Germany Assignment 2

            In Germany a New History by Hagen Schulze, he mentions the Peace of Westphalia at Münster and Osnabrück in 1648 played an impacting role in the development of Germany as a country. The Peace of Westphalia was the resolution of the Thirty Years’ War that had encompassed most of Europe at one point or another. Although the nation called Germany was not formed out of this peace treaty, the boundaries of present day Germany was partly outlined in the treaty.

This is the map of how the land was divided by the Peace of Westphalia.

            I find this treaty interesting because it can be thought of as a starting point for various ideas that are formed later. One is the development of countries that are around today. They divided the land into eight different parts, six of which are nations today. One of the eight was what was left of the Holy Roman Empire. When looking at the country’s boarders it looks similar to the land that is taken up today by Germany.  This division of land cleared up the confusion of boundaries that went back to 870 when Lothar’s line died out leaving the middle section of Charlemagne’s kingdom unclaimed. Another way this peace idea is seen later in history is with the European Union that Europe has today. These facts are important to Germany because it establishes Germany as a central focus of Europe. It partly explains past and future war that involved that land. One example in particular is Hitler and how he was able to expand the territory in his control so fast.  This also meant that Germany could never have a long period of isolationism like the United States has had in it past.

This is a map of the boundaries in Europe today.

 The treaty also used constitutions that were already in place in Europe, Golden Bull and Peace of Augsburg, instead of starting from scratch. Both the documents were expanded to make them work in this new organization. American’s did something similarly when they were writing the Constitution. They looked at the ideas of famous philosophers of that day to come up with a form of government that met their needs.

            One way the Peace of Westphalia made Europe similar to the United States is that other nations now had to acknowledge other nation’s laws like in America each state has to recognize other state’s laws.  One way that Germany is different from the United States is that although Catholics and Protestants are now equally recognized, Germany does not have separation of church and state.  Each religion has their own governing body that meets, instead of in America where religion has no part in government and there are many different sects of Protestants, instead of one, and each has their own organizations.