nm0076: okay what i want to talk to you about today is the so-called Kulturkampf the struggle for culture which sm0077: we haven't got any handouts nm0076: they should have been passed round there are lots would be helpful if people rather than sitting on a pile of them actually passed them round er so Kulturkampf the so-called struggle for culture in which Bismarck and the machinery of the newly united German state and in particular Prussia which remains the dominant partner within the newly united German state essentially persecute the Catholic Church now you might ask why this is important why it merits a lecture on its own right and in a sense in the general scheme of things it probably isn't as important as the outbreak of the First World War or the partitions of Poland or the Austro-Prussian war of eighteen-sixty-six or the Franco-Prussian war of eighteen-seventy seventy-one but i think it's very important to look at as a very good example of the sort of problems that were faced by the newly united German state problems of shaping identity problems of dealing with what remains a very diverse population i also think it's an interesting subject as a very good example as a good case study highlighting the personality of Bismarck the dominant figure in the first twenty years of the united German state much as he'd been the dominant figure in the previous ten fifteen years in the Prussian state it is a good example of his ability to manoeuvre politically and of his tensions the tensions that exist in his mind between a basic ideological position and a position of political expedience i think it's also important because it locates problems of the new German state more broadly within debates that are going on not only in central Europe but across Europe as a whole er the issue of church-state relations is in my opinion more important in the late nineteenth century than any debates over class or the social question what determines people's political views is first and foremost in the eighteen-seventies eighties probably eighteen-nineties still primarily religious views and i think the Kulturkampf this struggle between the Catholic Church and the Prussian state is a very clear example of this it shows that the problems faced by the newly united German state are problems that are shared by many other European countries and yet at the same time while it does reveal the similarities between Germany and the rest of the Europe it also can be used to highlight what two eminent historians in the nineteen-eighties described as the peculiarities of German history it highlights that there that Germany in some senses is rather different from other European states the solutions that are taken to deal with the Catholic question are specific to Prussia and to lesser extent Germany as a whole and reveal some of the problems that there are for example with liberalism in Germany that liberalism is a rather different phenomenon in Germany from other European countries i'll begin by simply running through the key events of the so-called Kulturkampf the battle for civilization the battle for culture struggle for culture in Prussia and Germany during the eighteen-seventies it should be remembered that in eighteen- sixty-seven it was agreed that in the North German Confederation the newly created North German Confederation religious matters were the preserve of the individual states of the Confederation rather than the Confederation as a whole and this measure is extended to the German Reich when it comes into being in eighteen-seventy-one that the states of Bavaria or Württemburg or Prussia actually maintained their own religious policies there was not an imperial religious policy now in March eighteen-seventy-one the Centre Party which is a party that's emerged amongst Hanoverians after eighteen-sixty-six anxious to minimize the impact of Prussian dominance over the Hanoverian state and that has subsequently become a focus for Catholic opposition to the way in which Germany has been united in March eighteen- seventy-one the Centre Party the so-called Zentrum calls in the Imperial Diet that's the whole German Diet for the establishment of basic rights in the constitution now remember that in eighteen-forty-eight forty-nine the liberals in Frankfurt had established a Bill of Basic Rights and this includes the right to freedom of worship this call by the Centre Party for a Bill of Rights is significantly rejected by almost every other political party in the Imperial Diet the National Liberals and the Progressives side with the Conservatives and the two members of the S-P-D the Socialist Party the n-, the the nascent Socialist Party in rejecting a Bill of Rights so you have a broad spectrum from the extreme left to the extreme right who also we don't want a Bill of Basic Rights and the reason they do this is they see it as special pleading for the interest of the Catholic Church they realize what the Centre Party really wants is a defence of the interests of Catholicism and they feel that this can best be done by defending individuals' rights therefore individuals can c-, choose their re-, religious affiliation and that can enable them to defend their own church's position within the German Reich so it's rejected by everyone they all gang up on the Catholics in June eighteen- seventy-two a guy named Adalbert Falk his name is on the handout was appointed as Prussian Minister of Culture Education and Church Affairs and the period that's known as