Otto von Bismarck - II: A Man of Great Ideas - Extra History

Thank you Mr. Portnow for replying to this comment, and to the Extra History team on the whole. My sources for Bismarck (and Imperial Germany on the whole) is 1) Jonathan Steinberg's Bismarck, his recent biography. 2) Fritz Fischer's Germany's Aims in World War I (which proved once and for all that Imperial Germany was primarily responsible for World War I). 3) Hans-Ulrich Wehler's The German Empire, 1871-1918. Those are my sources for Bismarck's anti-semitism and his reactionary attitudes not quotes on the internet. They prove Bismarck to be a man entirely without scruples, and Steinberg indeed concludes that Bismarck possessed no redeeming virtues, which is a little more extreme than how I would argue, but it's powerfully put. I understand that in American poli.sci circles Bismarck is seen and admired as a great power statesman, someone that Kennedy (on the American Left, which is not the same on the European and Global Left) and Kissinger admire and yes he did agree to healthcare and minimum wage which seems like a big deal to Americans, but that assessment should be qualified when considering the whole of European history. German liberals, leftists were opposed to Bismarck consistently, and not just communists. Max Weber condemned Bismarck for his authoritarian attitude which left German people with no political education. And post-war historians are even more harsh. If you want an example of a Bismarckian regime and figure, than someone like Vladimir Putin is your man. Bismarck is not Hitler, and he didn't directly cause World War I, but his polices and the means he used to achieve it did lead to the later catastrophes. His masterminding of the Franco-Prussian War, the landgrabbing of Alsace-Lorraine, his mixed double dealing diplomacy with Russia, all of that led to World War I...and Bismarck's combination of luck, defiance of norms in public and private, and cultivation of authoritarian personality, paved the way for Hitler. So I don't think he gets to be let off the hook.

Sudarshan Ramani

Awww, thank you! We're just glad you're enjoying yourself. :) Welcome to our little Patreon community!

Extra History

Six episodes, but we're not going to be able to cover his full life in that timeframe. Like Justinian, he would need to get voted in again.

Extra History

See above - I asked James to come by and share his thoughts about Bismarck and how he's being presented in this series / general treatments of his character. His reply is posted in answer to Sudarshan Ramani in the comment above!

Extra History

I would too! Metternich is very interesting.

Extra History

I asked James to come by and answer this question because it felt beyond what I could tackle as someone who didn't work on this series (and didn't even do my usual short skim because I've been up to my ears in Khosrau research). He posted his answer below your comment about Episode 1, though, so I'm going to repost it here to make sure you see it: Hmmm... We've been trying to present him as an arrogant wastrel and a womanizer, but I think it's a pretty big stretch to say Bismarck was like Hitler. He was an anti-polish racist and you can 100% say he didn't do enough to check German antisemitism but I mean he did literally say: "I decidedly disapprove of this agitation against the Jews, be it on religious or on racial grounds." "I shall never consent to any attempt at curtailing the constitutional rights of the Jews." As far as being the author of the two world wars, I have to disagree. I think that what you really have to ask is why World War 1 didn't happen sooner. The creation of Germany almost ensured it (after all you placed a power that was potentially economically and militarily more powerful in the middle of all the great powers. Efforts to contain that power were assured.) If you take the creation of Germany as inevitable rather than say it was an act entirely of Bismarck's doing (which I do) then you have to see Bismarck's great project as creating a diplomatic situation in which Germany wouldn't be attacked before it was too strong for anyone to think of attacking it... and he almost succeeded. If he hadn't been booted and his diplomatic efforts not just ignored but reversed you might not have had a WW1. You can argue that if Bismarck hadn't come along Germany might have been unified under some other German faction and not Prussia, leading to a less militaristic society, which might also have radically altered the course of history. This I think is more valid and I think there's lots to explore there. As far as him being a reactionary, 100% yes. But weirdly I think he's closer to what a conservative should be than a lot of the modern examples. I may disagree with his policies but he realized that the best way to keep the status quo and to keep those in power in power was to make the average person's life bearable. He passed a form of universal health care and created a welfare system. He probably didn't do this for altruistic reasons but because he realized that he needed the average person to be comfortable and to attribute that comfort to the king and his government, rather than joining the socialists and demanding reform. Whether or not we agree on this, I hope that at least helps shed some light on the perspective I wrote this from. JP P.S. I just realized one thing! If you happened to have stumbled upon any of those "quotes" where Bismarck says things about "jewish bankers" my understanding is that all of those were made up by the internet relatively recently.

