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Germany 1871-1890 – Domestic Policy Bare BonesIntroductionThe key issues that seems to concern historians regarding the new Reich, was 1) the extent to which the Reich embodied the progressive values of liberalism and 2) the extent to which Bismarck’s domestic policies represented success or failure. To answer the first question, it is important to understand the concepts of Liberalism and its rival, Conservatism which provide criteria for reaching a judgement.Liberalism supported the priority of individual rights and freedoms, limited state control and free market economics over the claims of inheritance and class as the basis for social status, Bildung or self-cultivation rather than religion as the basis for self-hood, nationalism and national self-identity as the basis for political unity, and democratic freedoms as a check on the power of the state. Liberals were in turn suspicious of anything that resisted ‘progress’, science and the values of the Enlightenment, including religion, tradition, feudal power, and outside interference in the free market in such forms as taxation and trade unionism. Demographically, Liberals tended to be the academic and professional bourgeoisie on the left and industrialist bourgeoisie on the right.By contrast, Conservatives prioritised the monarchy over the state, the state over the individual, tradition over progress, religion over nationalism, feudalism over democracy, and the claims of birth over new wealth. Within the Conservative view, the world was an organic order, created by God, where everything had its place. It tended to be suspicious of anything that challenged that order – most of the things championed by liberals. It therefore welcomed protectionism in economics to preserve the status of the landed classes; as well as for the protection of those at the mercy of economic change lower down the social order.For the second question, ‘success’ could – and perhaps should – be defined in a variety of ways: success for Bismarck (his basic aim was to preserve his own power and the power of the establishment, even if the ‘establishment’ was extended to include industrialists as well as landed aristocracy); success of policies in so far as they served the economic, political and social interests of the state more generally. Having a range of criteria will help sustain a more balanced judgement. Historians are united in seeing Bismarck’s state as predominantly conservative, but there are arguments as to how conservative and whether it changed in 1878-9.The Bielefeld school are committed to the idea of a change:Hans Ulrich Wehler: Bismarck created a liberal Germany in 1871 then proceeded to destroy liberalism.Helmut Bohme and H. A. Winkler argue that the period 1878-9 saw a conservative ‘refounding of the German Reich’Lothar Gall sees the years as 1878-79 as a Wende or turning point. He argues that Bismarck renounced his role as a mediator of compromise between the Conservatives and Liberals, trade and agriculture and instead threw in his lot with the traditional classes.Others argue that Reich was conservative all along, and did not undergo a fundamental change of direction in 1879. Andreas Hillgruber argues that the ‘the two decades from 1871 to 1890 form a single continuous epoch’. Erich Feuchtwanger ‘the change of course in 1879 was not so much a re-foundation of the Reich as a reinforcement of the existing liberal deficit.’Lerman argues that in reality nothing changed: the Reich had been conservative from the start. The crisis of 1878-9 only served to highlight the ‘weakness within national liberalism.’There are strong arguments for continuity (‘a single continuous epoch’) – the Constitution was retained throughout the period and preserved the interests of monarchy and heredity; industrial expansion always enjoyed a level of state sponsorship before and after 1879; Kulturkampf in the 1870s was no less authoritarian than Germanisation in the 1880s; and National Liberals continued to support Bismarck even if they had been halved as a force in the Reichstag in 1881. Yet such views under-estimate the liberalism of the Constitution, the extent of the economic changes after 1879 and the extent to which the National Liberals changed after 1879. There was a shift in Bismarck’s policies towards the right from 1878, partly prompted by the emergence of Zentrum, the SPD and the Progressives as well as by demands for protectionism from the bourgeoisie. It was reflected in the abandonment of Kulturkampf, the Anti-Socialist Law of 1878, the Tariff Act of 1879, Social Welfare policies of 1881, 1884 and 1889, and the Germanisation policies of the later 1880s. Bismarck forced liberals like Rudolf von Delbruck (1876) and