Vormärz

'''''''' (; English: pre-March) was a period in the history of Germany preceding the 1848 March Revolution in the states of the German Confederation. The beginning of the period is less well-defined. Some place the starting point directly after the fall of Napoleon and the establishment of the German Confederation in 1815. Others, typically those who emphasise the Vormärz'' as a period of political uprising, place the beginning at the French July Revolution of 1830. The era also saw a gradual shift in developments from Germany being a country primarily based on agriculture to one evolving into an industrial society during the late Industrial Revolution. This was accompanied by developments in science, literacy, literature and political awareness.

Internationally known as the Age of Metternich, within Germany it was characterized by the dominance of Austria and Prussia within the German Confederation. Both Austria and Prussia established repressive absolutist police states domestically, and pressured other German states to do the same. These authoritarian regimes practiced censorship and mass surveillance on an unprecedented scale in response to even moderate reformist calls for liberalism, constitutional monarchy, and German unification, as well as more radical, revolutionary calls for republicanism and universal suffrage.