Lasker interpellation

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Caricature in the Kladderadatsch , 1870. “Count Bismarck to deputy Lasker in the Reichstag. If you know better, then are you the Chancellor -'ll I be the Lasker ' ".

As interpellation Lasker is called a parliamentary incident in February 1870. The National Liberal MPs Eduard Lasker presented the Chancellor Otto von Bismarck a question in the North German Reichstag . He was concerned with a possible accession of the Grand Duchy of Baden to the North German Confederation . Bismarck answered the interpellation unexpectedly harshly and dismissively.

The background to the incident was the different ideas of Bismarck and the National Liberals about German unity . By joining Baden, the National Liberals wanted to strengthen national enthusiasm and set an example for the other southern German states. With the expansion of the federal government, they also combined the hope of a more liberal domestic policy. Bismarck, on the other hand, did not want to change the constitution of the North German Confederation , nor did he want to unleash a popular movement that would ultimately have benefited the National Liberals.

Lasker's remarks and proposals

The lawyer Eduard Lasker in 1861. Lasker became a member of the Progress Party and in 1866 co-founder of the National Liberal Party . There he rose to be the leader of the left wing.

In the North German Confederation, a federal state, the head of state was the Prussian king with the title of Federal Presidium . The Federal Presidium appointed the Federal Chancellor as the responsible minister . This was the Prussian Prime Minister Otto von Bismarck. In February 1870, the "third consultation on the treaty with the Grand Duchy of Baden due to mutual granting of legal aid" was on the agenda of the Reichstag.

At the meeting on February 24, Eduard Lasker pointed out that the speech from the throne had called for observation of German affairs. Of the southern German states, Baden is the one where the national idea is strongest. Baden had supported the Prussian side in the past and had only become an enemy under extreme duress in the war of 1866 . Thereafter, Baden was extremely cooperative and benevolent towards Prussia. The North German Confederation and Baden already worked closely together on perpetual contracts, for example in the military. Lasker also allowed himself to point out that the liberal leadership of Baden was the opposite of that in Prussia.

It seems puzzling to me why, on the one hand, the state of Baden, wanting and striving in all its official and popular powers to join this league - why the unification is nevertheless prevented. [...] because it [...] should be the highest task that the Federation, as it is given the opportunity, extend into southern Germany so that we do not remain further separated in the south and north. [...] only as a temporary measure did we [the main border ] put up with it in 1866, and we explained this to all sides at that time; it is all the more surprising that there is an opportunity to make the North German Confederation into a league of the whole of Germany, and that the two hands do not want to meet. Since the guilt is not on Baden's side, if there is a guilt, it will only be sought where the initiative for the entry of a southern German state is constitutionally prescribed.

The admission of Baden, Lasker announced, would lead to the accession of the other southern states. Consideration of the foreign country should not be a reason to "reject the offered hand". The envious states France and Austria are currently too busy with themselves. In addition, the north German federal constitution has already provided that the southern German states join. He cited the passage (Art. 79, Paragraph 2): "The entry of the southern German states or one of the same into the Federation takes place on the proposal of the Federal Presidium by way of federal legislation." Baden would apply for membership if the insurance was given in the Reichstag debate that the application would not be rejected.

Lasker's motion wanted the Reichstag to recognize Baden's national aspirations and to recognize in them the “lively expression of national togetherness”. The Reichstag perceived the "most unlikely union with the existing federation as the goal of the same." Thirty-eight members, including Lasker, had signed.

Reply of the Conservatives and Bismarckian

The conservative Moritz von Blanckenburg followed suit with a proposal for amendment: The (second) part, which spoke of the Anschluss, should be dispensed with. After Lasker's speech, he stated that he had been surprised that morning by the Liberals with the proposal and that he had not yet been able to consult with his fellow parliamentary groups. Despite his fundamental enthusiasm for the German cause, he expressed doubts that the national feeling in Baden had already progressed enough. It is possible that the efforts there are also party efforts. If one were to shake hands with them, the other parties could be undesirably strengthened.

Blanckenburg also reminded MPs Lasker and Miquel that it was they who had put the Prussian king in the constitutional article. At the time, they argued that it was not the southern German states alone that should decide on accession, but Prussia with its king, because Prussia would bear responsibility within the European framework. It is questionable whether Baden even wants to submit the application for membership. In any case, Baden should not push the Federal Presidium to accept. The National Liberals in the Reichstag behave as if they knew the foreign situation better than the Federal Chancellor; but they are not legitimized to make such a claim to leadership, since they tried to prevent the reorganization of the army before 1866.

Federal Chancellor Bismarck called Lasker's motion and speech surprising and undesirable. He complained that he had not been consulted beforehand. Only the self-restraint of the Reichstag would make it possible to pursue foreign policy on the basis of parliament. In this way, the National Liberals withdrew the support previously promised. Lasker had given the impression that he had more intimate relations with the Baden government than Bismarck himself and that he was thinking more of Baden than of North German interests. Baden could have foreseen his, Bismarck's answer.