Adalbert Falk (1878) to resign from the government and replaced them with conservatives like Robert von Puttkamer. Commitment to conservative values and policies became a condition of career progress within the Civil Service. Whilst the constitution remained a fundamental check on the actions of the government, therefore, the very fabric of the state shifted towards the right after 1878. The ConstitutionIn the context of the Proclamation of the Reich at Versailles in 1871, Bismarck’s Constitution was fundamentally concerned with reconciliation. Based loosely on the Frankfurt Constitution of 1849, it embraced its compromises between the claims of monarchy and democracy. It has been called a system of ‘skirted decisions’ since the choice between fully representative and fully authoritarian government was deliberately not made (Feuchtwanger).From the Frankfurt Constitution of 1849, the 1871 Constitution took its democracy, its federalism and its bicameralism as well as its preservation of the monarchical principle. Unlike the Frankfurt Constitution, however, the hereditary principle and the notion of ‘divine right’ was preserved to the extent that the Kaiser was to be elected by the princes at the ceremony at Versailles in which politicians were reduced to non-participant observers.Conservative elements included – The preservation of hereditary principle in the monarchy; The Kaiser’s sole power to appoint and dismiss Chancellor and Cabinet; The Kaiser was commander in chief of the armed forces;The Chancellor alone conducted foreign policyChancellor and Army were answerable only to the Kaiser. Reichstag deputies could not be appointed to the government without leaving the Reichstag. The complexion of the Bundesrat or upper chamber, whose 58 members were dominated by 17 Prussian deputies appointed from the conservative Prussian Landtag (which was itself elected on a 3-tier voting system). Bundesrat conservatism was therefore guaranteed and never challenged the centre but in that respect. A tax system based on population size rather than wealth.Liberal elements included – the election of the Reichstag on a wide and inclusive franchise (universal manhood suffrage – compare British Parliamentary elections which excluded about a third of adult males); the Reichstag’s power of veto over all legislation including national and army budgets agreed each year; Freedom of speech of Reichstag deputies whose speeches could be reported in the press. The lack of any restriction on the formation of political parties.Was the Constitution Liberal or Conservative?Karl Liebknecht argued that the Reichstag was ‘the fig leaf covering the nakedness of autocracy’, but this is a politicised view, not a balanced historical judgement. He would have said the same thing about the British Parliament. The British House of Lords upheld the hereditary principle and was fundamentally conservative. (Its opposition to the policies of an elected Liberal government in 1910 led to a fundamental constitutional change – the Parliament Act of 1911). The power to dissolve the Reichstag and call fresh elections rested with the Chancellor, but the same power rested with the UK Prime Minister (as Mrs May demonstrated in 2017); The system was autocratic to the extent that the German Chancellor was appointed and dismissed by the Kaiser rather than by the Reichstag, but it was democratic to the extent that law could only be made with Reichstag approval and the chancellor (unlike the UK PM) was never guaranteed a majority. Only in the realm of foreign policy was the chancellor independent of the Reichstag.Domestically, the Reichstag remained a fundamental check on the government. Had it been otherwise there would have been no need for Bismarck to abandon the Kulturkampf from 1878 or to accept the Franckenstein amendment to the Tariff Act of 1879.The 1871 Constitution was a hybrid between monarchical and parliamentary government and between a unitary state and federalism. Bismarck’s Germany was, from the start, a mixture of liberal and conservative elements but it was remarkably liberal for its time, more so than perhaps Bismarck appreciated.Was the Constitution a success? On the one hand, Bismarck succeeded in uniting Liberals and Conservatives in a way that seemed impossible in 1849. On the other, having unified Germany Bismarck spent much of his time as chancellor using divisions within the nation and in the Reichstag to help him control it. Bismarck’s employment of Universal Manhood Suffrage was designed to act as a check on radicalism among Liberals, but if he believed that the wider public would prove more conservative than his erstwhile liberal allies, he seriously miscalculated.The tax problem – wherein only the Lander and not the State could raise