Narrating Prince Wilhelm of Prussia: Commemorative Biography as Monarchical Politics of Memory

Abstract

For Prince, later king and German Emperor, Wilhelm of Prussia, commemorative biography was a consistent instrument in the exercise of his monarchical role. Originating during his time as heir to the Prussian throne, when it was used in order to overcome political isolation and forge his public persona, the biographies would later serve to defend his monarchical prerogatives and construct his posthumous memory. Rather than a simple chronological telling of his life, the biographies were carefully constructed narratives which sought to represent Wilhelm as the embodiment of bourgeois virtues, dynastic and Prussian characteristics and as lead representative abroad. Contrary to the idea of Wilhelm as passive monarch overruled by Bismarck, the biographies instead demonstrate him to be an active architect of his own public persona.

I would like to thank Birgit Aschmann (Humboldt Universität zu Berlin), Frank Lorenz Müller (University of St Andrews), Heidi Mehrkens (University of St Andrews) and Jan Palmowski (The University of Warwick) for their thoughtful comments and criticisms of this chapter, both in its earlier spoken and subsequent written forms.

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On 26 June 1888 the Prussian Staatsministerium discussed the upcoming publication of the memoirs of Louis Schneider, the former reader of the late Kaiser Wilhelm I. Though he had become emperor only ten days earlier, Wilhelm II was already determined to build a cult around his grandfather. He feared that these memoirs would create the impression that Schneider had played an important political role and that this supposed influence would damage the late emperor’s reputation. Bismarck had no such fears. He stated that the publication would quickly prove Schneider’s irrelevance. ¹ Bismarck’s low opinion of Schneider was representative of the latter’s standing at the Hohenzollern court. During the Franco-Prussian War, the then Crown Prince Friedrich Wilhelm had criticized Schneider for passing on military information to the press, lacking tact and making boastful comments in private. ² The memoirs were duly published and no criticism of Wilhelm I emerged. Wilhelm II was nevertheless worried that the myth surrounding his grandfather had been damaged. Otto Stolberg, the minister of the royal house, was to fall victim to the emperor’s unease. Having refused to pay Schneider’s heirs so that they would censure the memoirs, Stolberg was eventually forced to resign. ³

The discussion in the Staatsministerium reflected that contemporaries found it hard to grasp how heavily Wilhelm I had drawn on Schneider in his effort to construct his own public persona. For more than two decades this had been part of how Wilhelm had exercised his monarchical role. In spite of this, historians still claim that, in fulfilling his imperial office, Wilhelm was consistently overruled by Bismarck. ⁴ Guntram Schulze-Wegener’s recent biography of Wilhelm, however, offers a more nuanced argument. It points to how the emperor carried out his role with dignity and selflessness, an observation previously made by Otto Pflanze. ⁵ It is questionable, though, whether Wilhelm’s exercise of his monarchical role can solely be defined through his relation with Bismarck, important though he remains. Instead, an application of Joseph Nye’s concept of ‘soft power’, that seeks to show how monarchs generated support for and legitimacy of their role through the cultivation of values, culture, policies and institutions can help to challenge this argument. ⁶ It can demonstrate that part of Wilhelm’s political actions went beyond Bismarck’s reach and shows the former to be a political actor in his own right. It can, likewise, outline what relation existed between Wilhelm’s agency as heir to the throne and then as monarch.

The present chapter will use Wilhelm’s collaboration with Louis Schneider to show how Wilhelm generated and sought to apply soft power from the mid-1850s onwards. It will argue that the article on the Prince of Prussia as heir to the, penned by Schneider in 1856, set the precedent for the use of commemorative biographies as a means of constructing a historical narrative around Wilhelm’s public persona. These biographies would subsequently be appropriated to target specific audiences and temporal contexts in order to generate popular legitimacy. They also served particular political purposes. Written at a time when monarchs increasingly sought to present themselves as epitomes of their nation in order to accommodate the rise of nationalism and the nation-state, these commemorative biographies could capitalize on the increased status of History as a discipline and the mass print media. Schneider’s articles and books helped to portray Wilhelm as the embodiment of Prussian characteristics in a way that sought to appeal to both liberal and conservative audiences. They also defended some of his monarchical prerogatives.

The first part of the chapter will set out the constellation of the mid-1850s which caused Wilhelm to engage with commemorative biographies. It will then detail how this biographical article established some of the topoi on which Schneider would build in subsequent biographies of Wilhelm, as well as generate expectations of his coming reign. The third part will demonstrate how the form of commemorative biographies and specific elements of the 1856 article could be appropriated once Wilhelm had become Prussian king and German emperor, how they served to defend his monarchical prerogatives and forge his posthumous memory.

Commemorative Biographies as Instruments of Monarchical Politics of Memory

Wilhelm’s turn to commemorative biographies becomes understandable against the background of his position in the mid-1850s. After his return from exile in England, where he had fled in the wake of the 1848 revolutions, he led the campaign to stamp out the insurrection in Baden in 1849. This fulfilled his long held ambition to be a military commander. ⁷ A symbol of the old political order during the upheavals of 1848, Wilhelm’s active role in 1849 helped to restore his standing among court and military circles. ⁸ The prince recognized though, that after the Baden campaign few if any prestigious military operations that could strengthen his reputation among the political establishment and the population could be expected for the foreseeable future. When the Crimean War broke out and Prussia remained neutral, Wilhelm wrote to Oldwig von Natzmer that ‘for us soldiers who like to see some result after the preparations in peacetime, time seems to last long: one does not get younger and so I have to settle with the episode in Baden’. ⁹ In addition to this, the Prince of Prussia was politically isolated. He argued with his brother over the resignation of Minister of War Eduard von Bonin. Wilhelm feared that Bonin’s dismissal was engineered by the king’s Russophile court camarilla in order to move Prussia into the Russian camp. In a letter to his brother, he urged to withdraw Bonin’s dismissal and threatened to dissociate himself from the king’s policies. Friedrich Wilhelm ignored Wilhelm’s defiance, temporarily relieved him from his command and sent him on leave to Baden. ¹⁰ Though the prince’s insubordination ended peacefully, he withdrew hereafter to his post as inspector of the Prussian infantry in order to distance himself from a policy he did not support. ¹¹

