View source for Mitteleuropa

{{about|a historical concept in 19th-century Austria and Germany|the geographical region|Central Europe|the book ''Mitteleuropa''|Friedrich Naumann|the Jazz Marca album|Mitteleuropa (album)}}
{{short description|German concept of Central Europe}}
{{DISPLAYTITLE:{{lang|de|Mitteleuropa|nocat=y}}}}
{{Cleanup rewrite|date=November 2025}}

'''{{lang|de|Mitteleuropa}}''' ({{IPA|de|ˈmɪtl̩ʔɔʏˌroːpa|lang}}), meaning '''Middle Europe''', is one of the [[German language|German]] terms for [[Central Europe]].<ref name="LEOdict">[http://dict.leo.org/ende?lp=ende&lang=de&searchLoc=0&cmpType=relaxed&sectHdr=on&spellToler=on&search=Mitteleuropa&relink=on {{lang|de|LEO Ergebnisse für "Mitteleuropa"|nocat=y}}]</ref> The term has acquired diverse cultural, political and historical connotations.<ref name="Wendt1998">{{lang|pl|Wendt, Jan 'Współpraca regionalna Polski w Europie Środkowej' Centrum Europejskie}} University of Warsaw, {{lang|pl|Studia Europejskie, nr 4/1998}}</ref><ref name="Johnson1996">Johnson, Lonnie (1996) ''Central Europe: Enemies, Neighbors, Friends'' [https://books.google.com/books?id=e_m13Hk3AFEC&pg=PA6 pp.6–12]  quotation: {{quotation|it may refer to different things for different people. Its meaning changes in different national and historical contexts, or as Jacques Rupnik ... observed: "Tell me where Central Europe is, and I can tell who you are." For example, when Germans start talking about Central Europe, {{lang|de|Mitteleuropa}}, or their historical relations with "the East," everyone starts getting nervous because this inevitably conjures up negative historical associations starting with the conquests of the Teutonic Knights in the Middle Ages and ending with German imperialism in the nineteenth century, World War I, the Third Reich, Nazi imperialism, World War II, and the Holocaust.}}</ref><ref name="Bischof2000p558">Bischof ''et al.'' (2000) [https://books.google.com/books?id=pKlWyYA26GMC&pg=PA558 p.558] quotation: {{quotation|I have identified at least seven different "definitions" of "Central Europe": {{lang|de|Mitteleuropa}} (in the German imperial sense); German-Jewish Central Europe; the Central Europe of small (non-Germanic) nations (the Palacky-Masaryk tradition); the nostalgic, {{lang|de|k.u.k.}} or Austro-Hungarian version of {{lang|de|Mitteleuropa}} (without imperial Germans) which is related to the Austro-Hungarian version of {{lang|de|Mitteleuropa}} in the 1970s and 1980s (Kreisky-Kadar-Busek); the {{lang|de|Mitteleuropa}} of the West German left and peace movement in the 1980s; the "Central Europe" of Eastern European dissidents and intellectuals (for example, Milosz, Kundera, Konrad); and finally the "Central and Eastern Europe" of the European Union.}}</ref><!-- Do not put large quotation chunks in References section: in your own words only --> 

