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BISMARCK'S SPEECHES: TABLE OF CONTENTS #1. THE CRISIS OF THE PRUSSIAN CONSTITUTION, 1862/63. #2. BISMARCK ON THE EVE OF WAR WITH AUSTRIA. #3. THE INDEMNITY BILL OF 1866 AND THE BIRTH OF NATIONAL LIBERALISM. #4. THE OUTBREAK OF THE FRANCO-PRUSSIAN WAR, JULY 1871. #5. THE ANNEXATION OF ALSACE-LORRAINE (1871). #6. THE KULTURKAMPF. #7. BISMARCK'S RESPONSE TO SOCIALISM: THE CARROT AND THE STICK. #8. COLONIALISM.
#1. THE CRISIS OF THE PRUSSIAN CONSTITUTION,
1862/63:
a) Election Manifesto of the Progressive
Party, March 14, 1862:
In 1861 Prussia's King William I decided to double the size of
the army, but this reform encountered sharp opposition from the new
Progressive Party in the Prussian House of Representatives.
The Crown proceeded with army reform by shifting sums voted for
other purposes to the military, so in March 1862 the House of Representatives
passed a law requiring the precise definition of the purpose of each
expenditure in the budget. King
William called for new elections, and the Progressives' electoral manifesto
is reprinted below.
[Source: Felix Salomon, ed., Die deutschen Parteiprogramme (Leipzig,
1907) I: 56-60 (trans. Bill Patch)]. ______________________________________
After the election of last fall we could hope that the ministry,
supported by the progressive consciousness of the people, would adopt
a more emphatic policy in keeping with the needs of our fatherland,
a policy of maintaining our place of honor among the nations of Europe.
We can no longer hope this.
It is all the more necessary for parliament to assert the constitutional
rights of the people independently and resolutely, regardless of the
desires of the leading statesmen. The
House of Representatives can achieve little in legislation and administration
at the moment. Its influence on these areas is slight. Its effort to influence is regarded with jealousy
and mistrust. But it has decisive
power in its control over the finances of the country. Here it has the inescapable duty to exercise
this control to the best of its ability, not to allow it to become an
empty form but to employ it in such a way as to accomplish other reform.
The government still expects to see its will alone decide, still
behaves according to the absolutist formula of refusing to make any
concession to parliament, recognizing no limitation on its judgment,
demanding always that the other side yield...
We could not delay in this matter.
For one thing, the government's bill on budget control threatened
to render permanent our inadequate control over the grant of funds. For another, we could no longer delay a final determination on the
army budget without making permanent the excessive military expenditures
and three-year term of service, which hinder all improvement in any
other area. We believe that
the general obligation to military service and the complete development
of the people's capacity to defend itself can only be achieved if, in
addition to other savings, we lighten the burden on both money and manpower
by reducing the term of service in the infantry to two years....
The constitution is not worth much if it only serves to procure
money and soldiers in greater quantity than was ever possible without
it in the past. We believe that
those who bring the Crown and the people into conflict do a disservice
to both. We believe that the true interests of both
parties in Prussia coincide completely, and that one does not oppose
the monarchy when one feels compelled to reject one of its government's
demand
...The ministers have appealed to the populace to elect new representatives
to express its opinion. We hope
for an unambiguous expression of the same....
There's only one issue, not to abandon the constitutional rights
without which representatives cannot fulfill the duties of their mandate.
We are convinced that the government pursues a course that is
neither beneficial nor in touch with the views and will of the people
when it burdens the economic forces of the country with excessive new
military expenditures, when it prevents the free development of intellectual
and material interests that could strengthen the nation, and especially
when it fails to offer any popular and national policy that might compensate
for such excessive burdens with successes.
We hope that the Prussian people will display that prudence and
persistence which are the foremost political virtues and guarantee victory
in this conflict, which not only jeopardizes our hopes for rapid and
secure progress, but also the constitutional rights already won.
Confident in the future, we hope to see emerge from this election
a majority of men who dutifully defend the rights of the people, men
who, in these days of decision, preserve undiminished that constitutional
foundation without which the banner of progress combined with legal
order cannot be unfurled. A defeat for this foundation would be a disaster
for Prussia and all Germany. Remember
the loud agreement which we secured in the last elections from all portions
of the German fatherland, which also support the measures of the legislature
today. Eyes everywhere are eagerly
watching for the result. The
enemies of Prussia hope for a paralyzing continuation of the dispute.
The German people, however, which may well be
divided from the Prussian government but never again from the Prussian
people, knows that Prussia's future lies in the development of liberty,
and that this must be secured in Prussia for all of Germany.
The current of public opinion favors this development, and the
Prussian people has an opportunity to accomplish something for the progress
of Europe. The greatness of
this cause demands that every friend of the fatherland do whatever he
can to promote success, so that a disastrous retreat can be prevented,
so that the old cry of victory can soon ring out again—an energetic
Charge! ______________________________________
b) Bismarck's early speeches to the
Prussian House of Representatives:
The elections of May 1862 gave the liberal opposition a solid
majority, and the House refused to approve any budget until the King
rescinded his expansion of the army.
In September a desperate King William appointed as prime minister
the strong-willed professional diplomat, Otto von Bismarck; two of his
early, unsuccessful efforts to promote compromise with the House follow.
[Source: Lothar Gall, ed., Bismarck. Die grossen Reden (Berlin: Ullstein, 1981),
pp. 62-63, 66-76 (trans. Bill Patch).] ______________________________________
SPEECH OF SEPTEMBER 30, 1862:
Germany does not look to Prussia's liberalism but to its power. Bavaria, Württemberg, Baden may indulge liberal
impulses, but nobody will cast them in Prussia's role for that reason.
Prussia must gather its forces and maintain them for the favorable
moment, which has already been missed several times.
The borders established for Prussia at the Vienna Congress are
not favorable for the healthy life of the state.
The great issues of the day are not decided through speeches
and majority resolutions--that was the great error of 1848 and 1849--but
through blood and iron.
[After attacks from the Progressives, Bismarck returned to the
podium.]
I must protest that I would never seek foreign conflicts just
to get over domestic difficulties; that would be frivolous. I was speaking of conflicts that we could not avoid, even though
we do not seek them.
SPEECH OF JANUARY 27, 1863:
In this address [parliament's annual address to the Crown], the
House of Representatives defends rights that it either does not possess
at all or at least does not possess alone.
Gentlemen, if you had the right unilaterally to determine the
final form of the budget in its total sum and its details, if you had
the right to demand that His Majesty the King discharge those ministers
who do not enjoy your confidence, if you had the right to determine
the size and organization of the army through your resolutions on the
budget, if you had the right...to regulate the relations between the
executive power, the government of the state and its officials---then
you would actually possess the complete power to govern this country....
I therefore feel justified in summing up the practical meaning
of your address in the following words:
“With this address the Royal House of Hohenzollern is summoned
to surrender its constitutional powers of government, so that they can
be transferred to the majority of this House.” (Great commotion, mixed with calls:
Quite right!)
...You claim, in particular, that Article 99 of the constitution
has been violated. Article 99
states, if I remember correctly: "All revenues and expenditures
of the state must be assessed each year in advance and written down
in the state budget." If the next sentence were to read: "This
[budget] is determined each year by the House of Representatives,"
then the complaints in your address would be completely justified, then
the constitution would be violated. But the text of Article 99 reads: "This state budget is established
each year by law." Article
62 says with absolute clarity how a law is made. It says that every law, hence also budget laws,
comes into being through the agreement of the Crown with both houses.
The article expressly states, moreover, that the House of Peers
has the right to reject any budget sent up by the second house that
it does not like.
Each of these three rights [to reject a budget] is unlimited
in theory, the one as strong as the next.
If the three powers cannot reach agreement, the constitution
lacks any provision for determining which must give way.
In earlier discussions people glossed over this difficulty. Reasoning by analogy with other countries, whose constitution and
laws, however, are not promulgated in Prussia and have no validity,
they claimed that the difficulty could easily be resolved through the
submission of the other two powers to the House of Representatives,
that, if the Crown and House of Representatives could not agree on a
budget, the Crown must not only submit to the House of Representatives
and discharge those ministers who did not enjoy its confidence, but
also, if the House of Peers did not agree with the Representatives,
to compel it through mass appointments [of new Peers] to adopt the standpoint
of the House of Representatives. In this way the sole sovereignty of the House of Representatives
would be established, but such sole sovereignty is not the constitutional
law of Prussia. The constitution
consistently adheres to the principle of balance among the three legislating
powers in all questions, including budgetary legislation. None of these powers can compel another to
submit. The constitution thereby
points toward the path of compromise and reconciliation. An experienced constitutional statesman has said that all of constitutional
life is one long series of compromises. If compromise is thwarted because one of the
powers insists on implementing its views with doctrinaire absolutism,
then the series of compromises is interrupted, and conflicts take their
place. And conflicts quickly become contests of power,
since the life of the state cannot stand still; whoever holds power
goes ahead according to his views, because the life of the state cannot
stand still for even one minute....
We will of course have difficulty agreeing on who is responsible
in the present case for the failure to achieve compromise.
I remind you that, after the dissolution of the previous House
of Representatives, the Crown voluntarily made substantial concessions. It reduced the budget by several millions and
voluntarily dropped the tax surcharge of 25%. (Commotion.) At your request the government made
a considerable effort to define budget items more specifically. Your response to this bid for an understanding
consisted of a resolution in September, against which I do not hesitate
to raise the charge of misuse of power that you raise against us in
your address. You exploited
your right to approve the budget by passing a resolution whose implementation
would be completely impossible without making Prussia defenseless, (Commotion.) without wasting all the funds already
spent on the [military] reform and starting all over again next year.
You demanded that His Majesty the King...discharge half of the
infantry, a third of the cavalry, 119 battalions---I don't know how
many regiments....
You expect the Crown to yield; we expect you to yield. The government is convinced that it is now your turn to make concessions,
and unless you do, we will hardly be able to come out of this conflict.
The House of Peers rejected the budget voted by you as completely
inadequate for the needs of the state, and the Royal Government agrees
with it completely.... That we have a gap in the constitution here
is no new discovery.... I will
not explore this theory further. For
me it is enough to know that the state must exist.... Necessity alone dictates here; the government has paid heed to this
necessity, and not even you would demand that we stop paying interest
[on state bonds] or the salaries of officials.
I emphatically deny now as before that this condition is contrary
to the constitution. I am also
sure that your view is not shared by any of the thousands of officials,
who have also sworn an oath to the constitution.
None of these officials has refused to work with the government;
none has declared that he refuses to accept his salary as of January
1....