Wilhelm thus had good reasons for cultivating his public standing. David Barclay has argued that Friedrich Wilhelm IV had failed in his attempt to make his monarchical project ‘the outgrowth of an all-embracing vision of ideological, cultural, political, moral and religious regeneration in Germany. The king had been determined to modernize the monarchy while creating a total and positive alternative to “the revolution”’. ¹² The revolution of 1848 demonstrated that ‘his vision of a ständisch monarchy in an anti-revolutionary, monarchist Europe was passé’. ¹³ Indeed, Friedrich Wilhelm IV’s monarchical project did little to address the rising nationalism by merging it with a dynastic narrative. Significantly, his Neues Museum in Berlin, an institution aimed at educating the people, did not celebrate the Hohenzollern as a dynasty or Prussia as a state. ¹⁴ This set Friedrich Wilhelm apart from other monarchs, such as the kings of Saxony, Hanover and Württemberg, who did seek to construct a dynastic history and forge a distinct identity for their state. ¹⁵ Against this background, Wilhelm could distinguish himself from his brother and enhance his standing by presenting himself as the future monarch who embodied the merging of a dynastic and national identity.

Using commemorative biographies as a way to mediate a historical narrative that linked dynastic and national elements was one way to achieve this. Hans Renders has defined the commemorative biography as a work based on some research, but mostly serving to canonize the subject’s reputation. The positive account reinforces what the readers already know about the subject, and these biographies are usually written at the request of or authorized by the subject, or are at the very least seen as reinforcing the subject’s existing reputation. Contrary to Renders’s claim, however, that commemorative biographies serve to confirm the uniqueness of the subject, the commemorative biographies Wilhelm authorized explicitly sought to portray him as the embodiment of a specific entity—the Prussian dynasty and state. ¹⁶ Commemorative biographies can function as a form of memory politics when used in the way Edgar Wolfrum has defined as characteristic of Geschichtspolitik: as a political discourse on history which serves to simplify reality, to amend an existing narrative and use codifying elements to structure the discourse. ¹⁷ Such a political discourse on history can assume features of a political myth, in particular in the way it narrates certain events as exemplary and integrates contradictions through a narrative process and as a source of legitimacy. ¹⁸

The significance of Wilhelm’s use of commemorative biographies is that it places the prince in the exercise of his role firmly in the context of the mid-nineteenth century with its high estimation of the discipline of History and a growing readership. ¹⁹ In so doing, Wilhelm followed the example of other European monarchs who used them for similar purposes. In his introduction to his biography of the late king Wilhelm II of the Netherlands, which was commissioned by his successor Wilhelm III, Johannes Bosscha wrote to the Dowager Queen Anna Paulowna that the biography was meant to convince ‘his countrymen, […] that through God’s will the Netherlands and the Orange dynasty were related to each other through the events of the past, the needs of the time and the conditions of the happiness of both in the future’. ²⁰ This function was recognized too by Wilhelm II’s brother, who, in 1881, requested that the military historian François de Bas write a biography of him to underline the role of the dynasty in the Netherlands’ military history in the preceding century. ²¹ Yet the best-known example of royal commemorative biographies of this period remains perhaps the five-volume life of Prince Albert, written in the 1860s and 1870s by Theodore Martin under the close supervision of Queen Victoria in order to canonize the memory of her late husband. ²²

As Renders’ definition of commemorative biographies makes clear, it was essential for Wilhelm to employ an author who could guild his reputation and utilize an effective literary style. That he would draw on Louis Schneider was unsurprising. Schneider was a staunch royalist, Russophile and a publicist with a background in Berlin’s literary and theatre circles. For many years he belonged to the literary group Der Tunnel über der Spree, which included authors such as Theodor Fontane, Theodor Storm and Franz Kugler. Since 1848 he had drawn closer to Wilhelm, and, through publications in the Wehrzeitung, acted as his mouthpiece in military matters. He also edited and was de facto the sole contributor to the Soldatenfreund. Both of these military periodicals aimed at educating the common soldier. With regards to his own persona, Wilhelm insisted that Schneider depict him with praise. ²³ Importantly, Schneider already had experience with royal biography, having previously written an extended piece on Friedrich Wilhelm III’s relation to the theatre for Rulemann Eylert’s biography of the king. ²⁴

In November 1855 Wilhelm initiated the 1856 biographical article. With the 50th anniversary of his officer’s commission approaching in 1857, he suggested that Schneider write his military obituary, to be published in case of his death, and to that end provided him with an overview of his promotions. Schneider further completed this list, which Wilhelm titled ‘Inventory of services given to the Prussian state and German fatherland, as well as the decorations and promotions received for this’. The writer subsequently decided to rework this list into a biographical article that would serve as an example of ‘loyal fulfilment of duty’. He prepared a draft manuscript and sent it to Wilhelm, who would insert corrections and additions of particular events or points of view he wished to emphasize or to be left out. Wilhelm thus remained the arbiter of his biography. For example, he insisted that Schneider should not cover the year 1848 in great detail or elaborate on why he was forced to seek exile in England. Thus amended, the manuscript was sent back to Schneider. In order to keep secret that Wilhelm was the source of the article, though, the prince refused to meet up with Schneider to discuss the manuscript. The article was published in the Soldatenfreund in December 1856. It was little noticed at first, as the magazine barely circulated outside the army, so that its effect on the intended wider audiences may have been limited. After Wilhelm’s assumption of the regency, though, the article attracted more interest and thereafter quickly went out of print. Schneider subsequently decided to expand the biography into a separate edition of the Soldatenfreund and bring the narrative to 1861, the year of Wilhelm’s coronation. ²⁵

