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Problems of a Bismarck Biography

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 August 2009

Hans Rothfels
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Extract

Friedrich Meinecke in his recent book on The German Catastrophe quotes a Danish friend and historian as saying to him during the Hitler regime: “You know, that I cannot love Bismarck, but in the present situation I must say: Bismarck belonged to our world.” It would be easy to contrast this nicely balanced statement with innumerable others which, in the last years, indulged in indictments of the founder of the German Reich as a “Nazi forefather” or threw him into the line of descent which is supposed to lead from Frederick IPs attack on Silesia in 1740 to Hitler's attack on Poland in 1939. Thus the myth of the “Iron Chancellor,” of the man “in high dragoon's boots” revived and, amazingly enough, the Nazi trick of appropriating “Prussianism” as epitomized in the pageantry of the so-called “day of Potsdam,” was given full credit by many of their very adversaries. But there were also the voices of those who, in a more careful and responsible way, tried to find out what links may possibly connect the beginnings with the end of the Prusso-German Reich or may point ahead from 1866 and 1871 or from 1879 to the potentialities of the Hitler regime. Meinecke's treatise is one of the finest examples of such conscientious scrutiny carried out by Germans themselves. From whatever angle this question is raised the towering and baffling figure of Bismarck undoubtedly has won a new actuality. And it can easily be understood that in the recent crisis of statesmanship and particularly in view of the disaster which Germany brought upon herself and the world, attention turned back to the man who stands for decisive changes in the external setup as well as in the intellectual and moral, the political and social climate of nineteenth century Europe.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Review of Politics , Volume 9 , Issue 3 , July 1947 , pp. 362 - 380
Copyright
Copyright © University of Notre Dame 1947

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References

1 Die deutsche Katastrophe (Ed. Brockhaus, , Wiesbaden, 1946), p. 27.Google Scholar

2 Another very impressive example of such a historiographic re-examination, though pointing in a somewhat different direction, is Ritter's, GerhardGeschichte als Bildungsmacht (Stuttgart, Deutsche Verlagsanstalt, 1946).Google Scholar As to Bismarck, , see pp. 46–50.Google Scholar

3 (Eugen Rentsch Verlag, Erlenbach-Zuerich) vol. I (-1864), 679 pp., 1941; vol. II (1871), 630 pp., 1943; vol. III (1898), pp., 1944.Google Scholar

4 Many evidences of this fact could be quoted. See, e.g., the remarks of the Princess Herbert v. Bismarck, who stated (Oct., 1936) that her father-in-law did not count for anything any more and that his name was “systematically belittled.” (Ulrich, v. Hassel, , Vom Anderen Deutschland (Atlantis Verlag, Zürich, 1946), p. 23).Google Scholar Hassel endorses this statement and also mentions in his diaries the fact that on occasion of the 50th anniversary of the death of Bismarck's wife it was forbidden to refer to the part which religion played in the Chancellor's matrimonial life.

5 See such examples as: I, 92 (“nicht mit ihr zu Rande Kam”) or III, 630 (“wie sie dem Verfasser in semen Kram pasten”).

6 See the interesting review by Anderson, E. N. (Journal of Central European Affairs, 04, 1946, pp. 85–90)Google Scholar, who also finds the “moral significance of the constitutional conflict” of the sixties slighted by the author. In contrast it seems to this writer, that in the framework of a biography the moral importance of the conflict has never before been emphasized so much and so legitimately.

7 The same typical split appears when the Gedanken and Erinnerungen, first and with an untenable exaggeration, are denied any value as a historic source except that of creating a myth, and then, again with some exaggeration, are appraised as one “of the greatest masterworks of world literature.” (III, 630.)

8 See: Thieme, Karl, Das Schicksal der Deutschen (Basel, Kobersche Verlagsbuchhandlung, 1945), pp. 104–07.Google Scholar

9 Since this was written the writer has read: Namier, L. B., 1848, the Revolution of the Intellectuals (London, 1944).Google Scholar He will reply to this indictment of German liberalism in Journal of Modern History (09, 1947)Google Scholar. But whatever Mr. Namier's exaggerations, he is certainly correct in stating that an aggressive nationalism “derives from the belauded Frankfort Parliament rather than from Bismarck and Prussianism.” (I. c., p. 33.Google Scholar) It can only be regretted that this insight seems to gain ground so belatedly. Not the slightest ripple of it has reached Mr. Eyck.