It is a curious coincidence, that the debate over this manifesto
that is supposed to be handed to our royal lord occurs on the birthday
of the youngest heir apparent [King William's grandson, the later Kaiser
William II]. This coincidence, gentlemen, reinforces our
determination to stand up for the rights of the monarchy, for the rights
of the heirs to His Majesty. The
Prussian monarchy has not yet fulfilled its mission; it is not yet ready
to become a mere ornament on your constitutional edifice, not yet ready
to serve as a dead cog in the machinery of parliamentary government.
[When Bismarck left the chamber, a widely respected moderate,
Count Schwerin, summarized Bismarck's thesis as "Might makes right,
you can say what you want, but we hold the power in our hands, so we
will implement our theory." To
a cheering assembly, Schwerin added that this was no foundation for
an enduring monarchy, and that the historic motto of the House of Hohenzollern
was quite different: "Right comes before might: Justitia
fundamentum regnorum!" Bismarck
soon returned to correct this "misunderstanding".]
I've been told that the previous speaker understood me to say:
Might makes right! I really
don't remember any such utterance, (Emphatic contradiction.) and despite your expression of disbelief
for my rectification, I appeal to your own memory, which, if it is as
good as mine, will tell you that I simply said the following: I advised
you to seek compromise, because in the absence of compromise conflicts
must arise; conflicts become questions of power; and, since the life
of the state cannot stand still for one moment, whoever possesses power
will then be compelled to use it. (Great commotion.) I never said that was desirable.
I do not ask for an impartial judgment from you; (Hear, hear! from the left.) I just want the minutes to rectify
what has been misunderstood. (Outcry: Adjourn! Adjourn!)
In 1869 a French journalist published the following account of
an interview granted him by Bismarck on June 4, 1866, just after Bismarck
had proposed a new German Confederation with a national parliament elected
on the basis of universal manhood suffrage, and just before the Seven
Weeks’ War removed the last obstacle to such plans. [Source: Frederick Hollyday, ed., Bismarck:
Great Lives Observed (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1970),
pp. 27-31.] __________________________________
[Question:] “Your Excellency,” I said to him, “I
have made it my business to inform... the French public of all that
happens in Germany. Permit me,
therefore, to speak to you with complete freedom. I will confess that today, in its foreign policy,
Prussia appears to be tending toward goals eminently sympathetic to
the French nation, to wit: Italy definitely freed from Austria, and
Germany constituted on the basis of universal suffrage. But is not the contradiction between your Prussian policy and your
German policy flagrant? You
proclaim a national parliament as the sole fountain-head from which
Germany can emerge rejuvenated..., and at the same time, you treat the
second chamber at Berlin [i.e., the Prussian House of Representatives]
in the manner of Louis XIV, when he entered the parlement of
Paris, whip in hand. We do not admit in France that the marriage
between absolutism and democracy is possible...”
[Answer:] “Well done!”
Bismarck replied, “You get to the bottom of things.
I know I enjoy the same unpopularity in France as I do in Germany. Everywhere I alone am held responsible for a situation I did not
make, but which was imposed upon me as upon you. I am the scapegoat of public opinion, but I torment myself little
about that. With a perfectly
tranquil conscience, I pursue a goal which I believe useful to my country
and to Germany. As for the means,
for want of others, I make use of those that are offered to me. There are many things to say about the Prussian domestic situation.
In order to judge it impartially, it is necessary to study and
to know thoroughly the special character of the men of this country.
While today France and Italy each form a great social body animated
by a common spirit and a common feeling, in Germany, on the contrary,
it is individualism which dominates.
Here each one lives apart in his little corner, with his own
opinion, among his wife and children, always distrusting the government
as well as his neighbor, judging everything from his personal point
of view, but never from the viewpoint of all.
The feeling of individualism and the need of contradiction are
developed in the German to an inconceivable degree.
Show him an open door—rather than going through it, he is
bent upon wanting to open a hole in the wall beside it.
Also, whatever it does, no government will ever be popular in
Prussia. The greatest number will always parade the opposite opinion. It is condemned to be perpetually contradicted
by the moderates and decried and spit upon by fanatics by that fact
alone that it is the government and that it places itself as an authority
opposed to the individual. That
has been the common fate of all regimes which have followed one another
since the commencement of the dynasty.
Our politicians have given no more mercy to liberal ministers
than to reactionary ministers....
“They acclaimed,” he added, “Frederick the Great’s
victories, but at his death they rubbed their hands joyfully at seeing
themselves freed of this tyrant. Beside this antagonism, however, exists a profound
attachment to the dynasty. No
sovereign, no minister, no government can win the favor of Prussian
individualism, but all cry from the bottom of their hearts: ‘Long
live the King!’ and they obey when the King commands.”
[Question:] “There are those, however, Your Excellency,
who say that discontent might approach rebellion.”
[Answer:] “The government has never had to fear that, and
it does not fear that. Our revolutionaries are not so terrible.
Their hostility is especially vented in epithets against the
Minister, but they respect the King. It is I alone who has done all the evil, and
they bear a grudge against me alone for it.
With a little more impartiality, perhaps they would realize that
I would not have acted differently because I was not able to. In the present German situation and in face of Austria, we had to
have an army before anything else.
In Prussia, it is the only tractable force....
“The Prussian who got his arm broken on a barricade... would
re-enter his dwelling sheepishly, and would be treated as an idiot by
his wife, but in the army he is an admirable soldier, and he fights
like a lion for his country’s honor. Evident though it is, a fault-finding politician
does not wish at all to recognize this necessity of a great armed force,
imposed by circumstances. As
for me, I cannot hesitate; I am, in my family, in my education, the
King’s man before everything.
Now the King holds to the military organization as to his crown,
because he judges it indispensable in his soul and his conscience.
Therefore, no one is able to make him surrender or compromise
that. At his age—he is seventy—and with
his traditions, one becomes obstinate in his ideas, especially in the
case where one believes them good.
Besides, on the subject of the army, I completely share his viewpoint.
“Sixteen years ago, I was living as a country gentleman
when the sovereign’s will designated me Prussian envoy to the Frankfurt
Diet. I had been raised in admiration—I could say the cult—of
Austrian policy. I did not need
a great deal of time to lose my youthful illusions with regard to Austria,
and I became its declared enemy. The
abasement of my country, Germany sacrificed to foreign interests, a
cunning and perfidious policy—all that was not designed to please
me. I did not know that the
future would call upon me to play a role, but since that epoch I conceived
the idea whose realization I pursue today, that of removing Germany
from Austrian pressure, at least the part of German y united to Prussian
destinies in spirit, religion, customs, and interests—North Germany....
All the opposition with which I have had to struggle in Prussia
has been unable to prevent me from devoting my body and soul to this
idea: North Germany constituted in its logical and natural form under
the aegis of Prussia. In order to achieve that goal, I have braved everything: exile and
even the scaffold. And I told
the Crown Prince, who, in his education and inclinations, is by preference
a man of parliamentary government: ‘What does it matter if I am
hanged, provided that my hangman’s rope binds your throne solidly
to Germany!’”
[Question:] “May I also ask you, Your Excellency, how you
intend to reconcile the free mission of a national parliament with the
rigorous treatment which the Berlin chamber has suffered?
How, above all, are you able to persuade the King, the representative
of divine right, to accept universal suffrage, which is the democratic
principle par excellence?”
[Answer:] Bismarck replied to me spiritedly: “It is a victory
won after four years of struggle! When
the King summoned me four years ago the situation was most difficult. His Majesty placed a long list of liberal concessions before my
eyes, but none of them to be expected in the military question. I said to the King: ‘I accept, and the
more the government can show itself to be liberal, the better it will
be.’ The Chamber was obstinate on the one hand and
the crown on the other. In this
conflict, I followed the King. My
veneration for him, all my past, all my family traditions, made it my
duty. But that I am, by nature
or policy, the adversary of national representation, the born enemy
of parliamentary government, is an entirely gratuitous assumption. I did not wish to disassociate myself from
the King in fighting the Berlin chamber, at that time when the Berlin
chamber placed itself athwart a policy which imposed itself on Prussia
as a necessity of the first order.
But no one has the right of directing to me that insult that
I think of hoaxing Germany with my parliamentary project.
The day when—my task complete—my duties toward my sovereign
accord ill with my duties as a statesman, I will be able to take the
course of effacing myself without it being necessary for me to disavow
my labors.” #3. THE INDEMNITY BILL OF 1866 AND
THE BIRTH OF NATIONAL LIBERALISM:
Following the victory over Austria,
Bismarck sought to terminate the government’s struggle with the
Prussian House of Representatives by presenting an “Indemnity Bill,”
which passed by a vote of 230:75 on September 3, 1866, as a majority
even of the delegates of the Progressive Party decided to support it.
The Progressives who supported this bill eventually founded a
new “National Liberal Party” in 1867, which endorsed the federal
constitutions written by Bismarck in 1867 and 1871. [Source: Lothar Gall, ed., Bismarck. Die großen Reden (Frankfurt/M: Ullstein,
1981), pp. 78-80; and Hans Fenske, ed., Quellen zum politischen Denken
der Deutschen im 19. Und 20. Jahrhundert: Der Weg zur Reichsgründung,
1850-1870 (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1977),
pp. 328-37 (trans. Bill Patch).] __________________________________ THE INDEMNITY BILL:
ARTICLE 1. The government
is granted indemnity for all administrative acts undertaken since the
beginning of the year 1862 without a legally established state budget,
on the condition that the Landtag approves the accounts presented by
the government for this period.
ARTICLE 2. The government
is authorized to expend up to 154 million Taler on administration
for the year 1866.
BISMARCK (House speech of September
1):
The more honestly the royal government desires peace, the more
its members feel obliged to refrain from any discussion of past criticisms.... Remember the lesson from foreign affairs, that
peace can hardly ever be concluded if one demands as a precondition
that one of the parties confess: “Now I see that I acted unjustly.” We desire peace, not because we are incapable
of carrying on this domestic struggle; on the contrary, the tide is
now flowing in our direction more than it did some years ago. Nor do we desire peace in order to evade possible
future criminal prosecution; I do not believe that we will be indicted,
and even if that happened, I do not believe that we would be convicted,
and in any case, many reproaches have been made against this ministry,
but never the reproach of fearfulness! (Laughter.) We desire peace because in our opinion
the fatherland needs it at the present moment more than it did before. We desire it and seek it also because we believe
that we can now attain it; we would have sought it earlier, if we could
have hoped earlier to find it. Now
we believe that we can find it because you have perceived that the royal
government stand closer to the goals that a majority of you also support
than you thought a few years ago, stands closer than you had reason
to believe because of the silence of the government about many things
that had to be kept quiet. (Bravo!) For this reason we believe that we
can find peace and seek it honestly; we have extended the hand to you,
and the committee’s proposal [i.e., the Indemnity Bill] gives us
the guarantee that you will grasp that hand.
