For support that made, the research for this article possible, I would like to acknowledge gratefully the Deutscher Akademinscher Austauschdienst and Social Science Research Counil—Berlin Program for Advanced German and European Studies, Free University, Berlin.

1. National Zeitung, 25 February 1872.

2. On the problem of the social and cultural consolidation of the Reich see Eley, Geoff, “State Formation, Nationalism and Political Culture in Nineteenth-Century Germany,” in Culture, Ideology and Politics: Essay for Eric Hobsbaum, ed. Samuel, Raphael and Jones, Gareth Stedman, (London, 1982), 277–301,Google Scholar and specifically for the role of the kulturkampf following unification, 284 and 290. For the suggestion that the kulturkampf was “simply the next stage of unification” see Eley, Geoff, “Bismarckian Germany” in Modern Germany Reconsidered, 1870–1945, ed. Mantel, Gordon, (London and New York, 1992), 1–32, esp. 20–25.Google Scholar See also Shehan, James J., “What is German History? Reflections on the Role of the Nation in German History and Historiography” Journal of Modern History 53, No. 1 (1981): 1–23, and for the political culture of the new Reich,CrossRefGoogle Scholar see Anderson, Margaret Lavinia, “Voter, Junker, Landrat, Priest: The Old Authorities and the New Franchise in Imperial Germany,” American Historical Review 98, No. 5 (1993): 1448–74. For the concept of the Reich as an “unfinished nation”CrossRefGoogle Scholar see Schieder, Theodor, Das deutsche Kaiserreich von 1871 als Nationalstaat (Cologne and Opladen, 1961).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

3. On the Catholic revival and the development of political Catholicism after 1850 see Sperber, Jonathan, Pobular Catholicism in Nineteenth-Century Germany (Princeton, 1984).Google Scholar

4. According to liberal-nationalist journals, combating the influence of the Catholic clergy and the perceived revanchism of the population of Alsace-Lorraine was an urgent priority. See “Die Katholische Kirche im Elsass und in preussen,” PreussischeJahrbücher 27 (1871): 716–39;Google Scholar“Deutsche Aufgaben in Elsass-Lothringen,” Grenzboten 2 (1871): 565–76, 621–32, 657–68, 747–56; “Der Staatund die Bischofswahlen in Elsass-Lothringen,”Google Scholaribid., 2 (1874): 227–35; “Zur innern Wiedergewinnung Elsass-Lothringens” ibid., 3 (1874): 106–13; “Die innere Situation des Reichslandes” Im neuen Reich 3 (1873): 507–12, where Catholics in Alsace-Lorraine are the “submissive tools of the clergy”, “Ultramontane Umtriebe im Elsass”Google Scholaribid., 3 (1873): 527–36;“Staat und Kirche in Elsass-Lothringen,” ibid., 9 (1879): 131–43.

5. Hinschius, Paul, Die papstliche Unfehibarkeit und das vatikanische Koncil (Kiel, 1871).Google Scholar See also Hinschius, Paul, Die Stellung der deutschen Staatsregierung gegenüber den vatikanischen Koncils (Berlin, 1871).Google Scholar Hinschius was a major architect of subsequent Kulturkampf legislation. For a similar systematic refutation of papal infallibility see Bluntschli, Johann Caspar, Die rechtliche Unverantwortlichkeit und Verantwortlichkeit des römischen Papstes: Eine Völker- undstaatsrechtliche Studie (Nördlingen, 1876).Google Scholar

6. A literature on the Kulturkampf is immense, and a review is beyond the scope of this article. For a review of the older literature, see Morsey, Rudolf, “Bismarck und der Kulturkampf: Ein Forschungs-und Literaturbericht, 1945–1957, Archiv für Kultugeschichte 39 (1957): 232–70,Google Scholar and idem, , “Probleme der Kulturkampf Forschung,” Historisches Jahrbuch 83 (1964): 217–43.Google Scholar Two important recent additions include Blackbourn, David, Marpingen: Apparitions of the Virgin Mary in Nineteenth-Century Germany (New York, 1994), an exploration of the meaning of visions of the Virgin Mary among Catholics during the Kulturkampf, and the chapter “The Kulturkampf and German National Identity”Google Scholar in Smith, Helmut Walser, German Nationalism and Religious Conflict: Culture, Ideology, Politics, 1870–1914 (Princeton, 1995), an examination of the Kulturkampf as an attempt to consolidate a national high culture based on “enlightened Protestantism.”CrossRefGoogle Scholar The fullest treatment of the Kulturkampf remains Kissling, Johannes, Geschichte des Kulturkampfes im Deutschen Reiche, 3 vols. (Freiburg im Breisgau, 1911–1916).Google Scholar

