Biography of Otto von Bismarck / Биография Отто фон Бисмарка


Bismarck came from a Prussian noble family and always felt more at home in his country estates than in the salons and restaurants of Berlin which politicians usually frequented.. He retired as often as possible to his estate Friedrichsruh east of Hamburg. (It is now open to the public and can easily be reached by taking the S-Bahn to Aumühle.) He also went to Varzin in Pomerania (now in western Poland.) People who wanted to see Bismarck when he was not in Berlin had to travel for hours over sandy country roads or old cobblestones through forests and fields. This solitude together with his background left its mark on Bismarck the man.

Bismarck attended the Graues Kloster (Gray Monastic School) in Berlin. He thenstudied law at the universities of Berlin and Göttingen, before becoming a civil service trainee in Aachen and Potsdam. He had had a rather dissolute life of unsteady activity moving around or working on his estates. His political career was not planned, but more the result of inner change after the death of an old friend’s wife. Bismarck turned to Christianity, but did not become a member of a church, and married a pious Pomeranian noblewoman named Johanna von Puttkamer. It wasn’t until this stage of his life that he was from now on able to do continuous work which he did seriously and out of a deep inner conviction.

Bismarck the politician started his career in 1847 as a deputy of the Prussian United State Parliament (Preussischer Vereinigter Landtag) at the age of 32, relatively old for the time. He was a member of the Junker Party on the extreme right wing. As a lobbyist for his social class he was an unforgiving foe of the 1848 revolution. In 1851, he went to Frankfurt as a Prussian deputy of the German Confederation (Deutscher Bund) and first became personally involved with the problem of Prussian-Austrian dualism, coming to the conclusion that one day Austria would have to go. He was recalled because of his anti-Austrian attitude and transferred to St. Petersburg, or, as Bismarck himself put it, “put on ice”. In 1862, he was sent for a short time as Prussian ambassador to Paris.

In the meantime, the constitutional conflict between the Prussian crown and the diet became so tense that there seemed to be a possibility of another revolution, whereupon King Wilhelm I appointed him minister president in 1862. Bismarck’s reputation was quite negative at this time and his appointment was, to say the least, disputed. One newspaper wrote that Bismarck was “not incapable, but even less of a safe individual”. In other words, a polite way of saying dangerous. The famous historian Heinrich von Treitschke wrote to a friend: “You know how passionately I love Prussia, but when I listen to such a shallow Junker like this Bismarck…, then vulgarity only seems to be surpassed by ridiculousness.” And these were the opinions of the conservatives! The liberals and socialists were even more critical: “the last bullet shot by divine right reactionaries”, “a thoroughly reactionary fellow and Junker”.) . These attitudes were reversed completely a few years later when Germany was unified. The liberals eventually warmed up to Bismarck, but the socialists never did Bismarck’s Foreign Policy Achievements. The London Times of July 3, 1866 wrote that “Bismarck was the only man in Germany who knew what he wanted. Without him the efforts for unification would never have become reality for the polite-bashful German people.” Bismarck is most famous for having achieved German unification through three wars. These so-called Wars of Unification (against Denmark 1864, Austria 1866 and France 1870-71) enabled Prussia to play the leading role in the creation of a unified Germany.

After the defeats of Denmark and Austria Prussia played the leading role in creating the Northern German Confederation (Norddeutscher Bund), a political union which included most of the northern German states under the leadership of Prussia. After its defeat in 1866 Austria no longer played a major role in German affairs. The final, and most important, event which enabled Bismarck to achieve unification was the war against France.

Through diplomatic maneuvering Bismarck managed to induce the French emperor, Napoleon III, to declare war in Germany in July 1870. The immediate cause was a letter from Napoleon III to King Wilhelm I which has gone down in history as the Ems Dispatch. Bismarck edited it in such a way that the tone of the letter was changed although he had not changed any facts. He then quietly released it for publication in the press. The French felt humiliated and saw a declaration of war as the only way to save face. It was not just a war between Prussia and France; the southern German states entered the war on Prussia’s side.

