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Interdenominationalism, Clericalism, Pluralism: The Zentrumsstreit and the Dilemma of Catholicism in Wilhelmine Germany

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 December 2008

Margaret Lavinia Anderson
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In April 1909 Emil Schüler, a Jew of Lippstadt, a small town in Catholic Westphalia, died. The passing of this otherwise unremarkable man was noted in a number of newspapers because Schüler was known to be both a good “Israelite” and a loyal supporter of the Center Party—a party denounced as “ultramontane” by its enemies and acknowledged even by its friends to have a constituency almost entirely Catholic. The Jüdische Rundschau commented, however, that it considered this Lippstadt Jew's political allegiance “absolutely worth considering,” opining that recent proceedings in the Reichstag had shown that at least the religious interests of Jews found better representation within the Center than with, for example, either Liberalism or Social Democracy.

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Central European History , Volume 21 , Issue 4 , December 1988 , pp. 350 - 378
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Copyright © Conference Group for Central European History of the American Historical Association 1988

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References

Earlier versions of this essay (see note 71) were given at a conference on Christian Democracy in Europe in Lingen, the Federal Republic of Germany, September 1987, and at the American Society for Church History, Washington, D.C., December 1987. I am indebted especially to Noel Cary for allowing me to read his dissertation on the problem of interconfessionalism in German political Catholicism (cf. note 13), to Ellen L. Evans, for her incisive comments at the American Society for Church History, and to the stimulating ideas of my Swarthmore colleague in Political Science, James R. Kurth.

1. Reported in “Paderborn: 21 April 1909,” Germania, 23 Apr. 1909, Historisches Archiv der Stadt Köln [HAStK], Bachem Nachlass, 1006, folder 61c.

2. Deutsche lsraelitische Zeitung (Berlin und Regensburg): Organ für die Gesamtinteressen des Judentums, no. 5, 31 Jan. 1907, reported in Kölnische Volkszeitung [KV], no. 97, 2 Feb. 1907; Israelitische Familienblatt, no. 2, 10 Jan. 1907, commenting on the election statement of the Central Association of German Citizens of Jewish Faith (Centralverein deutscher Staatsbürger jüdischen Glaubens), as reported in Schlesische Volkszeitung, no. 27, 12 Jan. 1907, HAStK, Bachem Nachlass, 1006, no. 62.

3. A fact not lost on others in the party, with different convictions and priorities than Bachem. Thus the Gladbacher Merkur, edited by Joseph Schlesinger, had on 3 December 1892 criticized the Bachem family's Kölnische Volkszeitung for its articles on behalf of the Jews and had recommended to its readers the Bonn newspaper, Deutsche Reichszeitung, edited by a priest and doctor of theology, as an antidote. On 20 March 1894 Carl Bachem, in the name of the entire Center Party, defended the Jews in the Gladbacher Merkur against the attacks of the anti-Semite Liebermann von Sonnenberg ten days earlier. The Merkur responded by criticizing Bachem and accusing the KV of Judenfreundlichkeit. “Abgeordnete Carl Bachem und die Juden,” HAStK, Bachem Nachlass, 1006, no. 65b.

4. The German term “confessional,” and its variants, I will translate variously as “denominational” and “confessional,” depending on context.

5. In “Mosse und Ullstein,” Oct. 1906, and “Juden und Zentrumsfraktion 1906,” Bachem Nachlass, 1006, folder 65c, HAStK.

6. Bachem Nachlass, 1006, folder 54, HAStK.

7. Quoted in Seiters, Julius, “Ludwig Windthorst und die christlich-soziale Bewegung,” Ordo Socialis (Osnabrück, 1962), 31, n. 22.Google Scholar

8. Bachem, Julius, in: KV, no. 1274, 1907Google Scholar, quoted in Brose, Eric Dorn, Christian Labor and the Politics of Frustration in Imperial Germany (Washington, D.C., 1985), 257Google Scholar. Brose gives a good rundown of a variety of interdenominational initiatives.

9. Brose, Christian Labor, 258, 265–66.

10. A small party founded by the Protestant pastor Adolf Stöcker to address the social question from a Christian standpoint. Its support outside Berlin lay mainly among the Protestant clergy. Its initial anti-Semitism became much less evident after Friedrich Naumann replaced Stöcker in 1900.