7. Lepper, Herbert, “Widerstand gegen die Staatsgewalt,” in Lebensraum Bistum Aachen: Tradition—Aktualität—Zukunft, ed. Boonen, Ph., (Aachen, 1982), 98–139; quotation, 124.Google Scholar

8. Holborn, Hajo, A History of Modern Germany, 1840–1945 (Princeton, 1982), 264.Google Scholar

9. Craig, Gordon A., Germany, 1866–1945 (New York, 1978), 77–78.Google Scholar

10. Bornkamm, Heinrich, Die Staatsidee im Kulturkampf (Darmstadt, 1969), 18.Google Scholar

11. Eley, “Bismarckian Germany,” quotation, 21 and similar comments in idem, “State Formation.” See also the account of the Kulturkampf and of liberal attitudes toward Catholicism in Langewiesche, Dieter, Liberalismus in Deutschland (Frankfurt am Main, 1988), 68–69, 180–86.Google Scholar

12. Smith, German Nationalism, 37–41.

13. See Gross, Michael B., “Anti-Catholicism, Liberalism and German National Identity, 1848–1880:” (Ph.D. diss., Brown University, 1997), 16–71.Google Scholar See also Sperber, Popular Catholicism, 56–63 and Gatz, Erwin, Rheinische Volksmission im 19. Jahrhundert dargestellt am Beispiel des Erzbistums Köln (Düsseldorf, 1963). For a rich collection of clerical letters, missionary reports, newspaper articles, government and miscellaneous documents on the Jesuit missionary activities in Germany (compiled by a Jesuit),Google Scholar see Duhr, Bernard, S.J., , ed., Aktenstücke zur Geschichte der Jesuiten-Missionen in Deutschland 1848–1872 (Freiburg im Breisgau, 1903).Google Scholar For a study of the Franciscan missions see Groeteken, Autbert, Die Volksmissionen der norddeutschen Franziskaner vor dem Kulturkampf (1849–1871) (Münster, 1909).Google Scholar For the Redemptorist campaign in Bavaria see Kiemens, Jockwig, “Die Volksmission der Redemptoristen in Bayern von 1843 bis 1873, dargestellt am Erzbistum München und Freising und an den Bistümern Passau und Regensburg, ein Beitrag zur Pastoralgeschichte des 19. Jahrhundert,” in Beiträge zur Geschichte des Bistums Regensburg, ed. Schwaiger, Georg and Staber, Josef, (Regensburg, 1967).Google Scholar

14. Petitions that were sent to the Reichstag can be found in Für und wider die Jesuiten, 3 parts. (Berlin, 1872), Part 2, VI.und XIV. Bericht der Kommission für Petitionen betreffend die Petitionen für und wider ein allgemeines Verbot des Jesuiten-Ordens in Deutschland.Google Scholar See also the collection of materials in Moufang, Christoph, ed., Aktenstücke betreffend die Jesuiten in Deutschland (Mainz, 1872).Google Scholar

15. Among the Progressives only Eugen Richter and among the National Liberals only Eduard Lasker voted against the law and supported freedom of speech.

