CSS Forums - Germany under Bismarck

In reality the system was ruled by one man, who was responsible only to the Emperor. The complicated constitutional system depended solely on the personality of Bismarck, who dominated the government and administration by holding the key positions of Chancellor and Prussian Prime Minister. No firm parliamentary principle was established, such as a government responsible to a sovereign parliament—rather the situation was one of ‘government of the parties’, a system that was dubbed‘Chancellor dictatorship’. Whereas a democratic, constitutional nation state under the principle of sovereignty of the people had been the aim in 1848, the Empire of 1871 was a nationalist authoritarian monarchy.The Empire was also incomplete with regard to the social and political demands of the middle-class emancipation movement. Claims that the new state should adapt itself to the evolving industrial society were not met, nor was the demand that the nation should have an active role to play in the political process. The Empire did not aim to make changes, but aimed rather to preserve the old Prussian social order that had been reinforced by the dominant position of the Junkers. The opposition parties—the left-wing liberal Progress Party, the Social Democrats and the Catholic Centre Party—were denounced as enemies of the Reich. The first decade of the Reich was filled with high social and party political tensions.