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Otto, Prince of Bismarck, Count of Bismarck-Schönhausen, Duke of Lauenburg (German: Otto, Fürst von Bismarck, Graf von Bismarck-Schönhausen, Herzog zu Lauenburg, pronounced [ˈɔtoː fɔn ˈbɪsmaʁk] ⓘ; 1 April 1815 – 30 July 1898; born Otto Eduard Leopold von Bismarck) was a Prussian statesman and diplomat who oversaw the unification ...
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Otto von Bismarck served as prime minister of Prussia (1862–73, 1873–90) and was the founder and first chancellor (1871–90) of the German Empire. As chancellor, he pursued pacific policies in foreign affairs, succeeding in preserving the peace in Europe for about two decades, but showed authoritarian tendencies in domestic affairs.
Who were Otto von Bismarck’s parents?
Otto von Bismarck was born at Schönhausen, in the Kingdom of Prussia. His father, Ferdinand von Bismarck-Schönhausen, was a typical member of the Prussian landowning elite. His mother, Wilhelmine Mencken, came from an educated bourgeois family that had produced a number of higher civil servants and academics.
Where was Otto von Bismarck educated?
At age seven Otto von Bismarck enrolled in the progressive Plamann Institute in Berlin. He later attended the Frederick William gymnasium. He then studied law at the University of Göttingen but evidently was a mediocre student, and, after a brief stint at the university in Berlin, he entered the Prussian civil service.
Otto von Bismarck (born April 1, 1815, Schönhausen, Altmark, Prussia [Germany]—died July 30, 1898, Friedrichsruh, near Hamburg) prime minister of Prussia (1862–73, 1873–90) and founder and first chancellor (1871–90) of the German Empire. Once the empire was established, he actively and skillfully pursued pacific policies in foreign affairs, succeeding in preserving the peace in Europe for about two decades. But in domestic policies his patrimony was less benign, for he failed to rise above the authoritarian proclivities of the landed squirearchy to which he was born.
Bismarck was born at Schönhausen, in the Kingdom of Prussia. His father, Ferdinand von Bismarck-Schönhausen, was a Junker squire descended from a Swabian family that had ultimately settled as estate owners in Pomerania. Ferdinand was a typical member of the Prussian landowning elite. The family’s economic circumstances were modest—Ferdinand’s farming skills being perhaps less than average—and Bismarck was not to know real wealth until the rewards flowed in after the achievement of German unification. His mother, Wilhelmine Mencken, came from an educated bourgeois family that had produced a number of higher civil servants and academics. She had been married to Ferdinand von Bismarck at age 16 and found provincial life confining. When her son Otto was seven, she enrolled him in the progressive Plamann Institute in Berlin and moved to the capital to be near him. The young Bismarck resented exchanging an easy life in the country for a more circumscribed life in a large city, where in school he was pitted against the sons of Berlin’s best-educated families. He spent five years at the school and went on to the Frederick William gymnasium for three years. He took his university entrance examination (Abitur) in 1832.
With his mother’s encouragement, he took up the study of law at the University of Göttingen in the kingdom of Hanover. Evidently Bismarck was a mediocre student who spent much of his time drinking with his comrades in an aristocratic fraternity. After a brief stint at the university in Berlin, he entered the Prussian civil service, where he was plagued by boredom and an inability to adhere to the hierarchical principles of the bureaucracy. His mother’s death in 1839 gave him the opportunity of resigning in order to come to the assistance of his father, who was experiencing financial difficulties in the management of his estate. From 1839 to 1847 Bismarck lived the ordinary life of a Prussian country squire. Subsequently he romanticized these years on the land and wondered why he had abandoned an idyllic existence for the insecurities of a life in politics. This frequently expressed nostalgia may have been more guise than reality.
During this period he met and married Johanna von Puttkamer, the daughter of a conservative aristocratic family famed for its devout pietism. While courting Johanna, Bismarck experienced a religious conversion that was to give him inner strength and security. A subsequent critic was to remark that Bismarck believed in a God who invariably agreed with him on all issues. There is no question that the marriage was a very happy one. In fact, Bismarck’s last words before dying in 1898 expressed the wish that he would once again see Johanna, who had passed away some years earlier.
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His politics during the 1840s did not diverge substantially from those of a typical country squire. If anything, his politics were more conservative. He believed in a Christian state that received its sanction ultimately from the deity. The existing social and political order was to be defended in order to prevent a Hobbesian chaos of all against all. Given his views, Bismarck was welcomed as a member of the religious conservative circle around the brothers von Gerlach, who were stout defenders of the noble estate against the encroachments of bureaucratic centralization. Bismarck had nothing but sarcasm for aristocratic liberals who viewed England as a model for Prussia. In 1847 he attended the Prussian United Diet, where his speeches against Jewish emancipation and contemporary liberalism gained him the reputation of a backwoods conservative, out of touch with the dynamic forces of his age.
In 1849 he was elected to the Prussian Chamber of Deputies (the lower chamber of the Prussian Diet) and moved his family to Berlin. At this stage he was far from a German nationalist. He told one of his fellow conservatives, “We are Prussians, and Prussians we shall remain…. We do not wish to see the Kingdom of Prussia obliterated in the putrid brew of cosy south German sentimentality.” In 1851 Frederick William IV appointed Bismarck as the Prussian representative to the federal Diet in Frankfurt, a clear reward for his loyalty to the monarchy.
With the defeat of the revolution in central Europe, Austria had reasserted its supremacy in the German Confederation, and Bismarck, being an archconservative, was assumed to support the status quo, which included Austrian hegemony. He lived in Frankfurt for eight years, where he experienced a commercial and cultural environment quite different from that of a Prussian estate.
Dec 16, 2009 · Learn about the life and achievements of Otto von Bismarck, the "Iron Chancellor" who unified Germany and made it a world power. Explore his wars, reforms, diplomacy and legacy in this article from HISTORY.com.
As 'chancellor' of the new Germany, Bismarck concentrated on building a powerful state with a unified national identity. One of his targets was the Catholic Church, which he believed had too much...
Otto, prince von Bismarck, (born April 1, 1815, Schönhausen, Altmark, Prussia—died July 30, 1898, Friedrichsruh, near Hamburg), Prussian statesman who founded the German Empire in 1871 and served as its chancellor for 19 years.
May 12, 2023 · Learn how Otto von Bismarck, the "Iron Chancellor," masterminded the unification of Germany in 1871 through strategic diplomacy and nationalistic fervour. Discover how he transformed Prussia into a dominant European power and the legacy of his actions for Europe.
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Otto von Bismarck, prime minister of Prussia (1862-73, 1873-90) and founder and first chancellor (1871-90) of the German Empire whose time in office took Prussia from the weakest of the five European powers to, as the unified German Empire, the foremost military and industrial power on the Continent.
