Bismarck’s Rival

A Political Biography of General and Admiral Albrecht von Stosch

Originally published in 1960, “[t]he political biography of Albrecht von Stosch (1818-1896), a prominent man of action, opens unique insights into the entire Bismarckian epoch. Stosch became a general, an admiral, and a minister of state. As Chief of the Admiralty he was the founder of the Imperial German Navy. He was also a member of the Prussian Chamber of Peers and of the Bundesrat, and he spoke in the Reichstag. His friendship with members of the royal family, the armed forces, the bureaucracy, and his close ties with journalists, members of the Reichstag and Bundesrat, and other leaders of public opinion gave him unusual opportunities to observe the German military and political system at work. His opportunities for observation, combined with a talent for expression and an objective temper of mind, make his published volume of memoirs one of the chief sources of the history of the German Wars of Unification. Paul Matter and Sir Charles G. Robertson, major biographers of Bismarck, regretted that the volume ends with the year 1871. The present study relies in part on the unpublished manuscripts in which Stosch carried the story into the 1890’s. […]

“In presenting the political life of Stosch, I have chosen to recount the events of his career and the development of his opinions at some length. It seems to me that truth in modern German history has suffered from the attempts of doctrinaire theorists to cut events and personalities to their own patterns and that what is needed is biographies and monographs which present more elaborate descriptions and more subtle and complex explanations of men and their actions than do books which drive a thesis. Also, it is hoped that to the general historian narrative and descriptive I detail in a specialized account will be more useful than a bare statement.”