Dan Snow's History Hit - Blood and Iron: The German Empire

Episode Date: April 27, 2021

German unification in 1871 immediately altered the balance of power in Europe and across the world, but what did its existence and expansion in the 19th and early 20th-century really mean? Katja Hoyer joins Dan in this follow-up episode to The Second Reich which examined the formation of Germany. This time round Katja and Dan tackle the internal politics of the Second Reich, the role of the Kaiser, German expansionism and colonialism and how the legacy of the German Empire can still be felt today.If you want to listen to our podcast with the creators of the Oscar-winning film Colette the please click here.

Hi everybody, welcome to Dan Snow's History Hit. I'm now in the wonderful naval dockyard at Chatham, the historic dockyard. I've got HMS Cavalier in front of me. It's the only surviving Second World War destroyer in Britain. It was built in a hurry. It was built during the Second World War. One of 96 destroyers built during the war to replace over a hundred that were lost during convoys or at Dunkirk or on various missions throughout the world. We're following Cavalier today because of our program on Bismarck. It's coming out next month for the 80th anniversary of Bismarck. Destroyers like this one hounded Bismarck through the night, through its final night. Well, I mustn't

spoil the story, but anyway, destroyers like this one hounded the mighty Bismarck as part of that great clash of arms. But what I love about Chatham is I'm here on the Medway, the River Medway. A lot of history here. A lot of history here, guys. This is where during the Claudian invasion in 43 AD, the Roman army somewhere on the River Medway clashed with one of the British tribes in one of the kind of decisive military engagements of that Roman invasion of Britain. Then if I look, I can see over the superstructure, Rochester Castle, one of the best preserved keeps in Europe. The 1215 siege of Rochester when King John tried to take the castle back from his rebel barons, one of the great sieges of history. One of those rare

sieges where it went all the way. they didn't just breach the outer wall and surrender they fought room to room it was the hollywood version of the medieval siege go and check that one out 1215 rochester castle and then i'm looking at the river rolling by and this was the site of one of the greatest reverses in history of the royal navy 1667 i think it was the dutch sailed up here to one of the main bases of the royal navy and burned the english fleet at their moorings and stole the flagship the royal charles and took it back to holland where it was used as a tourist attraction and the stern of it still sits in the museum there now it's a subject not often taught in british schools that one but that's amazing

nelson joined the navy here hms victory was built here in Chatham. Laid down in 1759, the great year of victories. Obviously, that's why it's called Victory. Anyway, this podcast has nothing to do with any of that stuff. I should say, by the way, congratulations to the team behind the Colette documentary. Oscar winners, Academy Award winners. So cool. You may remember they came on the podcast a few weeks ago. They talked about Nazi-occupied France and this young lady. She was then at the time, her resistance struggles. Well, that's just won the Oscar award, folks. It's won the Oscar award. So go and check it out on the Guardian website, Colette, and go back and listen to that podcast if you haven't already heard it. But today on the podcast, we've actually got episode two. You may remember we talked to Katja Heuer a while ago. She's a scholar who wrote a brilliant book about the

Second Reich, the German Empire of the Kaisers. And we talked so much about the formation of the Reich. We didn't actually talk about Germany itself. We didn't actually talk about the history of the Second Reich, of the German Empire itself. So I invited Katya back. And in this episode, we talk about Germany in the 19th century, early 20th century, and what its existence, what its expansion meant for the world. Such an interesting subject. So please do enjoy this podcast. As ever, if you want to go to historyhit.tv, historyhit.tv, you can sign on to the world's best history channel, which is the thing that you should definitely be doing and then you can watch this bismarck documentary which i now need to get back to filming in the meantime everyone enjoy katya hoyer

katya thank you very much for coming back on the podcast well thank you for inviting me again it's great to be back on well no we had to because remember last time we got so carried away, we talked about the German Empire. We only got to the flipping howl of mirrors in Versailles where the whole thing began. So now we're actually going to talk about the German Empire. What was the immediate impact of this huge and historically quite disparate collection of German-speaking people all ending up in one homogenous empire. It completely shifted the power balance really in Europe. So overnight, the German empire became the largest European state in terms of surface area, population, economic potential. Any way that you look at it, basically, this was the biggest European power,

