Kulturkampf
Encyclopedia
The German
term (literally, "culture struggle") refers to German policies in relation to secularity
and the influence of the Roman Catholic Church
, enacted from 1871 to 1878 by the Prime Minister of Prussia
, Otto von Bismarck
. The Kulturkampf did not extend to the other German states such as Bavaria
. As one scholar put it, "the attack on the church included a series of Prussian, discriminatory laws that made Catholics feel understandably persecuted within a predominantly Protestant nation." Jesuits, Franciscans, Dominicans and other orders were expelled in the culmination of twenty years of anti-Jesuit and antimonastic hysteria.
The Catholic Church comprised one third of the population of Prussia. In the newly founded German Empire, Bismarck sought to appeal to liberals and Protestants by reducing the political and social influence of the Catholic Church.
Priests and bishops who resisted the Kulturkampf were arrested or removed from their positions. By the height of anti-Catholic legislation, half of the Prussian bishops were in prison or in exile, a quarter of the parishes had no priest, half the monks and nuns had left Prussia, a third of the monasteries and convents were closed, 1800 parish priests were imprisoned or exiled, and thousands of laypeople were imprisoned for helping the priests.
Bismark's program backfired, as it energized the Catholics to become a political force in the Centre party. The Kulturkampf ended about 1880 with a new pope willing to negotiate with Bismark, and with the departure of the anti-Catholic Liberals from his coalition. By retreating, Bismarck won over the Centre party support on most of his conservative policy positions, especially his attacks against Socialism.
, which generally supported unification and most of Bismarck's policies. However, Bismarck, a devout pietistic Protestant, distrusted parliamentary democracy in general and opposition parties in particular, especially when the Centre Party showed signs of gaining support among dissident elements such as the Polish Catholics in Silesia.
A powerful intellectual force of the time was anti-Catholicism, led by the liberal intellectuals who formed a vital part of Bismarck's coalition. They saw the Catholic Church as a powerful force of reaction and anti-modernity, especially after the proclamation of papal infallibility in 1870, and the tightening control of the Vatican over the local bishops. Jesuit and other Catholic missionaries had restored the vitality of Catholicism in Germany, and, although they were not intended to convert non-Catholics, the missions attracted Protestants in large numbers--even the heir to the Prussian throne, who attended sessions with the king's approval. Response to the Catholic revival, and, importantly, the draw on Protestant congregants was a wave of anti-Catholic, anticlerical and antimonastic pamphleteering and preaching.
The Kulturkampf launched by Bismarck in 1872 affected Prussia; although there were similar movements in Baden and Hesse the rest of Germany was not affected. According to the new imperial constitution, the states were in charge of religious and educational affairs; they funded the Protestant and Catholic schools. In July 1871 Bismarck abolished the Catholic section of the Prussian Ministry of ecclesiastical and educational affairs, depriving Catholics of their voice at the highest level. The system of strict government supervision of schools was applied only in Catholic areas; the Protestant schools were left alone.
The Kulturkampf measures also targeted the Catholic Poles in Silesia, a part of Prussia.
The Kulturkampf failed because the Catholics were unanimous in their resistance and organized themselves to fight back politically, using their strength in other states besides Prussia. The Prussian state officials imprisoned most of the bishops and thousands of Catholic clergy and laymen. The Catholics responded not with violence but with votes, as the newly formed Catholic Center Party
became a major force in the Imperial Parliament. The culture war gave secularists and socialists an opportunity to attack all religions, an outcome that distressed the Protestant leaders and especially Bismarck himself, who was a devout pietistic Protestant.
(Progressive Liberals) Rudolf Virchow
used the term Kulturkampf the first time on January 17, 1873 in the Prussian house of representatives. Since this conflict
brought him an ever growing political defeat, he moderated his struggle with the Catholic Church and in the wake of Pius IX's death on February 7, 1878, reconciled with the new Pope, Leo XIII, lifting some sanctions. The Kanzelparagraph remained in force until 1953, several religious orders like the Jesuits remained banned from the German Empire, confiscated properties were not returned, a de facto discrimination against the Catholic minority continued in Civil Service positions and civil marriage
remained mandatory.
Tensions were increased by the 1870 Vatican Council
proclamation on papal infallibility
. There were also significant Catholic populations in Prussia (mainly Poles
), in the Rhineland
and in Alsace-Lorraine
.
Among the measures aimed at the Catholic Church was the addition in 1871 of § 130a to the German Criminal Code (Strafgesetzbuch), infringed on clerical freedom of speech
, threatening clergy
who discussed politics
from the pulpit
with two years of prison
; this article was dubbed the Kanzelparagraph (from the German Kanzel — "pulpit
").