We will then approach all problems that remain to be solved together
with you in partnership; I do not by any means exclude from these problems
improvements in our domestic affairs, in line with the promises made
in our constitution. (Lively Bravo from all sides.) Only together can we solve them, as
we both seek with good will to serve the same fatherland, without casting
doubt on the honesty of the other. (Bravo!)
But in this moment the problems of foreign policy are not yet
solved; the dazzling successes of the army have in a sense raised the
stakes of the game, we have more to lose than before, but the game is
by no means won as yet; the more firmly we hold together at home, the
more certain we are to win it. If you study conditions abroad, if you study
the Vienna newspapers, especially those which are commonly thought to
represent the views of the imperial government, you will find the same
expressions of hatred and anger toward Prussia that could be found before
the war and contributed not a little to making that war a necessity
for the imperial government, which it could not have avoided even if
it had wanted to. If you study the behavior of the peoples of
southern Germany, as they are represented in the armies, you will find
that a spirit of reconciliation and acknowledgment of shared tasks for
all Germany is certainly not present as long as Bavarian troops on railroad
cars treacherously fire on Prussian officers.
If you examine the attitude of the various foreign governments
toward the institutions that must be established [for the new North
German Confederation], it is satisfactory with some and hostile with
others, but you will certainly find hardly any power in Europe that
offers benevolent support for the construction of this new common life
for Germany.... Therefore, gentlemen,
our task is not yet accomplished, and it demands unity from the whole
country in word and deed.
Even though it has often been said, “What the sword has
won, the pen has lost,” I have complete confidence that we will
never hear it said, What the sword and pen have won, has been destroyed
by this rostrum! (Lively Bravo!)
OTTO MICHAELIS (House speech of September
1 for the bill):
It is a painful feeling for me to be defending my position primarily
against my own party colleagues, i.e., against those with whom I have
struggled for the same goal of creating a constitutional regime in Prussia
on a liberal foundation and creating German unity under Prussia’s
leadership. But I appeal to everyone here to stop talking
about any ‘renunciation of the goal for which we have struggled.’ Let’s stop talking about the ‘surrender
of the rights of the people.’
You know very well that I am still every bit as dedicated as
you are to the cause for which we have struggled, and that I no more
intend to surrender the rights of the people than you do.
We only disagree about the ways in which we can achieve these
goals most effectively and quickly-- and it should be possible to disagree
about that without mutual vilification....
We have decided that we can best promote the further constitutional
development of Prussia by participating actively in the fulfillment
of the great tasks that this state must undertake. (Bravo! Quite right!) Gentlemen! The rights of the people are not a beautiful medallion to be packed
away in a box of legal deductions, sealed shut with negative votes. The rights of the people that are entrusted
to us are a lever for promoting the welfare of the people and further
developing the Prussian state, a lever that we must set into motion. (Bravo! Quite right!)
FRIEDRICH HARKORT (House speech of
September 1 against the bill):
Everyone now speaks of reconciliation and confidence.
Gentlemen, allow me to speak frankly: I consider these empty
phrases if they are not backed up with deeds.
I ask, is the whole reconciliation confined to this one indemnity? Should not the cabinet request a whole series
of indemnities, before any genuine reconciliation can occur? The Minister of Justice should come here and
say: There will be no more rigged juries assembled for a special purpose, (Voice from the Polish delegation:
Hear, hear!) and no civil servant loyal to the constitution
will have his career ruined because of the votes he casts in this House;
he should also declare that the majesty of the law will be restored
in Prussia unstained. The Minister
of the Interior needs to come here to declare that freedom of speech
will be respected, that the police campaign of harassment against liberal
newspapers will end. [He should
declare:] “I will no longer restrict freedom of association to
the bare minimum, and I will no longer negate the rights of municipal
self-government by refusing to confirm in office the mayors elected
in the cities.” He should
assure us that a man’s home will be his castle, that wastebaskets
will no longer be searched in the hope of piecing together fragments
of paper that might reveal some minor crime. If that happens, if all the cabinet ministers
come here and honestly declare, Yes, genuine peace between the government
and the people is more important to the Crown that one army corps more
or less---then we can forgive and forget all that has happened. Until then, gentlemen, please don’t be
too trusting!
EDUARD LASKER (House speech of September
3 for the bill):
The distinction has been made between freedom and unity. I for one say, and this is my deep conviction, that we will never
attain freedom until the unity of Germany has been achieved. (Quite right!) What is the source of all freedom?
The source of all freedom is the security of the state.
You have spoken of the happy island that has been able to regulate
its constitutional affairs so well....
England could not merely attain but also preserve its freedom
only because it has always been secure from external attack.
But in a state as exposed to foreign attack as Germany, there
is no way to avoid heavy burdens from excessive military costs, no way
to prevent the military caste from occupying the highest rank, no way
to prevent the interests of the army from superseding all others and
detracting from all civilian occupations and branches of business activity,
until that country is completely unified. Only when Germany has attained complete unity
can freedom be won, and not just for Germany but for all Europe. Until then we remain subject to the worst enemy
of freedom, an armed peace. A
secure state of peace will only come when Italy from the one side and
Germany from the other form solid states and unified nations capable
of suppressing French ambition forever.
Then all countries will find the leisure to delve into themselves
and occupy themselves with those tasks most pleasing to humanity.
DECLARATION BY 24 REPRESENTATIVES (including
Michaelis and Lasker), PUBLISHED IN OCTOBER 1866):
We held that our most urgent task in the extraordinary session
[of parliament] was to muster complete support from the country’s
representatives for the government’s foreign policy.
We regarded the vigorously conducted war and its successes as
a happy beginning for a genuine unification of the German fatherland. The expansion of Prussia and the subordination of the North under
Prussian leadership are permanently established; the separation from
the South should only be temporary and not last longer than is required
by external constraints. Dangers
can easily be discerned which threaten, now and in the future, the advance
that we desire and even the goal that we have already achieved.
In the face of them, it was the most sacred duty of the people’s
representatives to show the whole world at the first and at every following
opportunity that any government in Prussia can count on their support,
as long as it strives to promote German unity against foreign intervention
and domestic special interests, and to strengthen all of Germany. The conduct of military and foreign affairs by the leadership of
the current government has undeniably earned our trust that its striving
is directed toward these goals.
The grave conflict of recent years was incompatible with any
such demonstration [of support for the government], incompatible with
the most urgent needs of the fatherland; because of it there could be
no consensus between the government and the people’s representatives
and no active support for the government by the Landtag.
Fortunately, the deeds of the people in arms and the achievements
of government policy completely eliminated some of the causes of this
dispute, and others became less important.
The vote for indemnity was a recognition of what had happened
and prepared the way for an active role for the country’s representatives. ______________________________________
The impression soon spread on the Left that the National Liberals
had sunk into servility toward Bismarck.
This attitude is expressed in the following satirical offering
published in the socialist newspaper, the Dresdner Volksbote,
on December 15, 1872. [Source: Heiner Grote, Sozialdemokratie
und Religion. Eine Dokumentation
für die Jahre 1863 bis 1875 (Tübingen: J.C.B. Mohr, 1968), p. 184.]
The National Liberal
Lord’s Prayer
Our Prince Bismarck,
Thou who art in Varzin, hallowed by Thy name.
Come Thou into our session.
Thy will be done, in the House of Representatives as in the Reichstag. Give us this day our daily lecture, and forgive
us our speeches, as we forgive those of the House of Lords. Lead us not into the temptation of legislating,
but deliver us from all real progress. For Thine is the Kingdom, and the Power, and the Glory forever.
Amen.
#4.
THE OUTBREAK OF THE FRANCO-PRUSSIAN WAR, JULY 1871:
In his memoirs Bismarck offered the following explanation of
his decision to edit the Ems Dispatch in such a way as to arouse German
public opinion against France and goad Napoleon III into declaring war. [Source: Otto von Bismarck, Bismarck:
The Man and the Statesman, trans. A.J. Butler, 2 vols. (New York:
Harper, 1899), II: 57-62, 96-101.] ______________________________________
I took it as assured that war with France would necessarily have
to be waged on the road to our further national development, for our
development at home as well as the extension beyond the Main, and that
we must keep this eventuality in sight in all our domestic as well as
in our foreign relations. In some aggrandisement of Prussia in North
Germany Louis Napoleon saw not only no danger to France, but a means
against the unification and national development of Germany; he believed
that the non-Prussian portions of Germany would then feel a greater
need of French support. He cherished
reminiscenses of the confederation of the Rhine, and wished to hinder
development in the direction of a United Germany.
He believed that he could do this because he did not realize
the national drift of the time, and judged the situation in accordance
with his schoolboy reminiscences of South Germany, and from diplomatic
reports which were only based on ministerial moods and sporadic dynastic
feeling. I was convinced that a United Germany was only a question of time,
that the North German Confederation was only the first step in its solution;
but that the enmity of France and perhaps of Russia, Austria’s
need of revenge for 1866, and the King’s Prussian and dynastic
particularism must not be called too soon into the lists.
I did not doubt that a Franco-German war must take place before
the construction of a United Germany could be realised. I was at that time preoccupied with the idea of delaying the outbreak
of this war until our fighting strength should be increased....
I at no time regarded a war with France as a simple matter, considered
quite apart from the possible allies that France might find in Austria’s
thirst for revenge, or in Russia’s desire for a balance of power. My strenuous efforts to postpone the outbreak
of war until the effect of our military legislation and our military
training could be thoroughly developed in all portions of the country
which had been newly joined to Prussia, were therefore quite reasonable;
and this aim of mine was not even approximately reached in the Luxembourg
question in 1867. Each year’s postponement of the war would
add 100,000 trained soldiers to our army.
In the attitude I took up toward the King on the question of
the bill of indemnity, and in dealing with the question of the constitution
in the Prussian Diet, I felt the urgent necessity of letting other countries
see no trace of actual or prospective obstacles consequent on our internal
condition; I wished to offer them the spectacle of a united national
sentiment; and the more so inasmuch as it was impossible to judge what
allies France would have on her side in a war against us....
Not only my apprehensions, but the public opinion of Europe considered
that a league of Italy with France and Austria was not outside the bounds
of probability....
