Nationalism is an extreme feeling of pride and superiority in ones country. It is often credited with uniting a country, and making a country stronger. Such immense feelings of pride often cause negative effects. Germany is an example of a country that often showed signs of nationalism throughout history. The first signs of German nationalism were apparent with the unification of Germany which then lead to cause one of the world most extreme fascist movements, Nazism. .
The unification of Germany occurred in the late nineteenth century. Previous to it's unification, Germany was made up of a wide array of smaller German speaking states. Otto Von Bismarck is credited with being the "father of German unification." Bismarck had the ambition and determination to set his mind to unifying Germany, and doing what it takes to accomplish that. After Bismarck succeeded at unifying Germany its military began to improve, grow larger, and technologically advance. .
The unification of Germany was a wonderful thing for the Germans but had a different, and somewhat negative effect on the other parts of Europe. Soon after coming together as a country Germany became an industrial power. It's military greatly improved, and became somewhat threatening to other countries. This lead to a naval arms race with Great Britain. It was a race to see who could manufacture the battle ships with the biggest guns, or most advanced military technology. With military technology improving so rapidly, this made other European countries feel threatened, and the need to improve their military. This was one of the main causes for World War I.
Another sign of nationalism in Germany was the extreme fascist movement of Nazism. Created by Adolf Hitler, Nazism started out small, and proceeded to become the largest political party of Germany in World War II. Hitler gained popularity for Nazism by promising to improve conditions and the economy in Germany during a terrible economic crisis.
