Prussian Reform Movement

Common card · No. 495078

The Prussian Reform Movement was a series of constitutional, administrative, social, and economic reforms in early 19th-century Prussia. They are sometimes known as the Stein–Hardenberg Reforms, for Karl Freiherr vom Stein and Karl August von Hardenberg, their main initiators. German historians, such as Heinrich von Treitschke, saw the reforms as the first steps towards the unification of Germany and the foundation of the German Empire before the First World War. The reforms were a reaction to the defeat of the Prussians by Napoleon I at the battle of Jena-Auerstedt in 1806, leading to the second Treaty of Tilsit, in which Prussia lost about half its territory and was forced to make massive tribute payments to the First French Empire. To make those payments, it needed to reorganize its administration to make tax collection and governance more efficient. To become a great power again, it initiated reforms from 1807 onwards, based on Enlightenment ideas and in line with reforms in other European...

Read on Wikipedia · Image Johann Christoph Rincklake, Public domain