ABSTRACT

Originally published in English in 1986, these volumes are far more than the story of the life of a powerful statesman. The name Bismarck sums up the entire political, social, economic and intellectual development of central Europe in the second half of the 19th Century and the internal and external shape that Germany then assumed. These books analyse how much of this was Bismarck’s personal achievement or whether he was the man who put the nation on the disastrously wrong course that reached its fateful culmination in 1933? They examine whether Bismarck’s success was precisely because he implemented policies for which the time was ripe and did so in ways that were in harmony with the historical evolution of central Europe.

chapter

Introduction

The ‘Circumstances of his Life’: Bismarck and his Time

part One|87 pages

In Search of a Way of Life

chapter 1|32 pages

Between Two Worlds

chapter 2|53 pages

The Way into Politics

part Two|289 pages

‘Let Us Rather Undertake Revolution than Undergo It’

chapter 3|40 pages

Reasons of State and International Politics

Envoy to the Federal Diet

chapter 4|23 pages

In No-Man's-Land

chapter 5|43 pages

From Army Reform to Constitutional Conflict

Bismarck's Hour

chapter 6|39 pages

'Konfliktminister'

chapter 7|41 pages

The End or a New Beginning?

chapter 8|29 pages

1866

chapter 9|72 pages

‘Revolution from Above’