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The Kulturkampf and the Course of German History

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 December 2008

Margaret Lavinia Anderson
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Type
Symposium: Catholics and Politics in Nineteenth-Century Germany
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Central European History , Volume 19 , Issue 1 , March 1986 , pp. 82 - 115
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Copyright © Conference Group for Central European History of the American Historical Association 1986

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References

1. E.g., Bachem, K., Vorgeschichte, Geschichte, und Politik der deutschen Zentrumspartei, 9 vols. (Cologne, 1927–1932)Google Scholar, and Buchheim, K., Ultramontanismus und Demokratie: Der Weg der deutschen Katholiken im 19. Jahrhundert (Munich, 1963)Google Scholar, whose focus on “political Catholicism” rather than on the politics of Catholics leads to a picture of continuity.

2. Wehler, , Das Deutsche Kaiserreich 1871–1918, 2d ed. (Göttingen, 1975), 83–85, 120–21Google Scholar; Schieder, , “Kirche und Revolution: Sozialgeschichtliche Aspekte der Trierer Wallfahrt von 1844,” Archiv für Sozialgeschichte 14 (1974): 419–54Google Scholar; Korff, , “Formierung der Frömmigkeit: Zur sozialpolitischen Intention der Trier Rockwallfahrten,” Geschichte und Gesellschaft 3 (1977): 352–83Google Scholar; Sperber, , Popular Catholicism in 19th Century Germany (Princeton, 1984)Google Scholar. The first three are frankly hostile to the Church, Korff and Schieder using the word “manipulation” and its derivatives five times between them. More indirect in its argument, but even more influential: Lepsius, M. Rainer, “Parteisystem und Sozialstruktur: Zum Problem der Demokratisierung der deutschen Gesellschaft,” in Deutschen Parteien vor 1918, ed. Ritter, G. A. (Cologne, 1973), 56–80.Google Scholar

3. See especially the dissertations written under the direction of Max Braubach, and their successors; also Konrad Repgen's close analysis of the clergy in the diocese of Cologne in 1848 and of the petition campaign that year: “Klerus und Politik 1848: Die Kölner Geistlichen im Politischen Leben des Revolutionsjahres–als Beitrag zu einer ‘Parteigeschichte von Unten,’” in Petri, F. and Repgen, K., eds., Aus Geschichte und Landeskunde: Forschungen und Darstellungen Franz Steinbach zum 63. Geburtstag gewidmet (Bonn, 1960), 133–65.Google Scholar

4. Bachem, , Zentrumspartei, 2: 260, 265Google Scholar. Baden and the Rhineland may, of course, have been unusual. We lack for central and eastern Germany the detailed knowledge of popular political attitudes that we have for the west and south.

5. Private communication of Dr. Heinrich Best, of the University of Cologne's Institute for Applied Social Research, based on extensive quantitative research.

6. Wehler, Kaiserreich, 121, to the contrary notwithstanding.

7. See appendix at end of this essay on the construction of the graphics. Sperber dismisses the significance of these election returns by arguing that turnout in the Rhineland and Westfalia was lower than in other Prussian provinces. This is true, with the exception of the regencies of Minden and, especially, Trier, whose mean turnout in urban communities was 44.17%, well above the urban mean for all of Prussia (33.33%). But to draw confessional conclusions, it is more helpful to compare Catholic with Protestant turnout within the same region. I discovered that in the regency of Minden, low turnouts did correlate positively with the percentage of Catholics in urban counties, at the 95% level of confidence, and in rural counties at the 99% level. But in the regency of Arnsberg, high turnout in urban counties correlated significantly with percentage of Catholics, and at the 99% level. Most important, when taken collectively the 91 urban and 93 rural counties in the Rhineland and Westphalia reveal no statistically significant correlations between confession and turnout. The basis of my calculations are the statistics on confession at the county level from the 1871 census in Die Gemeinden und Gutsbezirke des preussischen Staates und ihre Bevölkerung–8 vols. (Berlin, 1873–1974)Google Scholar, and those on the voting turnout for 1863 at the county level in Anderson, E. N., Prussian Election Statistics 1862 and 1863 (Lincoln, Nebraska, 1954), 56–61.Google Scholar

8. Wehler, Kaisserreich, 31.

9. Of the 54 deputies from districts at least 70% Catholic, 70.37% rejected the Indemnity Bill.

10. Of the ten clerical deputies, eight voted no, one was sick, and one, from Hohenzollern, was not listed either as voting or missing. Seventeen out of twenty-two Progressives voted no.