The fighting began in August 1870 and the German army soon proved to be the superior fighting force. Napoleon III as taken prisoner at the Battle of Sedan in September 1870 and after a short stay as prisoner in Germany went into exile in London. The Third Republic was then proclaimed which carried on the fighting. Paris was besieged and an armistice was signed in January 1871. More important than the military victory was the proclamation of the creation of the German Empire (Deutsches Reich) on January 18, 1871 in the Halls of Mirrors in Versailles. Wilhelm I thus became the first German Emperor. The title “Emperor of Germany” was rejected, taking into account the sensibilities of the other German states to avoid the impression that Germany consisted only of Prussia. In any event, Germany finally had achieved unification, even if it came about in a different manner than envisioned by the students at the Wartburg Festival, the Revolutionaries of 1848-49 or the liberals in general.

France lost the eastern provinces of Alsace and Lorraine and had to pay Prussia five billion Francs in three years. The money was stored in the citadel in Spandau and helped fuel the early boom years of the German economy after 1871. The annexation of these provinces was a major mistake. The French never got over the loss and revanche (revenge) became one of the major political concepts in France up until the First World War.

Bismarck’s Domestic Policy. Up until the end of his life Bismarck was unable to warm up to the idea of being friendly to the political parties. The whole phenomenon of political mobilization was foreign to him. In reality, he was a political dinosaur, a leftover from the age of Absolutism where the ministers only had to report and be personally responsible to their rulers without the intrusion of any third parties. When it could no longer be avoided, he made concessions, but otherwise fought, struggles and resisted as long as he could. Two of the major domestic struggles during the German Empire (1871-1918), also called the Wilhelmine Empire, were the “Cultural Struggle” (Kulturkampf) and the fight against Social Democracy and the ensuing legislation, the so-called Sozialistengesetze.

The Kulturkampf was the result of a decision in 1870 by the vatican council to announce the “infallibility of the Pope”. According to this doctrine Catholics had a right to be protected from the intrusions of political legislation. In other words, not to obey laws which had a negative effect on their religious feelings and attitudes. Following this line of thought, the Catholic Center Party passed a program in 1871 in which it demanded on a religious basis to be freed from what they considered to be negative legislation. For Bismarck this was not a religious question at all, but a political one. It was not a question of suppression of a religion, but of defense of the state. There was also the fear that if the Catholics could successfully claim this right then other minorities in the empire would follow suit. Through an on-going series of measures Bismarck attempted to undercut the independence of the Catholic church and oppose all political attempts by the Catholic Center Party to influence legislation. It was not until 1887 that the Kulturkampf was finally ended, although a certain degree of bitterness on both sides was never completely eliminated.

The Struggle against Social Democracy. Bismarck was always skeptical of the labor movement and its goals. He knew that increasing industrialization would necessarily increase the number of workers and their demands which his social background would not permit him to accept. At the same time he was well aware of the fact that a large labor party was inevitable. In a speech before the Reichstag he openly called social democratic elements an enemy of the state and society. He based this charge on an assassination attempt on Wilhelm I by a plumber in May 1878.

One month later an academic also tried to kill the emperor. In neither case was there any proof that social democrats were involved. Nevertheless, the Reichstag passed a bill against the “Social Democratic Danger to the Common Welfare”. Meetings, publications and financial collections were subsequently prohibited. Even joining a socialist organization was punishable by a jail sentence. All the measures undertaken by Bismarck to limit the influence of the Social Democrats came to be known as the Socialist Laws (Sozialistengesetze).

In order to help defuse the tension between the social classes, especially between the government and the social democrats, Bismarck passed a series of far-reaching social welfare acts which were of great importance to German society. The introduction of health insurance (1883), accident insurance (1884), invalid, widow and retirement compensation (1889) contributed significantly to eliminating the worst negative effects of modern industrial society.

This took the wind out of the social democrats’ sails and basically amounted to social reforms from above, but the SPD continued to reject Bismarck’s motives and his abilities. Despite further opposition Bismarck was not able to destroy the social democratic movement. In 1890, the year of Bismarck’s dismissal chancellor by Wilhelm II, the SPD received for the first time the most votes of any political party in the Reichstag.