[Bismarck discusses the invitation to Prince Leopold of Hohenzollern
to become King of Spain, and his intense disappointment when King William
decided in response to French threats early in July 1870 to discourage
his cousin from accepting this offer.]
I conversed with the Minister of War, von Roon:
we had got our slap in the face from France, and had been reduced,
by our complaisance, to look like seekers of a quarrel if we entered
upon war, the only way in which we could wipe away the stain. My position was now untenable, solely because, during his course
at the baths [at Bad Ems], the King under pressure of threats, had given
audience to the French ambassador for four consecutive days, and had
exposed his royal person to insolent treatment from this foreign agent
without ministerial assistance....
Having decided to resign, in spite of the remonstrances which
Roon made against it, I invited him and Moltke to dine with me alone
on the 13th, and communicated to them at table my views....
Both were greatly depressed, and reproached me indirectly with
selfishly availing myself of my greater facility for withdrawing from
service. I maintained the position that I could not
offer up my sense of honour to politics, that both of them, being professional
soldiers and consequently without freedom of choice, need not take the
same point of view as a responsible Foreign Minister. During our conversation I was informed that a telegram from Ems...
was being deciphered. When the
copy was handed to me it showed that Abeken [a councillor in the Foreign
Office] had drawn up and signed the telegram at his Majesty's command,
and I read it out to my guests, whose dejection was so great that they
turned away from food and drink. On
a repeated examination of the document I lingered upon the authorisation
of his Majesty, which included a command, immediately to communicate
Benedetti's fresh demand and its rejection both to our ambassadors and
to the press. I put a few questions to Moltke as to the extent
of his confidence in the state of our preparations, especially as to
the time they would still require in order to meet this sudden risk
of war. He answered that if there was to be war he
expected no advantage to us by deferring its outbreak; ...he regarded
a rapid outbreak as, on the whole, more favourable to us than delay.
[Bismarck insists that France’s attitude was utterly unreasonable,
and that nationalist sentiment was surging upward in all the German
states.] All these considerations, conscious and unconscious,
strengthened my opinion that war could be avoided only at the cost of
the honour of Prussia and the national confidence in it. Under this conviction I made use of the royal
authorisation, communicated to me through Abeken, to publish the contents
of the telegram; and in the presence of my two guests I reduced the
telegram by striking out words, but without adding or altering, to the
following form:
After the news of the renunciation of the hereditary Prince of
Hohenzollern had been officially communicated to the imperial government
of France by the royal government of Spain, the French ambassador at
Ems further demanded of his Majesty the King that he would authorise
him to telegraph to Paris that his Majesty the King bound himself for
all future time never again to give his consent if the Hohenzollerns
should renew their candidature. His Majesty the King thereupon decided not
to receive the French ambassador again, and sent to tell him through
the aide-de-camp on duty that his Majesty had nothing further to communicate
to the ambassador.
The difference in the effect of the
abbreviated text to the Ems telegram as compared with that produced
by the original was not the result of stronger words but of the form,
which made this announcement appear decisive, while Abeken's version
would only have been regarded as a fragment of a negotiation still pending,
and to be continued at Berlin.
[1]
"His Majesty writes to me: 'Count Benedetti spoke to me on the promenade, in order to demand from
me, finally in a very importunate manner, that I should authorise him
to telegraph at once that I bound myself for all future time never again
to give my consent if the Hohenzollerns should renew their candidature. I refused at last somewhat sternly, as it is
neither right nor possible to undertake engagements of this kind à
tout jamais. Naturally,
I told him that I had as yet received no news, and as he was earlier
informed about Paris and Madrid than myself, he could clearly see that
my government once more had no hand in the matter.'
His Majesty has since received a letter from the Prince.
His Majesty having told Count Benedetti that he was awaiting
news from the Prince, has decided, with reference to the above demand,
upon the representation of Count Eulenburg and myself, not to receive
Count Benedetti again, but only to let him be informed through an aide-de-camp: That his Majesty had now received from the
Prince confirmation of the news which Benedetti had already received
from Paris, and had nothing further to say to the ambassador. His Majesty leaves it to your Excellency whether
Benedetti's fresh demand and its rejection should not be at once communicated
both to our ambassadors and to the press."
After I had read out the concentrated edition to my two guests,
Moltke remarked: "Now it has a different ring; it sounded
before like a parley; now it is like a flourish in answer to a challenge." I went on to explain: "If in execution of his Majesty's order
I at once communicate this text, which contains no alteration in or
addition to the telegram, not only to the newspapers, but also by telegraph
to all our embassies, it will be known in Paris before midnight, and
not only on account of its contents, but also on account of the manner
of its distribution, will have the effect of a red rag upon the Gallic
bull. Fight we must if we do not want to act the part of the vanquished
without a battle. Success, however,
essentially depends upon the impression which the origination of the
war makes upon us and others; it is important that we should be the
party attacked...”
#5.
THE ANNEXATION OF ALSACE-LORRAINE (1871):
Bismarck justified the decision to annex Alsace-Lorraine before
the new Reichstag on May 2, 1871. Note
the ingenuity with which he interprets the very fact that Alsatians
were rioting against the imposition of German rule as evidence that
they were truly German; note too Bismarck’s dim view of the Communards
of Paris, an attitude foreshadowing his later decision to demand an
Anti-Socialist Law. [Source: Lothar Gall, ed., Bismarck: Die großen Reden (Frankfurt/M: Ullstein,
1981), pp. 100-13 (trans. Bill Patch).] ______________________________________
If we transport ourselves back a year—or more exactly, ten
months—then we can say to ourselves that Germany was united in
its love of peace; there was hardly any German who did not desire peace
with France, as long as it could be maintained with honor.
Those morbid exceptions, who perhaps wanted war in the hope that
their own native country would be defeated, are not worthy of the name;
I do not count them among the Germans! Bravo! I repeat that Germans unanimously wanted
peace. But when the war was
forced on us, when we were compelled to take up arms in our defense,
they were just as unanimous in demanding, if God granted us victory,
that we should seek guarantees that would discourage repetition of a
similar war and make our defense easier should one nevertheless recur.
Everyone remembers that there has hardly been a single generation
among our ancestors for three hundred years which was not compelled
to draw the sword against France, and everyone knows that the reason
why we missed all earlier opportunities to secure better protection
to the west after previous victoroies was that we won the victory in
association with allies whose interests diverged from our own.
Everyone was therefore determined to devote themselves to securing
the future of our children if we now won a victory independently, relying
solely on our own sword and our good cause.
...I cannot more strikingly characterize the position in which
we find ourselves, in which South Germany especially finds itself, than
to relate a conversation with an intelligent South German sovereign
when Germany was pressed to take the side of the western powers in the
eastern war [i.e., the Crimean War of 1854], without it being his government’s
conviction that it had an independent interest in waging war.
I can also name him; it was the late King William of Württemberg. He said to me: “I share your view that we have no interest
in meddling in this war, that no German interest is concerned there
worth the trouble of spilling German blood.
But if we should fall out with the western powers over that,
if it should go that far, count on my vote in the Diet until the time
when war breaks out. Then the affair assumes another dimension.
As well as any other, I am determined to maintain
the obligations which I assume. But
take care not to judge men other than they are. Give us Strasbourg, and we will be united for
all eventualities, but as long as Strasbourg is a sally port for a power
which is continuously armed, I must fear that my country will be inundated
by foreign troops before the German Confederation comes to my assistance. I would not reflect an instant about eating
the hard bread of an exile in your camp, but my subjects would write
to me. They would be crushed
by contributions to obtain an alteration of my decision. I don’t know what I would do; I don’t know whether all
the people would be firm enough. But
the knot lies in Strasbourg, for as long as it is not German, it will
always be a hindrance to South German y giving itself, without reservation,
to German unity, to a German national policy....
I believe everything said in this case taken from life; I have
nothing to add to it. The wedge
which the corner of Alsace at Wissembourg shoves into Germany separates
South Germany more effectively from North Germany than the political
line of the Main, and it required a great deal of determination, of
national enthusiasm and devotion among our South German allies to disregard
this imminent danger, which would arise from a well conducted campaign
by France, not to hesitate for a moment in regarding North Germany’s
danger as its own, to strike quickly and advance in common with us. Bravo! We have seen for decades that, as soon
as domestic conditions made a diversion abroad necessary, France was
ready at any time to succumb to the temptation of this superior position,
of this advanced bastion that Strasbourg forms toward Germany. Very true.
...One would have thought that all Europe would feel the need
of preventing the frequently recurring struggles of the two greatest
cultural nations in the midst of European civilization, and that the
insight was obvious that the simplest means of preventing them was the
one of strengthening the defense of the unquestionably peace-loving
party. Nevertheless, I cannot
say that this idea was considered obvious everywhere. Laughter. ...The implementation of this idea,
the satisfaction of this overwhelming desire for our security stood
opposed first and foremost to the reluctance of the inhabitants themselves
to be separated from France. It
is not my task here to investigate the reasons which made it possible
for a thoroughly German population to become attached to this extent
to a country with a foreign language and with a government that was
not always benevolent and indulgent.
Part of the reason doubtless lies in the fact that all those
qualities that distinguish Germans from Frenchmen are especially well
developed in Alsatians, so that the population of this land forms in
ability and love of order, I may truly say without exaggeration, a kind
of aristocracy in France. They
were more capable in office, more reliable in service; Alsatians and
Lorrainers were represented in the military, the police, and the civil
service in a proportion far exceeding their share of the total population. These 1 ½ million Germans were able to take
advantage of possessing the special talents of Germans in a people that
possesses other talents; their qualities gave them a privileged position
that made them forget many legal inequities.
It is part of the German character that each tribe claims some
sort of superiority over its nearest neighbor.
As long as the Alsatian and the Lorrainer was French, Paris stood
behind him with its brilliance and France with its grandeur; he could
face his fellow German with the feeling, Paris is mine, and derived
thereby a special sense of superiority.
I won’t go into the further reason, which is that earlier
the Alsatian could see nothing on this side of the Rhine but a divided
nation, and every great state that develops its potential fully can
more easily assimilate than a divided nation, even one related to you.
The fact is that this reluctance [to be separated from France]
is present, and that it is our duty to overcome it with patience.
In my opinion we have many resources for doing this. We Germans in general are accustomed to governing
in a more benevolent manner, perhaps more clumsily on occasion, but
in the long run in a more benevolent and humane manner than the French
statesmen. Laughter. This is one virtue of the German character
which will soon be noticed by the Alsatians and will appeal to them.
