Ludwig Windthorst

Ludwig Windthorst
	Windthorst in 1872
Leader of the Centre Party
	In office; 26 May 1874 – 14 March 1891
Preceded by	Hermann von Mallinckrodt
Succeeded by	Franz von Ballestrem
Member of the Reichstag
	In office; 21 March 1871 – 14 March 1891
Constituency	Hanover 3
Personal details
Born	17 January 1812; Ostercappeln, Ems-Supérieur, France
Died	14 March 1891 (aged 79); Berlin, Prussia, Germany
Party	Centre Party

Ludwig Windthorst (17 January 1812 – 14 March 1891) was a German politician and leader of the Catholic Centre Party and the most notable opponent of Chancellor Otto von Bismarck during the Prussian-led unification of Germany and the Kulturkampf. Margaret L. Anderson argues that he was "Imperial Germany's greatest parliamentarian" and bears comparison with Irishmen Daniel O'Connell and Charles Stewart Parnell "in his handling of party machinery and his relation to the masses".^[1]

He entered politics during the revolutionary years of 1848 and 1849 in the Protestant Kingdom of Hanover, where his legal and political skills overcame the handicap of near blindness and being in an unpopular minority. He supported Hanoverian independence ("particularism") and was loyal to monarchism. He was not a Liberal, but they admired his opposition to the king's reactionary policies and his strong support for an independent judiciary and the rights of the accused. He served in 1851 and 1862 as minister of justice.

When Prussia absorbed Hanover and then set up the German Empire in 1871, Windthorst dealt with the new state of affairs and became a leader of the all-Catholic Centre Party. It won over 80% of the Catholic vote in a new nation that was one-third Catholic. He opposed Bismarck's harassment of minorities such as Catholics, Hanoverian Guelphs, Poles, Danes, and Alsatians. He argued for natural law as the basis of political rights. He perfected the arts of opposition, forming alliances that could win majorities. The Centre party became what Anderson calls "a liberal party manque". That is, it kept its distance from the anti-Catholic National Liberal Party but championed the rights of minorities, the powers of parliament, and the rule of law against Bismarck's moves.

In the 1870s, he was a vigorous enemy of Bismarck's Kulturkampf, which persecuted the Catholic Church in Prussia in an effort to destroy papal control. Bismarck eventually lost, but it was Pope Leo XIII who negotiated with Bismarck in the end, cutting Windthorst out.

Biography

Windthorst was born at Kaldenhof manor in the present-day municipality of Ostercappeln, in the lands of the former Prince-Bishopric of Osnabrück, which had been secularised to the Electorate of Hanover under the Protestant Welf dynasty in 1803. The growth-restricted boy was raised in a Roman Catholic family, which for some generations had held important posts in the bishopric's civil service. Windthorst became a half-orphan at the age of ten, when his father died in 1822. He was educated at the Gymnasium Carolinum, an endowed school at Osnabrück which he left with excellent Abitur exams, and from 1830 studied law at the universities of Göttingen and Heidelberg.^[2] Influenced by the rise of liberalism during the Vormärz era and the 1832 Hambach Festival as well as by the Catholic theologian Georg Hermes, Windthorst tried to bring his Catholic confession in accordance with the ideals of liberty, civil rights and national unity.

In 1836, Windthorst settled down as an advocate in Osnabrück: his abilities soon procured him a considerable practice, and he was appointed president of the Catholic consistory in 1842. Though socially disadvantaged, the Catholics had remained loyal to the ruling House of Hanover during the 1837 insurrection of the Göttingen Seven against King Ernest Augustus, and in 1848 Windthorst received an appointment at the supreme court of appeal (Oberappellationsgericht) for the Kingdom of Hanover at Celle. The March Revolution opened for him — as for so many of his contemporaries — the way to public life and though he failed to gain a mandate for the Frankfurt Assembly, he was elected representative for his native district in the second chamber of the reformed Hanoverian parliament in 1849. He belonged to what was called the Greater German party, and opposed the project of reconstituting Germany under the leadership of the Kingdom of Prussia. He defended the government against the liberal and democratic opposition, and at this time, he began his struggle against the secularization of schools, which continued throughout his life.^[2]

In 1851, he was elected president of the chamber and, in the same year, minister of justice, the first Catholic to hold so high an office in Hanover. As minister, he carried through an important judicial reform — which had been prepared by his predecessor — but had to retire from office because he was opposed to the reactionary measures for restoring the influence and privileges of the nobility. Though he was always an enemy to liberalism, his natural independence of character prevented him from acquiescing in the reactionary measures of the king. In 1862, he again was appointed minister, but with others of his colleagues, he resigned when the king refused his assent to a measure for extending the franchise. Windthorst took no part in the critical Austro-Prussian War; contrary to the opinion of many of his friends, after the annexation of Hanover by Prussia, he accepted the fait accompli, took the oath of allegiance, and was elected a member both of the Prussian parliament and of the North German diet.^[2]

