within the machinery of state, from the groups which not only understood but represented the Prussian *Dynamik*: the bureaucracy, the legal profession and certain segments of the aristocracy.

When on February 3, 1847 King Frederick William IV finally fulfilled the promise made by his father in the exaltation of the War of Liberation and called into being the Vereinigte Landtag, the first Parliament in Prussia's history, there could be no doubt that it would become the focus of all tensions. To be sure, it was not much of a Parliament by modern constitutional standards and the vain, brilliant but unstable king would have been horrified had he been told that it represented a first step towards democracy. It was created by a simple expedient, by calling to Berlin the Assemblies of the three Estates of the various provinces of Prussia. But there are experiences in the life of peoples which transcend any after-thoughts. It was thus with the War of Liberation and its aftermath. Nothing could eradicate the consciousness of nationality brought to Germany by the French occupation, nor eliminate the prestige acquired by Prussia through its heroic efforts. However severe its censorship and however rigid its policy after the Congress of Vienna, Prussia remained to German patriots the microcosm of the larger whole, the symbol of their hopes for unity. It did not matter that Prussia's policy of repression was even more vigorous than Austria's because it was not leavened by Austrian inefficiency. It was to Prussia to which even liberals looked for the achievement of their goals. And Prussia athwart Germany from the partly Polish East to the Catholic and somewhat Latinized Rhineland symbolized that quest even in its physical shape. This was the paradox of Prussia's history, that the most authoritarian of Germany's states should become the symbol of its national aspirations. Any

that the overthrow of the existing order is not the end but the beginning
of revolutions. So it was in Russia where the Kerensky government which
a few months previous would have satisfied even the most Utopian reformer
only served to pave the way for a second outbreak. In this manner does
the legitimate order-revenge itself on its successor. For if the defenders
of the status quo suffer from the illusion of unalterable permanence, the
revolutionaries are subject to the illusion of a new order which has all
the advantages of the revolutionary ideals added to the advantages of the
existing structure. But the forces unleashed have their own logic and their
distinguishing characteristic is precisely the fact that with the upheaval
there has disappeared not only the grievance but the bond of union of society.
The greater the dislocation, the greater the premium that will be placed on
ruthlessness. Force must replace a sense of obligation as the means of social
discipline. Reigns of terror are no accident; they are the reverse side of a
disintegrated legitimacy.

This is a special problem when the revolution occurs not in the
name of change but by exposing the existing institutions to a strain for which

they are not designed. Even the most "conservative" position can be socially
dissolving therefore if its advocates in their quest for triumph bring about the
erosion of self-restraint. For society lives by a myth which derives its power
not from its truth but from the fact that it is believed. An outsider will have
no difficulty showing its logical fallacies, but in a strong society this will
merely be taken as a symptom of precisely the fact that he is an "outsider".
It is different, however, when there emerges a personality of extraordinary
power, strong enough to strip bare the make-believe which

become a myth. They remembered the three great wars which had achieved their unity, but they overlooked the patient preparation which had made them possible and the moderation which had secured their fruits. Thus its greatest modern figure may well have sown the seed of Germany's twentieth century tragedies. "No one eats with impunity from the tree of immortality," wrote Bismarck's friend, Roon, about him. And Bismarck himself in a letter to his bride drew a picture of the meaning of his life: "That which is imposing here on earth. . . has always something of the quality of the fallen angel, who is beautiful but without peace, great in his conceptions and exertions, but without success, proud and lonely."

2. Quoted in Ludwig, *Bismarck*, p. 494.

3. W 14/I, p. 60.

II. The Making of a Revolutionary

Few persons have more profoundly intervened in the history of their people than Otto von Bismarck. Before he appeared on the scene, Germany and Prussia seemed to be undergoing the "normal" development towards a constitutional, liberal state. Even the opponents of this trend were conscious that they were fighting a rear-guard action and that they did not possess a meaningful alternative. But five years after Bismarck came to power the problem of German unity was solved and its institutions charted in a manner which reflected the aspirations of not a single significant group, only the personal predelictions of one man. Too liberal for its conservatives, too undemocratic for its liberals, the new settlement was designed for a solitary personality who proposed to control the contending forces, both domestic and international, by manipulating their antagonisms. Any account of the events of this period must therefore begin with the development of Otto von Bismarck.

"People are born as revolutionaries," wrote the German liberal Bornberger from his Parisian exile in 1862 in an article which attempted to explain the enigma of Bismarck's personality to the French. "Only the accident of life decides whether one becomes a Red or a White revolutionary." Many years later Bismarck was to say that this was one of the few articles of which he was proud. People are born as revolutionaries when the scope of their conceptions and the

scale of their powers dissolves all institutions with which they deal. For institutions are designed to assimilate mediocrity, not for genius or demoniac power.

