Otto von Bismarck Quotes (1815-1898)

“I leave undecided the question whether complete mutual freedom of international commerce, such as is contemplated by the theory of Free Trade, would not serve the interests of Germany. But as long as most of the countries with which our trade is carried on surround themselves with customs barriers...it does not seem to me justifiable, or to the economic interest of the nation, that we should allow ourselves to be restricted in the satisfaction of our financial wants by the apprehension that German products will thereby be slightly preferred to foreign ones. ... The minority of the population, which does not produce at all, but exclusively consumes, will apparently be injured by a customs system favouring the entire national production. Yet if by means of such a system the aggregate sum of the values produced in the country increase, and thus the national wealth be on the whole enhanced, the non-producing parts of the population...will eventually be benefited.”

“[The great questions of the day] are not decided by speeches and majority votes, but by blood and iron.”

“The Prussian Sovereigns are in possession of a crown not by the grace of the people, but by God's grace.”

“It is not by speeches and majority resolutions that the great questions of the time are decided – that was the big mistake of 1848 and 1849 – but by iron and blood.”

“I never doubted that the victory over France must precede the restoration of the German kingdom, and if we did not succeed in bringing it this time to a perfect conclusion, further wars without the preliminary security of our perfect unification were full in view.”

“I never doubted that the victory over France must precede the restoration of the German kingdom, and if we did not succeed in bringing it this time to a perfect conclusion, further wars without the preliminary security of our perfect unification were full in view.”

“I never doubted that the victory over France must precede the restoration of the German kingdom, and if we did not succeed in bringing it this time to a perfect conclusion, further wars without the preliminary security of our perfect unification were full in view.”

“Hail mighty Bismarck, first chancellor of Germany and her empire! Germany is an upstart nation, fashioned from the ruins of the Holy Roman Empire and finally unified in 1871, a little more than a century ago. The German people have proven themselves to be creative, industrious and ferocious warriors. Despite enduring great catastrophe in the first half of the 20th century, Germany remains a worldwide economic, artistic and technological leader. Great Prince Bismarck, the German people look to you to lead them to greater days of glory. Their determination is strong and they turn to you, their beloved iron chancellor, to guide them once more. Will you rule and conquer through blood and iron, or foster the Germanic arts and industry? Can you build a civilization that will stand the test of time?”

“Waldersee was a muddle-headed politician on whom no reliance was to be placed. He wanted war because he felt that he would be too old if peace lasted longer. His remark was of no importance. It was particularly stupid to believe that Waldersee could become Imperial Chancellor. Even as Chief of Staff he was unsatisfactory and Moltke had only preferred him to Caprivi and Häseler because he could do what he wanted with him. That was a bad turn which old Moltke had done the Army.”

“As you introduced Schiller to your countrymen, so you have placed before the Germans our great Prussian King in his full figure; like a living statue. What you said long years ago of the "Hero as Man of Letters"—that he is under the noble obligation to be true,—has been fulfilled in yourself; but, more fortunate than those of whom you then spoke, you may rejoice in what you have accomplished, and continue your work in full vigour, which may God long preserve to you. Accept with my cordial congratulations the assurance of my sincere respect.”

“I recognize the principle of the fight against the revolution as my own, but I do not believe it right to depict Louis Napoleon as the sole or just κατ’ ἐξοχήν representative of the revolution ... how many existences are there in the current political world that are not rooted in revolutionary soil? Take Spain, Portugal, Brazil, all American republics, Belgium, Holland, Switzerland, Greece, Sweden, the England that is still footed in the consciousness of the 'glorious revolution' of 1866 ... Bonapartism is not the father of the revolution.”

“Mr Balfour was very interesting on what he considers the great gulf between Bismarck and the present rulers of Germany, not only in strategy but ambition. Bismarck, he is certain, would never have staked his country on the chances of this war—even though they may have been five to four at the outset—and in his opinion Bismarck would never have hankered after "world empire". All he wanted was the unity of the German Empire and commercial prosperity which they were peacefully enjoying before this desperate sort of "double or quits" gamble.”

