Otto Von Bismarck
... These men and women have had lasting affects on political parties, different forms of ruling governments, the spread of democracy, and the spread of imperialism throughout society; Otto Von Bismarck was one of those people. Otto Von Bismarck was born to a refined family near the town on Magdeburg on April 1, 1815; the same year that Napoleon was finally defeated at Waterloo. “His father, Ferdinand Von Bismarck, was a descendent of a noble Prussian Junker family and served as an officer in the Calvary, but later retired during the Napoleonic wars.” (Feuchtwanger, p15) Bismarck’s mother, Wilhelmine Mencken, came from an influential family at the center of ongoing affairs. ... She wanted Bismarck to be well educated so that he could pursue a life similar to that of her distinguished family. After being sent away by his mother for schooling, Bismarck left the Plamann Institute and attended secondary school in Berlin from 1827 to 1832. He lived there with his uncle, General Friedrich von Bismarck, and was introduced to socially and politically prominent groups around the capital where he heard the ideas and thoughts of citizens who were close to people in power. Bismarck however did not enter the political scene until 1847 as a conservative Prussian Junker spokesman. ... Bismarck was no innovator. ... Bismarck was also influenced by non-German leaders; Napoleon III was one of those men. Bismarck took note of how Napoleon III had come to his powerful position by finding a way to build a repressive conservative regime. “Bismarck realized that if he wished to assert Prussian power in Germany, he too had to dismantle the Vienna settlement, which had given informal hegemony in Central Europe. ... p102) As a Prussian spokesman, Bismarck served until early 1859. ... Formally, Bismarck’s entrance onto the political scene can be credited to “the introduction into Prussia of the constitutional, representative system of government – or more precisely to the crisis of that bureaucratic absolutism of which he had appeared to be a committed defender of.” (Gall, 1986, p35) However, what Otto actually pursued was not the reestablishment of bureaucratic absolutism; it was the establishment of a political and administrative role for the upper class. ... (Gall, 1986, p35) At 36, Bismarck was appointed to be a Prussian envoy to the diet of the German Confederation. “It was a capital vantage point for Bismarck to observe what was going on within and between the nearly 40 German states that made up the confederation.