Table Of ContentOXFORD HISTORICAL MONOGRAPHS
editors
j. maddicott r. j. w. evans
j. harris b. ward-perkins
j. robertson r. service
p. a. slack
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The Bismarck
Myth
Weimar Germany and the Legacy
of the Iron Chancellor
robert gerwarth
CLARENDON PRESS ◊ OXFORD
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© Robert Gerwarth 2005
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First published 2005
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To my parents
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
My interest in Bismarck’s popular image and his mystification after 1890goes
back many years. In this time I have received much support from others and it
is a pleasure to record my gratitude and indebtedness to them.
Various libraries and archives, listed in the bibliography, have opened their
facilities to me and offered me assistance and advice, for which I thank them. In
particular I would like to express my gratitude to Prince Ferdinand von Bis-
marck, who has kindly invited me to undertake research in the family archive in
Friedrichsruh and who granted me access to the private papers of his father, Otto
von Bismarck. I would also like to thank the following individuals and institu-
tions for permission to reproduce published and unpublished material: the
Bundesarchiv (Koblenz and Berlin), Christoph & Friends—Das Fotoarchiv,
the Otto-von-Bismarck-Stiftung, Christoph Bellin (Bildarchiv Hamburg), the
Deutsches Historisches Museum (Berlin), Klaus Kirchner (Erlangen), and the
Staatsbibliothek Berlin / Bildarchiv Preußischer Kulturbesitz.
My doctoral supervisor, Hartmut Pogge von Strandmann, first taught me in
1997, then encouraged me to return to Oxford in 2000, and has since sup-
ported me in many friendly ways. This study would not be the same without
his keen interest and critical judgement.
Many other great scholars have contributed to this book’s completion in one
way or another. My former academic supervisor, Heinrich August Winkler,
first introduced me to the world of Weimar Germany and has remained a
source of inspiration ever since my undergraduate years at Berlin’s Humboldt
Universität. I am also greatly indebted to Niall Ferguson and Sir Ian Kershaw,
who examined the doctoral thesis on which this book is based. Their sugges-
tions have helped me greatly to revise the manuscript for publication.
I would also like to thank Chris Burrows, Porscha Fermanis, Ailish Johnson,
Lothar Machtan, Anna Menge, Leslie Mitchell, Anthony Nicholls, John Röhl,
Nick Stargardt, and Jonathan Wright for commenting on parts of my work in
draft and for making many inspiring suggestions. These friends and colleagues
have provided personal support and scholarly encouragement over the past
four years. It goes without saying that in the end, I alone am responsible for any
shortcomings in this study.
Two scholarship organizations, the Konrad Adenauer Foundation and the
German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD), provided generous financial
viii Acknowledgements
aids in 2000–1 and 2001–2 respectively. In 2002–3 I was fortunate to be the
holder of Oxford University’s Bryce Research Studentship in Modern History.
Without this financial support I could not have undertaken and concluded my
research on the Bismarck myth. Furthermore I would like to thank the British
Academy for electing me to a Postdoctoral Fellowship, the Fellows of Corpus
Christi College, Oxford, for appointing me as a Research Fellow, and the
Wiener Library for awarding this book the 2004Fraenkel Prize in Contempo-
rary History.
Those to whom I owe most of all come last. Porscha Fermanis has lived with
this book for the last two years and Iwant to thank her for making countless
crucial improvements to the manuscript. My final and greatest debt of grati-
tude is to my parents. As a necessarily inadequate acknowledgement of their
support, this book is dedicated to them.
Robert Gerwarth
Oxford, June 2004
CONTENTS
List of Illustrations x
List of Abbreviations xi
1. Introduction 1
2. Prologue: The Bismarck Myth in Wilhelmine Germany
(1890–1918) 11
3. After the Collapse 30
4. Fragmented Society—Divided Memory: Perceptions of
Bismarck in Early Weimar Germany 45
5. Fighting the ‘Enemies of the Reich’: Bismarck and the State
Crisis of 1922–1923 64
6. Bismarck as an Election Campaigner 78
7. In the Shadow of Stabilization 93
8. Towards the Abyss: Bismarck and the Dissolution of
the Weimar Republic 118
9. Epilogue: Bismarck between the ‘Seizure of Power’ and
Reunification (1933–1990) 145
10. Conclusion 171
Bibliography 178
Index 209