16. Government reports which clearly prioritized the replacement of Catholic clerical district and local school inspectors by lay inspectors can be found in Hauptstaatsarchiv Düsseldorf (hereafter HSTAD), Regierung Köln (hereafter RK), Nr. 2724, “Die Enthebung der katholischen Geistlichen von der lokalen Schulaufsicht und deren Nachfolger, 1875”: Kreis Bonn, “Verzeichniss derjenigen Pfarrer beider Confessionen, welche zur Zeit als Lokal Schulinspektoren fungieren, (26. July 1875)”; Regierung Düsseldorf Präsidiablbüro, no. 1308, “Schulangelegenheiten betr. alle Schulreform, Bd. 5, 1870–1875”; Regierung Düsseldorf (hereafter RD), no. 2619, “Die Anordnung der Schulpflegerbzw. Kreisschulinspektoren (kath.) und Förderung des Schulwesens durch die Geistlichen, vol., 1 (1872–1873) and vol. 2, (1874); no. 2722, “Die Enthebung der katholischen Geistlichen von der lokalen Schulauflicht und deren Nachfolger, 1872–1874”; no. 2723, “Die Enthebung der katholischen Geistlichen von der lokalen Schulauflicht und deren Nachfolger, 1875”; Regierung Aachen (hereafer RA), no. 17587, Kreisschulinspektoren, 1876–1878”; Landeshauptarchiv Koblenz (hereafter LAK), Oberpräsudium der Rheinprovinz (hereafter OP), no. 10412, “Die Kreisschulinspectoren Bezirke und die Kreisschulinspectoren”; no. 15196, “Die Kreisschulinspectoren im Regierungsbezirk Düsseldorf.”For the implementation of the school supervision law, see Lamberti, Marjorie. “State, Church, and the Politics of School Reform during the Kulturkampf,” Central European History 19, No. 1 (1986): 63–81,CrossRefGoogle Scholar and idem, , State, Society and the Elementary School in Imperial Germany (NewYork, 1989).Google Scholar

17. Eduard Windthorst's speech which runs twenty-four pages was the most detailed exposition of the liberal position on the bill. See the verbatim reproduction of the Reichstag debate in Für und wider die Jesuiten, part 1, Stenographische Berichte der Reichstags-Verhandlungen über Besetzung des Botschafter-Postens in Rom und die Petitionen für und wider die Jesuiten, session 22, 15 May 1872, 71–95.

18. Ibid., 79.

19. Ibid., 93.

20. Windthorst, Eduard is listed as an Old Catholic (Altkatholik) in Mann, Bernhard, ed., Handbuch für das preussische Abgeordnetenhaus, 1867–1918 (Düsseldorf, 1988).Google Scholar

21. Für und wider die Jesuiten, part 1, 94.

22. Zeising, Adolf, Religion und Wissenschaft, Staat und Kirche: Eine Gott- und Weltanschauung auf erfahrungs- und zeitgemässiger Grundlage (Vienna, 1873), 457.Google Scholar

23. See for example, Craig, Germany, 77 and Anderson, Margaret Lavinia, Windthorst: A Political Biography (Oxford, 1981), 166.Google Scholar

24. The total number of National Liberal deputies in 1872 is recorded as 125 in Statistisches Jahrbuch für das deutsche Reich (Berlin, 1880), 1; 140–41.Google Scholar This includes 119 deputies of the National Liberal Party and six “outside the National Liberals and the Progressives” aligned politically with the National Liberals. One other National Liberal voted against the bill. See below and n. 34. For the voting record on the anti-Jesuit bill see Für und wider die Jesuiten, part 3, Stenographische Berichte der Reichstags-Verhandlungen über das Gesetz betreffend den Orden der Gesellschaft Jeau, session 45, 17 June 1872, 96–97 and session 48, 19 June 1872, 140–41.

25. Harris, James F., A Study of the Theory and Practice of German Liberalism: Eduard Lasker 1829–1884, (Lanham and New York, 1984), 49.Google Scholar For Lasker's position on the Jesuit law, see also Laufs, Adolf, Eduard Lasker: Ein Leben für den Rechtsstaat (Göttingen and Zurich, 1984), 83–88.Google Scholar The socalled May Laws enacted by the Prussian Landtag in May 1873 ensured state authority over the education and appointment of priests. Priests were required to attend German universities and to pass state examinations. In addition, clerical appointments now required state approval. In 1874 a second set of more punitive “May Laws” permitted the state to exile recalcitrant priests and to administer dioceses left vacant by exiled or imprisoned priests.

