Bismarck Junior on the march for Prussian values

London Sunday Times ^ | 3/24/02 | Michael Woodhead

[H.R. Gross]

Bismarck Junior on the march for Prussian values
Michael Woodhead, Frankfurt

MORE than a century after Otto von Bismarck presided over German unification, the iron chancellor’s great-great-grandson is poised to enter politics and demand a return to Prussian values.

Count Carl-Eduard von Bismarck, 40, has been chosen by the opposition centre-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU) to stand in this September’s general election.

His candidacy coincides with calls in Germany to revive Prussia, the state with which Bismarck is identified. The name could be given to a new Land, or state, to be created out of Berlin and surrounding Brandenburg, if they go ahead with an expected merger in 2006.

As minister-president of Prussia and, after 1871, chancellor of the German empire, Bismarck helped to modernise the country and pioneered the welfare state. There was also a darker side: a militarism that led indirectly to the first world war and prepared some of the ground for the rise of Adolf Hitler.

The victorious allies barred any revival of the Prussian name after the second world war. Critics of attempts to reinstate it now say it could provide a focus for neo-Nazis.

Today’s Bismarck, a wealthy banker who has spent much of his career in America, has vowed to stand for the Prussian values of hard work, duty and sacrifice. “Prussia is a name that is known internationally and stands for something special,” he said. “It is back to the roots of Germany.”

The traditional Prussian values that Bismarck espouses have been largely lacking among Germany’s post-war political classes, which have lurched from one scandal to the next.

The Social Democratic party of Gerhard Schröder, the chancellor, is embroiled in a widening corruption affair centred on North Rhine-Westphalia, the most populous state in Germany. This came hard on the heels of a financing scandal that almost destroyed the CDU after Helmut Kohl, its former chancellor, was defeated by Schröder in the 1998 election.

Bismarck says he is attracted by the idea of following his great-great-grandfather into the chancellory — but would be happy, for the time being at least, to be a backbencher.

[curmudgeonII]

In a different post today we're informed about an increased respect for Mussolini in Italy.

Has a century and a half of bloody warfare taught the Europeans nothing?

[cicero's_son]

There is nothing wrong with a renewed respect for Prussian values in modern Germany.

We could do with some good Prussian values in our own bloated, corrupt, ineffective bureaucracy.

[cicero's_son]

Care to comment?

[DBtoo]

Many people don't realize that Prussia was destroyed at the end of the war. It was carved up between the Soviets and Poland. As they say, those who win the war write the history. My mother's family was from East Prussia. My grandfather and his parents were killed by the Soviet troops who came in with orders to kill those Prussians who had not yet managed to escape. The city of Konigsberg, which was 750 years old at the time, was totally destroyed and then rebuilt as Kaliningrad by the Soviets. Lots of history was lost. I had to do quite a bit of research to find out anything about what had really happened there.

Believe me, many other civilians besides the 6 million Jews suffered and died as a result of WW2. Most Germans in fact were not at all happy to live under the dictatorship of Hitler.

[nofriendofbills]

Goose stepping his way into your heart.

[cicero's_son]

Of course, a bare majority did vote for him. What most people don't realize is that his votes came primarily from the parties of the Left.

The destruction of Konigsburg was a tragedy, and one in which the United States must share the blame.

[dfwgator]

They can do whatever they want, but they ain't getting East Prussia back from Poland.

[YankeeReb]

Of course, a bare majority did vote for him. What most people don't realize is that his votes came primarily from the parties of the Left.

The destruction of Konigsburg was a tragedy, and one in which the United States must share the blame.

Of course the same could be said of the prior couple who occupied our own White House.

[Chi-townChief]

I always wondered if the folks in the old German provinces like Silesia, Prussia, and Posen ever wanted to reunite with Germany considering the economics involved.

[ChicagoRepublican]

No they don't.

There isn't that much of a difference between East German cities like Rostock and Dresden and cities like Sczeczin in Poland. The economy of East Germany is not wow-ing anyone in its current state.

[ex-Texan]

I'm in the middle of a second reading of The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich. Prussian 'values' were never based on commerce and business. Bismark scoffed at business leaders and bankers. Prussia of the late 1860's valued only the 'Blood and Iron' of military conquest. The smaller states of Germany which were conquered by Prussia ceased to exist and the nation became known as 'The Second Reich.' .... Hitler followed Prussian Values when he sought world domination by uniting Germany and people of Germanic blood through the 'Third Reich.'

I believe Bismark Junior is talking in code.

“Prussia is a name that is known internationally and stands for something special,” and “It is back to the roots of Germany.”

Sounds like an attempt to restore the Nazis under the banner of a new party name.

[shrinkermd]

You might be interested in visiting Bismarck, ND. So many thought so well of him, they named the town to solicit immigrants. It worked. Many came, and especially from the Germans who had lived in Russia. D

[ex-Texan]

One of my best friends grew up in North Dakota ... He is of Danish heritage.

[Martin Tell]

Bismark? Isn't that a herring? Why would the krauts elect a fish?

[cicero's_son]

"Sounds like an attempt to restore the Nazis under the banner of a new party name.

Well, clever you. Of course, we all know that the sum of German history can be distilled into the ~20 year Nazi period.

And whenever someone talks about restoring American values, we can be sure that they're either talking about reviving slavery or re-invading Vietnam.

[crazykatz]

Many of the co-conspiritors against hitler were in fact Prussians. Von Staffenberg and non-military types like Bonhoffer and some of the members of the anti-hitler group, were Prussians.

[cicero's_son]

B-b-b-but I learned in my state sanctioned school that Prussians are very very bad!

[KellyAdmirer]

It is trued that Chancellor Bismarck was in charge during the rise of Germany in the 1860s and the successful Franco-Prussian war, but he had no more to do with the Nazis than did Hitler's personal hero, Frederick the Great. Bismarck was an utter realist who was under no illusions about Germany's strength. He shrewdly recognizing Germany's vulnerability on its flanks and cultivating alliances accordingly while everyone else was predicting future German hegemony. It was only after he was sacked by the ridiculously militaristic Kaiser in 1890 that Germany started spinning off into the delusions of grandeur and invulnerability that led to its ruin in the 20th Century.