Setting a Precedent: Schneider’s 1856 Article

At first glance, Schneider’s article provided a chronological narrative. But the article was in fact structured by ‘codifying elements’ (Wolfrum) which formed the foundation of the narrative. Individually, these elements served specific purposes, addressing particular audiences and conveying distinct political arguments. Taken together, these elements constructed a narrative in which Wilhelm’s persona was presented as the dynastic epitome of the Prussian nation, albeit in contemporary terms. Schneider consciously widened the gap between the monarchy of the eighteenth century and its nineteenth-century successor. In the opening of the article he noted that only weeks before Wilhelm’s birth Frederick the Great’s widow, Elisabeth Christine had died. King Friedrich Wilhelm II was present at Wilhelm’s christening but would die later that year. ²⁶ Such distancing was also applied to the prince’s siblings, in particular his elder brother and heir to the throne Friedrich Wilhelm, who received barely a mention. Once he had ascended the throne and Wilhelm had become the heir-presumptive, references to Friedrich Wilhelm IV remained formal. In this sense, the article began to reverse the situation from Wilhelm’s youth when, as a second-born son and through the absence of print media and photography, he had received considerably less attention than his older brother. ²⁷ By distancing Wilhelm from older and younger members of the dynasty a biographical dyad was constructed between the prince and his parents, King Friedrich Wilhelm III and Queen Louise.

Wilhelm and his parents were presented as models of bourgeois virtue and committed to their country. Schneider described that ‘whenever government affairs allowed, the young King Friedrich Wilhelm III […] was with his children, personally took care of the toys and went each night with the Queen to their children’s rooms, where he saw them lying in their beds and quietly kissed their foreheads’. ²⁸ Louise is described as taking her sons to all military plays and Schneider recounted her widely known response to the Prussian army’s defeat at Jena, when her children heard her saying ‘You see me in tears, I cry for the downfall of our army, it did not meet the expectations of the king’. ²⁹ Approvingly, Schneider quoted from a letter Queen Louise had written to her father, in which she stated that Wilhelm ‘would be like his father, simple, modest and wise’. ³⁰ In turn, the prince was depicted as piously devoted to his parents. At Wilhelm’s insistence, Schneider described the prince’s presence at his parents’ respective deathbeds. In the case of Friedrich Wilhelm III’s death, Wilhelm had provided Schneider with the relevant details. ³¹ Underlining such family virtues saved Schneider from having to discuss Wilhelm’s own rather bleak domestic life. By the mid-1850s, the prince’s marriage was well known for its unhappiness, which was reflected by them having only two children. ³² Wilhelm’s early courtship with Elisa Radziwill, broken off at his father’s insistence, is not discussed in Schneider’s article. Unsurprisingly, the article does not refer to Wilhelm’s numerous extramarital affairs either. However, as Karl Heinz Börner has noted, Wilhelm was quite successful in covering up these affairs—to the extent that even those closest around him knew very little about them. ³³

Highlighting his and his parents’ domestic virtues of family bliss and devotion to their country helped Wilhelm to cultivate and consolidate his reputation with the liberal bourgeoisie. In the early 1850s the prince had already enhanced his standing as a result of his governorship of the more liberal-minded Rhineland and by publicly stating his support for moderate liberal constitutional reform. ³⁴ Monika Wienfort has argued that the staging of an exemplary family life emerged as an important source of legitimacy: not the dynasty, but the family became a guiding political principle next to the state and nation. The image of the family with the authority of the father became the metaphor of the state taking care of his children. This contributed to the idea of good government that gained support from the educated classes. ³⁵ It was amongst this group that Schneider’s article was meant to deepen the support for Wilhelm.

There is, however, a second layer of importance to the specific way Louise’s maternal care and experience of victimhood during Wilhelm’s youth are depicted by Schneider. His emphasis on Louise’s motherhood and worry about her country contributed to sentimentalizing Louise’s memory in a way that did not necessarily follow the ‘hard’ nationalist myth of the late queen. In recent years historians such as Birte Förster, Eva Giloi and Philipp Demandt have demonstrated that in the years before and after German unification a myth was constructed around Louise. It drew on notions of victimhood and innocence in order to overcome the gruesome reality of war. In addition, Louise could be represented as the ideal of Prussian and German femininity. ³⁶ As Louise’s representation in Schneider’s article demonstrates, this specific cultivation of the Louise-myth was enhanced through Wilhelm’s active involvement as early as the 1850s.

Schneider’s depiction of Wilhelm’s personal virtues was complemented by an emphasis on his Christianity. This served to cultivate the support of conservative groups alongside the educated liberal classes. Schneider uses Wilhelm’s Konfirmation in 1815 as an example of this. According to Schneider ‘his Glaubensbekenntnis was firmly rooted in the Protestant Christianity and herein he showed himself worthy to be a member of the ruling house which is seen as the haven of the Protestant religion in Germany’. ³⁷ Such a statement allowed Schneider to do two things. By portraying Wilhelm as a traditional Protestant he set himself apart from his brother, whose personal faith was much broader and romantically inspired. Friedrich Wilhelm IV had sought to make this part of a wider attempt at religious renewal in Prussia to counter ‘the rationalist tendencies of the modern world with spiritual weapons’. ³⁸

