Napoleon's Russian Campaign of 1812 and the German States: Perception, Interpretation, Collective Memory

The article touches upon the problem of the unity of the German national history in the early 19th century which is analyzed in the context of Napoleon's Russian Campaign in 1812. All German states were obliged to participate in the Campaign, but in the Northern Germany, specifically in Prussia, the War of 1812 was interpreted by the contemporaries as preparatory phase to the Liberation War of 1813. In Southern Germany (Bavaria, Baden, Wurttemberg) however the Russian Campaign was viewed as a military catastrophe, its impact on the mentality of Southern Germans turned out to be much more dramatic than that of the Liberation Wars against Napoleon. Only in 1840s the defeat in Russia was re-interpreted as victory. It is quite clear that regional differences conduce to reconsideration of conventional conceptions of German history in the 19th century.