In March 1872 religious schools were forced to undergo official government inspection and in June religious teacher
s were banned from government schools. In 1872, the Jesuits were banned (and remained banned in Germany until 1917) and in December the German government broke off diplomatic relations with the Vatican
. In addition, under the May Laws of 1873 administered by Adalbert Falk, the state began to supervise the education
of clergy closely, created a secular court
for cases involving the clergy, and required notification of all clergy employment
.
The Papal encyclical Etsi multa
of Pope Pius IX
in 1873 claimed that Freemasonry
was the motivating force behind the Kulturkampf. The Catholic Encyclopedia
also claims that the Kulturkampf was instigated by Masonic lodges.
On July 13, 1874 in the town
of Bad Kissingen
Eduard Kullmann attempted to assassinate Bismarck with a pistol
, but only hit his hand. Kullmann cited church laws as the reason why he had to shoot Bismarck.
of 1873 gave responsibility for the training and appointment of clergy to the state, which resulted in the closing of nearly half of the seminaries in Prussia by 1878. During the discussion of these laws, Rudolf Virchow
first used the word "Kulturkampf."
of 1875 abolished religious orders, stopped state subsidies to the Catholic Church, and removed religious protections from the Prussian constitution.
In 1875, marriage
became a mandatory civil
ceremony
, removed from the control of the Church.
Many clerics resisted the laws and were imprisoned or removed from their positions by the state.
Bismarck's attempts to restrict the power of the Catholic Church, represented in politics by the Catholic Centre Party, were not entirely successful. In the 1874 elections, these forces doubled their representation
in the parliament. Needing to counter the Social Democratic Party
, Bismarck softened his stance, especially with the election
of the new Pope Leo XIII
in 1878, and tried to justify his actions to the now numerous Catholic representatives by stating that the presence of Poles
(who are predominantly Catholic) within German borders required that such measures be taken.
The general ideological enthusiasm among the liberals for the Kulturkampf was in contrast to Bismarck's pragmatic attitude towards the measures and growing disquiet from the Conservatives.
Kulturkampf was hardly a success of Bismarck's government, despite temporary gains within the government itself.
with a Polish population by instituting a policy of Germanisation of Poznan.
, anti-monasticism and anti-clericalism
. Since 1848, the German states saw a resurgence of Catholic monastic life and a growth in the number of monasteries and convents. German liberals monitored and tabulated a dramatic rise in the numbers and types of monasteries, convents and clerical religious, a fact which made for convenient propaganda, the monastic life being cast as the epitome of a backward Catholic medievalism. Prussian authorities were particularly suspect of the spread of monastic life east and west into the Polish and French ethnic areas. The Diocese of Cologne, for example, saw a tenfold increase of monks and nuns between 1850 and 1872, and other areas saw similar increases.
A wave of anti-Catholicism and anti-Catholic propaganda accompanied the Kulturkampf, accompanied by “outright hatred” by the liberals who considered Catholics the enemy of the modern German nation. The Kulturkampf was not, however, a spontaneous popular occurrence, but “a campaign against the Catholic Church conducted through the law, with the police and bureaucracy as its principal agents”, the legality of which gave it its “sinister character”:
No one however was killed and few were injured, as Bismarck did not seek to extinguish Catholicism in his land, but rather sought to assimilate the Polish peasants and saw international Catholicism as an enemy of the "still fragile German Reich".
, the term culture war
has been used by Patrick Buchanan, among others, to describe an analogous conflict starting in the 1960s and continuing to the present between religious social conservatives and secular social liberal
s (Buchanan used the English "culture war," though in the context Buchanan used it, as a war between traditional morality and avant-garde liberalism, it clearly evoked memories of the earlier German experience). Coincidentally, Buchanan himself is descended from German Catholics on his mother's side. This theme of "culture war" was the basis of Buchanan's keynote speech at the 1992 Republican National Convention. The term culture war had by 2004 become commonly used in the United States by both liberals and conservatives. However, Buchanan's opinions have no relevance to the actual Kulturkampf as it was conducted in Germany in the 1800s.
Justice Antonin Scalia
referenced the term in the Supreme Court case Romer v. Evans
, 517 U.S. 620 (1996), saying "The Court has mistaken a Kulturkampf for a fit of spite." The case concerned an amendment to the Colorado
state constitution that prohibited any subdepartment from acting to protect individuals on the basis of sexual orientation. Scalia believed that the amendment was a valid move on the part of citizens who sought "recourse to a more general and hence more difficult level of political decision making than others." The majority disagreed, holding that the amendment violated the Equal Protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment
.