Schneider also applied a Borussian understanding of Prussian-German history to Wilhelm’s biography: by presenting Wilhelm as the epitome of the ruling Protestant dynasty in Germany, he differentiated him from the Habsburgs and proffered a small-German perspective on the question of German unification. This was coupled with a patriarchal and hierarchical Christianity. Schneider quotes from Wilhelm’s Konfirmation, where he acknowledged that being part of the aristocracy came with obligations, that his strengths were to be used for the fatherland, that nobody should feel burdened by his royal status, but should be put at ease by him and reminded of their duties. ³⁹

The second structuring element in Schneider’s narrative was Wilhelm’s portrayal as a military leader, consisting of depictions of him as a reformer and operational commander. The former was communicated through the discussion of a brochure Wilhelm had written in 1848 and which had subsequently been edited and published by Schneider. ⁴⁰ Here Wilhelm discussed the military implications for the Prussian army of a possible German unification. The problems that he discussed, above all the length of conscription, remained a live issue in the 1850s. In fact, the decision to refer to the brochure in the article says much about the perspective of Wilhelm as a future monarch that Schneider sought to give. In 1856 Wilhelm had been member of a committee which was to provide recommendations to King Friedrich Wilhelm IV on the length of the conscription service and other questions of rearmament. Via Schneider, Wilhelm voiced his opinions in the press. ⁴¹ Discussing the brochure here not only served to suggest that a royal-led military reform was still possible since the military prerogatives of the Hohenzollern monarch had remained unaltered after the 1848 revolutions. ⁴² It also provided Wilhelm with another opportunity to reiterate his own position on the length of the conscription.

This stance was complemented by underlining Wilhelm as an operational commander. Schneider emphasized his strategic skills and military appearance. The 1849 Baden campaign served to illustrate this. In the wake of the 1848 revolutions, a wave of insurrections broke out in 1849 across various German states, including Baden. A Prussian military expedition under Wilhelm’s command culminated in the siege of Rastatt, which effectively ended the rebellion. Schneider claimed that this was the result of Wilhelm’s operational plan. ⁴³ These strategic capabilities were complemented by the prince’s willingness to share in his soldiers’ dangers. According to Schneider, he ‘took up headquarters in the Castle Favorite near Rastatt, where he was permanently in the vicinity of the soldiers carrying out the siege, inspected the positions daily, visited the camps and issued all orders which brought an end to the insurrection in Baden’. ⁴⁴ This served to increase the loyalty and veneration his troops felt for him. ⁴⁵ Schneider quoted from the memoirs of Friedrich Wilhelm Hackländer, a writer and officer: ‘The Prince of Prussia, a beautiful, tall figure has a friendly, clear and exceptionally charming facial expression, bright eyes and a deep, clear voice. The Prince has a blond moustache, of which the tips are a little turned upward and sideburns, as it was introduced in the Prussian army. He wore the simple uniform of a general, to which was attached the Pour le Mérite and in the buttonhole the iron cross which he received during the wars of liberation’. ⁴⁶

Emphasizing Wilhelm’s military leadership helped to present him as a charismatic military royal and future monarch. It served to strengthen his standing as the army’s principal representative. Once more, it distanced him from his brother Friedrich Wilhelm IV, whose corpulent appearance and largely ceremonial interest in the military made him the least martial monarch among the Hohenzollern rulers. ⁴⁷ Recently, both Dieter Langewiesche and Volker Sellin have pointed to the importance of martial glory as well as its commemoration in the form of monarchical monuments, which formed a crucial test of political legitimacy. ⁴⁸ In addition, as Heinz Dollinger has pointed out, the military monarchy offered an alternative to a Bürgerkönigtum, (bourgeois monarchy), in particular in states such as Prussia where military prerogatives had remained unaltered despite constitutional changes. ⁴⁹ Presenting Wilhelm in this manner helped to prevent him from once more re-emerging as the representative of an outdated political order. Instead, it invested Wilhelm’s military leadership with charismatic and popular characteristics (see Image 15.1). Dollinger has argued that the image of the monarch as military leader was related to ‘popular kingship’ (Volkskönigtum). ⁵⁰ Though Wilhelm never developed this image as far as his contemporaries Napoleon I and Napoleon III, the trope was nonetheless already a familiar one in Prussian culture. As Frank Lorenz Müller has argued, approachability of the monarch as military commander not only implicitly ‘confirmed a hierarchical mode of the ruler and ruled’, it also served as a reminder of the existing image of Frederick the Great as a victorious military figure and a man of the people. Wilhelm’s son Friedrich Wilhelm would later tap into this notion in his depictions of himself as a military commander during and after the wars of German unification. ⁵¹ As the example of Schneider’s article demonstrates, Wilhelm also utilized this trope.

Image 15.1

The embodiment of military virtue: Prince Wilhelm of Prussia in a wood engraving from 1854 © INTERFOTO/Alamy Stock Photo

The third structuring element in Schneider’s 1856 article centres on Wilhelm as the representative and embodiment of Prussia abroad. Here Schneider and Wilhelm sought to appeal to liberal and conservative groups by demonstrating the prince’s closeness to both England and Russia. In 1853, Wilhelm was Queen Victoria and Prince Consort Albert’s guest of honour at a fleet review at Spithead, with ships from the Prussian and British navies present. It is telling that Schneider had shifted his emphasis. In earlier articles on the visit, published in the Wehrzeitung, the focus was on military details; they underlined the standing and performance of the Prussian navy abroad. The details were provided by Wilhelm, who gave a description of the event for his brother and suggested publishing parts of the letter. ⁵² In this instance, the details were published in the Wehrzeitung in August 1853. ⁵³ This reflected a common practice that some letters were deliberately written for publication in order to increase the reader’s sense of intimacy with the life of the monarch. ⁵⁴

