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Young Germany (german: Junges Deutschland) was a group of German writers which existed from about 1830 to 1850. It was essentially a youth ideology, similar to those that had swept France,
Ireland
Ireland ( ; ga, Éire ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe, north-western Europe. It is separated from Great Britain to its east by the North Channel (Grea ...
, the
United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...
and
Italy
Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical re ...
. Its main proponents were
Karl Gutzkow
Karl Ferdinand Gutzkow ( in Berlin – in Sachsenhausen) was a German writer notable in the Young Germany movement of the mid-19th century.
Life
Gutzkow was born of an extremely poor family, not proletarian, but of the lowest and most meni ...
,
Heinrich Laube
Heinrich Laube (18 September 1806 – 1 August 1884), German dramatist, novelist and theatre-director, was born at Sprottau in Prussian Silesia.
Life
He studied theology at Halle and Breslau (1826–1829), and settled in Leipzig in 1832. Here he ...
,
Theodor Mundt
200px, Theodor Mundt
Theodor Mundt (September 19, 1808 – November 30, 1861) was a German critic and novelist. He was a member of the Young Germany group of German writers.
Biography
Born at Potsdam, Mundt studied philology and philosophy at Ber ...
and
Ludolf Wienbarg
Christian Ludolf Wienbarg (25 December 1802 – 2 January 1872) was a German journalist and literary critic, one of the founders of the ''Young Germany'' movement during the Vormärz period.
Biography
Wienbarg was born in Altona, as the son of ...
;
Heinrich Heine
Christian Johann Heinrich Heine (; born Harry Heine; 13 December 1797 – 17 February 1856) was a German poet, writer and literary critic. He is best known outside Germany for his early lyric poetry, which was set to music in the form of '' Lied ...
,
Ludwig Börne
Karl Ludwig Börne (born "Loeb Baruch"; 6 May 1786 – 12 February 1837) was a German-Jewish political writer and satirist, who is considered part of the Young Germany movement.
Early life
Karl Ludwig Börne was born Loeb Baruch on 6 May 178 ...
and
Georg Büchner
Karl Georg Büchner (17 October 1813 – 19 February 1837) was a German dramatist and writer of poetry and prose, considered part of the Young Germany movement. He was also a revolutionary and the brother of physician and philosopher Ludwig Büchn ...
were also considered part of the movement. The wider group included
Willibald Alexis
Willibald Alexis, the pseudonym of Georg Wilhelm Heinrich Häring (29 June 179816 December 1871), was a German historical novelist, considered part of the Young Germany movement.
Life
Alexis was born in Breslau, Silesia. His father, who cam ...
,
Adolf Glassbrenner
Adolf Glassbrenner (27 March 1810, in Berlin25 September 1876) was a German humorist and satirist, considered part of the Young Germany Movement.
Glassbrenner was born in Berlin. After working for a short time in a merchant's office, he turned to ...
, Gustav Kühne,
Max Waldau
Richard Georg Spiller von Hauenschild, better known by his pseudonym Max Waldau (10 March 1825 – 20 January 1855), was a German poet and novelist.
Life
Born in Breslau (Wrocław), Prussian Silesia, Waldau lost his father early on in life, ...
and
Georg Herwegh
Georg Friedrich Rudolph Theodor Herwegh (31 May 1817 – 7 April 1875) was a German poet,Herwegh, Georg, The Columbia Encyclopedia (2008) who is considered part of the Young Germany movement.
Biography
He was born in Stuttgart on 31 May 1817, th ...
.
[''Junges Deutschland'', The Crystal Reference Encyclopedia (2005)]
Overview
The writers of Young Germany were against what they perceived as of "
absolutism" in
politics
Politics (from , ) is the set of activities that are associated with making decisions in groups, or other forms of power relations among individuals, such as the distribution of resources or status. The branch of social science that studies ...
and "
obscurantism
In philosophy, the terms obscurantism and obscurationism describe the anti-intellectual practices of deliberately presenting information in an abstruse and imprecise manner that limits further inquiry and understanding of a subject. There are two ...
" in
religion
Religion is usually defined as a social- cultural system of designated behaviors and practices, morals, beliefs, worldviews, texts, sanctified places, prophecies, ethics, or organizations, that generally relates humanity to supernatural, ...
. They maintained the
principle
A principle is a proposition or value that is a guide for behavior or evaluation. In law, it is a Legal rule, rule that has to be or usually is to be followed. It can be desirably followed, or it can be an inevitable consequence of something, suc ...
s of
democracy
Democracy (From grc, δημοκρατία, dēmokratía, ''dēmos'' 'people' and ''kratos'' 'rule') is a form of government in which the people have the authority to deliberate and decide legislation (" direct democracy"), or to choose gov ...
