The Process of Becoming a Political Personality and the Factors That Determine It (the experience of the German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck)

The proposed article attempts to reveal the process of becoming a politician, and not merely an ordinary politician, but one who develops and imposes a large-scale policy that independently determines the options for the development of his country: the creator of the Second Empire in Germany, the great statesman Otto von Bismarck. The goal of the study was to analyze the legal, political, and psychological factors that contributed to the rise of the first civil servant in the empire. The life and fate of each person are in the crosshairs objective and subjective circumstances interact. The role of external, otherworldly forces, colloquially called chance, is also not to be excluded in any such rise. Contrary to popular belief, people are not born clean slates at all. Instead, each bears the stamp of parental education and the personality and health imposed by the genetics of distant ancestors. From the enormous variety of factors, experiences, and relationships within which a personality is formed, the authors of this study chose reference points that, in their opinion, contributed most to forming the contours (or images) of Bismarck as an outstanding politician. These include the aspects of his character that absorbed and reflected the influence of his ancestors and parents (most of all, his mother), as well as the principles that prevailed in the German educational system and the public service of Germany. In this objective review, the subjective (personal) properties of the applicant for the highest administrative position in the state were acutely manifested: a hypermotivation to acquire power and the ability to recognize the importance of representing state interests for themselves.

In their conclusions, the authors relied on collections of Bismarck’s letters, on his parliamentary and political speeches, and other documents that “accompanied” his life. They also relied upon their own interpretation of the distant events of Bismarck’s life and times. The study thus acquired an intersectoral character. Although the historical subtext of our research is obvious, the proposed material will also be of interest to modern politicians.