German revolutions of 1848–1849 in the context of "Kingdom of Prussia"

The concept of Germany as a distinct region in Central Europe can be traced to Julius Caesar, who referred to the unconquered area east of the Rhine as Germania, thus distinguishing it from Gaul. The victory of the Germanic tribes in the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest (AD 9) prevented annexation by the Roman Empire, although the Roman provinces of Germania Superior and Germania Inferior were established along the Rhine. Following the Fall of the Western Roman Empire, the Franks conquered the other West Germanic tribes. When the Frankish Empire was divided among Charles the Great's heirs in 843, the eastern part became East Francia, and later Kingdom of Germany. In 962, Otto I became the first Holy Roman Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, the medieval German state.

During the High Middle Ages, the Hanseatic League, dominated by German port cities, established itself along the Baltic and North Seas. The development of a crusading element within German Christendom led to the Northern Crusades and the establishment of the State of the Teutonic Order along the Southern Baltic coast in what would later become Prussia. In the Investiture Controversy, the German Emperors resisted Catholic Church authority. In the Late Middle Ages, the regional dukes, princes, and bishops gained power at the expense of the emperors. Martin Luther led the Protestant Reformation within the Catholic Church after 1517, as the northern and eastern states became Protestant, while most of the southern and western states remained Catholic. The Thirty Years' War, a civil war from 1618 to 1648 brought tremendous destruction to the Holy Roman Empire. The estates of the empire attained great autonomy in the Peace of Westphalia, the most important being Austria, Prussia, Bavaria and Saxony. With the Napoleonic Wars, feudalism fell away and the Holy Roman Empire was dissolved in 1806. Napoleon established the Confederation of the Rhine as a German puppet state, but after the French defeat, the German Confederation was established under Austrian presidency. The German revolutions of 1848–1849 failed but the Industrial Revolution modernized the German economy, leading to rapid urban growth and the emergence of the socialist movement. Prussia, with its capital Berlin, grew in power. German universities became world-class centers for science and humanities, while music and art flourished. The unification of Germany was achieved under the leadership of the Chancellor Otto von Bismarck with the formation of the German Empire in 1871. The new Reichstag, an elected parliament, had only a limited role in the imperial government. Germany joined the other powers in colonial expansion in Africa and the Pacific.

The minister-president (German: Ministerpräsident), or prime minister, of Prussia was the head of government of the Prussian state. The office existed from 1848, when it was formed by King Frederick William IV during the 1848–49 Revolution, until the abolition of Prussia in 1947 by the Allied Control Council.

Bruno Bauer (/ˈbaʊər/; German: [baʊɐ]; 6 September 1809 – 13 April 1882) was a German philosopher, theologian, historian, and biblical critic. A prominent member of the Young Hegelians, he was a radical rationalist critic of the Bible and Christianity. Initially a student of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Bauer became a central figure in the intellectual circles of the Vormärz, the period preceding the Revolutions of 1848. His philosophical work was a major influence on, and target of critique for, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, with whom he had a close but tumultuous relationship.

Starting as a right-wing Hegelian, Bauer shifted to the left in 1839, developing a radical critique of religion and the state. He argued that the Christian gospels were not historical records but literary works of the human self-consciousness. His most significant work of this period, The Trumpet of the Last Judgement over Hegel the Atheist and Antichrist (1841), presented Hegel's philosophy as a revolutionary atheism that called for the overthrow of all existing religious and political institutions. Bauer's political thought was a form of republicanism based on the concept of "infinite self-consciousness," an ethical idealism that advocated for the constant transformation of society in pursuit of rational freedom.

Ferdinand Johann Gottlieb Lassalle (born Lassal; 11 April 1825 – 31 August 1864) was a German jurist, philosopher, and socialist activist. Best remembered as an initiator of the social democratic movement in Germany, in 1863 he founded the General German Workers' Association (ADAV), the first independent German workers' party. His political theories included state socialism and the popularisation of the iron law of wages.

Born in Breslau to a prosperous Jewish family, Lassalle became a follower of Hegelian philosophy in his youth. During the 1840s and 1850s, he gained public renown for his involvement in a long and sensational legal case to vindicate the rights of Countess Sophie von Hatzfeldt. Active in the revolutions of 1848, he formed a complex and often antagonistic relationship with Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. Lassalle also authored several major intellectual works, including the philosophical treatise Heraclitus the Obscure (1857) and the legal study The System of Acquired Rights (1861).

The Age of Revolution is a period from the late-18th to the mid-19th centuries during which a number of significant revolutionary movements occurred in most of Europe and the Americas. The period is noted for the change from absolutist monarchies to representative governments with a written constitution, and the creation of nation states.

Influenced by the new ideas of the Enlightenment, the American Revolution (1765–1783) is usually considered the starting point of the Age of Revolution. Later revolution would be the French Revolution of 1789, the revolution that rapidly spread to the rest of Europe through its wars. In 1799, Napoleon took power in France and continued the French Revolutionary Wars by conquering most of continental Europe. Although Napoleon imposed on his conquests several modern concepts such as equality before the law, or a civil code, his rigorous military occupation triggered national rebellions, notably in Spain and Germany. After Napoleon's defeat, European great powers forged the Holy Alliance at the Congress of Vienna in 1814–15, in an attempt to prevent future revolutions, and also restored the previous monarchies. Nevertheless, Spain was considerably weakened by the Napoleonic Wars and could not control its American colonies, almost all of which proclaimed their independence between 1810 and 1820. Revolution then spread back to southern Europe in 1820, with uprisings in Portugal, Spain, Italy, and Greece. Continental Europe was shaken by two similar revolutionary waves in 1830 and 1848, also called the Spring of Nations. The democratic demands of the revolutionaries often merged with independence or national unification movements, such as in Italy, Germany, Poland, Hungary, etc. The violent repression of the Spring of Nations marked the end of the era.

The revolutions of 1848 in the Austrian Empire took place from March 1848 to November 1849. Much of the revolutionary activity had a nationalist character: the Austrian Empire, ruled from Vienna, included ethnic Germans, Hungarians, Poles, Bohemians (Czechs), Ruthenians (Ukrainians), Slovenes, Slovaks, Romanians, Croats, Italians, and Serbs; all of whom attempted in the course of the revolution to either achieve autonomy, independence, or even hegemony over other nationalities. The nationalist picture was further complicated by the simultaneous events in the German states, which moved toward greater German national unity.

Besides these nationalists, liberal and socialist currents resisted the Empire's longstanding conservatism.

Frederick William IV (German: Friedrich Wilhelm IV.; 15 October 1795 – 2 January 1861) was King of Prussia from 7 June 1840 until his death in 1861. Also referred to as the "romanticist on the throne", he was deeply religious and believed that he ruled by divine right. He feared revolutions, and his ideal state was one governed by the Christian estates of the realm rather than a constitutional monarchy.

In spite of his conservative political philosophy, he initially pursued a moderate policy of easing press censorship, releasing political prisoners and reconciling with the Catholic population of the kingdom. During the German revolutions of 1848–1849, he was initially forced to accommodate the people's revolutionary sentiments, although he rejected the title of Emperor of the Germans offered by the Frankfurt Parliament in 1849, believing that it did not have the right to make such an offer. In December 1848, he dissolved the Prussian National Assembly when he found its constitutional proposals too radical. At the urging of his ministry, which wanted to prevent a renewal of unrest, he imposed a constitution with a parliament and a strong monarch. He then used the Prussian military to help put down revolutionary forces throughout the German Confederation.