German language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
term (literally, "culture struggle") refers to German policies in relation to secularity
Secularity
Secularity is the state of being separate from religion.For instance, eating and bathing may be regarded as examples of secular activities, because there may not be anything inherently religious about them...
and the influence of the Roman Catholic Church
Roman Catholic Church
The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the world's largest Christian church, with over a billion members. Led by the Pope, it defines its mission as spreading the gospel of Jesus Christ, administering the sacraments and exercising charity...
, enacted from 1871 to 1878 by the Prime Minister of Prussia
Prussia
Prussia was a German kingdom and historic state originating out of the Duchy of Prussia and the Margraviate of Brandenburg. For centuries, the House of Hohenzollern ruled Prussia, successfully expanding its size by way of an unusually well-organized and effective army. Prussia shaped the history...
, Otto von Bismarck
Otto von Bismarck
Otto Eduard Leopold, Prince of Bismarck, Duke of Lauenburg , simply known as Otto von Bismarck, was a Prussian-German statesman whose actions unified Germany, made it a major player in world affairs, and created a balance of power that kept Europe at peace after 1871.As Minister President of...
. The Kulturkampf did not extend to the other German states such as Bavaria
Bavaria
Bavaria, formally the Free State of Bavaria is a state of Germany, located in the southeast of Germany. With an area of , it is the largest state by area, forming almost 20% of the total land area of Germany...
. As one scholar put it, "the attack on the church included a series of Prussian, discriminatory laws that made Catholics feel understandably persecuted within a predominantly Protestant nation." Jesuits, Franciscans, Dominicans and other orders were expelled in the culmination of twenty years of anti-Jesuit and antimonastic hysteria.
The Catholic Church comprised one third of the population of Prussia. In the newly founded German Empire, Bismarck sought to appeal to liberals and Protestants by reducing the political and social influence of the Catholic Church.
Priests and bishops who resisted the Kulturkampf were arrested or removed from their positions. By the height of anti-Catholic legislation, half of the Prussian bishops were in prison or in exile, a quarter of the parishes had no priest, half the monks and nuns had left Prussia, a third of the monasteries and convents were closed, 1800 parish priests were imprisoned or exiled, and thousands of laypeople were imprisoned for helping the priests.
Bismark's program backfired, as it energized the Catholics to become a political force in the Centre party. The Kulturkampf ended about 1880 with a new pope willing to negotiate with Bismark, and with the departure of the anti-Catholic Liberals from his coalition. By retreating, Bismarck won over the Centre party support on most of his conservative policy positions, especially his attacks against Socialism.
Background
Prussia had greatly expanded and by 1871 included 16,000,000 Protestants, both Reformed and Lutheran, and 8,000,000 Catholics. They were generally segregated into their own worlds, living in rural districts or city neighborhoods that were overwhelmingly of the same religion, and sending their children to separate public schools where their religion was taught. There was little interaction or intermarriage. On the whole, the Protestants had a higher social status, and the Catholics were more likely to be peasant farmers or unskilled or semiskilled industrial workers. In 1870, the Catholics formed their own political party, the Centre PartyCentre Party (Germany)
The German Centre Party was a Catholic political party in Germany during the Kaiserreich and the Weimar Republic. Formed in 1870, it battled the Kulturkampf which the Prussian government launched to reduce the power of the Catholic Church...
, which generally supported unification and most of Bismarck's policies. However, Bismarck, a devout pietistic Protestant, distrusted parliamentary democracy in general and opposition parties in particular, especially when the Centre Party showed signs of gaining support among dissident elements such as the Polish Catholics in Silesia.
A powerful intellectual force of the time was anti-Catholicism, led by the liberal intellectuals who formed a vital part of Bismarck's coalition. They saw the Catholic Church as a powerful force of reaction and anti-modernity, especially after the proclamation of papal infallibility in 1870, and the tightening control of the Vatican over the local bishops. Jesuit and other Catholic missionaries had restored the vitality of Catholicism in Germany, and, although they were not intended to convert non-Catholics, the missions attracted Protestants in large numbers--even the heir to the Prussian throne, who attended sessions with the king's approval. Response to the Catholic revival, and, importantly, the draw on Protestant congregants was a wave of anti-Catholic, anticlerical and antimonastic pamphleteering and preaching.
The Kulturkampf launched by Bismarck in 1872 affected Prussia; although there were similar movements in Baden and Hesse the rest of Germany was not affected. According to the new imperial constitution, the states were in charge of religious and educational affairs; they funded the Protestant and Catholic schools. In July 1871 Bismarck abolished the Catholic section of the Prussian Ministry of ecclesiastical and educational affairs, depriving Catholics of their voice at the highest level. The system of strict government supervision of schools was applied only in Catholic areas; the Protestant schools were left alone.