In Schneider’s 1856 article, however, the focus is on Wilhelm representing Prussia abroad. The visit to England is listed amongst a series of trips Wilhelm undertook that year, including a military manoeuvre at the request of the German Bund and a reception by Emperor Franz Josef in Vienna. Schneider added that ‘both in Olmütz as well as thereafter in Vienna the Prince of Prussia received the manifold demonstrations of esteem in which his name was held well beyond the borders of the Prussian fatherland’. ⁵⁵

A similar argument—with an added purpose—was present in Schneider’s descriptions of Wilhelm’s encounters with the Russian Emperor Nicholas I. Here too a military occasion provided the backdrop for a monarchical encounter where princes met as representatives of their states, as well as refreshing a shared historical memory. In 1834 Wilhelm attended the unveiling of the Alexandrian column in St Petersburg. Schneider quoted Nicholas I commenting on the detachment of Prussian troops which Wilhelm led. The veterans chosen by the king to represent the Prussian army ‘demonstrate for the eyes of the whole of Europe the brotherhood in arms, which both sovereigns had founded between the two peoples and which Providence has blessed by their shared memories of national glory’. ⁵⁶ Schneider also covered the troop review held at Kalisch in Russian Poland the following year, where Nicholas was in overall command, while Wilhelm commanded an army corps. ‘As always, at Kalisch the Prince appeared to all observers as the very example of a conscientious soldier, eager for service and as the future military commander who would lead his troops to victory.’ ⁵⁷

There was a dual meaning to the narrative of these visits. Johannes Paulmann has argued that as the international order of the Holy Alliance gave way to a system of competing monarchical nation-states in the middle of the nineteenth century, the role of the monarch and the military as embodying the nation abroad was articulated in a more pronounced fashion. Certain types of military events, such as fleet reviews, were particularly important in terms of presenting monarchs to each other as national representatives. ⁵⁸ This was the mould in which Wilhelm was cast by Schneider. Though some of the monarchical encounters happened while the Holy Alliance was still in place, presenting these as meetings of national monarchical representatives of their respective countries gave Wilhelm the appearance of a thoroughly contemporary future monarch. Additionally, there was a direct political interest at work here. Evoking Wilhelm’s grand reception in England could suggest—to liberal audiences—a future alliance with that kingdom. Indeed, Wilhelm advocated this, as well as a breach with Russia, once he became regent in 1858. ⁵⁹ Nonetheless, Wilhelm’s private sympathy and emotional attachment always remained with Russia, as it had been ever since the Napoleonic wars. ⁶⁰ Conservatives concerned over a reversal of Prussia’s foreign policy if Wilhelm were to succeed his brother could derive comfort from the extensive descriptions of the esteem in which the prince was held in Russia, as well as the familial ties connecting the two dynasties.

Defending Prerogatives and Forging Memory: Schneider’s Later Biographies

Though Schneider’s 1856 article only received more attention once Wilhelm had ascended the throne, in retrospect its significance was to show the utility of commemorative biographies. Wolfgang Neugebauer has argued that the fact that there were fewer royal councils after 1867 demonstrated the monarch’s withdrawal from everyday politics. In the German Reich, with its increased governmental complexity, the decline of dynastic factors in international relations, the growing dominance of Bismarck and Wilhelm’s aging, it was inevitable that the emperor would be less engaged in the political decision-making process. Nonetheless, Wilhelm zealously defended his monarchical prerogatives, such as summoning officials to give reports (Vorträge). Not until 1883 did Wilhelm establish the practice that the chief of the general staff was permitted to report directly to the monarch. ⁶¹ But upholding such prerogatives was by no means something William restricted to the inner world of the Prussian government. Here, too, the commemorative biographies could be put to use. In the adaptability of their narrative, Schneider’s works showed again characteristics of political myth, and the flexibility of the myth allowed it to endure. ⁶²

Defending Wilhelm’s military prerogatives was one of the main purposes of the later book-length biographies Schneider wrote of the German emperor. The final instalment appeared in 1875, entitled Emperor Wilhelm. Military biography 1867–1871. Continuation of the two volumes ‘King Wilhelm’ which encompass the years 1864–1867 and published by the same publisher. This final volume—Schneider died in 1878—was the latest in what had grown into a continuous biographical project on Wilhelm I. It appropriated the image of Wilhelm as a roi connétable for the decade during and after the wars of German unification. During these wars, Schneider authored articles for the Staatsanzeiger, the Preußische Zeitung and the Soldatenfreund. Many of these articles were written with Wilhelm’s consent and were corrected by him, such as the piece on the battle of Vionville (Mars-la-Tour). ⁶³

After the wars, these articles then served as the basis for the book-length biographies. The composition process between Schneider and Wilhelm remained the same, as did many of the themes. In his biography of Wilhelm in the war of 1866 Schneider had written that ‘King Wilhelm was in his 69th year, and that he himself would command his army, share in its dangers, as his ancestors had done, was self-evident, given his sense of duty, his thinking and preferences.’ ⁶⁴ In the 1875 edition of his biography of German Emperor Wilhelm, Schneider stated that ‘one cannot possibly imagine the thoughts and feelings of a king and supreme commander at the same time on the eve of a great battle, where so much depends on a victory or defeat in a battle! What must a king think in these moments, how must he consider the smallest details of the army simultaneously with the grand relations of the European states, balance all the odds and favours. How he must consider history, experience and character of his subordinates. […] The greater the adulation of the population in good times, the greater their blame in times of misfortune, however much it is the king’s responsibility. […] Hence his motto: “Consider first, then dare!”’. ⁶⁵

