Abdication or Restitution: The Journalist and the Chancellor Make a Deal

FOR THOMAS MANN, the Eulenburg scandal meant that Maximilian Harden (and hence intellectuals) had defeated feudalism, which was losing ground in any case. It was a victory, even though it “never went into force legally for very German reasons.” Today we know that Harden demanded a high price for agreeing not to take his case again to the supreme court of the Empire (Reichsgericht)—a payment in symbolic capital. No other German intellectual achieved the same level of success. The journalist insisted on and received a document from the government stating that his fierce attack on the foundations of the political order was motivated by patriotism. Its contents were not intended for publication, but he was permitted to show it to anyone he wished, as long as that person kept it confidential. Even though Thomas Mann was a friend of Harden’s, he clearly never had the pleasure of holding in his own hands this document, in which the government of the Empire symbolically went down on bended knee before Harden. If he had, he would no doubt have omitted the qualification he added to intellectuals’ victory over the remnants of feudalism.

Chancellor Bülow and Harden had come to this arrangement in the spring of 1909, and while it brought a formal end to the Eulenburg scandal, it came too late to save the prestige of the Prussian-German monarchy. The fact that the chancellor agreed to a compromise with the most controversial intellectual in the country was a political necessity. In his memoirs Eulenburg deplored most of all that the government had not tried to reach an “understanding” with Harden in the early phase of the scandal. Now he regretted having urged Wilhelm II to stand firm and not attempt to buy off Harden and his attack journalism in 1888, as soon as he had ascended the throne. Eulenburg alleged that Harden had made such an offer to the Kaiser before he joined Bismarck's opposition against Wilhelm II. Even if there is no proof for this claim, it remains clear that Wilhelm II and his closest advisers were never prepared to be this flexible in the political arena; they remained stubborn until the empire went down in defeat in 1918.