The Kulturkampf measures also targeted the Catholic Poles in Silesia, a part of Prussia.
The Kulturkampf failed because the Catholics were unanimous in their resistance and organized themselves to fight back politically, using their strength in other states besides Prussia. The Prussian state officials imprisoned most of the bishops and thousands of Catholic clergy and laymen. The Catholics responded not with violence but with votes, as the newly formed Catholic Center Party
Centre Party (Germany)
The German Centre Party was a Catholic political party in Germany during the Kaiserreich and the Weimar Republic. Formed in 1870, it battled the Kulturkampf which the Prussian government launched to reduce the power of the Catholic Church...
became a major force in the Imperial Parliament. The culture war gave secularists and socialists an opportunity to attack all religions, an outcome that distressed the Protestant leaders and especially Bismarck himself, who was a devout pietistic Protestant.
Restrictions on Catholics
From 1871 to 1875 Kanzelparagraph introduced a series of sanctions against Catholicism in Prussia. To characterize Bismarck's politics toward the Catholic Church, the pathologist and member of the parliament of the Deutsche FortschrittsparteiGerman Progress Party
The German Progress Party was the first modern political party with a program in Germany, founded by the liberal members of the Prussian Lower House in 6 June, 1861....
(Progressive Liberals) Rudolf Virchow
Rudolf Virchow
Rudolph Carl Virchow was a German doctor, anthropologist, pathologist, prehistorian, biologist and politician, known for his advancement of public health...
used the term Kulturkampf the first time on January 17, 1873 in the Prussian house of representatives. Since this conflict
Group conflict
Group conflict, or hostilities between different groups, is a pervasive feature common to all levels of social organization .. Although group conflict is one of the most complex phenomena studied by social scientists, the history of the human race evidences a series of group-level conflicts that...
brought him an ever growing political defeat, he moderated his struggle with the Catholic Church and in the wake of Pius IX's death on February 7, 1878, reconciled with the new Pope, Leo XIII, lifting some sanctions. The Kanzelparagraph remained in force until 1953, several religious orders like the Jesuits remained banned from the German Empire, confiscated properties were not returned, a de facto discrimination against the Catholic minority continued in Civil Service positions and civil marriage
Civil marriage
Civil marriage is marriage performed by a government official and not a religious organization.-History:Every country maintaining a population registry of its residents keeps track of marital status, and most countries believe that it is their responsibility to register married couples. Most...
remained mandatory.
Tensions were increased by the 1870 Vatican Council
First Vatican Council
The First Vatican Council was convoked by Pope Pius IX on 29 June 1868, after a period of planning and preparation that began on 6 December 1864. This twentieth ecumenical council of the Roman Catholic Church, held three centuries after the Council of Trent, opened on 8 December 1869 and adjourned...
proclamation on papal infallibility
Papal infallibility
Papal infallibility is a dogma of the Catholic Church which states that, by action of the Holy Spirit, the Pope is preserved from even the possibility of error when in his official capacity he solemnly declares or promulgates to the universal Church a dogmatic teaching on faith or morals...
. There were also significant Catholic populations in Prussia (mainly Poles
Poles
thumb|right|180px|The state flag of [[Poland]] as used by Polish government and diplomatic authoritiesThe Polish people, or Poles , are a nation indigenous to Poland. They are united by the Polish language, which belongs to the historical Lechitic subgroup of West Slavic languages of Central Europe...
), in the Rhineland
Rhineland
Historically, the Rhinelands refers to a loosely-defined region embracing the land on either bank of the River Rhine in central Europe....
and in Alsace-Lorraine
Alsace-Lorraine
The Imperial Territory of Alsace-Lorraine was a territory created by the German Empire in 1871 after it annexed most of Alsace and the Moselle region of Lorraine following its victory in the Franco-Prussian War. The Alsatian part lay in the Rhine Valley on the west bank of the Rhine River and east...
.
Among the measures aimed at the Catholic Church was the addition in 1871 of § 130a to the German Criminal Code (Strafgesetzbuch), infringed on clerical freedom of speech
Freedom of speech
Freedom of speech is the freedom to speak freely without censorship. The term freedom of expression is sometimes used synonymously, but includes any act of seeking, receiving and imparting information or ideas, regardless of the medium used...
, threatening clergy
Clergy
Clergy is the generic term used to describe the formal religious leadership within a given religion. A clergyman, churchman or cleric is a member of the clergy, especially one who is a priest, preacher, pastor, or other religious professional....
who discussed politics
Politics
Politics is a process by which groups of people make collective decisions. The term is generally applied to the art or science of running governmental or state affairs, including behavior within civil governments, but also applies to institutions, fields, and special interest groups such as the...
from the pulpit
Pulpit
Pulpit is a speakers' stand in a church. In many Christian churches, there are two speakers' stands at the front of the church. Typically, the one on the left is called the pulpit...
with two years of prison
Prison
A prison is a place in which people are physically confined and, usually, deprived of a range of personal freedoms. Imprisonment or incarceration is a legal penalty that may be imposed by the state for the commission of a crime...
