In a unique blend of political, intellectual, and cultural history, Brian Vick explores the world of German nationalism during the first half of the nineteenth century. Vick first presents an original investigation of German conceptions of nationhood in these decades before moving on to analyze the efforts of deputies at the Frankfurt Constituent National Assembly to construct a German national state based on the ethnically diverse German Confederation. He examines debates over fundamental issues that included citizenship qualifications, minority linguistic rights, Jewish emancipation, and territorial disputes, and offers valuable insights into nineteenth-century liberal opinion on the Jewish Question, language policy, and ideas of race.

Contrary to the often invoked dichotomy between cultural and political types of nationalism, in which the German case is usually seen as prototypical of the xenophobic, exclusionary cultural form, this study reveals how German nationalists at Frankfurt interwove cultural and political strands of the national ideal so finely as to sanction equal citizenship status in the proposed state for both the German-Jewish minority and the non-German-speaking nationalities within its boundaries. Yet deputies also contentiously defined Germany's borders so as to incorporate the latter, often unwilling groups, thereby hoping to dominate them both culturally and politically. Conflict was thus as much a part of this "culture of nationhood" as inclusion.

   Introduction  1

 I The Vormdrz Culture of Nationhood 15
    1. Defining National Boundaries  19
    2. The Nation as Historical Actor  48

II Nationhood and Revolution in Germany, 1848-1849 79
    3. The German Nation and the German Jews  83
    4. Citizenship and Nationality Rights:
      The Paradox of the Non-German German  110
    5. Setting Boundaries for the New Germany  139
    6. National Honor, National Conflict:
      Germany's International and Historical Role  174
      Conclusion: The German Culture of Nationhood
      in Comparative Perspective 205