Shunning the father of German unity

The Story

A ‘cancel culture’ debate has flared up around the decision by Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock to snub Otto von Bismarck.

She has changed the name of the central meeting room in her ministry from the Bismarck Room (Das Bismarck-Zimmer) to the Hall of German Unity (der Saal der Deutschen Einheit).

Ms Baerbock (Greens) said that the new name takes account of the fact that the Foreign Ministry “sees its line of tradition as being decisively anchored in Germany's democratic history.”

The new name is thus meant as a reference to reunification in 1990, when the communist east joined the democratic west, and not the original unification that took place under Bismarck in 1871.

In actual fact, the ministry’s lineage indisputably goes back to Bismarck. He established the ministry at the beginning of the German state - It was here that his famed Realpolitik was put into practice.

While the ministry itself has changed locations - it is now in a building built by the Nazis in 1940 - the ce…