Otto von Bismarck (1815 - 1898) |
Prince Otto von Bismarck, Duke of Lauenburg (1. April 1815 - 30. July 1898) was one
of the most prominent leaders of the 19th century. As Prime Minister of the Kingdom
of Prussia (1862-1890) he unified Germany (except Austria) with a series of
successful wars and became the first Chancellor (1871-1890) of the
German Empire.
Initially a deeply conservative, aristocratic, and monarchist Junker politician,
Bismarck fought the growing social democracy movement in the 1880s by outlawing several
organizations and pragmatically instituting mandatory old-age pensions, and health and
accident insurance for workers. He became known as the Iron Chancellor and is considered
one of the most important figures in German history.
Early life and rise to power
He was born Otto Eduard Leopold Graf (count) von Bismarck in Schönhausen and studied
law at Göttingen and Berlin. He married Johanna von Puttkamer in 1847, and their long
and happy marriage produced three children.
Delighted after the failure of the revolution of 1848, he was elected to the Prussian
parliament in 1849. Appointed to represent Prussia in
Frankfurt, Bismarck slowly became
convinced that a Prussian-led unified German nation was an important goal
(this was considered a liberal objective at the time).
Subsequently, he worked as ambassador in St. Petersburg (where he befriended his
future adversary, Prince Gorchakov) and Paris. In 1862, the Prussian king Wilhelm I
appointed him Prime Minister and Foreign Minister of Prussia, as part of a conflict
between the increasingly liberal Prussian parliament and the king.
The unification of Germany
Bismarck in Uniform |
The extent to which Bismarck was responsible for the
unification of Germany in 1871 is a
highly controversial topic amongst historians. There is also much debate about whether
what happened was a unification of Germany, or an expansion of the Prussian state.
What is certain however, is that Bismarck was partly responsible for the initiation
of several wars which lead to dramatic changes in the political structure of Germany.
First, in cooperation with Austria, Schleswig and Holstein were conquered and taken
from Denmark in the Second War of Schleswig; a peace treaty was concluded in Vienna
on 30. October 1864. Although already in 1865 Austria was pressured to let Prussia
take care of these northern lands, in
1866 he attacked Austria and won quickly at
the Battle of Königgratz, annexing Hanover, Hesse-Kassel, Nassau, and
Frankfurt to
Prussia and forming the North German Confederation.
After Bismarck provoked France, which at this time was ruled by Napoleon III, the
Franco-Prussian War
broke out in 1870 and the southern German states, viewing France
as the aggressor, joined the North German Confederation. France suffered a humiliating
defeat, and Wilhelm I was crowned German Emperor in the Galerie des Glaces (Spiegelsaal)
in Versailles, which served as the headquarter of the Prussian army, on January 18, 1871.
Bismarck thus largely created the Prussian led 1871 German Empire, at the exclusion
of Austria.
The Chancellor
Chancellor Bismarck |
Celebrated as a national hero, Bismarck became the first
Reichskanzler (Chancellor) of
the new Empire. In foreign policy, he now devoted himself to keeping peace among the
European powers of France, Austria, Germany and Russia. Bismarck's belief was that
Germany's central location in Europe would cause it to be devastated in case of any war.
Internally, he was concerned about the emergence of two new parties: the Catholic
Centre Party and the Social Democratic Party. The campaign against Catholicism that
started in 1872, called Kulturkampf, was largely a failure. He attacked the Social
Democrats in two ways: the party and its organizations were outlawed, while the
working class was appeased with (very progressive) legislation guaranteeing accident
and health insurance as well as old-age pensions.
In the elections of 1890, both the Catholic Centre and the Social Democrats made
great gains, and Bismarck resigned at the insistence of Kaiser Wilhelm II, who had
risen to the throne in 1888. Bismarck spent his last years gathering his memoirs
(Gedanken und Erinnerungen; "Thoughts and Memories"), and died at 83 years of age
in 1898, in Friedrichsruh. He is buried in the Bismarck-Mausoleum there.
Both the WWII-era Kriegsmarine battleship Bismarck
as well as two ships of the
Imperial Navy (Kaiserliche Marine), and Bismarck, North Dakota, were named in his
honor, as was the Bismarck Archipelago and Bismarck Sea outside the former German
colony of New Guinea, and several streets and schools in Germany.
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