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The French National Assembly granted funds for war, and on 19 July 1870, the French Empire declared war on the Kingdom of Prussia. The southern German states took the side of Prussia in accordance with their defensive alliances. [6]
To get the German states to unify, Bismarck needed a single, outside enemy that would declare war on one of the German states first, thus providing a casus belli to rally all Germans behind. This opportunity arose with the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian War in 1870. Historians have long debated Bismarck's role in the events leading up to the war.
On 18 January 1871, Wilhelm I was proclaimed "German Emperor" at the Hall of Mirrors in Versailles, the German Reich was officially declared Deutsches Reich, or "German Empire", [5] explicitly harking back to the extinct Holy Roman Empire. The title "German Emperor" was a compromise; Wilhelm I had wanted the title of "Emperor of Germany", but ...
German workers enjoyed health, accident and maternity benefits, canteens, changing rooms, and a national pension scheme. [54] Industrialisation progressed dynamically in Germany, and German manufacturers began to capture domestic markets from British imports, and also to compete with British industry abroad, particularly in the U.S.
The Monarch of Germany was created with the proclamation of the President of the North German Confederation and the King of Prussia, William I of Prussia, as "German Emperor" during the Franco-Prussian War, on 18 January 1871 at the Palace of Versailles.
The Greater Germanic Reich (German: Großgermanisches Reich), fully styled the Greater Germanic Reich of the German Nation (German: Großgermanisches Reich der Deutschen Nation), [4] was the official state name of the political entity that Nazi Germany tried to establish in Europe during World War II. [5]
Western-occupied West Berlin declared its accession to the Federal Republic of Germany in 1949 but was denied by the occupying powers. The Soviet zone of Germany in the east, including the Soviet sector of Berlin, became the communist German Democratic Republic ("East Germany") on 7 October of the same year.
In the final days of the war, with German victory all but assured, the German states proclaimed their union as the German Empire under the Prussian king Wilhelm I and Chancellor Bismarck. With the notable exceptions of Austria and German Switzerland , the vast majority of German-speakers were united under a nation-state for the first time.