Editing Conservatism (section)

==== Germany ====
{{main|Conservatism in Germany}}
{{Conservatism in Germany}}
Germany was the heart of the reactionary [[Romanticism|Romantic]] movement that swept Europe in the aftermath of the progressive [[Age of Enlightenment]] and its culmination in the anti-conservative French Revolution.<ref name=":3" /> [[German Romanticism]] was deeply [[Organicism#In politics and sociology|organicist]] and [[Medievalism|medievalist]], finding expression philosophically among the [[Right Hegelians|Old Hegelians]] and judicially in the [[German historical school]].<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Liedke |first=Herbert R. |date=1958 |title=The German Romanticists and Karl Ludwig von Haller's Doctrines of European Restoration |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/27707117 |journal=The Journal of English and Germanic Philology |volume=57 |issue=3 |pages=371–393 |jstor=27707117 |issn=0363-6941}}</ref> Prominent conservative exponents were [[Friedrich Schlegel]], [[Novalis]], [[Wilhelm Heinrich Wackenroder]], [[Friedrich Carl von Savigny]], and [[Adam Müller]].<ref>{{cite book |title=De konservativa idéerna |chapter=De kontrarevolutionära idéerna i Tyskland |url=http://worldcat.org/oclc/1166587654 |publisher=Aldus/Bonniers |year=1966 |access-date=August 29, 2023 |oclc=1166587654 |first=Herbert |last=Tingsten |pages=42–73}}</ref>

During the second half of the 19th century, German conservatism developed alongside [[German nationalism|nationalism]], culminating in Germany's victory over France in the [[Franco-Prussian War]], the creation of the unified [[German Empire]] in 1871, and the simultaneous rise of ”Iron Chancellor” [[Otto von Bismarck]] on the European political stage. Bismarck's [[Balance of power (international relations)|balance of power]] model maintained peace in Europe for decades at the end of the 19th century.<ref>{{cite book |author-last=Eyck |author-first=Erich |title=Bismarck and the German Empire |year=1964 |pages=58–68}}</ref> His "revolutionary conservatism" was a conservative state-building strategy, based on [[class collaboration]] and designed to make ordinary Germans—not just the [[Junker (Prussia)|Junker]] aristocracy—more loyal to state and [[German Emperor|Emperor]].{{sfn|Encyclopædia Britannica}} He created the modern [[welfare state]] in Germany in the 1880s.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Steinberg |first=Jonathan |title=Bismarck: A Life |date=2011 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-19-978252-9 |pages=416–417}}</ref> According to scholars, his strategy was: {{Blockquote|granting social rights to enhance the integration of a hierarchical society, to forge a bond between workers and the state so as to strengthen the latter, to maintain traditional relations of authority between social and status groups, and to provide a countervailing power against the modernist forces of liberalism and socialism.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Kersbergen |first1=Kees van |last2=Vis |first2=Barbara |title=Comparative Welfare State Politics: Development, Opportunities, and Reform |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=UQL3AQAAQBAJ&pg=PA38 |year=2013 |publisher=Cambridge UP |page=38 |isbn=978-1-107-65247-7}}</ref>|sign=|source=}}

Bismarck also enacted [[universal manhood suffrage]] in the new German Empire in 1871.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Moore |first1=Robert Laurence |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=PeoqKSxiOu4C&pg=PA226 |title=The American Century in Europe |last2=Vaudagna |first2=Maurizio |publisher=Cornell University Press |year=2003 |isbn=978-0-8014-4075-5 |page=226}}</ref> He became a great hero to German conservatives, who erected many monuments to his memory after he left office in 1890.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Frankel |first=Richard |year=2003 |title=From the Beer Halls to the Halls of Power: The Cult of Bismarck and the Legitimization of a New German Right, 1898–1945 |journal=German Studies Review |volume=26 |issue=3 |pages=543–560 |doi=10.2307/1432746 |jstor=1432746}}</ref>

During the [[interwar period]]—after Germany's defeat in World War I, the abdication of Emperor [[Wilhelm II]], and the introduction of parliamentary democracy—German conservatives experienced a cultural crisis and felt uprooted by a progressively modernist world.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Stern |first=Fritz |url=https://archive.org/details/politicsofcultur00ster |title=The Politics of Cultural Despair: A Study in the Rise of the Germanic Ideology |publisher=University of California Press |year=1961 |isbn=978-0520026261}}</ref> This angst was expressed philosophically in the [[Conservative Revolution]] movement with prominent exponents such as historian [[Oswald Spengler]], jurist [[Carl Schmitt]], and author [[Ernst Jünger]].<ref>{{cite book |last=Woods |first=Roger |title=The Conservative Revolution in the Weimar Republic |year=1996 |publisher=St. Martin's Press |isbn=0-333-65014-X |page=29}}</ref> The major conservative party of this era was the reactionary [[German National People's Party]], who advocated a restored monarchy.<ref>{{cite book |first=Fritz K. |last=Ringer |title=The Decline of the German Mandarins: The German Academic Community, 1890–1933 |publisher=University Press of New England |year=1990 |page=201}}</ref>

