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Thesis: ‘Whoever wishes to rule Germany must conquer it’. Wilhelm I and the Hohenzollern monarchy, 1840–1866. A biographical study

Thesis summary:
In November 1831, one month after the birth of his son, the man who would later become the first German Emperor, Wilhelm I (1797–1888) wrote to his sister Charlotte: “When I reflect deep within myself on the likelihood of what may one day be in store for this little one, – the thought has so often occurred to me that your Sacha” – the future Tsar Alexander II – ‘and our boy might well spend a significant period of time together, both in equally high positions! I can only echo your words: may they grow to maturity in a worthy age! – The present age cannot be called that! Our generation strikes me as a generation of martyrs; we are destined to endure everything ; perhaps we shall witness many upheavals in the world and in human society which – we must trust in divine wisdom – are one day to turn out for the good of mankind, though I can now foresee nothing of that good; – if, then, our generation has endured all this, yet finds it difficult to adapt to the new order, we must hope that our children will enjoy the blessings of that for which we are suffering!’ This source illustrates two central constants in the political biography of the first Hohenzollern emperor: Wilhelm’s horizons of experience and scope for action cannot be reconstructed and analysed within a merely Prussian or German framework, but must be considered within a European dynastic context. And the fear of revolution and experiences of revolution served as the primary political motivating factor for all monarchical actors of his time – whether in Berlin, Vienna, Saint Petersburg or Paris.

The political and social upheavals that were to shape Europe following the French Revolution presented the continent’s crowned heads with challenges hitherto unknown. The monarchical order of rule, traditionally based on the divine right of kings, had to seek new strategies of legitimisation and new foundations to underpin the system if it was not to run the risk of falling victim to revolutionary developments. Wilhelm I not only witnessed this era of the reinvention of the monarchy at first hand; he also played an active, indeed at times decisive, role in the process of transformation that the Hohenzollern monarchy underwent before and after the March Revolution of 1848.

The doctoral thesis, which was awarded the Young Researchers’ Prize by the Historical Commission of Berlin in 2022, analyses the political biography of Wilhelm I on the basis of a systematic evaluation of his extensive archival correspondence. In total, some 9,310 first-person documents penned by the first Hohenzollern emperor were researched and analysed in German and British archives – in addition to roughly twice as many unpublished sources from his personal and political circle, as well as from the wider social sphere of the Berlin court. On the basis of this extensive mosaic of sources, which has hitherto been largely unknown to researchers, it is argued that a period of Prussian-German history supposedly already thoroughly discussed must not only be re-examined, but in some respects even fundamentally revised.

Even the history of Frederick William IV’s reign cannot be written without reference to the person and figure of William I. For his elder brother, the future Emperor served from 1840 to 1857 as a systematic source of irritation and obstruction, as a central biographical constant, and thus as a historiographically essential actor in shaping the function and character of the Hohenzollern monarchy during the Vormärz, the years of the Revolution and the era of reaction. Even in the roughly two decades before he himself was to assume the role of ruler, Wilhelm continually pushed his way into the centre of the political decision-making process.

Following the end of Frederick William IV’s active reign in 1857, Wilhelm gradually began to establish a personal regime at the Berlin court – a term explicitly used in contemporary sources. The system of trust and dependence centred on the monarch was intended to structurally secure his central and ultimate decision-making position until 1888. At the same time, particularly between 1858 and 1866, the monarch was not prepared to rule indirectly through this system alone, by virtue of his monarchical authority to set policy. Wilhelm’s personal regime was characterised by continuous, active intervention by the Crown in the affairs of government, by a limited scope for political manoeuvre on the part of the ministers, and by a de facto erosion of the Prime Minister’s leadership role. Virtually all political decisions of the New Era, as well as those of the first four years of Bismarck’s government, were directly or indirectly attributable to the monarch himself and his monarchical agenda. No ministry, nor any Prime Minister, could pursue an independent policy against the monarch’s will. Wilhelm’s scope for political action, although restricted by constitutional institutions and structures, was therefore scarcely any less, at the level of executive decisions, than that of Napoleon III or the Austrian Emperor. Since the first Hohenzollern emperor also had a coherent and purposeful monarchical agenda, and since he was able and willing to maintain his autonomy amidst rival court factions, the political decision-making position of his grandson, Wilhelm II, must also be regarded as comparatively weaker. The first Wilhelmine ‘personal regiment’ was more deserving of this designation than the system which was to plunge the Hohenzollern monarchy into a structural anarchy of policy after 1888.