which had literally just come onto the scene. So where France and Britain had been established players for much longer, Germany is kind of now this new entity and needs to find a space. And when you think where it is in Europe as well, right in the middle of it, it literally kind of muscles its way into the centre of Europe in all conceivable ways. If you look at these composite states, well, I guess we're all composite states, but thinking about the UK a lot at the moment, France to a certain extent, but Italy, Germany, how Prussian was Germany?

Very, I'd say, given that that is entirely pretty much Otto von Bismarck's project, more or less. And he was the minister president of Prussia. He also had to convince the Prussian king, who was the most viable candidate to become German Kaiser, to actually take on that role. He didn't want it. And so you end up basically with a very reluctant Prussian king being talked almost by Bismarck into accepting this role.

So Bismarck had to make it an extension of Prussian power, this new German thing, so an extension of Prussian power, this new German thing, so that basically the Prussian elites and first and foremost, of course, the king himself would actually accept it. And culturally, was there much streamlining that needed to take place? One thinks about Prussia's extraordinary military ethos that was slightly different to other German states. Did these others, Bavaria and the Palatinate, were they Prussianised? service effectively became the German civil service. And you end up with the German state basically being set up as an extension of Prussia in that sense. Where the southern states come in and where Bismarck does respect that there is a different culture and not least religious

differences, but with the southern states largely being Catholic, is the federal structure, which he allows not only to exist, but it's quite a strong structure, I would say almost akin to the United States in the sense that the individual states do retain quite a huge amount of power. When it comes to religion, for example, or culture, key areas like education, for example, are actually retained by the states. Take Bavaria as a state, very, very proud of its own identity, and it wants its children to grow up with the same kind of belief sets the fact that they were allowed to retain their own education system and in many ways their own autonomy within this framework that bismarck had created is i think what made it work as a hybrid so if you'd been living in wurttemberg or in the rhineland would you have noticed a huge difference straight

away well hey question about the 19th century anywhere in the world. Did you notice the nation state at all anyway? But would there have been a change? the common currency, for example, so your local currency would be replaced with the mark. There was a banking system introduced, that kind of thing. So any interaction really that you had with others would be now guided by a common set of laws and a common currency, weights, measurements, that kind of thing. So if you went to the market in say Württemberg, you would now pay for your, I don't know, apples with marks and you would use measurements in the same way that somebody say in Munich or in Berlin would. German economic and industrial scientific prestige and power was growing anyway. What effect did unification have on that process? Did it speed it up? Did it actually impede it in part? The Renaissance were always told actually it was the Italian disunity that was such

a spur to this kind of competitive way in which these Italian city-states tried to out-invent each other. So is German unification an example of that or a counter-example? A counter-example, I would say. I mean, it's largely the middle classes who actually pushed for German unification and had done for a long time. I mean, it is an ideological thing as well. They are genuinely liberals and bond to the liberal constitution. But it is their economic interest. They want to be able to trade in and amongst the other German states without the impediments of things like internal tariffs, for example, or as I was just saying, weight measurements, currency, that kind of thing. When you think of Germany as well, you've got this huge northern plain.

So the entire northern half of Germany is flat and lends itself incredibly well to the building of railway and other infrastructure. But Prussia was kind of impeded from doing that by having all of the little states in between its two parts. So before unification, Prussia is effectively split into two bits with the smaller German states basically in the middle. split into two bits with the smaller German states basically in the middle. And the problem with that is, of course, that Prussia is struggling to move goods and people and other things back and forth between its two parts. So once unification happens, that's a lot easier. And it does actually speed up unification really well in the sense that it is a lever, I would say, of economic progress.

