Otto von Bismarck

1815 – 1898

Otto Eduard Leopold von Bismarck was a Prussian and German statesman who oversaw the unification of Germany through three deliberately engineered wars between 1864 and 1871 and served as the first chancellor of the German Empire from 1871 to 1890. His Realpolitik diplomacy—encapsulated in his line that great questions are decided not by speeches and majority votes but by "blood and iron"—built the militarized German state whose ambitions would help drive the continent into the catastrophes of the 20th century. As chancellor he also waged the Kulturkampf against the Catholic Church and drove anti-socialist legislation that banned the German Social Democratic Party for more than a decade.

Last checked: May 10, 2026, 1:06 PM