Deutsche Geschichte im 19. Jahrhundert

The 19th century began with the French Revolution and ended with World War I. During this time, Germany experienced the collapse of the feudal world, the bourgeois revolution of 1848/49 with its social revolutionary undercurrents, as well as an industrial revolution that unleashed tremendous centrifugal forces and led to the emergence of a class society, the theory of which was established by Marx and Engels. When the bourgeois dream of a German nation seemed to have been dashed by Friedrich Wilhelm IV., a German imperial era began under Otto von Bismarck and Wilhelm I, bringing about the breakthrough of modernity, but also its crisis and ultimately its first catastrophe. Dieter Hein describes these complex developments clearly and succinctly.