11. Turm article in Hislorisch-politische Blätter, no. 5, 1 Mar. 1906, conveniently available in Bergsträsser, Ludwig, Der politische Katholizismus: Dokumente seiner Entwicklung (Munich, 1921–1922), 2: 332–41.Google Scholar

12. Schopen is quoted in Meerfeld, Jean, Der Deutsche Zentrumspartei (Berlin, 1918), 84.Google Scholar For similar interpretations of Bachem's intent, cf. Buchheim, Karl, Geschichte der christlichen Parteien in Deutschland (Munich, 1953), 315Google Scholar; Deuerlein, Ernst, “Verlauf und Ergebnis des ‘Zen-trumsstreites’ (1906–1909),” Hochland 156, no. 8. (05 1955)Google Scholar; Lill, Rudolf, “Der deutsche Katholizismus zwischen Kulturkampf und 1. Weltkrieg,” in Jedin, Hubert, ed., Handbuch der Kirchengeschichte, 6: Der Kirche in der Gegenwart (Freiburg, i. Br., 1973), 523.Google Scholar

13. Differing interpretations of the Tower proposal and the systemic changes each interpretation would require or facilitate are analyzed cogently in Cary's, “Political Catholicism and the Reform of the German Party System 1900–1953,” (Ph.D. diss., Univ. of California, Berkeley, 1988.)Google Scholar

14. “Das Wesen des Zentrums,” in KV, no. 454, 26 May 1907, cited by Roeren, , Veränderte Lage des Zentrumsstreits: Entgegnung auf die Kritik meiner Schrift Zentrum und Kölner Richtung (Trier, 1914), 58f.Google Scholar

15. Cf. Hoeber, Karl, Der Streit um den Zentrumscharakter (Cologne, 1912), 6Google Scholar. The problem with such an interpretation is that election alliances were common practice in the party; if that were all that Bachem had wanted, then why would he confess that his suggestion would sound like “political heresy?” Such a gloss made the whole initiative pointless, as Hermann Roeren, Bachem's most prominent critic, noted: Veränderte Lage, 60ff. Cary, Noel, “Political Catholicism,” chap. 2, 28, 65Google Scholar, argues that Bachem's article was deliberately ambiguous.

16. Bachem, Tower article, in: Bergsträsser, , Der politische Katholizismus, 2: 340, 339.Google Scholar

17. Commentary to a session on “Politics and Confessional Relations in Germany 1850–1930,” American Society for Church History, Washington, D.C., Dec. 1987.

18. Meerfeld, Zentrumspartei, 87.

19. Cited in Meerfeld, ibid., 88.

20. Even those party members labeled as “integralists”: cf., e.g., Bitter, Franz, “Rede des Reichstagsabgeordneten Bitter in Koblenz, am 9. August 1989,” reprinted in Bergsträasser, Der Politische Katholizismus, 2: 363–74Google Scholar; Roeren, Hermann, Zentrum und Kölner Richtung (Trier, 1913), 12, 16, 18, 24–26Google Scholar, and in Veränderte Lage, viii.

21. “…The Zentrumsstreit was more than an argument about correct religious policy. It coincided with, and perhaps helped to conceal or camouflage, a much more fundamental controversy about the political and social program that the party should follow.” The German Center Party (Carbondale, Ill., 1981), 202.Google Scholar

22. The Center's electoral losses in 1912, when many Catholics voted SPD or stayed home, may have been, as Stanley Suval has suggested, a protest against their leadership's using them as pawns in its election agreements with Conservatives and thus indirect evidence for the contention of Bachem's opponents that unless voting Center meant voting Catholic, Catholics would have no reason to vote Center. Suval, , Electoral Politics in Imperial Germany (Chapel Hill, 1986), 77fGoogle Scholar. But the accuracy of Bachem's opponents' electoral analysis tells us nothing about their inner-party support.

23. According to Carl Bachem (hardly a disinterested observer) the majority were eager supporters of the Turm article. Bachem to Joseph Dahlmann, 1 June 1906, cited in Brose, Christian Labor, 206. Perhaps. But Georg Herding and Felix Porsch–both influential party leaders–had misgivings, fearing that the interconfessional initiative would anger the pope and undermine the solidarity of the Catholic electorate. Herding to Julius Bachem, 6 April and 10 April 1906, also cited by Brose, ibid.

