Richard Frankel disengages from the long-running debate over the actual degree of continuity between the policies of Bismarck and Hitler to focus instead on the interpretation and reinterpretation of Bismarck's career by German rightists from the time of his death until the end of the Second World War. Asking not “what Bismarck did to Germany” but rather “what Germans did to Bismarck” (p. 4), Frankel examines newspaper files, political and ceremonial speeches, and election campaign materials to analyze changing images of Bismarck in German public discourse. He argues that Protestant, middle-class Germans transformed Bismarck into a “political god,” the basis of a “political religion” (pp. 5–6). This religion lacked any clearly defined dogma but was based on a “story line” about the German people's suffering as the result of political fragmentation, God's gift to them of a uniquely talented savior, the failure of the masses (especially Catholics and Social Democrats) to comprehend what their savior had accomplished, and the savior's ultimate betrayal by Kaiser Wilhelm II when he dismissed Bismarck in 1890 (pp. 58–59). This book certainly demonstrates that Protestant, middle-class Germans displayed a remarkable propensity to argue about what Bismarck would do if he still headed their government. Radical rightists, most notably the leaders of the Pan-German League, soon developed an image of the Iron Chancellor as militaristic, expansionist, anti-Semitic, anti-Marxist, and anti-parliamentary. Compared to this stern figure dedicated to ruthless struggle against all “enemies of the Reich” at home and abroad, every actual head of government before Hitler appeared hopelessly indecisive. This Bismarck image was always challenged, however, by those who emphasized their hero's concessions to liberal and democratic forces, his self-restraint after military victories, and his dedication after 1871 to preserving the peace of Europe. Frankel suggests that the German people found the former image far more attractive than the latter. The “Bismarck cult,” he concludes, did not make Hitler's rise inevitable, but it “made a Hitler dictatorship a serious possibility” (pp. 174–75, 195–96).

Frankel's research focuses on a series of debates between government leaders and their right-wing critics. In 1901 the Pan-German League alienated many supporters when it claimed implausibly that all true Bismarckians should assist the German people's kindred, the Boers, against British aggression. Chancellor Bernhard von Bülow replied forcefully that nobody who had learned anything from Bismarck would risk war with Great Britain when the German Empire had no vital interests at stake (pp. 62–64). Pan-German criticism of the government became far more plausible, however, after Germany's diplomatic defeats in the two Morocco crises and the appointment of the mild-mannered civil servant Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg as Imperial chancellor. Fear of not living up to Bismarck's example may have played some role in the decisions that led to war in 1914, although Frankel does not press the point. Bismarck's example was then cited prominently by both sides in the great war aims debate of 1917–18, but the fall of Bethmann Hollweg and the growing popularity of the army commander Hindenburg suggest a preference among the German people for the militaristic Bismarck (pp. 92–94). Those who revered Bismarck were most likely to oppose the creation of the Weimar Republic at the war's end, but Frankel devotes careful attention to Gustav Stresemann, a Bismarckian who became a stalwart defender of the republic and sought rapprochement with France as foreign minister. Stresemann's frequent discussions of Bismarck when replying to rightist critics suggest that the cult of Bismarck could promote a vision of Germany's future quite different from the one that triumphed in 1933 (pp. 131–40). Frankel then offers interesting examples of Hitler's repeated efforts to compare his career to that of Bismarck and justify his policies as a more successful version of what Bismarck had sought to accomplish (pp. 155–66). Nazi propaganda paid little attention to Bismarck after 1938, but the leaders of the conservative Resistance often discussed Bismarck to justify their decision that Hitler must be eliminated because he was destroying Germany (pp. 173–75). Bismarck's image was radically devalued by the overwhelming defeat of 1945, and since then nothing like the old cult has reemerged (pp. 181–84).

The task of analyzing such a long span of German history is daunting, of course, but more extensive research would be needed to go beyond description of some of the symptoms of the radicalization of the German Right to generate new insight into its causes. Frankel excludes consideration of books about Bismarck and does not even mention his best-selling memoirs, the text that most influenced his admirers. There is no discussion of visual images of Bismarck. Frankel suggests that the electoral losses of Stresemann's party in 1924 reveal that his image of Bismarck lacked popular appeal, but he acknowledges that there are many other plausible explanations of this outcome (pp. 133–35). This book barely mentions the election of Alfred Hugenberg as chair of the German Nationalist People's Party in October 1928 (pp. 138–39), the pivotal development that first brought Pan-Germans into decisive political roles. Frankel describes a speech about Bismarck by Hitler in November 1927 and then speculates that the Bismarck cult played a major role in the Nazi electoral breakthrough of September 1930, but presents no evidence about voter motivation or Nazi electoral propaganda in 1930 (pp. 157–60). The historic importance of the Bismarck cult remains unclear if it cannot be shown to have influenced any particular event in any particular way. Frankel nevertheless offers a lively and insightful essay that should stimulate further research.