Chancellor H. H. von Hohenlohe-Schillingfürst Inner Policy: Some Aspects of Shift from the “New Course” to the “World Policy” (based on Foreign Policy Archive of the Russian Empire Documents)

Abstract

Author analyzes the internal policy of Germany in the period of Chancellor H. von Hohenlohe-Schillingsfürst — the years still poorly studied in historiography of the German Empire. In this regard, the biography of this politician and diplomat is of true interest to study, as an attempt to “whitewash” his reputation and to question the widespread opinion of him being an “absolute nonentity” and “a dwarf demonstrating his insignificance”. The goals of Hohenlohe-Schillingsfürst government were to strengthen the unity of Germany through unifying the legislation relating to the country economy (exchange regulations, trade laws, etc.), as well as the adoption of the new Civil Code (still active). The German foreign policy aimed at strengthening country outer positions and spreading the growing industrial power to new markets was weakening by inner conflict between political forces (agrarians and industrial) in a Legislature. Agrarian lobby attempts to induce the grain prices regulation was of fundamentally contradiction with trade agreements Germany had signed some years earlier. This conflict was required the Government to constantly maneuver between these interests, what to a large extent, along with the conflict between “labor and capital”, determined the political nature of the era. A present study analyzes these problems through the prism of Russian embassy reaction on German authorities political steps, and based on documents of “Chancellery” fund of the Foreign Policy Archive of the Russian Empire containing reports of Russian imperial embassy in Berlin.