The failure of Bismarck’s Kulturkampf: Catholicism and state power in Imperial Germany, 1871-1887

- One of Bismarck’s lost battles is the Kulturkampf which was a church-state conflict in 1871-87

- Prussia and Germany’s political authority had the ability to implement and enforce government policies in the face of the concerted and often imaginative opposition of German Catholics and the Vatican.

- There are two major inter-related issues:1. The Kulturkampf battle fronts2. The nature of the Bismarckian authoritarian state

- Ronald J. Ross suggests that deeply-rooted Reichtsstaat traditions frustrated the realization of the government’s political agenda

- A successful enforcement of government policies depend on public support which the Kulturkampf did not constitute a majority of non-Catholic Germans and some would critic and actively oppose it.

- State officials suffered from “arrogance of power.” They were certain of eventual success and refused to reassess their battle plans and weaponry even when the Catholics wouldn’t surrender.

- The price of the Kulturkapf and the destruction of religion was high.

- Abolition of some church religious orders impaired the education and the health services run by priest or members of the clergy.

- Attacks on the church strengthened the chief political arm of German Catholicism, the center party and other mass Catholic organization.

- Rebelliousness and sedition broke out and state officials were helpless and concerned that further coercion would intensify lawlessness

- Government officials were unable to silence the Catholic press.

The weaknesses of the Bismarckian authoritarian state:- Administrative machinery had not kept pace with the growth of its economic and military power- Prussian civil servants continued to be guided by traditions, customs and the Reichtsstaat mentality

of the mid-19th century.- Olds means and structures were assumed to still be effective- Bismarck was unwilling to alter his fighting forces- The price of modernization would have been too high- The new Reich and Bismarck’s dominant position was created through labor- Competing interests had to be carefully balances- Modernization was needed to win the Kulturkampf and it would endanger the existence of the new

Reich

- The Kulturkampf affected the opposite of what Bismarck intended to. It inhibited the hoped-for process of consolidation and actually intensified divisions