Forster, Marc R

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Connecticut CollegeDigital Commons @ Connecticut CollegeHistory Faculty Publications History Department6-1-2000(Review) Wolfgang Burgdorf, Reichskonstitutionund NationMarc R. ForsterConnecticut College, mrfor@conncoll.eduFollow this and additional works at: http://digitalcommons.conncoll.edu/histfacpubPart of the European History Commons, History of Religion Commons, and the PoliticalHistory CommonsThis Book Review is brought to you for free and open access by the History Department at Digital Commons @ Connecticut College. It has beenaccepted for inclusion in History Faculty Publications by an authorized administrator of Digital Commons @ Connecticut College. For moreinformation, please contact bpancier@conncoll.edu.The views expressed in this paper are solely those of the author.Recommended CitationForster, Marc R. "Wolfgang Burgdorf, Reichskonstitution Und Nation: Verfassungsreformprojekte Für Das Heilige Römische ReichDeutscher Nation Im Politischen Schrifttum Von 1648 Bis 1806Reichskonstitution Und Nation: Verfassungsreformprojekte Für DasHeilige Römische Reich Deutscher Nation Im Politischen Schrifttum Von 1648 Bis 1806. By Wolfgang Burgdorf. VeröffentlichungenDes Instituts Für Europäische Geschichte Mainz, Abteilung Universalgeschichte, Volume 173. Edited By Karl Otmar Freiherr VonAretin Et Al. Mainz: Verlag Philipp Von Zabern, 1998. Pp. X+578. DM 98." The Journal Of Modern History 2 (2000): 551. Web.(Review) Wolfgang Burgdorf, Reichskonstitution und NationKeywordsconstitutional reform, Germany, politicsCommentsInitially published in Journal of Modern History, June 2000, Vol. 72, Issue 2, p551-552© 2000 by University of Chicago PressDOI:10.1086/316024http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/316024This book review is available at Digital Commons @ Connecticut College: http://digitalcommons.conncoll.edu/histfacpub/20Book Reviews 551Reichskonstitution und Nation: Verfassungsreformprojekte fu¨r das HeiligeRo¨mische Reich Deutscher Nation im politischen Schrifttum von 1648 bis1806. By Wolfgang Burgdorf. Vero¨ffentlichungen des Instituts fu¨r Europa¨ischeGeschichte Mainz, Abteilung Universalgeschichte, volume 173. Edited by KarlOtmar Freiherr von Aretin et al.Mainz: Verlag Philipp von Zabern, 1998. Pp. x578. DM 98.Wolfgang Burgdorf’s study of the myriad constitutional reform projects written andpublished in the Holy Roman Empire between the Thirty Years’ War and the disso-lution of the Empire in 1806 is an important contribution to the ongoing rehabilitationof the Old Reich. The Empire was once disparaged by historians, especially Prussian/German scholars of the “Borussian school,” as archaic and antimodern, weak and in-efficient, and especially as a hindrance to the development of the modern nation-state.Since the Second World War, historians in Germany and in the English-speaking worldhave increasingly presented a more positive image of the Old Reich. In this view, theEmpire’s carefully balanced constitutional system helped contain social and religiousconflict after 1648 and allowed a diversity of political entities to survive in Germany,many of which were more congenial for their inhabitants than the “modern” absolutistmonarchies elsewhere in Europe.Burgdorf analyzes over five hundred constitutional reform projects. The steady pro-duction of such writings demonstrates that German intellectuals were engaged in alively political and constitutional debate long before the French Revolution. Burgdorffurther argues that the constitutional ideas developed and debated in the eighteenthcentury informed a wide range of nineteenth-century political debates. Indeed, Burgdorfidentifies an “Imperial constitutional patriotism” (Reichverfassungspatriotismus) thatprefigures the widely discussed “constitutional patriotism” of the postwar Federal Re-public.These reform proposals were written by professors and administrators, many of themjurists, and the majority of them Protestants. The authors were frequently employed inimperial service, often in the Imperial Chamber Court in Wetzlar or in the ImperialAulic Court in Vienna. Burgdorf emphasizes that their writings rarely promoted thedestruction of the Empire. Indeed, by advocating constitutional reform these writerscontributed to the stability of the Empire and demonstrated their basic support for theexisting political system.None of the reform proposals were ever implemented, and many of them were pri-marily polemical. Burgdorf links the plans—which ranged from proposals to enhancethe power of the Habsburg Emperors, to plans to turn the Reich into a federation ofindependent