11. Dating the “Kulturkampf” at any particular year clearly begs a lot of important questions about causality. But “Kulturkampf” refers to a variety of processes coming from a number of directions, and if one is careful to specify what aspect one means—e.g., popular feeling, legislation, government and administrative policy—then most of the difficulties disappear. Heightened popular hostility to Catholics and their institutions dates from the war of 1866. It attained violent expression as early as 1869 in the “Moabit Klostersturm” (see n. 13, below). Thus on a popular level, capable of explaining the 1870 Landtag electoral response in Prussia, Kulturkampf feeling predated the founding of the empire.

12. This view of the Kulturkampf deliberately turns on its head the more prevalent notion, implicit in a variety of perspectives, that the Kulturkampf was a “retarding moment” in German democratic development. A similarly “social” interpretation of confessional hostility has already been presented in the following pioneering studies of non-Prussian Kulturkämpfe: Gall, L., “Die partei- und sozialgeschichtliche Problematik des badischen Kulturkampfes,” Zeitschrifi für die Geschichte des Oberrheins 113 (1965): 151–96Google Scholar; idem, Der Liberalismus ah regierende Partei: Das Grossherzogtum Baden zwischen Restauration und Reichsgründung (Wiesbaden, 1968)Google Scholar; Möckl, K., Die Prinzregentenzeit (Munich and Vienna, 1972)Google Scholar; Southern, G. E. Jr., “The Bavarian Kulturkampf: A Chapter in Government, Church and Society in the Early Bismarckreich” (Ph.D. diss., Univ. of Massachusetts, 1977)Google Scholar; and especially Becker, J., Liberaler Staat und Kirche in der Ära von Reichsgründung und Kulturkampf: Geschichte und Strukturen ihres Verhältnisses in Baden, 1860–1876 (Mainz, 1973).Google Scholar

13. In 1869 a Berlin mob had vandalized a Catholic orphanage run by Benedictines. The violence occurred in conjunction with a public campaign demanding the closure of all monastic settlements and the confiscation of their property. As this demand was contrary to the 1850 Prussian constitution, granting autonomy to religious organizations, some petitions demanded the amendment of the relevant articles. More ominous for Catholics than the Klostersturm itself was the behavior of their political representatives. Progressives had organized both the antimonastic rallies and the petition campaign, and the Landtag's Committee on Petitions’ 17-page, double-column report took issue with the Prussian government's conciliatory stance towards religious orders. Passing over any constitutional inhibitions, the report demanded that the government enforce a prohibition against monastic congregations dating from 1810 and that it draw up regulatory legislation suitable for future extension to the rest of Germany. “Aufhebung der Klöster in Preussen,” 17 Dec. 1869, Stenographische Berichte über die Verhandlungen des preussischen Hauses der Abgeordneten (hereafter SBHA), 1869, Anlagen, Aktenstück no. 221, 990–1007.

14. The Center won only slightly more than half as many seats as it would win in 1873. Claggett, W., Loesch, J., Shively, W. P., and Snell, R., “Political Leadership and the Development of Political Cleavages: Imperial Germany, 1871–1912,” American Journal of Political Science 26, no. 4 (11 1982): 654CrossRefGoogle Scholar. The authors also argue that about 1/10 of all Protestants voted for the Center in 1871, though no Protestants supported it subsequently.

15. These figures are my own, taken from an ongoing project studying election influence.

16. In order: Lublinitz election: Schröder (-Lippstadt), Center deputy, Stenographische Berichte über die Verhandlungen des deutschen Reichstags (hereafter SBDR), 22 Nov. 1871, 440; Krefeld election protest: Reyscher, SBDR, 18 Apr. 1871, 269; Lublinitz election: testimony of Gendarm Viebig, “Report of Abteilung III,” 8 Nov. 1871, SBDR, Anlagen, 1871, Aktenstück no. 63, 140.

