Otto von

I have always secretly admired Bismark. If you haven't noticed, I'm a pretty liberal in my views, so Bismark's existence should fundamentally insult me, but, I have to admit, the man was such a beast (and I mean that in the good way). Germany, in the matter of 50 or so years, went from consisting of over 300 separate principalities to one, united, and extremely powerful nation and Bismark deserves most of the credit. Even though he manipulated countries to go to war and cost people their lives to that he may come out victorious, even if the wars had nothing to do with him (like he did with Austria and Denmark), I still cannot help but to be in awe of the man. In terms of his politics, with the whole influence from Rochau's idea of "realpolitik" and what not, I'm torn. While I'm one of those wide-eyed "supporters of constitutions and Enlightenment conceptions of rights"(762), there is something to be said about Bismark's pragmatic approach to politics. He is one of the examples from history that makes me believe that sometimes, a ruler cannot be best friends with the people or has to look at a situation in a more realistic than idealistic sense or both. While I usually prefer rulers to always consider what's best for the people, I understand that sometimes rulers need to be pragmatic about how much they act on those considerations. There is a point when we need to stop being dreamers and work in a realistic frame, and sometimes I can forget this. I don't know why, but for some reason, Bismark is one of those figures that I greatly respect despite his obvious conservative and sometimes ***hole tendencies.