Control of minorities

Question 1

What policy did Bismarck have towards to minorities?

Answer 1

Mixed policy

Question 2

What did Bismarck favour in the East and what did this look like?

Answer 2

Bismarck favoured Germanisation and the only language for education, commerce and law-courts was German.

Question 3

What happened to a Polish Catholic Cardinal during the Kulturkampf and what affect did this have on the Poles?

Answer 3

During the Kulturkampf, Polish Catholic Cardinal Ledoshowski was imprisoned in February 1874, leaving the Poles without a religious leader for 12 years.

Question 4

What did the state encourage Germans to do?

Answer 4

Germans were encouraged to buy Polish farms in East Prussia, with the help of state loans, in order to extend state control.

Question 5

What did Bismarck expel? How did the Reichstag react?

Answer 5

Bismarck expelled 34,000 Poles and Jews whom he claimed had crossed into Germany from Russia and Austria in 1885-86, despite protestations from the Reichstag.

Question 6

What was the only permitted language in schools of North Schleswig and what was and happened to the plebiscite?

Answer 6

German was also the only permitted language in schools of North Schleswig, in earlier promise to hold a plebiscite to decide whether this area should remain in the German Empire or be given to Denmark was abandoned in 1879.

Question 7

What did Bismarck do with Alsace-Lorraine?
What did he allot?
However?

Answer 7

Bismarck was reasonably conciliatory to towards the French in Alsace-Lorraine, although the Catholic Church was persecuted there. He allotted 15 Reichstag deputies to represent the area in 1874, appointed humane and conscientious governors, and promoted the revival of Strasbourg University. However, German was the language of education and administration and any strongly pro-French citizens were encouraged to leave the area, with the result that 400,000 people did so between 1870 and 1914.

Question 8

Bismarck and anti-Semitism:

• What was Bismarck’s attitudes towards the Jews?
• What political parties was anti-Semitism popular in?
• What anti-Semitic party did Adolf Stoecker form in 1878? Where did it win support from?
• What was Bismarck’s attitude towards this party?
• What did Stoeccker do after Bismarck’s resignation in 18th March 1890?

Answer 8

• He wasn’t anti-Semitic and appreciated the contribution of Jewish financiers and businessmen to German industrial development
• Antisemitism was quite popular with the conservatives and members of the Zentrum, and when it suited him, Bismarck made use of the sentiment.
• In 1878, Adolf Stoecker founded the Christian Socialist Workers’ Party as an anti-Semitic party. Supported by lower classes
• He briefly courted the party but lost his patience with Stoecker and forced him to withdraw in 1889.
• Returned