Characteristische Und Singulaere Der Bismarckischen Reichsgruendung Essay, Research Paper

Kehr here

describes the unique nature of the German Reich and the way in which the state

was broken down to meet its people.? The

way that the Bundesstaaten were regulated, the division of sovereignty and the

dominance of Imperial Prussia and its constitutionally ratified Emperor are all

anomalies and exceptions of their age, but they were not major problems to

contemporary Germans.? It is amazing how

soon the German people accepted the establishment of the Reich and its unique

nature? Instead, class conflict was the

first of the two major issues of the age as the state became a weapon in the hands

of those wishing to keep the proletariat down, the result of which was that all

domestic policies had class war as their motive, agenda, cause or consequence. The way in

which Germany became so class-conscious was the result of the failure of the

anti-leftist measures such as the anti-socialist bill, throughout the era, and

was a stand by the aristocracy and middle class against the growing tide of

socialism which continued to gain ground throughout. Kehr says that

of equal, although secondary, importance was the political and military dualism

of Germany.? The autonomous army, with

all its power and traditional support was a constitutionally unsupervised

influence on Germany.? Comparing the

army to the old secret police forces of Russia and Germany, the independence of

the army he examines as being the residue of absolutism, with the old

seperation of estates and functions, the second being the conflict of Crown and

parliament, and finally the means by which the Reich had been unified ? war.? Moltke?s careful disentanglement of the army

from Bismarck?s sphere of influence in the 1870s is an important issue, as

Moltke set the army firmly against the Prussian reformists and allied the army

with the army?s Commander in Chief ? the Kaiser.? Army training had as its objective ?blind obedience to the

Crown?.? From the time of the

Constitutional Crisis onwards, the army was maintained as a bulwark against

internal strife. The army?s

role within society in the Empire was thus different from the role

previously.? Whereas the old dualism had

been a weapon to win support for the Crown, and to protect it from the

liberals, the Empire?s dualism reflected the class conflict that permeated the

state.? The alliance of the liberals, the

conservatives and the aristocracy against the greatest of evils, socialism, led

the army to assume a new role as a protector not of the Crown but of capitalist

principles.? The Reichstag?s septennial

budgets were concessions to the army, but the ultimate expressions of the power

of the army were the Cabinet orders of 1883, 1889 and 1899, which officially

removed the army from political jurisdiction. Gerhard Ritter

said that militarism could be said to be prevalent when ?the primacy of the

political leadership over the military ie ? of its thinking over the army?s, is

endangered?.? That every Chancellor had

to wear uniform in the Reichstag is perhaps indicative of such a

predominance.? At official occasions,

Chancellor Hollweg was forced to sit with others of his rank, at the far end of

the table from the Kaiser, the generals and the colonels.? In Wehler?s words ?a spread of military

codes, values and conduct? permeated Germany.?