24. “Erklärung der Fraktionsvorstände,” reprinted in Bergsträsser, Der politische Katholizismus, 2: 377–79, quotation on 378.Google Scholar

25. Cary, “Political Catholicism,” chap. 2, 68, notes aptly that had Bachem emulated Windthorst's toast, “it would have been to the party's future Protestant minority.” (Emphasis his.)

26. In Hobsbawm, Eric and Ranger, Terence, eds., The Invention of Tradition (Cambridge, 1983), chap. 1.Google Scholar

27. Quoted by Brauweiler, Heinz, “Der Kern und die Bedeutung des Zentrumsstreits,” in Hochland 11 (1914)Google Scholar, in Cary, “Political Catholicism,” chap. 2, 33. Cary argues that “the Zentrumsstreit became more and more an introspective struggle, a preoccupation with interpreting the meaning and current relevance of the party's past,” and concludes, p. 45, that “the tendency to lapse into historical defenses was the hallmark of the debate, the prime symptom of its nature as an exercise in self-image.”

28. Quotations: Ludwig Windthorst to Clemens Perger, 18 Sept. 1888, Bistumsarchiv Trier, Abteilung 1574, p. 40V; Windthorst to a priest, Bundesarchiv Koblenz, Kleine Erwerbung, Nr. 596.

29. On Kopp, see esp. Heitzer, Horstwalter, Georg Kardinal Kopp und der Gewerkschaftsstreit 1900–1914 (Cologne and Vienna, 1983)Google Scholar, and most recently, Aschoff, Hans-Georg, Kirchenfürst im Kaiserreich: Georg Kardinal Kopp (Hildesheim, 1987).Google Scholar

30. Most recently, Brose, Christian Labor, 207, and Kiefer, Rolf, Karl Bachem 1858–1945 (Mainz, 1989), 129–56.Google Scholar

31. Ideally this list would also include the Landtag Deputy Hubert Underberg, who also signed the Easter Tuesday Resolutions (see below), and is quoted by Ross, Beleaguered Tower, 132, as saying “An alliance with the Conservatives promises no permanence.” But other than his occupation as an industrialist and his ownership of a noble estate, I could find no information on Underberg. Still, even this information casts doubt on the characterization of the Zen-trumsstreit by Herbert Gottwald as “nothing but the expression of the struggle between those forces fully affirming capitalism [Bachem orientation] against … predominantly petty bourgeois conceptions.” Cf. his “Zentrum,” in Fricke, Dieter, ed., Die bürgerlichen Parteien in Deutschland: Handbuch der Geschichte der bürgerlichen Parteien und anderer bürgerlicher Interessenorganisationen vom Vormärz bis zum Jahre 1945 (Leipzig, 1970), 2: 901.Google Scholar

32. Quoted by Cole, Terry, “Kaiser versus Chancellor: The Crisis of Bülow's Chancellorship 1905–1906,” in Evans, Richard J., Society and Politics in Wilhelmine Germany (London, 1978), 42.Google Scholar

33. Loth, Winfried, Katholiken im Kaiserreich: Der politische Katholizismus in der Krise des wilhel-minischen Deutschlands (Düsseldorf, 1984), 188Google Scholar. Roeren was also known as a spokesman for laws to enforce public decency, culminating in the so–called Lex Heintze of 1900. Evans, The Center Party, 139.

34. “Leitsätze der Osterdienstagskonferenz in Köln 13. April 1909,” in: Bergsträsser, , Der politische Katholizismus, 2: 361.Google Scholar

35. Erzberger, , Der Modernisteneid: Den Katholiken zur Lehr und Wehr, Andersdenkenden zur Aufklärung (Berlin, 1911).Google Scholar

36. The fact that one of the informants had the Polish-sounding name of Wistuba may have contributed to the widespread feeling that neither Erzberger and Roeren nor their informants were true Germans.

