Großdeutsche, Gruppe von Abgeordneten#
Grossdeutsche (Pan-Germans), a group of delegates to the Frankfurter Nationalversammlung 1848, primarily from Austria and southern Germany, who maintained that Austria should lead the German Confederation (as opposed to the Kleindeutsche (Little German) movement, who pleaded for a German Confederation under the leadership of Prussia, without Austria). The Grossdeutsche movement gained new support at the beginning of the 1860s (J. von Ficker, C. Frantz, A. F. Gfoehrer, O. Klopp; meeting of the German princes in 1863). The war of 1866 led to the victory of the Kleindeutsch solution. Pan-Germanic ideas were later taken up by the German-nationalist movement in Austria and were also included in the Weimar constitution of 1918/1919 in Germany and favoured by many Austrian politicians ( Anschluss). Under the National-Socialists the Grossdeutsch idea adopted a radical nationalist orientation; the Nazi German Reich with the forcefully incorporated Austrian, Czech, Polish, Yugoslavian, etc. territories was called "Grossdeutsches Reich" from 1938-1945.
Literature#
H. v. Srbik, Deutsche. Einheit, 4 vols., 1935-1942.