We are also capable of granting the inhabitants a much higher
degree of municipal and individual freedom than French institutions
and traditions permit. When
we regard the current movement in Paris [the Paris Commune, which was
bloodily suppressed by provincial French troops in late May], we see
that, as in every movement of a certain duration, there is at bottom
a rational core in addition to all the unreasonable demands that motivate
many individuals in the movement; otherwise no movement could achieve
anywhere near the force that this Paris movement presently has.
This rational core—I don’t know how many people support
it, but at any rate the best and most intelligent among those who have
risen up against their fellow countrymen do—, I can describe it
in a single word: it is the German municipal ordinance.
If the Commune had this, then all its better supporters
would be satisfied—I don’t say all its supporters.
We must make distinctions here.
The larger part of this violent crew consists of people who have
nothing to lose. In a city of two millions there are a large number of habitual criminals,
people who would be under police supervision among us, people who reside
in Paris during the interval between two prison terms, who congregate
together and willingly exploit the situation wherever they find disorder
and looting.... In addition
to this refuse that can be found in every large city, part of the militia
is formed by a number of supporters of an international European republic. I have heard detailed figures but can only
recall that nearly 8,000 Englishmen are in Paris to further their schemes—I
presume that these are mostly Irish Fenians who have been designated
Englishmen—accompanied by an equally large number of Belgians,
Poles, followers of Garibaldi, and Italians.
These people are pretty indifferent to the Commune and to French
liberties, they pursue quite different aims, and of course I was not
thinking of them when I said that every movement has a rational core. (Laughter.)
The German character
of the Alsatians and Lorrainers, which yearns more for municipal and
individual independence than does the French, makes them feel such wishes
in powerful form, which are quite legitimate in France’s big cities,
because French law leaves them very little scope, and French statesmen
are traditionally convinced that this law represents the greatest possible
degree of communal freedom that can be granted.
I am convinced that we can grant the population of Alsace much
greater freedom in the realm of self-government without harming the
Reich, that we can gradually extend this freedom so as to approach the
ideal that every individual and every small district will possess the
greatest measure of freedom compatible with order in the state as a
whole. I hold that the task
of all reasonable statecraft is to achieve this, to come as close as
possible to this goal; and we can come much closer to this goal with
out current German institutions than France ever can with the French
character and its centralized constitution.
I believe therefore that German benevolence and German patience
will eventually win over our fellow countryman there—perhaps in
less time than people expect. But there will always remain elements whose
personal history binds them to France and who are too old to tear themselves
loose, or whose material interests bind them to France and who, if they
destroyed these bonds, would either find no compensation from us or
would find it too late. So we
must not flatter ourselves that we will quickly reach the goal of creating
a German sentiment in Alsace resembling that of Thuringia; but we also
must not despair of living to see the goal achieved for which we strive
if we are granted the normal span of a human life....
a) Peter Reichensperger, “For
the Next Elections,” Kölnische Volkszeitung, June 11, 1870:
A Rhinelander who had defended the Catholic minority in the Prussian
House of Representatives since 1849, Reichensperger set the tone for
the “Center Party” founded in the fall of 1870 with the following
campaign platform. In the Empire’s first Reichstag elections
in 1871, supporters of this platform won 56 seats; Reichensperger himself
won the seat for Krefeld by defeating a wealthy businessman who was
Protestant, a National Liberal, and a prominent supporter of Bismarck. [SOURCE: Eduard Hüsgen, Ludwig Windhorst
(Cologne: J.P. Bachwem, 1907), pp. 80-81 (trans. Bill Patch).] ______________________________________
All groups in the monarchy have recognized the necessity of setting
forth their electoral programs in view of the imminent elections for
the Prussian House of Representatives and the Reichstag of the North
German Confederation. The Catholic populace of Prussia certainly
cannot neglect such a unifying act, since it constitutes a minority
and must earnestly defend not only its civic rights and interests, but
in addition to this its often assaulted and threatened religious freedom....
These reflections have led to discussions among Catholic men
from all over the country, who have set down a few fundamental principles,
which they believe should be kept in mind during the elections....
1. Undiminished preservation of the Prussian constitution’s
guarantee of the autonomy of the Church [Selbstständigkeit der Kirche]
in ordering and administering its affairs, especially with regard to
the founding and development of Church-affiliated organizations.
2. Defense against any attacks directed at the confessional character
of elementary education, to guarantee the most sacred right of the Christian
family, and the final achievement of the freedom of instruction promised
in the constitution [i.e., the freedom of local school boards to define
the content of religious instruction in the public schools].
3. Preservation of the federal character of the North German
Federation as promised in the treaty of federation and the federal constitution,
against all partisan attempts to introduce a centralized unitary state,
which would be incompatible with true freedom and the proper development
of the great German fatherland.
4. Decentralization of administration and the achievement of
self-administration by the people in the commune, county, and province.
5. Reduction of the tax burden on the country, especially through
reduction of expenditures for the military, and a reduction in the term
of active service [required of conscripts] in the army. ______________________________________
b) Bismarck addresses the Reichstag,
January 30, 1872.
This speech might be considered Bismarck’s declaration of
war in the Kulturkampf; he links the Center Party to a variety
of subversive forces bent on destroying Germany’s newly won unity. [Source: Lothar Gall, ed., Bismarck: Die großen Reden (Frankfurt/M: Ullstein,
1981), pp. 117-28 (trans. Bill Patch.] ______________________________________
The previous speaker [from the Center Party] criticizes the fact that there is no Catholic in the cabinet, and I greatly regret that too; I would joyfully greet a Catholic colleague. But as things stand presently, in a constitutional state, we ministers need a majority that supports our course. Does the previous speaker believe that we would receive the support of a majority if we chose a cabinet from his parliamentary delegation? I doubt it.... The party to which the previous speaker belongs has itself contributed to making it difficult to forget the issue of religious confession in political matters. (Quite right!)
I have always considered it one of the most deplorable developments
in politics that a confessional party has formed in this political assembly,
a party that would be confronted by a much larger Protestant party if
the other confessions follow the same principle.
Then we would never be able to achieve consensus because we would
be bringing theology in as the subject of political debate. (Very good! Quite right! Great uproar.) It was a grave political error on the
part of the gentlemen who share the standpoint of the previous speaker
that they formed this party in the first place....
I honor the principle that every confession among us must have
complete freedom of activity and complete freedom of belief. I do not derive from that the conclusion that every confession must
be counted and that each must receive a share of civil service appointments
equivalent to its proportion of the total population.... Where would that end? He begins with the cabinet; then the provincial
prefects would also have to be appointed proportionately—I don’t
know what the ratio is, I think it is four to seven, but I don’t
want to know— (Laughter.) then the officials in all government
agencies. But then you have
to consider that the Protestant confession is not entirely uniform either. You can’t just oppose Catholics and Protestants.
The unified church of Prussia, the Lutherans, the reformed [i.e.,
Calvinists] have rights completely comparable to those of the Catholics.
As soon as you cut up the state into confessional pieces, which
every confession must possess in proportion to its size, then you must
also consider the considerable numbers of the Jewish population, a majority
of whom display special talents and intelligence that make them well
suited for state business. (Much laughter.)
[Bismarck notes that he suspended judgment at first when he heard
of the foundation of the Center Party.]
But then, when I returned from France [in 1871], I learned what
tactics this new party used in order to achieve success in elections.
We had hoped that a pious, clerical party would be a prop for
the government, would render unto caesar that which is caesar’s,
that it would display respect for the government even when it considered
the government mistaken and would maintain a sense of proportion, especially
among the masses, in the circles of the common man who knows little
about politics. But I was forced to listen in sadness and indignation
as election speeches, most of which were also printed, and press articles
influenced the elections by appealing in particular to the passions
of the lower classes, the masses, arousing them against the government. Nothing was done to excuse any lapse on the
part of the government, but everything for which it, like any imperfect
human institution, might be reproaches was magnified. I never read anything good about the Prussian government, anything
acknowledging its achievements, in any of these election speeches....
The government is determined, and I believe that nobody can honestly
doubt this, to see that every confession can move freely within this
state, especially such a distinguished and numerically large confession
as the Catholic.
But that it can exercise dominion outside its sphere, that we
can never grant, and I believe that this conflict involves areas where
the Church hierarchy seeks conquests, not where it is defending itself. (Quite right.) [Bismarck criticizes the Bishop of
Ermland for disciplining a teacher of religion in the public schools
who refused to teach the doctrine of papal infallibility.] The laws of the state forbid us from transferring
to a bishop of the Catholic Church the right to discharge a civil servant.
Here a collision between canon law as it has recently developed
and the existing laws of the state is unavoidable.
This conflict must be skillfully resolved; I regard that as the
task of further legislation, and I believe that the new minister of
culture [Adalbert Falk] will undertake this task with zeal and dispatch.
The government has no intention of undertaking dogmatic disputes
concerning the changes or declarations that have recently occurred within
the realm of Catholic church dogma; every dogma, even that not believed
by us, which is shared by so many millions of fellow countrymen must
be considered sacred by their fellow citizens and the government.
But we cannot concede the claim by religious authorities to the
permanent exercise of a part of state power, and insofar as they possess
a part thereof, we are compelled in the interests of peace to reduce
that part, (Very good! Agreement from the left.) so that we will have room next to each
other, so that we can live peacefully beside each other, so that we
will be able to discuss theology here as little as possible. (Bravo! from the left.) ______________________________________
c) Bismarck’s speech to the Prussian
House of Peers, April 12, 1886:
Shortly after he had decided, in effect, to capitulate by repealing
the May Laws of 1873, Bismarck sought in the following speech to demonstrate
that he had not suffered an embarrassing defeat but rather had pursued
successfully his original goals. [Source: Frederic Hollyday, ed., Bismarck:
Great Lives Observed (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1970),
pp. 44-51.] ______________________________________
I did not share in the initiation of these [anti-clerical] laws
as the departmental minister, not even as Minister President, but actually
as a member of the Ministry of State.
Count v. Roon was Minister President at the time when the laws
first originated. Also, I was in the position of delegating my
authority in domestic matters, because foreign affairs occupied my activity
entirely.... Nevertheless, I
do not gain the right from that to free myself from responsibility;
I will only delimit my responsibility in that regard to the fact that
I completely share the responsibility for the aim and tendency of the
May Laws as conflict legislation [and] still support them today....
The responsibility for all details of these laws is something
else.... But I must categorically
oppose an interpretation of this entire legislation which is spread
abroad today in the public press. There
it is represented as if the May Laws were not a regrettable necessity...
but that one has to honor in them the palladium of the Prussian state,
which may not be moved under any circumstances, if one does not wish
to injure the state’s honor.