37. Loth, Katholiken im Kaiserreich, 177.

38. Gewissensfrage, Eine, 1st Martin Spahn ein Zentrumsmann? (Berlin, 1911)Google Scholar. Cf. Epstein, Klaus, “Erzberger's Position in the Zentrumstreit before World War I,” in Catholic Historical Review 44, no. 1 (04. 1958): 1–16, esp. 9Google Scholar. Erzberger dissociated himself from the Roeren group in 1912, out of concern for party unity and, probably, for his own political future. Cf. Erzberger, , Der stille Kulturkampf (Hamm, 1912), 52f.Google Scholar

39. The phrase is Ferber's, Walter, “Der Weg Martin Spahns: Zur Ideengeschichte des politischen Rechtskatholizismus,” Hochland 82 (1970): 218–29Google Scholar; quotation: 224. Spahn saw in the Tower initiative an opportunity for Catholics to become more national and to adopt a “manner of thinking more oriented towards the state [staatliche Denkweise].” Ibid., 223f

40. Loth, Katholiken im Kaiserreich, 191.

41. A good example of this conflation can be found in Epstein, “Erzberger's Position,” 1–16, which manages to discuss the Zentrumsstreit and its historiography without once mentioning the Tower article and thus ignores the very initiative that, according to the embattled Roeren and Bitter, caused the whole quarrel. See Bitter, Koblenz speech, in: Bergsträsser, , Der politische Katholizismus, 2: 371Google Scholar. Bachem's opponents are often referred to wholesale as “integralist.”

42. A commonly used definition: “Integralism is the name for a religious totalitarianism that wants to infer from faith (alone) the answer to all questions of private and public life, consequently denies to the various branches of knowledge and culture not only absolute but also a relative autonomy….” von Nell-Breuning, Oswald, “Integralismus,” in Lexikon für Theologie und Kirche, 5, col. 717fGoogle Scholar, quoted in Kiefer, Bachem, 130, n. 10. In fact the term “integralist” is almost as loose as “ultramontane” and like the latter is used more often as a weapon than as a tool in historical argument. It is perhaps best confined to the allies of Msgr. Umberto Benigni (1862–1936) and his secret society “Sodalitium Pianum.” Even within this group there were profound differences of opinion. Cf. Aubert, Roger, “Eingriff der kirchlichen Obrigkeit und die integralistische Reaktion,” in Jedin, Hubert, ed., Handbuch der Kirchengeschichte (Freiburg i. Br., 1983), 4: 475–500, esp. 490.Google Scholar

43. The victory of the Bachemites historiographically is especially clear in the numerous accounts that describe the Roeren group as the ones departing from party tradition. Cf. Lill, “Der deutsche Katholizismus,” 523; Epstein, “Erzberger's Position,” 7f., 15; Deuerlein, “Verlauf und Ergebnis,” 117f. (which cites as its source for Roeren's views Josef Dietz's biography of Adam Stegerwald, rather than Roeren's own pamphlets). Karl Josef Rivinius so identifies with the Richtung Bachem that he often describes the Zentrumsstreit in their very words. See “Die Indizierung Theodor Wackers: Streit um den Charakter der Zentrumspartei im Kontext der Auseinandersetzungen um die christlichen Gewerkschaften,” Jahrbuch für Christliche Sozialwis-senschaften 24 (1983): 211–35.Google ScholarKiefer, Rolf, writing in Bachem, 134Google Scholar, that “the Zentrumsstreit and the trade union quarrel, considering the content of their ideas and the line-up of the two sides, are not separable from one another,” is only the most recent echo of this consensus. Ellen Evans and Noel Cary are, I believe, unique in refusing to equate the Bachemites with progress and the Roerenites with reaction, but even Evans, The German Center Party, 198, sees the Kölner Richtung as wanting the Center “to continue” as before.

44. Epstein, Klaus, Matthias Erzberger and the Dilemma of German Democracy (Princeton, 1959), 12, 401–4Google Scholar; Loth, Katholiken im Kaiserreich, 240.

45. Cf. Roeren, Zentrum und Kölner Richtung, 2; Bitter in: Bergsträsser, , Der politische Katholizismus, 2: 364.Google Scholar

46. Cf. Epstein, Klaus, on Roeren: “unbalanced fanatic.” “Erzberger and the German Colonial Scandals, 1905–1910,” English Historical Review, no. 293 (10 1959): 637–64Google Scholar, quotation on 656. “Integralist” is most accurate when applied to Oppersdorff, but even he may have become more extreme in the course of his quarrels with a party determined to muzzle him. Eventually he was declared persona non grata in Rome. Loth, Katholiken im Kaiserreich, 269.