The dominant position of the Prussian Crown in the political decision-making process, and its neo-absolutist stance on matters of military command, must be regarded as a central internal legacy of the reign of the first Hohenzollern Emperor. This legacy was to shape German history decisively until 1918. At the same time, during his reign Wilhelm had actively and decisively driven forward the nationalisation of the Crown and the state; indeed, it was he who, after 1858, had steered Berlin onto that escalating course of conflict between Prussia and Austria that was to culminate at Königgrätz in 1866. The internal and external reorganisation of Germany after 1866 must ultimately be regarded as the culmination of the first German Emperor’s monarchical project designed to prevent revolution. On a historiographical meta-level, therefore, the founding of the German nation-state must be characterised less as the result of a development supposedly driven by bourgeois-liberal interests or even economic constraints, and more as a process rooted in the history of the monarchy. Although the mythologising epithet of ‘founder of the Reich’ has little potential for historical definition, it can be applied as a description of a role – in terms of political decisions and the setting of policy directions in Berlin prior to 1871 – not only to Bismarck but also to Wilhelm. However, in view of the Prime Minister’s scope for action prior to 1867 – which was strictly defined by the King – the revisionist argument, supported by the sources, also holds validity: that the contribution of the first Hohenzollern Emperor to the process of founding the nation-state was, on the whole, more significant than that of the so-called ‘Iron Chancellor’.

This doctoral thesis demonstrates that Wilhelm I acted as an independent political actor – and that, as a monarch, he can be regarded as successful against the backdrop of his era. The historiographical marginalisation of the first Hohenzollern emperor to date is long overdue for revision, given the available sources and the multi-perspective approach of modern monarchy research. Alongside Otto von Bismarck, Wilhelm I must be regarded as a central figure in 19th-century Prussian-German history.

Short biography:

Jan Markert (born in the class of 1991) is a PhD candidate in History at the University of Oldenburg, supervised by Malte Rolf and Martin Kohlrausch (Catholic University of Leuven). His research focus is on the political and intellectual history of the ‘long 19th century’ in general, and the history of the Hohenzollern monarchy and its representatives during that period in particular. His 1,038-page doctoral thesis on the political biography of Emperor Wilhelm I was submitted in November 2022. In the same month, his doctoral project was awarded the Young Researchers’ Prize by the Historical Commission of Berlin. He has already outlined in detail, in several academic publications and lectures both in Germany and abroad, a fundamental revision of the Bismarck-centred narratives—which have persisted to this day—concerning the events leading up to and following the process of the founding of the German nation-state; these have met with a broad reception within the academic community.

Publications:

Monographs:

• Is it not easy to be an emperor under Bismarck? Wilhelm I and German foreign policy after 1871. (Friedrichsruher Beiträge Vol. 51), Friedrichsruh 2019.

Contributions to anthologies:

• ‘Whoever wishes to rule Germany must conquer it’. The German Empire as Wilhelm I’s monarchical project, in: Andreas Braune/Michael Dreyer/Markus Lang/Ulrich Lappenküper (eds.), Unity and Justice, but Freedom? The German Empire in the History of Democracy and the Culture of Remembrance. (Weimarer Schriften zur Republik Vol. 17), Stuttgart 2021, pp. 11–37.
  
• ‘The failure of German unification is the aim of the Révolution.’ Wilhelm I and the German Question 1848 to 1870, in: Ulrich Lappenküper/Maik Ohnezeit (eds.), 1870/71. The Founding of the Empire in Versailles. (Friedrichsruher Ausstellungen Vol. 8) Friedrichsruh 2021, pp. 22–28.
  
• [with Susanne Bauer:] A ‘title affair’ or ‘more appearance than reality’: Wilhelm I, Augusta and the imperial question 1870/71, in: Ulrich Lappenküper and Maik Ohnezeit (eds.), 1870/71. The Founding of the German Empire in Versailles. (Friedrichsruh Exhibitions Vol. 8) Friedrichsruh 2021, pp. 70–76.
  
• A system at Bismarck’s mercy? Emperor Wilhelm I and his entourage – A plea for a reassessment of monarchical rule in Prussia and Germany before 1888, in: Wolfram Pyta/Rüdiger Voigt (eds.), Access to the Ruler. (Conceptions of the State, vol. 171) Baden-Baden 2022, pp. 127–156.

• From King to Emperor. The Founding of the Empire – a Process in the History of Monarchy, in: Rüdiger Voigt (ed.), The Rise and Fall of the German Empire. Nation, State and Constitution in the German Empire (1871–1918), Baden-Baden [to be published in 2023].