You then end up with what is known as the second industrial revolution in Germany. So there is a huge boost to that. And this is something that I think shapes the German empire quite a lot, that huge economic progress that it's making once unified. There is a brief crash. So in 1873, you get a worldwide recession. So this isn't caused by Germany and it doesn't just happen in Germany, but it does dent the belief in capitalism a little bit and does actually spur things like socialism and

other sort of more interventive economic and political systems on but on the whole there's huge economic progress after unification rather than before. You mentioned that the middle classes wanted to we talked about this in the previous podcast a kind of liberal version of unification and it seems difficult for us to get our heads around that because it actually came about by deeply aristocratic Prussian. Bismarck was regarded as conservative nowadays, certainly. How liberal was his new creation? Because in some elements it was very progressive. Yes, it certainly was.

Bismarck did know that the liberals had become quite dangerous. When you look at the 1848 revolutions, which I think we talked about briefly last time, those came so close to toppling old aristocratic structures that it really frightened the elite. And the initial response was to push back on it and introduce a lot of censorship and other kind of oppressive measures, really, that were just there to put a lid on these movements. But Bismarck knew that those measures were really just a short-term solution. You can't suppress those things. It's kind of like one of those tides of history,

I would argue, in the 19th century that can't be put down forever. And so Bismarck basically, in 1871, realises he does need to concede quite a bit of ground to the liberals or otherwise he will struggle setting up a state. And so he introduces a constitution that has universal male suffrage and bar that, of course, excludes women. It is on the whole one of the most democratic systems that exists at the time. So all males over the age of 25 are allowed to vote, which leads to basically this huge and growing urban working class to be able to actually make its voice heard politically. And that really does change the character of the German Reich over time quite drastically. They get a lot of concession out of the in-leads. So things like a shorter working day or prohibition of Sunday work,

that kind of thing. And even a comprehensive welfare system, Bismarck is forced to introduce that to combat the socialist elements within the working class. So he introduces things like a pension system and accident insurance and that kind of thing, which is really quite modern as kind of stuff that we now take for granted, but they certainly weren't the kind of usual thing to be introduced by 19th century politicians. I guess one of the legacies of the German empire is it was very successful in creating Germany. I mean, we live in a world now where these states that were forged in the early modern period, these kind of composite kingdoms and states, Italy, Spain, the UK, are in the process of, or under threat of, being torn apart by secession in parts of those countries.

And yet in Germany, is it ironically that it was torn up after the Second World War and occupied, and so therefore there was a desire to reunify? In Germany, is there a move to undo that state creation of the 19th century that you see so many other places? Yeah, I mean, there is a Bavarian party. They do come out at elections every four years and try and make the case for Bavarian independence. How seriously they're taken by the rest of B Bavarians, I don't know, they tend to not get too many votes. But all joking aside, I think it is, as you say, the sort of catastrophes almost that Germany has gone through in its history, I think that compounded nationhood to some extent. I mean, you still get a lot of internal differences even now, because of the religious differences and cultural differences, and just because the country hasn't naturally grown together

in the way that perhaps other nation states have. But I think it's having gone through, in particular, the First World Wars, that's often called the catastrophe of Germany, if you will, and Europe to some extent as well. But for Germany, that certainly is the one traumatic experience that everyone went through, everyone suffered, everyone had some sort of personal catastrophe happen to them, be that the death of somebody that they knew or

injuries, economic suffering. Basically, people went through that together and then experienced the anger and the frustration and the humiliation afterwards together as well. So I think that's certainly an element there why Germany is here to stay, I would argue. What about on the international stage? Germany is inevitably just a huge presence straight away in Europe, but imperially as well, it wants to join the European race for empire. The German empire changes international strategic balance, doesn't it? Absolutely. I mean, Bismarck realises that right from the beginning, and it's part of his thinking, I would say, in his foreign policy. So what he tries to do from the off, because he realizes that introducing another world power to

