Effects of the Thirty Years’ War
The splitting of the Catholic Church caused the Thirty Years’ War, which ruined the German economy for generations (age relationships between people, like grandparents, parents, and children). It wasn’t until the German Empire that Germany finally began to gain back power and wealth for the country.
International colonies
While England, France, Spain, and Portugal started to claim colonies earlier, the German Empire did not start to claim overseas colonies until 1884. A colony is a territory that is ruled by a country or state that is different from the country that the territory is in. Often, colonies are far away from their ruling countries. Germany did not have a navy until after the states were unified in 1871. After they put together a strong navy, they started to travel to other continents and claim land.
The German Empire and its colonies
In the 1800’s other countries had already colonized the Americas, so Germany focused on grabbing some of the last unclaimed colonies in Africa. Traders and merchants had started to build settlements (small communities) in Africa before 1884. After 1884, the German Empire settled many areas of east, west, and southwest Africa. The German Empire did not have a lot of success with building profitable (making a lot of money) colonies. Many native people grew angry and rebelled against their German rulers, starting violent battles. Togoland and German Samoa were the only profitable and self-sufficient (taking care of themselves) German colonies.
People in Europe thought of their colonies as wonderful places. But the people in the colonies had a very different experience. It wasn’t until the early 1900’s that newspapers started to report the horrible things that happened in the colonies. There was corruption, violence, and even genocide (purposefully destroying religious, racial, or ethnic groups). The German people stopped thinking of colonies as a good thing to have. They elected new people into government to fix these problems.
But the problems of slavery, unfairness, and bad feelings from the African people continued. Germany’s colonies were eventually taken away after World War I and given to the countries that won the war.
A welfare state
The German Empire created many programs to help their citizens. It was a welfare state. A welfare state is a country that is very involved in its citizens’ well-being.
Welfare states give their citizens equal opportunity to get jobs and make money for themselves. They try to spread out money more evenly between the social classes. They also take care of people who cannot get the things they need to have a good life. Welfare states tax the wealthy more, and the poor less in order to move the social classes closer together and make them more equal.
Social classes
After the Napoleonic Wars, the states and the people in the German Empire became more equal. At this time, the empire was also becoming much wealthier. When a country becomes wealthier, many people in the lowest social classes get more wealth and power. This makes the middle class of a country grow.
A pyramid of general social classes in societies
The middle class is a group of people who are in the middle of the order of social classes. People in the middle class are not considered very wealthy and powerful (like, for example, nobles or royal families), but they have much more power, wealth, and education than people in the lower classes.
There were still upper, middle, and lower social classes in the German Empire, but people were much more equal than before.
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