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Bismarck's Anti-Socialist Laws: Cracking Down on the SPD
In this episode of The History of Germany, Lucas and Luna explore a tense chapter in Otto von Bismarck's chancellorship: the Anti-Socialist Laws (Sozialistengesetze) of 1878. After two assassination attempts on Kaiser Wilhelm I, Bismarck seized the moment to crush the rising Social Democratic Party (SPD) by banning its meetings, publications, and unions. Yet the laws backfired: the SPD's Reichstag vote share surged, and Bismarck's repression only fueled the movement he aimed to destroy. We trace the Reichstag debates, the role of August Bebel and Wilhelm Liebknecht, the secret…
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