Europe isn't going to work. And so he basically tries to reassure Britain mainly that Germany will not actually be a colonial power, it will not be a world power, it's a continental power. And that convinces Britain to some extent that perhaps this new creation isn't such a bad thing, because Bismarck entirely says, no, look, we've got this massive Germany in Europe now, and that's fine, we don't want any more. The problem is that once Bismarck is brushed aside and forced to resign in 1890, there's a young and ambitious Kaiser now at the helm of this German ship, quite literally, and does want to take it into the world and is obsessed with the idea that

if Germany doesn't take that opportunity now, it will fall behind. quite literally and does want to take it into the world and is obsessed with the idea that if Germany doesn't take that opportunity now it will fall behind and if you put that into the context of Darwinism as a relatively new concept and not relatively is a new concept in Europe and is now applied to things like politics and nation states all of a sudden you have this idea of the different European species all in this competitive jungle of Europe, and they need to fight for resources and for living space and for all of those concepts, then Germany does, in the eyes of Wilhelm and many others at the time, need to fight for its place. And if it doesn't do that, it'll perish. And it's that kind of existential fear that drives Germany into becoming a relatively large colonial empire. I mean, the colonial empire, German empire,

is often sort of belittled, you know, because comparatively, of course, it is relatively small, but it is the third largest by 1914 in the world, in terms of space. And so you end up with a not very useful economically, but otherwise still quite sizable empire that certainly worries Britain and France. When you think where the German ships are sailing as they go through, or out of Europe, they're going through the Channel, aren't they they so they're sailing literally right past over in calais you can literally physically see german sea power and the threat that that brings going past people's coastlines and so that was never gonna be unchallenged you're listening to katya hoyer we're talking about the second right of the german empire

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listen to Echoes of History a Ubisoft podcast brought to you by History Hits there are new episodes every week and what about its relationships with France and Russia? I'm trying to avoid just trying to get into a serious episode on why the First World War started here. So, Cathy, I'm doing my best here, OK? But what about... It always ends there.

I know, I know. I'm so struck by the relationship with France and Russia because Bismarck had it made. You keep France a pariah state and then you keep tight with the Russians and the Austrians. All three imperial, central Eastern European states hanging out together. Yeah, I mean, in fairness to Wilhelm,

that was beginning to unravel at the end of Bismarck's reign simply because Austria and Russia, their interests were diverging to a point where Bismarck was struggling to bridge that somehow. So they were kind of drifting further and further apart. And Bismarck had to pretend to each that he wasn't actually forging alliances with the other. So for instance, that infamous reinsurance treaty, which he'd signed with Russia, was completely secret to the point where you hadn't actually told Wilhelm about it or anybody else at court, really. point where you hadn't actually told Wilhelm about it or anybody else at court really. So when Bismarck goes nobody's really aware that this reinsurance treaty with Russia exists never mind that it needs

to be extended but I think even had they done that because the moment Austria finds out about this that would break the relationship between Austria and Germany so one way or another there was going to be trouble in Eastern Europe and that eventually would have led to Germany having to take sides one way or another. Bismarck was always trying to retain the sort of honest broker role in Europe. So those famous two conferences in Berlin, one to sort out the Balkan crisis, the other to carve up Africa and the rest of the world into colonies. But Bismarck always presented himself as we're the honest broker in the middle, we have no interest in the Balkans, we have no interest in the colonial empire, and the other

powers were quite happy with that. But I think that's a role that in the long term was unsustainable, because the moment you back one side or the other, eventually there's a decision point and you have to decide. So sitting on the fence wasn't going to work. Bismarck was quite good at issuing the little sort of futurology predictions. It's his great quote in the 1880s, the't going to work. Bismarck was quite good at issuing the little sort of futurology predictions. It's his great quote in the 1880s, the world going to go to war over some damn foolish thing in the Balkans. Tell me that's true, by the way. Yes, it is true, yeah.