Invoking this motto reveals the intentions Schneider—and by implication Wilhelm—pursued with these military biographies: they served to underline the Hohenzollern monarch’s military primacy within the state. The motto would later adorn the coat of arms of Helmuth von Moltke, chief of the Prussian general staff. It was frequently cited when describing him as an intellectual and thoughtful officer. One consequence of the victorious wars of German unification was also that the population now saw Moltke as the scientific architect of military victory. The field marshal himself had done much to enhance this perception, by explaining his tactics and strategies to journalists present during the war, as well as through the official histories of the wars written by him or under his supervision by the historical section of the General Staff. ⁶⁶ Although Wilhelm himself supported this division of labour, he was jealous of Moltke’s victories, as one of the latter’s officers noted. ⁶⁷

As a result, Wilhelm sought to guard and underline that the military primacy and prerogatives still remained with the monarch. Schneider’s later biographies were dominated by this issue. Thematically, the narrative hardly deviated from that of the 1856 article. As demonstrated above, the article underlined Wilhelm’s personal military leadership and how this formed part of a dynastic lineage which presented the Hohenzollern monarchs as brave warriors. Emphasizing such heroism would resonate with the political culture of imperial Germany. Matthew Jefferies has argued that the Gründerzeit-era of the new empire saw a ‘characteristic preoccupation with the heroic individual. Whether in the world of business, politics or the arts, the focus was on the “great men” upon whom, it was believed, history relied’. ⁶⁸ Within a nation state that essentially was a dynastic confederation and valued military prowess, depicting Wilhelm as the capable military monarch was tantamount to cultivating contemporary defences of monarchical prerogatives.

One function remained for Schneider’s works. Since the late 1840s Schneider had compiled notes and drafted manuscripts on his acquaintance with Wilhelm, with the purpose of publishing these as a memoir. Wilhelm had agreed to this, on the condition that these would not be published until after his death. ⁶⁹ In so doing, Wilhelm sought to forge his posthumous memory by giving the reading public insight in his private sphere as the embodiment of Prussian virtues and the military monarchy. Alexa Geisthövel has argued that with the rise of the mass printed media, monarchs were increasingly observed by the public. This meant that not only their rule but their presence in general came under scrutiny, with criteria such as dignity, proximity to the people and the degree to which insights could be gleaned from the monarch’s private sphere being applied. ⁷⁰

As Wilhelm’s reader, Schneider was particularly suited to provide these insights. Writing about Wilhelm as a tireless worker, he described how the monarch would read dispatches over his morning coffee, take the first train to Potsdam to inspect his troops even if he had attended a ball the night before and that during the train journey he would listen to reports. ⁷¹ Schneider hinted at Wilhelm’s modesty: when he was shown a depiction of himself as Charlemagne he rejected it. ⁷² A visit to Wilhelm when he was lying ill in his bedroom in his palace at Berlin’s Unter den Linden, gave Schneider the opportunity to convey an impression of the room: hardly any light came in, the iron camp bed stood in an alcove and there was only simple furniture. ⁷³ Combined, Schneider’s descriptions gave the image of the German emperor who—during the 1870s at least—wanted to be remembered as foremost the embodiment of Prussian, rather than German, virtues. Schneider’s memoirs were not reprinted after 1888, but these, as well as his earlier works, did have the cumulative effect of narrating Wilhelm as epitomizing the Prussian state. As such, the works surely contributed to their persistence in subsequent Prussian-German cultural memory and literature. As late as 2006, Christopher Clark would reiterate the image of Wilhelm as the embodiment of Prussian virtues, citing thrift, punctuality, simplicity and self-discipline. ⁷⁴

Conclusion

When Heinrich Poschinger suggested in 1882 that dispatches from the Prussian embassy in St Petersburg could be published, Bismarck rejected this with the remark that Wilhelm did not want any revelations on his reign being published at this stage. ⁷⁵ Whether or not these were indeed Wilhelm’s wishes or Bismarck’s—and Bismarck often made sure these were hard to separate—by 1882 Wilhelm had already sought to craft a historical narrative for his public persona. Indeed, there are good reasons to interpret the period of Wilhelm’s collaboration with Schneider as a coherent, single phase in the overall public persona Wilhelm sought to project. Despite Schneider’s numerous biographies often serving different purposes, their overarching narrative was consistently monarchical-Borussian, aimed at defending the monarchical form of government and Wilhelm as the embodiment of the ascending Prussian dynasty within Germany and Europe. Seen as such, this phase is directly linked to Wilhelm’s support for German unification in the early 1850s, his refusal to develop an imperial representation of his role after the proclamation of the German empire and his persistent, if declining, practice of presiding over the royal councils as part of the traditional prerogatives of the Prussian monarch in the 1870s. ⁷⁶ Coincidentally, but significantly, Schneider died in 1878 when Wilhelm gradually began to withdraw from the day-to-day running of the government. Though, in the 1880s, Wilhelm would provide the same sort of editorial assistance to Oskar Meding in the latter’s biographies of the first German emperor, their cooperation never emulated the proximity, duration and themes that Wilhelm and Schneider shared.

By utilizing commemorative biographies, Wilhelm was thus more active in exercising in his royal and imperial role in the 1850s, 1860s and 1870s than has previously been assumed. This adds to Winfried Baumgart’s argument that Wilhelm as heir in his correspondence with his brother King Wilhelm Friedrich IV sought to influence the decision making process of Prussia’s government in the 1840s and 1850s. ⁷⁷ It makes clear that Wilhelm was capable—not only in private correspondence, but also for a wider public—of drawing on particular tropes variously to distance himself from his brother, forward his own political opinions or to generate support for his coming reign. This conclusion goes against the assumption that Wilhelm was frequently just an ornament to Bismarck’s politics. In fact, Wilhelm’s cooperation with Schneider shows that important parts of crafting Wilhelm’s public persona went without Bismarck’s knowledge or intervention. Much of the dissatisfaction at court against Schneider and the inability to comprehend his activities stemmed from the author’s operating often beyond the reach of either the court or government. Finally, Schneider’s commemorative biographies demonstrate to what extent Wilhelm had actively crafted the image of himself as the epitome of the Prussian dynastic nation. Through his adherence to this image, Wilhelm decisively influenced the perception and operation of his imperial role after 1871. But it also demonstrates the importance and continuity of the use of soft power from his time as heir to the Prussian throne onwards.