the period of Kampfgesetze the period of the struggle against the Catholic Church is well and truly launched legislation aimed at reducing the power influence and autonomy of the Catholic Church is subsequently passed both in the Prussian Landtag both in the Prussian elect assembly and in the Reichstag of the whole of united Germany in fact persecution of the Catholics had already begun in a sense the previous year in January eighteen-seventy-one the Catholic section of the Prussian Minister of cul-, Ministry of Culture which looked after the interests of the Catholic Church in Prussia remember that Prussia has a significant Catholic population particularly in the Rhineland was abolished in other words the ins-, the the section of the Minister of Culture that protects the interests of Prussia's Catholics is done away with the argument being that the Catholic section represented the interests of the church and not the state that it was a special it was a special body just representing a mino-, minority a religious minority of the Prussian population what possibly lay behind its abol- , abolition however was the fact that its leader obviously a Catholic Albert Krätzig was perceived as being pro-Polish and remember that the Minister- President of Prussia Chancellor of the New Reich Bismarck is passionately anti-Polish he sees the Poles as a fundamental problem within the Prussian state and indeed within the new united Germany he sees the Poles as enemies of the state he also has a essentially racialist view that the Poles are subhuman remember this quotation that could almost come of the come out of Hitler that it's not the Poles' fault just as it's not the wolf's fault but we shoot the wolf nonetheless he somehow thinks they all are subhuman they're inferior but he sees them as a fundamental challenge to the integrity of the Reich and to the integrity of Prussia so the fact that the Catholic section is headed by someone who's sympathetic towards the Poles and the Poles are of course Catholic means that Bismarck is keen to do away with it but the more significant piece of legislation in November eighteen-seventy-one is the Pulpit Law which imposes criminal penalties on priests who are convicted of electioneering through the pulpit in other words priests who preach sermons which are perceived as having a political content can be fined and in extremis sacked or thrown into prison and that's a very significant law which i will return to later in eighteen- seventy-two religious control of schools inspectors in Prussia is replaced by state inspectors Prussian schools in other words are removed entirely from clerical control the most powerful of all Catholic orders the Jesuits are banned from establishing institutions in Germany new institutions and individual states in Germany begin a policy of expulsion of the Jesuits almost all the states with Protestant majorities kicked the Jesuits out and then in eighteen-seventy-three the so-called May Laws are launched priests who had formerly Catholic priests who had formerly trained in seminaries are now forced to study first of all at a state Gymnasium a state grammar school and then at a state-run university in other words whereas previously the church had very considerable influence over the educational establishment of the schooling of people in Prussia particularly in Catholic areas you now have the state controlling the education of priests the positions have been reversed priests have their young impressionable minds controlled by state officials state employers and not only that just in case clergy come out still thinking independently the state is given the right of veto over all appointments to church positions in other words the power of the state over the church is beefed up immeasurably the following year in eighteen-seventy-four civil marriage is introduced and all states in the German Confederation are empowered to expel clergy who they perceive as troublesome the following year the Prussian Landtag suspends subsidies to the church in any diocese where the clergy have been found to criticize the state's legislation and religious orders communities of nuns and friars and monks are dissolved except when they're involved in nursing so contemplative and teaching orders get closed down the response to this is widespread Catholic agitation and resistance which leads to the sacking the expulsion and the imprisonment of clergy across the Catholic regions of Prussia and to a lesser extent in some of the other German states by eighteen-seventy-six one-thousand- four-hundred parishes in Prussia had no priests and between eighteen-seventy- six and eighteen-seventy-nine there is a state of to say it's war would be exaggeration but there is a s-, a state of incredible hostility between the Catholic Church and Catholic believers on the one hand and the mechanisms of the Prussian state and the Prussian bureaucracy on the other civil disobedience protests widespread hostility suddenly in eighteen-seventy-nine Bismarck changes his position and relents and the vast majority of this legislation is done away with and jettisoned and members of the Catholic Centre Party are allowed into government posts so this begs two questions first of all why between eighteen-seventy-one and eighteen-seventy-eight seventy-nine does Bismarck and the new Prussian state basically put the boot in fairly bloody seriously on the Catholic Church and why having attacked the Catholic Church labelled Catholics as