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The Kulturkampf and the Limitations of Power in Bismarck's Germany

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 January 2016

Ronald J. Ross
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Extract

Few conflicts in imperial Germany were more important than the Kulturkampf, a major dispute between the Catholic Church and the Prussian State and a notorious example of the destructive character of Bismarckian politics. The Kulturkampf began in 1871, gathered in intensity and bitterness until 1878, and then continued with slowly diminishing severity down to 1887. Despite all its drama (the attempted assassination of governmental officials, the arrest and trial of prominent churchmen, even riots and mass demonstrations) and its undeniable political importance, the Kulturkampf remains among the neglected problems of nineteenth-century German history. For the most part what has been written is so contradictory and prejudiced that even now – more than one hundred years later – the issues remain controversial and, in many respects, obscure.

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Research Article
Information
The Journal of Ecclesiastical History , Volume 46 , Issue 4 , October 1995 , pp. 669 - 688
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Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1995

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References

AeGVP = Archiv des erzbischöflichen Generalvikariates Paderborn; GStAPrKB (Berlin) = Geheimes Staatsarchiv Preussischer Kulturbesitz (Berlin-Dahlem); HStA Marburg = Staatsarchiv Marburg; SBVR = Stenographische Berichte über die Verhandlungen des Reichstags; StA Münster = Staatsarchiv Miinster; ZStA Merseburg = Zentrales Staatsarchiv, Dienststelle Merseburg

For financial support while this article was in preparation the author gratefully acknowledges the American Philosophical Society and the Graduate School Research Committee of the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee. He also expresses his thanks to Professor Robert Berdahl, Professor Reginald Horsman and to Professor Gerhard Rauscher for their helpful suggestions and comments. An abbreviated version of this paper was presented at the meeting of the German Studies Association in Minneapolis on 3 Oct. 1992.

1 Interpretations range from understandably highly partisan Catholic accounts like Majunke's, PaulGeschichte des ‘Culturkampfes’ in Preussen-Deutschland, Paderborn 1886Google Scholar, and Kissling's, Johannes B.Geschichte des Kulturkampfes im Deutschen Reiche, 3 vols, Freiburg 1911-16Google Scholar, to the frankly pro-Bismarckian Wiermann, H. (Robolsky, Hermann), Geschichte des Kulturkampfes: Ursprung, Verlauf und heutiger Stand, Leipzig 1885Google Scholar, or from the French liberal Catholic study by Goyau, Georges, Bismarck et l'Église: le culturkampf (1870-1887), 4 vols, Paris 1911—13Google Scholar, to the writings of a former member of the Nazi SS, SchmidtVolkmar, Erich, Der Kulturkampf in Deutschland 1871-1890, Göttingen 1962Google Scholar. Among other, more objective, accounts see Bornkamm, Heinrich, ‘Die Staatsidee im Kulturkampf’, Historische Zeitschrift clxx (1950), 41–72, 273-306Google Scholar; Gall, Lothar, Bismarck: the white revolutionary, trans. Underwood, J. A., 2 vols, London 1986-7, ii. 12–31Google Scholar; Pflanze, Otto, Bismarck and the development of Germany, 3 vols, Princeton, NJ 1990, ii. 179–206, 233–45Google Scholar; iii. 191–8. Cf. also Franz, Georg, Kulturkampf: Staat und katholische Kirche im Mitteleuropa von der Säkularisation bis zum Abschluss despreussischen Kulturkampfes, Munich 1954Google Scholar; Franz-Willing, Georg (the same author as above), Kulturkampf gestern und heute: seine Säkularbetrachtung 1871-1971, Munich 1971Google Scholar; Engelberg, Ernst, Bismarck: das Reich in der Mitte Europas, Berlin 1990, 104-52.Google Scholar

