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The Bismarckian Empire as a Federal State, 1866–1880: A Chronicle of Failure

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 December 2008

George G. Windell
George G. Windell
Affiliation:
Louisiana State University in New Orleans
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Extract

As the centennial of the Franco-Prussian War and the founding of the German Empire approaches, historians are likely to find renewed interest in the Bismarckian political edifice. It may be hoped that studies which result will examine the Empire from points of view different from those which have dominated most treatments during the last half century. However valuable some of these may have been, they have sought answers to questions other than those which properly should concern the profession in the future. Twentieth-century students of German history have lived and worked under the impact of two catastrophic world wars. They have understandably been mostly interested in exploring those aspects of German history which seemed to offer an explanation for Germany's role in bringing about those catastrophes. In recent years several scholars have begun to investigate the impact on German politics during the Bismarck era of various old and new socio-economic groupings as they responded to the sweeping changes which the nineteenth century brought to the German and the world economic structure. Their work has contributed new and valuable insights as well as opening the way to further research and controversy. What follows is still another effort to cast familiar ingredients into a new mold so that the product will be at once a closer approximation of the reality of the past and more meaningful to scholars of the present.

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Articles
Information
Central European History , Volume 2 , Issue 4 , December 1969 , pp. 291 - 311
Copyright
Copyright © Conference Group for Central European History of the American Historical Association 1969

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References

1. The earliest examples of this approach are found in several essays of the tragically short-lived Eckart Kehr (1902–1933), which did not become widely available until their republication in 1965. See Kehr, Eckart, Der Primat der Innenpolitik. Gesammelte Aufsätze zur preussisch-deutschen Sozialgeschichte im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert, ed. and introduced by Wehler, Hans-Ulrich (Veröffentlichungen der Historischen Kommission zu Berlin beim Friedrich-Meinecke-Institut der Freien Universität Berlin, XIX, Berlin, 1965).CrossRefGoogle Scholar See also Hamerow, Theodore S., Restoration, Revolution, Reaction: Economics and Politics in Germany, 1815–1871 (Princeton, N. J., 1958);CrossRefGoogle ScholarBöhme, Helmut, Deutschlands Weg zur Grossmacht. Studien zum Verhältnis von Wirtschaft und Staat während der Reichsgründungszeit 1848–1881 (Cologne and Berlin, 1966);Google ScholarRosenberg, Hans, Grosse Depression und Bismarckzeit. Wirtschaftsablauf, Gesellschaft und Politik in Mitteleuropa (Veröffentlichungen der Historischen Kommission zu Berlin beim Friedrich-Meinecke-Institut der Freien Universität Berlin, XXIV, Publikationen zur Geschichte der Industrialisierung, II, Berlin, 1967);CrossRefGoogle ScholarZorn, Wolfgang, “Wirtschafts- und sozialgeschichtliche Zusammenhänge der deutschen Reichsgründungszeit (1850–1879),” Historische Zeitschrift, CXCVII (1963), 318–42.Google Scholar See also the review by Pflanze, Otto of Böhme's book, “Another Crisis among German Historians? Helmut Böhme's Deutschlands Weg zur Grossmacht,” Journal of Modern History, XL (1968), 118–29,CrossRefGoogle Scholar and the recently published first volume of Hamerow's, Theodore S.The Social Foundations of German Unification, 1858–1871: Ideas and Institutions (Princeton, N.J., 1969).Google Scholar

2. See, for example, Taylor, A. J. P., The Course of German History (2nd ed., New York, 1962), pp. 107–11, 115–20.Google Scholar Although Taylor's book, first published in 1945, was written under the emotional stress of the Second World War, it is significant that he republished it unchanged almost twenty years later. A much more scholarly recent work with a similar viewpoint is Pflanze, Otto, Bismarck and the Development of Germany (Princeton, N. J., 1963).Google Scholar Pflanze writes: “Through the victories of 1866 and 1870 the essential features of the Prussian system with some diminution of parliamentary authority were extended over the rest of Germany” (p. 14). Also: “…the [Bismarckian] constitution was designed to serve a particular social and political interest. The essence of the Bismarckian constitution was its conservation, by the use of revolutionary means, of the Prussian aristocratic monarchical order in a century of increasingly dynamic economic and social change” (p. 338).