enemies both of the Prussian state and the New Reich is there this sudden volte-face this turnaround and this abi-, this desire to pacify the Catholics do deals with them even let them into government what's going on here well i think there are a number of ways of looking at the Kulturkampf and one way to see it is simply as part of a historical conflict since the Reformation since the early fifteen-hundreds since Luther first starts causing trouble in fifteen-seventeen Germany had been divided religiously between fifteen-twenty and fifteen-fifty-five scarcely a year went past without some form of religious conflict and when i say religious conflict this involves bloodshed this involves major wars by fifteen-fifty-five an uneasy modus vivendi had been established in which basically it's decided that the rulers of Germany's various petty princedoms can decide what religion they want to be whether they want to be Lutheran or Catholic and then unless you live in in in an imperial free city you have to follow the religion of your ruler or get the hell out of the state i mean this does occasionally lead to oddities in which a r-, in in which a successor to the throne suddenly says well i think i'm turning Lutheran and the population that's been happily Catholic for the previous twenty thirty years suddenly think oh Christ you know what do we do now do we get out do we stay do we turn Lutheran so there's quite a lot of notional changes where people actually retain basically old religious beliefs and make a sort of s-, er a façade of holding er a different religious creed but essentially by fifteen-fifty-five by the Peace of Augsburg there is an uneasy er modus vivendi in the German states during the Thirty Years War of s-, sixteen-eighteen to forty-eight that breaks down largely because of the rise of Calvinism so there are two sorts of Protestant faiths the Calvinists and the Lutherans who don't see eye to eye about the one thing the Lutherans do agree with the Catholics over is hating Calvinists and so there is a breakdown in church-state er there's again a breakdown in religious relations and although you'll find Catholics in alliance with Protestants during the Thirty Years War on occasion there is a strong undercurrent of religious hostility that lasts during the seventeenth century by the eighteenth century there are clear there are no religious wars in Germany any more nevertheless tensions still exist and run very deep between Catholic and Protestant and indeed between different Protestant believers when the two Protestant Churches the Lutheran and Calvinist Church are united in Prussia in the eighteen-twenties there is a very marked hostility amongst a lot of Lutherans and Calvinists and many actually leave to set up new communities in the new world because they can't bear to see these two states these two religious sets of beliefs united in a single church but the real tensions by the nineteenth century are basically between Catholic and Protestant so there's a long term historical conflict there's also a shorter term historical conflict which i'll return to in a minute but there's also a tradition of a clash between church and state in Germany in the Middle Ages there'd been a clash between the so-called Guelphs the pro-papal faction and the so-called Ghibellines the pro-imperial faction even before there was a Reformation the civil authorities often resented the power of the ecclesiastical authorities by the eighteenth century there was a new onslaught against the church per se the ideas of the Enlightenment of what the Germans called the Aufklärung challenged the role of chu-, the church in society challenged superstition challenged intolerance challenged the desire of the church to control education and many reforming princes Joseph the Second and Frederick the Great are good examples decide to take on the church even someone like Maria Theresia who is a good Catholic girl decides that it is important to reduce the power of the church within her dominions to seize some of the wealth of the church for redistribution and indeed to reduce things like the numbers of religious holidays which mean that you know there are about a hundred-and- twenty days a year when people theoretically don't have to work it's not very good for the economy when people just think oh religious holiday go to church and get pissed afterwards this is basically what religious holidays were for er the consumption of disgraceful quantities of alcohol but the idea that somehow the church is a dead weight on society it prevents efficient bureaucracy it even-, er prevents efficient education it prevents scientific progress er and it saps the economic strength of the country the idea that the church is somehow needs to be tamed and controlled is something that is fairly deep-seated in the courts of central Europe by the mid to late eighteenth century and so there is a tradition of a clash between church and state and if you actually look at the extracts i've given you'll see that Bismarck in eighteen-seventy- three actually decides to legitimate what he's doing he's not telling the truth incidentally but he decides to legitimate what he's doing by saying it is not a matter of an attack by a Protestant dynasty upon the Catholic Church as our Catholic fellow citizens are being told it is a not a a matter of the struggle between or betweem because i've misprin-, mistyped it between faith and unbelief what we have here is an age-old struggle for