17. SBDR, Lasker, 5 Apr. 1871, 174–75; Reyscher, 8 Apr. 1871, 270; Schröder (-Lippstadt) and Franckenberg, 22 Nov. 1871, 433, 438; “Report of Abteilung III,” 12 Nov. 1871, Anlagen, Aktenstück no. 69, 165.

18. On notables in politics, J. J. Sheehan, “Political Leadership in the German Reichstag, 1871–1918,” American Historical Review 74, no. 2 (Dec. 1968): 511–28, esp. 514.

19. SBDR, 22 Nov. 1871, 438. Franckenberg was himself a Catholic.

20. “Report of Abteilung III,” 8 Nov. 1871, SBDR, Anlagen, Aktenstück no. 63, 142.

21. Von Unruhe-Bomst, SBDR, 17 Apr. 1871, reporting for Abteilung V, 229.

22. SBDR, 17 Apr. 1871, 237. Cf. Treitschke's description of universal suffrage as “an invaluable weapon of the Jesuits, which grants to the powers of custom and stupidity [Dummheit] such an unfair superiority.” “Parteien und Fractionen (1871),” in Historische und politische Aufsätze, 7th ed. (Leipzig, 1915), 3: 609Google Scholar, quoted in Becker, W., “Liberale Kulturkampf-Positionen und politischer Katholizismus,” in Pflanze, O., ed., Innenpolitische Probleme des Bismarck-Reiches (Munich, 1983), 69.Google Scholar

23. Kanngiesser: SBDR, 22 Apr. 1871, 319. For Seyffardt's own version of this election, see Seyffardt, L. F., Erinnerungen (Leipzig, 1900), 50–59.Google Scholar

24. Reyscher, reading from an election protest: SBDR, 18 Apr. 1871, 269.

25. Kanngiesser, SBDR, 22 Apr. 1871, 320; archbishop's statement: Bock, ibid., 318.

26. Keudell: SBDR, 22 Apr. 1871, 327; also Reyscher: 18 Apr. 1871, 270; Kanngiesser, 320. Bock denied that a single priest had gone door-to-door canvassing for signatures; they had all been collected at public rallies. SBDR, 22 Apr. 1871, 318.

27. Keudell, ibid., 327; Reyscher, ibid., 18 Apr. 1871, 270.

28. Statement by the Central Election Committee of the Constitutional (Center) Party of Cologne, denouncing the “striking, entirely unmotivated attacks on universal suffrage” in the election protests. Read by Kanngiesser, SBDR, 22 Apr. 1871, 320. See also Windthorst, ibid., 328–29, and, on similar charges about the Rosenheim and the Mörs-Rees elections, SBDR, 5 Apr. 1871, 189, 190.

29. Croon, H., “Die Stadtvertretungen in Krefeld und Bochum im 19. Jahrhundert: Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der Selbstverwaltung der rheinischen und westfälischen Städte,” in Forschung zu Staat und Verfassung: Festgabe für Fritz Hartung (Berlin, 1958), 289–306.Google Scholar

30. Protest from Cologne against clerical victories read by Kanngiesser, SBDR, 22 Apr. 1871, 320; described by Bock, 317.

31. Schauff, J., Die Deutschen Katholiken und die Zentrumspartei: Eine politisch-statistiche Untersuchung der Reichstagswahlen seit 1871 (Cologne, 1928), 57, 174.Google Scholar

32. SBDR, 5 Apr. 1871, 174.

33. Müller was known, however, to the Catholic press in connection with his feat in 1869 in “packing” with Catholics the assemblies called in Berlin by Progressives after the “Klostersturm” in Moabit, where he succeeded in turning occasions intended as demonstrations against the religious orders into rallies in their support. Earlier the energetic mission-vicar had run as a clerical candidate in all six Berlin districts in the two Reichstag elections of 1867—with dismal results.

