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State-Building in 19th-Century Germany
readers distributed in Württemberg, for instance, stressed the importance
of the fatherland as well as of the German nation. Perhaps most
surprisingly, Green argues convincingly that neither the Zollverein
nor the expansion of the railway network worked in favour of national
integration. The Zollverein did strengthen Prussia’s position in
Germany, but this was by no means universally popular. The building
of railways was undertaken by states within state borders, and
one of their purposes was to link the peripheries of states with the
centre. They opened up communications with Austria and non-
German countries as well as within the territory of the later German
Empire, and were therefore not factors for national integration.
Moreover, railways made it far easier to travel within a state, and
thus became part of states’ attempts to increase awareness of state
culture. Railways made the monuments and museums erected in
capitals accessible to a state’s population at reasonable fares, and
allowed masses of visitors to reach events such as Württemberg’s
Cannstatter Volksfest. State governments exploited the possibilities
of the new means of communication to the full.
Having shown that states were at least semi-successful in popularizing
loyalty to the fatherland, Green looks at how these states
presented themselves. They emphasized cultural vitality and prosperity
over military power and influence in foreign affairs, and related
the existence of many states in Germany to the composition of the
German nation of different tribes. In principle, it was not impossible
for this to coincide with the acceptance of an over-arching German
nation, the political unification of which was indeed occasionally
advocated by government newspapers. In this respect, the three
kingdoms examined by Green differ from Bavaria, which sought to
limit use of the word ‘nation’ to the state-patriotic discourse. But
political developments deepened the tension between the concepts of
the ‘fatherland’ and ‘national’ unity in the three other kingdoms as
well. The war of 1866 created a clear opposition between state patriotism
and nationalism because the victory of the one had to result in
the weakening, or, in the case of Hanover, destruction of the other. A
final chapter examines the aftermath of 1871. Green points out that
the roots of the German Empire in non-Prussian Germany remained
rather shallow. Only 25 per cent of German men who had the franchise
voted for parties in favour of national integration in the first
national elections of 1871 (p. 299). The different franchises for nation-
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