; this article was dubbed the Kanzelparagraph (from the German Kanzel — "pulpit
Pulpit
Pulpit is a speakers' stand in a church. In many Christian churches, there are two speakers' stands at the front of the church. Typically, the one on the left is called the pulpit...
").
In March 1872 religious schools were forced to undergo official government inspection and in June religious teacher
Teacher
A teacher or schoolteacher is a person who provides education for pupils and students . The role of teacher is often formal and ongoing, carried out at a school or other place of formal education. In many countries, a person who wishes to become a teacher must first obtain specified professional...
s were banned from government schools. In 1872, the Jesuits were banned (and remained banned in Germany until 1917) and in December the German government broke off diplomatic relations with the Vatican
Holy See
The Holy See is the episcopal jurisdiction of the Catholic Church in Rome, in which its Bishop is commonly known as the Pope. It is the preeminent episcopal see of the Catholic Church, forming the central government of the Church. As such, diplomatically, and in other spheres the Holy See acts and...
. In addition, under the May Laws of 1873 administered by Adalbert Falk, the state began to supervise the education
Education
Education in its broadest, general sense is the means through which the aims and habits of a group of people lives on from one generation to the next. Generally, it occurs through any experience that has a formative effect on the way one thinks, feels, or acts...
of clergy closely, created a secular court
Court
A court is a form of tribunal, often a governmental institution, with the authority to adjudicate legal disputes between parties and carry out the administration of justice in civil, criminal, and administrative matters in accordance with the rule of law...
for cases involving the clergy, and required notification of all clergy employment
Employment
Employment is a contract between two parties, one being the employer and the other being the employee. An employee may be defined as:- Employee :...
.
The Papal encyclical Etsi multa
Etsi multa
Etsi multa - On The Church In Italy, Germany, And Switzerland is a papal encyclical that was published by Pope Pius IX on November 21, 1873.The encyclical claimed that there were three campaigns being waged against the Church at the time:...
of Pope Pius IX
Pope Pius IX
Blessed Pope Pius IX , born Giovanni Maria Mastai-Ferretti, was the longest-reigning elected Pope in the history of the Catholic Church, serving from 16 June 1846 until his death, a period of nearly 32 years. During his pontificate, he convened the First Vatican Council in 1869, which decreed papal...
in 1873 claimed that Freemasonry
Anticlericalism and Freemasonry
The question of whether Freemasonry is Anticlerical is the subject of debate. The Catholic Church has long been an outspoken critic of Freemasonry, and Catholic scholars have often accused the fraternity of anticlericalism. The Catholic Church forbids its members to join any masonic society under...
was the motivating force behind the Kulturkampf. The Catholic Encyclopedia
Catholic Encyclopedia
The Catholic Encyclopedia, also referred to as the Old Catholic Encyclopedia and the Original Catholic Encyclopedia, is an English-language encyclopedia published in the United States. The first volume appeared in March 1907 and the last three volumes appeared in 1912, followed by a master index...
also claims that the Kulturkampf was instigated by Masonic lodges.
On July 13, 1874 in the town
Town
A town is a human settlement larger than a village but smaller than a city. The size a settlement must be in order to be called a "town" varies considerably in different parts of the world, so that, for example, many American "small towns" seem to British people to be no more than villages, while...
of Bad Kissingen
Bad Kissingen
Bad Kissingen is a spa town in the Bavarian region of Lower Franconia and is the seat of the district Bad Kissingen. Situated to the south of the Rhön Mountains on the Franconian Saale river, it is a world-famous health resort.- Town structure :...
Eduard Kullmann attempted to assassinate Bismarck with a pistol
Pistol
When distinguished as a subset of handguns, a pistol is a handgun with a chamber that is integral with the barrel, as opposed to a revolver, wherein the chamber is separate from the barrel as a revolving cylinder. Typically, pistols have an effective range of about 100 feet.-History:The pistol...
, but only hit his hand. Kullmann cited church laws as the reason why he had to shoot Bismarck.
