Bismarck and the Rise of German Nationalism Before WWI

Introduction: Nationalism and the German State

Nationalism was a global trend by the time the Great War broke out. Each nation-state developed its own national identity through the use of myths, symbols, and ideology that ranged from ethnic solidarity to political values. Nationalism in Germany became especially potent after the Franco-Prussian War, during which Bismarck wielded his political and military prowess in formidable ways. Crucial to winning the war campaign was a sense of national pride and identity, which Otto von Bismarck promoted through an idealized unity between disparate religious and cultural groups within the various German-speaking states. In addition to promoting a sense of regional identity, Bismarck also championed the vision of an epic, legendary, heroic German state grounded in a sense of power and prestige.

Also characteristic of German nationalism was a sense of pride in the act of struggle itself — another point that Bismarck promoted through his speeches. German nationalism had been fomenting long before the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand, but by the time war broke out, its features included taking joy in the sense of struggle that militarism entails, an idealized vision of a unified German nation, and the symbolic unification of Catholic and Protestant groups under the banner of the German nation.

The Romance of Struggle in Bismarck's Vision

In one of his most overtly nationalistic speeches, delivered in 1895, Otto von Bismarck proclaimed, "In Germany, struggles have existed always … Life is a struggle everywhere in nature … No struggle, no life!"¹ The idealization and romance of struggle became a cornerstone of German nationalism, even though there are no clear historical precedents for Bismarck's philosophy. Certainly the chancellor was correct in pointing out the ubiquity of struggle in daily life, but there had never before been a sense that the disparate Germanic peoples had cause to struggle together.

Furthermore, the concepts of self-sacrifice and struggle became essential components of German nationalistic character. There had to be some means by which Bismarck could inspire his followers to remain loyal to the state, and that means was the creation of a national character based on self-sacrifice and struggle. Victory during several tense wars against formidable foes in the 19th century provided proof that German nationalism was worth fighting for, worth struggling for, and worth the self-sacrifices it might take to defend geographic boundaries.

Religion, Unity, and the Forging of a German Identity

Key to understanding the sudden embrace of the concept of struggle was Germany's tense relationship with Austria. It was crucial to create a sense of purpose in struggling against a Germanic neighbor. Bismarck mitigated potential tension in the Prussian empire through the overt welcoming of Catholic states like Bavaria into the German embrace. Bismarck was a skilled enough strategist to understand that forging a German national identity that included both Catholics and Protestants would make it harder for Catholic neighboring states to rally their own people against a perceived common foe. Religion could no longer be the cause for war, and likewise, religion was not going to be the sole characteristic of the new German nation-state.

The utter lack of religious ideology in Bismarck's own testimony highlights the low value placed on religion in the formation of German nationalist identity. Instead, the struggle between Catholic and Protestant was rebranded as the struggle between the people of Germany and her neighbors. In the Proclamation of Empire, Bismarck articulated the need for the people to begin identifying with each other as sources of mutual protection against aggressors, "within boundaries which afford the fatherland a security against renewed French aggression which has been lost for centuries."²

The unification of Germany likewise depended on proving that the nation was not defined by Protestantism but by something else, which is why the Catholic regions of Germany were able to ally themselves more with Bismarck's imperial vision than with Austria's. Bismarck never made it sound as though the German empire was lusty for power, and yet power was precisely the characteristic that helped ordinary German people rally under the banner of the new nation. Prior to this point, German states had no real sense of unity and pride given the lack of centralized power that could prove its merits and provide the populace with enough awareness of the threats posed by neighbors.

Conclusion: Legacy of German Nationalist Identity

German nationalism sprouted after the Austro-Prussian and Franco-Prussian wars of the 19th century, and it blossomed under Bismarck. As German hegemony under Prussian direction threatened to undermine the delicate balance of power in Central Europe, it became necessary to define the differences between the Germanic cultures of the unified German states and those of Austria, without reverting to the old model of using religion as the rallying call. Bismarck successfully built a German national character on three key features: the romance of unity, the importance of transcending the Protestant-Catholic divide, and the potency of power in helping ordinary people feel secure in the knowledge that their secular imperial government had their best interests at stake.

German nationalism corroded into Nazism only a few decades later, but it is nonetheless instructive to see how the ideologies of power and perceived external threats helped to foment the racist tensions brewing in post-war Germany. The Bismarckian project, intended to unify and stabilize, inadvertently laid the psychological and ideological groundwork for some of the darkest episodes in modern history.

References

Bismarck, Otto von. The Imperial Proclamation, January 18, 1871.

Bismarck, Otto von. Letter to Minister von Manteuffel, 1856.

Bismarck, Otto von. Nationalist Speech, April 1, 1895.

Droysen, Johann Gustav. Speech to the Frankfurt Assembly, 1848.

Field Marshal Helmuth von Moltke, 1866.

Schultze, Hagen. The Course of German Nationalism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991.

Smith, Helmut Walser. German Nationalism and Religious Conflict. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2014.