Culturally, the years of the Vormärz are regarded as the time of the ‘Biedermeier’, a period of the retreat into sleepy privacy and sedately comfortable parochialism. And yet, in this period the bourgeoisie displayed considerable self-confidence, supported innovations and, in its lively organisations of associations and societies, became a considerable thorn in the side of the authorities. Goethe wrote the second part of ‘Faust’, the first train lines were built, the telegraph was invented, scientists organised and networked in new ways, choral societies provoked with national songs, universities were founded, and on the occasion of recommencing work on Cologne Cathedral, the Prussian king kindled national hopes. The epoch finishes with the failed Revolution of 1848/9. Yet, beyond this failure, it had begun Germany’s journey into modernity.