26. Quoted in Zucker, Stanley, Ludwig Bamberger: German Liberal Politician and Social Critic, 1823–1899 (London), 1975, 95.Google Scholar

27. Quoted in ibid.

28. For Lasker's speech see Für und wider die Jesuiten, part 3, session 48, 14 June 1872, 101–6.

29. Bamberger, Ludwig, “Die Motive der liberalen Opposition gegen das Jesuitengesetz,” Gegenwart 1, no.22 (22 06 1872).Google Scholar See also Weber, Marie-Lise, Ludwig Bamberger: Ideologie statt Realpolitik (Stuttgart, 1987), 168;Zucker, Bamberger, 96.Google Scholar

30. Bamberger, “Motive der liberalen Opposition.”

31. Letter of Oppenheim, Heinrich Bernhard to Eduard Lasker, 4 07 1872, in Deutscher Liberalismus im Zeitalter Bismarcks: Eine politische Briefsammlung, ed. Wentzcke, P. and Heyderhoff, J., 2 vols. (Osnabrück, 1967), vol. 2. Im Neuen Reich, 1871–1890: Politische Briefe aus dem Nachlass liberaler Parteiführer, 55–56. Oppenheim continued, “The Progressive Party took a good position in such conflicts, and if our close friends had done the same, the National Liberal Party would be morally stronger and more influential.” Oppenheim, it should be noted, was also Jewish.Google Scholar

32. Zucker, , Bamberger, 96. Bamberger was replaced by a Center Party deputy in the election of 1874.Google Scholar

33. The aging Saxon “'48er” and National liberal Karl Biedermann stated in correspondence with Lasker that he intended sto vote against the bill since he objected to the heavy-handed manner in which the bill was negotiated between the Reichstag and the Reich executive. He would do so even though among his voters, when it came to the Jesuits, “the most angry is not angry enough.” When, however, it came to the vote, Biedermann, perhaps succumbing to the pressures he alluded to in his letter to Lasker, failed to cast a ballot. Letter of Biedermann, Karl to Eduard Lasker, 12 June 1872 in Deutscher Liberalismus, 2:53–54;Google Scholar see also Harris, Lasker, 49.

34. Both Lasker and Bamberger were secular Jews who remained bound to their identities even as they distanced themselves from the religious practice of Judaism. On Lasker's and Bamberger's relationships to Judaism, to the German Jewish community and on their positions on Jewish issues, see Harris, James F., “Eduard Lasker: The Jew as National German Politician,” Leo Baeck Institute Year Book 20 (1975): 151–77CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Zucker, Stanley, “Ludwig Bamberger and the Rise of Anti-Semitism in Germany, 1893–1893,” Central European History 3, No. 4 (1970): 332–52.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

35. Zucker, Bamberger, 96.

36. Smith mentions that Lasker “resisted anti-Catholic legislation” and “it seems more likely that a figure like Lasker asumed a reserved attitude toward the Kulturkampf, not because he was a liberal, but because he was a Jew.” Smith, Helmut Walser, “Nationalism and Religious Conflict in Germany, 1887–1914,” (Ph.D. diss., Yale University, 1991), 47–48, n. 53. As noted, only on the pulpit paragraph and on the Jesuit law did Lasker take exception to Kulturkampf legislation.Google Scholar

37. On the topic of Catholic Bürger forced during the Kulturkampf to choose between liberalism and clerical Catholicism, see Mergel, Thomas, “Ultramontanism, Liberalism, Moderation: Political Mentalities and Political Behavior of the German Catholic Bürgertum, 1848–1914,” Central european History 29, No. 2 (1996): 151–74.Google Scholar

38. The only other deputy besides Wolffson to abstain on the final vote was also a National Liberal.

39. As an example see Zucker, Bamberger, 96. Blackbourn inadvertently mentions that Lasker and Rudolf Bennigsen were the only National Liberals to vote against the expulsion of the Jesuits.Marpingen, 449, n. 88.

40. I have assumed that “Dr. Bähr” listed on the voting record in Für und wider die jesuiten is Dr. Otto Baehr, National Liberal, representing electoral district 2, Kassel, member of the Reichstag from 1867 to 1880. All information concerning the party affiliations, religions and electoral districts of the deputies, unless otherwise indicated, is based on Schwarz, Max, ed., MdR Biographisches Handbuch der Reichstage (Hanover, 1965), a source admittedly not without some discrepancies. No discrepancy that I have found alters this analysis.Google Scholar