Okay, thank goodness. To be fair, you know, this is something that a lot of people did say because it was obvious with power sort of shifting that way because the Ottoman Empire was, of course, beginning to crumble. And that power vacuum was always going to lead to some problem. Yeah, that's true. He's hardly a mystic. I mean, I said in 2005, the internet was going to be a big

deal, Katya. So I hope that's quoted in the future. You're really another Bismarck. Yeah, well, in so many ways. So let's talk about the Kaiser Wilhelm, who was actually, he succeeded his very short-lived father on the throne. So he was the third Kaiser, wasn't he? Was Germany still dependent on the character of the Kaiser to shape its politics? It's an interesting question and that's something that historians have argued a lot over. I'm inclined to agree to some extent with Christopher Clarke, who's sort of gone down the

route of the Kaiser was still the person that actually appoints positions. So the Chancellor and other important positions in government got directly appointed by the Kaiser, and they were only responsible to the Kaiser. So you didn't have a situation now where the Prime Minister is actually, say, in this country dependent on parliamentary support. That just didn't exist. So that link between Parliament and higher office was deliberately severed by Bismarck when he set up the constitution. So in that respect, yes, I mean, in theory, had you had a really strong and circumspect and clever politically apt Kaiser, he would have been able, I think, to manipulate that system in his own way. And the Kaiser does actually sit there at the beginning of his reign and says

he wants personal rule in those words. So he wanted to take power away from the Chancellor. In the end, the plan was to abolish the Chancellor role completely as a kind of manager of the system, if you will. So the Kaiser was going to run the country directly. And I think had there been a man with a bit more aptitude to do that, you could have well seen that the problem with Wilhelm is, of course, that he is Wilhelm in the sense that he just doesn't have, I think, neither in his disposition nor in his political intelligence, the sort of wide view of the bigger picture basically in mind. And that was the problem with him. He was easily manipulated in lots of different ways. And I think that's what gets so many other players like the military in, who are then able to use the Kaiser to some extent in their own way.

Yeah, so let's rehearse that. So Kaiser Wilhelm, if you take the kind of Bismarckian base, now maybe it was unsustainable, as you say, it wouldn't have lasted. But the Bismarckian idea was that you don't threaten Russia, the USA, Britain, because you go, we have no extra European interests as a German empire. You try and keep walking in lockstep with the other great, slightly shaky imperial monarchies of Eastern Central Europe. And that proved unworkable as well. But Kaiser Wilhelm kind of undermines both those. He builds a gigantic navy, which terrifies the Brits. And he starts

kind of throwing his weight around and just kind of what alienates the Russians, does he? Pretty much anyone and everyone. I mean, so many political mishaps that happen under his reign. He's just very clumsy in many ways. He's not a diplomat. So take the Morocco crisis, for example, where his intention was to support the case for independence in Morocco against the French who were running it as a colony. And the idea was that they would probably get British support for that, or so Willem thought. What it ended up doing is alienating both the French and the British

because it was considered to be German meddling and something that they had absolutely no business in. And it's just things like that that alienate people. Well, then this infamous interview that he gave to the Daily Telegraph where he was saying that the British were mad as march hares. that alienated people. Then this infamous interview that he gave to the Daily Telegraph, where he was saying that the British were mad as March has. He thought that he was talking to a British army officer in private, more or less, and the officer then afterwards, having made notes on those conversations,

said to him, I think this is really good. You come across as really pro-British. Shall we just write this up and send it to the press? It does get sent to the Telegraph. And normally there's a safety mechanism there. So just like now, the relationship between royal families and the press tends to be one where the press kind of send things back to them and get it double checked. And that happens as well. But it just gets sent back exactly as was, as is, because nobody really dares change

the wording of the Kaiser. And so these kind of informal conversations that he has with somebody by a fireplace in a drafty old English castle all of a sudden end up being blasted into the world. And one of those lines became quite infamous. What was meant as a term of endearment, he was genuinely kind of saying, oh, you're so mad in an eccentric sort of way. But to say that as the head of a state that's, as you say, building a huge naval power and threatening the empires here, there and everywhere in the world. So those kinds of things, he just doesn't realise how he comes across when he says things. In my book, I compare him a little bit to some modern politicians. I was looking towards America at that point in time. This kind of really reminded me of Trump in many

ways, where the political advisers were sort of running one step behind him all the time, trying to mitigate things that he was saying directly to the people via Twitter or via press conferences. And that was exactly what Wilhelm did. He had a script quite often and just went off it and said whatever he felt was the right thing to say. And then there's Bülow and then other officials. So Bülow was the chancellor and other officials kind of constantly trying to mitigate press statements and things like this. But by that time, people had heard what he'd said and rumors were going around. And that Han speech, for example, is another great example that ends up giving the Germans that nickname in the First World War.