34. Cf. the debates on Gleiwitz and Pless-Rybnik in Upper Silesia, Lippstadt in Westfalia, Krefeld and Neuwied in the Rhineland. It would be useful to have all the figures on this question, but to determine the residency of losing candidates is an extraordinarily difficult, perhaps impossible, task.

35. Von Winter, reporting for Abteilung III; SBDR, 22 Nov. 1871, 428–29. The description of Müller's way of life: Merchant Reich, “Report of Abteilung III,” 12 Nov. 1871, SBDR, Anlagen, Aktenstück no. 69, 167.

36. For the relatively greater poverty of Upper Silesia than the rest of Germany: Schofer, L., The Formation of a Modern Labor Force, Upper Silesia, 1865–1914 (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1975), 105Google Scholar; and of Pless and Rybnik within the region, idem: “Modernization, Bureaucratization, and the Study of Labor History: Lessons from Upper Silesia, 1865–1914,” in Sozialgeschichte Heute, ed. Wehler, H.-U. (Göttingen, 1974): 473.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

37. Schröder (-Lippstadt), quoting conversations heard in the district: SBDR, 22 Nov. 1871, 433. His emphasis.

38. Ibid. On the Rumanian railroad scandal, one of the most notorious of the Gründerjahre, see Stern, F., Gold and Iron: Bismarck, Bleichröder, and the Building of the German Empire (New York, 1977), chap. 14, esp. 363, 384–85Google Scholar, and the quotation on 383, 84n. For repercussions as late as the 1874 campaign: Müller, L., Der Kampf zwischen politischem Katholizismus und Bismarcks Politik im Spiegel der Schlesischen Volkszeitung: Ein Beitrag zur schlesischen Kirchen- Parteien- und Zeitungsgeschichte (Breslau, 1929), 186–87.Google Scholar

39. “Now just think gentlemen,” appealed Schröder, “in a cold climate on the northern ledges of the Carpathians, what these last four points mean [stormy laughter]…” SBDR, 22 Nov. 1871, 433.

40. Schofer, Formation, 78.

41. SBDR, Schröder, 22 Nov. 1871, 431, 433; “Report of Abteilung III,” 12 Nov. 1871, Anlagen, vol. II, Aktenstück no. 69, 167–68.

42. “Report of Abteilung III,” ibid., 167.

43. Testimony under oath of witnesses Sporys and Rygalla regarding the statements of Pastor Carl Wrazidlo in Lendzin, and testimony of teachers Parczyk and Plassek regarding those of Pastor Marx in Loslau: “Report of Abteilung III,” ibid., 164, 165, 167. No doubt this strengthening of a voter's Zivilcourage vis-à-vis his civil superiors was sometimes accomplished only at the cost of undermining it vis-à-vis his clerical ones. Thus in the neighboring district of Kreuz-burg-Rosenberg, the tailor Paul Wieczorek accused his pastor of instructing his flock not to vote for a Protestant (the incumbent Count Bethusy-Huc) “regardless of whether one loses the favor or even the bread of one's employer [Brotherrschaft].” The priest's assumption that the masters would use economic intimidation as a matter of course proved quite correct, but the fact that he apparently had no compunction against warning them that he would ask them about their vote during confession indicates that universal suffrage, in the world of 1871, sometimes left the poor voter truly between the devil and the deep blue sea.

44. “Report of Abteilung III,” SBDR, Anlagen, vol. II, Aktenstück no. 69, 165.

45. Schröder (-Lippstadt), SBDR, 22 Nov. 1871, 433. From whom the pressure from Berlin stemmed is unclear, and even Schröder expressed ignorance as to which Prince Radziwill was meant. Perhaps it was Prince Boguslaw Radziwill, who had succeeded in collecting 15.4% of the vote against the Prince of Pless in the first 1867 Reichstag election.

46. SBDR, 22 Nov. 1871, 437. The break with traditional deference signified by Müller's election continued to have repercussions after the election. When the Prince expressed his displeasure to the clergy, the farmers of the district responded with a letter to him wherein they scarcely mentioned religious issues but rather asserted that it was understandable that they had no confidence in his administration, whose Prozesskramerei forced them to go continually to the Regency, where they were chikanirt: in short, they were extremely dissatisfied. Schröder (-Lippstadt), SBDR 22 Nov. 1871, 435.