47. Though Catholic districts sometimes returned Protestant candidates for the Center, I know of no other case where a Protestant district returned a Catholic candidate for the Center. I am following the party designations for Wahlkreis 4. Hannover: Bersenbrück given in: Schwarz, Max, MdR: Biographisches Handbuch der Reichstage (Hanover, 1965), 183Google Scholar. These are corroborated in Specht, Fritz, Die Reichstags-Wahlen von 1867 bis 1897: Eine Statistik der Reichstags-Wahlen nebst den Programmen der Parteien und dem Verzeichnis der gewählten Kandidaten (Berlin, 1898)Google Scholar. Specht's list, p. 201, of winners of the 4th Hanoverian district awards only five of these victories to the Zentrum. Unaccountably, from 1884 on he ceases to list Freiherr von Schele as “Cent (luth Welfe)” and describes him as “Welfe (Cent).” This seems, however, to be a distinction without a difference. It is worth noting that the participation rates in Bersenbrück were extremely high and that nine of the fifteen contests between 1867 and 1907 were decided by run-offs.

48. Roeren had opposed the government's Germanization policies as early as 1903, arguing that attempts to suppress the Polish nationality amounted to attacks on their Catholicism. Ross, Beleaguered Tower, 37. Windthorst had used precisely the same argument in the 1870s and 1880s.

49. The first quotation, from Prince Löwenstein, is given in Roeren, Kölner Richtung, 5; Bitter, Koblenz speech, in Bergsträsser, , Der politische Katholizismus, 2: 374.Google Scholar

50. Tower article, in Bergsträsser, , Der politische Katholizismus, 2: 337.Google Scholar

51. Meerfeld, Zentrumspartei, 8.

52. Quoted in Meerfeld, Jean, Kaiser, Kanzler, Zentrum: Deutscher Verfassungsjammer und klerikaler Byzantinismus (Berlin, 1911), 27Google Scholar. Hoeber's version of Bitter's term is slightly different: “mandatsstüchtige Streber.” Der Streit, 34.

53. Cf. Heitzer, Horstwalter, “Krisen des Volksvereins im Kaiserreich: Gründe und Hintergründe zum Rücktritt von August Pieper als Generaldirektor im Dezember 1918,” Historisches Jahrbuch 99 (1979): 213–54, esp. 227 and 229.Google Scholar

54. Ross, Beleaguered Tower, 63. Heitzer, “Krisen des Volksvereins,” 230, n. 84, points to the irony of the Volksverein's position when he writes that to Archbishop von Hartmann of Cologne “it must have appeared even less comprehensible when precisely the clerical leaders of the Volksverein asserted its ‘adult’ status [‘Mündigkeit’]”.

55. Bachem to Porsch, 15 Feb. 1914, quoted in Rivinius, Karl Josef, ed., “Die Streit um die christlichen Gewerkschaften im Briefwechsel zwischen Carl Bachem, P. Pankratius Rathscheck und Bischof Döbbing vom Erscheinen der Enzyklika ‘Singulari quadam’ bis zum Tod Kardinal Kopp (1912–1914),” Jahrbuch für Christliche Sozialwissenschaften 23 (1982): 129–216Google Scholar; quotation on 211, n. 90. Cf. also Porsch to Theobald von Bethmann-Hollweg, 15 Feb. 1914, as well as the quotation from the Archbishop of Freiburg, Thomas Nörber, in idem, “Indizierung,” 217, and nn. 10 and 11. Rivinius reveals Carl Bachem in continual touch with Bishof Bernhard Döbbing, unselfconsciously feeding this ally in the Zentrumsstreit confidential inner-party information, including plans against his colleagues Count Oppersdorff and “sonstige Quertreibern.” Bachem conveyed tactful instructions about appropriate episcopal support and his comments imply that he received similar instructions from Döbbing to him. In this Bachem was of course following directly in the tortuous footsteps of Windthorst, that is: insisting on Zentrum autonomy from any interference from the hierarchy and yet soliciting the hierarchy's instructions— and imparting instructions and advice to them on his own. Rivinius relates Bachem's correspondence with Döbbing with no apparent recognition of its ironies. Nor does he suggest anything improper in Porsch's communications with the Imperial Chancellor on inner-party matters.

