Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg (1856-1921), who came from a noble family of Brandenburg estate owners and government officials, was appointed by Wilhelm II in 1909 as Chancellor, Prussian Prime Minister, and Foreign Minister. Although he was politically conservative, he sought to pursue a “diagonal policy” that considered political interests across the spectrum, including those of the Social Democrats, who became the strongest party in the Reichstag in 1912. He made a first attempt to reform the Prussian three-class suffrage system in 1910, which failed due to conservative opposition. When the First World War broke out, he again held out the prospect of electoral and parliamentary reforms once the war had ended. In the spring of 1917, while Germany was in the grip of a war-induced famine and the “political truce” [Burgfrieden] began to crumble due to a split within the SPD and increasing industrial strikes, Bethmann Hollweg made another attempt to persuade Wilhelm II to reform the electoral system, which he was to announce in his “Easter message” in April. However, this attempt fell short due to resistance from conservatives and the Supreme Army Command (OHL), who had essentially taken charge of domestic politics by this point.  They forced Bethmann Hollweg’s resignation shortly thereafter, in July 1917.

This recording features a short excerpt from a speech given by Chancellor Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg in the Reichstag on February 27, 1917. It was not recorded in the Reichstag, however, but Bethmann Hollweg, now ex-chancellor, re-read it in October 1918 for a studio recording made for the audio collection of the Preußische Staatsbibliothek. After addressing the war situation at the beginning of his speech, Bethmann Hollweg turns to domestic policy: in this part of his speech, Bethmann Hollweg responds to the growing demands for a democratization of Germany’s political system by talking not of political reform as some sort of reward, but instead as the inevitable consequence of a “renewed people” and their “collective strength” demonstrated in the war effort. Given the unprecedented mobilization of the populace, and the enormous sacrifices on the battlefield, political leaders in Germany realized that demands for greater political participation would have to be met after the war. When Bethmann Hollweg, a conservative monarchist, states that the “appropriate political and governmental expression” had to be found for postwar German society, he envisioned some democratic concessions within the framework of a constitutional monarchy.