Zollverein

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This article is about the historical German customs union. For the UNESCO World Cultural Heritage site in Essen, see Zollverein Coal Mine Industrial Complex.

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The Zollverein or German Customs Union was formed among the majority of the states of the German Confederation in 1834 during the Industrial Revolution to remove internal customs barriers, although upholding a protectionist tariff system with foreign trade partners. The main ideological contributor behind the customs union was Friedrich List, an economist holding mercantilist and protectionist views. The Zollverein totally excluded Austria because of its highly protected industry; this economic exclusion would later exacerbate the Austro-Prussian rivalry for dominance in central Europe during the late 19th century. The Zollverein was effectively ended in 1866 with outbreak of the Austro-Prussian War; a new organization with the same name was brought about in 1867 when peace was restored.^[1]^[2] The new Zollverein was stronger, in that no individual state had a veto.

The Zollverein had been originally established by Prussia early in the 19th century. At first it included only the close neighbours of Prussia, but it gradually expanded to include most of the German states outside of Austria. The Zollverein was initially conceived by its Prussian architects as both a means to cement ties to the surrounding German states, and as a means to ensure the economic consonance of the non-contiguously holdings of the Hohenzollern family. (Although Eastern and Western Prussia became contiguous following Prussian territorial gains at the end of the Napoleonic wars, the King of Prussia also had holdings further west that did not territorially unify with the rest of Prussia until much later) The greater customs union of 38 states was the fruit of a continuous effort by Prussian bureaucrats over several decades. Its gradual inception was made against the more modest efforts of the Austrian bureaucracy to establish their own customs union with neighbouring states.

The Zollverein, in retrospect, did much more than simply cement alliances between the various German states as its Prussian architects had intended--it set the groundwork for the unification of Germany under Prussian dominance, achieved less than five decades later. Some economic historians such as Helmut Böhme use the Zollverein to dispute the general view of Bismarck as the unifier of Germany, insisting that the economic dominance of Prussia made unification inevitable, as it led invariably to military dominance, and thus political primacy. Secondly, these historians argue, the Zollverein established an anti-Austrian tradition among the Prussians. By this argument, Bismarck cannot be said to have revolutionized Prussian politics when the Zollverein gives evidence of an anti-Austrian flow of German unification for 30 years before he became the Prussian head of government.

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(1) The custom associations… form one confederation, united by a common system of trade and customs.

(4) Similar laws relative to imports, exports and transit duties shall prevail.

(6) The Customs Union guarantees freedom of trade and commerce.

(22) The amount of duties which are to become common property shall be divided among the contracting states according to the population of each state.

(33) A congress (Zollparlament), at which each of the governments of the union shall appoint a person, shall be held annually… for the purpose of general discussion.