power as old as the human race itself between kingship and the priestly caste and there is a little bit of truth in this and certainly there is a tradition of church-state tension that runs throughout many of the regimes in central Europe and certainly predates the unification of Germany but i think if you want a real clue to understanding what is going on with the Kulturkampf you need to look at recent historical conflict some historians and an example of this is William Carr in his standard textbook on Germany Modern Germany suggests that eighteen-seventy- two was a new departure that the Kulturkampf was somehow a new trend in politics and in fact this is rubbish it is quite clear that the biggest divisions in German society and politics in the nineteenth century are based along religious lines if you look for example at the voting in the Frankfurt Assembly in eighteen-forty-eight forty-nine the didid-, the division between people who support a Kleindeutschland a lesser Germany focused on Prussia and people who support a Grossdeutschland a greater Germany with its centre in Vienna very largely it's not an absolute rule you get exceptions like von Radowitz who is a Catholic and a Prussian expansionist but very crudely the big division is between Catholics and non-Catholics Catholics want to include Austria Protestants want to exclude Austria if you look at the population of the German Confederation you'll see why in eighteen-fifty-five the population of the German Confederation was forty-three-million strong of which twenty-three-million were Catholics however of those twenty-three-million twelve-million are Habsburg subjects if you take out the Habsburg subjects from the equation Germany is predominantly Protestant if you leave in the Habsburg subjects Germany is predominantly Catholic Catholics in order to defend their own religious dominance need Austria to be included the Roman Catholics of Germany have no desire to turn themselves wilfully into a minority Catholics knew what it was like to be a minority in Prussia after eighteen-fifty the Catholics began to develop a into being a clearly confessional party although Prussia was predominantly Protestant there was a massive Catholic minority focused primarily amongst the population of the Rhineland acquired after the Napoleonic Wars and in Poland Prussian Poland they were weak enough in numbers to feel threatened but strong enough in order to feel that they could defend themselves and because of the constitution retained in Prussia after eighteen-fifty the Catholics were able to establish a parliamentary voice were able to establish a body that could defend their interests they did not blindly follow the Pope by eighteen-fifty-eight the Prussian Catholic Fraktion as it was called the ca-, the Fraktion it's what they call parties was fed up with Pius the Ninth the Pope who in the aftermath of the eighteen-forty- eight forty-nine revolutions became extremely reactionary and they actually dropped the element Catholic from their title and they for the first time adopt the name Fraktion des Zentrums this th-, th-, the f-, the Party of the Centre and it's this party that together with the Hanoverian anti-Prussians becomes the Centre Party after eighteen- sixty-six sixty-seven they are not actively anti-Prussian but they become disillusioned with Prussia by the late eighteen- fifties in eighteen-fifty-nine remember the Austrians go to war in Italy against the French and the Prussian Catholic Party is outraged that the Prussians don't go to the assistance of the Austrians against the French the reason for this is not German nationalism the reason for this is that they see the French as destabilizing Italy and undermining the security of the Pope in the Italian peninsula it's paradoxical that this is the case since the French actually keep a garrison in Rome to defend the Pope but they are very angry that the Prussians don't fight against the French and in eighteen-sixty they're very disillusioned when areas of the papal state are annexed by the new Italy that the Prussians don't give the Austrians military backing so that they can go into Italy and restore the old order they also are passionate adherents to the er notion that Austria must remain within the German Confederation and indeed Catholics in general throughout Germany whether in Prussia or not remain almost to a man and woman hostile to a Kleindeutschland solution that's focused on Prussia it is significant that in eighteen-sixty-six the Rhinelanders the Catholic Prussians largely refused to mobilize in the war against Austria now think what Prussian military discipline is like you do not disobey orders in the Prussian army but Rhineland regiments en masse were saying we are not going to fight against fellow Catholic Germans which is how they perceived the Austrians in the eighteen-sixties the Catholic Bishop of Mainz guy named Ketteler his name is on the er the the the handout or it should be er yeah the second name on the handout Ketteler who had been a deputy in the Frankfurt Assembly and who knew Bismarck quite well began to establish what a an active party seeking a Grossdeutschland seeking German nationalism within a greater Germany condemning the Kleindeutsch pressure group the Nationalverein as ein antikatholische Verein an anti-Catholic organization an anti-Catholic organ however by eighteen- sixty- six sixty-seven after the defeat of the Austrians Catholics begin to recognize that they can no longer look