The Futile Attempt to Limit Movement: The Gendarmerie in the 19th-century mid-sized German States

Nineteenth-century German society is usually explored and understood through the prism of the two contemporary German superpowers: Austria and Prussia. Accordingly, the German links between state and power are traditionally represented by the two corresponding stereotypes, the Austrian police state, with its oppressive and extensive policing measures, and the Prussian military state, which prioritized external defense matters. However, most of the German states in the post-Napoleonic era were neither of these. They were engaged in problems of executive centralization, grappling with local communities that wished to retain their traditional autonomy. Nowhere did this become more apparent than in the realm of law and order, particularly the attempt to police migration, which was riddled with complications.