The German Question, Part Fifty-Six

"Bismarck" Part Five/A "Bismarck as Chancellor & A Treaty With 'Contentious Relatives' "

Just a note about Luxemburg/Luxembourg to start: Luxembourg remained an independent country and a possession of the Dutch throne, but it also remained a member of the German Customs Union ("Zollverein"), thus, giving it continued strong ties to Germany without being a member state.

So with a newly united nation, Bismarck set out in his mind to strengthen that unity. Germany was a nation with a predominately Protestant north, and with a predominately Catholic south.* Now that staunchly Catholic Austria was excluded from the new nation, and with Protestant Prussia having led the unification efforts, Protestantism was the favored religion, and most positions in the national government were occupied by Protestants. The Papacy had been controversial for centuries, and not only in the German territories, but within Christianity as a whole. The Catholic Church was organized to control matters and adherents of the Church, with a central authority in Rome. With such a governing system, non Catholics always feared that adherents to Catholicism would have divided loyalties between Church and state.**

Bismarck was the "Reichskanzler" of Germany ("Imperial Chancellor," or "prime minister," for a term better known to many English speaking people), but he also was still the head of the government of Prussia. In his first few years as head of the new government, Bismarck implemented policies to try to lessen the influence of the Catholic Church in Germany, and sometimes just in Prussia. Further, there were efforts to "Germanize" Jews, Poles, and Wends (Sorbians). This overall approach to lessen various influences in Germany came to be known as the "Kulturkampf," or "Culture War;" although, some historians limit the term to the attempt to lessen Catholic influence. To be brief here, over time, the laws to lessen Catholic influence: forbade clergy from discussing or preaching about political matters to congregants, under threat of imprisonment; banished the Jesuits from Germany; gave the government the right to inspect religious schools; gave the government the right to train, appoint, and discipline members of the clergy; removed marriage from religious control to that of the "civil authorities." Clergy who protested the laws were arrested. The measures and their enforcement inflamed relations between the German government and the Papacy, with Bismarck literally breaking off diplomatic contacts with the Pope. This war against the Catholic Church, instigated by German nationalists and by the German government, enforced by German police and civil authorities, was an ominous precursor to what would come a little more than six decades later.

The overall measures against Catholic influence had some success, but it also had many negatives, including the negative view of such among some foreign nations, especially those with strong Catholic traditions. Political parties were growing in Germany, and Catholics rallied to the "Catholic Center Party," which gained in popularity, and which also contained traditional conservative Catholics, something Bismarck eventually needed politically. The whole matter tarnished Bismarck's reputation to some extent, and he reconciled with the Papacy to some degree when a new Pope took over the Catholic Church in 1878.

To be continued with Bismarck's attempts to "Germanize" the non-German population..... (A Word History is below the notes)

* Notice in both cases I used the word "predominantly." Especially in the north, there were some especially strong Catholic areas, including parts of the Rhineland, part of Alsace and part of Lorraine in the west. Then there were the staunchly Catholic Poles, and some German Catholics in the eastern part of the country. The southern areas were more uniformly Catholic, but there were some Protestants there.

** This was also the case in America. Catholic candidates, especially for high office, were often overtly and covertly thought to be puppets for the Papacy, which was trying to take control of the country. For those old enough to remember, when John F. Kennedy, a Catholic, ran for President, many Protestants openly said how the Pope would give Kennedy his orders, if Kennedy won the election. I can distinctly remember some people saying, "We're going to be controlled from 'across the pond.' " Kennedy won, and all Americans did not suddenly become members of the Knights of Columbus, don Rosary Beads, attend six o'clock Mass, or say "Hail Marys," except in reference to long, desperate passes by quarterbacks on the football field. To be honest, however, in Bismarck's time, the Church had much more direct influence on many of its members than it seemingly has in more modern times, although the Papacy had been dealt a serious blow as a result of the "Franco-Prussian War," which was just covered in the previous installments here. Because of the war, Napoleon III withdrew his troops from their protection of the Papacy role in Rome. This permitted Italian troops to enter Papal territory and for Italy to annex the territory to the still relatively new Italian nation. Rome, which had been named the capital of the new nation nearly a decade before, then truly became the seat of the Italian government.

WORD HISTORY:
Krieg-Since I did "Blitz" earlier, here is the "krieg" part of the compound. First, interestingly the Germanic languages did not seem to have a common word for "war." I could not find a lot of information on this word; thus its origin is unknown to me. It goes back to Old High German "krig," which supposedly meant "stubbornness." Old High German is a term linguists use to denote the Germanic dialect that developed not long after the Germanic elements that went to Britain left the Continent, and it is the direct ancestor of modern German. Later the form "kriec" developed, with the meaning "strain, endeavor," and this then developed into the meaning "war."

For an updated version, see:
http://pontificating-randy.blogspot.com/2010/11/revised-word-history.html

For "Blitz," see: http://pontificating-randy.blogspot.com/2010/11/german-question-part-fifty-two.html