direct taxation, on the basis of population size not wealth – was never resolved before 1918, though it had the advantage of keeping the state firmly under the budgetary control of the Reichstag and the Lander.KulturkampfBismarck's aim was clearly to destroy the Catholic Centre Party. He and the liberals feared the appeal of a clerical party to the one-third of Germans who professed Roman Catholicism. For Bismarck they represented a ‘coalition of catholic revenge’ for the defeats of Austria (1866) and France (1871) and a kind of ‘fifth column’ within the state; whereas for Liberals, the Catholic Church represented a block on modern civilisation, on education, science, democracy, national identity and progress. With Bismarck’s blessing, the Prussia the minister of public worship and education, Adalbert Falk introduced a series of bills designed to separate church and state, establishing civil marriage and secular school inspections. Catholic civil servants were purged from the Prussian administration on suspicion of ‘ultramontane’ sympathies. By 1872 the state began interfering in the church itself by limiting the movement of the clergy, and dissolving religious orders. The May Law of 1873 went even further: it exempted clergy from papal jurisdiction, controlled their training and vetoed church appointments. The May law of 1874 (Imperial Expatriation Law) extended these provisions to the rest of the Empire and threatened with exile bishops who continued to practice after dismissal by the state, and the confiscation of all church property where an office was filled against the provision of the May Laws. The ‘Breadbasket Law’ of 1875 cut all subsidies where the laws were ignored. As a result, about a quarter of all parishes in Prussia were left vacant, a third of all monasteries and convents were closed, numerous Catholic newspapers were confiscated, Catholic associations and assemblies were dismissed and thousands of laypeople were imprisoned for assisting priests to evade the new laws.Was Kulturkampf fundamentally conservative or liberal?Gordon Craig and Hajo Holburn have described National Liberal Support for Bismarck’s anti-Catholic crusade as a fundamental betrayal of their own principles. By contrast, Geoff Eley described the liberal attack on the Catholic Church as entirely consonant with their beliefs, a ‘strategic rather than an accidental commitment.’ Indeed, so strong was the support for Kulturkampf among the National Liberals that they were prepared, in 1874, to yield to Bismarck on constitutional matters that were more clearly against their interests. The Septennat law enabled the military budget to be set every seven years rather than annually, and the Imperial Press Law allowed the government greater powers of prosecution against newspaper editors. As far as they were concerned, it was not the prosecution of Kulturkampf that was a betrayal, but its abandonment, which began in 1878 when Bismarck dismissed Adalbert Falk, replaced him with Robert von Puttkamer and opened negotiations with Pope Leo XIII. Yet, in supporting such an authoritarian and interventionist government, Liberals were effectively betraying their own ideas of a limited state and the freedom of the individual. The Liberals, not for the last time in Bismarck’s state, were guilty of rank hypocrisy.Success or Failure?On the one hand, Kulturkampf probably represents Bismarck’s clearest failure… partly because it produced the very resistance it was designed to prevent. In 1874, Zentrum’s leader, Ludwig Windthorst, (often described as Bismarck’s greatest opponent) called upon Catholics to make the January 1874 elections ‘a great plebiscite’ against Bismarck’s policies. In alliance with the Danes, Poles, and Alsatians, Zentrum won 91 seats (up from 60) in the Reichstag. More importantly, it failed to overcome divisions between Conservatives and Liberals: Although Conservatives were evangelical protestants, they had more in common with the basically Christian outlook of Zentrum than with the Secularism of the liberals. In Socio-economic terms, both Zentrum and the Conservatives represented rural interests and were suspicious of the free trade that would put them in competition with the United States and other grain exporters. Moreover, they did not want bureaucrats from Berlin interfering with their schools. On the other hand, Kulturkampf was not a complete failure. Bismarck used it to increase the independence of the state from the Reichstag (by means of the Septennats Law) and his power over the press by means of the Imperial Press Law in 1874. For the Liberals a separation of Church and State was achieved and retained after 1878. Finally, the ending of Kulturkampf was a success for democracy and for the Reichstag – as the