to Vienna for help Ketteler who had been perhaps the most outspoken critic er of Prussian expansionism of a Kleindeutschland solution to the German question in eighteen-sixty-seven writes a book called Germany after the War of Eighteen-sixty-six in which he says Catholics must reconcile themselves to the new order there is no point being nostalgic for the old days when the Habsburgs defended Catholic interests German Roman Catholics must work within the new Reich for the benefit of the Catholic Church and must seek reconciliation on condition that Roman Catholicism is respected now it's at this point that i want to stress that relationships with the Catholic Church are problematic across the whole of Europe in this period Roman cath-, er Catholicism rested uneasily with the modern state with liberalism with progress and with nationalism remember that the Catholic Church itself its very name means the universal church so in a period in which nation states are being created the idea of stressing the nation is anathema to Catholicism and the Catholic Church in the late nineteenth century becomes engaged with in struggles with the state across Europe in France in the early eighteen-seventies there's what the great historian of the French church Dansette calls the honeymoon of the clericals there's a brief period when the clericals get on quite well with the church but from the late eight-, er f-, er sorry when when the establishment gets on quite well with the church but from the late eighteen-seventies until ni-, nineteen-o-five when church and state are separated in France the single biggest rallying point of all left wing politicians is hostility to the church your political position is defined basically in terms of whether you're pro-Pope or anti-Pope if you're a conservative reactionary you're pro-clerical if you're a left-winger and that doesn't matter if you're a radical who believes in low taxation and the small businessman or a Communist who believes in high taxation and the nationalization of the means of production it doesn't matter what makes you a left-winger is hating the church the vast majority of political debates in France from the late eighteen-seventies until the early twentieth century focus on the role of ch-, the church key political clashes are almost all about the church in Austria in eighteen-fifty-five there is a concordat er the church was given by Francis Joseph massive powers over education and church lands that had been seized in the eighteenth century by Maria Theresia and Joseph the Second are returned after until eighteen-seventy-five a statesman named Rauscher is responsible very much for a a Catholic reaction but from the late eighteen-fifties onwards the definition of a liberal in the Habsburg empire is someone who basically resents the authority of the church anti-militarism and anticlericalism go hand in hand with liberal beliefs and the liberals have some victories in eighteen- seventy a marriage law and an education law are adopted both limiting church authority and eighteen-sixty-eight to seventy-three saw repeated success amongst the liberals in introducing anticlerical legislation nationalists also feared the Catholic Church nationalists from the smaller minorit-, the smaller ethnic groups in the Habsburg empire because they saw Catholicism as universal and transcending national boundaries so you'll find that nationalists also the the Czech or even Polish nationalists are sometimes hostile to the Catholic Church despite Catholicism being such an integral part of Polish nationalism in Italy which has understandably got very difficult relationships with the church since the new Italian state had seized the Pope's temporal t-, territories in Italy again the issue of church-state relations is extremely painful Roman Catholics are supposed to boycott elections bearing in mind that the vast majority of the population are practising Catholics this is somewhat problematic for the new Italian state er but anticlericalism becomes again the touchstone by which left wing views are judged and the problematic relationship between the Pope and the Italian state is not properly reconciled until Mussolini basically buys the Pope off with very large sums of money in the Lateran Treaties the Lateran Pacts of nineteen-twenty-nine er in Britain there is strong residual anti-Catholicism which is largely tied up with the Irish question right across Europe liberals tend to be anti-Catholic in Germany it's even more marked why is there such a problem well as i've already said the tradition of both the Holy Roman Empire and Habsburg dominance premised on a close alliance with the Catholic Church means that until eighteen- sixty-six Catholicism is seen as the enemy of Kleindeutschland German nationalism but in a sense as Ketteler says after eighteen-sixty-six you can't carry on being nostalgic for the old order and that ceases to be such a big problem the Pope is unquestionably hostile to the very idea of nationalism not only by virtue of the universalism of Catholicism by the brothership of man but also by virtue of the fact that it is nationalism Italian nationalism that is br-, lost him his temporal power and therefore he sees nationalism per se as rather a a dodgy political creed but the big problem i think really lies in the very nature of the Pope himself Pius the Ninth was elected in eighteen-forty-six as apparently a liberal reforming Pope however as a consequence of the revolutions of