Extra History

...Oops. :(

Extra History

We're game if it wins the vote!

Extra History

A play in several acts.

Extra History

I binge watch all yer series at least once a month you deserve my money :D

Alles Klar Kommissar

how many ep will Bismarck get?

schuyler

I completely agree with Sudarshan Ramani. Bismarck was one of the most reactonary politicians of his time and dedicated his life to prevent any democratic reform. I am always astonished how Bismarck gets idealised in german popular history and hope that extra history won’t make the same mistake.

Michael Rück

I'd love to see a one-off on Metternich as a sort of prequel to this series on Bismarck! :)

Joël Quenneville

Bismarck IS an anti-democratic vampire who sucked the futures of the German people to benefit the conservative Prussian cause for another few decades (ultimately wasted when the Communists broke up all the Junker estates after most of Prussia went to East Germany, Poland and Czechoslovakia as per Stalin's demands). And as this episode proves, remarkably similar to Hitler. An outsider with a radical reactionary dynamism as compared to the traditional conservative elite. As Jonathan Steinberg pointed out, Bismarck didn't have a big military career compared to the Prussian Junker warrior-caste. I highly recommend Steinberg's biography on Bismarck. It points out that Bismarck's whole pragmatist "Art of the Compromise" is all talk. He was an uncompromising authoritarian who forced his way all the time. I can appreciate Extra History narrating without editorializing and passing moral condemnation since Bismarck is an important person. But I feel there's an attempt to sell Bismarck's myth that needs to be checked. All these "Good-Ish" or "Good Ideas" when what we see in this episode is Bismarck bumbling around by accident and lucking his way through (another Hitlerian trait). It wasn't his "good idea" to enter the Camarilla, he was invited there. When you get to the "Iron and Blood" speech, please do mention that the speech failed in its time, and Bismarck repurposed it as a victory years later. I feel that Bismarck is a dangerous man to reconstruct as a "neutral" conservative head-of-state. He played a major role in bringing World War I and World War II to pass, and he set a precedent for Adolf Hitler and it would be as false to claim that Hitler and Bismarck had nothing in common as it is to claim that Bismarck is just like Hitler.

Sudarshan Ramani

Yes Bismarck would have been an awesome vampire!

Farzad Mansouri

I can't tell whether they spell emjoy on purpose or on accident

John Willoughby

From what I understand the locals were perfectly content being part of france and had no interest in joining up with a united germany

Michael Waisfeld

More complicated than that. Alsace- Lorraine was part of the Holy Roman Empire, which was hardly a German nation state. It was divided in different statelets in the Empire, with the Lorraine part being part of the Duchy of Lorraine and the Alsace part being divided in smaller states. France actually had a presence in Alsace before they got Lorraine (even if that geographically makes little sense). In the end it all ended up under France until the Franco- Prussian war, when Alsace and parts of Lorraine (Alsace- Lorraine or Elsass- Lothringen in German) was ceded to Germany. Culturally the area was a border area and had both German and French speaking population. Alsace was more German speaking and Lorraine more French speaking, but it wasn't that simple. Both groups existed in both territories.

Jonathan Luoto

Actually, Alsace Lorein was traditionally GERMAN territory... taken by the French and kickstarted the entire idea that the only way that Germans would NOT be someone to be kicked around is to unite as a nation under a strong government...

Aaron Neumann

Duh, that's actually easy. A series about Franz Josef would definitely cover it.

Jonathan Luoto

Hmm, how to get an episode that covers 1848 in Austria.....

Jonathan Luoto

I am also confused, since it seems he is referring to a son of Charles of Prussia, but Charles did not have a son named Frederick Wilhelm, and his oldest son Frederick Charles was 20 at the time. Also both Wihlem and Charles were the king's brothers. Ne need to call them "relatives" or "family members".

Jonathan Luoto

Fritz (Frederick III) wasn't six years old in 1848. He was 16/17. Were you referring to Brandenburg the state or Brandenburg the city (Brandenburg an der Havel) with regards to the election for the Prussian Landtag?

The same Bismarck who would later concede to his generals and agree with the annexation of alsace lorein. He could well have prevented ww1 if he sobered up from the glory of the victory of 1870 in time. Though I heavily doubt ww1 would have happened on Bismarck's watch.

Michael Waisfeld

Workers of all Lands in Germany, Unite!...and then Fail to bring down the Ancien Regime. Where oh where is Karl Marx when you need him? And that concludes this Summary of the 1848 Revolutions in Germany.

Martin Verran