,
socialism
Socialism is a left-wing economic philosophy and movement encompassing a range of economic systems characterized by the dominance of social ownership of the means of production as opposed to private ownership. As a term, it describes the e ...
, and
rationalism
In philosophy, rationalism is the epistemological view that "regards reason as the chief source and test of knowledge" or "any view appealing to reason as a source of knowledge or justification".Lacey, A.R. (1996), ''A Dictionary of Philosophy' ...
. Among the many things they advocated were:
separation of church and state
The separation of church and state is a philosophical and jurisprudential concept for defining political distance in the relationship between religious organizations and the state. Conceptually, the term refers to the creation of a secular sta ...
, the
emancipation of the Jews
Jewish emancipation was the process in various nations in Europe of eliminating Jewish disabilities, e.g. Jewish quotas, to which European Jews were then subject, and the recognition of Jews as entitled to equality and citizenship rights. It incl ...
, and the
raising of the political and social position of women. During a time of political unrest in Europe, Young Germany was regarded as dangerous by many politicians due to its progressive viewpoint. During December 1835 the
Frankfurt
Frankfurt, officially Frankfurt am Main (; Hessian: , "Frank ford on the Main"), is the most populous city in the German state of Hesse. Its 791,000 inhabitants as of 2022 make it the fifth-most populous city in Germany. Located on its na ...
Bundestag
The Bundestag (, "Federal Diet") is the German federal parliament. It is the only federal representative body that is directly elected by the German people. It is comparable to the United States House of Representatives or the House of Commons ...
banned the publication in Germany of many authors associated with the movement, namely Heine, Gutzkow, Laube, Mundt, and Wienbarg. In their reasoning, they explained that the Young Germans were attempting to “attack the Christian religion in the most impudent way, degrade existing conditions and destroy all discipline and morality with belletristic writings accessible to all classes of readers.”
The ideology produced poets, thinkers and journalists, all of whom reacted against the introspection and particularism of
Romanticism
Romanticism (also known as the Romantic movement or Romantic era) was an artistic, literary, musical, and intellectual movement that originated in Europe towards the end of the 18th century, and in most areas was at its peak in the approximate ...
in the national literature, which had resulted in a total separation of literature from the actualities of life. The Romantic Movement was considered apolitical, lacking the activism that Germany's burgeoning intelligentsia required. As a result of the decades of compulsory school attendance in German states, mass literacy meant an excess of educated males which the establishment could not subsume. Thus in the 1830s, with the advantage of inexpensive printing presses, there was a rush of educated males into the so-called “free professions.”
Notes
References
*
In German:
* Jost Hermand (edit.): ''Das Junge Deutschland. Texte und Dokumente''. Stuttgart: Reclam 1966 u.ö. (RUB 8795),
* Wulf Wülfing: ''Junges Deutschland. Texte - Kontexte, Abbildungen, Kommentar''. Munich: Carl Hanser 1978 (Reihe Hanser 244),
* Manfred Schneider: ''Die kranke schöne Seele der Revolution. Heine, Börne, das Junge Deutschland, Marx und Engels''. Bodenheim: Athenaeum 1980.
*
Hartmut Steinecke: ''Literaturkritik des Jungen Deutschland. Entwicklungen – Tendenzen – Texte''. Berlin: Erich Schmidt 1982,
* Wulf Wülfing: ''Schlagworte des Jungen Deutschland. Mit einer Einführung in die Schlagwortforschung''. Berlin: Erich Schmidt 1982 (Philologische Studien und Quellen 106),
* Helmut Koopmann: ''Das Junge Deutschland. Eine Einführung''. Darmstadt: Wiss. Buchgesellschaft 1993,
* Lothar Ehrlich, Hartmut Steinecke, Michael Vogt (eds.): ''Vormärz und Klassik''. Bielefeld: Aisthesis 1999 (Vormärz-Studien I),
* Wolfgang Bunzel, Peter Stein, Florian Vaßen (eds.): ''Romantik und Vormärz. Zur Archäologie literarischer Kommunikation in der ersten Hälfte des 19. Jahrhunderts''. Bielefeld: Aisthesis 2003 (Vormärz-Studien X),
* ''Georg Büchner: Werke und Briefe – Nach der historisch-kritischen Ausgabe von Werner R. Lehmann'', Hanser Verlag, Munich 1980. , p279
History of liberalism
19th-century German literature
Secret societies in Germany
German literary movements
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