4 - The Ruling Elite of Wilhelmine Germany and Its Crisis of Legitimation

Summary

The Fall of the Eulenburg Camarilla: At the Intersection of Accountability and Unaccountability in Politics

THE EULENBURG SCANDAL plunged the German ruling elite into a crisis, since it exposed a profound weakness in its legitimation to govern. The constitution of the German Empire did not envision the existence of a camarilla or individual favorites at the court and provided no way to deal with them; Wilhelmine Germans associated such roles in the exercise of power with absolute monarchy and believed they had long since been overcome. In the columns of the Zukunft Maximilian Harden opened a panorama of the power effectively wielded by Philipp Eulenburg as the “favorite” of Emperor Wilhelm II:

The second chancellor [Caprivi] was brought down in Liebenberg, and the third was Hohenlohe. This old gentleman came to the point where he frothed at the mouth if the name Eulenburg was even mentioned. The fourth, who is still in office, had no wish to become chancellor but was placed in that position by Prince Eulenburg … Bülow was unwilling; he had an Italian wife who went to see Eulenburg, but she could not move him. I mention this expressly because it proves that a concealed authority really did exist who called the shots. The lady did not travel to Berlin and present the matter to his Majesty; rather she went to Vienna and asked Eulenburg to allow her to stay in Rome. Eulenburg replied, ‘Bernhard must go to Berlin’—for they were old friends who used each other's first names. When Mrs. Bülow suggested, “You go instead!” Eulenburg said, “No, I want to make kings, not be king!”

Finally Harden learned that Kuno Moltke had once declared, “We have now formed a ring around the Kaiser that no one can break through”; it was then that he realized, as he explained to the court, that “the camarilla was doing damage to the state as a whole,” and that he had to act “as a politician” and intervene himself.”

The Spanish term camarilla had established itself in the political vocabulary of Europe after the reign of Ferdinand VII of Spain. Like the “cabinet” where government ministers and officials met, the room gave its name to the institution.