Now, gentlemen, I must say that a question of honor is not concerned
here in any way. It is brought
in with I don’t know ho much time and energy... in the Progressive
party press.... I have always found that I am on the right
track when the Progressive newspapers attack me and that, as a rule
I am doing well if, when I myself cannot form a definite opinion, I
do the opposite of what is in the Progressive newspapers. (Laughter. Bravo!)
It is one of the most extreme absurdities, proof of what one
can imagine about the readers of these newspapers, when one makes a
question of honor of this matter. In
domestic conflicts, among fellow countrymen, the government’s honor
consists in its peaceableness, not, however, in its picking quarrels....
Yes, if the Pope stood on our borders in the French army’s
suite, or a Polish army at the Pope’s disposition threatened us
simultaneously from the east, then one could talk about points of honor,
then it would be permissible to fight to the last man and drop of blood....
As already mentioned, the May Laws... were just means of battle
to achieve peace. At that time,
in the middle of the struggle, it was not envisaged with complete clarity
how this peace would be achieved. I
permit myself to cite passages out of my speeches at the time as proof
that we envisaged, however, the idea of peace originally from the initiation
of the May Laws.... Immediately with the first one I offer, I must
again emphasize that I initially entered this struggle not from sectarian
considerations, but from political ones....
[Bismarck then quotes from his own speech to the Prussian House
of Representatives on February 9, 1872, addressed to the Center Party
delegation:]
You will obtain peace with the state more easily if you forsake
Guelf [i.e., Hanoverian separatist] leadership and if you do not take
into your midst Guelf Protestants who have nothing in common with you,
but actually need conflict to occur in our peaceful country, for Guelf
hopes can only succeed when conflict and revolt dominate....
I come herewith to the third ally who needs this struggle and
conflict, that is the Polish nobles’ exertions.
The fact is that, generally, the Catholic priesthood—also
the German-speaking ones—favor the Polish nobles’ exertions
to free themselves from the German Empire and the Prussian monarchy
and to reestablish old Poland....
I may still remark that I am in complete agreement... that the
millennial struggle of the priesthood with the kingdom will not allow
itself to be changed into a definitive peace by some resolutions of
some chambers; ...peace, not only between a German emperor and the Catholic
Church, but between king and priests, will always remain the squaring
of the circle, which one can approach but which one cannot achieve completely.
In the year 1873 [on May 10], I said in this chamber: “The
struggle of the priesthood with the kingdom, the struggle in this case
of the Pope with the German Emperor, as we have already seen it in the
Middle Ages, is to be judged like every struggle; it has its alliances,
it has its conclusions of peace, it has its truces, it has its armistices.
There have been peaceful Popes; there have been bellicose and
conquering ones.”
There you also see, therefore, a glance directed to the future
in which one hopes to come to an understanding....
[Bismarck then quotes from his own speech to the Prussian House
of Representatives on May 16, 1875]:
I keep hoping that papal influence
on the Center will be maintained. For
as the history of bellicose, pacific, combative, and spiritual Popes
shows us, I hope that the succession will still go once again after
this to a peace-loving Pope, who is ready to let other people live in
their way and will let peace be concluded with him.
...Approximately three years after the last utterance, the hope
that a Pope inclined to peace would come to power was fulfilled.
I refer here to one of the first pronouncements of Pope Leo XIII,
soon after he came to the throne in 1878.
This says: “So, in the midst of all sorts of obstacles,
we will continue to work for the German nation, for our soul can never
find rest as long as clerical peace in Germany is not restored.”
[Bismarck describes his first negotiations with the Vatican in
1878/79, which he asserts were sabotaged by those who benefitted from
a continuation of the conflict.] It
therefore occurred to me to try to do what we could unilaterally to
meet the King’s Catholic subjects halfway....
Examining the status quo the struggle had reached, I convinced
myself that we, as really always happens in conflicts, had occupied
many portions of enemy territory, which, when examined closely, were
really largely worthless to us....
Among the stipulations which I, in my personal judgment, consider
of inferior value for the state are particularly a great part of those
which apply to the education and appointment of priests—inspection
of seminaries, rights of the state toward the priest in his jurisdiction—in
brief, the entire competition, which the state seeks in the ecclesiastical
laws with the Roman Curia in regard to the control and appointment of
Catholic priests. I believe that a greater part of these stipulations fall in the
category... of what the English call a “wild goose chase.” From the moment he is a priest, the Catholic
priest is the regimented officer of the Pope; he will doubtless be pressed
to the wall and destroyed if he remains a priest and, at the same time,
fights against the Pope and against his superiors....
[Bismarck refers to specific amendments to the May Laws recently
submitted to the Prussian parliament.]
We would advance the line [of concessions] envisaged therein
still further, it it had been possible to make a legislative distinction
between the German and Polish parts of the country.
Regard for the fact that the Polish priesthood has unfortunately
exploited its clerical freedom to a high degree in order to further
and to favor Polish national goals—in our sense revolutionary goals—has
made it appear impossible for us to approve much in the Polish-speaking
parts of the country, which would have caused no offense to us in the
German-speaking ones.... If
we succeed in battling Polonism in the way we have recently attempted
[i.e., by subsidizing German-speaking farmers who wished to purchase
land from Polish-speakers], then that would give us a substitute for
many means of conflict which we now cannot dispense with in the clerical
field, and I believe it a milder substitute, which is less similar to
a battle in that we seek to do with Mammon, what was not done by force
of law....
I considered it useful to bring to His Holiness the Pope’s
knowledge the bill we invisaged introducing into the Prussian Landtag
and to hear his opinion on it, without promising we would change our
decision according to the opinion. I gave this way priority because I had the
impression that I would find more benevolence and more interest in strengthening
the German Empire and for the Prussian state’s welfare from Pope
Leo XIII than I would have found at this time in the majority of the
German Reichstag. (Hear, hear!) I consider the Pope more friendly to
Germany than the Center. The
Pope is certainly a wise, moderate, and peace-loving sovereign. I express no opinion whether that can be said
of all members of the Reichstag majority. (Laughter.) Besides the Pope is not a Guelf, he
is not a Pole, and he is not a German left liberal either. (Laughter.) He also has no inclinations to Social
Democracy. In short, all the
influences which falsify the situation in parliament are not permitted
in Rome. The Pope is a pure
Catholic and nothing but a Catholic.
The fact that he is gives rise to a number of difficulties, but
the difficulties are not compounded by the necessity of approaching
and receiving and rewarding the favors of other parties.
The Pope is free and represents the free Catholic Church; the
Center represents the Catholic Church in the service of parliamentarianism
and electioneering practices....
To complete the government’s declaration I have only to
add further that the revision of the May Laws, upon which the last Roman
note made dependent the granting of the complete obligation [of the
Church] to inform the government [about impending ecclesiastical appointments],
can, I am convinced, be approved by the government without difficulty, (Hear, hear!) since such a revision has always been
intended by the government. #7. BISMARCK’S RESPONSE TO SOCIALISM: THE
CARROT AND THE STICK.
a) Bismarck’s speech to the Reichstag,
September 17, 1878:
In June 1878 an anarchist, Nobiling, who had recently been expelled
from the Social Democratic Party, attempted to assassinate Kaiser William. Bismarck dissolved the Reichstag, and new elections
strengthened the conservatives. Bismarck
then submitted a bill to outlaw all “social-democratic, socialistic,
and communistic” organizations, which he defends in the following
speech. [Source: Lothar Gall, ed., Bismarck.
Die großen Reden (Frankfurt/M: Ullstein, 1981), pp. 168-88
(trans. Bill Patch).] ______________________________________
[Bismarck protests against assertions by the left liberal Reichstag delegate, Eugen Richter, and the Social Democrat, August Bebel, that he had cultivated ties with the leaders of social democracy early in his career.] I was rather surprised, as I read this in my rural retreat, that Representative Richter only pays attention to the external label “social democracy,” that he does not distinguish between honorable efforts to improve the lot of workers, and that which we are today compelled, sadly and reluctantly, to call social democracy. I cannot agree with Representative Richter if he wants to throw out the baby with the bath water and urges us, if we want to suppress the machinations of the present sect that does not shrink from regicide, to combat simultaneously every effort to improve the lot of the worker, to improve his income and his share in the community’s life. I am determined to resume these efforts, for which I am sometimes reproached, as soon as I have time and opportunity....
I turn now to what Representative Bebel said yesterday. I do not think that he realized that everything he said was untrue.
This is what he was told; he believed it and recounted it.
If he had himself made up this mixture of truth and falsehood
that I read in yesterday’s transcript, then he would be talented
enough to become a report for the Times or some other major newspaper, (Laughter.) and I would recommend this very profitable
employment to him. He began
his story with details that were carefully memorized. that seemed to
have been personally experienced, and by quoting my exact words, but
unfortunately he begins too soon:
In September 1862 a certain Mr. Eichler
appeared one Sunday in the middle of our committee, announcing that
he was commissioned by the Prussian government, by Prince Bismarck in
particular.
[Bismarck notes that he first took
office at the end of September 1862 and denies ever having met any Eichler.]
Moreover, I can assure you that I have never done business with
any Social Democrat; for I do not count Lassalle among them, he was
a much more refined character than his epigones; that was a significant
man well worth talking to. But the content of these conversations [with Lassalle] has been
falsely reported from beginning to end.
Mr. Bebel will doubtless be glad to learn this, because I can
testify that Social Democracy has never conspired with government agencies
to let itself be misused as a tool against other parties.
But it is also untrue that any government agencies ever sought
to do this.... Eichler did not
exist, and I request Representative Bebel to tell whoever saddled him
with this story that he is a liar.
Representative Bebel should be excused, because it is inconceivable
that anyone would say anything here that he did not believe to be true....
Lassalle himself was most anxious to contact me....
I did not make it difficult for him.
I saw him, and once I had talked with him for an hour, I did
not regret it. I did not see
him three or four times a week, but perhaps three times altogether,
maybe four, I can’t remember.
Our relations could not have the character of a political negotiation. What could Lassalle offer or give me? He had nothing behind him. In
all political negotiations the matter of quid pro quo stands
in the background, even if politeness forbids us from mentioning it
for a time. (Laughter.) But what if one must say: What can
you give me, poor devil? He
had nothing that he could give me as a minister.
