Junges Deutschland

Junges Deutschland, term first used in print by L. Wienbarg in Ästhetische Feldzüge (1834). It denotes a trend towards liberal ideas in politics, religion, and morality at a time of repression caused primarily by the policy of Metternich. The impulse for Junges Deutschland (Young Germany) derived from the July Revolution in France in 1830. The name Junges Deutschland became known, and was wrongly thought to indicate a compact group in consequence of allegations such as the savage attack in 1835 by W. Menzel on Gutzkow's novel Wally, die Zweiflerin. The attention of the political authorities having been aroused by this denunciation, the Federal Diet (Bundestag) issued on 10 December 1835 the warning: ‘Sämtliche deutsche Regierungen übernehmen die Verpflichtung, gegen die Verfasser, Verleger, Drucker und Verbreiter der Schriften aus der unter der Bezeichnung “das junge Deutschland” oder “die junge Literatur” bekannten literarischen Schule, zu welcher namentlich Heinr. Heine, Karl Gutzkow, Heinr. Laube, Ludolf Wienbarg und Theodor Mundt gehören, die Straf- und Polizeigesetze ihres Landes, sowie die gegen den Mißbrauch der Presse bestehenden Vorschriften, nach ihrer vollen Strenge in Anwendung zu bringen …’

This document encouraged the belief in a ‘Young German School’, whereas it would be more proper to speak of a Young German trend. Heine was at this time a self-styled exile in Paris, and most of the Young Germans (among whom were also L. Börne, F. G. Kühne, and E. A. Willkomm), far from conspiring together, were mutually unsympathetic, and sometimes actually hostile to each other. Their works nevertheless followed a common line of thought, turning away from German Idealism (see Idealismus) and Romanticism (see Romantik), to political reform, religious toleration, and emancipation from accepted sexual morality. The bolder spirits emphasized that action, not theory, was required; but action, when it came in 1848 (see Revolutionen 1848-9), led to disillusionment and to the decline of Junges Deutschland.

Important works associated with Junges Deutschland are, apart from those mentioned, Gutzkow's Maha Guru (1833), Das Urbild des Tartuffe (1845), and Uriel Acosta (1846), the cycle of novels Das junge Europa (1833-7 by Laube, Französische Zustände (1833), Der Salon (1834-40), and Deutschland. Ein Wintermärchen (1844) by Heine, Madonna (1835) by Mundt, Briefe aus Paris (1832-4 by Börne, Kühne's Eine Quarantäne im Irrenhaus (1835), and Die Europamüden (1838) by Willkomm.

The quality of Young German writing is uneven; but it marks the beginning of a phase in which German literature seeks to come closer to the conditions of contemporary life. The most remarkable works connected with it appeared when it was virtually a spent force. They are Gutzkow's novels Die Ritter vom Geistev (1850-1 and Der Zauberer von Rom (1859-61).

In the European context Junges Deutschland was not an isolated trend, and owes some of its impetus to La jeune France, Giovina Italia, and the Swiss Das junge Europa.