2 The most recent attempt to assess this problem is the author's ‘Enforcing the Kulturkampf: the Bismarckian state and the limits of coercion in imperial Germany’, Journal of Modem History lvi (1984), 456-82.Google Scholar See also Scholle, Manfred, Die preussische Strafjustiz im Kulturkampf 1873-1880, Marburg 1974Google Scholar, and Sperber, Jonathan, Popular Catholicism in nineteenth-century Germany, Princeton, NJ 1984, 209-52.Google Scholar

3 This is not to deny that in the aftermath of the Kulturkampf Otto von Bismarck and his allies retained certain advantages like state influence over the curriculum of church- run schools and seminaries or even the appointment of clergy. (For a balance sheet of the Kulturkampf's gains and losses, see Schmidt-Volkmar, , Der Kulturkampf 356-8.Google Scholar) But when assessed in terms of the Kulturkampf's larger purpose - as a means to eliminate Catholicism as a major force in German politics or to break Catholic opposition to governmental policy - the Kulturkampf was a failure and a disappointment to those responsible for enforcing it.

4 Ross, , ‘Enforcing the Kulturkampf’, 460Google Scholar. For the text of the May Laws see Staat und Kirche im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert: Dokumente zur Geschichte des deutschen Staatskirchenrechte, ed. Huber, Ernst Rudolf and Huber, Wolfgang, 3 vols, Berlin 1973-83, ii. 594-99, 602-11.Google Scholar

5 Bornkamm, , ‘Die Staatsidee im Kulturkampf’, 45.Google Scholar

6 Staat und Kirche, ii. 598.

7 Huber, Ernst Rudolf, Deutsche Verfassungsgeschichte seit 1789, 7 vols, Stuttgart 1957-84, iv. 727.Google Scholar On i Jan. 1875 the mark replaced the thaler as the new standard currency throughout Germany; one thaler was equal to three marks.

8 Adalbert Falk to Ober-Präsidenten (except Posen province), 14 Nov. 1873, ZStA Merseburg, Geheimes Zivilkabinett, 2. 2. 1, no. 22808, Bl. 208.

9 Falk to Staatsministerium, 6 Nov. 1873, GStAPrKB (Berlin), Preussisches Justizministerium, Rep. 84a, no. 10876, Bl. 95.

10 Dittrich, Fr., Der Kulturkampf im Ermlande, Berlin 1913, 175Google Scholar; Schürmann, J., Johann Bernard Brinkmann: Bischof von Münster im Kulturkampf: Erinnerungen von J. Schürmann, 8th-10th edn, Münster-im-Westfalen 1925, 8–9Google Scholar.

11 See Ficker, Ludwig, Der Kulturkampf in Münster, Münster 1928, 101-2Google Scholar. In some cases the bidding was intentionally kept high in a vain attempt to pay the total sum in fines assessed against the bishops. For examples see Trzeciakowski, Lech, ‘The Prussian state and the Catholic Church in Prussian Poland, 1871-1915’, Slavic Review xxvi (1967), 622Google Scholar; Zielinski, Zygmunt, ‘Der Kulturkampf in der Provinz Posen’, Historisches Jahrbuch ci (1981), 454.Google Scholar

12 Ditscheid, Agidius, Matthias Eberhard: Bischof von Trier im Kulturkampf Trier 1900, 67.Google Scholar

13 The bishop remained free, that is, until he again violated the May Laws either by appointing clergy without the permission of the state or by making no appointment at all. For in addition to requiring state approval of these appointments, the May Laws also demanded that a parish vacancy be filled within one calendar year.

14 Dittrich, , Kulturkampf im Ermlande, 175.Google Scholar

15 Curiously enough, there were no provisions for a third party to pay the bishop's fines. When in 1874 a pious Catholic offered to provide the necessary sum for Bishop Conrad Martin of Paderborn, a court in Berlin declared such practice illegal. Bishops were required to pay their own financial penalties. See Martin, Konrad, Drei Jahre aus meinem Leben, Mainz 1877, 8–9Google Scholar; court transcript, 28 July 1874, AeGVP, II, 1 Bischöfe, Bl. 526-8.