10 Knaplund, P., Letters from the Berlin Embassy (1871–85) (Washington, 1944), p. 127. Mr. Eyck (III, 89, 163) mentions Gladstone's opposition to the Vatican decrees only in general terms.Google Scholar

11 See I. 32, II, 242–43 (Sadowa was his victory; what fruits would it bear to him?), III, 381.

12 The “obstinate veracity” of which John Motley spoke.

13 Though the author does not fail to indicate the problematic character of some of his sources, the reader is constantly exposed to “the semper haeret aliquid.” This is one of the reservations which has to be added to the appraisal of the fairness of the book. Also in the treatment of Bismarck's “grasping” nature, the documents regarding his double role as minister and as “subject” would be corrective and the book by Bismarck's head forester in Varzin (Westphal, E., Bismarck als Gutsherr, Leipzig, 1932)Google Scholar gives an entirely different picture. In the matter of the Welfenfond (II, 369–78) there is certainly every good reason for criticism, yet in fairness it may be added that it was not only used for press propaganda or for “bribing” Ludwig II (III, 553–555) but that part of the revenue went into public buildings and the improvement of the Northsea resort Nordeney, in order to continue or even increase payments formerly made by the dispossessed princes. (Bismarck, , Saemtliche Werlfe VI, pp. 506, 553–554.)Google Scholar

14 Studies in Modern History (1931), p. 241.Google Scholar Practically the same shift in evaluation (on the basis of new sources) was acknowledged by L. D. Steefel, one of the best American experts in the field of Bismarck research. See his bibliographical article in Journal of Modern History, vol. II, 1930.Google Scholar

15 Bismarck, : Die Gesammelten Werke (1931), vol. VI, b., p. 2.Google Scholar

16 Quoted by Sontag, R. J., Germany and England, 1848–1894 (New York, 1938), p. 33.Google Scholar

17 See his discussion of the “idealism” of Napoleon III alid of Ranke's “pompous” reference to Louis XIV (II, 569).

18 Particularly in his: Untersuchungen über das Europäische Gleichgewicht (1859).Google Scholar

19 Again this writer does not go as far as Mr. Namier does (see note 9).

20 For Bismarck's system of “integration” the book of the jurist, R. Smend, Vetfassung und Verfassungsrecht might have been consulted with usefulness.

21 Evidences for this in the writer's, Theodor Lohmann und die Kampf jahre der staatlichcn Sozialpolitik (1927), pp. 63–64.Google Scholar

22 The above interpretation of certain federalist trends in Bismarck's policy has been worked out by the writer in his Bismark und der Osien, Eine Siudie zum Problem da deutschen Nationalstaats (Leipzig, 1934).Google Scholar The study goes back to an address which was given in 1932 at the last pre-Nazi meeting of German historians and which ended with an attack on the “myth of the 20th century” (Rosenberg) as well as on that of the 19th century, i.e., the dogma of the “nation state.” (The address is reprinted in the writer's: Ostraum, Preussentum und Reichsgedanke (Leipzig, 1935), pp. 65–93.Google Scholar If Roepke, W., Die deutsche Frage, (2, A, 1945, p. 103 noteGoogle Scholar) justly admires the courage of a German philologist who in 1940 (while writing on the Greek polis) declared the nation state to be only one political form among others, he seems to have overlooked that before, and still in the first years after 1933, there was a whole group of German writers and historians who openly assailed the general validity of the (western) dogma of the nation state and pleaded for a federative reconstruction of Central Europe with full autonomy for all the nations involved.

23 This applies, e.g., to the Livadia episode, to the negotiations with Britain in 79, to the so-called “bogus document” of 84, to Bismarck's letter to Salisbury of 87. and to the Reinsurance Treaty. For all these matters and many others, consult Langer's, William L.European Alliances and Alignments (1931), rather than Mr. Eyck's book.Google Scholar

24 It happened by coincidence (though hardly, incidentally) that one of the leaders of the anti-Nazi conspiracy, Ulrich v. Hassell, who was designated to be the Foreign Minister of the “Other Germany” (see note 4) paid a visit to Friedrichsruhe just 10 days before the fatal attempt of 20th of July 1944, for which he was to die on the gallows. The last entry in his diaries (l.c., p. 363Google Scholar) discusses two aspects of the problems with which this paper dealt: the distorted picture of Bismarck's “power policy” which was presented to the world and his true stature as one of the greatest and most moderate diplomats in history.