History, Germany, and Free Speech

[Karha of Honor]

German Unification? Well, the most recent unification is held in pretty high regard: it was done democratically, with limited bloodshed. The second recent most unification is held in low regard: voters were intimidated, and there was a military invasion. The oldest unification is fairly controversial: it happened through a series of wars that led to Prussia kind of taking over the whole area.

Bismarck has a decidedly mixed reputation. Some things, like uniting the country and health insurance have a lasting legacy. Other things, like Kulturkampf and the anti-socialist laws, are seen as negatives. The political system that he created was bad too, because it fell apart without him. But in general he gets mixed reputation (better on the right, worse on the left), and not bad enough to remove all the monuments or to rename all the streets.

What about the German colonial period?

[Madner Kami]

Other things, like Kulturkampf and the anti-socialist laws, are seen as negatives.

Unless you are a hardline-religious person, the Kulturkampf isn't a negative thing. The worst one could say about it is, that it didn't kick the church hard enough and didn't go far enough.

The political system that he created was bad too, because it fell apart without him.

Not due to his fault, imo. The complete collapse of the Kaiserreich is almost entirely down to Wilhelm II's behaviour, who often worked intentionally opposing the ideas of Bismarck, and the World War it lead into. And a lot of how the Kaiserreich was organized, survived into the Weimarer Republik as well. The Präsident wasn't called the "Ersatzkaiser" for no reason.

What about the German colonial period?

It's generally seen as being just as despicable like the Nazi-period, partly because the Nazis incorporated that "glorious era" into their mumbo-jumbo to some degree, but it's far enough removed from modern day reality, that most people aren't even aware of that period in general. As for the state itself, there're mixed signals, partially because of trying to avoid paying any official reparations. Ironically, in a way, Namibia in particular has a high priority in terms of monetary foreign-help and recieves about 14-15 million dollar of international aid from Germany. In general the whole thing is kept more or less under the radar though.

[Karha of Honor]

Other things, like Kulturkampf and the anti-socialist laws, are seen as negatives.

Unless you are a hardline-religious person, the Kulturkampf isn't a negative thing. The worst one could say about it is, that it didn't kick the church hard enough and didn't go far enough.

What would had been far enough? The Soviet Union was not a paradise.

[Madner Kami]

What would had been far enough?

Church and State should just not be entangled at all. Religious parties in a nominally secular state are a paradox and abhorent to me by their very nature. In modern day Germany, the church has it's ugly claws in way too many things still, in particular it dominates the projects that attempt to help the poorest of the poor so hard, that there's nearly a church-monopoly going on and it rears it's ugly head over and over again, when it comes to child-daycare management and often in organizations that try to arrange children's and youth's freetimes (many youth clubs are church sponsored and managed, for example, though barely anyone knows). The later far more prevalent in the western parts of Germany, than in the eastern parts, as the GDR was quite a lot more church-hostile in their management of those areas, gladly in retrospect (though entanglement between church and state was a thing in the GDR as well, not to mention the, back then, negative effects of state propaganda on the youth).

The Soviet Union was not a paradise.

Your point?

[Karha of Honor]

The Soviet Union was not a paradise.

Your point?

Had no idea how far will you go and i always expect the worst on the Internet.