Henry Christopher HILLMER

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The German Empire

Age of the French Revolution. The nudge which brought the crumbling Reich crashing down came from the west. Revolution broke out in France in 1789. Under pressure from the middle classes, the feudal social order which had existed since the early Middle Ages was swept away; a separation of powers and human rights were to assure the liberty and equality of all. The attempt by Prussia and Austria to intervene by force in events in the neighboring country failed ignominiously and triggered a counter-thrust by the revolutionary armies. Under the stormy advances of the forces of Napoleon, who had assumed the revolutionary heritage in France, the Reich finally collapsed. France took the left bank of the Rhine.

To compensate the former owners of these areas for their losses, an enormous territorial reshuffling took place at the expense of the smaller and particularly the ecclesiastical principalities. Through the Final Recess (Reichsdeputationshauptschluss) of 1803, some four million subjects changed rulers. The medium-sized states were the beneficiaries. In 1806 most of them grouped together under French protection in the Confederation of the Rhine (Rheinbund). In the same year Emperor Franz II laid down the crown and the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation ceased to exist.

The French Revolution did not spread into Germany. Although there, too, various individuals had over the years tried time and again to do away with the barriers between the aristocracy and the common people, and although leading thinkers welcomed the overthrow in the west as the start of a new era, one major reason why the spark could not catch easily was that, in contrast to centrally oriented France, the federalistic structure of the Reich hampered the spread of new ideas. Another big reason was that France, the motherland of the revolution, opposed the Germans as an enemy and an occupying power. Indeed, the struggle against Napoleon forged a new national movement which culminated in wars of liberation.

Germany did not remain unaffected by the forces of social change. First in the states of the Confederation of the Rhine and then in Prussia (in the latter connected with names such as Stein, Hardenberg, Scharnhorst and W. von Humboldt) reforms were begun which were aimed at breaking down feudal barriers and creating a society of free, responsible citizens. The objectives were the abolition of serfdom, freedom of trade, municipal self-administration, equality before the law and general conscription. But many reform moves were pulled up short. Participation by the populace in legislation was refused almost everywhere. Only hesitantly did some princes grant their states constitutions, especially in southern Germany.

The German Confederation. After the victory over Napoleon, the Congress of Vienna (September 1814 to June 1815) redrew the map of Europe. The hopes of many Germans for a free, unitary nation-state were not fulfilled. The German Confederation (Deutscher Bund) which replaced the old Reich was a loose association of the individual sovereign states. Its sole organ was the Federal Diet (Bundestag) in Frankfurt, which was not an elected but a delegated diet. It was able to act only if the two great powers, Prussia and Austria, agreed. It saw its main task in the ensuing decades in suppressing all aspirations and efforts aimed at unity and freedom. Press and publishing were subject to rigid censorship, the universities were under close supervision, and political activity was virtually impossible.

Nevertheless, a modern economic development which worked against these reactionary tendencies had begun. In the year 1834 the German Customs Union (Deutscher Zollverein) was founded, creating a single inland market. In 1835 the first German railway line went into operation. Industrialization began. With the factories there grew the new class of factory workers. At first they found better incomes, but the rapid growth of the population soon led to a labor surplus. And since there were no social welfare provisions, the mass of factory workers lived in great misery. Tensions came to a violent head, for example, in the 1844 uprising of the Silesian weavers, which was harshly put down by the Prussian military. Very hesitantly at first, a workers’ movement began to form.

The 1848 revolution. In contrast to the revolution of 1789, the French revolution of February 1848 triggered an immediate response in Germany. In March, there were uprisings in all states, and these forced many concessions from the stunned princes. In May, the National Assembly (Nationalversammlung) convened in St. Paul’s Church in Frankfurt/Main. It elected Archduke John of Austria as Regent of the Empire (Reichsverweser) and set up a Reich Ministry which, however, had no powers or authority. The tune was called in the National Assembly by the Liberal center, which strove for a constitutional monarchy with limited suffrage. The splintering of the National Assembly from Conservatives to Radical Democrats, which already indicated the spectrum of parties to come, made it difficult to draw up a constitution.

However, not even the Liberal center could overcome the differences between the protagonists of the “greater Germany“ and “smaller Germany“ concepts, in other words, a German Reich with or without Austria. After hard bargaining, a democratic constitution was drawn up which attempted to combine old and new ideas and required a government responsible to parliament. But when Austria insisted on bringing into the future Reich its entire realm, encompassing more than a dozen different peoples, the “smaller Germany“ concept won the day and the National Assembly proffered Frederick William IV of Prussia the hereditary German imperial crown. The king turned it down, not wanting to owe imperial majesty to a revolution. In May 1849 popular uprisings in Saxony, the Palatinate and Baden aimed at enforcing the constitution “from the bottom up“ failed.

That was the seal on the failure of the whole revolution. Most of its achievements were rescinded, and the constitutions of the individual states were revised along reactionary lines. In 1850, the German Confederation was restored.

The rise of Prussia. The 1850s were years of great economic advances. Germany became an industrial country. Although its production output still lagged far behind England’s, it was growing faster. Pacemakers were heavy industry and mechanical engineering. Prussia also became the predominant economic power of Germany. Industrial power strengthened the political self-confidence of the liberal middle class. The German Progress Party (Deutsche Fortschrittspartei), formed in 1861, became the strongest party in the Prussian Diet and denied the government approval of the funds when it wanted to make reactionary changes to the structure of the army. The newly appointed Prime Minister (Ministerpräsident), Otto von Bismarck (1862), took up the challenge and for some years governed without the parliamentary approval of the budget which was required by the constitution. The Progress Party dared offer no further resistance than parliamentary opposition, however.

Bismarck was able to offset his precarious position on the domestic front by foreign policy successes. In the German-Danish War (1864), Prussia and Austria forced the Danes to cede the duchies of Schleswig and Holstein, which they initially administered jointly. But Bismarck had from the outset pursued the annexation of the two duchies and steered for open conflict with Austria. In the Austro-Prussian War (1866), Austria was defeated and had to leave the German stage. The German Confederation was dissolved and replaced by the North German Confederation (Norddeutscher Bund) of states north of the Main River, with Bismarck as Federal Chancellor (prime minister).

Military Records: Henry Heller #321 ,no age ,Germany
birth ,Private in the 105th Illinois Voluntary Infantry.

DNA Y-chromosome test results from the 2-great-grandson of Heinrich Christoph Hillmer matched the DNA Y-chromosome test results of a 2-great-grandson of Gottlieb Christoff Hillmer --- 26 markers out of a total 28. The Most Common Recent Ancestor is probably about 15 generations from the persons tested.

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Titel	Bonita Hillmer
Beschreibung	My German Ancestors
Hochgeladen	2015-03-14 15:28:56.0
Einsender	Bonita Hillmer
E-Mail	ladybonita@usa.com
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