May Laws
The “May Laws”, Maigesetze, or Falk LawsFalk Laws
The May Laws of 1873 were legislative bills enacted during the Kulturkampf that gave responsibility for the training and appointment of clergy to the state, which resulted in the closing of nearly half of the seminaries in Prussia by 1878...
of 1873 gave responsibility for the training and appointment of clergy to the state, which resulted in the closing of nearly half of the seminaries in Prussia by 1878. During the discussion of these laws, Rudolf Virchow
Rudolf Virchow
Rudolph Carl Virchow was a German doctor, anthropologist, pathologist, prehistorian, biologist and politician, known for his advancement of public health...
first used the word "Kulturkampf."
Congregations Law 1875
The Congregations LawCongregations Law
The Congregations Law of 1875 is a legislative bill of the Kulturkampf period that abolished religious orders, stopped state subsidies to the Catholic Church, and removed religious protections from the Prussian constitution...
of 1875 abolished religious orders, stopped state subsidies to the Catholic Church, and removed religious protections from the Prussian constitution.
In 1875, marriage
Marriage
Marriage is a social union or legal contract between people that creates kinship. It is an institution in which interpersonal relationships, usually intimate and sexual, are acknowledged in a variety of ways, depending on the culture or subculture in which it is found...
became a mandatory civil
Civil marriage
Civil marriage is marriage performed by a government official and not a religious organization.-History:Every country maintaining a population registry of its residents keeps track of marital status, and most countries believe that it is their responsibility to register married couples. Most...
ceremony
Ceremony
A ceremony is an event of ritual significance, performed on a special occasion. The word may be of Etruscan origin.-Ceremonial occasions:A ceremony may mark a rite of passage in a human life, marking the significance of, for example:* birth...
, removed from the control of the Church.
Many clerics resisted the laws and were imprisoned or removed from their positions by the state.
Bismarck's attempts to restrict the power of the Catholic Church, represented in politics by the Catholic Centre Party, were not entirely successful. In the 1874 elections, these forces doubled their representation
Representation (politics)
In politics, representation describes how some individuals stand in for others or a group of others, for a certain time period. Representation usually refers to representative democracies, where elected officials nominally speak for their constituents in the legislature...
in the parliament. Needing to counter the Social Democratic Party
Social Democratic Party of Germany
The Social Democratic Party of Germany is a social-democratic political party in Germany...
, Bismarck softened his stance, especially with the election
Election
An election is a formal decision-making process by which a population chooses an individual to hold public office. Elections have been the usual mechanism by which modern representative democracy operates since the 17th century. Elections may fill offices in the legislature, sometimes in the...
of the new Pope Leo XIII
Pope Leo XIII
Pope Leo XIII , born Vincenzo Gioacchino Raffaele Luigi Pecci to an Italian comital family, was the 256th Pope of the Roman Catholic Church, reigning from 1878 to 1903...
in 1878, and tried to justify his actions to the now numerous Catholic representatives by stating that the presence of Poles
Poles
thumb|right|180px|The state flag of [[Poland]] as used by Polish government and diplomatic authoritiesThe Polish people, or Poles , are a nation indigenous to Poland. They are united by the Polish language, which belongs to the historical Lechitic subgroup of West Slavic languages of Central Europe...
(who are predominantly Catholic) within German borders required that such measures be taken.
The general ideological enthusiasm among the liberals for the Kulturkampf was in contrast to Bismarck's pragmatic attitude towards the measures and growing disquiet from the Conservatives.
Kulturkampf was hardly a success of Bismarck's government, despite temporary gains within the government itself.
Germanisation of Posen region
The Kulturkampf had a major impact on the regions of PrussiaPrussia
Prussia was a German kingdom and historic state originating out of the Duchy of Prussia and the Margraviate of Brandenburg. For centuries, the House of Hohenzollern ruled Prussia, successfully expanding its size by way of an unusually well-organized and effective army. Prussia shaped the history...
with a Polish population by instituting a policy of Germanisation of Poznan.
Long term results
Nearly all German bishops, clergy, and laymen rejected the legality of the new laws, and were defiant in the face of heavier and heavier penalties and imprisonments in closed by Bismarck's government by 1876, all the Prussian bishops were imprisoned or in exile, and a third of the Catholic parishes were without a priest. In the face of systematic defiance, the Bismarck government increased the penalties and its attacks, and were challenged in 1875 when a papal encyclical declared the whole ecclesiastical legislation of Prussia was invalid, and threatened to excommunicate any Catholic who obeyed. There was no violence, but the Catholics mobilized their support, set up numerous civic organizations, raised money to pay fines, and rallied behind their church and the Center Party. The government had set up a capital Old Catholic Church, which attracted only a few thousand members. Bismarck realized his Kulturkampf was a failure when secular and socialist elements used the opportunity to attack all religion. In the long run, the most significant result was the mobilization of the Catholic voters, and their insistence on protecting their church. In the elections of 1874, the Center party doubled its popular vote, and became the second-largest party in the national parliament—and remained a powerful force for the next 60 years, so that after Bismarck it became difficult to form a government without their support.Origin and character of the Kulturkampf
In the decades before the Kulturkampf began, the 1850s and 1860s, there existed extensive and entrenched anti-Jesuit paranoia, anti-CatholicismAnti-Catholicism
Anti-Catholicism is a generic term for discrimination, hostility or prejudice directed against Catholicism, and especially against the Catholic Church, its clergy or its adherents...
