Radical nationalists treated 1871 unification as a launching pad for Eastern empire

Evidence

Radical nationalists, such as Heinrich Class and Alfred Hugenberg, aspired to a revitalized imperium as a bulwark against foreign intervention and as a home for Germans dispersed throughout east central and southeastern Europe. In their eyes, the Bismarckian unification in 1871 was just the beginning, a foundation for further expansion as far as Constantinople and the Black Sea. — Manuel Borutta and Jan C. Jansen, Vertriebene and Pieds-Noirs in Postwar…, 177