47. See, for example, the vivid descriptions of the coercion of “Stimmvieh” by Hellmuth von Gerlach, witnessed both as the son of a Junker landowner in Silesia (Wohlau-Guhrau-Steinau district, Breslau Regency) and as a campaigner himself. Von Rechts nach Links (Zurich, 1937), 32–33, 35, 156, 161.Google Scholar He speaks of some estates as “hermetically sealed.”

48. By 1880, however, the rectories of 1,100 of Prussia's roughly 4,600 Catholic parishes, accounting for approximately 2 million souls, would be vacant. Speech of R. v. Puttkamer on 26 Jan. 1881, cited by Bornkamm, H., Der Staatsidee im Kulturkampf (Munich, 1950), 11–12.Google Scholar

49. SBDR, Protest reported by Prince Handjery for Abteilung III, 1 May 1871, 511; “Report of Abteilung III,” 12 Nov. 1871, Anlagen, vol. II, Aktenstück no. 69, 167; von Winter, making the oral report for Abteilung III, specifically condemns the pastors‘ “using the teachers as their Gehilfen,” 22 Nov. 1871, 429. There was similar use of teachers by pastors in Neuwied (2d Koblenz district).

50. “Report of Abteilung VI,” on the election in Neuwied, SBDR, 20 Nov. 1871, Anlagen, vol. II, Aktenstück 106, 272.

51. Von Biebahn to Kreisschulinspektor Pastor Herr Konsalik, 3 July 1871, reprinted in “Report of Abteilung III,” SBDR, 8 Nov. 1871, Anlagen, vol. II, Aktenstück no. 63, 144–45. Cf. also Eulenburg's 7 Aug. 1871 Report to Bismarck, ibid., 143–44. The discrepancy between the Regency's threat of disciplinary punishment to the teachers, who had only exercised their civil rights, and its mild admonition and even praise of gendarmes and Landratsamt officials against whom serious evidence of intimidation of the electorate on the Duke of Ujest's behalf had been uncovered, was glaring. Von Biebahn to the Royal Landratsamt at Lublinitz, 3 July 1871, and von Biebahn to the Royal County-Secretary Fock in Lublinitz, 3 July 1871, ibid., 144. The investigating committee sharply criticized this double standard, ibid., 143.

52. SBDR, 22 Nov. 1871, 441.

53. I have not seen direct evidence at the ministerial level for my hypothesis about the influence of the elections in bringing about the School Inspection Law of 1872 (I have not been in a position to look). However, in 1869 Bismarck had evinced no special interest in the proposed Inspection Law. By 1871 this had changed. The Declaration of Papal Infallibility and Bismarck's fears of Polish nationalism may have played some role, as is so often mentioned. Yet that Bismarck had broader political concerns is clear from his comment to his Kultusminister, Heinrich von Mühler: “Our task is to tear the Catholic population away from the influence of their clergy.” Reichle, W., Zwischen Staat und Kirche: Das Leben und Wirken des preussischen Kultusministers Heinrich von Mühler (Berlin, 1938), 368Google Scholar. During the debates on the School Inspection Law, Bismarck repeatedly returned to the Pless-Rybnik election, excoriating the political activity of the clergy. The election had nothing to do with either the subject of the debate or the points made by other participants, and Bismarck himself did nothing to draw any logical connection between his references to the election and the matter at hand. But free association has its own logic, which may be of as much interest to historians as that which is more conscious. Bismarck, SBHA, 9 Feb. 1872, 700; 10 Feb. 1872, 722.

54. Letter of 1 Apr. 1871 from the Pless Central Administration read to the Reichstag by Deputy Schröder (-Lippstadt), SBDR, 22 Nov. 1871, 434–35.

55. Schröder (-Lippstadt), ibid., 434.

56. And in any case it was impossible to establish a “universal norm.” SBDR, 22 Nov. 1871, 429–30.

57. “Report of Abteilung III,” 12 Nov. 1871, SBDR, Anlagen, vol. II, Aktenstück no. 69, 167.