eighteen-forty-eight forty- nine he's turned into a born-again reactionary this is the man who bans gaslights as a sign of nasty modernity who chucks the Jews of Rome back into the ghetto in eighteen-sixty-four he is responsible for the Syllabus of Errors in which he basically lists anything that's progressive and most things that are fun and says that they are evil almost any ism and most aspects of scientific progress are vilified and in eighteen-seventy he goes a step further in issuing the decree of papal infallibility the Pope cannot be wrong on anything the Pope becomes a symbol of unquestioning reaction of hostility to progress but was the Kulturkampf simply a struggle against the anti-modernism the anti-nationalism and the obscurantism of the church is it trying to limit the influence of this extremely reactionary church well in part yes most German liberals disliked everything the Catholic Church stood for they believed in progress they believed in science they believed in nationalism and the Pope stands in the way of all of these things there is a whole wave of literature produced not simply in the new German state but also in the Habsburg empire amongst German liberals and in German-speaking Switzerland that attacks the role of the church men like Busch Böcklin Anzengruber their names are on the list are extremely contemptuous of the role of the church in society there is also the danger that the church would educate the future leadership church schools are extremely good Jesuit schools are so good that Protestants are known to send their kids to the Jesuits to get decent education and there is the fear and this has been seen in France under Napoleon the Third there was the fear that the Catholic Church will end er end up educating future elites who will then manage to impose their Catholicism on German society so there's a desire to prevent the Church's role in education and it is quite clear that not only the liberals recognize this but Bismarck who is a fierce Protestant in his religious beliefs is also aware of the need to move with the times and prevent obscurantism in the field of sciences so that partially explains it but i think the real explanation comes from looking at the first key piece of legislation the Pulpit Law the law that forbids Catholic priests on pain of quite heavy penalties in terms of fines or exile or imprisonment forbids them from using the pulpit for electoral purposes for forbids them from discussing political matters when they're sermonizing Margaret Lavinia Anderson in her brilliant biography of the leader of the Centre Party Ludwig Windthorst whose name is on the list writes of the Pulpit Law and the Kulturkampf in general the following that the legislative attack on the position of the Catholic Church followed immediately on the heels of the declaration of papal infallibility and the founding of the German Empire is often noted what is less often remarked is that it also followed very swiftly after the introduction in Germany of a democratic franchise on the widest scale of any great power in Europe the clue to anti-Catholic legislation lies principally in the fact that Bismarck decides to use universal male suffrage for the elections to the Reichstag the Liberals claimed to represent the Volk claimed to represent the German nation but if you actually look at who the Liberals really represent they represent a very narrow elite of middle class professionals your average German does not give a toss about what the National Liberals and Progressives want they're interested about feeding their families they're interested in local politics they might be interested in hammering the French on the battlefield but they are not interested in what the likes of Treitschke or Lasker or Bamberger have to say about legal reform and they certainly don't see the National Liberal Party as their natural party of representation the Liberals had no grassroots support Roman Catholics however can mobilize mass support often anti-national support the Catholic Church has the ability to mobilize huge numbers of voters and the Liberals are quite simply terrified of doing very badly in the elections they claim to be the natural representatives of the new state of the new order but in fact in a Germany that is still largely particularist and which is not persuaded by the rhetoric of Prussian domination the Liberals are in a very weak position in terms of how well they'll do in elections Bismarck who wants parliamentary backing in order to legitimate his rather authoritarian style of rule is aware first and foremost that he can use the Kulturkampf he can use the persecution of the Catholics as a way of keeping the Liberals sweet and here you get one of the paradoxes of the nature of German history and that is that the most marked characteristic of German Liberals is a fundamental illiberalism that they are not prepared to let people hold beliefs freely if people have beliefs that they don't find congenial they're prepared to persecute them Bismarck realizes that the Liberals see the Catholics as a threat that the Liberals see the Catholics as obscurantist as medievalist as backward looking and therefore he's prepared to persecute them to guarantee Liberal support in Parliament and note not only the Conservatives but the National Liberals and the Progressives and the Socialists all back anti- Catholic legislation he distracts those people from facing other issues by persecuting Catholicism but Bismarck is sharper