3. Both Pflanze, and Becker, Otto, Bismarcks Ringen um Deutschlands Gestaltung (Heidelberg, 1958)Google Scholar, succumb, although in strikingly different fashions, to the great Prussian's personality. The latter is the best account to date of the Reichsgründung.

4. In this regard, Huber, Ernst R., Deutsche Verfassungsgeschichte seit 1789 (4 vols., Stuttgart, 1957–1969)Google Scholar, which has so far reached 1914, represents an achievement of towering importance for future scholarship. See also the supplementary collection, Dokumente zur deutschen Verfassungsgeschichte, ed. Huber, Ernst R. (3 vols., Stuttgart, 1961–1966).Google Scholar For a briefer treatment see Hartung, Fritz, Deutsche Verfassungsgeschichte vom 15. Jahrhundert bis zur Gegenwart (6th ed., Stuttgart, 1954).Google Scholar

5. Text, Huber, , Dokumente, I, 75–81.Google Scholar

6. Text, ibid., pp. 304–24.

7. Text, ibid., II, 217–20.

8. See Diktat, (Abschrift, ), Putbus, , Oct. 30, 1866, Bismarck, die gesammelten Werke, ed. Andreas, Willy, Thimme, Friedrich, and Petersdorff, Hermann von ([Friedrichsruher]2nd ed., 15 vols., Berlin, 1924–1935), VI, No. 615 (hereafter cited as GW);Google Scholar “Unmassgebliche Ansichten über Bundesverfassung,” Putbus, Nov. 19, 1866, ibid., No. 616; Schreiben an den Kronprinzen Friedrich Wilhelm (Konzept von Bucher), Berlin, Feb. 3, 1867, ibid., No. 675.

9. Windell, George G., The Catholics and German Unity, 1866–1871 Minneapolis, 1954), ch. III;Google ScholarMathy, Karl to Gustav Freitag, Karlsruhe, Oct. 14, 1866, Deutscher Liberalismus im Zeitalter Bismarcks: eine politische Briefsammlung, ed. Heyderhoff, Julius and Wentzcke, Paul (2 vols., Bonn and Leipzig, 1925–1926), I, 350–51;Google Scholar Hermann Reuchlin to Hermann Heinrich Meyer, Stuttgart, Jan. 11, 1867, ibid., p. 361.

10. Support for free trade had historically been stronger in north than in south Germany because of the commercial tradition of the north German ports. Bavaria and Württemberg had tended toward protectionism for economic reasons, and had fought unsuccessfully Berlin's pressure for lower Zollverein tariffs. In pre-1866 Germany political leadership had been in Austrian hands, economic leadership, through the Zollverein, in Prussian. Particularly resented in the south had been the deliberate Prussian use of low Zollverein tariffs as a political weapon against Austria. The 1862 tariff treaty with France was in part designed to make it impossible for protectionist Austria to become a member of the Zollverein. See Lambi, Ivo H., Free Trade and Protection in Germany, 1868–1879 (Beiheft No. 14, Vierteljahrschrift für Sozial- und Wirtschaftsgeschichte, Wiesbaden, 1963), pp. 5–6;Google Scholarvon Delbrück, Rudolph, Lebenserinnerungen, 1817–1867 (2 vols., Leipzig, 1905), II, 216.Google Scholar

11. Cf. Pflanze: “The moderates [i.e., the National-Liberals] had taken the road which ultimately led to unconditional surrender.…” (p. 331). Also: “Unity over freedom, power over law—this was the constellation under which the German Reich was born” (p. 361).