56. Hoeber, Der Streit, 34.

57. Bachem to Hitze, 22 Dec. 1903, quoted by Brack, Rudolf, “Die Bemühungen Karl Bachems und führender Zentrumspolitiker um eine Beilegung des Gewerkschaftsstreites im Jahre 1904,” Annalen des Historischen Vereins für den Niederrhein 177 (1975); 217–31, quotation on 220.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

58. An excellent brief portrait of Wacker and his methods is in Zangerl, Carl H. E., “Courting the Catholic Vote: The Center Party in Baden, 1903–13,” Central European History 10, no. 3 (09. 1977): 220–40, esp. 226–28CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Cf. also Schofer, Joseph, Erinnerungen an Theodor Wacker (Karlsruhe, 1922).Google Scholar

59. Wacker's famous speech, while demanding independence for the Zentrum from clerical authority and rejecting all demands for a confessional Zentrum, resembled Windthorst's Gürzenich speech (see note 60) in leaving the Zentrum's ultimate relationship to clerical authority ambiguous. Wacker appealed to his listeners, as Catholic men, to make (ablegen) a clear affirmation (Bekenntnis) of their Church and above all of ecclesiastical authority “as represented by the supreme shepherd and represented by the shepherds, our bishops, subordinate to him.” Rivinius, “Indizierung,” 222, 224.

60. In 1887 Leo XIII leaked to Bismarck, with permission to publish, a confidential Vatican note to the Center, instructing it to vote for the government's military budget—a directive that the party had ignored. When, in the ensuing election campaign, the “secret” Vatican instructions appeared in all the newspapers, Windthorst was forced both to defend his party's failure to comply with Rome's wishes (to the Catholic electorate) and to assert its independence from Rome's directives (to the Protestants). He did this in Gürzenich hall in Cologne. Cf. Anderson, Margaret Lavinia, Windthorst: A Political Biography (Oxford, 1981), 335–58.Google Scholar

61. Blackbourn, David, “Catholics and Politics in Imperial Germany: the Centre Party and its Constituency,” in Populists and Politicians: Essays in Modern German History (London, 1987), 197.Google Scholar

62. Heinrich Köhler, quoted in Zangerl, “Courting the Catholic Vote,” 227–28. Zangerl adds: “As if to dramatize its reliance on the clergy, the Center's election committee [in Baden”

63. Blackbourn, “Catholics and Politics,” 197.

64. Bitter quoted in Meerfeld, Zentrumspartei, 5. The importance of the parish priest during election campaigns should not, however, be taken to mean that he, ex officio, determined the party's political positions. Cf. Suval, Electoral Politics, 70.

65. Roeren: “Only in rare cases, where doubts about permissibility arise and are not to be solved with certainty, does one turn, as precedents show, to the ecclesiastical and theological authorities, but even in these cases only for orientation… by no means however in order to give up the independence of one's own decision….” (Emphasis his). Veränderte Lage, 54; cf. also his Zentrum und Kölner Richtung, 30–31, 34–36.

66. Quoted by Zangerl, “Courting the Catholic Vote,” 220.

67. It is revealing that adherents of the “Cologners” did their best to obscure the fact that, in spite of Windthorst's brave words, after the publication of the Vatican's note the Center fraction followed Leo's instructions to support Bismarck's Septennat, insofar as it reversed its opposition to the bill and decided instead to abstain on the crucial vote—and seven fraction members actually voted for it. Thus Carl Bachem's comment, in his role as party historian, about Windthorst's famous speech in Gürzenich hall—it “brachte die Entscheidung in dem grossen Septennatskampfe“—is simply not true. Vorgeschichte, Geschichte und Politik der deutschen Zentrumspartei (Cologne, 1927–1932), 4: 195Google Scholar. Eduard Hüsgen's biography of Windthorst (Cologne, 1907)Google Scholar is even more misleading, since its account of the Septennat crisis ends with the fraction's vote of confidence in Windthorst, leaving the reader to assume, falsely, that the fraction then followed the line he had advocated and voted against the Septennat.

68. Bitter, in Bergsträsser, , Der politische Katholizismus, 2: 367Google Scholar; Roeren, Zentrum und Kölner Richtung, 36, and a more complete version in Veränderte Lage, 9ff,. Julius Bachem's rebuttal in Das Zentrum, wie es war, ist und bleibt (Cologne, 1913), 49Google Scholar, arguing that Windthorst was speaking at the Katholikentag as a Catholic to Catholics rather than as a party leader to voters, is disingenuous, as Roeren demonstrated by supplying the following lines from the same speech: Windthorst: “Wir haben aber auch in Berlin im Reichstag und im Landtag immer Vorsorge, dass wir Kontrolleure haben.” Veränderte Lage 1 of, 12.

