Defeat and Foreign Rule as a Narrative of National Rebirth: The German Memory of the Napoleonic Period in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries

TitleDefeat and Foreign Rule as a Narrative of National Rebirth: The German Memory of the Napoleonic Period in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries
Publication TypeBook Chapter
Year of Publication2008
AuthorsKoller, Christian
EditorMacleod, Jenny
Book TitleDefeat and Memory: Cultural Histories of Military Defeat in the Modern Era
Pagination30-45
PublisherPalgrave Macmillan
CityBasingstoke, UK
Abstract

The Napoleonic period has played a crucial role in Germany’s cultural memory since the end of the anti-Napoleonic Wars. Between 1795 and 1805, Prussia had preserved its neutrality in the succeeding coalition wars. In 1806, it entered war against France, and on the 14 October its army experienced a disastrous defeat in the double battle of Jena and Auerstedt. The military  disaster caused an enormous shock in the Prussian nd German public. In the treaty of Tilsit in July 1807, Prussia remained an autonomous state, but it lost half of its territories. It was occupied by French troops and charged with heavy contributions. In the following years, the leading ministers Stein and Hardenberg enacted a wide-ranging modernization programme that included reforms of government, administration, agriculture, trade, taxation, military and education. The author of this  article takes up the argument  that other historians made before him  and shows how the narative of defeat and national rebirth informed the German national memory of the Napoleonic Wars.

URLhttps://www.palgrave.com/gp/book/9780230517400
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154788674

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