In the aftermath of 1848 the German states, particularly Austria and Prussia, were locked in a political stalemate, each seeking to block the power of the other within the German Confederation. At the same time, powerful economic forces were undermining the political status quo. Modern industry was growing rapidly within the German customs union, or Zollverein, founded in 1834 to stimulate trade. By 1853 all the German states except Austria had joined the customs union, and a new Germany excluding Austria was becoming an economic reality. Rising prosperity from the rapid growth of industrialization after 1850 gave new impetus to middle-class liberals.

By 1859 liberals had assumed control of the parliament that emerged from the upheavals of 1848 in Prussia. The national uprising in Italy in 1859, however, convinced Prussia’s tough-minded William I (r. 1861–1888) that political change and even war with Austria or France were possible. William I pushed to raise taxes and increase the defense budget to double the army’s size. The Prussian parliament, reflecting the middle class’s desire for a less militaristic society, rejected the military budget in 1862, and the liberals triumphed in new elections. King William then called on Count Otto von Bismarck to head a new ministry and defy the parliament.

The most important figure in German history between Martin Luther and Adolf Hitler, Otto von Bismarck (1815–1898) was above all a master of politics. Born into the Prussian landowning aristocracy, Bismarck loved power, but he was also extraordinarily flexible and pragmatic in pursuing his goals. When Bismarck took office as chief minister in 1862, he declared that government would rule without parliamentary consent. He lashed out at the middle-class opposition: “The great questions of the day will not be decided by speeches and resolutions . . . but by blood and iron.” Bismarck had the Prussian bureaucracy continue to collect taxes even though the parliament refused to approve the budget, and he reorganized the army. For their part, the voters of Prussia continued to express their opposition by sending large liberal majorities to the parliament from 1862 to 1866.

In 1866 Bismarck launched the Austro-Prussian War with the intent of expelling Austria from German politics. The war lasted only seven weeks, as the reorganized Prussian army defeated Austria decisively at the Battle of Sadowa in Bohemia. Bismarck forced Austria to withdraw from German affairs and dissolved the existing German Confederation. The mainly Protestant states north of the Main River were grouped in the new North German Confederation, led by an expanded Prussia (Map 24.3). Each state retained its own local government, but the federal government — William I and Bismarck — controlled the army and foreign affairs.

To make peace with the liberal middle class and the nationalist movement, Bismarck asked the Prussian parliament to approve after the fact all the government’s “illegal” spending between 1862 and 1866. Overawed by Bismarck’s achievements, middle-class liberals now jumped at the chance to cooperate, opting for national unity and military glory over the battle for truly liberal institutions. Bismarck also followed Napoleon III’s example by creating a legislature with members of the lower house elected by universal male suffrage, allowing him to bypass the middle class and appeal directly to the people if necessary. The constitutional struggle in Prussia was over, and the German middle class was respectfully accepting the monarchical authority and aristocratic superiority that Bismarck represented.

The final act in the drama of German unification followed quickly with a patriotic war against France. The apparent issue — whether a distant relative of Prussia’s William I might become king of Spain — was only a diplomatic pretext. By 1870, alarmed by their powerful new neighbor on the Rhine, French leaders had decided on a war to teach Prussia a lesson.

As soon as war against France began in 1870, Bismarck had the wholehearted support of the south German states. The Germans by this point had outpaced France on many fronts — population, industrialization, railroads, military preparations — and they quickly defeated Louis Napoleon’s armies at Sedan on September 1, 1870. Three days later French patriots in Paris proclaimed yet another French republic and vowed to continue fighting. But after five months, in January 1871, a starving Paris surrendered, and France accepted Bismarck’s harsh peace terms. By this time the south German states had agreed to join a new German Empire. As in the 1866 constitution, the Prussian king and his ministers had ultimate power in the new German Empire, and the lower house of the legislature was elected by universal male suffrage.

The Franco-Prussian War released an enormous surge of patriotic feeling in Germany. The new German Empire had become Europe’s most powerful state, and most Germans were enormously proud, blissfully imagining themselves the fittest and best of the European species. Semi-authoritarian nationalism and a “new conservatism,” which was based on an alliance of the propertied classes and sought the active support of the working classes, had triumphed in Germany.