58. The move to cashier Reichensperger's election was defeated in a very close roll-call, 141–51. The Progressives voted unanimously to unseat him. The National Liberals split, with a nearly 3 to 1 majority in favor of cashiering, but with the leaders, Bennigsen and Lasker, against. The Free Conservatives reversed the picture of the National Liberals. Their majority opposed cashiering, but their leaders Wilhelm von Kardorff and Count Eduard von Bethusy-Huc, both, significantly, representing Silesian districts, led a substantial minority in favor.

59. See the speeches of Kardorff and Duncker on the Kreuzburg-Rosenberg election, in which the Free Conservative Count Bethusy-Huc had defeated the Center candidate, making it pointless to throw out the election for clerical influence: SBDR, 5 Apr. 1871, 173. Some liberals and Free Conservatives began to argue that the Reichstag had “house rights” to determine valid elections, independent of the rights of a district to be represented by the deputy of its choice. E.g., Fries: SBDR, 18 Apr. 1871, 256.

60. Center Party challenge to legislate restrictions on the free speech of clergy: SBDR, P. Reichensperger, 5 Apr. 1871, 173, and A. Schels, 17 Apr. 1871, 234. The Augsburg liberal Fischer took up the challenge and advocated in effect the future Pulpit Law, ibid., 242.

61. E.-R. and W. Huber's description of the law as a response to the “threatened abuse of the pulpit in the struggle against the state [Kulturkampf] measures” ignores its political, and specifically its electoral, context and function and attributes to the governments more foresight about the strength of the future clerical resistance to the future May Laws two years later than seems plausible at the time. From the well-known fact that the penalties of this law were seldom invoked, the Hubers draw the curious conclusion that the state's “preventive goal was fully achieved,” when in fact within two years Catholic resistance had moved far beyond the capacity of a Pulpit Law to restrain. Staat und Kirche im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert: Dokumente zur Geschichte des deutschen Staatskirchenrechts, 2 (Berlin, 1976): 528.Google Scholar

62. SBDR, 4 Apr., 22 Nov. 1871, 173, 428, respectively. Some evidence of how the home folks followed these Reichstag discussions can be seen in the fact that counter-protests were lodged to the charges of clerical influence. E.g., by Pastor Wrazidlo in Pless-Rybnik. “Report of Abteilung III,” 12 Nov. 1871, SBDR., Anlagen, vol. II, Aktenstück no. 69, 166.

63. E.g., Sauer, W., “Das Problem des deutschen Nationalstaates,” extended version in Wehler, H.-U., ed., Moderne Deutsche Sozialgeschichte (Cologne and Berlin, 1966), 177–98, passim.Google Scholar

64. SBDR, 22 Apr. 1871, 324. His italics.

65. According to my count, 44% of the German deputies we can identify as Catholic in the first Reichstag belonged to parties other than the Center.

66. On the social background of the Catholic clergy, see especially: Merkel, G., “Studien zum Priesternachwuchs der Erzdiözese Freiburg 1870–1914,” in Freiburger Diözesan-Archiv, 94 (1974): 5–269.Google Scholar

67. Fohrmann, U., Trierer Kulturkampfpublizistik im Bismarckreich: Leben und Werk des Presskaplans Georg Friedrich Dasbach (Trier, 1977), 25.Google Scholar

68. Southern, Bavarian Kulturkampf, 141, 303–4.

69. Some examples: Through his Vertrauensmann, the priest Alexander Reuss, Windthorst informed the episcopate that it must develop a common stance regarding the celebrations of the Crown Prince's silver wedding anniversary (LW to AR, 29 Dec. 1882, Bistumsarchiv Trier [hereafter BAT], Abt. 105, folder 1493); he exerted pressure on Bishop Herzog of Breslau to retreat on his controversial ruling against double wedding ceremonies in cases of mixed marriages, requesting that a questionnaire be circulated in all the dioceses to enable the bishops to develop a common policy (LW to AR, Sept. 1882, ibid.); he conveyed to a bishop (of Metz?) his desire that the incumbent deputies from Alsace be reelected, with the exception of M. Antoine, who would be better replaced by someone else. He stressed the indispensability of Pastor Winterer, whom the Statthalter was trying to get the bishop to forbid to run for reelection. (23 June 1884, BAT, Abt. 105, folder 1523.) Winterer stayed, but so did Antoine.