, anti-monasticism and anti-clericalism
Anti-clericalism
Anti-clericalism is a historical movement that opposes religious institutional power and influence, real or alleged, in all aspects of public and political life, and the involvement of religion in the everyday life of the citizen...
. Since 1848, the German states saw a resurgence of Catholic monastic life and a growth in the number of monasteries and convents. German liberals monitored and tabulated a dramatic rise in the numbers and types of monasteries, convents and clerical religious, a fact which made for convenient propaganda, the monastic life being cast as the epitome of a backward Catholic medievalism. Prussian authorities were particularly suspect of the spread of monastic life east and west into the Polish and French ethnic areas. The Diocese of Cologne, for example, saw a tenfold increase of monks and nuns between 1850 and 1872, and other areas saw similar increases.
A wave of anti-Catholicism and anti-Catholic propaganda accompanied the Kulturkampf, accompanied by “outright hatred” by the liberals who considered Catholics the enemy of the modern German nation. The Kulturkampf was not, however, a spontaneous popular occurrence, but “a campaign against the Catholic Church conducted through the law, with the police and bureaucracy as its principal agents”, the legality of which gave it its “sinister character”:
Clergy arrested, humiliated, and marched through the streets by the police; house searches conducted by the police looking for evidence of disloyalty; the Catholic press suppressed; the civil service cleansed of Catholics; the Army used to disperse a Catholic crowd gathered to witness the appearance of the Virgin; nuns and monks and clergy fleeing the country; official support for popular harassment and intimidation of Catholics.
No one however was killed and few were injured, as Bismarck did not seek to extinguish Catholicism in his land, but rather sought to assimilate the Polish peasants and saw international Catholicism as an enemy of the "still fragile German Reich".
Use of the term Kulturkampf or Culture War in the USA
The word Kulturkampf has also been used to refer to similar cultural conflicts in other times and places. In the United StatesUnited States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, the term culture war
Culture war
The culture war in American usage is a metaphor used to claim that political conflict is based on sets of conflicting cultural values. The term frequently implies a conflict between those values considered traditionalist or conservative and those considered progressive or liberal...
has been used by Patrick Buchanan, among others, to describe an analogous conflict starting in the 1960s and continuing to the present between religious social conservatives and secular social liberal
Liberalism
Liberalism is the belief in the importance of liberty and equal rights. Liberals espouse a wide array of views depending on their understanding of these principles, but generally, liberals support ideas such as constitutionalism, liberal democracy, free and fair elections, human rights,...
s (Buchanan used the English "culture war," though in the context Buchanan used it, as a war between traditional morality and avant-garde liberalism, it clearly evoked memories of the earlier German experience). Coincidentally, Buchanan himself is descended from German Catholics on his mother's side. This theme of "culture war" was the basis of Buchanan's keynote speech at the 1992 Republican National Convention. The term culture war had by 2004 become commonly used in the United States by both liberals and conservatives. However, Buchanan's opinions have no relevance to the actual Kulturkampf as it was conducted in Germany in the 1800s.
Justice Antonin Scalia
Antonin Scalia
Antonin Gregory Scalia is an American jurist who serves as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. As the longest-serving justice on the Court, Scalia is the Senior Associate Justice...
referenced the term in the Supreme Court case Romer v. Evans
Romer v. Evans
Romer v. Evans, 517 U.S. 620 , is a landmark United States Supreme Court case dealing with civil rights and state laws. It was the first Supreme Court case to deal with LGBT rights since Bowers v...
, 517 U.S. 620 (1996), saying "The Court has mistaken a Kulturkampf for a fit of spite." The case concerned an amendment to the Colorado
Colorado
Colorado is a U.S. state that encompasses much of the Rocky Mountains as well as the northeastern portion of the Colorado Plateau and the western edge of the Great Plains...
state constitution that prohibited any subdepartment from acting to protect individuals on the basis of sexual orientation. Scalia believed that the amendment was a valid move on the part of citizens who sought "recourse to a more general and hence more difficult level of political decision making than others." The majority disagreed, holding that the amendment violated the Equal Protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment
Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution
The Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution was adopted on July 9, 1868, as one of the Reconstruction Amendments.Its Citizenship Clause provides a broad definition of citizenship that overruled the Dred Scott v...