12. The Hanoverian, Rudolf von Bennigsen, one of the founders of the Nationalverein, wrote to A.L. von Rochau, Dec. 29, 1866: “According to reports from Berlin very many conservatives will be elected [to the Constituent Reichstag] from the eastern provinces of Prussia, on the Rhine and in Westphalia allegedly a somewhat large number of ultramontanes. The physiognomy of the parliament will be extraordinarily different from that of 1848, and will play in terms of the standards of that time, a very modest role. If there is success, for which I do not despair, in organizing all north and central Germany with the help of parliament militarily and economically, and in these areas some emergency bridges are built to south Germany, a very firm basis for further development will have been achieved. The nation cannot ask for more at this time.…” Oncken, Hermann, Rudolf von Bennigsen, ein deutscher liberaler Politiker (2 vols., Stuttgart and Leipzig, 1910), II, 11.Google Scholar The Hanoverian friend of Bennigsen, Johannes von Miquel, said in a campaign address at Osnabrück in 1867: “The time of ideals is past. German unity has descended from the world of dreams into the prosaic world of reality. Politicians must ask today, not as before, what is desirable, but what is achievable.” Ibid., p. 11. See also the concluding portion of Hermann Baumgarten's 1866 essay, “Der deutsche Liberalismus, ein Selbstkritik,” reprinted in Mommsen, Wilhelm, Deutsche Parteiprogramme (Munich, 1960), pp. 142–47Google Scholar, and “Gründungsprogramm der Nationalliberalen Partei,” 06 1867, ibid., pp. 147–51.

13. GW, VI, Nos. 615, 616.

14. For the final draft agreed upon by the “allied governments,” see ibid., No. 629. The text of the version adopted by the Constituent Reichstag is in Huber, , Dokumente, II, 227–40.Google Scholar See also Huber, , Verfassungsgeschichte, III, 649–53.Google Scholar The most detailed treatment of negotiations on the constitution before it reached the Constituent Reichstag is in Becker, chs. VII through XII.

15. In a speech to the Constituent Reichstag on Mar. 9, 1867, the Prussian democrat, Waldeck, Benedikt, did express deep regret that Prussia had not done so. Stenographische Berichte über die Verhandlungen des Reichstags des norddeutschen Bundes im Jahre 1867 (Berlin, 1867), I, 107.Google Scholar

16. See, e.g., “Das deutsche Volk zwischen heute und morgen,” Historisch-politische Blätter für das katholische Deutschland, 08 13, 1866, LVIII, 327.Google Scholar The article, one in a series under the running title, “Zeitläufe,” although unsigned, was by the Blätter's editor, Joseph Edmond Jörg, later a leading opponent of Bismarck in south Germany.

17. Art. 7, Norddeutsche Bundesverfassung (hereafter abbreviated NDBV), Huber, , Dokumente, II, 229;Google Scholar Art. 6, Reichsverfassung (hereafter abbreviated RV), ibid., p. 292.

18. Art. 6, NDBV, ibid., p. 229; Art. 6, RV, ibid., p. 292. This organization and procedure follows exactly the line set down by Bismarck in “Unmassgebliche Ansichten über Bundesverfassung,” Putbus, Nov. 19, 1866 (GW, VI, No. 616), except that there he proposed that the number of Prussian seats would need to be increased to twenty upon a future joining of the confederation by the south German states.

19. For Waldeck's speech, see Stenographische Berichte…1867, Mar. 9, 1867, I, 102–109. For Schulze-Delitzsch, see ibid., Mar. 12, 1867, pp. 150–54.