69. The cases of Pieper and Otto Müller, both priests who eventually left their leading positions in the Volksverein because of difficulties with the hierarchy and its demands for “Verkirchlichung,” are equally poignant examples. Cf. Heitzer, “Krisen des Volksvereins,” 248f.

70. Meerfeld, Zentrumspartei, 49, expresses a view not confined to fellow Social Democrats when he refers to “that art of dominating men… wherein clericalism has, through a thousand years of practice, achieved such mastery.“

71. Hence the title of my earlier version of this essay: “Windthorsts Erben: Konfessionalität und Interkonfessionalismus im politischen Katholizismus 1890–1918,” in Becker, Winfried and Morsey, Rudolf, eds., Christliche Demokratie in Europa (Cologne and Vienna, 1988), 69–90.Google Scholar

72. Demokratie und Kaisertum, 3d ed. (Berlin-Schöneberg, 1904), 132.Google Scholar

73. Claggett, William, Loesch, Jeffrey, Shively, W. Phillips, and Snall, Ronald, “Political Leadership and the Development of Political Cleavages: Imperial Germany, 1871–1912,” American Journal of Political Science 26, no. 4 (11. 1982): 643–63.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

74. Suval, Electoral Politics, 89, 123. A mere comparison of the percentage of votes won by the different parties in run-off elections can be misleading. By this criterion, the Center appeared to do very well. Cf. Ritter, Gerhard A., Wahlgeschichtliches Arbeitsbuch (Munich, 1980), 125Google Scholar. But such a comparison does not take into account how close to an absolute majority the party had come in the first balloting (Hauptwahl). Where it was already very close to a majority in the Hauptwahl, the percentage of run-off votes may not be an important indicator of the Center's marginal acceptability to non-Catholics.

75. Quoted in Hoeber, Der Streit, 12.

76. The most recent contribution: Becker, Winfried, “Kulturkampf als Vorwand: Die Kolonialwahlen von 1907 und das Problem der Parlamentarisierung des Reiches,” Historisches Jahrbuch 106 (1986): 59–84.Google Scholar

77. Chickering, Roger, We Men Who Feel Most German: A Cultural Study of the Pan-German League 1886–1914 (Boston, London, Sydney, 1984), 199.Google Scholar

78. Langwiesche, Dieter, “Das Deutsche Kaiserreich—Bemerkungen zur Diskussion über Parlamentisierung und Demokratisierung Deutschlands,” Archiv für Sozialgeschichte 19 (1979): 628–42, quotation: 641.Google Scholar

79. Figures for the Evangelischer Bund and the Christian Trade Unions in the articles by Gottwald, in: Fricke, , Die bürgerlichen Parteien 1: 787, and 2: 114.Google Scholar

80. “Römische Erbfeinde“: Beyschlag, Willibald, Der Friedensschluss zwischen Deutschland und Rom, Flugschriften des Evangelischen Bundes, 4 (Leipzig, 1890)Google Scholar, quoted in Langwiesche, “Das Deutsche Kaiserreich,” 641. “Schlimmste Schädling”: from an announcement of the administrative committee for the 1912 Reichstag election, quoted in Berliner Tageblatt, no. 658, 28 Dec. 1911, in Gottwald, in Fricke, , Die bürgerlichen Parteien 1: 41Google Scholar. The Antiultramontaner Reichsverband became notorious in 1916 when it sent a memorandum to its members asking “whether, through taking the entire Belgian population into the body of Germany [deutsche Volkskörper], the ultramontane Catholic Center Party element is not strengthened in such a manner that the gradual expropriation and expulsion of at least the Walloon part of the Belgian population… must be ruthlessly encouraged.”

81. The description of General Keim is Chickering's, We Men Who Feel Most German, 258; see also 138, 203. The Kriegerverein was no insignificant force. By 1912, even in the Regierungsbezirk Arnsberg, the heart of the Ruhr, there were five members of the Kriegerverein for every duespaying Social Democrat. Suval, Electoral Politics, 138, 145.