growth of Zentrum forced Bismarck to abandon the campaign. Economic PolicyIn many ways the Reich represented the political expression of the liberal Zollverein. It saw the extension of liberal free trade laws to the whole of the empire and the fulfilment of liberal goals including a Reichsbank, a Single Currency, fixed weights and measures, the abolition of internal tariffs and the establishment of a fixed rate of exchange. The campaign for the abandonment of free trade following the stock market crash in 1873 was supported by both agrarian and industrial sectors alike: In 1876, Germany became a net importer of grain from Russia and America, threatening the traditional Prussian ruling elite with bankruptcy;The Congress of German Industrialists and the Central Association of German Industrialists (founded in 1876) were also persuaded of the need for Tariffs;A pressure group comprising both farm and industrial interests known as League for the Protection of the Economic Interests of Rhineland and Westphalia (the Long Name Society), which shared the same demographic as Zentrum in that region, became the leading voice calling for tariffs before 1879.Yet Economic growth within Prussia had always owed something to Prussian military needs (including Krupp expansion into armaments and the strategic expansion of railways after 1862) and this remained true after 1871. The so-called ‘Grundjahre’ (which saw railway network growth by nearly 27%; the amount of goods trafficked by 70%; coal production increase by 38%; Iron production by 61%; Steel by over 50%) was helped as much by the 5 billion franc indemnity imposed on the French and by the acquisition of iron ore deposits and other raw materials in Alsace Lorraine as it was by ‘free trade’.Moreover, when change came it was won by a manipulation of the system.Bismarck sought support among conservatives to make his position ‘future proof’ against the future succession of the liberal crown prince:He began a purge of liberal civil servants and their replacement of those committed to conservative values and protectionism. Those ‘free-traders’, ‘Delbruckians’ or ‘Manchesterists’ he couldn’t remove, he placed in menial roles.Henceforth, belief in protectionism and conservative values became a condition of career progression within the Civil Service.In addition, the Reichstag was changed to suit economic policy, rather than policy to suit the Reichstag:Bismarck used the double attempt on the life of the 81 year-old Kaiser to prorogue parliament and run a plebiscitary campaign against liberalism in 1878. The result favoured Conservatives and Zentrum over the Liberals, and Bismarck was able to use this majority to win support for the Tariff Act of 1879. Liberal or Conservative?The pressures for protectionism were not all anti-liberal, but Bismarck’s motives were clearly conservative ones. His methods of achieving the change involved purge of liberals and free traders from the Cabinet and Civil Service and the cynical exploitation of the electorate in a plebiscitary election. The consequences of the shift towards Protectionism was deeply damaging for the National Liberal Party which was barely able to fight the 1881 election. Bismarck’s economic policy fundamentally served the interests of the establishment which had come to comprise not just the agrarian sector but also, after 1862, heavy industry. What united the coalition of ‘rye and steel’ was wealth and their shared desire to protect it against competition from abroad and at home. Bismarck never succeeded in converting the agrarian class to the values of liberalism, but he did succeed in converting former liberals to the values of protectionism. Nonetheless, liberal checks on the State budget were preserved by the Franckenstein amendment which Zentrum imposed on Bismarck as a cost for their support of the bill.Success or failure?In terms of gross domestic product, Bismarck’s policies were a great success:The economic boom continued. Steel production, for example, increased from 660 to 2161 metric tonnes between 1880 and 1890. Germany invested in pioneering technology – e.g. the Gilchrist-Thomas steelmaking process which enabled German industrialists to exploit local low-grade iron-ore to undercut foreign competition.Increased mechanisation and rationalisation meant that there were large increases in productivity in textiles, coal, iron and steel.The agricultural sector was isolated from foreign competition and propped up by Tariffs which by 1887 were five times as high as they had been in 1879.But politically and socially, Bismarck paid a heavy price for measures that favoured the rich and penalised the poor:The union of Rye and Steel – which had been uneasy in 1871 – was more secure, having overcome some of its