German Enlightenment

The German Enlightenment (German: die deutsche Aufklärung) refers to the intellectual and cultural movement that flourished in the 18th-century German states as part of the broader Enlightenment (historically known in German as die Aufklärung). Prussia took the lead among the German states in sponsoring the political reforms that Enlightenment thinkers urged absolute rulers to adopt. There were important movements as well in the smaller states of Bavaria, Saxony, Hanover, and the Palatinate, although the Protestant regions were globally more active in the German Enlightenment than the Catholic ones. In each case, Enlightenment values became accepted and led to significant political and administrative reforms that laid the groundwork for the creation of modern states. The recognition and application of Enlightenment cultural, intellectual and spiritual ideals and standards led to a flourishing of art, music, philosophy, science and literature in the German states. The German Enlightenment differed somewhat from the French Enlightenment: "Whereas the French philosophes often took a violently anticlerical and combative tone, their German counterparts avoided direct confrontations with authorities", even though "French anti-clericalism briefly dominated German Enlightenment thought". In 1685, Margrave Frederick William of Prussia issued the Edict of Potsdam within a week after French king Louis XIV's Edict of Fontainebleau, that decreed the abolishment of the 1598 Edict of Nantes which had conceded to free religious practice for Huguenots. Frederick William offered his "co-religionists, who are oppressed and assailed for the sake of the Holy Gospel and its pure doctrine...a secure and free refuge in all Our Lands". Around 20,000 Huguenot refugees arrived in an immediate wave and settled in the cities, 40% in Berlin, the ducal residence alone. The French Lyceum in Berlin was established in 1689 and the French language had by the end of the 17th century replaced Latin to be spoken universally in international diplomacy.