70. Windthorst (Niewedde) to Reuss, 10 Apr., 15 Apr., 26 May, 31 May, BAT, Abt. 105, folder 1636.

71. 26 Mar. 1885, BAT, Abt. 105, folder 1529.

72. 7 Aug. 1885, BAT, Abt. 105, folder 1529.

73. 2 Oct. 1885, BAT, Abt. 105, folder 1525.

74. Holstein to Schlözer, 25 Oct.; Schlözer to Bismarck, 5 Nov. 1889, Politisches Archiv des Auswärtigen Amts, Deutschland No. 125: Die Centrumspartei, located in Bonn as well as the National Archives, Washington, D.C., and available on microfilm from the University of Michigan, reel 110.

75. See Windthorst's efforts to the contrary in letters to Reuss: 9 Sept., 25 Oct. 1886, BAT, Abt. 105, folder 1531; 27 Dec. 1886, BAT, Abt. 108, folder 817; and to Bishop Korum, 27 Dec. 1886, BAT, Abt. 108, folder 817. Finally Count Ballestrem was sent to Rome in order to importune the Pope in person against Kopp. Schlözer to Bismarck, 7 Nov. 1886, Politisches Archiv des Auswärtigen Amts, Deutschland No. 125: Die Centrumspartei, reel 109.

76. Hermann Mosler to Reuss, 16 Dec. 1884, BAT, Abt. 105, folder 1522.

77. Other evidence of Center Party influence on personnel decisions: Morsey, R., “Probleme der Kulturkampf-Forschung,” Historisches Jahrbuch, 83 (1963): 341fGoogle Scholar; Weber, C, Kirchliche Politik zwischen Rom, Berlin, und Trier, 1876–1888 (Mainz, 1970), see esp. the De Lorenzi case, 35–43Google Scholar; on ecclesiastical policy, von Schlözer, K., Letzte römische Briefe 1882–1894 (Stuttgart and Berlin, 1924), 30.Google Scholar

78. Although this Selbstverständnis was certainly contrary to the view of onlookers that the party was a mere tool of the hierarchy, it informs many of Windthorst's statements, as in his famous Gürzenich Speech, where he based the party's decision to ignore the Pope's wishes on the Military Bill on the fact that “the Center Party subsists simply and solely on the confidence of the people: no other support stands at its command, and it is …required, therefore, more than any other fraction, to heed the pulsebeat of the people.” One can find similar remarks made privately by members of the Party, where they were less obviously self-serving. See, e.g., the comment by an unnamed priest, one of Windthorst's election agents, 30 August 1882: “Here a strong aversion reigns against Marcard's candidacy. It seems to me that the Catholic people would lose all confidence in their leaders if Marcard is offered to them a second time.” No matter that the priest may have only been saying this in order to sink a candidacy he personally opposed; that he chose not religious grounds, but political ones is the point. Bundesarchiv Koblenz, Kleine Erwerbung, No. 596.

79. For this dramatic and revealing episode, see Anderson, M. L., Windthorst: A Political Biography (Oxford, 1981), chap. 12.Google Scholar

80. Bismarck to Schlözer, Friedrichsruh, 21 Oct. 1888, Politisches Archiv des Auswärtigen Amts, Deutschland, No. 125, No. 1 Centrumspartei, reel 110.

81. London Review of Books, 7 Nov. 1985, 23.

82. Korum's remark reported by Gossler to Bismarck, 21 Oct. 1886, Politische Archiv des Auswärtigen Amts, Deutschland No. 125: Die Centrumspartei, reel 110; Windthorst, in Knopp, J. N., Ludwig Windthorst: Ein Lebensbild (Dresden and Leipzig, 1898), 181.Google Scholar

83. See Heitzer, H., Georg Kardinal Kopp und der Gewerkschaftsstreit 1900–1914 (Cologne and Vienna, 1983).Google Scholar