16 But precedent existed for such action. During a Church-State dispute in the late 1830s, the archbishops of Cologne and Gnesen-Posen were arrested and jailed.

17 Catholic complaints about alleged mistreatment of their ecclesiastical leaders by prison officials during the Kulturkampf were frequent and bitter. Perhaps the most famous case of alleged ill-treatment was that of Paulus Melchers, the archbishop of Cologne. According to the Catholic indictment against the Prussian government, which was based on reports from a former convict, Melchers was incarcerated under particularly demeaning conditions. He was, his coreligionists claimed, confined to a miserable cell, housed with common felons and forced to labour with his hands at the ignominious occupation of straw weaver. Subsequent parliamentary investigations proved these allegations groundless. See Kölnische Volkszeitung xxxix no. 125 (18 Feb. 1898), 1; SBVR (1 Feb. 1898), i. 778. See also letter to Oberstaatsanwalt in Cologne, 2 Feb. 1898; letter to Minister of Justice, 3 Feb. 1898; depositions from prison warden, 3 Oct. 1875; and superintendant of prison, 3 Nov. 1875: GStAPrKB (Berlin), Rep. 84a, no. 10880, Bl. 240, 242-9; SBVR (31 Mar. 1898), iii. 1936-7.

18 Schürmann, , Brinkmann, 82-3.Google Scholar

19 Stenographische Berichte über die Verhandlungen des Landtages, Haus der Abgeordneten (8 Feb. 1898), i. 445.

20 Das Präsidium des Appelationsgerichts in Posen to Adolf Leonhardt, 5 Feb. 1874, GStAPrKB (Berlin), Rep. 84a, no. 10876, Bl. 130-1; Ditscheid, , Eberhard, 89–207Google Scholar; Schürmann, , Brinkmann, 78–9Google Scholar; Scholle, , Die preussische Strafjustiz, 97–8.Google Scholar

21 Schürmann, , Brinkmann, 78–9.Google Scholar

22 Ibid. 83-4, 86-9. A typical day in prison is described ibid. 80-1, and Ditscheid, Eberhard, 99–100.

23 Minister of Justice to Präsidium des Kgl. Appellationsgerichts in Posen, 4 Feb. 1874, GStAPrKB (Berlin), Rep. 84a, no. 10876, Bl. 129.

24 Otto von Bismarck to Leonhardt, 7 Feb. 1874, ibid. Rep. 84a, no. 10876, Bl. 132-4.

25 Any assessment of prison conditions for the hierarchy, of course, must also take into account the obvious fact that the whole experience of confinement - or even the prospect of confinement - indirectly led to the deaths of at least two of Prussia's bishops. Christoph Florentinus Kött, the bishop of Fulda, died in Oct. 1873, aged seventy-two, only a few weeks after the courts sentenced him to a 400-thaler fine or three months in prison. Prison also left its mark on the health of Bishop Matthias Eberhard of Trier. Haggard from the physical and mental strains of his confinement between 6 Mar. and 31 Dec. 1874, he died at the age of sixty in May 1876 on the eve of his flight from Prussia and shortly before the government stripped him of his episcopal office. Many Catholics justifiably attributed the deaths of the two to worry and, by insinuation, to the government and the Kulturkampf.

26 See Trierer Kulturkampfpriester : Auswahl einiger markanten Priester-Gestalten aus den Zeiten des preussischen Kulturkampfes, ed. Kammer, Karl, Trier 1926.Google Scholar This material constitutes an indispensable source for our knowledge of the Kulturkampf's impact on the lives of ordinary clergy.

