In November last year, the German Foreign Office changed the name of the legendary Bismarck Hall to the Hall of German Unity.

The name change sparked outrage. But can the first Reich Chancellor really continue to be a role model for German foreign policy? asks Eckart Conze, professor of history at the University of Marburg, in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ).

Associated with the history of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs

As he writes, it was to be expected that the name change would trigger reactions referring to “lack of historical awareness”, “falsification of history” or “cancellation of culture”. .

Not only does the room now have a new name, but the portrait of Bismarck by Franz von Lenbach has also been removed from it. “Perhaps he will soon find his place at the MFA in Bonn, where the Bismarck Hall still exists,” writes Conze. And he adds that the accusations against Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock and key ministry employees add little to the substantive discussion of Bismarck, which is “particularly linked to the ministry’s history”.

Conze explains that Otto von Bismarck was not only the first German Reich Chancellor to create state foreign policy, but also owes the name to the German Foreign Office (German: Auswärtiges Amt) , founded in 1870. because the “Foreign Office of the North German Confederation” was to be a separate ministry.

Bismarck in the young Federal Republic

After the Second World War, in 1951, the new Foreign Office of the Federal Republic of Germany regained its former name of “Ministry of Foreign Affairs”. As a German historian writes, the name reflected not only “the West German state’s claim to be the legal successor to the late German Reich, but also, rather unintentionally, the fact that there was a personal continuity considerable between the old and the new office.” Moreover, the term was to distinguish the new office from other ministries – it was spoken of in Bonn as “arrogant”.

Chancellor Konrad Adenauer, who also held the post of Foreign Minister until at least 1955, did not like to subscribe personally to the tradition of the Reich Chancellor, nor to register the Federal Republic in the continuity of the State Bismarckian. “On the contrary, the rise of the Reich and the belief in the ‘omnipotence of the state’ reinforced by it, prepared, according to Adenauer, the ground for a ‘total state and an involuntarily guided mass’, writes Conze in ‘FAZ ‘.

He recalls that in 1965 Adenauer rejected the invitation of the Bismarck family to give a speech in Friedrichsruh on the occasion of the 150th birthday of the founder of the Reich. Adenauer, however, attended the ceremony commemorating Bismarck by the Bundestag, but his government did not accept the state celebrations proposed by then Bundestag President Eugen Gerstenmaier.

Conze recalls that in 1965, Christian-Democratic Foreign Minister Gerhard Schroeder (not to be confused with the future Social-Democratic Chancellor of Germany) invited Bismarck’s descendants to an internal celebration. Yet at the headquarters of the Foreign Office and Chancellery there is no bust of Bismarck, but in the 1970s Foreign Minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher had a portrait of the “Chancellor of iron” in his office.

“Bismarck’s Problem”

After 1945, various historians repeatedly referred to the “Bismarck problem”, and they referred not only to historiography, but also to politics. The real turning point, writes Conze, was the biography of Bismarck by Lothar Gall in 1980. “It no longer prolonged Bismarck’s political reception and his political record, it did not perpetuate the Bismarckian myth”, we read. Also, a few years later, a two-volume biography written by Ernst Engelberg.

“The fact that after 1945 Bismarck was able to gradually enter history was also a consequence of the political and socio-cultural liberalization of the Federal Republic. The measure of this was the distance from Bismarck, his politics and the state”, reads “FAZ”. Then, however, the voices of historians appeared, indicating that “Bismarck’s nightmare” was dealt with, but not the nightmare of his time and the times “after”.

Colonial policy

The critical distance vis-à-vis Bismarck, which has led to the room being renamed today, is above all linked to Bismarck’s colonial policy, explains the author. And he mentions that within a few months in 1884/85, the German Empire captured a large part of its colonies in Africa and the Asia-Pacific region. And even under Bismarck, Germany fought its first brutal and bloody colonial war in East Africa. Describing Bismarck’s colonial policy as an “episode” or an “intermezzo”, as it always is, does not reflect its impact long after Bismarck’s resignation in 1890 and deep into the 20th and even into the 21st century.

Monument to the Genocide Victims of the Herero and Nama Tribes (Capital of Namibia, Windhoek)

“As important as the postcolonial argument is, isn’t it too superficial? Apart from colonial policy, don’t we need another look at Bismarck’s foreign policy, especially at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs? asks the historian of Marburg.

Bismarck Defenders

He discusses the arguments of Bismarck’s defenders, who point out that after 1871 Bismarck withdrew German claims to power, limited Germany’s role and importance in Europe, and secured peace, also through the policy of alliances . It was only after the dismissal of the “Iron Chancellor” and under the influence of Wilhelm II’s global political ambitions, as claimed by Bismarck’s defenders, that the German Reich took a new course in foreign policy. and, by growing aggressiveness, brought about or contributed to the outbreak of war in 1914. as a statesman characterized by moderation, and Bismarck’s Reich as a “saturated” state, while Wilhelm II as a monarch autocratic and incompetent beyond measure,” says Conze.

But it’s not that simple, he says. The differences between Bismarck and Wilhelm II “should not obscure the idea that the underlying causes of the escalating conflict and foreign policy tensions that characterized European relations after 1890 had already emerged during the formation of the Reich. and under the Chancellery of Bismarck”.

The Reichstag Assembly in 1871. Top left is Chancellor Otto von Bismarck

This applies not only to hostility towards France, which after 1870 became the main antagonism of European politics and a condition of German foreign policy. A stable European peace accepted by all parties was not possible under these conditions.

Controversial Alliances

“Bismarck’s system of alliances, which generations of Germans have glorified as a virtuoso construction and regarded as the greatest historical achievement of the Reich Chancellor next to the establishment of the Reich, was not a security system collective” – ​​​​explains the historian. It was neither multilateral nor European, nor based on consensus or common European interest. “It was instead fueled by bilateral, or at most tripartite, treaties on the temporary convergence of the national interests of individual states, which considered each commitment as a limitation of their national and state autonomy,” it reads.

Eckart Conze points out that Bismarck never sought to create a European security system worthy of the name. Its system of alliances is characterized above all by internal contradictions and the intention not to overcome political tensions in Europe, but to perpetuate them in favor of Germany. “That is why there is no doubt: Bismarck’s place is in the Foreign Office – but not in representative halls (…), but – as before – in diplomatic education programs” – writes the historian in “FAZ”.

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