Prussia went from being an important region of German speakers to a Greater German Empire. Well it did have the best army, but it also had a leader with many tools and many enemies. So slip on smoking jacket, fill your pipe, take your first sip of your adult beverage, and sit back in your most comfortable chair. Welcome to todays offering from The Philatelist.
The power of Prussia is not well presented by the stamps. Even in 1861 though, there are the signs of coming together. Lubeck does a version of this stamp and of course the eagle emblem will be common on German Empire stamps in later decades.
A note about currency and the transition. Prussian currency was not yet decimalized and a Silbergroshen as on this stamp was a coin valued at 12 Pfennig. 30 Silbergroshen equaled 1 Thaler, a large silver coin dating from medieval times. After decimalization, a 10 Pfennig coin replaced the Silbergroshen and there were no longer Thalers except as a slang way to say 3 Marks. Dutch Daalers, Scandinavian Dalers and yes countries that use Dollars can trace these names to the Thaler.
Todays stamp is issue A7, a 1 Silbergroshen stamp issued by the Kingdom of Prussia in 1861. It was a 4 stamp issue in various denominations. There were 2 updated versions with the new currency in 1867. According to the Scott Catalog, the stamp is worth $1.60 used. This is the lowest value of any Prussian stamp, and I think too low as there are no Prussian stamps less than 150 years old. No doubt this stamp was common when issued. but this poorly printed on cheap paper had to survive in many collections in the many years between then and now.
In 1862, Prussian King Wilhelm I appointed Otto von Bismarck chancellor of Prussia. Bismarck was an aristocrat, then known as Junker. Being appointed, he was only responsible to the monarch and did not face election or interference from the legislature. His main goal was to unite the German people under a single government. That he was able to do this in 3 short victorious wars and through able diplomacy is quite impressive. The first was a war aligned with Austria, the big power in southern Germany against Denmark, taking German speaking areas. Those areas were at first jointly administered with Austria and the inevitable disputes were then used to start a war with Hapsburg Austria, really the only other viable rival to govern all Germans. This war left only France as an obstacle. Their army though was smaller and spread out over their vast empire. France was defeated and could no longer object to Germany coming together.
That does not mean the leaders of the individual German states did not object. Bismarck designed a Federal system for Germany that left some autonomy with the states and even refashioned Prussia as the North German Confederation to make the states feel less conquered.
Once united, Bismarck sought to make Germany more unified. He offered the first safety net for workers to greatly improve their lot in life and to try to connect working class loyalty to the new state. He instituted tariffs to protect German industry. Innovative steps at the time and not what was expected of a conservative figure. At the same time he was aggressively opposed to non German speakers, Socialists and Catholics. This went as far as banning the Socialists and Jesuits who he thought were too tied to the Pope in Rome. After the wars, he promoted peace, having good relations with England and Russia and not challenging them for far flung Empires.
In old age he was replaced as he clashed with the new Kaiser who wanted empire and saw the socialists as less of a threat. Germany thus returned to a war like stance and sure enough Socialists overthrew the Kaiser after World War I. On his death bed in 1898 he made predictions that were prescient. He predicted Germany would last only 20 more years on it’s current foolish course and that war would come from some foolish thing from the Balkans.
Well my drink is empty and I will pour another to toast united Germany whether bigger or smaller. Come again for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting. First published in 2019.