27 Staat und Kirche, ii. 598.

28 Trierer Kulturkampfpriester, 92; Rösch, Adolf, ‘Der Kulturkampf in Hohenzollern’, Freiburger Diözesan-Archiv xvi (1915), 47.Google Scholar

29 Trierer Kulturkampfpriester, 77–8, 87, 97.

30 This description is based on material found ibid. 67–9, 87, 93.

31 SBVR (23 Apr. 1874), ii. 1058–9.

32 Sperber, , Popular Catholicism, 248Google Scholar; Trzeciakowski, , ‘Prussian State’, 624Google Scholar; Zielinski, , ‘Der Kulturkampf’, 455Google Scholar; Weber, Christoph, Kirchliche Politik zwischen Rom, Berlin und Trier 1876–1888: die Beilegung des preussischen Kulturkampfes, Mainz 1970, 23.Google Scholar

33 Bismarck: die gesammelten Werke, ed. von Petersdorff, Herman and others, 15 vols in 19, Berlin 1924–35, xv. 335Google Scholar; also quoted in Ross, , ‘Enforcing the Kulturkampf’, 461.Google Scholar

34 For the text of the law see Staat und Kirche, ii. 528.

35 Scholle, , Die preussiche Strafjustiz, 237-8Google Scholar; Ross, ‘Enforcing the Kulturkampf’, 468.

36 Gustav von Diest to Friedrich zu Eulenburg, 16 May 1874, ZStA Merseburg, Ministerium des Innern, Rep. 77, Tit. 413, no. 35, Bd. 4, Bl. 68–9.

37 Wehler, Hans-Ulrich, Das Deutsche Kaiserreich 1871–1918, 2nd edn, Göttingen 1975, 131–3.Google Scholar The Prussian authorities, he claims, displayed a preference for ‘class justice’.

38 Even allegations regarding abuse of authority were carefully investigated and, if proven, severely punished. See Regierungs-Präsident [in Cologne?] to Wilhelm 1, 17 June 1875, ZStA Merseburg, 2. 2. 1, no. 22833, Bl- 188–191; Trierer Kulturkampfpriester, 120.

39 So voluminous was the paperwork involved that it threatened to overwhelm Prussia's legal and administrative machinery. The problem, an official from the Aachen district admitted in 1877, was caused by the ‘religio-political legislation of recent years’: Schiffers, Heinrich, Der Kulturkampf in Stadt und Regierungsbezirk Aachen, Aachen 1929, 203.Google Scholar

40 Bachem, Karl, Vorgeschichte, Geschichte und Politik der Deutschen Zentrumspartei, 9 vols, Cologne 1927–32, iii. 303Google Scholar. Bachem's figure is based on data supplied in the Frankfurter Zeitung's so-called ‘Kulturkampf Calendar’. Beginning in Jan. 1875 and continuing at weekly to fortnightly intervals until Mar. 1876, this newspaper published a unique tally of all punitive actions against both clergy and laity.

41 Scholle, , Die preussische Strafjustiz, 242.Google Scholar

42 Ibid.

43 This discussion is based on the account found in Trierer Kulturkampfpriester, 47–9. See also Ross, , ‘Enforcing the Kulturkampf, 461–2 n. 13.Google Scholar

44 ‘If clerical opposition is to be countered by all the means available to the law’, the Regierungspräsident of Upper Silesia wrote to Eulenburg, ‘both the administrative and the legal authorities must cooperate hand in hand, for the effort of the one is useless if there is not at the same time energetic investigation by the other.’ He then went on to admit that for a variety of reasons ‘state prosecutors in Beuthen were not in a position to oppose quickly the transgressions of the clerical opposition’; Regierungs-Präsident [Robert Eduard von Hagemeister] to Eulenburg, 19 Mar. 1872, ZStA Merseburg, Rep. 77, Tit. 413, no. 35, Bd. 1, Bl. 156.

