The Iron Chancellor and the
“Enemies of the Reich”
1872/73: Kulturkampf begins: Prussian laws impose lay
school inspectors and regulate the training of priests.
1875: Unification of Marxist and Lassallean socialists.
1878/79: Détente with Catholicism; Anti-Socialist Law; shift
to protective tariffs; alliance with Austria.
1883/84: Laws for national health insurance and disability
pensions for factory workers
1884/85: Germany founds colonies in Africa and the South
Pacific
1890: Kaiser Wilhelm II dismisses Bismarck
1898: Publication of Bismarck’s memoirs
The German Empire of 1871-1918
“Homage to Kaiser Wilhelm I,” (Berlin, 1871; Luther,
Frederick the Great, & Blücher already hang on the wall)
Early session of the German Reichstag, 1872,
in the former Royal Porcelain Factory
Bismarck took alarm at the overlap between
Catholicism and secessionism
“Night on the
Rhine,”
Berliner
Wespen,
March 17, 1871
(the Center
Party won 17%
of the national
vote that year)
“In Canossa: How the Delegate for Meppen [Windthorst]
Would Like to See Bismarck Stymied,” Der Ulk, May 22, 1872
The Police offer “Assistance” to socialist leaders
and Bishop Melchers, Ulk, 9 April 1874
“Between Berlin & Rome” (May 1875)
The Gothic parish church at Kiedrich, near Wiesbaden,
contains another sort of “Bismarck monument”
Kiedrich Parish Church, Stations of the Cross (1877)
Bismarck as Christ’s tormentor (Adalbert Falk looks on)
“Modus vivendi”
(March 1878):
After the election
of Leo XIII, the
Pope offers his
slipper for
Bismarck to kiss,
and the Iron
Chancellor
reciprocates.
Ludwig Windhorst
looks on anxiously.
“’Of One Mind.’
(For Once!),”
Punch, Jan. 1879.
Bismarck and Leo
XIII together slam
the door on
“socialism,
nihilism,
democracy.”
Anton von Werner, “The Congress of Berlin, June-July 1878”
(Bismarck cooperated with Benjamin Disraeli)
“The same old hurdygurdy! ‘The Song of the
Bad Jews,’”
Berliner Wespen,
July 16, 1875.
The Kreuz-Zeitung
depicts:
1. Jewish politicians
breaking into the
national treasury
2. Bismarck bowing to
“King Bleichröder”
3. “The persecution of the
Christians in 1875”
(Jewish stockbrokers
slaughter German
investors)
“The Triple
Alliance,”
Kladderadatsch,
1883:
France and
Russia are left
out in the cold
The empires of East Central Europe:
Italy joined the Triple Alliance with Germany and
Austria-Hungary in 1882
“Dissolution of the Reichstag,” Kladderadatsch, 7 July 1878:
“The arrow is aimed at the Social Democrats,
but what if he misses?”
NATIONAL LIBERAL LEADERS, 1878
Wehrenpfennig, Lasker, Heinrich von Treitschke, J. Miquel
Roggenbach, Karl Braun, Rudolf Gneist, Ludwig Bamberger
“The Mighty Trinity” (September 1880):
“The Reich Chancellor conferred yesterday with the Prime Minister of Prussia
and the new Minister of Commerce. Perfect harmony prevailed…”
REPRESSION UNDER
THE ANTI-SOCIALIST
LAW IN THE 1880s:
The police dissolve a
workers’ rally after
judging that the speaker
had advocated socialism.
The police search a
worker’s apartment for
socialist pamphlets or
magazines, smuggled
from Switzerland.
Robert Koehler, “The Strike” (Munich, 1886):
With unions outlawed, strikes often erupted in violence.
The Calvinist Court
Preacher Adolf
Stöcker founded a
“Christian Social
Party” in Berlin in
1878 to inoculate
workers against
Marxism.
“Germany’s Dawn.
The Kaiser
Proclaims Social
Reform on the
Ethical Foundation
of Christianity,”
Die Wahrheit,
September 1882
(note the unhappy
Jew at left)
“Experimental
Socialism: ‘What a
lovely show, but alas,
only a show.’”
Kladderadatsch,
25 May 1884.
The “Right to Work”
tames the workingclass lion.
“The Ideal of the
Old-Age Pensions
Law,”
Kladderadatsch, April
21, 1889:
Civil servants wait on
the elderly hand and
foot
“The Partition of the
Dark Continent”
(June 1884):
Colonialists exhort
Bismarck not to fall
behind France and
Great Britain
King Leopold II of Belgium, who hired H.M.
Stanley to found the “Congo Free State,” and
Stanley’s Congo Expedition of 1874-1877
The Berlin Congo Conference of 1884/85 recognized
Leopold’s “Congo Free State,” agreed to suppress slavery,
and established rules to define “effective occupation”
The Partition of
Africa:
The Marginal
European presence
in 1878 and the
colonial empires of
1914
“The New
Petticoat”
(March 1885):
Bismarck has just
sold Germania the
latest French
fashion, a colonial
petticoat. Her old
housekeeper,
Windthorst, is
appalled by the
expense
RESULTS OF THE SAMPLE
REICHSTAG ELECTIONS, 1871-1884
• Each result is expressed as a percentage of the popular
vote, then of the Reichstag seats.
• In each district, if no candidate received an absolute
majority in the first round, the election would be held
again; in the second round, a plurality sufficed.
• Voter turnout in 1871 was only 51%.
Year Soc.
Dem.
Left
Liberal
National
Liberal
Center
Party
Free
German
Conserv. Conserv.
Secessionist
1871 3/0.5
9/12
30/33
19/17
9/10
14/15
6/6
1877
9/3
8/9
30/36
25/23
8/10
10/10
10/8
1884
10/6
18/17
18/13
23/25
7/7
15/20
8/11
THE NEW KAISER
VISITS CHANCELLOR
BISMARCK AT
FRIEDRICHSRUH.
Bismarck said, “The
Kaiser is like a
balloon; if you let go
of the string, you
never know where
he’ll wind up.”
Kaiser Wilhelm II (1888-1918)
The Pilot Leaves the Ship,
Punch, March 1890
Bismarck in
retirement
(in 1895 at
Friedrichsruh,
outside
Hamburg)
“Chancellors Come in
Three Sizes,”
Lustige Blätter,
January 1895
Bismarck in the
uniform of a cavalry
general,
Bad Kreuznach,
1896
The official Bismarck monument in Berlin (1897-1901):
Sibylle peers into the book of history, and Germania puts her
heel on the leopard of rebellion and discord
Germania,
built from 1874 to 1885
by Johannes Schilling
with contributions from
the veterans of the
Franco-Prussian War
Germania Detail: The Conquest of Paris and Lyrics to
“The Watch on the Rhine”
The voluntary Bismarck monument outside Hamburg
(completed in 1906)
Bismarck as Medieval Knight