Johann Carl Bertram Stüve and the Problem of German Unification in 1848–1849

This article examines the views and policies of the Hanoverian minister Johann Carl Berthram Stüve during the 1848 revolution in Germany. Although Stüve was one of the most prominent representatives of German liberalism in 1848, unlike many liberals who supported and even led the revolutionary processes, he was sceptical of the activities of the Frankfurt National Assembly almost from the start. Stüve was committed to the principles of legality and the inviolability of the rights of the individual German states, and he saw in the policy of the revolutionary parliament a danger of interference in the internal relations of the German monarchies without taking account of their specific features, and in the creation of the provisional imperial government of Archduke Johann – the exclusion of the monarchs and their governments from the discussion of the future German constitution. Paradoxically, Stüve, who carried out liberal modernisation in Hanover, showed almost conservative opposition to the revolutionary forces in the German question and sought to limit the implementation of their decisions in Hanover, counting on the support of other governments, especially Prussia. This course did not characterise Stüve as a conservative opponent of the revolution, but it did set him increasingly at odds with other German liberals. As a result, Hanover, unlike the southern German states, adopted a policy of passive resistance to the revolutionary bodies and their work on the German constitution as early as 1848.