Today, January 18, the day of the founding of the Reich 153 years ago, would provide an occasion for many wise remarks and — of course — to remember Bismarck’s ingenious work. I will refrain from doing so; the times do not call for it. If we are not careful, Bismarck’s legacy, and indeed Germany itself, will soon be squandered. Let us not forget that Germany’s enemies have been working towards this from day one.
Someone who knew what he was talking about, the then-leader of the Conservatives in the British House of Commons, Benjamin Disraeli, assigned a sharp-eyed significance to the founding of the German Reich just a few weeks later, on February 9, 1871 — and this assessment thereafter determined the dealings with the Germans and their state. Disraeli declared:
This war represents the German revolution, a greater political event than the French revolution of last century. I don’t say a greater, or as great a social event. What its social consequences may be are in the future. Not a single principle in the management of our foreign affairs, accepted by all statesmen for guidance up to six months ago, any longer exists. There is not a diplomatic tradition which has not been swept away. You have a new world, new influences at work, new and unknown objects and dangers with which to cope, at present involved in that obscurity incident to novelty in such affairs. … The balance of power has been entirely destroyed, and the country which suffers most, and feels the effects of this great change most, is England.
We know what happened next. For the Germans, united for the first time in their history, there followed a period of peace lasting over forty years, an era of brilliant economic growth, but also of unprecedented social achievements, which made German society before 1914 the most dynamic, most successful in all of Europe. By the outbreak of World War One, the Reich was leading in almost all areas — and threatened, without intending to, the privileges of the old powers as well as those of the Anglo-Saxon plutocrats.
Could the World War — which was, strictly speaking, a war of the world against Germany — have been prevented? Ultimately, probably not, because the Germans were too successful and their example too dangerous. The rest was done by German diplomacy itself, which — after Bismarck — stumbled from one embarrassment to the next and was intellectually overwhelmed by the carefully balanced alliance system of the founder of the Reich.
Nevertheless, it was not until the vassal regime after 1949 that what remained of great Bismarck’s Reich was finally squandered. Only today are the last remnants of Bismarck’s social state being sacrificed on the altar of unleashed parasitic capitalism, against which no one is opposed anymore. And only today is the remaining ethnic substance of the German nation-state, which Bismarck brought into being, being ruined and irretrievably destroyed day by day.
Still, Bismarck towers stand throughout the country in honor of the great Chancellor; streets and squares still remind us of his Herculean effort, which he wrested from the powers of his time with perseverance and genius. The word, the name “Bismarck,” still stands for Germany’s unity, Germany’s strength, even if only in memory. It is up to us not to let it fade. It is up to us to reawaken Germany’s body — the Reich — when the time comes. It will probably, and one does not need to be a prophet to say this, not be possible without a German revolution again. But it will be unavoidable, one way or another.