• An Empire, Not a Bismarckian Empire. The Hohenzollern Monarchy under Wilhelm I in a New Light, in: Ulrich Lappenküper/Wolfram Pyta (eds.), Cultures of Decision-Making in the BismarckEra. (Otto von Bismarck Foundation. Academic Series Vol. 31), Paderborn [forthcoming 2023].

• Prussia’s Road to ‘Iron and Blood’. Wilhelm I and the Nationalisation of the Hohenzollern Monarchy, in: Heidi Hein-Kircher/Frederik Frank Sterkenburgh (eds.), Modernising the Unmodern. Europe’s Imperial Monarchies and Their Path to Modernity in the 19th and 20th Centuries. (Palgrave Studies in Modern Monarchy), London [forthcoming 2023].
  
  Journal articles:
  
• Against the ‘Coalition of Jesuits, Ultramontanes and Revolutionaries’. Emperor Wilhelm I and the Centre Party, in: Historisch-Politische Mitteilungen 27 (2020), pp. 5–25.
  
• The Misunderstood Monarch. Wilhelm I and the Challenges of Scholarly Biographical Writing, in: Forschungen zur Brandenburgischen und Preußischen Geschichte. Neue Folge 31 (2021), pp. 231–244.
  
• “Only the withered mind of a diplomat could doubt whether the current movement will achieve its goal.” Bismarck, Wilhelm I and the Elmshorn Public Assembly on 27 December 1863, in: Local History Yearbook for the District of Pinneberg 55 (2022), pp. 157–170.
• Emperor Wilhelm I and the Hohenzollern Monarchy. A Research Report, in: Yearbook for the History of Central and Eastern Germany 68 [to be published in 2023].

Online articles:

• ‘[...] that the crown comes only from God.’ Replica of Wilhelm I’s royal crown, available online at: www.bismarck-foundation.de/2017/08/24/dass-die-krone-nur-von-gott-kommt-replikat-der-koenigskrone-wilhelms/ (published on 24 August 2017).
  
• The Emperor and the ‘lying press’. On a monarch’s problematic relationship with the printed word, available online at: https://www.bismarck-foundation.de/2020/01/06/der-kaiser-und-die-luegenpresse-vom-problematischen-verhaeltnis-eines-monarchen-zum-gedruckten-wort/ (published on 6 January 2020).
  
• ‘Whoever wishes to rule Germany must conquer it’. The German Empire as a monarchical project of Wilhelm I, in: Andreas Braune/Michael Dreyer/Markus Lang/Ulrich Lappenküper (eds.), Unity and Justice – but Freedom? 150 Years of the German Empire. 29–30 October 2020. An online conference, Weimar 2020, pp. 19–24, available online at: https://www.demokratie-geschichte.de/extra/docs/tagungsbericht.pdf (published on 18 December 2020).
  

Conference reports:

• Emperor Wilhelm I and Empress Augusta – a royal couple in Bismarck’s shadow, 21 September 2018, Friedrichsruh, available online at www.hsozkult.de/conferencereport/id/tagungsberichte-7907 ( published on 1 November 2018).

• Multinational Empires as Worlds of Experience. Imperial Biographies in the Long 19th Century, 23 September 2021–24 September 2021, Oldenburg and online at: www.hsozkult.de/conferencereport/id/tagungsberichte-9165 (published on 23 November 2021).

Interviews:

• HiKoPod. Not a Bismarckian Empire, but an Imperial Empire. An interview with Jan Markert, available online at: https://hikopod.podigee.io/11-kein_bismarckreich (published on 23 December 2022).

Academic lectures (selection):

• Würzburg, 29 November 2022: An Imperial Reich, not a Bismarckian Reich. Wilhelm I in a new light; as part of the colloquium organised by the Institute of History at Julius Maximilian University of Würzburg.

• Berlin, 23 November 2022: Wilhelm I and the Hohenzollern Monarchy 1840–1866. A biographical study; as part of the presentation of the HiKo₂₁ Young Researchers’ Prize by the Historical Commission of Berlin.

• Strasbourg, 9 November 2022: An Empire, Not a Bismarck Empire. The Hohenzollern Monarchy under Wilhelm I from a new perspective; as part of the conference ‘Renouveler l’histoire du Kaiserreich? Perspectives critiques sur l’Empire allemand (1871–1918)’/‘Renewing the History of the German Empire? Critical Perspectives on the German Empire (1871–1918) (École des hautes études en sciences sociales/Franco-German Institute for Historical and Social Sciences/German Historical Institute, Paris/Centre Marc Bloch) on 9 and 10 November 2022; Conference report available online at: https://www.hsozkult.de/conferencereport/id/fdkn-133908 (published on 17 February 2023).