The [[Prussia]]n vision of {{lang|de|Mitteleuropa}} was a [[Pan-Germanism|pan-Germanist]] state-centric [[imperium]], an idea that was later adopted in a modified form by [[Nazi]] geopoliticians.<ref name="Hann2005p178">Hann, C. M. and Magocsi, Paul R. (2005) ''Galicia: A Multicultured Land'', [https://books.google.com/books?id=RG9dXs3-zQEC&pg=PA178 pp.178–9] quotation: {{quotation|The notion of {{lang|de|Mitteleuropa}} carries diverse connotations, many far from positive. ... the {{lang|de|Mitteleuropa}} fondly recalled by Habsburg-era nostalgics stands in clear oppositions to the Prussian understanding of {{lang|de|Mitteleuropa}}. The Habsburg multi-national vision is a negation of the Prussian state-centric ideal first promoted by Friedrich Naumann and others, and later adopted by Nazi geopoliticians.}}</ref><ref name="Eder91">Eder, Klaus and Spohn, Willfried  ''Collective Memory and European Identity''
[https://books.google.com/books?id=gGldSZxKDA4C&pg=PA91 pp.90–1], quotation: {{quotation|Not only has Central Europe been recovered from oblivion, but also the memory of past links, affinities and cultural commonalities between Italy and other Mitteleuropean countries — namely, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Austria, Slovenia and Croatia — seems to have come to the forefront again. ... one should mention the role and the weight of Mitteleuropean literature in Italy. This genre has acquired considerable prominence among Italian readers and in cultural debates since the early 1960s, thanks to literary festivals such as {{lang|de|Mittelfest}} and to the support of important publishing houses such as Adelphi. Authors such as ... are all read and known to Italians not only as Italian, Austria, Czech, Hungarian, etc, but also as ''Mitteleuropean''. The well-known writer Claudio Magris contributed more than anybody else to the 1960s revival of Mitteleuropean culture and to the awareness of the existence of a common cultural koiné among those territories that were once part of the Habsburg Empire. ... The notion of {{lang|de|Mitteleuropa}}, as authors such as Magris conceive it, has nothing to do with the notorious pan-Germanist interpretation of it that goes back to Frederich Naumann's {{lang|de|Mitteleuropa}} (Le Rider 1995:97–106). The point of reference is, instead, the super-national, cosmopolitan Austro-Hungarian Empire and its specific 'cultural and spiritual koiné'. ... there is no embarrassment surrounding the use of this term in Italy as is the case with Germany and Austria.}}</ref><ref name="Bischof2000p552">Bischof, Günter and Pelinka, Anton  and Stiefel, Dieter (2000) ''The Marshall Plan in Austria'' [https://books.google.com/books?id=pKlWyYA26GMC&pg=PA552 p.552] quotation: {{quotation|the German-speaking world was the filter through which western European ideas were transmitted to central Europe; ... The frontier of this {{lang|de|Mitteleuropa}} may correspond to the more benign Habsburg or, after 1867, the Austro-Hungarian version of {{lang|de|Mitteleuropa}} as well as the more aggressive imperial German versions of Naumann's German "economic space" or Hitler's {{lang|de|Lebensraum}}.}}</ref>

== Basis ==
The German term "Mitteleuropa" is usually considered to have negative connotations attributed to German [[imperialism]], and has been defined in various ways over time. In Austria, Czechia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Romania, Croatia and northern Italy, especially in Friuli and Trieste, the common understanding of Mitteleuropa is somewhat different from that in Germany: an imperial term primarily equated with the successor states of the former Habsburg monarchy. The Central European [[Order of St. George (Habsburg-Lorraine)|Order of St. George]] has its centers mainly in the area of the former Austrian Empire.<ref>Erhard Busek, Emil Brix: Projekt Mitteleuropa. Vienna 1986.</ref><ref>Le Rider, Jacques "Mitteleuropa" (1995), pp 7.</ref>

==Conceptual history==

===Medieval migrations===
By the mid-14th century,  when the [[Black Death]] brought an end to the 500-year-long {{lang|de|[[Ostsiedlung]]}} process, populations from Western Europe had moved into the "[[Wends|Wendish]]" Central European areas of {{lang|la|[[Germania Slavica]]}} far beyond the [[Elbe]] and [[Saale]] rivers. They had moved along the Baltic coast from [[Holstein]] to [[Farther Pomerania]] (in the Kingdom of Poland), up the [[Oder]] river to the [[Moravian Gate]], down the [[Danube]] into the [[Kingdom of Hungary]] and into the [[Slovenes|Slovene]] lands of [[Carniola]]. From the mouth of the [[Vistula]] river and the [[Prussia (region)|Prussian]] region, the [[Teutonic Knights]] by force continued the migration through the [[Grand Duchy of Lithuania]], up to the Estonian Reval ([[Tallinn]]) in the [[Livonian Confederation]] (encompassing the areas of present-day Estonia, Latvia and northern Lithuania). They had also settled the mountainous border regions of [[Bohemia]] and [[Moravia]] and formed a distinct social class of citizens in towns like [[Prague]], [[Havlíčkův Brod]] (German Brod), [[Olomouc]] (Olmütz) and [[Brno]] (Brünn). They had moved into the Polish [[Kraków Voivodeship (14th century – 1795)|Kraków Voivodeship]], the [[Western Carpathians]] and [[Transylvania]] (Siebenbürgen), introducing the practice of [[crop rotation]] and [[German town law]].

