The two are not mutually exclusive; in many ways it can be compared to how an Englishman today identifies himself as, simultaneously, "English" while a Scot identifies as "Scottish" but they can all come together and, without conflict, call themselves both "British". Even to this day centuries old identities exist and thrive, Bavaria is a prime example of such.

So the issue comes with, then, when did the concept of a unified German people come about; perhaps a bit more useful for discussion we could rephrase to that to when did that "second strata" that exists for Englishmen and Scots and Welshmen that united them as "Brits" form between Bavarians, Saxons, Prussians, and so on that made them "German"? Well the first reference we have (or rather, that I know of but I'm confident it's the earliest in general) to something being "German" or referencing "German characteristics" was in 1323; a Brunswick tailors guild required proof of German descent.

I'm going to try and keep this brief but I'll try to hit everything at once. German identity existed for centuries in intellectual circles but it remained there; when we speak of "German identity" we mean the middle and especially the lower classes feeling this. We can talk about the Immanuel Kants all we want but until the regular joe feels that same compulsion it's just an abstract notion of unity but not something with popular support which is what truly mobilizes change. So what happened?

1. Literacy: Estimates put that 15% of adults in all future German territories were literate in 1770; in 1830 that number had risen to 40%. In Prussia alone the amount/attendance at elementary and middle schools increased by 50% between 1830 and 1850. Reading societies would explode in Germany in the early 19th century and through this came a veritable revolution in publication. Throughout the early 19th century (especially the 10's, 20's, and 30's) pamphlets and opinion articles would be flying around Germany and bringing Middle and Lower class people into the fold for the first time.

2. Communications would also be necessary for the literacy to matter at all. Whereas for centuries (well over a thousand years for that matter) most people were restricted to their little isolated region for life improvements in road building, steamships, and railways connected the German people like never before. A market economy emerged and the livelihoods and connections of Germans would forever be solidified. For the first time events in Berlin could be transmitted to all corners of Germany within hours. Jakob Venedy in 1835 remarked *"In ten years when all great towns and capital cities are connected by rail, Germany will be another country and the prejudices which have divided the German people so much up to now and which have given our oppressors such easy mastery will cease to exist."*^1

3. Nationalism, in a world where dynastic loyalties crumbled and religious beliefs were fading rapidly nationalism supplied a brand new "social cement" to hold society together. Where the local loyalties became irrelevant the lives of everyone were now dependent on the activities of thousands of strangers and through this the community of 'Germany' would be created in a matter of decades. The lower-middle class, artisans in particular, would early on begin to look to a national Reich to address the grievances which for hundreds of years singular princes were unable to do.

4. Napoleon mediatized (ie: smaller territories merged into greater neighbors) hundreds of Germanic states. On the bank of the Rhine only 3 out of 81 ecclesiastical principalities would survive secularization. Only 6 out of 51 imperial cities would survive this rationalization exercise. Hundreds of imperial knights with territories no more than a few square miles would be placed under the jurisdiction of larger neighbors; principally these would be Baden, Bavaria, Wurttemberg, and Hesse-Darmstadt. Overnight 112 independent states would disappear in 1803. Three years later, after beating Austria again, Napoleon would keep it going. The remaining imperial cities and smaller territories would be mediatized and the Confederation of the Rhine was created unifying these principalities.^†

5. The Holy Roman Empire would, in the same year of 1806, also be abolished. With over a thousand years of ruling the German kingdoms it would overnight be disbanded. This former glue which held the German people together under the (at this point more or less ceremoniously alone) Emperor was now gone and a power void was created. This can not be overstated enough: Napoleon, by destroying the fabric of Medieval Germany, would in the greatest irony in history lay the foundations of Modern Germany's rise. As the 19th century progressed, notably with French incursions against Austria in the middle of the century following almost immediately after the 1848 revolutions, the want for a strong, centralized state to protect all Germans became a reality among regular German people.

6. Secularization only occurred rapidly in the 19th century under Napoleon. To quote Carr: "Bridges, roads, and canals became the first call on the exchequer. The special privileges and immunities of the aristocracy and the corporations were abolished. Uniform taxation systems were introduced. Serfdom ended in the countryside. Trial by jury and a uniform legal system divorced from the administration assured justice for all. The power of the Church was drastically curtailed; church lands were secularized; monasteries were dissolved; and religious toleration, civil marriage, and secular education became the norm. Princely armies were remodeled on French lines with conscription and long periods of service with the colours as the distinctive features. The net result of these reforms was that several states, especially in South Germany, attained in the short space of a few years a degree of order and stability which it had taken generations to achieve in Prussia." In the Rhineland peasants were completely released from feudal bondage even! What this also allowed though, for the aristocracy, was allow them to rule their newly acquired territory with a centralized, controlled fist.

7. In a combination of Secularization came popular participation, and thus modern nationalism. When the State guaranteed the 'the people' certain rights those people were simultaneously placed under obligations to serve the community and the state, even if that means giving up ones life in defense of it. Out of this came the power of the modern state and in its extremes came the totalitarian states that defined the first half of the 20th century.

However we must not pretend that Germany did not have any act in its thought of a unified state; despite my remark earlier they ultimately owe more to Immanuel Kant than to Napoleon because it is the former which created the framework of thought for the latters actions to set into motion. In other words what Napoleon did was set alight the powder keg that had, since the 1740's/50's, been continuously filled that allowed the ideas formulated in the Enlightenment of human rights, a king serving the state rather than himself, etc. etc. to explode.

German nationalism, especially before Napoleon and in the immediate aftermath of Napoleon was more focused on this Kulternation rather than the literal Reich of 1871. German nationalism was not based in abstract rights like the French but more as a realization of their shared history and culture; thinkers who spread their works to the common man like Arndt, Fichte, and Schleiermacher, would be the ones who spread this idea like wildfire and it was only getting started. By 1811 the first nationalist body, the gymnastic society (Turngesellschaft) would be formed in Berlin and by 1818 had 150 branches throughout Germany. German nationalism would be formed, again, not through abstract ideals of human rights and that hoo-ha but through shared cultural education, awareness of their past, and would be exponentiated through physical education and shared activity in the 1810's - 1850's; gymnastic clubs and sharpshooting clubs being the most popular.