So where Wilhelm basically says to sailors that are off to China to crush a rebellion there, the Boxer uprising, that they must be like the Hans. So he thinks he's telling them to put their foot down. But in effect, after other atrocities that happened in the empire that became well known, to say to people, you must behave like the Huns is perhaps not politically the most sensitive thing to do. And that in the end gave the nickname to all Germans in the First World War, because it sort of rubbed off from the Kaiser onto the people. So he was just that politically clumsy really in his dealings with other nations. Katya, I'm looking now out over the Solent. I can see the tip of the Isle of Wight and Osborne

House just over there where Kaiser Wilhelm sat at the bedside of Queen Victoria, his beloved grandmother as she died. And I can also see the Royal Yacht Squadron where he would turn up and he would always beat his uncle, Edward VII and the sailing gratter. And he must've thought, yeah, this is how I ingratiate myself with the Brits. And instead everyone said, oh, he's such a pain in the ass turning up in his fast yachts and beating us all the time.

So yeah, he didn't really get it. No, he was a really sore loser as well. Apparently every time he lost, he would kind of freak out and lose the plot and say rather unpleasant things to the people around him. But nonetheless, he had this odd relationship with Britain would kind of freak out and lose the plot and say rather unpleasant things to the people around him. But nonetheless, he had this odd relationship with Britain where it's sort of like a love-hate relationship almost. He was as fascinated with it as he saw it as a rival.

And so those boat races and things like that are a great metaphor for that in a way. Sums it up in a nutshell, really, his relationship with Britain. And did the Kaiser ever, you know, when we look at his uncle or his cousin George V, we don't think of Edward and George having a huge impact on the court. I mean, they did make some important interventions, and I'm thinking the hot summer of 1911 and stuff, near revolutionary events there, but they don't feature prominently in the kind of political history of the early 20th century. The Kaiser, was it just it was unresolved because it was a new state? Were they still forging paths in this state? So there was just constitutional tinkering.

The role of the Kaiser was there to be fashioned by the incumbent. Yes, in a way. And I mean, Wilhelm himself was very keen to make himself the central element. He thought Bismarck had struggled already holding this German empire together against all of those things that we talked about earlier. And Willem thought he was going to be the focal point of German identity. So everyone would rally behind this one Kaiser. And he tried to style himself as sort of the man of the people, as it were.

By all accounts, he was completely obsessed with how he was portrayed in the press so again you know perhaps a reminder or similarity to some modern politicians as well and he would sit there over breakfast and just read through all of the newspapers and see if he was mentioned anywhere and it would either elate him beyond belief or you would get absolutely furious or partially even start sulking or whatever they basically said about him and so you know he's perhaps the first media kaiser in that sense he makes himself the central part i think of that empire since 1890 because that's what he wants to be and it's perhaps even more obvious at the beginning of the war so when he declares war on russia on the first of august in 1914 he immediately steps out onto

his balcony in berlin and speaks from the palace to the people and says to them, I understand that I've made some enemies here and I understand that some of you have said things about me in the past that weren't nice, but let's forget about all of this. We need to stand together. On one occasion, he actually draws a sword in the early phases of the war in front of a crowd and says, rally behind me, behind the sword, and we'll defend this fatherland together. So he makes himself, I think, a figurehead for Germany in a way that perhaps another person wouldn't have done. We won't go into the outbreak of the First World War in Germany during the First World War, because we've done so in lots of other podcasts, but it'd be good to