41. Ellen Lovell Evans states that nine Progressives voted for the bill, eleven voted against the bill, and fifteen abstained. Evans, Ellen Lovell, The German Center Party, (Carbondale, Ill. and Edwardsville, 1981), 61. Anderson states that eight Progressives voted against the bill and that the Progressives Hermann Schulze-Delitzsch and Eugen Richter led those who refused their support.Google Scholar Anderson, Windthorst, 166. Although schulze-Delitzsch opposed the bill because he believed it was insufficient, he voted for the bill on both readings. (See below.) Richter neither spoke on the bill nor voted. Bornkamm states that twelve Progressives voted against the bill. Bornkamm, Staatsidee, 19, n. 1.Twelve did vote against the bill on the final vote, but four more Progressives, either on vacation or failing to vote on the final reading had voted against the bill on the second reading, Für und wider die Jesuiten, part 3, session 45, 17 June 1872, 96–97 and session 48, 19 June 1872, 140–41.

42. Evans states that fifteen Progressives abstained. Evans, Center Party, 61.

43. Für und wider die Jesuiten, part 3, session 43, 14 June 1872, 17.

44. Ibid.

45. Ibid., 18.

46. For Gerstner's speech, Für und wider die Jesuiten, part 3, session 45, 17 June 1872, 56–63, 94. Voting against the bill was not enough to save Gerstner his seat. He was replaced by a Center deputy in the election of 1874, and election in which almost all Catholic voting districts not surprisingly dumped their previous liberal deputies. The German Reich at this time had the most democratic franchise in Europe. On the signficance of the direct, secret, universal, manhood suffrage for the political culture of the Reich see Anderson, “Voter, Junker, Landrat, Priest,”

47. Für und wider die Jesuiten, part 1, session 23, 16 May 1872, 112.

48. For Sonnemann's democratic credentials see Gerteis, Klaus, Leopold sonnemmann: Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte des demokratischen Nationalstaatsgedankens in Deutschland (Frankfurt am Main, 1968).Google Scholar

49. For the democratic credentials of the Frankfurter Zeitung and its opposition to the Kulturkampf see Zeitung, Verlag der Frankfurter, ed., Geschichte der Frankfurter Zeitung, 1856 bis 1906 (Frankfurt am Main, 1906), 224–30. Quotation, 227.Google Scholar

50. See the article “Die Frankfurter Zeitung und der ‘Culturkampf’ “ in the avowedly liberal Grenzboten 3 (1875): 356–59.Google Scholar

51. For liberal repudiations of the separation of church and state see Zeller, Eduard, Staat und Kirche (Leipzig, 1873) and Zeising, Religion und Wissenschaft.Google Scholar See also Stillich, Oscar, Die politischen Parteien in Deutschland (Leipzig, 1910), vol. 2, Der Liberalismus, 84–88.Google Scholar

52. For Kiefer's positionon separation of church and state, Für und wider die Jesuiten, part 1, session 23, 16 May 1872, 105–7; for Eduard Windthorst's position, part 1, session 22, 15 May 1872, 93; for fischer's position, part 1, session 23, 16 May 1972, 155–56. One of only four Catholic Progressives, Eduard Windthorst lost his voting district in the next election in 1874. He must have found it ironic that his overwhelmingly Protestant district in Berlin chose none other than Carl Herz, a Catholic Progressive who had voted against the Jesuit law. Herz was fortunate since he no longer had a future in his original, predominantly Catholic district in Mittelfranken which now elected a Center deputy.

53. A copy of the order from the Ministries of the Interior and of Ecclesiastical Affairs, Berlin to the Provinvial Governor of the Rhineland and materials documenting the implementation of the law can be found in LAK, 403, OP, no. 7512, “Der Orden der Gesellschaft Jesu und die mit ihm verwandten Orden und Congregationen. Ausfůhrung des Reichs-Gesetzes vom 4. Juli 1872, 1872–1875.”

54. HSTAD, RD, no. 20111, “Jesuiten,: vol. 1, 1870–1872, newspaper clip from Essener Zeitung, a reprinting of the article appearing in Külnische Zeitung, 18 August 1872.