even than that because he realizes that Catholicism can be a rallying point for discontent the Zentrum is backed by Hanoverian Guelphs by Hanoverians who don't like Prussian rule it's backed by the newly acquired French population of Alsace-Lorraine who have been annexed in the eighteen-seventy seventy-one war they're backed by the Poles and they're backed by Danish secessionists in other words the s-, Catholic Centre party becomes the rallying point the focus point for anti-national anti- Prussian sentiment Bismarck also fears that most of the likely enemies of the new German state the Habsburg empire France are actually Catholic powers and that Catholicism might become a rallying point for anti- German feeling so he aims to break a potential centre of opposition he acts from the belief that it's necessary to act in a dynamic and aggressive way and he also acts for one other reason Windthorst the leader of the Catholic Centre Party is a man who Bismarck personally hates Bismarck famously said that he could live for any one of three people his king because he honoured and respected and worked for him as his natural ruler his wife because he loved her so much and Ludwig Windthorst because he hated him with such utter passion that that loathing alone would give him enough to live for Windthorst is the anathema of Bismarck Windthorst is a hunchbacked almost blind intellectual Catholic anti-nationalist Bismarck is this man he's this big anti- intellectual hard-drinking hard-eating hard-living huge Junker they're chalk and cheese they just don't get on with one another also Windthorst's cousin i believe it is and i can't quite remember whether it's a cousin or a brother is the only person to have ever beaten Bismarck in a duel it just adds a little frisson to the relationship but the personal hostility between the two of them increases Bismarck's desire to persecute the Catholics and yet what is the upshot of the persecution of the Catholics rather than destroying them it simply strengthens them in the face of adversity the Catholic vote doubles in eighteen-seventy-four and by eighteen- eighty-one the Catholics control a hundred seats in the Reichstag for the next fifty years they often hold the balance of power and are involved in almost every single parliamentary majority they are the last German party to exist under the Third Reich except for the Nazis they and they they develop a ren-, remarkable political durability by eighteen-seventy-six their two chief enemies are Bismarck and the National Liberals all the National Liberals hate the Catholic Party with the exception of two Lasker and Bamberger two two of the leadership Lasker and Bamberger can anyone tell me why Lasker and Bamberger alone might have been less reluctant to persecute the Catholics they're both Jews and they realize that persecution of religious minorities is probably not a good thing for Jews to advocate the irony is that in eighteen-seventy-nine Bismarck suddenly backs down why it's quite simple Bismarck begins to get fed up with the National Liberals they won't grant him the money wants he wants to carry on bolstering the Prussian and German armies they are free traders who won't allow him to institute protectionist tariff barriers and moreover by not allowing him to introduce tariff barriers they deny him the possibility of raising revenue from tariff s on the borders of Germany which he can use without parliamentary consent to spend on the army his fiscal policy coupled with his hostility to the anti- militarism of the National Liberals means he begins to think i want to be shot of this political group so he has to start looking around for another party to back him in Parliament the Conservatives are there always more or less loyal because they're Junkers but not very effectively organized in political terms he needs to maintain the parliamentary majority who's got a quarter of the seats the Centre Party Bismarck's extreme political opportunism means that people who have been the vilified enemies of the German state for the last eight or nine years suddenly become his friends if the Centre Party will back his tariff reform fine he'll do a deal with them he sacks Falk the arch anti-Catholic Minister of Culture and religion he allows exiled clergy to return at a stroke of a pen he gets rid of the May Laws he does keep civil marriage he does not let the Jesuits back in but married to the fact that in eighteen-seventy-eight Pius the Ninth has finally and much to the relief of Catholics as well as non-Catholics died and been replaced by the more conciliatory Leo the Thirteenth he suddenly jettisons anti-Catholicism and embarks on a road of conciliation with the Catholic Party i think this gives a remarkable insight into the operations of Bismarck as a politician Bismarck is a man who has broad strategic goals Prussian strength German strength a basically conservative order but in terms of short term strategies he's prepared to move with the wind and it is this readiness to switch his allies change his policies alter his position in order to achieve broader g-, goals that actually lies at the heart of his political durability and next week we will actually when we look at Wilhelmine Germany we'll see very much more how Bismarck manages to retain control of the new Reich for so long and creates a legacy that causes major problems for Wilhelmine Germany in the lead-up to the First World War okay remember tomorrow there's a change of room see you all then