8.3. Germany
The hypothetical scheme of epochal cycles in the history of Germany may be presented as follows. I-III centuries – the origin of a new subject of history in Europe (the revolutionary phase of the first epochal cycle), which is identified with the onset of Germanic tribes on the Roman Empire. IV-VII centuries – the involutionary stage of development, with the content of feudalization of Germanic tribes, their political subordination to the Empire of Carolus Magnus.
The co-evolutionary stage of development comprises the period of disintegration of the Empire of Carolus Magnus (772-804) which included most Germanic lands within its limits. Verdun (843) – the formal agreement on the division of Carlovingian empire – became the symbol of the new geopolitic situation. Ludwig the German and the Saxon dynasty (919-1024), in fact, closed the transient process, and the country entered the evolutionary period of its history, that takes its beginning since the proclamation of the «Holy Roman Empire» by Otto I (962). The most important historic events are connected with the fight between Germanic emperors of the Franken dynasty (1024-1125) and the dynasty of Staufens (1138-1254) for control over the Northern Italy, and exercising the policy of «push to the East». The foundation of knightly orders (Teutonic, the Order of Sword-bearers), as the instruments of exercising the colonial policy against the Slavic lands in the East, occurred in the same period. These events became the beginning of the second epochal cycle of development of the country.
The following involutionary period of the cycle is connected with a certain decline of the economy of Germanic lands, caused by the flood of Italian goods from the centers of rapid pre-capitalistic development in North-Italian towns.
The co-evolutionary phase of the cycle (since 1356) is connected with the establishment of the powerful Hanseatic trade league in the Baltic region. This league can be in some way compared with the present European Union by monopolizing markets and establishing the control over the neighboring eastern lands. Hanseatic League exerted its influence on the policy of Karl IV (1347-1378). The evolutionary period of the second epochal cycle began with his rule. The period is politically characterized with the growing political fragmentation of Germany, that was reflected in the «Gold bulla» (1356), later referred to by K. Marx as the constitution of split of Germany. The emperor was then elected by the college of electors. This situation remained practically till the middle of the 19th century. One of the reasons for such a situation was the differentiation of economic and political interests of various German lands between the North (Baltic), the East (Slavic lands), and the South (Italy, Mediterranean region).
The new chapter of the history of Germany and the revolutionary phase of the third epochal cycle are associated with the Reformation. Erasmus Roterodamus (1466-1536), who changed the point of view on the inner world of a mediaeval Christian, may be considered the spiritual precursor of this process. The invention of printing by Johann Gutenberg in 1445 also favored this process. In 1517 Martin Luther (1483-1546) proclaimed his famous 95 theses, based on the absolution of faith. This event made the Catholic hierarchy unnecessary and practically established the direct link between the laymen and God.
The revolutionary sentiments quickly spread among the masses, and, already in 1524-1525, Germany was shaken with the Great Peasants' War. The involutionary period of the third epochal cycle, characterized by the leveling of the «patched-up» Germany in the European affairs, begins since 1555, when the Augsburg peace between religions did away with the open enmity between the Catholic and the Protestant based on the principle «whose land – whose faith». The Holy Roman Empire became the object of expansion of the external forces during the 30-year war (1618-1648) between the European coalitions of Catholic and Protestant states.
Since 1804, with the beginning of wars against Napoleon, Germany enters its co-evolutionary stage of development (1804-1834), illustrated by a rapid development of capitalist relations, particularly in the south of Germany, connected with the economic interests of France. The idea of the political unity of the country, the first step towards which was the creation of the German customs union (1834), is reviving again. However, no nationwide market was created till the unification of Germany (1871).
European bourgeois revolutions of 1848-1849 chronologically concurred with the beginning of the evolutionary period of the third epochal cycle of the German history. That is why, they were not taken up by the inner logic of development of the country and had a formally superficial influence on it. The creation of the National Convent in Frankfurt (1848), that gave a push to the development of democratic ideas in Germany, connected with the national unity, constututionalism, and other aspects, was put into practice only after 100 years during the creation of Federal Republic of Germany. The historical sense of the present evolutionary period in the history of the country was overcoming the historical inertia of the split of Germany, at first in the form of the German Empire (1871-1918), then in the Weimar republic (1919-1933), in the Third Reich (1933-1945), in the Bonn republic (1949-1990), and, at last, in the united Germany (since 1990).
Going by the programmed logic of development, Germany stimulated the European integration process. Especially, this line found its expression in its present status of leadership in European and transatlantic structures, in the «collective leadership in the contemporary world», as stated by Bill Clinton in 1997. It became the actually incontestable second world leader and the reliable ally of the USA both in the European and world policy. At the same time, according to Jurgen Habermas, since 1960’s, after the youth riots in May 1968, and particularly after the anschluss of German Democratic Republic, the tendency to augmentation of latent crisis phenomena is becoming more and more apparent: in the sphere of politics – the extinction of traditional political parties; in the economy – the growth of devastative globalization tendencies, difficulties of restructuring national industrial sectors, the problems of education and unemployment; in the social sphere – the problems of the European identity of the Eastern Germany, and the responsibility of Germany for forming a common defense and foreign policy of the European Union.
All this strengthens the assumption that Germany is approaching the commencement of the revolutionary phase of the fourth epochal cycle.
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