Niederlage und Verfassungswandel. Die Idee einer Nationalvertretung in Preußen 1807–15

SUMMARY

In 1806/07 Prussia suffered one of the most decisive defeats of her history. The Peace of Tilsit signed on 9 July 1807 and other subsequent treatises forced the Prussian state to a semi-sovereign status under de facto French supremacy. As a result, the leading political figures were looking for ways of re-stabilizing and re-legitimizing the shaken political system of the Hohenzollern monarchy. The ultimate goal of this deliberative process was the liberation of Prussia from French predominance. Right from the beginning, both ways for reaching this goal – either subordinating itself to the rule of vanquisher and pay potentially unbearable war contributions, or start a war of liberation – were connected to the idea of national representation (Nationalvertretung). This article describes in detail the interdependency between the different concepts for a broader political participation of the Prussian people and the specific challenges Prussia was facing in the aftermath of the Peace of Tilsit. Among other things it seeks to answer the question why Baron vom Stein (1757–31), the Prussian Chancellor and statesman, drastically accelerated the project of a national representation at the end of 1808, whereas his later successor Karl August Fürst von Hardenberg (1750–22), whose tenure as Prussian Chancellor included the years 1810–22, was more cautious in establishing such an institution. Finally it attempts to answer the question why the idea of national representation had never been fully realized between 1807 and the end of the Napoleonic Wars in 1815.