===Different visions of {{lang|de|Mitteleuropa}}===
In the first half of the 19th century, ideas of a Central-European [[federation]] between the Russian Empire and the West European [[great power]]s arose, based on geographical, ethnic and economic considerations.

The term {{lang|de|Mitteleuropa}} was formally introduced by [[Karl Ludwig von Bruck]] and [[Lorenz von Stein]], a first theorization of the term attempted in 1848,<ref name="Libardi2011p19">Libardi, Massimo and Orlandi, Fernando (2011) {{lang|it|[http://www.silvyedizioni.com/pdf/pdf4f042b443dd01.pdf 'Mitteleuropa, Mito, letteratura, filosofia']}}, p.19</ref> with the aim of a series of interlocking economic confederations.<ref>Atkinson, David and Dodds, Klaus (editors) ''Geopolitical Traditions: Critical Histories of a Century of Geopolitical Thought'' Routledge (2000) p41</ref> However, plans advocated by the Austrian minister-president, [[Prince Felix of Schwarzenberg]], foundered on the resistance of the German states. After the [[Austro-Prussian War]] of 1866 and the Prussian-led [[unification of Germany]] under Chancellor [[Otto von Bismarck]] in 1871, In Austria, the {{lang|de|Mitteleuropa}} concept evolved as an alternative to the [[German question]], equivalent to an amalgamation of the states of the [[German Confederation]] and the multi-ethnic [[Austrian Empire]] under the firm leadership of the [[House of Lorraine|Habsburg dynasty]].

Political and ethnic visions of a {{lang|de|Mitteleuropa}} began to dominate in Germany. After the [[Revolutions of 1848]] [[liberalism|liberal]] theorists like [[Friedrich List]] and [[Heinrich von Gagern]], socialists and then later groups like the German [[National Liberal Party (Germany)|National Liberal Party]] would adopt the idea. However, a distinct [[Pan-Germanism|Pan-German]] notion accompanied by the concept of a renewed [[settler colonialism]] would become associated with the idea. In the [[German Empire]], the {{lang|de|[[Ostforschung]]}} concentrated on the achievements by [[ethnic Germans]] in Central Europe on the basis of [[ethnocentrism]] with significant [[anti-Slavism|anti-Slavic]] notions, as propagated by the [[Pan-German League]]. By 1914 and the {{lang|de|[[Septemberprogramm]]}}, {{lang|de|Mitteleuropa}}, meaning central Europe under the control of Germany, had become a part of German hegemonic policy.<ref>Atkinson, David and Dodds, Klaus (editors) ''Geopolitical Traditions: Critical Histories of a Century of Geopolitical Thought'' Routledge (2000) p43-44</ref>