45 Ficker, , Der Kulturkampf in Münster, 98.Google Scholar

46 Krabbe, Wolfgang R., ‘Die lokale Polizeiverwaltung in der preussischen Provinz Westfalen (1815-1914)’, Blätter für deutsche Landesgeschichte cxix (1983), 151.Google Scholar

47 Arthur von Wolff to Eulenburg, 15 Nov. 1873, ZStA Merseburg, Rep. 77, Tit. 413, no. 35, Bd. 3, Bl. 93–5. So heavy was this caseload that the Regierungspräsident, the senior official in Trier, requested special compensation from the Ministry of Interior in Berlin for the additional work these two policemen had to undertake. Much of the effort was no doubt wasted. After noting that a policeman (one cannot say if it was one of the above) was following him, Georg Friedrich Dasbach, a young and physically fit local priest, led the man in aimless pursuit - ‘sweating, groaning, [and] panting’ - up the Markusberg, a prominent hill overlooking Trier and the river: Hubert Thoma, Gustav Friedrich Dasbach: Priester, Publizist, Politiker, Trier 1975, 63.Google Scholar

48 Dettmer, Günther, Die ost- und westpreussischen Verwaltungsbehörden im Kulturkampf, Heidelberg 1958, 117Google Scholar; Ross, , ‘Enforcing the Kulturkampf‘, 466Google Scholar.

49 This discussion is based on Jestaedt, Winfried, Der Kulturkampf in Fuldaer Land, Fulda 1960, 71–80Google Scholar. See also Ross, , ‘Enforcing the Kulturkampf’, 466–7Google Scholar.

50 Bismarck: Werke, xv. 335. Also quoted in Ross, , ‘Enforcing the Kulturkampf’, 467Google Scholar.

51 Königliche Regierung, Abtheilung des Innern [in Münster] to Eulenburg, 2 Mar. 1874, ZStA Merseburg, Rep. 77, Tit. 413, no. 35, Bd. 3, Bl. 161–2; Ober-Präsident [of Westphalia] to Eulenburg, 2 Mar. 1874, ibid. Rep. 77, Tit. 413, no. 35, Bd. 4, Bl. 66.

52 Königliche Regierung, Abtheilung des Innern [in Danzig] to Eulenburg, 13 May 1874, ibid. Rep. 77, Tit. 413, no. 35, Bd. 4, Bl. 84–7.

53 Ibid. Bl. 66–7.

54 Rust, Hermann, Reichskanzler Fürst Chlodwig zu Hohenlohe-Schillingsfürst und seine Brüder Herzog von Ratibor, Cardinal Hohenlohe und Prinz Constantin Hohenlohe, Düsseldorf 1897, 683–4Google Scholar; Reichert, Franz Rudolf, ‘Das Trierer Priester-Seminar im Kulturkampf (1873-1886)’, Archiv für mittelrheinische Kirchengeschichte xxv (1973), 91Google Scholar

55 Gustav von Diest to Eulenburg, 16 May 1874, ZStA Merseburg, Rep. 77, Tit. 413, no. 35, Bd. 4, Bl. 68–9; Carl von Horn to Eulenburg, 18 May 1874, ibid. Rep. 77, Tit. 413, no. 35, Bd. 4, Bl. 79; Eulenburg to Wilhelm 1, 23 May 1874, ibid. 2. 2. 1, no. 22833, Bl. 36

56 Horn to Eulenburg and Falk, 22 May 1874, ibid. Rep. 77, Tit. 413, no. 35, Bd. 4, Bl. 97–8.

57 ‘The Catholic populace [Volk]’, one report declared, ‘on the whole firmly and obstinately persists in its hostile attitude toward the ecclesiastical regulations ’: Report from Ober-Staats-Anwalt [in Paderborn], 19 Feb. 1874, ibid. Rep. 77, Tit. 413, no. 35, Bd. 4, Bl. 6 [Abschrift], From an exasperated Landrat in Hesse came the admission that the local Catholic populace was completely under clerical control: Friedrich August Wilhelm Cornelius to Abtheilung für Kirchen-und Schulsachen [in Cassel], 6 Jan. 1874, HStA Marburg, Königliche Regierung zu Cassel, Abtheilung für Kirchen- und Schulsachen, Bestand 166, Abt. 2, no. 267. Cf. Schiffers, , Der Kulturkampf, 129–32Google Scholar.