In Berlin, he found a wider field for his abilities. He acted as representative of his exiled king in the negotiations with the Prussian government concerning his private property, and opposed the sequestration, and for the first time was placed in a position of hostility to Otto von Bismarck. He was recognized as the leader of the Hanoverians and of all those above who opposed the revolution. He took a leading part in the formation of the party of the Center in 1870–1871, but he did not become a member of it, for he feared that his reputation as a follower of the king of Hanover would injure the party;^[2] that is, until the leaders formally requested that he join them.

After the death of Hermann von Mallinckrodt (1821–1874) in 1874, Windthorst became leader of the party and maintained that position until his death. It was chiefly owing to his skill and courage as a parliamentary debater and his tact as a leader that the party held its own and constantly increased in numbers during the great struggle with the Prussian government. He was especially exposed to the attacks of Bismarck, who attempted, personally, to discredit him and to separate him from the rest of the party. And, he was by far the ablest and most dangerous critic of Bismarck's policy. The change of policy in 1879 led to a great alteration in his position: he was reconciled to Bismarck and even sometimes attended receptions at Bismarck's house. Never, however, was his position so difficult as during the negotiations which led to a repeal of the May laws.^[2]

Against the background of rising antisemitism, he stood up for the Jews and enforced the expulsion of antisemitic members from the Center Party.

In 1887, Bismarck appealed to the Pope to use his authority to order the center to support the military proposals of the government. Windthorst took the responsibility of keeping the papal instructions secret from the rest of his party and of disobeying the instructions. In a great meeting at Cologne in March 1887, he defended and justified his action, and claimed for the Center full independence of action in all purely political questions. In the social reform, he supported Bismarck, and as the undisputed leader of the largest party in the Reichstag, he was able to exercise influence over the action of the government after Bismarck's retirement. His relations with the emperor William II became very cordial, and in 1891 he achieved a great parliamentary triumph by defeating the School bill and compelling Heinrich von Gossler to resign.^[2]

Death and legacy

Windthorst died of pneumonia on 14 March 1891, in Berlin. Two days before, Emperor Wilhelm II paid him a visit at his deathbed. He was buried in the Marienkirche in Hannover, which had been erected from the money subscribed as a testimonial to him. The church was destroyed by bombing raids which occurred from July 1943 to March 1945 during World War II, though his grave was spared, and reconstructed in 1953/1954. His funeral was a most remarkable display of public esteem, in which nearly all the ruling princes of Germany joined, and was a striking sign of the position to which, after twenty years of incessant struggle, he had raised his party.^[2]

According to historian Golo Mann, Windthorst was one of the greatest of German parliamentary leaders: no one equaled him in his readiness as a debater — his defective eyesight compelling him to depend entirely upon his memory. It was his misfortune that nearly all his life was spent in opposition, and he had no opportunity of showing his abilities as an administrator. He enjoyed unbounded popularity and confidence among the German Catholics, but he was in no way an ecclesiastic: he was at first opposed to the Vatican decrees of 1870, but quickly accepted them after they had been proclaimed. He was a very agreeable companion and a thorough man of the world, singularly free from arrogance and pomposity — owing to his small stature, he was often known as "die kleine Excellenz".^[2]

Windthorst married Juliane (Julie) Sybille Caroline Engelen (12 September 1805 – 26 January 1898) on 29 May 1839; of his four living children, three died before him. They were Maria (26 September 1841 – 2 February 1933), Anna (12 April 1843 – 19 March 1867), Julius (15 November 1844 – 18 November 1872), and Eduard (7 July 1846 – 24 April 1860).

Windthorst's Ausgewählte Reden (Selected speeches) were published in three volumes (Osnabrück, 1901–1902).

