Bismarck up until 1861.
Otto von Bismarck remains one of the most significant political figures of modern Germany. He was born on April 1, 1815 at Schönhausen, is considered the founder of the German Empire. For nearly three decades he shaped the fortunes of Germany, from 1862 to 1873 as prime minister of Prussia and from 1871 to 1890 as Germany's first Chancellor. After reading law at the Universities of Göttingen and Berlin, Otto von Bismarck entered Prussian service and became a judicial administrator at Aachen. Bismarck gained prominence in 1851 when he was chosen to represent Prussia in the Federal diet. In 1859 he was sent as ambassador to Russia, from where he was recalled in March 1862 to become ambassador to France. However, already after 6 months in September 1862, Bismarck returned to Berlin as prime minister of Prussia when he devoted himself to the task of uniting Germany. In the war of 1866 he succeeded in defeating Austria and excluding it altogether from Germany. His historical stature derives from his contribution to the creation and shaping of the modern German state as Prussian minister president and imperial chancellor from 1862 to 1890. His activities and attitudes as parliamentary deputy during the revolution of 1848 generally are viewed as mere preludes to an eminent career.
Bismarck was born to a Junker class family in 1815, just weeks after the defeat of Napoleon. He lived in the north of Germany, to the in the western areas of Prussia. Here the French revolutionary ideas were still a threat hanging over his lands. His estate was not all that rich, his family worked on their lands for their livings; they did not have power in government. Their culture was not cosmopolitan, rather antiquated. But after the French occupation of the area the winds of the modern world blew around. Although a Junker he was one of the few who often looked to the west, across the Elbe to the more liberal less conservative west.
His parentage was a contradiction in its self. His father was a traditional Junker, serving in the Prussian army but leaving at 23. He ran his estate poorly and ran into difficulties. He had not influence in the Prussian state to speak of. He is described as an easy going, slow witted man with an enormous frame. His mother, Wilhelmine Menken came from a family of bureaucrats without title or lands. Some had been university professors. Her father had strong political influence, and at one point had virtually total control over home affairs. Wilhelmine was an intellectual girl, a town child who was far more at home in the rooms of Berlin than in the fields of her husbands county estates. She was never interested in her husband whom she married at sixteen or his lands. She had been denied an intellectual life and her hopes centred upon her children. She wanted her son to 'penetrate far farther into the world of ideas than I could have done'. Otto Von Bismarck inherited his mothers brains but because of the lack of love he received form her masqueraded his life in his fathers image, a man who he had much, undeserved admiration for.
Otto von Bismarck remains one of the most significant political figures of modern Germany. He was born on April 1, 1815 at Schönhausen, is considered the founder of the German Empire. For nearly three decades he shaped the fortunes of Germany, from 1862 to 1873 as prime minister of Prussia and from 1871 to 1890 as Germany's first Chancellor. After reading law at the Universities of Göttingen and Berlin, Otto von Bismarck entered Prussian service and became a judicial administrator at Aachen. Bismarck gained prominence in 1851 when he was chosen to represent Prussia in the Federal diet. In 1859 he was sent as ambassador to Russia, from where he was recalled in March 1862 to become ambassador to France. However, already after 6 months in September 1862, Bismarck returned to Berlin as prime minister of Prussia when he devoted himself to the task of uniting Germany. In the war of 1866 he succeeded in defeating Austria and excluding it altogether from Germany. His historical stature derives from his contribution to the creation and shaping of the modern German state as Prussian minister president and imperial chancellor from 1862 to 1890. His activities and attitudes as parliamentary deputy during the revolution of 1848 generally are viewed as mere preludes to an eminent career.
Bismarck was born to a Junker class family in 1815, just weeks after the defeat of Napoleon. He lived in the north of Germany, to the in the western areas of Prussia. Here the French revolutionary ideas were still a threat hanging over his lands. His estate was not all that rich, his family worked on their lands for their livings; they did not have power in government. Their culture was not cosmopolitan, rather antiquated. But after the French occupation of the area the winds of the modern world blew around. Although a Junker he was one of the few who often looked to the west, across the Elbe to the more liberal less conservative west.
His parentage was a contradiction in its self. His father was a traditional Junker, serving in the Prussian army but leaving at 23. He ran his estate poorly and ran into difficulties. He had not influence in the Prussian state to speak of. He is described as an easy going, slow witted man with an enormous frame. His mother, Wilhelmine Menken came from a family of bureaucrats without title or lands. Some had been university professors. Her father had strong political influence, and at one point had virtually total control over home affairs. Wilhelmine was an intellectual girl, a town child who was far more at home in the rooms of Berlin than in the fields of her husbands county estates. She was never interested in her husband whom she married at sixteen or his lands. She had been denied an intellectual life and her hopes centred upon her children. She wanted her son to 'penetrate far farther into the world of ideas than I could have done'. Otto Von Bismarck inherited his mothers brains but because of the lack of love he received form her masqueraded his life in his fathers image, a man who he had much, undeserved admiration for.