Notes

• 1. Jürgen Kocka and Wolfgang Neugebauer (eds) (1999), Die Protokolle des preußischen Staatsministeriums 1817–1934/38 VII 8. Januar 1879 bis 19. März 1890, Hildesheim, 239.

• 2. Heinrich Otto Meisner (ed.) (1926), Kaiser Friedrich III. Das Kriegstagebuch von 1870/71, Berlin, 245.

• 3. Norman Rich and M.H. Fisher (eds) (1957), Die geheimen Papiere Friedrich von Holsteins. II Tagebuchblätter, Göttingen, 425.

• 4. Jonathan Steinberg (2011), Bismarck. A Biography, Oxford, 197; Christoph Nonn (2015), Bismarck. Ein Preuße und sein Jahrhundert, Munich, 212–13.

• 5. Guntram Schulze-Wegener (2015), Wilhelm I. Deutscher Kaiser, König von Preussen, Nationaler Mythos, 386–87; Otto Pflanze (1990), Bismarck and the Development of Germany III The Period of Fortification, 1880–1898, 187–191.

• 6. See Frank Lorenz Müller’s introduction to this volume.

• 7. Angela Schwarz (2001), ‘Wilhelm I. (1797–1888)’, in: Michael Fröhlich (ed.), Das Kaiserreich. Portrait einer Epoche in Biographien, Darmstadt, 15–26, 19.

• 8. Jürgen Angelow (2001), ‘Wilhelm I.’, in: Frank Lothar Kroll (ed.), Preussen Herrscher. Von den ersten Hohenzollern bis zu Wilhelm II, Munich, 242–64, 251.

• 9. Quoted in Erich Marcks (1918), Kaiser Wilhelm I., Munich, 8th edition, 111.

• 10. David E. Barclay (1995), Frederick William IV and the Prussian Monarchy, 1840–1861, Oxford, 268–70.

• 11. Marcks (1918), 121; Angelow (2001), 253.

• 12. Barclay (1995), 286.

• 13. Barclay (1995), 276–77.

• 14. Eva Giloi (2011), Monarchy, Myth, and Material Culture in Germany 1750–1950, Cambridge, 132–56.

• 15. Abigail Green (2001), Fatherlands. State-building and Nationhood in Nineteenth-century Germany, Cambridge. For Bavarian and Russian examples of this phenomenon see Manfred Hanisch (1991), Für Fürst und Vaterland. Legitimitätsstiftung in Bayern zwischen Revolution 1848 und deutscher Einheit, Munich and Richard S. Wortman (1995), Scenarios of power. Myth and Ceremony in Russian Monarchy. From Peter the Great to the death of Nicholas I, Princeton, 296–332.

• 16. Hans Renders (2008), De zeven hoofdzonden van de biografie. Over biografen, journalisten en historici, Amsterdam, 6.

• 17. Edgar Wolfrum (1999), Geschichtspolitik in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland. Der Weg zur Bundesrepublikanischen Erinnerung 1948–1990, Darmstadt, 269–70.

• 18. Frank Becker (2005), ‘Begriff und Bedeutung des politischen Mythos’, in: Barbara Stollberg-Rilinger (ed.), Was heißt Kulturgeschichte des Politischen? Berlin, 129–48, 132, 138, 140.

• 19. Thomas Nipperdey (1983), Deutsche Geschichte 1800–1866. Bürgerwelt und starker Staat, Munich, 498–532.

• 20. Johannes Bosscha (1852), Het leven van Willem den Tweede: koning der Nederlanden en groot-hertog van Luxemburg, Amsterdam.

• 21. Anton van de Sande (2015), Prins Frederik der Nederlanden 1797–1881. Gentleman naast de troon, Nijmegen, 269.

• 22. Theodor Martin (1875–80), The Life of His Royal Highness the Prince Consort, London.

• 23. Karl Heinz Börner (1984), Wilhelm I. Deutscher Kaiser und König von Preußen. Eine Biographie, Berlin, 122.

• 24. Karl Wippermann (1971), ‘Schneider: Ludwig S.’, in: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie XXXII. Berlin, 134–42, 137.

• 25. Louis Schneider (1888), Aus dem Leben Kaiser Wilhelms. 1849–1873 I, Berlin, 80–100; Louis Schneider (1861), ‘König Wilhelm’, in: Der Soldaten-Freund 28 (1861; Extra edition).

• 26. Louis Schneider (1856), ‘Der Prinz von Preußen. Zum 1. Januar 1857’, in: Der Soldaten-Freund 24 (December 1856), 1–136, 3.

• 27. Eva Giloi (2008), ‘Durch die Kornblume gesagt: Reliquien-Geschenke als Indikator für die öffentliche Rolle Kaiser Wilhelms I.’, in: Thomas Biskup and Martin Kohlrausch (eds), Das Erbe der Monarchie. Nachwirkungen einer deutschen Institution seit 1918, Frankfurt am Main, 96–116, 109.

• 28. Schneider (1856), 4.

• 29. Schneider (1856), 7–8.

• 30. Schneider (1856), 11.

• 31. Schneider (1888), I, 91.

• 32. Giloi (2011), 167–68.

