 Bismarck,
Prince Otto Edward Leopold von (1815-98), Prusso-German statesman,
who was the architect and first chancellor (1871-90) of the German Empire.
Bismarck was born on April 1, 1815, at Schönhausen, northwest of Berlin,
the son of a landowning nobleman (Junker) and an upper-middle-class commoner;
his multifaceted background accounts for the unique blend of intellectual
subtlety and Junker parochialism in his personal makeup. He studied law
and in 1836 entered government service. Unhappy in his subordinate post,
he resigned a year later, took over the management of his family's run-down
estates, and restored their profitability. Driven by a strong sense of
power, Bismarck entered politics in 1847. As a delegate to Prussia's first
diet, he emerged as one of the most rigid conservatives; at the outbreak
of the Revolution of 1848 he rushed to Berlin, urging King Frederick William
IV to suppress the uprising. His advice was ignored, but his loyalty was
rewarded by his appointment in 1851 as Prussia's representative to the
German Confederation, a league of the 39 German states. At the federal
diet in Frankfurt, his main concern was to undermine Austria's supremacy
and demonstrate Prussia's equality. In 1859 he became ambassador to Russia,
and in 1862 he was posted to France. Unification That same year a bitter
dispute between the Prussian government and Parliament over the size of
the army reached an impasse. In 1861 Parliament had granted the government
additional funds for reforms, but in 1862 it refused to do so without a
reduction of compulsory military service from three to two years. King
William I would not yield for fear that the draftees would be insufficiently
imbued with conservative values; for that very reason, the liberal-dominated
Parliament insisted on this concession. In order to break the stalemate
Bismarck was named minister-president. He proceeded to collect the additional
taxes on the basis of the 1861 budget, arguing that because the constitution
did not provide for the case of an impasse he would have to apply the preceding
year's budget. To justify the increase of the army, he warned that "the
great questions of the day [meaning German unification] will not be settled
by speeches and majority decisions … but by blood and iron." Public opinion
began shifting to his side in 1864, when he used the expanded Prussian
army, in alliance with Austria, to wrest the provinces of Schleswig and
Holstein from Denmark. Two years later he escalated a Prusso-Austrian quarrel
over these spoils into a war against Austria and other German states. After
their defeat in a whirlwind campaign, he incorporated Schleswig-Holstein,
Hannover, and some other territories into Prussia. He also united all north
and central German states into the North German Confederation, under Prussian
leadership. Faced with these achievements, the Prussian Parliament bowed
to him and retroactively sanctioned his financial improvisations of the
preceding four years. In 1870 Bismarck trapped France into a war with the
German states. His hope was that on the strength of the ensuing national
enthusiasm he could bring the reluctant south German states into a united
Germany. He succeeded; in 1871 the German Empire, which included south
Germany, superseded the North German Confederation, and the king of Prussia
became the German emperor. Chancellor As imperial chancellor Bismarck saw
his main task as consolidating the newly united state. Externally, he sought
to strengthen the empire by a network of defensive alliances; at home he
fought any and all who questioned his policies. Roman Catholics, who opposed
a centralized state, felt his wrath in the so-called Kulturkampf against
the church; Socialists were all but emasculated by far-reaching restrictions
on the Social Democratic Party; liberals were overcome by having their
patriotism impugned. Bismarck succeeded in discrediting the liberals, but
had to make his peace with the Roman Catholics, and although he failed
to defeat the Socialists, the social security legislation he introduced-national
accident and health insurance and old-age pensions-ended whatever revolutionary
designs they may have had. Emperor William II, who disliked the cautious
foreign policy of the chancellor and also rejected his new plans to crush
labor by force, dismissed Bismarck in 1890. He then retired to his estate,
Friedrichsruh near Hamburg, where he died on July 30, 1898. In 1847 he
had married Johanna von Puttkamer; they had two sons and one daughter.
Evaluation In striving for German unification Bismarck did not simply resort
to "blood and iron." His moves were carefully prepared diplomatically,
and he ended his wars as soon as his immediate objectives had been obtained.
He was less restrained in domestic affairs, where he deepened existing
political and social cleavages and created ill-feeling by questioning the
good faith of his adversaries. Thus, he helped lay the foundations for
that cynical ruthlessness, which, culminating in the Nazi regime, in the
end destroyed his own great achievement-a unified Germany.
"Bismarck, Prince Otto Edward Leopold von," Microsoft(R) Encarta(R)
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BISMARCK
MEMORIAL
