The mutability of the idea of a nation and the significance of the action based on this idea–namely, nationalism–emerges with special clarity in the case of Germany. The nation and nationalism are closely linked: the substantive determination of what the nation should be influences the action based on this idea of order. The most dissimilar political orders have legitimated themselves through ideas of the nation, and the most diverse actions have appealed to a national interest. Both an extreme nationalism as well as a lack of national feeling have been attributed to the German people. The most recent history of Germany includes the belated and incomplete formation of a national state by Prussia, the expansion of the German national state into a continental empire by Hitler, and the division of the German national state by the Allied powers in the Second World War. With the exception of the Poles, there is hardly another European nation with a history so full of changes as the Germans. In the German example, therefore, some of the characteristics and functional connections of the nation and nationalism can be analyzed more clearly than holds true for the other West European states.