states, to discussions of the dissolution of the Empire entirely—with po-litical and military conflicts. The imperial election of 1740, which led to the onlyelection of a non-Habsburg Emperor in this period, led to a political crisis in Germanyand caused a flood of reform proposals. In the mid-eighteenth century, conflicts betweenAustria and Prussia led to clashing reform proposals, with Austrian supporters advo-cating a stronger Reich and Prussians proposing its dissolution. In the later eighteenthcentury, several elections caused reformers to propose converting the traditional Elec-toral Capitulations (Wahlkapitulationen) signed by emperors into a written constitution.Burgdorf consistently examines constitutional reform in the context of political devel-opments within Germany, yet he somewhat paradoxically also argues that the greatestpolitical event of the eighteenth century, the French Revolution, was relatively unim-portant to constitutional reformers.Burgdorf also downplays the influence of constitutional reform on the development552 Book Reviewsof the Enlightenment in Germany. Reformers were certainly immersed in the writingsof the philosophes, particularly Montesquieu, and cited them regularly. In this tradition,some proposals even envisaged the Empire as a legitimate context for the liberation ofthe middle class and creation of a nation-state. Burgdorf argues, however, such pro-posals did not have broad influence. Debates over constitutional reform did not lead inGermany, as they did in France and England, to the formation of public opinion, in thesense of a political culture oriented toward a broad-based debate and discussion ofpolitical affairs. Instead, the debates took place among a fairly small group of writersin what Burgdorf calls an “intergovernmental discourse.” Thus discussions of theseprojects, no matter how lively, did not contribute to the formation of Ju¨rgen Habermas’sbourgeois public sphere, nor did they contribute to the creation of opposition to theexisting political system.Burgdorf’s study focuses on the later eighteenth century, a time when events seemedto be passing the Old Reich by and the chances of revolution were greater than thepossibility of substantial constitutional reform. At one level it is stunning to read Burg-dorf’s presentation of the huge number of reform proposals produced in the 1780s and1790s. At the same time, one gets an increasing sense of the unrealistic and theoreticalnature of much of this discourse. Perhaps Burgdorf overstates what we can learn fromthese works, and imperial reform projects may not be the place to find important andinfluential discussions in the later eighteenth century. The relative unimportance of theEnlightenment and the French Revolution might be explained by the fact that Germanintellectuals were discussing them in other places and contexts. Ultimately, this studyilluminates one aspect of political culture in the Old Reich, an aspect that was dimin-ishing in importance as the eighteenth century progressed.Reichskonstitution und Nation does an important service in demonstrating that mod-ern German constitutional history did not begin with the French Revolution and Na-poleon. German intellectuals were engaged with constitutional issues and political re-form throughout the early modern period. The ideas they developed and some of theirproposals influenced later constitutional debates. Burgdorf reminds us again that duringthe century and a half after the Peace of Westfalia, many Germans, in the middle classas well as in the aristocracy, considered the Holy Roman Empire a political systemthat was worth saving.MARC R. FORSTERConnecticut CollegeLebensla¨ufe, Familien, Ho¨fe: Die Bauern und Heuerleute des Osnabru¨ckischenKirchspiels Belm in protoindustrieller Zeit, 1650–1860. By Ju¨rgenSchlumbohm. Vero¨ffentlichungen des Max-Planck-Instituts fu¨r Geschichte, volume110.Go¨ttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1994. Pp. 690. DM 142.This is a major work of scholarship that reflects many years of extensive archivalresearch. Although its origins are to be found within the framework of the originaldebate on the nature and significance of protoindustrialization, the scope of Ju¨rgenSchlumbohm’s study is ultimately more wide-ranging. Indeed, by emphasizing theimportance of microhistories and historical anthropology its primary emphasis is onthe “social practice” of individuals: family structure was essentially flexible, and in-dividual strategies, whether in relation to marriage, inheritance, or employment, can

(Review) Wolfgang Burgdorf, Reichskonstitution und Nation

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