With the rise of [[Nazism]] in 1933, [[Agrarian conservatism in Germany|traditional agrarian movements]] faded and were supplanted by a more command-based economy and forced social integration. [[Adolf Hitler]] succeeded in garnering the support of many German industrialists; but prominent traditionalists, including military officers [[Claus von Stauffenberg]] and [[Henning von Tresckow]], pastor [[Dietrich Bonhoeffer]], Bishop [[Clemens August Graf von Galen]], and monarchist [[Carl Friedrich Goerdeler]], openly and secretly opposed his policies of euthanasia, genocide, and attacks on organized religion.<ref>{{cite book |last=Shirer |first=William L. |date=1960 |title=[[The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich]] |location=New York City |publisher=Simon and Schuster |isbn=0671624202 |page=372}}</ref> The former German Emperor [[Wilhelm II]] was highly critical of Hitler, writing in 1938:

{{blockquote|There's a man alone, without family, without children, without God&nbsp;... He builds legions, but he doesn't build a nation. A nation is created by families, a religion, traditions: it is made up out of the hearts of mothers, the wisdom of fathers, the joy and the exuberance of children&nbsp;... This man could bring home victories to our people each year, without bringing them either glory or danger. But of our Germany, which was a nation of poets and musicians, of artists and soldiers, he has made a nation of hysterics and hermits, engulfed in a mob and led by a thousand liars or fanatics.<ref name=":7" />}}

Post-[[World War II]] Germany developed a special form of conservatism called [[ordoliberalism]], which is centred around the concept of [[ordered liberty]].<ref>{{cite book |author-last=Sally |author-first=Razeen |year=2002 |title=Classical Liberalism and International Economic Order |publisher=Routledge |isbn=0-415-16493-1 |page=106}}</ref> Neither socialist nor capitalist, it promotes a compromise between state and market, and argues that the national culture of a country must be taken into account when implementing economic policies.<ref>{{cite book |author-last=Gregg |author-first=Samuel |title=Wilhelm Röpke's Political Economy |publisher=Edward Elgar Publishing Limited |year=2010 |isbn=978-1-84844-222-1 |page=29}}</ref> [[Alexander Rüstow]] and [[Wilhelm Röpke]] were two prominent exponents of this economic theory, and its implementation is largely credited as a reason behind the [[Wirtschaftswunder|German miracle]]—the rapid reconstruction and development of the war-wrecked economies of [[West Germany]] and [[Austria]] after World War II.<ref>{{Cite web |date=March 23, 2007 |title=The Maturing of a Humane Economist Modern Age |url=http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0354/is_3_45/ai_n6140123 |access-date=July 11, 2021 |archive-date=March 23, 2007 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070323094516/http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0354/is_3_45/ai_n6140123 |url-status=dead}}</ref>

More recently, the work of conservative [[Christian Democratic Union of Germany|Christian Democratic Union]] leader and Chancellor [[Helmut Kohl]] helped bring about [[German reunification]], along with the closer [[European integration]] in the form of the [[Maastricht Treaty]]. Today, German conservatism is often associated with politicians such as Chancellor [[Angela Merkel]], whose tenure was marked by attempts to save the common European currency ([[Euro]]) from demise. The German conservatives were divided under Merkel due to the refugee crisis in Germany, and many conservatives in the [[CDU/CSU]] opposed the immigration policies developed under Merkel.<ref>{{cite web |author=Michael John Williams |date=February 12, 2020 |title=The German Center Does Not Hold |url=https://atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/new-atlanticist/the-german-center-does-not-hold/ |work=New Atlanticist |access-date=March 7, 2020 |archive-date=June 20, 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200620010611/https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/new-atlanticist/the-german-center-does-not-hold/ |url-status=dead}}</ref> The 2020s also saw the rise of the right-wing populist [[Alternative for Germany]].<ref>{{Cite web |date=October 3, 2023 |title=Germany bewildered about how to halt the rise of the AfD |url=https://www.politico.eu/article/germany-bewildered-about-how-to-halt-the-rise-of-the-afd/ |access-date=March 14, 2024 |website=POLITICO}}</ref>