From the 1913 Catholic Encyclopedia

Ludwig Windthorst — Born near Osnabruck, 17 January, 1812; died 14 March, 1891. He came from a family of lawyers of Lower Saxony. As a pupil at the gymnasium he was industrious, shrewd and cautious, quiet, not carried away by the tendencies of his time, and these qualities he retained throughout life. He studied at Gottingen and Heidelberg, and in 1836 established himself as a lawyer at Osnabruck and soon married. There his professional ability and his attitude in religion won him the confidence of the Catholic clergy. In 1842, at their instance, the sovereign, the King of Hanover, appointed him president of the Catholic state board of Hanover for churches and schools. In this office Windthorst gained a knowledge of the great difficulties existing in Germany between nearly all the governments and their Catholic subjects. By the enactment of the Imperial Delegates of 1803, the great majority of German Catholics, who until then had generally enjoyed spiritual autonomy were made subjects of Protestant states. The Catholics had little interest in the rulers thus forced upon them; the governments were not accustomed to a policy compatible with the rights and freedom of the Catholic Church. Thorough knowledge of the subject and tactful caution wee necessary before a reconciliation could be brought about. Owing to the efforts of Windthorst, such an adjustment was made in Hanover, while the tension in several other German states grew continually greater, and finally led to the Kulturkampf. Windthorst's official experience especially impressed upon him the great importance to the future of Catholicism in Germany of a legal adjustment of the relations between the Church and the state schools.

In 1848, when the Revolution in Germany led to the restoration of the Hanoverian Constitution, which the king had annulled in 1837, Windthorst was elected a member of the Diet. This brought him into the career for which he had the most talent, and supplied him with the interests which thenceforward were most completely to occupy him. He at once developed great skill in the debate and a decided talent for bringing others into organization under his own leadership. He devoted himself to solving two problems which at that era were of the most importance for all German statesmen:

After getting rid of absolutism and bureaucracy, how, and how far, were the people to share in legislation and administration?

How could a national confederation be founded in which the unity of the German nation might attain politically powerful expression?

In his efforts to solve the former question Windthorst held in general with the moderate Liberals; to bring about a national confederation he joined the Great German Party (see GERMANY), without, however, disputing the claim that the lead in economic and commercial policy as well as some other prerogatives should be conceded to Prussia. He soon attained such importance in the Hanoverian Diet that in the spring of 1851 he was elected president of that chamber — an honour that had fallen to no other Catholic of Hanover — and in November, 1851, was appointed minister of justice. He was minister only for a short period, as he did not consider the king's policy strictly constitutional. At the close of 1853 he returned to parliamentary life. In 1862 the king again summoned him to the ministry, where he remained until 1865. Up to this period Windthorst's activities and reputation had been limited to Hanover. In 1866 Hanover became a Prussian province, and in 1867 the North German Confederation was founded. This gave Windthorst the opportunity to acquire not only national, but also international fame. From 1867 he was a member both of the Reichstag and of the Prussian Landtag. By 1874 he had gained for himself in both of these bodies a very prominent position. He was at first a member of no party, but when, in 1868, deputies from Southern Germany appeared for the first time in the Reichstag, for the discussion of economic questions, Windthorst collected those deputies who did not hold with the National Liberals and combined them so skilfully with the particularist Hanoverians, Prussians, and Saxons that the combination was unexpectedly able to defeat a National Liberal bill designed to secure the intervention of the South-German deputies in all national affairs. This majority was a prelude to the organization of the Centre Party under Windthorst's guidance. Windthorst did not found that party, neither did he assume its leadership at once. For although the Centre was formed as a purely political party with a definite constitutional, social, and ecclesiastico-political programme, still it should be taken into consideration that, at the close of 1870, it was largely made up of Catholics. Windthorst, from the beginning of his career, had performed the greatest services for the Catholic cause in Hanover, and had always been a loyal Catholic, but as a leader, he had not the reputation of Mallinckrodt and Reichensperger, because he had never taken an active part in the ecclesiastical and ecclesiastico-political movement among German Catholics. Now, however, he began to take part regularly in Catholic Congresses, where he soon became the orator for the final address, which he made famous. The outbreak of the Kulturkampf in Prussia gave him a splendid opportunity to show himself the champion of the Church in Parliament.

When Mallinckrodt died in 1874, Windthorst was proclaimed leader both of the Centre Party and of the German Catholics. In another direction, too, the years 1867-74 were decisive for him. As early as the fifties Bismarck and he were not in accord politically. The division between the two men was continually deepened by the course of events: in 1866 Bismarck excluded Austria from Germany and annexed Hanover; in 1868 he made an agreement with Windthorst concerning the restitution of the King of Hanover's private fortune, a contract which, however, Bismarck refused to carry out. In 1867 Windthorst had indirectly opposed Bismarck in the Zollparlament, by forming a majority against the National Liberals. Bismarck's anger reached its height when Windthorst joined the Centre Party. Bismarck said that this party would maintain itself independently of him and would incessantly push their constitutional demands. The chancellor could not tolerate any rival to his own importance, neither was he really a friend of parliamentary government. He attacked the Church all the more violently, therefore, in the Kulturkampf, because it was defended by a strong and independent popular party (see KULTURKAMPF). On the other hand, Windthorst acted in harmony with his political past when he sought to make it plain that he opposed the Kulturkampf measures not merely as an infringement with Prussian constitutional rights in particular and the political convictions of the age in general. As the leader of the Centre, and in full agreement with it, he interested himself for all the rights and liberties of the German people, whenever these liberties were disregarded by the Government or the Police, or were limited by legislation; his efforts, on the contrary, were rather for their enlargement. He was not afraid to let his party wear out Bismarck with constant opposition, so that the chancellor might the sooner be ready to abandon the Kulturkampf.

