International Law and Justice Working Papers - IILJ
International Law and Justice Working Papers - IILJ
International Law and Justice Working Papers - IILJ
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disturbed already before the Reformation. The nations acquired their complete independence<br />
only when they completely broke with the Catholic Church. This was the work of Reformation<br />
that was carried out by the Germanics led by a German monk. It was of German origin <strong>and</strong><br />
German <strong>and</strong> Swedish blood sealed it in the 30-years war. The reformation was an uprising<br />
against the papacy because the latter was disrespectful towards <strong>and</strong> even tried to undermine the<br />
independence of nations <strong>and</strong> the freedom of individuals. 135 (The Swedish king) Gustav Adolph<br />
saved the Reformation <strong>and</strong> therefore indirectly the principle of nationality.” Moreover,<br />
Bulmerincq claimed that the principle of individuality also originated in the German thought. 136<br />
Bulmerincq’s attack on Catholicism in his international law treatise becomes more<br />
underst<strong>and</strong>able when one takes into account his position expressed in the 1871 festive speech<br />
“Kaiser und Reich” – namely that the Lutheran Church would become the church of the German<br />
people in which the national <strong>and</strong> the Christian would be united <strong>and</strong> express everything that was<br />
“healthy” in the German people. 137<br />
Bulmerincq thus positioned himself clearly in German<br />
Kulturkampf on the side of Bismarck against the Catholic ultramontanists, in particular the<br />
(Catholic conservative) Centre Party. 138<br />
But Catholic ultramontanists were not the only enemies of the State that Bulmerincq fought<br />
against in 1874. Equal danger was presented by the social democratic movement that, as<br />
Bulmerincq claimed, had a lot in common with the ultramontanists. Both ultramontanists <strong>and</strong><br />
socialists (Socialpolitiker) had been accorded the “undeserved honour” of equal rights with<br />
135 P. 59.<br />
136 P. 60. This thought was Hegelian. Hegel wrote in „The Philosophy of History“ that „the Orient knew <strong>and</strong> knows<br />
only that one is free, the Greek <strong>and</strong> Roman world that some are free; the Germanic world knows that all are free.“<br />
New York: Dover Publications, 1956, foreword of C.J. Friedrich.<br />
137 Kaiser und Reich, p. 175.<br />
138 See on Bismarck’s Kulturkampf e.g. in Gordon A. Craig, Germany 1866-1945, New York, Oxford: Oxford<br />
University Press, 1978, p. 63 et seq; Edgar Feuchtwanger, Bismarck, New York <strong>and</strong> London: Routledge, 2002, p.<br />
187 et seq.