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The Failure of Bismarck's Kulturkampf. Catholicism and State Power in Imperial Germany, 1871-1887. By Ronald J. Ross. Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 1998. xvi + 219 pp. $66.95.
In the early 1870s, as part of his determination to consolidate the total unity of the new German Empire, Chancellor Otto von Bismarck launched a large-scale campaign against the Roman Catholic Church. The name Kulturkampf signifies his conviction that the Roman Church was an entity so alien to authentic German culture that it could not really be integrated into Germany. Some particular acts that made him decide this were the creation of the [Roman Catholic] Center Party, and the proclamation at the council just ended in Rome of papal supremacy in the church and papal infallibility in doctrine. Among the numerous laws against the Catholic Church were the "May Laws" of 1873 that decreed that appointment to clerical office depended on German education and approval by the state, that all...