As Erica Benner (2013) mentions in Nationalism: Intellectual Origins, a German reaction to the revolutions in America and France, which "claimed to found new national forms of legitimacy on universal, republican principles" (Benner 2013, p. 45), which was when the confederation of German states in 1800, or the Holy Roman Empire, were collapsing due to the pressure of the revolutionary wars. Significantly, Napoleons invasion of Prussia in 1806, became a turning point for German philosopher Gottlieb Fichte to suggest substitutions to a nationhood based on republican concepts which was present in...

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