• 33. Börner (1984), 46–47.

• 34. Angelow (2001), 252.

• 35. Monika Wienfort (1993), Monarchie in der Bürgerlichen Gesellschaft. Deutschland und England 1640 bis 1848, Göttingen, 184–85.

• 36. Birte Förster (2011), Der Königin Luise-Mythos. Mediengeschichte des “Idealbilds deutscher Weiblichkeit”, 1860–1960, Göttingen, 39–156; Philipp Demandt (2003), Luisenkult. Die Unsterblichkeit der Königin von Preußen, Cologne; Giloi (2008); Giloi (2011).

• 37. Schneider (1856), 38.

• 38. Barclay (1995), 95.

• 39. Schneider (1856), 38–40.

• 40. Prinz Wilhelm von Preussen (1849), Bemerkungen zu dem Gesetzentwurfe über die deutsche Wehrverfassung, Berlin.

• 41. Marcks (1918), 121.

• 42. Christopher Clark (2006), Iron Kingdom. The Rise and Downfall of Prussia, 1600–1947, Cambridge, MA, 478.

• 43. Schneider (1856), 120–21.

• 44. Schneider (1856), 119.

• 45. Schneider (1856), 121.

• 46. Schneider (1856), 126.

• 47. Barclay (1995), 26, 62, 108; Wolfgang Neugebauer (2003), Die Hohenzollern II Dynastie im säkularen Wandel. Von 1740 bis in das 20. Jahrhundert, Stuttgart, 147; Franz Herre (1980), Kaiser Wilhelm I. Der letzte Preuße, Cologne, 505.

• 48. Dieter Langewiesche (2013), Die Monarchie im Jahrhundert Europas. Selbstbehauptung durch Wandel, Heidelberg, 8–9, 12.

• 49. Heinz Dollinger (1985), ‘Das Leitbild des Bürgerkönigs in der Europäischen Monarchie des 19. Jahrhunderts’, in: Karl Ferdinand Werner (ed.), Hof, Kultur und Politik im 19. Jahrhundert, Bonn, 325–64, 340.

• 50. Dollinger (1985), 340.

• 51. Frank Lorenz Müller (2011), Our Fritz. Emperor Frederick III and the Political Culture of Imperial Germany, Boston, 134–35.

• 52. Winfried Baumgart (2013), König Friedrich Wilhelm IV. und Wilhelm I. Briefwechsel 1840–1858, Paderborn, 449–51.

• 53. Ernst Berner (ed.) (1902), Kaiser Wilhelms des Großen Briefe, Reden und Schriften, Berlin, 345–47.

• 54. Alexa Geisthövel (2005), ‘Augusta-Erlebnisse: Repräsentationen der preußischen Königin 1870’, in: Ute Frevert and Heinz-Gerhard Haupt (eds), Neue Politikgeschichte. Perspektiven einer historischen Politikforschung, Frankfurt, 82–114, 106.

• 55. Schneider (1856), 132.

• 56. Schneider (1856), 67.

• 57. Schneider (1856), 73.

• 58. Johannes Paulmann (2000), Pomp und Politik. Monarchenbegegnungen zwischen Ancien Régime und Erster Weltkrieg, Paderborn 131–79.

• 59. A.J.P. Taylor (1954), The Struggle for Mastery in Europe 1848–1918, Oxford, 109.

• 60. Angelow (2001), 246.

• 61. Wolfang Neugebauer (2008), ‘Funktion und Deutung des “Kaiserpalais”. Zur Residenzstruktur Preussens in der Zeit Wilhelm I.’, in: Forschungen zur brandenburgischen und preussischen Geschichte 18 (2008), 67–95, 81–84.

• 62. Becker (2005), 134–35.

• 63. Schneider (1888), II, 174–75.

• 64. Louis Schneider (1868), König Wilhelm, fifth edition, Berlin. (Reprint of König Wilhelm im Jahre 1866 (Berlin, undated (1866)), 7.

• 65. Louis Schneider (1875), Kaiser Wilhelm. Militärische Lebensbeschreibung 1867–1871. Fortsetzung der in 1869 in demselben Verlage erschienenen beiden Hefte: “König Wilhelm”, welche die Jahre 1864–1867 umfassen, Berlin, 98.

• 66. Lothar Burchardt (1991), ‘Helmuth von Moltke, Wilhelm I. und der Aufstieg des preußischen Generalstabes’, in: Roland G. Foerster (ed.), Generalfeldmarschall von Moltke. Bedeutung und Wirkung, Munich, 19–38, 32–33; Dierk Walter (2003), Preußische Heeresreformen 1807–1870: militärische Innovationen und der Mythos der “Roonschen Reform”, Paderborn, 521–22.

• 67. Peter Rassow (ed.) (1954), Geheimes Kriegstagebuch 1870–1871 von Paul Bronsart von Schellendorf, Bonn, 361.

• 68. Matthew Jefferies (2003), Imperial Culture in Germany 1871–1918, Basingstoke, 114.

• 69. Schneider (1888), III, 285.

• 70. Alexa Geisthövel (2003), ‘Den Monarchen im Blick. Wilhelm I in der illustrierten Familienpresse’, in: Habbo Knoch and Daniel Morat (eds), Kommunikation als Beobachtung. Medienwandel und Gesellschaftsbilder 1880–1960, Munich, 59–80, 63–4.

• 71. Schneider (1888), I, 170–71.

• 72. Schneider (1888), III, 219.

• 73. Schneider (1888), II, 16–17.

• 74. Clark (2006), 588.

• 75. Reich and Fisher (1957), 20.

• 76. Clark (2006), 514; Neugebauer (2003), 167–68; Neugebauer (2008), 81–83.

• 77. Baumgart (2013), 37.