What he had was something that greatly attracted me as a private
person: he was one of the most intelligent and charming people I have
ever met, a man ambitious in the grand style, not a republican at all. He had a very well developed national and monarchical
sentiment; the ideal for which he strived was the German empire, and
that gave us something in common. Lassalle
was exceedingly ambitious, and he may have been uncertain whether the
German empire should be headed by the Hohenzollern dynasty or the Lassalle
dynasty, (Great laughter.) but his sentiments were monarchical
through and through. He would
have despised his miserable successors who today compare themselves
with him.... Lassalle was a
very energetic and cultivated person, from whom one could learn a great
deal. Our conversations lasted for hours, and I always
regretted it when they were over....
Another reason why one cannot speak of negotiations was the simple
fact that I hardly got a word in; (Laughter.) he bore the burden of the conversation,
but he did so in a pleasant and charming manner, and everyone who knew
him will agree with my portrait....
In addition to the personal attraction that this man exerted
on me with his intellect, it is my duty as a minister to inform myself
about the elements with whom I must deal, and I would not deny Mr. Bebel
an evening’s conversation if he were to express the wish.
Indeed, I would hope thereby to learn at last just how Mr. Bebel
and his comrades think they can erect a future state by tearing down
everything that exists, everything that protects us and is dear to us. (Interruption: You certainly would!) Intelligent discussion is extraordinarily
difficult so long as we are left in the dark on this point, just like
the ordinary listeners to the speeches at Social Democratic rallies.
They learn nothing about the means, they are promised there will
be more pay for less work—nobody says where it will come from,
more specifically, how it can be sustained after the redistribution,
the robbery of the propertied has taken place. Thereafter, either the thrifty and diligent
will again become rich while the lazy and unskilled again become poor,
or else, if everyone receives their subsistence from higher authority,
we will live as in a prison, where nobody has his own vocation or economic
independence, where everyone stands under compulsory supervision.
Even in a prison, the supervisor is an honorable civil servant
against whom one can lodge a complaint.
But who will be the supervisors in the great socialist prison? They will be the speakers whose oratorical
skill allows them to win over the masses, the majority of the votes,
and against them there can be no appeal; they will be the most merciless
tyrants there have ever been, and the others, the slaves of tyrants. I don’t think anyone will want to live
in these conditions if he forms a complete image of this ideal which
we only have presented to us in brief glimpses—for none of the
gentlemen has offered a detailed positive program.
They refuse to do this because they know that every sensible
worker will laugh them down as soon as they frankly describe the future
that they seek to create; that is why we never hear their positive program,
just attacks on the existing order. All this does not prevent me from retaining
a sympathetic heart and an open ear for sensible efforts to improve
the situation of the working class, which at that time [1862/63]
still represented the main core of Social Democracy.
What Lassalle told me about this was stimulating and informative;
for he knew much and had learned much—I would urge the gentlemen
who want to be his successors to emulate him....
Our conversations also involved universal suffrage, but not its
imposition by decree. Such an
outrageous thought as the imposition of universal suffrage by decree
never occurred to me in my life. I accepted universal suffrage with some reluctance
as a Frankfurt tradition [from 1848]. This card had then been played against the German enemies of a unified
empire, and we found it still lying on the table. I did not have any such firm belief in the
superiority of another suffrage system as to justify repudiating this
popular idea left behind by the Frankfurt Assembly, which could help
against our political rivals; I did not then have any firm conviction
about the effectiveness of the various electoral systems. It is not easy for anyone to judge even though we now have some
years of experience of the consequences of the different electoral systems
in the various states. We have
a Reichstag elected by universal suffrage; we have another electoral
system in the Prussian Landtag. Well,
gentlemen, there are many who are members of both assemblies, and they
can form their own opinion of the consequences of the two systems; each
can say to himself, this or that assembly makes a more dignified, more
reasonable, better parliamentary impression.
Gentlemen, ...I don’t want to insult the Landtag or flatter
the Reichstag, but I prefer to spend my time here amidst the products
of universal suffrage, despite the excesses that have resulted from
it. The reasons why can be investigated
by everyone who knows both assemblies, but I cannot agree that universal
suffrage has been discredited by its results and that some other system
has been proved superior. We
will also see the voter become more sensible with time; he will no longer
believe implicitly whatever his representative or candidate promises,
or every reproach leveled against the government....
I read with an open mind all those bills that portray universal
suffrage as part of the cause of our misfortunes.
I just say: I am not convinced, you may certainly try to convince
me, but I see no crime in having discussed universal suffrage at that
time with an intelligent man....
I return to the question of when and why I suspended my efforts
to improve social conditions and changed my attitude toward the social
question, or the social democratic question as it then came to
be called. This happened at
the moment when the assembled Reichstag heard a passionate speech citing
the French Commune [i.e., the Paris Commune of 1871] as the ideal political
regime and openly embracing the gospel of these murderers and arsonists—I
no longer know if it was Bebel or [Wilhelm] Liebknecht, but it was one
of the two.... From that moment
on I have felt a great sense of urgency about the danger that threatens
us...; that appeal to the Commune was a beam of light illuminating the
whole issue, and from that moment on I have recognized social democratic
elements as an enemy against whom the state and society must defend
themselves.... We in Germany
do not need to resort to the drastic means adopted by the French, but
France is no longer the bastion of socialism, it has reduced the movement
to dimensions tolerable for the government and society.
How? Through persuasion
perhaps? No! Through violent repression, through means that I do not recommend
and which I hope that we will never see....
Is this rhetorical appeal [by Social Democrats] to the example
of the Commune, this appeal to threats and the use of force, is it to
be regarded merely as a rhetorical form, has it not been continued in
long years of press agitation? I
have observed this press for years, and the appeal to violence, the
preparation for future acts of violence has long been quite noticeable,
even if it was not so prominent as in the last weeks.
I recall one article in a socialist paper—I only read it
in the excerpt published by the Post—that depicted the assassination
of General Mesenzow [in Russia in August 1878] as a just execution and
recommended, in terms hard to misunderstand, the employment of a similar
system under German conditions. It
concluded with the words: discite moniti! [You have been warned!]
Well, gentlemen, you will all remember the article.
It was not a solitary lapse, because I have just read another
article from the same circles, probably from the same paper, which says
that all of our resolutions and laws cannot harm Social Democracy, but
that the legislators and all who work on these laws should realize the
great personal responsibility they have assumed by proceeding against
Social Democracy. This article concluded with the German translation
of discite moniti!—with the conclusion of the first article
that caused such outrage, with the cry:
You have been warned! Warned
about what? Warned about the
nihilist’s knife and Nobiling’s flintlock.
Gentlemen, life has no value if we are supposed to exist in this
way under the tyranny of a society of bandits, (Bravo! Bravo!) and I hope that the Reichstag will
stand beside the governments, beside the Kaiser who seeks protection
for his person and for his Prussian subjects and German fellow countrymen! A few more of us in this affair may fall victim
to the treacherous murderers, that is quite possible, but everyone who
might suffer this should realize that he falls on the field of honor
for the benefit, for the great benefit of his fatherland! ______________________________________
b) Bismarck’s doctrine of “state
socialism:”
Bismarck resumed his “sensible efforts to improve the situation
of the working class” in 1881, when he persuaded the Reichstag
to approve an ambitious system of workers’ health insurance, followed
by laws to compensate workers for the loss of wages during periods of
illness (1883), long-term disability benefits (1884), and old-age pensions
(1887). An English admirer compiled
the following declarations in which Bismarck sought to persuade German
parliamentarians to support this policy.
[Source: William Dawson, Bismarck
and State Socialism (London: Swan Sonnenschein, 1890), pp. 31-35,
111-12, 118-19.] ___________________________________________
1865:
[Bismarck replies to those who reproach him for having arranged
a royal audience for a delegation of striking weavers from Silesia.]
“I ask you what right had I to close the way to the throne
against these people? The kings
of Prussia have never been by preference kings of the rich.
Frederick the Great said when Crown Prince: 'Quand je serai roi, je serai un vrai roi des gueux [When
I become king, I will be a true king of the poor].’ He undertook to be the protector of the poor, and this principle
has been followed by our later kings.
At their throne suffering has always found a refuge and a hearing....
“Our kings have secured the emancipation of the serfs, they
have created a thriving peasantry, and they may possibly be successful‑--the
earnest endeavour exists, at any rate—in improving the condition
of the working classes somewhat. To
have refused access to the throne to the complaints of these operatives
would not have been the right course to pursue, and it was, moreover,
not my business to do it. The question would afterwards have been asked:
'How rich must a deputation be in order to assure its reception
by the King?’"
1882:
“I am not antagonistic to the rightful claims of capital;
I am far from wanting to flourish a hostile flag; but I am of the opinion
that the masses, too, have rights which should be considered.”
1884:
"Give the working-man the right to work as long as he is
healthy," he said on May 9th; "assure him care when he is
sick; assure him maintenance when he is old.
If you do that, and do not fear the sacrifice, or cry out at
State Socialism directly the words 'provision for old age' are uttered—if
the State will show a little more Christian solicitude for the working-man,
then I believe that the gentlemen of the Wyden [i.e., Social-Democratic]
programme will sound their bird-call in vain, and that the thronging
to them will cease as soon as working-men see that the government and
legislative bodies are earnestly concerned for their welfare."
... "Yes, I acknowledge unconditionally a right to work, and I
will stand up for it as long as I am in this place.
But here I do not stand upon the ground of Socialism, which is
said to have begun with the Bismarck Ministry, but on that of the Prussian
common law.... Was not the right
to work openly proclaimed at the time of the publication of the common
law? Is it not established in all our social arrangements
that the man who comes before his fellow-citizens and says, 'I am healthy,
I desire to work, but can find no work,' is entitled to say also, 'Give
me work,' and that the State is bound to give him work?" "But large public works would be necessary,"
objected his opponents. "Of
course," was Bismarck's rejoinder; "let them be undertaken.
Why not? It is the State's duty."
1884:
"That the state should interest itself to a greater degree
than hitherto in those of its members who need assistance, is not only
a duty of humanity and Christianity, by which State institutions should
be permeated, but a duty of State-preserving policy, whose aim should
be to cultivate the conception—and that, too, amongst the non-propertied
classes, which form at once the most numerous and the least instructed
part of the population—that the State is not merely a necessary
but a beneficent institution. These classes must, by the evident and direct advantages which are
secured to them by legislative measures, be led to regard the State
not as an institution contrived for the protection of the better classes
of society, but as one serving their own needs and interests. The apprehension that a Socialistic element might be introduced
into legislation if this end were followed should not check us. So far as that may be the case it will not
be an innovation but the further development of the modern State idea,
the result of Christian ethics, according to which the State should
discharge, besides the defensive duty of protecting existing rights,
the positive duty of promoting the welfare of all its members, and especially
those who are weak and in need of help, by means of judicious institutions
and the employment of those resources of the community which are at
its disposal. In this sense the legal regulation of poor relief which the modern
State, in opposition to that of antiquity and of the Middle Ages, recognises
as a duty incumbent upon it, contains a Socialistic element, and in
truth the measures which may be adopted for improving the condition
of the non-propertied classes are only a development of the idea which
lies at the basis of poor relief. Nor
should the fear that legislation of this kind will not attain important
results unless the resources of the Empire and of the individual States
be largely employed be a reason for holding back, for the value of measures
affecting the future existence of society and the State should not be
estimated according to the sacrifice of money which may be entailed.
