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Toward the Psychological Drama of High Politics: The Case of Bismarck

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 December 2008

Judith M. Hughes
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Extract

There have been many programmatic appeals encouraging historians to reconstruct the emotional life of the past, to describe the major features of an inner landscape that has disappeared from view. Yet when emotion has been evoked, it has all too often figured as an unanalyzed residue, immune to closer scrutiny. Such has been particularly the case in the study of politics: the investigation of interpersonal relationships among the politically powerful has scarcely even been staked out. The present essay is an effort to take up this task; it is an exploratory venture into a hitherto neglected realm of political history—politics as psychological drama.

Type
Articles
Information
Central European History , Volume 10 , Issue 4 , December 1977 , pp. 271 - 285
Copyright
Copyright © Conference Group for Central European History of the American Historical Association 1977

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References

1. The distinction between manifest and latent content emerges from Freud's analysis of the Dream of Irma's Injection; see Freud, Sigmund, The Interpretation of Dreams, Standard Edition, trans. Strachey, James (London, 1953), 4: 106–21.Google Scholar

2. On the inception and composition of Bismarck's Gedanken und Erinnerungen, see Schweninger, Ernst, Dem Andenken Bismarcks (Leipzig, 1899), pt. 1.Google Scholar See also the introduction to the critical edition: Ritter, Gerhard and Stadelmann, Rudolf, eds., Otto von Bismarck: Die gesammelten Werke, vol. 15: Erinnerung und Gedanke (Berlin, 1932), pp. iv–xxviii.Google Scholar

3. von Bismarck, Otto, Gedanken und Erinnerungen, 2 vols. (Stuttgart, 1898),Google Scholar translated under the supervision of Butler, A. J. as Bismarck, The Man and the Statesman: Being the Reflections and Reminiscences of Otto von Bismarck (New York and London, 1899), 1: 55;Google Scholar see also chaps. 1 and 2. The passages cited have been checked for accuracy against the critical edition. Since I have found retranslation unnecessary, references are to the English translation of the first edition.

4. Ibid., vol. 1, passim; note especially pp. 308, 313; ibid., 2: 42, 58, 98.

5. See, for example, ibid., 2: 65.

6. Ibid., 1: 165.

7. Ibid., 2: 68–69.

8. Ibid., 1: 315; see also ibid., 2: 316.

9. Bismarck to William I, Dec. 18, 1881, quoted ibid., 2: 212–13.

10. Freud, , The Interpretation of Dreams, Standard Edition, 5: 378–81.Google Scholar

11. Otto Pflanze interprets this dream as evidence of Bismarck's phallic-narcissistic character: “Toward a Psychoanalytic Interpretation of Bismarck,” American Historical Review 77 (04 1972): 427.Google Scholar

12. William I to Bismarck, Dec. 18,1881, quoted in Bismarck, , Reflections and Reminiscences, 2: 212.Google Scholar

13. Ibid., 2: 318–21.

14. Ibid., 2: 320.

15. See, for example, ibid., 1: 41, 136–39, 333; ibid., 2: 143–44, 203, 312–13.

16. For the most careful and astute psychoanalytically oriented account of Bismarck's early years, see Sempell, Charlotte, “Bismarck's Childhood: A Psychohistorical Study,” History of Childhood Quarterly 2 (Summer 1974): 107–24.Google ScholarPubMed For a more direct application of theory, see Pflanze, , “Toward a Psychoanalytic Interpretation of Bismarck,” pp. 419–44.Google Scholar For criticism of such efforts see Barzun, Jacques, Clio and the Doctors: Psycho-history, Quanto-history, and History (Chicago, 1974).Google Scholar

17. Windelband, Wolfgang and Frauendienst, Werner, eds., Otto von Bismarck: Die gesammelten Werke, vol. 14: Briefe (Berlin, 1933),Google Scholar Bismarck to Johanna von Puttkamer, Feb. 23, 1847, p. 67. For corrections and commentary on this edited text, see Sempell, Charlotte, “Unbekannte Briefstellen Bismarcks,” Historische Zeitschrift 207 (12 1968): 609–16.CrossRefGoogle Scholar For citations of this letter, see Marcks, Erich, Bismarck, Eine Biographie, vol. 1: Bismarcks Jugend, 1815–1848 (Stuttgart, 1909), p. 44;Google Scholar Pflanze, “Toward a Psychoanalytic Interpretation of Bismarck,” p. 429; Sempell, “Bismarck's Childhood: A Psychohistorical Study,” p. 118. For evidence that he held to this view of his mother in his later life, see Vierhaus, Rudolf, ed., Das Tagebuch der Baronin Spitzemberg (Göttingen, 1960), Apr. 3, 1885, p. 218.Google Scholar