20. Herzfeld, Hans, Johannes von Miquel, sein Anteil am Ausbau des deutschen Reiches bis zur Jahrhundertwende (Detmold, 1938), pp. 62–63.Google Scholar

21. Art. 17, NDBV, Huber, , Dokumente, II, 230;Google Scholar Art. 17, RV, ibid., p. 294.

22. See Bismarck's remarks in the Constituent Reichstag debates of Mar. 26 and 27, 1867. Stenographische Berichte…1867, I, 376–77, 393–94. See also his “Votum für das Staatsministerium” [Abschrift], Berlin, June 18, 1867, GW, VI, No. 818, and his “Privatschreiben an [Friedrich Karl] von Savigny,” Varzin, July 9, 1867, ibid., p. 423; Oncken, , Bennigsen, II, 50–56.Google Scholar

23. Arts. 57–68, NDBV, Huber, , Dokumente, II, 237–39.Google Scholar

24. The phrase refers to the provisions of Arts. 53 and 55 of the draft constitution, dated Dec. 9, 1866. Art. 53 read: “Each federal state is required to maintain in peacetime its contingent at a level of one per cent of its population.” The relevant part of Art. 55 read: “For meeting the expenses of the whole federal army and the installations belonging to it, the supreme commander is to be furnished annually as many times 225 Thaler as the number of persons making up the peacetime strength of the army according to Art. 53.” GW, VI, No. 629.

25. Art. 60, NDBV, Huber, , Dokumente, II, 237;Google Scholar Art. 60, RV, ibid., p. 302; Hartung, Fritz, Deutsche Geschichte, 1871–1919 (6th ed., Stuttgart, 1932), pp. 50–52.Google Scholar

26. See Ritter, Gerhard, Staatskunst und Kriegshandwerk: Das Problem des “Militarismus” in Deutschland (4 vols., Munich, 1954–1968), I, chs. VI and VII.Google Scholar

27. Conversation with Württemberg Chief of Staff, Gen. [Albert] von Suckow, Meaux, Sept. 17, 1870, GW, VII, No. 267; conversation with Crown Prince Friedrich Wilhelm, Versailles, Nov. 16, 1870, ibid., No. 318; Becker, pp. 688–91.

28. Texts of the treaties and auxiliary agreements, Huber, , Dokumente, II, 258–76.Google Scholar

29. See, e.g., Pflanze, pp. 488–90; Taylor, pp. 117–18; Brandenburg, Erich, Die Reichsgründung (2 vols., Leipzig, 1916), II, 385.Google Scholar

30. Par. 5, Vertrag … Beitritt Bayerns, Nov. 23, 1870, Huber, , Dokumente, II, 265–66.Google Scholar

31. Par. 4, Vertrag … Beitritt Bayerns, ibid., p. 265; Art. 2, Par. 4, Vertrag…Beitritt Württembergs, Nov. 25, 1870, ibid., p. 271.

32. Arts. VII and VIII, Schlussprotokoll… mit Bayern, Nov. 23, 1870, ibid., pp. 268–69; Becker, pp. 756–57. Huber, , Verfassungsgeschichte, III, 933Google Scholar, says: “From Articles VII and VIII … was to be inferred that the states possessed active and passive Gesandtschaftsrecht [italics in the original] in relations not only with German, but with non-German governments. The treaty intended evidently to create no reserved right for Bavaria; rather it established an equal right for all other German states.”

33. Quoted to the author by an official of the Badisches Generallandesarchiv, Karlsruhe, Aug. 1962.

34. Par. 8, Protokoll… Norddeutschen Bund, Baden und Hessen, Nov. 25, 1870, Huber, , Dokumente, II, 260;Google Scholar Art. V, Vertrag … Beitritt Bayerns, ibid., p. 267; Art. I, Par. g, Verhandlungen zum Bundesvertrag mit Württemberg, ibid., p. 272; Art. 78, RV, ibid., p. 305. See also Huber, , Verfassungsgeschichte, III, 736.Google Scholar

35. Becker, p. 785.

36. Windell, pp. 265–73.

37. Conversation with his colleagues, Versailles, Nov. 23, 1870, GW, VII, 415.

38. Hartung, , Deutsche Geschichte, pp. 47–50Google Scholar; Brandenburg, II, 264–66.

39. The best account of the development of the Reichskanzleramt and its predecessor, the Bundeskanzleramt, is in Morsey, Rudolf, Die oberste Reichsverwaltung unter Bismarck, 1867–1890 (Münster i. W., 1957), pp. 28–73.Google Scholar

40. Windell, ch. IX.

41. Ibid., pp. 289–90.

42. As late as Apr. 1, 1895, Bismarck defended his use of the term, Reichsfeind, in a speech in Berlin. See GW, XIII, 555.