===The Prussian {{lang|de|Mitteleuropa}} Plan===
[[File:Mitteleuropa ENG wielgórski.PNG|thumb|upright=1.2|Alleged map of German plans for a new political order in Central and Eastern Europe after the [[Treaty of Brest-Litovsk (February 9, 1918)|Treaty of Brest-Litovsk of February 9, 1918]], [[Treaty of Brest-Litovsk|Treaty of Brest-Litovsk of March 3, 1918]] and [[Treaty of Bucharest (1918)|Treaty of Bucharest of May 7, 1918]]:
{{legend|#0000C6|Germany and its allies}}
{{legend|#5109E8|Areas of controlled by the Russian Empire to be annexed by Germany/Ottomans.}}
{{legend|#9D9FFD|Semi-autonomous states under full German control – planned annexation}}
{{legend|#55AAFF|New countries – economically and administratively dependent on Germany}}
{{legend|#C5DB24|Ukraine – under German economic control}}
{{legend|#FF00FF|Planned Tatar Republic – area of German control }}
{{legend|#7CE9FC|Countries politically and economically tied with Germany}}
{{legend|#D2E9FF|Planned Transcaucasian Republic – politically tied with Germany}}
{{legend|#FBA504|Semi-autonomous Cossack states inside Russia – German sphere of influence}}
]]

The {{lang|de|Mitteleuropa}} plan was to achieve an economic and [[cultural hegemony]] over [[Central Europe]] by the [[German Empire]]<ref name="Europe page 12">''A history of eastern Europe: crisis and change'' Robert Bideleux, Ian Jeffries, page 12, Routledge 1998</ref><ref name="Hegemony page 52">''The Challenge of Hegemony: Grand Strategy, Trade, and Domestic Politics'' Steven E. Lobell, page 52, University of Michigan Press</ref> and subsequent economic and financial [[exploitation of labour|exploitation]]<ref name="WP">''War and Punishment: The Causes of War Termination and the First World War'' Hein Erich Goemans, Princeton University, page 116 Press 2000</ref><ref>The First World War, 1914–1918
Gerd Hardach, page 235 University of California Press 1981</ref> of this region combined with direct annexations,<ref name="WP"/> making of  puppet states, and the creation of puppet states for a buffer between Germany and [[Russia]].
The issue of Central Europe was taken by German politician [[Friedrich Naumann]] in 1915 in his work {{lang|de|Mitteleuropa}}. According to his thought, this part of Europe was to become a politically and economically integrated bloc subjected to German rule. In his program, Naumann also supported programs of [[Germanization]] and [[Hungarization]] as well.<ref name="Habs">"A History of the Habsburg Empire, 1526–1918." Robert Adolf Kann. University of California Press 1980</ref> In his book, Naumann used imperialist rhetoric combined with praises to nature, and imperial condescension towards non-German people, while advising politicians to show some "flexibility" towards non-German languages to achieve "harmony".<ref name="Europe page 12"/> Naumann wrote that it would stabilize the whole Central-European region.<ref>See^ Naumann, ''Mitteleuropa''. Reimer, Berlin 1915</ref> Some parts of the planning included designs on creating a new state in [[Crimea]] and have the  [[Baltic states]] to be client states.<ref>[[Czesław Madajczyk]] '"Generalna Gubernia w planach hitlerowskich. Studia"', Wydawnictwo Naukowe PWN, Warsaw, 1961, pp. 88–89</ref>

The ruling political elites of Germany accepted the {{lang|de|Mitteleuropa}} plan during World War I while drawing out [[Septemberprogramm|German war aims]] and plans for the new order of Europe.<ref name="Habs"/> {{lang|de|Mitteleuropa}} was to be created by establishing a series of puppet states whose political, economic and military aspects would be under the control of the German Reich.<ref name="Geiss">[[Imanuel Geiss]], 'Tzw. polski pas graniczny 1914–1918'. Warsaw 1964</ref> The entire region was to serve as an economic backyard of Germany, whose exploitation would enable the German sphere of influence to better compete against strategic rivals like [[British Empire|Britain]], the [[United States]].<ref name="Geiss"/> Political, military and economic organization was to be based on German domination,<ref>Barry Hayes, ''Bismarck and {{lang|de|Mitteleuropa}}'', Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1994, p.16</ref> with commercial treaties imposed on the newly-created states of Poland and Ukraine, working as German [[protectorates]]. It was believed that the German [[working classes]] could be appeased by German politicians through the economic benefits of territorial annexation, a new [[economic]] sphere of influence, and [[exploitation of labour|exploitation]] of conquered countries for the material benefit of Germany.<ref name="WaP">''War and Punishment: The Causes of War Termination and the First World War''. Hein Erich Goemans, page 115, Princeton University Press 2000</ref> Partial realization of these plans was reflected in the [[Treaty of Brest-Litovsk]], where guarantees of economic and military domination over Ukraine by Germany were laid out.<ref name="Coal">''Coalition Warfare: An Uneasy Accord''. Roy Arnold Prete, Keith Neilson, 1983, Wilfrid Laurier University Press</ref> The {{lang|de|Mitteleuropa}} plan was viewed as a threat by the British Empire, which concluded it would destroy British continental trade and  diminish its military power.<ref name="Hegemony page 52"/>