58 In a letter to a personal friend in early 1874 the Regierungspräsident in Danzig candidly admitted that ‘ the worst phases of the confessional strife still lie before us. If the bishops have to be taken into custody, an event that can hardly be avoided, [and] if the lower clergy upon whose attitude everything depends also show themselves disobedient, then adieu, adieu, adieu! - as the old refrain goes - then goodbye to peace, farewell for a long time! ’: von Diest, Gustav, Aus dem Leben eines Glücklichen: Erinnerungen eines alten Beamten, Berlin 1904, 445Google Scholar.

59 Report from Friedrich von Kühlwetter, 30 Apr. 1875, StA Münster, Oberpräsidium no. 2133. Officials took special note of the activities in Westphalia of Ferdinand Graf von Galen, a former Prussian diplomat, and Clemens Graf von Droste zu Vischering, scion of a distinguished noble family. In 1874 the archbishop of Cologne received a delegation composed of fifty members of the local aristocracy who arrived ‘ 2 by 2 in elegant equipages and gala dress’: Ober-Bürgermeister [of Münster] to Königliche Regierung [in Münster], 28 Apr. 1875, ZStA Merseburg, Rep. 77, Tit. 413, no. 35, Bd. 5, Bl. 96–7; Königliche Regierung, Abtheilung des Innern [in Münster] to Eulenburg and Falk, 29 Apr. 1875, ibid. Rep. 77, Tit. 413, no. 35, Bd. 5, Bl. 89–92; clipping from Magdeburgische Zeitung, no. 151, n.d. (c. Mar. 1874), ibid. Rep. 77, Tit. 413, no. 35, Bd. 4, Bl. 31. Catholic nobles also boycotted court ceremonies and functions in Berlin: Odo Russell to Lord Granville, 8 Feb. 1873: in Letters from the Berlin Embassy: selections from the private correspondence of British representatives at Berlin and Foreign Secretary Lord Granville 1871–1874, 1880–1885, ed. Knaplund, Paul, Washington, DC 1944, 86–7Google Scholar.

60 In almost all episcopal centres, long processions of women paid homage to church leaders. In Cologne, for example, a delegation of at least 1,000 aristocratic women, including the wives of royal chamberlains, Landräte, and high-ranking judicial officials, openly expressed support for the archbishop. For signing an address to the bishop of Münster that allegedly insulted the majesty of the law, thirty-five women from the Westphalian nobility went on public trial in the summer of 1874: Clipping from Magdeburgische Zeitung, no. 151, n.d. (c. Mar. 1874), ZStA Merseburg, Rep. 77, Tit. 413, no. 35, Bd. 4, Bl. 31; [Robolsky, Hermann], Aus der Wilhelmstrasse: Erinnerungen eines Offiziösen, Berlin n.d., 55–74Google Scholar. Women also participated in direct action. Sometimes they incited husbands to resist the authorities; on other occasions they acted themselves: Margaret Anderson, Lavinia, Windthorst: a political biography, Oxford 1981, 174.Google Scholar

61 Diest to Eulenburg, 16 May 1874, ZStA Merseburg, Rep. 77, Tit. 413, no. 35, Bd. 4, Bl. 69.

62 Clipping from Magdeburgische Leitung, no. 151, n.d. (c. Mar. 1874), ibid. Rep. 77, Tit. 413, no. 35, Bd. 4, B1. 31.

63 According to the religious census of 1871, Prussia's Catholics numbered over 8,260,000, a figure representing about 33.5 % of the population: Windell, George W., The Catholics and German unity, 1866–1871, Minneapolis 1954, 299Google Scholar.

64 Ross, , ‘Enforcing the Kulturkampf’, 474Google Scholar.

65 For this information, I am indebted to Jonathan Sperber's unpublished work ‘Disorder in the name of order: religious riots in Rhineland-Westphalia during the Kulturkampf’, 7. See also Sperber, , Popular Catholicism, 229–33Google Scholar.