have you on in the future to talk about those things. But again, just coming back to the German Empire, its meaning today, is it the geography? Is it the unity that Germany still enjoys? Or is there something about its industrial, technical, scientific power today? What are the key legacies of the German Empire? Well, I would say, first of all, it isn't one that is recognised in Germany, I don't think. In my own experience, and I've said this on many occasions, I think the Second World War and the Holocaust certainly have overshadowed pretty much everything that happened prior to it, to an extent where most Germans, I don't think, recognize the Kaiserreich as their legacy and as the kind of first incarnation of Germany. But having said that, there are obviously

very real consequences of it. So when you look at a map, for instance, say of the German Empire and compare that to modern Germany, you can see that the outline is very similar. Of course, some of the territory was lost during the First and Second World War on each side, as it were. But nonetheless, the actual kind of physical boundaries, for example, the exclusion of Austria is perhaps the most striking feature. That's a legacy from the 19th century. The other thing I would say is also that the history of

German democracy starts there. So our system now in Germany is still one of two chambers, where one is a representative sort of federal council, the individual states retaining their autonomy. And the other one is a parliament directly elected by the people across Germany. So that, for instance, is still there. The states that have veto rights against things. So that federal thing is still very much a legacy of the extreme differences between the different states. And that's the thing I think that still holds them together as well. So in that respect, there are certainly legacies there. Another one, perhaps the strong chancellorship. So the very central role that the chancellor plays in Germany, I think that example is set by Bismarck and then carries through history, with the only exception, I think, being the Weimar Republic, where that role deliberately gets scaled down a little bit and the president gets a more prominent role.

as kind of very central structure, holding everything else together, sort of the spider at the center of the web, if you will, of the political web in Germany. So there are many recognizable facts. I think a politician of, say, the Kaiserreich wouldn't feel too surprised if you put him into the modern day, basically, and said, you're an MP here. Now you would vaguely recognize where you are and how things work. The key difference now is accountability. So everything now leads back to the people. And that was something a bit smart. That link had deliberately been severed in exchange for giving Parliament that much democracy in direct elections. He had sort of severed the link between them and the Kaiser and the Chancellor and the ministers and everybody

else who's kind of in the executive, if you will. They had no accountability to the people. And that's, of course, changed now. Katya, thank you very much for coming on we're going to talk later in the year during the election we'll talk about the role of chancellor in germany so looking forward to talking to you about that i've noticed something katya about you every time you mention bavarian exceptionalism you start laughing uh there's just a yeah here we go again i just proved the point again i'm guessing you're not from bavaria so um i'm not no i'm as prussian as they come really if you will so always german or whatever you where my different layers of identity come from but certainly north of the cultural equator that divides germany if

you will i'm laughing because i'm always a bit split between finding it endearing and annoying and that's why i'm laughing so there's's certainly the sense, I think, much, much more strongly from Bavarians that there is a sense of being different and not being directly linked to Germany, I think, in the way that the North is. But I think that's, again, perhaps a legacy from that. And of course, the cultural and religious differences haven't really gone away. So you still have a deep Catholic identity, I think, in the South that you don't really have in the north of course far less intelligently than you i've got a westphalian friend who always refers to people from bavaria as lederhose wearing beer swilling david hasselhoff loving muppets

so let's just go with your definition though thank you very much indeed for coming on and talking in this second episode of the second reich they deserve to it was brilliant your book is called blood and iron the rise and fall of the german empire 1871 to 1918 it's so good thank you very much coming on thank you for having me i feel the hand of history on our shoulders all this tradition of ours our school history our songs this part of the history of our country all were gone and finished i want just a quick message at the history of our country, all of our gods, and fish. I want just a quick message at the end of this podcast. I'm currently sheltering in a small, windswept building on a piece of rock in the Bristol Channel called Lundy. I'm here to make

a podcast. I'm here enduring weather that, frankly, is apocalyptic, because I want to get some great podcast material for you guys. In return, I've got a little tiny favour to ask. If you could go to wherever you get your podcasts, if you could give it a five-star rating, if you could share it, if you could give it a review, I'd really appreciate that. Then from the comfort of your own homes, you'll be doing me a massive favour. Then more people will listen to the podcast, we can do more and more ambitious things and I can spend more of my time getting pummelled. Thank you.