43. A fully satisfactory history of the Kulturkampf is still lacking. Schmidt-Volkmar, Erich, Der Kulturkampf in Deutschland, 1871–1890 (Göttingen, 1962)Google Scholar, which is based on detailed archival research, gives the most thorough account yet available, although the author overemphasizes Bismarck's desire to avoid the conflict. Franz, Georg, Kulturkampf: Staat und katholische Kirche in Mitteleuropa seit der Säkularisation bis zum Abschluss des preussischen Kulturkampfes (Munich, 1954)Google Scholar, treats the struggle in Germany as part of a general European phenomenon, and is, therefore, necessarily superficial on Germany. The best treatment of the issues is Bornkamm, Heinrich, Die Staatsidee im Kulturkampf (Sonderdruck from Historische Zeitschrift, CLXX, Munich, 1950).Google Scholar

44. Huber, , Verfassungsgeschichte, III, 876;Google Scholar Bornkamm, p. 12.

45. For a review of efforts to create responsible Reich ministries, see Morsey, pp. 287–301. See also Huber, , Verfassungsgeschichte, III, 65–68.Google Scholar

46. Political calculations of liberals and conservatives were influenced, perhaps unduly, during these years by the expectation that the Prussian crown prince would soon inherit both the Prussian and imperial thrones, since Wilhelm I was in his mid-seventies. Neither side could ignore the possibility of a significant shift in the political climate following such a change. The presumption that Friedrich Wilhelm had real sympathy for liberalism and parliamentary government was largely a product of wishful thinking on the part of dissatisfied liberals. Nonetheless, the liberal leanings of his consort, Victoria, are beyond question. Since she was by far the stronger personality, the possibility was great that her views would have greatly influenced the crown prince had he become emperor while in good health. See Dorpalen, Andreas, “Emperor Frederick III and the German Liberal Movement,” American Historical Review, LIV (10 1948), 1–31.CrossRefGoogle Scholar Bismarck's fear that General and Admiral Albrecht von Stosch, Chief of the Imperial Admiralty, and a close friend of the royal pair, would replace him as chancellor if Friedrich Wilhelm ascended the throne was probably well-founded. See Hollyday, Frederick B. M., Bismarck's Rival: A Political Biography of General and Admiral Albrecht von Stosch (Durham, N.C., 1960), especially chs. V, VI, and VII.Google Scholar

47. Art. 8, RV, Huber, , Dokumente, II, 293;Google Scholar Morsey, pp. 29, 65–67, 73–75.

48. Goldschmidt, Hans, Das Reich und Preussen im Kampf um die Führung (Berlin, 1931), pp. 31–32.Google Scholar Cf. Bismarck: “The non-Prussian states will seek to make out of the Reichseisenbahngesetz a defense against the Reich—a magna charta for particularism. They will find in this effort allies not only in the big private railway companies…, but also in the particularistic trend of the individual governments, including ours [i.e., the Prussian] in their capacity as railway operators.” Bismarck to Foreign Secretary [Bernhard] von Bülow Varzin, Dec. 15, 1877, ibid., p. 192. See also Württembergisches Hauptstaatsarchiv, File E 73–73a, 61, Fasz. 12 (Gesandtschaft Berlin), File E 46–48, Fasz. 1275, and Bayrisches Hauptstaatsarchiv (Geheimes Staatsarchiv), File DR I H (Bundesrat), No. 454 (Den diplomatischen Ausschuss betr. vom 27 Feb. 1871 bis 7 Okt. 1908).