55. A detailed account by a Jesuit of the closing of the missions is given in Sträter, August, S.J., , Die Vertreibung der Jesuiten aus Deutschland im Jahre 1872 (Freiburg im Breisgau, 1914).Google Scholar

56. HSTAD, RD, no. 20111, vol. 1, newspaper clip, 6 August 1872.

57. HSTAD, RD, no. 20111, vol. 1, Report of Mayor, Gustav Adolf Waldthausen, essen, 14 August 1972; report of the Ministry of the Interior, 19 August 1872; report of the Police Inspector, Essen, 24 August 1872; newspaper clip from Essener Zeitung, 25 August 1872; newspaper clip from Essener Blätter 25 August 1872; Commander, VII Army Corps, 14th division, to Provincial Governor von Ende, Düsseldorf, 26 August 1872. Vossische Zeitung, 7 September 1872.

58. HSTAD, RD, no. 20111, vol. 1. newspaper clip from Berliner Börsen Zeitung; no. 20112 “Jesuiten ofer Order der Gesellschaft Jesu und verwandte Orden,” vol. 2, no date; newspaper clip from Spener'sche Zeitung, 6 September 1872. The Essen riots forced authorities fearful of inciting more rebellions to slow the pace of the closing of the Jesuit missions. See HSTAD, RD, no. 10699, “Orden der Gesellschaft Jesu bzw. die Ausfůjrung des Gesetzes vom 4. Juli 1872,” Bl. 88–89, Police President and Landrat to the Ministry of the Interior, Aachen, 4 December 1872. On the ultimate incapacity of the state to carry through the Kulturkampf against popular Catholic resistance see Ross, Ronald J., “Enforcing the Kulturkampf in the Bismarckian State and the Limits of Coercion in Imperial Germany,” Journal of Modern History 56 (09 1984): 456–82.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

59. Quoted in Blackbourn, Marpingen, 264.

60. Kladderadatsch, 3 August 1873.

61. Ibid., 27 November 1870.

62. Ibid., 23 June 1872; see also ibid., 20 October 1872.

63. Ibid., 1 October 1871.

64. Berliner Wespen, 14 June 1872.

65. Ibid., 28 June 1872.

66. HSTAD, RD, no. 2619, newspaper clip, Crefelder Zeitung, 23 October 1873.

67. Quoted in Wacker, Theodor, Friede zwischen Berlin und Rom? Geschichtliche Erinnerungen aus der Blüthezeit des Kulturkampfes (Freiburg im Breisgau, 1879), 11–12.Google Scholar

68. Berliner Wespen, 16 February 1872.

69. Ibid., 30 April 1875.

70. Für und wider die Jesuiten, part 1, session 23, 16 May 1872, 94.

71. Quoted in Langewiseche, Liberalismus, 182.

72. Quoted in Weber, Bamberger, 171.

73. Für und wider die Jesuiten, part 3, session 48, 19 June 1872, 115.

74. HSTAD, RK, no. 2723, “Die Enthebung der katholischen Geistlichen von der lokalen Schulaufsicht und deren Nachfolger, 1874–1875,” Bl.8.

75. See, for example, “Aus dem Österreichischen Klosterleben,” Vossische Zeitung, 12 August 1869.

76. Bluntschli, , “Zwei Feinde unsres Staats und unsrer Cultur,” Gegenwart 3, No. 20 (1872).Google Scholar

77. Friedberg, Emil, Das deutsche Reich und die katholische Kirche (Leipzig, 1872), 40–41.Google Scholar For more on Friedberg, see Birke, Adolf M., “Zur Entwicklung und politischen Funktion des bürgerlichen Kulturkampfverständnisses in Preussen-Deutschland,” in Aus Theorie und Praxis der Geschichtswissenschaft: Festschrift für Hans Herzfeld zum 80. Geburtstag, ed. Kurze, Dietrich, (Berlin, 1972), 257–79, 272.Google Scholar

78. Friedberg, Das deutsche Reich, 41.

79. Treitschke, Heinrich von, “Die Maigesetze und ihre Folgen,” in idems, Zehn Jahre deutscher Kämpfee (Berlin, 1879), 437–38.Google Scholar

80. Kladderadatsch, 29 March 1874.

81. Quoted in Wacker, Friede zwischen Berlin und Rom?, 12.

82. See n. 4.

83. Sybel, Heinrich von, “Was wir von Frankreich lernen können,” in idem, Vorträge und Aufsätze (Berlin, 1874), 342. The article originally appeared in 1871.Google Scholar