The Unification of Germany 671

Nationalist versus Internationalist Movements

Chancellor Bismarck hated the Catholic Center and Social Democratic

parties, doubting their loyalty. The Catholic Center Party was founded in
1870 to lobby for the rights of Catholics, who made up 35 percent of the
German population, most living in Bavaria and the Rhineland. In 1870,
the pope asserted the doctrine of papal infallibility. To Bismarck, this
meant that one day the pontiff might simply order German Catholics to
not obey the government. In 1873, Bismarck launched a state campaign
against Catholics, the Kulturkampf (“cultural struggle”). Priests in Germany
henceforth had to complete a secular curriculum in order to be ordained,
and the state would now recognize only civil marriage. Subsequent laws
permitted the expulsion from Germany of members of the Catholic clergy
who refused to abide by discriminatory laws against Catholics. An assassi­
nation attempt against Bismarck by a young Catholic in 1874 and papal
condemnation of the Kulturkampf the following year only hardened the
chancellor s resolve.

Gradually, however, Bismarck realized that he might in the future need
the support of the Catholic Center Party against the Social Democrats. The
chancellor quietly abandoned the Kulturkampfi although Catholics were still
systematically excluded from high civil service positions, as were Jews. The
state helped German Protestants purchase bankrupt estates in Prussian
Poland so that they would not fall into the hands of Catholics, who made up
most of the population there. Alsace and the parts of Lorraine annexed from
France, where Catholics formed a solid majority, were administered directly
from Berlin instead of being considered a separate state of the Reich.
Bismarck became obsessed with destroying the socialists, who improved
their gains in the elections, although they still held only a couple of seats
in the Reichstag. Two attempts to kill Emperor William I in 1878
provided Bismarck with an excuse for his war on the socialists, although
neither would-be assassin
had even the slightest
contact with socialist

leaders. The Reichstag
obliged Bismarck by
passing antisocialist leg­
islation that denied
socialists the freedoms of
assembly, association,
and the press. The police
arrested socialists, shut
down their newspapers
and periodicals, and intim­
idated workers into quit­
ting trade unions.

A contemporary image of Bismarck pitted against the

pope in the German chancelor s campaign against

German Catholics.