49. They were, in fact, limited to the income from customs, excise taxes on specific articles of general consumption, and income from posts and telegraphs. Several of the Reservatrechte further limited these revenues. See Art. 70, NDBV, and Art. 70, RV, Huber, , Dokumente, II, 239, 304.Google Scholar The same article indirectly authorized the Reich to collect direct taxes, but it was politically next to impossible for it to do so until after the beginning of the twentieth century. Until then direct taxation remained the prerogative of the states. See Huber, , Verfassungsgeschichte, III, 947.Google Scholar

50. Art. 70, NDBV, Art. 70, RV, Huber, , Dokumente, II, 239, 304;Google ScholarHuber, , Verfassungsgeschichte, III, 950–51.Google Scholar

51. Morsey, p. 141.

52. Hartung, , Deutsche Geschichte, pp. 85–87.Google Scholar

53. Ibid., p. 82; Morsey, pp. 73–81, 99–100; Goldschmidt, pp. 23, n. I, and 47–48.

54. Oncken, , Bennigsen, II, 317–34;Google Scholar Goldschmidt, pp. 44–46.

55. Hartung, , Deutsche Geschichte, p. 88;Google Scholar Herzfeld, pp. 423–24.

56. Immediatbericht to Wilhelm, Kaiser, Varzin, , 01 22, 1878, in Goldschmidt, pp. 222–30;Google Scholar Morsey, pp. 97–99.

57. Immediatbericht to Wilhelm, Kaiser, 01 15, 1878,Google ScholarHuber, , Dokumente, II, 312–13;Google Scholar Morsey, pp. 302–304.

58. Morsey, pp. 304–307.

59. Bismarck sought to answer the objections of Windthorst, as well as those of the Bavarian minister, Adolf Freiherr von Pfretzschner, and the Württemberger, Hermann von Mittnacht, in a long speech to the Reichstag, Mar. 5, 1878. See Stenographische Berichte über die Verhandlungen des Reichstags (Berlin, 1878), XLVII, 326–48.Google Scholar

60. Stenographische Berichte, Mar. 11, 1878, XLVII, 441. The vote was 272 to 171. Text in Huber, , Dokumente, II, 313–14.Google Scholar

61. Morsey, pp. 311–12.

62. Huber, , Verfassungsgeschichte, III, 952.Google Scholar

63. Ibid., pp. 951–52. Huber says that the Franckenstein clause was in “blatant contradiction” of RV since it violated Articles 38 and 70. However, except for the reservations expressed in Article 78, the constitution could be amended by ordinary legislation. Consequently the violations were only technical.

64. Ibid., p. 952; GW, XII, 59.

65. Huber, , Verfassungsgeschichte, III, 952.Google Scholar

66. Ibid., pp. 952–53.

67. See GW, X-XIII, passim; also the chapter, “Dynastien und Stämme,” in Erinnerung und Gedanke, ibid., XV, 197–203.

68. Ibid., XV, 448.

69. Bismarck had himself used the phrase, “parliamentary particularism,” as early as his Reichstag speech of Mar. 11, 1867. See Stenographische Berichte … 1867, I, 136. There are several references to it in speeches delivered after his dismissal from office in 1890. On June 18, 1893, he said: “The necessity for particularism is so great in us Germans that after geographical particularism was overcome so far as was required, particularism in another form immediately reared its head. The German needs intimate association; if he loses his geographical particularism he creates for himself Fraktionspartikularismus.” GW, XIII, 493.

70. Ritter, II, 148–53.

71. Goldschmidt's insistence that Bismarck sought total absorption of Prussia into the Reich is, despite the evidence he presents (Reich und Preussen, Nos. 4–8, pp. 139–46), onesided and overstated. Yet Morsey's argument that the dichotomy between Prussia and the Reich is not relevant to the actual historical process during the period seems also to miss the point. What really distinguished Bismarck from his king and emperor and from the Prussian conservatives was his conviction that Prussia's true interests were identical with those of the Reich.

72. Eyck, III, 585–86, 594–95.