With a single measure, such as is at present proposed, it is
of course impossible to remove entirely, of even to a considerable extent,
the difficulties which are contained in the social question. This is, in fact, but the first step in a direction
in which a difficult work, that will last for years, will have to be
overcome gradually and cautiously, and the discharge of one task will
only produce new ones."
1884: "The whole matter
centres in the question, Is it the duty of the State, or is it not,
to provide for its helpless citizens?
I maintain that it is its duty, that it is the duty not only
of the 'Christian State,' as I ventured once to call it when
speaking of 'practical Christianity,' but of every State.
It would be foolish for a corporation to undertake matters which
the individual can attend to alone; and similarly the purposes which
the parish can fulfill with justice and with advantage are left to the
parish. But there are purposes which only the State
as a whole can fulfill. To these
belong national defence, the general system of communications, and,
indeed, everything spoken of in Article 4 of the constitution.
To these, too, belong the help of the necessitous and the removal
of those just complaints which provide Social Democracy with really
effective material for agitation. This
is a duty of the State, a duty which the State cannot permanently disregard....
"If an establishment employing twenty thousand or more workpeople
were to be ruined...we could not allow these men to hunger. We should have to resort to real State Socialism and find work for
them, and this is what we do in every case of distress. If the objection were right that we should
shun State Socialism as we would an infectious disease, how do we come
to organise works in one province and another in case of distress‑-works
which we should not undertake if the labourers had employment and wages? In such cases we build railways whose profitableness
is questionable; we carry out improvements which otherwise would be
left to private initiative. If
that is Communism, I have no objection at all to it; though with such
catchwords we really get no further."
On March 13, 1885, Bismarck addressed the Reichstag to defend
a bill to subsidize steamship companies that established regular shipping
routes to Africa and the South Pacific.
A delegate for the Center Party had just supported the idea of
“settlement colonies” but opposed this bill as a misguided
effort to promote tropical colonies whose climate was unsuitable for
Europeans. In his emotional
conclusion, Bismarck refers to a famous story from Norse mythology,
in which the malicious god Loki tricks the blind god Hödur into slaying
his own beloved brother.
[Source: Lothar Gall, ed., Bismarck. Die großen Reden (Frankfurt/M: Ullstein,
1981), pp. 256-68 (trans. Bill Patch).] ______________________________________
The previous speaker directed the bulk of his remarks not against
our bill to sbusidize steamships but against our colonial policy in
general. He forces me therefore to digress from this
bill more than I intended and to discuss the colonial question, which
he has placed in the foreground....
The previous speaker made his wish to discourage us very clear. He does not even have to vote against the bill;
his speech made it plain that he does not agree with the colonial policy
of the German Empire. He began,
to be sure, by saying that he and his political friends support a colonial
policy in general, perhaps because of the lively interest in such a
policy expressed in public opinion and among the voters.
But he then resorted to the usual tactic of citing practical
difficulties to reject specific proposals which he supposedly supports
in principle. He says: Yes, of course we want colonies, but
not these....
The previous speaker seemed to desire colonies in those countries
to which Germans of all classes might emigrate—he considered in
particular those Germans destined for this fate who could not get by
in the Fatherland, he suggested that perhaps the nation’s refuse
would go there—countries where they could establish themselves
en masse and find a more fortunate destiny and mor sympathetic neighbors
than they would find at home. This image does not fit any of the present colonies. The most important and most promising of them
lie under the equator or almost on it; even Angra Pequeña lies in a
very hot climate and is a colony that can only become valuable if the
hope based on the judgment of experts is fulfilled that a mining industry
can be developed there. These
hopes are directed primarily toward copper....
The population of thesse colonies themselves will not be customers
who consume very much in the way of German products, but the business
offices established there... will serve to arrange for substantial exportation
of goods to the interior of Africa.
That this trade will be confined to brandy, as claimed by the
previous speaker, is news to me. If the English place such great value on their
colonies there, if they—not the government but many of its subjects—create
such great difficulties for us and seek tenaciously to expand every
foothold to the greatest extent possible—is that supposed to mean
that they are pursuing castles in the air, is that supposed to be based
on some mad whim? Is it not
more likely that solid English interests explain this, the hope of utilizing
coastal stations to export great quantities of English manufactures
to the hundreds of millions who inhabit the interior of Africa and are
gradually becoming accustomed to consume European wares?
You ridicule the ribbons that have been mentioned here [as goods
sold to Africans], but a large number of decent workers live from the
manufacture of these ribbons in our mountain villages, and at election
time you will not be disposed to laugh about their needs. (Very true! from the right.) I would urge the gentlemen who make
fun of the matter today to go to those villages in Thuringia and elsewhere
where these ribbons and glass beads are made and to repeat the derisive
comments they make here, then they will hear the proper answer. (Quite right! from the right.)
But it is not merely a matter of these little bows and
decorations. Representative Woermann has provided us orally
and in writing with lists of hundreds of articles supplied by German
industry to this region. If
everyone here did not consider himself a representative just of his
party and electoral district, this very informative explanation by Representative
Woermann would have prevented the gentlemen from ridiculing the insignificance
of the exports. Even the Portuguese—why
do they cling so tightly to their colonies and jealously defend every
little piece thereof? You can
accuse the English of whatever you want, but they are not dumb in matters
of commerce; (Laughter.) you will expose yourselves to this
charge if you raise it against the English....
Now the previous speaker says that this will only benefit a few
rich business houses that are already rich enough.
Well, gentlemen, these rich merchants are nonetheless human beings
too, Germans even, (Laughter.) who have the same right to expect protection
for their wealth and their business enterprises as that claimed by the
rich Englishman from his government.
If England did not have a much larger number of millionaires
than we do, it would not also have a significantly richer middle class. The two are closely connected. You should create many [millionaires]! We now have few wealthy houses, that is true;
but I hope and desire and strive in every way to guarantee that we will
get more such wealthy houses in our country....
I must deny that the government is moved by such petty considerations
as the previous speaker attributes to us.
We work and strive to raise the economic niveau of the entire
German nation, to which the rich belong as well as the poor, and if
we thereby achieve an improvement in the tax revenue of the German Empire,
you should rejoice with us because that means you will have much less
trouble with the uncomfortable task of approving expenditures. (Bravo! from the right.)
Colonies like Cuba, Puerto Rico, the West Indies and all the
equatorial colonies have always been considered by the mother country
to have a very high monetary value.
Nonetheless there has never been any great emigration to them;
nobody has ever tried to produce wheat or wool there, which might justify
the previous speaker’s fears about duty-free imports, but rather
they have produced tropical products that do not grow here.
That is the main point, to establish plantations there where
Germans of the educated or semi-educated class can be employed....
He [the previous speaker] referred to the difficulties experienced
by the French in Indochina [which had lost several thousand troops in
fighting there since 1880]. Well,
that just provides me with evidence that a wise nation like the French
that calculates carefully places an extraordinarily high value on possessing
such colonies and is willing to make sacrifices that we do not ask of
anyone in order to gain them. I have no intention of following French policy
in this regard. We do not imitate
foreign examples; we just follow our merchants with our protection.
That is the principle that we have always observed, but you will
force us to betray it if you do not grant us the necessary funds.
If that happens, gentlemen, I repeat, I must demand that you
clearly reveal to the people that it is not the government that has
refused to grant the means for this protection, but rather the representative
of the people who have denied those means.
I demand this clarity. (Quite right! from the right.) You must not conceal the fact that
you deny us the means by advancing all sorts of pretexts.... We will employ every method to force you to
play with open cards, to declare clearly before the voters and the public
whether you want a colonial policy or not, (Bravo! from the right.) whether you want colonies or not....
I recently allowed myself to employ an analogy with the concept
of a “people’s dawn” [Völkerfrühling] that can
be found in Teutonic mythology.... I fear that I did not make my meaning clear....
Throughout the last twenty years I have constantly been upset
and even tormented by the analogy between recent German history and
our ancient German mythology. I meant the concept of a “people’s
dawn” to apply to more than colonial policy.... I meant by this the dawn that has recently blossomed for us Germans,
the whole period in which—I think I can rightly say—God has
blessed German politics since 1866, a period in which we survived an
unfortunate war between brothers that was unavoidable in order to cut
a gordian knot, survived with much less damage than one might expect.
The enthusiasm for the national idea was so great in the South
as well as the North that the conviction spread that this surgical operation
was necessary to heal the old German sickness; soon old rivalries were
forgotten, and we convinced ourselves already in 1870 that the feeling
of national unity was not destroyed by this war between brothers and
that we all resisted the attacks from abroad as “a single nation
of brothers.” (A forceful Bravo!) That struck me as a people’s dawn,
that we won back the old German border lands, established the national
unity of the Reich, assembled a German Reichstag, saw a German emperor
again, that all struck me as a people’s dawn, not today’s
colonial policy, which is simply an episode in the series of setbacks
that we have since suffered. This people’s dawn lasted only a few years
after the great victory. I don’t
know if the billions in booty [i.e., the French war indemnity of 1871]
already smothered it. But then
came what I described with the concept of “Loki,” the old
German nemesis of party strife nourished by the distinctions between
dynasties, religious confessions, and ethnic differences, nourished
by the struggles between the parliamentary parties.
This spirit of strife took over our public life and parliaments,
and we have reached a state in public life where the governments stand
together, but where the German Reichstag does not function as the guarantee
of unity which I sought and hoped for, but rather succumbs to the partisan
spirit. This partisan spirit
is what I will denounce before God and history if the pen contrives
to ruin what the sword created, if it succeeds with Loki’s voice
in seducing the original voter Hödur, who cannot always judge the consequences
of his actions, into smashing his own fatherland, into wrecking the
magnificent work of our nation in 1866 and 1870. (Lively Bravo! from the right.
Whistles from the left. Renewed
applause from the right and from the tribune.) |
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History Department | Grinnell College Last updated October 12, 2004 |