Traitors!??

I actually enjoyed reading the historiagraphy text Beyond Good and Evil? Viewing different perspectives by various historians sparked my interest in the issue of German Liberalism a little more. Jennifor also seemed to have sparked our classroom interest a little by asking us the question if we consider the German liberals at the time of the second reich traitors? There seemed to be various answers to this question and as a whole the class seemed to be split on the decision to whether or not the German Liberals were traitors or not. Instantly I was like Hell yeah they were traitors!!... but others seemed to disagree with me. This drove me to be plagued by this question for the rest of the day. Dictionary.com defines traitor as this:
1. a person who betrays another, a cause, or any trust.
2. a person who commits treason by betraying his or her country.

This is only one definition and we all do know that definitions usually vary depending on the dictionary. Nevertheless, no where in this defintion is the word intentional stated, so I think (obviously ignoring all other possible definitions) that I can say that one can be a traitor even if it that was not the foremost or overall intention. This statement would be true in relation to the case of German liberals of the second reich. It appears that they initially had good intentions and meant well, but their failures and their giving up to many of their causes in the long run draws me to believe that they were traitors. The Bielefeld argument highlights that the German liberals made concessions with the German aristocracy in order for the liberals to gain economic prosperity and economic modernity, while the arisocracy maintained relative political and social status quo. "In exchange for a free hand in the economy, the bourgoisie had been prepared to abandon its political liberalism and resign itself to the role of 'junior partner' to the aristocracy." (Beyond Good and Evil, 732) The Bielfeld argument argues for a "feudalized bourgoisie". On the other hand the Neo-Marxist perspective argues for a "bourgois aristocracy" which means that the bourgois class, while not noble by birth, were aristocratic in their economic intentions. Whether or not you believe that the liberals were feudalized by concessions made with the aristocracy or if you believe the liberals themselves were the emerging aristocracy, one can be led to believe that once the liberals that consisted of the bourgoisie class began to see things looking a little better for them they began to neglect their founding principles. Therefore becoming weaker and a relatively minute presence in the end of the second reich.