“When asked what was the greatest political fact of modern times, Bismarck is reported to have responded, that it was "the inherited and permanent fact that North America speaks English." Whether the saying be authentic or not, the remark is certainly worthy of its reputed author's keen insight into political fundamentals.”

“The great European figures of the later nineteenth century were Disraeli and Bismarck, who strove to weld together the "two nations" into one through the agencies of the social service state, popular education and imperialism, refuted the taunt that "the worker has no country", and paved the way for "national labour", "national socialism" and even "national communism".”

“Bismarck soars above all: he is six foot four I shd. think, proportionately stout; with a sweet and gentle voice, and with a peculiarly refined enunciation, wh. singularly and strangely contrasts with the awful things he says: appalling from their frankness and their audacity. He is a complete despot here, and from the highest to the lowest of the Prussians, and all the permanent foreign diplomacy, tremble at his frown and court most sedulously his smile. He loads me with kindnesses, and, tho' often preoccupied, with an immediate dissolution of Parliament on his hands, an internecine war with the Socialists, 100's of whom he puts daily into prison in defiance of all law, he yesterday exacted from me a promise that, before I depart, I will once more dine with him quite alone. His palace has large and beautiful gardens. He has never been out since I came here, except the memorable day when he called on me to ascertain whe[the]r my policy was an ultimatum. I convinced him it was, and the Russians surrendered a few hours afterwards.”

“Is it wrong to begin with Bismarck? On several levels, he was a key figure in the coming of the Third Reich. For one thing, the cult of his memory in the years after his death encouraged many Germans to long for the return of the strong leadership his name represented. For another, his actions and policies in the mid-to-late nineteenth century helped create an ominous legacy for the German future. Yet in many ways he was a complex and contradictory figure, as much European as German, as much modern as traditional. Here, too, his example pointed forwards to the tangled mixture of the new and the old that was so characteristic of the Third Reich. It is worth calling to mind that a mere fifty years separated Bismarck's foundation of the German Empire in 1871 from the electoral triumphs of the Nazis in 1930-32. That there was a connection between the two seems impossible to deny. It was here, rather than in the remote religious cultures and hierarchical polities of the Reformation or the 'Enlightened Absolutism' of the eighteenth century, that we find the first real moment in German history which it is possible to relate directly to the coming of the Third Reich in 1933.”

“The great statesman has always used tariffs deliberately. It is only when political energy is dead that people refer to them as expedients. Bismarck understood the subject at a time when the mind of the Englishman was becoming confused. Like all statesmen he asked himself first where he was going, and secondly what was his object in arriving. He knew that trade could be raised to any state of artificiality if it could be controlled within a self-sufficient unit. Although he did not possess such a unit he was not frustrated, and counted on an armed conquest at some future date... In 1834 he used Free Trade to unify Germany by the Zollverein. The same policy used Protection to encourage intensively the larger unit of the Nation. Here was an example of the use of each system according to the end in view and proof of the subservience of economics to the politic will.”

“Otto von Bismarck was no social reformer in the Frances Perkins mold. His motives were defensive. He feared that the public would turn to the revolutionary ideas of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels unless the German government intervened. Bismarck hoped his welfare provisions would be just generous enough to keep the public quiescent. That is a time-honored political tactic: when the Roman emperor Trajan distributed free grain, the poet Juvenal famously grumbled that citizens could be bought off by “bread and circuses.” You could tell much the same story about Italy’s welfare state, which took shape in the 1930s as the fascist Mussolini tried to undercut the popular appeal of his socialist opponents.”

“He trusted to the levelling effect of time and to the pressure exercised by the process of evolution, the steady action of which appeared more effective than an attempt to break the resistance which the individual states offered at the moment. By this policy he showed his great ability in the art of statesmanship. And, as a matter of fact, the sovereignty of the Reich has continually increased at the cost of the sovereignty of the individual states.”