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Popular Gymnastics and the Military Spirit in Germany, 1848–1871

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 December 2008

Berit Elisabeth Dencker
Berit Elisabeth Dencker
Affiliation:
University of California, San Diego
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Extract

Over the course of the nineteenth century, a popular nationalist movement developed in the German states that had gained considerable strength by 1871, the year of unification. The German gymnastics association movement was one of the main forms in which popular nationalism was organized. It was started by Friedrich Ludwig Jahn early in the nineteenth century as a means to train young Germans to fight the French occupation. Gradually, it developed into a movement that sought to unify Germany, a project that was not, at first, supported by the German states. The movement was also guided by liberal and, especially before the revolution of 1848, democratic principles, and in this sense, too, was at odds with the reigning political system in Central Europe.

Type
Articles
Information
Central European History , Volume 34 , Issue 4 , December 2001 , pp. 503 - 530
Copyright
Copyright © Conference Group for Central European History of the American Historical Association 2001

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References

1. The Hamburger Turnerschaft von 1816, for example, was not banned.

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