===Other visions of {{lang|de|Mitteleuropa}}===
While {{lang|de|Mitteleuropa}} describes a geographical location, it also is the word denoting a political concept of a [[German Empire|German]]-dominated and exploited Central European union that was put into motion during the [[First World War]]. The historian Jörg Brechtefeld describes {{lang|de|Mitteleuropa}} as the following:
{{quote|The term {{lang|de|Mitteleuropa}} never has been merely a geographical term; it is also a political one, much as Europe, East and West are terms that political scientists employ as synonyms for political ideas or concepts. Traditionally, {{lang|de|Mitteleuropa}} has been that part of Europa between East and West. As profane as this may sound, this is probably the most precise definition of {{lang|de|Mitteleuropa}} available.<ref>J. Brechtefeld, ''{{lang|de|Mitteleuropa}} and German politics. 1848 to the present'' (London 1996)</ref>}}

Mitteleuropean literature of the period between the end of the 19th century and World War II has been the subject of renewed interest, starting in the 1960s. Pioneers in this revival have been [[Claudio Magris]], [[Roberto Calasso]], and the Italian publishing house [[Adelphi Edizioni|Adelphi]].<ref>(1983) Interview with Claudio Magris, in {{lang|it|Dzieduszycki Michele}} {{lang|it|Pagine sparse. Fatti e figure di fine secolo}}, [https://books.google.com/books?id=EoC20HlqZ1IC&pg=PA131]</ref> In the 1920s, French scholar [[Pierre Renouvin]] published eleven volumes of documents explaining that Germany decided to bail out Austria which they believed was threatened with economic disintegration by Serbian and other nationalist movements.  J Keiger maintained in the debate on the Fischer Controversy that confirmed this opinion rebutting revisionist arguments that Germany was looking for an excuse to occupy Austro-Hungary.<ref>J.F.V. Keiger, "The Fischer Controversy: the war origins debate and France: A non-history of Cambridge", ''Journal of Contemporary History'', (2010), pp.373</ref>

German Chancellor [[Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg]]'s plan prepared for a [[Central European Economic Union]].  Published in September 1914, the program for interdependent development was designed to include France in a [[Central European Customs Federation]]. The [[German occupation of Belgium during World War I|German occupation of Belgium]] was the first phase in this process, which ultimately failed to come to fruition. Plans to create a Duchy of Flanders and a Grand Duchy of Warsaw were discussed as political units of future "[[Indigenization|localized]]" administration.  The original economic plan was conceived pre-1914 by [[Walther Rathenau]] and [[Alfred von Gwinner]], respectively, with the legal support of [[Hans Delbrück]]. It was a Customs Union consistent with a history of the {{lang|de|[[Zollverein]]}} and [[German Confederation]] of the 19th century, in which German philosophers believed in the wider sustainability of a Greater Europe. There were concerns from Schoenbeck and others that it would make Germany too inward-looking, but {{lang|de|Mitteleuropa}} gained the support of von Hertling, later a Chancellor and Kurt Kuhlmann, the diplomat. The major sticking point was continued and exclusive German access to Austrian markets, while in the mind of others, like von Falkenhausen, mastery of competition was not possible before military mastery of Europe.<ref>Fischer, p.251</ref>

