Did Bismarck have any influence on Hitler?

score:18

Accepted answer

Hitler says early in Mein Kampf

I studied Bismarck's exceptional legislation in its original concept, its operation and its results.

He praises various policies and the diplomacy of Bismarck's government, and towards the end declaims

What miserable pigmies our sham statesmen in Germany appear by comparison with him. And how nauseating it is to witness the conceit and effrontery of these nonentities in criticizing a man who is a thousand times greater than them. And how painful it is to think that this takes place in a country which could point to a Bismarck as its leader as recently as fifty years ago.

However, Bismarck was a hero to nearly all Germans, not just the Nazis, and indeed he is respected by historians as one of the most remarkable figures of his era. Historian Jonathan Steinberg of the University of Pennsylvania writes in Bismarck: A Life (2011) writes:

[Bismarck's accomplishments of 1862-1871] constitute the greatest diplomatic and political achievement by any leader in the last two centuries, for Bismarck accomplished all this without commanding a single soldier, without dominating a vast parliamentary majority, without the support of a mass movement, without any previous experience of government, and in the face of national revulsion at his name and reputation.

Every political leader would study Bismarck, just as they would study any other successful leader.

Moreover, every activist and politician tries to surround himself with popular symbols and celebrities. For Hitler, trying to attract a mass movement, Bismarck would have been the obvious figure to claim as the architect of a successful and growing empire as opposed to the humiliated and unstable Weimar Republic. Certainly, there was nothing to be gained from saying his inspiration and ideas were formed under the influence of Anton Drexler and Dietrich Eckart, his actual mentors.

Bismarck did not leave behind any treatise on philosophy of government or political strategy. Hitler never met Bismarck and had no more claim to his mantle than any other leader, then or now.

The essay, if it can be called that, which you linked would never stand muster with academic historians. There is no real thesis, just an exercise in confirmation bias, linking the two as "brilliant statesmen" who "both practice realpolitik," who were "loyal to a fault to their native lands," and who "both showed their policies to be dominated by a single, overarching goal for the entire time they were in power." All of these points, in fact, are problematic. Was Hitler a brilliant statesman? To what extent did he practice realpolitik? Germany wasn't Hitler's native land, and considering his successes, how would Bismarck's patriotism have been a fault?

Upvote:1

Here is the relevant quote from William Shirer's The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich:

To combat socialism Bismarck put through between 1883 and 1989 a program for social security far beyond anything known in other countries. It included compulsory insurance for workers against old age, sickness, accident and incapacity, and though organized by the State it was financed by employers and employees. It cannot be said that it stopped the rise of the Social Democrats or the trade unions, but it did have a profound influence on the working class that it gradually made them value security over political freedom and caused them to see in the State, however conservative, a benefactor and a protector. Hitler, as we shall see, took full advantage of this state of mind. In this, as in other matters, he learned much from Bismarck.

Upvote:2

I think it is easier to speak about differences. I was told in school that Bismarck warned against war with Russia, while in Hitler's ideology it was one of the key points. I have no online references though.

Upvote:3

Hitler wanted to look like Bismarck, but in reality, he wasn't. In contrast to Hitler, Bismarck wasn't keen on war. He thought of war as the last and least favorable diplomatic tool.

He treated the nations he beat in war gently, for example the Austrians he went to war with in the 1860's and integrated into his "Three Emperors Alliance" later. This is a total contrast to Hitler's "Vernichtungskrieg" ("destruction war") which aimed on enslaving whole nations to create "Lebensraum". After the French-German war of 1871 was fought, Bismarck tried to create treaties with other European nations which made France an outlaw in global politics rather than completely deconstructing it.

Bismarck wasn't racist and a lot less brutal in achieving his goal. He hated socialists and Catholics, but not because he thought of them as "Untermenschen" but rather because of himself being a protestant capitalist.

Another interesting aspect of comparison is, how both approached their political enemies: While Hitler used sheer brute force to make them shut up, Bismarck just stole what they were fighting for, for example the social insurance laws he created to demoralize the German Socialist Party.

No, their parallels are over all just a matter of the time they lived in. Bismarck was a smart politician with ambivalent ambitions who tried to avoid wars and used diplomatic tools every time he was able to, while Hitler was just a very brutal, fanatically ideological idiot not being able to achieve anything without force.

More post

Search Posts

Related post