At the same time Windthorst was on the alert to secure a position for his party which should offer better prospects than that into which it has been forced from the beginning. For in ecclesiastico-political questions the Centre was then condemned to occupy the position of an isolated minority, because of the peculiarly obstinate sectarian antipathy to Catholics in Germany. The masses showed very little direct interest in the second article of the Centrist programme — the defence of the federal character of the empire, which was threatened by the Liberals. No matter what the Centre might do to prove its soundness in constitutional questions, the Liberals still remained, for the mass of the people, the party which had first begun the struggle against absolutism. As new political undertakings, there now offered themselves the increasing free- trade tendency of the nation and the need of a comprehensive labour policy. Sooner than the leaders of the other parties Windthorst comprehended that these problems were quickly assuming an absorbing interest for the German people, and by the end of 1876 he occupied himself zealously with them. The victory was his. In 1879 the Centre turned the scale for the introduction of a protective tariff, and formed the controlling spirit of the parties by the aid of which the government was able, after 1880, to pass the workingmen's insurance laws, and later the laws for the protection of workingmen. From a minority continually in opposition it because an active, influential part of the majority. The political character of the Centre Party received its final cast in its economic and socio-political labours. Windthorst, repeatedly maintained this character of the party against the misconception formed of it by the papal Curia — a misconception due to incorrect knowledge of the facts, and which saw in the Centre a Catholic party somewhat like that in Belgium. Nor did politics prevent the Centre from repeatedly giving its attention to the interests of the Church. It was the influence which it attained during the eighties in the entire political life of Germany, in addition to reasons of foreign policy, that obliged Bismarck to abandon the Kulturkampf. Windthorst felt keenly chagrined that he was not able at the same time to secure the passage of laws settling the share of the Church in the Prussian common schools. The struggle over the Christian spirit in the schools had to be left to the future.

As recompense for all this he had the satisfaction that his party grew constantly more willing to accept his political views and methods. In order to make certain that the voters were trained in the spirit in which the Centre acted politically, he effected, in the autumn of 1890, the founding of the "Peoples Union for Catholic Germany", as a school for Catholic men with many hundreds of thousands of pupils to train them, apologetically, socially, economically, and politically. The spirit of Windthorst still lives in the Centre party and in the Peoples Union. His beautiful memorial is the Church of the Blessed Virgin at Hanover, where he is buried, and for the construction of which he generously gave the money presented to him for personal use by the Catholics of Germany.

HUSGEN, Ludwig Windthorst; SPAHN, Windthorst in Holland, V (1907-08); FINKE, Aus Windthorsts jungeren Jahren in Hochland, VII (1910-11); FULF, Aus Windthorsts Korrespondenz in Stimmen aus Maria-Laach (1912).

References

Back to citation Anderson 1981, p. 3.
Back to citation occurrence 2.0 Back to citation occurrence 2.1 Back to citation occurrence 2.2 Back to citation occurrence 2.3 Back to citation occurrence 2.4 Back to citation occurrence 2.5 Back to citation occurrence 2.6 Back to citation occurrence 2.7 Headlam 1911, p. 716.

Bibliography

Anderson, Margaret Lavinia. "Confessions of a Fellow Traveler," The Catholic Historical Review (2013) 99#4, pp. 623–648.
Zeender, John K. "Recent Literature on the German Center Party," The Catholic Historical Review (1984) 70#3, pp. 428–441.
"Dr. Windthorst on Germany," The American Advocate of Peace and Arbitration (1890) 52#2, p. 45, interview in JSTOR.
Spahn, Martin (1912). "Ludwig Windthorst". In Herbermann, Charles (ed.). Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 15. New York: Robert Appleton Company.

[1] Back to citation Anderson 1981, p. 3.

[source-FOOTNOTEHeadlam1911716-2-2-2] Back to citation occurrence 2.0 Back to citation occurrence 2.1 Back to citation occurrence 2.2 Back to citation occurrence 2.3 Back to citation occurrence 2.4 Back to citation occurrence 2.5 Back to citation occurrence 2.6 Back to citation occurrence 2.7 Headlam 1911, p. 716.

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