82. Suval, Electoral Politics, 64f., 79.

83. Cf. Lidtke, Vernon, “Social Class and Secularisation in Imperial Germany: The Working Classes,” Leo Baeck Institute Yearbook, 1980: 21–40, esp. 28–29Google Scholar for a discussion of belief among workers. Lidtke does not, however, draw my conclusion.

84. But we have no reason to believe that Roeren, Bitter, and Erzberger were any less committed than the Bachems to “working together with non-Catholics” or to equality of rights for all religions. Cf. Roeren, Zentrum und Kölner Richtung, 29, 40, and Veränderte Lage, 7, 22, 55–56.

85. This phrase is of course borrowed from the Swiss theologian Emil Brunner's well-known analysis of Christianity.

86. Roeren: “Only those who hold their own beliefs high can also give the religious confession of others the respect due it.” Zentrum und Kölner Richtung, 8.

87. Ross's description, Beleaguered Tower, 131, of the Zentrumsstreit as a choice between political party or religious interest group is too crude to capture the Center's situation. His judgment on 137f.—“A creature of circumstance and opportunity, the Centrum pursued its own interests unconcerned about the commonweal”; it “unashamedly pursued the interests of the Roman Catholic Mittelstand at the expense of the German people”—cannot explain the Center's two years in the political wilderness after December 1906, a fate the party could have avoided simply by disavowing Erzberger and Roeren and cooperating with Bülow on the colonial question. Even Meerfeld, the Social Democratic deputy from the Rhineland who produced a compelling indictment of Center opportunism in 1911 (“those political mercenaries [Landsknechte]”… “who for a suitable wage will sell themselves to everyone and anyone…” in Kaiser, Kanzler, Zentrum, 23), saw the Center in a much more favorable light by 1918. Cf. Meerfeld, Zentrumspartei, passim.

88. An interpretation one frequently finds in the literature: cf. most recently, Becker, Winfried, “Der lange Anlauf zur Christlichen Demokratie: Joseph Görres und andere Interpreten im 19. Jahrhundert,” in Becker, and Morsey, , eds., Christliche Demokratie in Europe, 1–27; esp. 2.Google Scholar

89. Georg Simmel and Lewis Coser would say also that it requires “conflict.” Cf. Coser, , The Functions of Social Conflict (Glencoe, Ill., 1956)Google Scholar. Such articulation need not take a political form, of course—as I have argued earlier when tracing the consolidation of the majority of German Catholics into a single political party in the late 1860s and early 1870s. Cf. Anderson, Windthorst, chap. 6, and “The Kulturkampf and the Course of German History,” Central European History 19, no. 1 (04 1986): 82–115.CrossRefGoogle Scholar But when the majority is already hostile to the minority, such minority articulation may well end in a political party. The process is self-reinforcing.

90. For Catholic religious revival and the process of social articulation, cf. Sperber's, Jonathan excellent Popular Catholicism in Nineteenth Century Germany (Princeton, 1984)Google Scholar. For the weaknesses attendant on hegemony, cf. Suval, Electoral Politics.

91. I owe much general clarification on this issue to a conversation with my colleague James R. Kurth.

92. Both Bernsteinians and Bachemites hoped for an integration that was impossible within existing German society. In the Weimar Republic, the two subcultures were able to make political alliances with each other—not, nota bene, the political alliances the integrationists in either camp had hoped for—and were able, better than other political groupings, to preserve their integrity against National Socialist election competition. But the very subcultural solidarity that helped insulate Social Democracy and political Catholicism against National Socialism, it could be argued, made the defense of democracy on a broader basis difficult.

93. Craig, Gordon A., German History: 1866–1945 (New York, 1978)Google Scholar, as a sub-heading under “Social Democratic Party”; Orlow, Dietrich, A History of Modern Germany: 1871 to the Present (Englewood Cliffs, N.J., 1987)Google Scholar; Stürmer, Michael, Das ruhelose Reich: Deutschland 1866–1918 (Berlin, 1983).Google Scholar

94. Brose, Christian Labor, 145.

95. As James Sheehan once wrote: Naumann has attracted so much scholarly attention that soon he will have acquired more monographs than his party did supporters. German Liberalism in the Nineteenth Century (Chicago and London, 1978), 361, n. 46.Google Scholar

96. Statistics on the Pan-Germans, the Navy League (individual memberships), and the Volksverein in Fricke, , Die bürgerlichen Parteien, 1: 1, 432; 2: 811.Google Scholar