Kulturkampf Totally Explained

Everything about Kulturkampf totally explained

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 Chancellor of the German Empire, Otto von Bismarck.
   Until the mid-19th century, the Catholic Church was still a political power. The Pope's Papal States were supported by France but ceased to exist as an indirect result of the Franco-Prussian War. The Catholic Church still had a strong influence on many parts of life, though, even in Bismarck's Protestant Prussia. In the newly founded German Empire, Bismarck sought to bolster the power of the secular state and reduce the political and social influence of the Roman Catholic Church by instituting political control over Church activities.
   The 1871 Kanzelparagraf marked the beginning of a series of sanctions against Catholicism that Bismarck imposed until 1875. To characterize Bismarck's politics toward the Catholic church, the pathologist and member of the parliament of the Deutsche Fortschrittspartei (Progressive Liberals) Rudolf Virchow used the term Kulturkampf the first time on January 17, 1873 in the Prussian house of representatives. As 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 most sanctions except for the Kanzelparagraf (which remained in force till 1953) and civil marriage.
   It is generally accepted amongst historians that the Kulturkampf measures targeted the Catholic Church under Pope Pius IX with discriminatory sanctions. Many historians also point out anti-Polish elements in the policies in other contexts.

Overview

Because the German Empire had descended from the 1866 North German Confederation, Bismarck saw the addition of the southern German states (especially Catholic Bavaria) as a possible threat to the Empire's stability. Tensions were also increased by the 1870 Vatican Council proclamation on papal infallibility. There were also significant Catholic populations in eastern parts of Germany (mainly Poles), the Rhineland and in Alsace-Lorraine. Moreover, Bismarck had deliberately formed the German Empire against interference from Austria, a more powerful Catholic country than those previously mentioned. Among the measures taken to reduce the influence of the Catholic Church was the addition in 1871 of § 130a to the German Criminal Code (Strafgesetzbuch), which threatened 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 teachers were banned from government schools. In addition, under the May Laws administered by Adalbert Falk, the state began to monitor the education of clergy closely, created a secular court for cases involving the clergy, and required notification of all clergy employment. 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 1875, marriage became a mandatory civil ceremony, removed from the control of the Church. Bismarck even blamed the poisoning of a popular lion from Berlin Zoological Gardens in 1874 on Catholic conspirators. 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 named the church laws as the reason why he'd to shoot Bismarck.
   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.
   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.
   All in all, the Kulturkampf was hardly a success of Bismarck's government, despite temporary gains within the government itself.

Kulturkampf in the Prussian Province (Duchy) of Posen/Poznań

The Kulturkampf had a major impact on the Polish-inhabitated regions of Prussia. At this time Poland didn't exist as a state and had been partitioned between Austria, Prussia (which in turn became part of the German Empire) and Russia. The struggle against Catholicism and Catholic southern German states started almost simultaneously with an extensive campaign of Germanization in the lands formerly belonging to the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and the Polish Kingdom. Because of that, in European historiography the anti-Catholic elements of the Kulturkampf are usually tied to Germanization efforts involving language and culture within the empire.
   After the Falk Laws (May Laws) had been passed, the Prussian authorities started to close down most of the public financed schools teaching the Polish language. Instead, the German language schools were promoted. In November 1872 minister Falk ordered all classes of religion to be held in German by the spring of the following year. The wave of protests on the side of Polish Catholics and the clergy was pacified the following year, when the Catholic Seminaries of Posen and Gniezno were closed down, and the state took up the supervision of education, previously carried out mostly in church-sponsored schools. The estate of the Church was confiscated, monastic orders dissolved, and the paragraphs of the Prussian constitution assuring the freedom of the Catholics were removed. In Greater Poland the Kulturkampf took on a much more nationalistic character than in other parts of Germany.
   Soon afterwards the Prussian authorities responded with repressions, with 185 priests imprisoned and several hundred others forced into exile. Among the imprisoned was the Primate of Poland Archbishop Mieczysław Ledóchowski. A large part of the remaining Catholic priests had to continue their service in hiding from the authorities. Although most of the imprisoned were finally set free by the end of the decade, the majority of them were forced into exile. Many observers believed these policies only further stoked the Polish independence movement. There is also a question regarding possible personal antipathy towards Poles behind Bismarck's motivation in pursuing the Kulturkampf. Contrary to other parts of the German Empire, in Greater Poland - then known under the German name of Provinz Posen - the Kulturkampf didn't cease after the end of the decade. Although Bismarck finally signed an informal alliance with the Catholic church against the socialists, the policies of Germanization did continue in Polish-inhabitated parts of the country. the overall percentage of Polish inhabitants of the land wasn't changed. Similarly, the activities of the Eastern Marches Society met with little success. Instead, the German actions following the start of the Kulturkampf resulted in strengthening the Polish national awareness and creation of several nationalist organization similar to the ones created against Polish culture and economy. By 1904, when the new law on settlement which effectively forbade Polish peasants from construction of new houses, the sense of national identity was strong enough to cause a period of civil unrest in the country. Among the notable symbols of the era were the children's strike of Września and the struggle of Michał Drzymała who effectively evaded the new law by living in a circus van rather than a newly-built house.
   All in all, the policies of Germanisation of the Poznań area mostly failed. Although most of the administrative measures aimed against the Poles remained in force until 1918, between 1912 and 1914 only four Polish-owned estates were expropriated, while at the same time Polish social organizations successfully competed with German trade organizations and even started to buy land from the Germans. The long-lasting effect of the Polish-German conflict in the area was development of a sense of Greater Polish identity, distinct from the identity common in other parts of Poland and primarily associated with nationalist ideas rather than socialism, prevailing in other parts of the country in 20th century.

Other uses of the term

The word Kulturkampf has also been used to refer to similar cultural conflicts in other times and places. In the United States, the term "culture war" has been used by Patrick Buchanan, among others, to describe what an analogous conflict starting in the 1960s and continuing to the present between religious social conservatives and secular social liberals (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.(External Link

) 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 decisionmaking than others." The majority disagreed, holding that the amendment violated the Equal Protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

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