.
Catholicism
- Anti-CatholicismAnti-CatholicismAnti-Catholicism is a generic term for discrimination, hostility or prejudice directed against Catholicism, and especially against the Catholic Church, its clergy or its adherents...
- Culture warCulture warThe culture war in American usage is a metaphor used to claim that political conflict is based on sets of conflicting cultural values. The term frequently implies a conflict between those values considered traditionalist or conservative and those considered progressive or liberal...
- Liberalism in GermanyLiberalism in GermanyThis article aims to give an historical overview of liberalism in Germany. The liberal parties dealt with in the timeline below are, largely, those which received sufficient support at one time or another to have been represented in parliament. Not all parties so included, however, necessarily...
- Papal InfallibilityPapal infallibilityPapal infallibility is a dogma of the Catholic Church which states that, by action of the Holy Spirit, the Pope is preserved from even the possibility of error when in his official capacity he solemnly declares or promulgates to the universal Church a dogmatic teaching on faith or morals...
- Religion in GermanyReligion in GermanyChristianity is the largest religion in Germany with 54,765,265 adherents as of the end of 2006, down to 51.5 million adherents as of 2008. The second largest religion is Islam with 3.3 million adherents followed by Buddhism and Judaism...
- Separation of church and stateSeparation of church and stateThe concept of the separation of church and state refers to the distance in the relationship between organized religion and the nation state....
- Holy See – Germany relationsHoly See – Germany relationsHoly See – Germany relations are foreign relations between the Holy See and the Federal Republic of Germany.- Current relations :The current Pope Benedict XVI, former Josef, Cardinal Ratzinger is a German ....
- UltramontanismUltramontanismUltramontanism is a religious philosophy within the Roman Catholic community that places strong emphasis on the prerogatives and powers of the Pope...
Poland
- History of Poland (1795–1918)History of Poland (1795–1918)In 1795, the Third and the last of three partitions of Poland ended the existence of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. Nevertheless, hopes for restoration of Polish independence were kept alive throughout the 19th century by events within and outside the Polish lands...
- Anti-Polonism
- Deutscher Ostmarkenverein
- Drzymała's wagon
- Germanization
- Rota
- Settlement CommissionSettlement CommissionThe Prussian Settlement Commission was a Prussian government commission that operated between 1886 and 1924, but actively only until 1918. It was set up by Otto von Bismarck to increase land ownership by Germans at the expense of Poles, by economic and political means, in the German Empire's...
Further reading
- Blackbourn, David. Marpingen: Apparitions of the Virgin Mary in Nineteenth-Century Germany (Oxford, 1993)
- Gross, Michael B. The War against Catholicism: Liberalism and the Anti-Catholic Imagination in Nineteenth-Century Germany (2005)
- Hope, Nicholas, "Prussian Protestantism," in Philip G. Dwyer, ed. Modern Prussian History: 1830-1947 (2001) pp. 188–208
- Lamberti, Marjorie. "Religious conflicts and German national identity in Prussia, 1866-1914," in Philip G. Dwyer, ed. Modern Prussian History: 1830-1947 (2001) pp. 169–187
- Ronald J. Ross, The failure of Bismarck's Kulturkampf: Catholicism and state power in imperial Germany, 1871-1887, (Washington, D.C., 1998)
External links
, detailed article by Martin Spahn, written in 1910.- “Bismarck’s Failure: the Kulturkampf” long description
- Bismarck’s Domestic Polices 1871 -1890 Kulturkampf in the context of Bismarck's entire domestic policies, by a head of history at Catholic University School in Dublin
- Kulturkampf Now and Then 13-paged essay in pdfPortable Document FormatPortable Document Format is an open standard for document exchange. This file format, created by Adobe Systems in 1993, is used for representing documents in a manner independent of application software, hardware, and operating systems....
by a Professor of the United States Air Force AcademyUnited States Air Force AcademyThe United States Air Force Academy is an accredited college for the undergraduate education of officer candidates for the United States Air Force. Its campus is located immediately north of Colorado Springs in El Paso County, Colorado, United States... - Ludwig Windthorst Speaks in the Prussian Parliament (1873) speech of Ludwig WindthorstLudwig WindthorstLudwig Windthorst , was a German politician.-Biography:Windthorst was born at Kaldenhof, a country house near Osnabrück in the Kingdom of Hanover. He was raised by a Roman Catholic family, which for some generations had held important posts in the Hanoverian civil service...
following its analysis - Bismarck on the purpose of the Kulturkampf Speech in the Prussian House of Lords, March 10, 1873
- Kulturkampf: Bibliography by LitDok East-Central Europe Herder-Institut (Marburg)