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The Germans and the Revolution

Heinrich August Winkler

When the French stormed the Bastille in Paris – the ultimate symbol of the absolutist regime – in July 1789, many German writers and thinkers cheered them on. But this enthusiasm on the German side of the Rhine did not last long. When Louis XVI ended up on the scaffold and the revolution turned to terror, many Germans distanced themselves in alarm. Since then, the Germans’ relationship with revolutions has remained a thorny issue. Heinrich August Winkler, the doyen of historians, outlines the stages of German revolutionary history from 1848 to 1989, including the darkest revolution of them all: the Nazi regime.

Reformation rather than revolution: for a long time, this was the motto of all the citizens and intellectuals in Germany who were opposed to the status quo yet did not want to see a violent coup. Following the revolution of 1848-9, which failed to achieve the double goal of unification and freedom, Bismarck responded with a revolution from above, the so-called ‘Small Germany Solution’. The revolution of 1918-19 gave rise to a new democratic system in the form of the Weimar Republic, which was brought to an end by the Nazi dictatorship. Whether this was in fact a revolution is one of the questions explored in this brilliantly written book, which also looks at the issue of the historical significance of the ‘peaceful revolution’ of 1989 and how it provided a solution to the ‘German question’ in form of reunification.

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