• Friedrichsruh, 15 September 2022: An Empire, not a Bismarckian Empire. Wilhelm I in the light of new sources; as part of the conference ‘Cultures of Memory in the Bismarck Era’ (Otto von Bismarck Foundation/Department of History, University of Stuttgart) on 15 and 16 September 2022; conference report available online at:
• https://www.bismarck-foundation.de/2022/09/21/entscheidungskulturen-der-bismarck-aera-konferenz ( published on 21 September 2022).

• Jena, 19 January 2022: The German Empire as a monarchical project of Wilhelm I; as part of the colloquium organised by the chair of Modern and Contemporary History at Friedrich Schiller University, Jena.

• Stuttgart, 14 December 2021: A plea for a re-evaluation of Emperor Wilhelm I; as part of the colloquium organised by the Department of History at the University of Stuttgart.

• Berlin, 6 November 2021: “A united Germany is not an invention of the revolution, but a deep-seated need.” Wilhelm I and the German Question – A plea for a re-evaluation of the first Hohenzollern emperor; as part of the conference ‘Aspects of Prussian Research Today – New Perspectives’ (Prussian Historical Commission) from 4 to 6 November 2021.

• Online, 11 October 2021: Emperor Wilhelm I, Bismarck and the German National Movement. A case for a monarchical-historical interpretation of the founding of the German Empire; as part of the doctoral seminar ‘Nation and Democracy – The Founding of the German Empire and its Consequences for Political Development in Germany’ (Konrad Adenauer Foundation) from 11 to 14 October 2021.

• Online, 29 October 2020: ‘Whoever wishes to govern Germany must conquer it’. The German Empire as Wilhelm I’s monarchical project; as part of the conference ‘Unity and Justice – but Freedom? The German Empire in the History of German Democracy (Working Group on Places of Democratic History/Weimar Republic Research Centre/Otto von Bismarck Foundation) on 29 and 30 October 2020; conference report available online at:
• https://www.demokratie-geschichte.de/extra/150jahre (published on 18 December 2020).

• Berlin, 25 January 2019: ‘Whoever wishes to govern Germany must conquer it.’ The political biography of Wilhelm I and his influence on the transformation of the Hohenzollern monarchy, 1840–1866; as part of the workshop ‘Dissertation Projects on 19th-Century History’ (Humboldt University of Berlin) on 25 and 26 January 2019.

• Bad Kissingen, 11 December 2018: Bismarck’s foreign policy after 1871: between realpolitik and monarchical solidarity; as part of the Bundeswehr seminar conference ‘Current Developments in International Relations’ (‘Der Heiligenhof’ Education and Meeting Centre, Bad Kissingen) from 11 to 13 December 2018.

• Freiburg, 20 November 2018:‘Whoever wishes to govern Germany must conquer it.’ A political biography of Wilhelm I (1840–1866); as part of the colloquium organised by the professorship for Modern and Contemporary History and in co-operation with the Biographies Working Group of the Graduate School of Humanities at the University of Freiburg.

• Friedrichsruh, 6 November 2018: Emperor Wilhelm I and Bismarck’s foreign policy after 1871; as part of the Otto von Bismarck Foundation’s evening lecture series.

• Friedrichsruh, 21 September 2018: ‘Whoever wishes to rule Germany must conquer it.’ The political development of Wilhelm I and his influence on the transformation of the Hohenzollern monarchy, 1840–1866; as part of the workshop ‘Emperor Wilhelm I and Empress Augusta – a royal couple in Bismarck’s shadow’ (Otto von Bismarck Foundation); conference report available online at:
• https://www.hsozkult.de/conferencereport/id/tagungsberichte-7907 (published on 1 November 2018).

• Bamberg, 23 June 2017: ‘The sovereign had to be wounded before such measures could be achieved!’ Emperor Wilhelm I and the Social Question in late 19th-century Germany; as part of the conference ‘Only those who work shall eat.’ On the Cultural and Social History of Unemployment (Otto Friedrich University of Bamberg) on 23 and 24 June 2017; conference report available online at:
• https://www.hsozkult.de/conferencereport/id/tagungsberichte-7322 (published on 18 September 2017).

• Emperor Wilhelm I and Empress Augusta – a royal couple in Bismarck’s shadow, 21 September 2018, Friedrichsruh, available online at: www.hsozkult.de/conferencereport/id/tagungsberichte-7907 (published on 1 November 2018).
  
• Multinational Empires as Worlds of Experience. Imperial Biographies in the Long 19th Century, 23 September 2021–24 September 2021, Oldenburg and online at: