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1 results

  • 2 - Benevolent Autocracy

  • from Part I - Learning to Know Germany: 1780–1840
  • Shulamit Volkov, Tel-Aviv University
  • Book:
    Germany through Jewish Eyes
    Published online:
    14 November 2024
    Print publication:
    21 November 2024, pp 28-43

  • Summary

    This chapter moves to the last phases of the French occupation in parts of Germany and to the improved position of the local Jews in these regions. It then concentrates on the efforts to legalize Jewish equality in the constitution of the new German Bund, discussed in a special committee at the Congress of Vienna, and within this context, it examines the position of a number of important German politicians towards Jewish emancipation. While Wilhelm von Humboldt’s liberal approach is relatively well known, but appears to be more complex on taking a closer look, it is interesting to observe the position of another Prussian politician, Karl August von Hardenberg, and especially that of the Austrian foreign minister chairing the entire congress, Metternich. Both were much more conservative, but still supported Jewish equality, insisting it must apply to Germany as a whole. In the end, this question remained undecided, like so many other issues relating to the planned constitution, mainly because of the pressure from the presumably much more liberal bourgeoisie in the various cities of the new Bund.