Madison Herbert
Dr. Peter A. Süß
On the Track towards Unity
Final Paper 18.12
Otto von Bismarck’s Legacy: His Rise to and Fall from power
On 1 April 1815, Otto Eduard Leopold von Bismarck was born into an aristocratic family in the Prussian heartland west of Berlin. He attended a reputable school in Berlin followed by the University of Göttingen. He then entered the Prussian civil service but due to boredom of his job he had resigned in 1838. In 1847 Bismarck married and was sent to Berlin where he began his political career in the Prussian legislature, where he gained a reputation as an ultra-conservative royalist. In 1851, Bismarck was appointed as Prussian representative to the German confederation by King Frederick William IV. He then served as ambassador in St. Petersburg and in Paris, allowing him to gain valuable insight into the vulnerabilities of Europe’s great powers. In 1862, he returned to Prussia and was appointed prime minister by the new king, Wilhelm I (History).
With Prussia at it’s core, Bismarck was now determined to unite the German states into a single empire and in 1864, he began the series of wars that would establish Prussian power in Europe. He began this series of wars by attacking Denmark to gain the German speaking territories of Schleswig-Holstein. Two years later, he then swiftly defeated the Austrian empire in the Austro-Prussian war. This battle meant that Bismarck’s objective of national unification from above had triumphed. The Prussian military dominated and its territory and influence began to increase. France began to feel threatened and with Bismarck’s desire to unify Germany’s loose confederations against an outside enemy, he stirred political tensions between France and Prussia. France was quick to declare war, and with the help of southern German states Germany was victorious in the Franco-Prussian war. Bismarck’s plan had worked and in 1871 the southern German states agreed to join the empire (History.com).
Germany was finally unified and as chancellor of the new Germany, Bismarck concentrated on building a powerful state with a unified national identity. Legislation was the Reichstag’s only real place of influence and it wasn’t much of a Parliament-Bismarck dominated it. His first decade as chancellor was filled with tensions and Kulturkampf (cultural struggle). Bismarck targeted the Catholic Church which he believed had too much influence, making up 36 percent of Germany’s population. He achieved this by placing parochial schools under state control and expelling the Jesuits. After realizing that the socialists were a greater danger, Bismarck changed his politics and allied with the Catholics against the rising socialist threat. He enacted the Anti-Socialist Law and blamed the attempts of killing Wilhelm I on social democrats. Bismarck then established Europe’s first modern welfare state in attempt to win the labor force and make it so they didn’t need the social democrats anymore. This legislation included health insurance, accident insurance, and an old age pension scheme. Both of these attempts to reduce the influence of the socialists had failed (History).
After the unification movement, Bismarck feared that another conflict in the European continent would harm the security of his newly formed nation. A military alliance known as the Triple Alliance that compromised Germany, Austria and Italy was formed to alleviate these concerns. This alliance said that if any of these nations were attacked, the other nations in the agreement would help them. He also created a secret agreement known as the Reinsurance Treaty which allowed Russia to be allied with Germany. Germany’s rival at the time, France, was occupied annexing as many colonies as it could in a race with Britain. Bismarck initially avoided this race in belief that having colonies would create stress on the government infrastructure. However, Bismarck eventually reversed his position and slowly began to gain colonial possessions. Wilhelm I died in 1888 and was succeeded by his son Frederick III and then his grandson Wilhelm II, both of whom Bismarck found difficult to control. Wilhelm II wanted a rapid expansion to Germany’s colonial and naval power in order to gain a “place in the sun.” In 1890 Bismarck was dismissed by the emperor (Pippala).
To this day, many Germans remain torn about the legacy of their first leader. “Was he a war-mongering villain, or a benevolent hero who unified Germany in 1871 and created the world’s first welfare state” (Kirschbaum)? As Germany’s longest-serving chancellor, Bismarck ruled from 1871 to 1890, turning Germany into a major European power after starting and winning three wars, against Denmark, Austria and France thus resulting in German unification. Although his actions at times may have reflected on him in a negative light, it is undeniable that without these actions, Germany may look very different than it does today (Kirschbaum).