An extension of {{lang|de|Mitteleuropa}} was the Longwy-Briey basin.  Capturing this mining area west of [[Alsace-Lorraine]], already annexed since 1871, was a major part of the [[Schlieffen Plan|{{lang|de|Schlieffen|nocat=y}} Plan]] and Germany's war aims.  The high plateau dominated the French interior, giving the German army a wide range of fire.  But the area also contained immensely prized deposits of iron.  These were essential to both France and German war efforts.  The development of heavy industry was a central feature of economic policy "under Imperial Protective Administration." Initially, Roedern, the {{lang|de|Reich}} treasurer, was deeply [[skeptical]] that a plan to "incorporate" French assets into a customs union and federation would succeed, but civilian doubts were overcome by January 1915, and by 26 August 1916, it was official German policy.

The first port of {{lang|de|Mitteleuropa}} was Antwerp:  Belgium's occupation in August 1914 was suggestive of partition. Anglophile [[Albert Ballin]], therefore, set up a "German–Belgian trading company" to transfer assets and people from the occupied territories back to the Reich.  The Post Office was to become German, and so too the railways, and the banks, all overseen by an [[Economics Committee]], which would be a liaison group between private enterprise and the public sector. Belgian capital markets were absorbed into Karl von Lumm's Report, and all currency issued was backed by the {{lang|de|[[Reichsbank]]}}.  German obsession with the "Race to the Sea" and right to Belgian seaports continued to be a major policy initiative in the Memorandum of "Attachement" maritime security persisted in the [[German-Luxembourg Customs Association]] finally completed on 25 November 1915.  Much of the theoretical work would be carried out by [[Six Economic Associations]] discussed in memoranda from Spring 1915 designated so as to set Germany free from British tutelage.

{{lang|de|Mitteleuropa}} also had its opponents inside Germany. [[Erich Marcks (historian)|Erich Marcks]], a historian from Magdeburg and a member of [[Social Democratic Party of Germany|SPD]], had referred to "that great European idea" before the war.  And then, in March 1916, he urged the Chancellor to renew calls in the {{lang|de|Reichstag}} for a public debate on the war's aims.

==See also==
{{Sister project links
 |commonscat=yes |n=no |author=no |b=no |v=no
}}
* [[Central Europe]]
* {{lang|de|[[Lebensraum]]}}
* {{lang|de|[[Drang nach Osten]]}}
* [[Geographical centre of Europe]]
* [[Germans of Romania]]
* {{lang|la|[[Intermarium]]}} for a plan by Polish leaders after World War I to create a similar political structure across the same region, but for the benefit and security of Poland.
* [[Judeopolonia]]
* [[League of East European States]]
* {{lang|de|[[Ober Ost]]}} for the governing authority that actually governed much of this region after Russian surrender in WWI
* [[Puppet state#Established by the German Empire|Puppet state]] for a list of nations founded by Germany for the purpose of creating this block
* [[Ukrainian State]] for the Ukrainian government Germany supported for this purpose.
* {{lang|de|[[Septemberprogramm]]}}, the closest the Germans came for a plan for {{lang|de|Mitteleuropa}}.
*Maciej Górny: [https://encyclopedia.1914-1918-online.net/article/concept_of_mitteleuropa/ Concept of Mitteleuropa], in: [https://encyclopedia.1914-1918-online.net/home.html/ 1914-1918-online. International Encyclopedia of the First World War].

==References==
{{Reflist}}

===Bibliography===
* JFV Keiger, ''The Fischer Controversy, the War Origins Debate and France: A non-history of Cambridge, Journal of Contemporary History'' (London 2010), pp.&nbsp;363–375
* Fritz Fischer, ''The War Aims of Germany'', 1914–1918, (1967)
* J. Brechtefeld, ''Mitteleuropa and German politics. 1848 to the present'' (London 1996)

{{States of the German Empire}}

[[Category:19th century in Germany]]
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[[Category:Former eastern territories of Germany]]
[[Category:German involvement in the Russian Civil War]]
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