Otto von Bismarck was born on April 2, 1815, as the son of a couple which symbolized the two pillars of Prussia's greatness, the aristocracy and the

1. Quoted in Eyk, II, p. 316

bureaucracy, the tenacity of ownership and the pride of achievement. The
Bismarcks had belonged since times immemorial to that dour group of Junkers
which had wrested Eastern Germany from the Slavs. They were already Junkers,
Bismarck once said, when the Prussian kings were still an insignificant
South German dynasty, a sentence which expressed the self-assurance of a class
to which the recognition of a superior always came hard. "All my life,"
Bismarck said later, "I was less concerned with commanding than with not having
to obey." The supremacy of the king had been wrested but with difficulty from
these independent land-owners and only by the creation of a myth which so
exalted the state that service to it came to make palatable the loss of inde-
pendence. While in France the aristocracy was crushed because an absolute ruler
can not recognize peers and in Britain it became dominant because a virile
aristocracy finds it difficult to accept a superior will, the Prussian
aristocracy became a partner of the King because the Prussian state seemed to
dwarf both. In this manner the King came to symbolize the unity of the state
and the Junkers to staff its chief positions. But even then the king could
count on the support of the Junkers only if he lived up to their conception
of kingship and only so long as he did not seriously threaten their prerogatives.
Behind the mask of exaggerated servility there always lurked a slightly con-
cealed defiance, for despite all traditions, the existence of a sovereign will
was hard to bear: "I will never be able to tolerate superiors," wrote the
young Bismarck.

2. W. 14/1, p.30. 9 January, 1845

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and man an insignificant petty incident in the stream of occurences:

"...It is a struggle which characterizes life in all of nature, in all creation, beginning with the plants...from the insects to the birds, from the birds of prey upward to man: there is struggle everywhere, without struggle no life and if we wish to continue to live we must always be prepared for struggle." And in 1856 he wrote with reference to an attack by a royal prince on the Barbary pirates: "I can not agree with the humanitarian condemnation of the admiral...The men which it cost would have died in any case in 40 years and the money can hardly be invested better than in the honor of the

flag." It was not for nothing that the only philosopher who interested Bismarck was Spinoza, the advocate of a naturalistic ethic, although his deepest insight escaped Bismarck, that peace could be found not only in victory but also in acceptance and that total knowledge was an attribute only of God.

For what distinguished Bismarck from his contemporaries was a demoniac quality which refused to be satisfied with partial knowledge and limited achievement. Like Prometheus of the myth he could not stop until he had wrested the fire from the gods or destroyed himself in the process. But in Prussia in the 1830's greatness was not easy to come by. The two avenues for ambition, the army and the bureaucracy, placed a premium on orthodoxy not inspiration—and the discipline they required made them in any case insupportable for a personality of Bismarck's genius. And alienated genius can take two forms: It can either attempt to institutionalize its inspiration, to create a routine of exaltation — this is the solution of dogmatism and in its revolutionary incarnation of fanaticism. Or it can postulate the incommensurability between reality and its vision as a symptom of the vanity and pretentiousness of the universe—this is the solution of nihilism.

7. Quoted in Zechlin, p.91

8. L.G., p. 301. 25 August, 1856.

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not prepared any longer to tolerate their demoniac charge: "...I will consequently give up the Foreign ministry...take a wife, produce children, cultivate the land and corrupt the morals of my peasants through excessive production of spirits. Should you come into this neighborhood ten years hence... you will find a fat reserve officer, complete with mustache, whose curses make the ground tremble, possessed of a just disdain of Jews and Frenchmen and who beats his dogs and servants most brutally when he has been tyrannized by his wife. I will wear leather pants...and [at the wool-market in Stettin] I shall stroke my mustache good-naturedly if I am addressed as Baron and sell for two dollars too cheap. On the king's birthday I shall get drunk and shout hurrah... in short I shall be happy in the rural circle of my family; car tel est mon plaisir."

But such was not Bismarck's pleasure as the tone of the letter had made clear in any case. His pride could not accept defeat nor his ambition a normal existence. With the aid of a private tutor he prepared for the examination which would permit his entry at the lowest rung of the civil service hierarchy, as Referendar, not dissimilar to the position of Law Clerk in the United States; "My fingers are becoming crooked through the impulse of a most unphilosophical passion... You will have guessed it, that my ambition which formerly was less strong and took a different turn, has induced in me an industry hitherto unexampled in my life, as well as the utilization of all other means which seem conducive to my advancement...So deluded am I that I have come to consider mere pleasure without utility a waste of time." But again fulfillment proved empty. If country life without activity was enervating, study without advancement was draining. And

12. W. 14/1, p. 4. 7 April, 1834

doubt...in the perfection of the Divine decrees, to believe that one could
influence Him by human entreaties...Thus...I threw myself blindly into life,
wound up in bad company, now as a tempter, now as tempted and considered ...
all sins permitted as long as they did not seem to infringe on the rights
of others taken in the widest sense...."

To the pious von Puttkammer this could have seemed as nothing short of the
voice of the devil. But even this confession only served to heighten the
power of the moment of conversion: "...About four years ago...I came into closer
contact with Moritz von Blanckenburg and I found in him what I had never had
in life: a friend...Through Moritz I also became acquainted with the [Thaddens]
and their circle, and there I found individuals in whose presence I felt ashamed
that I had attempted to investigate by the limited light of my intelligence that
which was assumed true and holy by such eminent minds....That hope and peace were
with them did not surprise me, for I had never doubted that they accompanied
faith. But faith can not be given nor taken away and I was of the opinion that I
would have to wait resignedly until it was vouchsafed to me. Soon I felt at home
in this environment and with Moritz and his wife, who came to be dear to me
as ever a sister to her brother, I experienced a well-being, / foreign to me
heretofore, a family life which included me, almost a home...As a result, the
consciousness of the superficiality and unworthiness of my life became more
powerful within me than ever before...and I experienced bitter remorse about my
previous existence...That which stirred within me became real when at the news
of the fatal illness of our deceased friend...the first fervent prayer tore
itself from my heart, without any concern about its reasonableness, together with
a stinging sense of my unworthiness to pray and with tears as had been unknown
foreign