This article aims to give a historical outline of liberalism in Germany ( German : Liberalismus ). The liberal parties dealt with in the timeline below are, largely, those which received sufficient support at one time or another to have been represented in parliament. Not all parties so included, however, necessarily labeled themselves "liberal". The sign ⇒ denotes another party in that scheme.
5-502: The term Dreissiger (German Dreißiger ) (Thirtiers) refers to liberal intellectuals who left Germany and came to the United States in the 1830s to escape political repression . In a broader sense, it refers to immigrants from across Germany , and including members of every social and economic class, who immigrated to the US during this period. The French July Revolution of 1830,
10-719: The Hambacher Fest of 1832 and the failure of the Frankfurter Wachensturm of 1833 were followed by restrictions on press freedom and academic freedom . At the instigation of the chancellor of the Austrian Empire , Prince Metternich , the Central Federal Bureau of Investigations ( German : Bundeszentralbehörde für Untersuchungen ) was set up after the revolt against the reign in the Free City of Frankfurt by
15-673: The States of the German Confederation dominated through the Austrian monarchy . Leaders including Paul Follenius and Friedrich Münch organized the Giessen Emigration Society to help Germans move to a "new and free Germany in the great North American Republic." The Dreissiger were generally more cautious than the later forty-eighters , who immigrated to the US after the failed European revolutions of 1848 . The more liberal of
20-951: The Dreissiger formed societies dedicated to supporting equality and justice, but the more conservative Catholic Germans were uncomfortable with this activism. Liberalism in Germany The early high points of liberalism in Germany were the Hambach Festival (1832) and the Revolutions of 1848 in the German states. In the Frankfurt Parliament National Assembly in the Frankfurt am Main Frankfurt Paulskirche (1848/1849),
25-485: The bourgeois liberal factions Casino and Württemberger Hof (the latter led by Heinrich von Gagern ) were the majority. They favored a constitutional monarchy, popular sovereignty , and parliamentary rule. Organized liberalism developed in the 1860s, combining the previous liberal and democratic currents. Between 1867 and 1933 liberalism was divided into progressive liberal and national liberal factions. Since 1945 only one liberal party has been significant in politics at
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