneider, Die Kunst der deutschen Romantik, Munich 1939; H. Jantzen, Deutsche Plastik des 13. Jahrh., ibid. 1941; O. Fischer, Geschichte der deutschen Malerei, ibid. 1942; H. Jantzen, Ottonische Kunst, ibid. 1947. Leonie v. Wilckens

VII. SCHOOL SYSTEM.

With the defeat of Hitlerian national socialism, the school reform of Ernst Krieck, Alfred Baemler and Rosenberg, which was based on Gleichhaltung and Gleichschaltung, also fell. From that day the German school has been trying to orient itself toward democracy and to consolidate itself. The road is difficult because there is a lack of German pedagogists ready to face on their own a new reform of German school life. Any advice or imposition in the educational field has met since 1945 with the distrust not only of intellectuals but also of the pupils' own parents. Political rhetoric discredits in the individual «Länder» even the best reform projects proposed by non-German authorities. The reform projects of the governments of the individual «Länder» are instead inspired by the German school reforms that followed one another from the year 1871 to the advent of Hitler. Each «Land» is an entity unto itself, and the unitary aspiration of the German people thus remains unsatisfied. Even the ideas on the function of the Church, of religion and of the family in education are not clear, despite the respect that articles 4-9 of the Concordat concluded between the Church and the State in the year 1925 now enjoy in western G. The spirit of the Weimar Republic (1918-33) is instead alive in the politicians of today's G. As then, so also today, the conservative current fights for a militarily disciplined nationalist individualism and finds its strongholds both in the universities and in ex-military circles. The other political currents, and among them a part of the men of the Catholic Party, instead seek new ways and are not satisfied with a simple renewal of the Weimar school reform linked to the names of Wilhelm Dilthey, Eduard Spranger, Theodor Litt, C. H. Becker and Hans Richert. The reform to which they aspire must be based on the democratic teacher who never belonged to Nazism. The democratic courses instituted for Nazi teachers did not satisfy their expectations; therefore a new type of higher schools of pedagogy has been instituted. In these the future teacher must learn the art of education in order to be able to develop intellectual forces organically in the pupils, in order to be able to lead youth in the fear of God to spiritual, moral and political maturity.

Religious instruction is regulated by the 1925 Concordat, articles 4-9, and is obligatory in all lower schools and free in the higher schools. Teachers of theology and all those who have care of the spiritual life of the pupils are appointed in agreement with the Church on the basis of the law of 1949, § 12. School instruction (law of 1948) is obligatory from 6 to 18 years of age and is free of charge.

The types of school are the following: kindergartens, lower and upper elementary schools, post-elementary schools, middle schools, lyceums-gymnasiums, technical schools, agricultural schools, higher popular institutes and the universities. The historic universities are the following: Altdorf-Nuremberg (1575), Bamberg (1648), Berlin (1809), Bonn (1777), Breslau (1702), Cologne (1388), Dillingen-Augsburg (1554), Duisburg (1655), Erfurt (1379), Erlangen (1743), Frankfurt on the Oder (1506), Freiburg im Br. (1455), Fulda (1734), Giessen (1607), Göttingen (1737), Greifswald (1456), Halle (1694), Heidelberg (1385), Helmstaedt (1571), Herborn (1584), Jena (1558), Ingolstadt (1459), Marburg (1527), Kiel (1665), Königsberg (1544), Landshut (1802), Leipzig (1409), Munich (1472), Münster (1631), Osnabrück (1630), Paderborn (1615), Rinteln (1621), Rostock (1419), Stuttgart (1775), Tübingen (1477), Wittenberg (1502), Würzburg (1582). There also exist 10 polytechnics, 2 higher schools of veterinary medicine, 3 higher schools of agriculture, 3 higher schools of forestry, 5 commercial academies, 8 pedagogical academies, 2 medical academies, 14 academies of music and fine arts and 10 academies of music.

The instruction of the Catholic clergy takes place in 21 colleges, in 5 seminary-colleges, in 30 minor seminaries and in 35 major seminaries. - See plates VIII-XII.

Stumpf Miroslav