Lasker used his motion as a vote of no confidence in the previous foreign policy. But Bismarck does not want the Federal Presidium to be pushed and does not want a Baden application to join. The unification of Germany must take place voluntarily without upsetting Bavaria and Württemberg . Baden is more important as a mediator between north and south than as a federal member. If a federal member of Baden were to shield the remaining southern states from the west (i.e. France ), there would no longer be any motive there to make armaments efforts. In addition, the Baden customs border would be difficult to guard if Württemberg and Bavaria no longer belong to the Zollverein.

Consequences and evaluation

Germany during the time of the North German Confederation (1867–1870), with the federal government in surface colors. Baden only bordered the north German exclave of Hohenzollern in the southeast.

After a few more participants in the debate, Lasker found that there was no majority in favor of the motion and withdrew it. In his opinion, however, the debate had achieved two things: the Federal Chancellor had disclosed his position, and the Reichstag parties had desirably praised Baden's efforts. Karl Erich Pollmann explains the withdrawal of the National Liberals as a step back from the question of confidence that Bismarck expressly wanted to see in the motion. Lasker and his colleagues asserted that they did not want to intervene in foreign policy, but said that this should not only be pursued through diplomacy, but also through a “people's policy”.

The historian Lothar Gall emphasizes that Bismarck's response to Lasker's interpellation was unexpectedly sharp. Bismarck had taken the risk of straining his relations with the National Liberals, but also with the Baden government. By insisting on the initiative of the Federal Presidium (his King), he made it clear that structural decisions in power politics in the North German Confederation were still more important to him than the relationship with the South. He did not want to reverse these decisions, even if they had enabled him to make rapid progress on the unification issue. The North German Confederation was nothing provisional to him, but a structure whose internal structure was supposed to be permanent.

In doing so, however, Bismarck narrowed his leeway and allowed the particularists in Bavaria and Württemberg to get used to the conditions since 1866. For their part, the National Liberals were “the national party par excellence,” said Gall, who feared that if the expectations of 1866 were disappointed, their appeal would wane - especially in the south. Under Bismarck's policy, the federal state and German unity did not become more attractive because of the expansion of personal freedoms, but rather, because of the Prussian army system that was introduced in the south, less attractive. But the hopes of the National Liberals were incompatible with Bismarck's goals. The Chancellor also did not spark a follow-up movement among broad sections of the population. For both sides, the unity was not a value in itself, but part of a cost-benefit calculation of a constitutional nature.

But the National Liberals' considerations to gradually take in the southern states were a realistic alternative. Even if France had declared war on Baden's accession to the North German Confederation: Southern Germany was bound to the North by treaties, and even the particularists were anti-France. The south would probably have supported the north in the event of war just as it actually did in July of the same year, after the Hohenzollern candidacy.

See also

supporting documents

  1. ^ Reichstag protocols , 1867 / 70,10 , meeting of February 24, 1870, pp. 57-60.
  2. ^ Reichstag protocols , 1867 / 70,10 , meeting of February 24, 1870, p. 61.
  3. ↑ Reichstag protocols , 1867 / 70.10 , meeting of February 24, 1870, p. 61 f.
  4. ^ Reichstag protocols , 1867 / 70.9 , pp. 203 f. "No. 20: Application for the third consultation of the contract between the North German Confederation and the Grand Duchy of Baden on the grounds of mutual granting of legal aid (No. 9 of the printed matter) ”.
  5. ^ Reichstag protocols , 1867 / 70.9 , p. 204 (No. 21).
  6. ↑ Reichstag protocols , 1867 / 70,10 , meeting of February 24, 1870, p. 62 f.
  7. ^ Reichstag protocols , 1867 / 70,10 , meeting of February 24, 1870, pp. 64–66.
  8. ^ Reichstag protocols , 1867 / 70,10 , meeting of February 24, 1870, p. 66.
  9. ↑ Reichstag protocols , 1867 / 70,10 , meeting of February 24, 1870, p. 66 f.
  10. ↑ Klaus Erich Pollmann: Parliamentarism in the North German Confederation 1867–1870 , Düsseldorf: Droste Verlag, 1985, p. 295 f.
  11. ↑ Lothar Gall: Bismarck's South Germany Policy 1866-1870. In: Eberhard Kolb (Hrsg.): Europe before the war of 1870. Power constellation - areas of conflict - outbreak of war. R. Oldenbourgh, Munich 1987, pp. 23-32, here p. 27.
  12. ↑ Lothar Gall: Bismarck's South Germany Policy 1866-1870. In: Eberhard Kolb (Hrsg.): Europe before the war of 1870. Power constellation - areas of conflict - outbreak of war. R. Oldenbourgh, Munich 1987, pp. 23-32, here p. 28 f.
  13. ↑ Lothar Gall: Bismarck's South Germany Policy 1866-1870. In: Eberhard Kolb (Hrsg.): Europe before the war of 1870. Power constellation - areas of conflict - outbreak of war. R. Oldenbourgh, Munich 1987, pp. 23-32, here p. 31.