66 Report from Ober-Staats-Anwalt [in Paderborn], 19 Feb. 1874, ZStA Merseburg, Rep. 77, Tit. 413, no. 35, Bd. 4, Bl. 8 [Abschrift].

67 Court transcript, 8 Mar. 1876, StA Münster, Oberpräsidium no. 2133, p. 38 [Abschrift]; Königliche Regierung, Abtheilung des Innern [in Münster] to Eulenburg, 2 Mar. 1874, ZStA Merseburg, Rep. 77, Tit. 413, no. 35, Bd. 3, Bl. 165–6; Thümmel to Leonhardt, 1 Mar. 1874, ibid. Rep. 77, Tit. 413, no. 35, Bd. 4, Bl. 95.

68 Clipping from Magdeburgische Zeitung, no. 151, n.d. (c. Mar. 1874), ibid. Rep. 77, Tit. 413, no. 35. Bd. 4, B1. 31.

69 Clippings from Hessische Morgenzeitung, nos 6046, 6048 (8, 9 May 1874); HStA Marburg, Königliche Regierung zu Cassel, Abtheilung des Innern, Bestand 165, Abt. II, no. 4226, Bd. 1.

70 Anderson, , Windthorst, 175Google Scholar; Ross, , ‘Enforcing the Kulturkampf’, 474Google Scholar; Trzeciakowski, , ‘The Prussian state’, 625Google Scholar.

71 Sperber, ‘Disorder’, appendix 4.

72 Frankfurter Zeitung, no. 136 (16 May 1875), 3.

73 Sperber, , ‘Disorder’, 10, 16–17Google Scholar.

74 Peaceful demonstrations were apparently much larger. In Paderborn, it was said, as many as 8,000 people assembled at one time to show solidarity with their bishop: [Ferdinand Anton Wilhelm] Altstädt, ‘Der Kulturkampf, seine Auswirkung im Bistum Paderborn’, unpublished MS, n.d., AeGVP, M2. Cf. Sperber, , Popular Catholicism, 227–9.Google Scholar

75 For details, see Wiermann, , Geschichte des Kulturkampfes, 128Google Scholar.

76 Lending credence to these fears were reports from witnesses alleging that Eduard Kullmann spoke to a Catholic priest moments before the shots were fired and that this same cleric was responsible for bringing Bismarck's carriage to a halt thus presenting the gunman with a stationary target. Identified as Siegmund Hanthaler, a sixty-three-year- old Catholic priest from Walchsee, a small community near Kufstein in neighbouring Austria, the suspect was apprehended in Schweinfurt, the nearest railway junction several kilometres to the south. After investigation by Bavarian authorities, however, no convincing evidence was discovered to warrant indictment and Hanthaler was released. For details regarding the case, see Haus- Hof und Staatsarchiv [Vienna], Politisches Archiv III, Karton 108; Bayerisches Hauptstaatsarchiv München, Abteilung Allgemeines Staatsarchiv, Ministerium des Aeussern, MA 689, no. 7874.

77 Clipping from Magdeburgische Zeitung, no. 151, n.d. (c. Mar. 1874), ZStA Merseburg, Rep. 77, Tit. 413, no. 35, Bd. 4, Bl. 31. Emphasis in original.

78 Sperber, ‘Disorder’, appendix, 1–3.

79 Ross, , ‘Enforcing the Kulturkampf’, 463Google Scholar; Schmidt-Volkmar, , Der Kulturkampf, 170Google Scholar.

80 Sperber, ‘Disorder’, appendix, 4.

81 For a discussion of the administrative, financial and legal factors that vitiated many of these methods see Ross, , ‘Enforcing the Kulturkampf’, 456–82Google Scholar.

82 For a discussion of the German constitution and Bismarck's manipulative approach to politics see Pflanze, Otto, ‘Bismarck's “Realpolitik”’, Review of Politics xx (1958), 492–514,esp . PP. 506–11.Google Scholar

83 The expression is Pflanze's: ibid. 512.