18. Quoted in Vierhaus, ed., Tagebuch, p. 115; see also Busch, Moritz, Tagebuchblātter (Leipzig, 1899), 2: 425.Google Scholar

19. Bismarck, Werke, vol. 14, Bismarck to his brother Bernhard, late Dec. 1883, p. 4. For evidence of much greater maternal disappointment in Bismarck's brother, see Sempell, Charlotte, “Briefe der Eltem Bismarcks an seinen Bruder Bernhard,” Historische Zeitschrift 214 (06 1972): 557–79.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

20. Bismarck, Reflections and Reminiscences, 1: 16.

21. See, for example, von Ballhausen, Robert Freiherr Lucius, Bismarck-Erinnerungen its Staatsministers Freiherrn Lucius von Ballhausen (Stuttgart and Berlin, 1920), Feb. 11, 1876, p. 85; Apr. 9, 1878, pp. 137–38;Google Scholarvon Keudell, Robert, Fürst und Fürstin Bismarck: Erinnerungen aus dem jahren 1846 bis 1872 (Berlin and Stuttgart, 1901), p. 160;Google ScholarBismarck, , Werke, vol. 14, Bismarck to Johanna von Puttkamer, Feb. l, 1847, p. 51.Google Scholar

22. Marcks, Bismarcks Jugend, pp. 42–47; see also Sempell, “Briefe der Eltern Bismarcks an seinen Bruder Bernhard,” Wilhelmine von Bismarck to her son Bernhard, without date [1830], p. 578. See also the famous description of Bismarck's mother by his cousin, Bismarck, Hedwig von, Erinnerungen aus dem Leben einer 95 jährigen, 5th ed. (Halle, 1910), pp. 28–31.Google Scholar

23. Bismarck to Johanna von Puttkamer, Feb. 23, 1847, quoted in Sempell, “Bismarck's Childhood: A Psychohistorical Study,” p. 119.

24. Sempell, “Unbekannte Briefstellen Bismarcks,” emendations of Bismarck's letter to Johanna von Puttkamer, Feb. 23, 1847, p. 610.

25. This line of argument draws on Ronald, W.Fairbairn, D., Psychoanalytic Studies of the Personality (London, 1952). In his discussion of narcissistic rage, Heinz Kohut has described behavior patterns that resemble Bismarck's.Google Scholar He does not, however, suggest the ways in which the underlying personality flaw can be dealt with outside the analytic situation: Kohut, Heinz, “Thoughts on Narcissism and Narcissistic Rage,” The Psychoanalytic Study of the Child 27 (1972): 360–400.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

26. Bismarck, Werke, vol. 14, Bismarck to his father, Sept. 29, 1838, in which he enclosed his letter to his cousin, p. 15.

27. Marcks, Bismarcks Jugend, pp. 83–200.

28. Freud, , The Interpretation of Dreams, Standard Edition, 4: 135–36.Google Scholar

29. Marcks, Bismarcks Jugend, p. 267. For the best account of Bismarck's relations with the Blanckenburgs, his engagement and marriage, as well as his religious experience, see ibid., pp. 200–451.

30. Ibid., p. 340.

31. Bismarck, Werke, vol. 14, Bismarck to Johanna's father, not dated [written about the end of Dec. 1846], p. 47.

32. Ibid., p. 47.

33. Marcks, Bismarcks Jugend, pp. 272, 337–38.

34. Bismarck, Werke, vol. 14, Bismarck to Johanna von Puttkamer, Feb. 28, 1847, p. 71.

35. Ibid., Bismarck to Johanna von Puttkamer, Mar. 16, 1847, p. 81.

36. On Herbert's romantic problems, see Snyder, Louis L., “Political Implications of Herbert von Bismarck's Marital Affairs, 1881, 1892,” Journal of Modern History 36 (06 1964): 151–61.CrossRefGoogle Scholar For a perceptive account of the elder Bismarck's treatment of his son, see Stern, Fritz, Gold and Iron: Bismarck, Bleichröder, and the Building of the German Empire (New York, 1977), pp. 254–59.Google Scholar