ABSTRACT
Prussian aims were overtly political from the first, as the nationalists have argued, but as the revisionists have pointed out, they were not necessarily anti-Austrian. Since the Hesse-Darmstadt treaty was the first Prussian customs treaty with a large German state, it was generally considered the beginning of Prussian economic dominance in Germany. It also revealed much about Prussia's attitude toward the smaller states and the Zollverein in particular. The attention given to the anti-Austrian motives of the Prussian statesmen, an emphasis found in most treatments of the evolution of the Zollverein, is thus understandable. A policy of bilateral negotiation put Prussia in a position of considerable economic and diplomatic superiority over any single state with which it dealt. Citing Frederick the Great's estimate of the importance of a Bavarian alliance, Motz devoted his attention to the specifics of how the treaty would help to defend Prussia.