fundamental economic divisions.The character of the National Liberal Party changed as the traditional professional element left and were replaced by businessmen and industrialists who favoured tariffs and cooperation with the conservatives. It signed a Heidelberg Declaration in 1884 which supported Bismarck’s protectionism and social welfare policies whilst recognising the importance of agrarian sector to German economic life.But Bismarck never again enjoyed the support the Reichstag as he had before 1878:The Liberals were irreparably divided and damaged;The Conservatives and the National Liberals did not together guarantee Bismarck a majority in the Reichstag;The Franckenstein clause thwarted Bismarck’s attempt to free the Government from the purse strings of the Reichstag;Zentrum never committed to an alliance with Bismarck – Kulturkampf was not completely resolved and Catholics remained suspicious of protestant Prussia;As a result, Bismarck lost control of the Reichstag between 1881 and 1887; and when he regained it in 1887 it was as a result of foreign policy crisis; the 1890 election saw a majority for the Zentrum, Freisin (Progressives) and SPD, a result that made it easy for Wilhelm II to force his resignation.The consequences of industrial growth made Bismarck’s political task even greater as the size of the industrial working class grew. Social Policy after 1878The pressure of demands for protectionism was one factor in Bismarck’s shift to the right after 1878; the growth of Zentrum and the socialist movement during this period were others. The social policies of the 1880s complemented the economic policies – they provided an extra layer of protection for both the industrial and the rural sector against Trade Unions and Socialists, on the one hand, and against foreign competition for land in rural areas on the other.Anti-Socialist LawLiberal or conservative?From a Liberal perspective, it could be justified as a way of removing interference with trade from below.Despite the election that had preceded it, or perhaps because of it, the National Liberals voted in favour; SPD deputies were not expelled from the Reichstag or prevented from fighting elections but its constituency organizations were broken up, the Labour press was virtually eliminated and socialist trade unions and working-class clubs were dissolved. However, by removing the rights of a large proportion of the population who lost the ability to organise Trade Unions and strike action in the face of rising prices (thanks to Tariffs), the government and its supporters – whatever they called themselves - were acting in a conservative and authoritarian way.By the time the law lapsed in 1890, some 1500 party members had been imprisoned and many others exiled.Success or failure?Much like the Kulturkampf, the anti-Socialist Law produced the very effects it was designed to prevent – support for the socialist party grew and when the ban was lifted in 1890 the party soon established itself as the most popular in the country.Bismarck’s attempts to renew the anti-Socialist Law in 1890 contributed to his resignation and political downfall.Social Welfare policiesBismarck’s Social Welfare policies were ground breaking and have been dubbed ‘state socialism’ by historians though they are more accurately described as ‘state paternalism’. They represented the other side of the anti-socialist coin. By offering the growing army of propertyless workers a degree of protection from the excesses of capitalism and the dangers of industrialisation Bismarck and the industrialists hoped to reduce the appeal of revolutionary socialism (Feuchtewenger). David Blackbourne argues that it was the ‘carrot’ to the anti-Socialist law ‘stick’. Otto Pflanze calls it an attempt ‘to integrate the workers into a German national consensus based on the Prussian-German establishment.’ Liberal or conservative? At first sight Bismarck’s welfare policies represented another shift away from laissez-faire economics. They resulted in a system of health insurance in 1883, accident insurance in 1884 and old age and invalidity insurance in 1889. Nonetheless, Bismarck won the support of the National Liberals by funding the system through employee and employer contributions rather than by taxation. The National Liberals also prevented Bismarck’s attempt to fund his welfare policies through a state-owned Tobacco monopoly on the grounds that it would have eroded the budgetary powers of the Reichstag.Success or failure? Politically it failed in the sense that support for the SPD remained high;Health and Accident insurance were successful in that they were taken up by 9.2% of the population and 40% of wage earners by 1885, and this would rise by 1917 to include virtually all wage earners. A.J.P Taylor is not alone in arguing that this action did more than anything else ‘to establish his reputation as a constructive statesman even if he had done nothing else.’ Welfare policies were to have a bright future in Germany and elsewhere. In this sense, Bismarck’s Germany was ahead of its time.GermanisationGermanisation policies basically represented Kulturkampf by other means. The absence of the direct attack on Catholicism meant that there was less opposition from Zentrum but also less support from Liberals. Bismarck’s policies of Germanisation were prompted by Conservative interests in Prussia that were worried by the increasing competition presented by Polish landowners. Bismarck pandered to these interests: In 1885 over 30,000 Poles and Jews of non-German nationality were expelled from Prussia;In 1886 a Settlement Law channelled large sums of money towards the buying up of Polish land (within the Prussia) for German resettlement;Between 1887 and 1888 Polish language teaching in all elementary schools was abolished and all officials of Polish origin were required to be sent to Western Germany where they could ‘learn the blessings of German civilisation’.Germanisation policies also affected French speakers in Alsace-Lorraine and in Northern Schleswig the Danish minority.Liberal or Conservative?Clearly conservative and authoritarian, these measures were questioned by the liberal parties and by Zentrum in the Reichstag in 1886 where a majority censured the government for ‘unjustified’ expulsions’. In response, Bismarck introduced a Bill for the Protection of the German National Interest in the Eastern Provinces’ which appealed successfully to the nationalism of the National Liberals as well as to the Conservatives and even had some sympathy in Zentrum. Success or failure?Bismarck’s policies of negative integration towards minorities had the same effect as Kulturkampf and Anti-Socialist law had previously: it served to unify and rally the minorities concerned. The Poles set up a land bank in 1889 to assist Polish farmers to buy land and pay debts and by 1914 the ethnic character of the border populations in the east remained unchanged. Whilst Germanisation was supported by Conservatives and National Liberals, it did not provide the basis for a broad based coalition capable of controlling the Reichstag.ConclusionsHow Liberal was Bismarck’s Germany? The constitutional framework which he had created remained more or less the same, as did many of economic structures that had been created during the preceding years. Kulturkampf was supported by liberals but its methods suggested the creation of a more authoritarian state that would be realised in the anti-Socialist Law and the measures taken against ethnic minorities in the 1880s. Bismarck’s policies shifted to the right in 1878-9 and to achieve this he had to purge the Cabinet and manipulate an election. From 1878 onwards commitment to conservative values and policies became a condition of career progression in the Civil Service. Though the National Liberals – or what was left of them – remained supportive of Bismarck, they were, by 1887, liberal in name only. Progress towards a more parliamentary style government was halted in 1878-9 and became increasingly authoritarian and conservative. Nonetheless, the Reichstag remained a fundamental liberal check on the government and the success of the SPD, Zentrum and the Progressives in the 1890 election contributed to Bismarck’s resignation.Were Bismarck’s policies a success? The Constitution seemed to reconcile what had previously seemed irreconcilable. The Economic policies cemented the union of ‘rye and steel’ and created the basis for Germany’s prosperity before 1914. The Social Welfare policies were ground-breaking and represented the first of their kind in the world. But the use of authoritarian tactics, first against Catholics, then against Socialists and finally against ethnic minorities were all in themselves failures not least because they created the very resistance they were designed to overcome. Bismarck lost control of the Reichstag between 1881 and 1887 because he created a democratic mechanism capable of checking the behaviour of the government. Its limitations are revealed by the extent to which the personnel in the government and the civil service could be purged and the civil service re-programmed to support an exclusively conservative agenda, and by the authoritarian policies against socialists and minorities that anticipated the dictatorships of a later era. Bismarck’s resignation in 1890 was perhaps an indication that the Constitution was still functional, despite the enormous changes that had taken place since 1871. ................
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