ABSTRACT
There have been continual controversies about what the term 'Gennan nation' means (Schieder, 1991, p. 145). This is more than an academic problem. It is directly related to the cultural, political, and social construction of what we call the German nation. Before we focus on building the Gennan state and nation and its current structure, it is necessary to remember four turning points in the country's history. These are important for understanding some of the primary characteristics of today' s Federal Republic: 1) the destruction of the Holy Roman empire's grasp on the German nation in 1806 as a symbol for Gennany's final arrival in modem times; 2) the tardy foundation of the German Reich in 1871 as a half-hearted effort to establish a modem nation-state; 3) the end of the Nazi catastrophe, where national mania and pre-modem concepts of a Reich on the one hand and technical potential on the other were linked to unparalleled destructive power; and 4) the entry of the GDR into the Federal Republic, which symbolises the end of the postwar period in German history. In particular, the last two turning points are responsible for the national self-confidence of the Germans, which differs in several ways from that in other modern nations.
