Member-only story
Timeless Lessons from Germany’s Greatest Leader: Otto von Bismarck
The Iron Chancellor: A Biographical Sketch
Otto Eduard Leopold von Bismarck (1815–1898) was the second born son to a minor aristocratic family in Schönhausen, northwest Berlin. His father, Karl Wilhelm Ferdinand von Bismarck, was a Junker — a class of Prussian landowning nobles who often served as military officers in the Prussian army. His mother, Wilhelmine Luise Mencken, was a well educated daughter of a cabinet secretary, renown for her intelligence and wit. This merging of two different worlds, the world of ivory tower scholarship with aristocratic Junker traditionalism shaped Bismarck into one of Europe’s most savvy practitioners of statecraft.
Prior to political life, Bismarck was educated in Berlin. In 1832, at 17 years of age, he enrolled in the University of Göttingen to study law and history, transferring after his first year to pursue a Doctor of Laws and become a lawyer. In 1836, Bismarck switched gears and pursued a career in diplomacy in the Prussian civil service. In 1839, as he grew increasingly bored of his job, his mother passed away, paving the way for his return to northwest Berlin, where he would spend a decade running the family estate with his father and older brother.
In 1847, Bismarck married Johanna Von Puttkamer and joined the Lutheran denomination…
