Kulturkampf

 Kulturkampf  (pronounced [kʊlˈtuːɐ̯kampf], literally "culture struggle") is a German term referring to a set of policies enacted from 1871 to 1878 by the Prime Minister of Prussia, Otto von Bismarck, in relation to secularity and the role of the Roman Catholic Church in the Kingdom of Prussia. In contemporary socio-political discussion, the term Kulturkampf (see also culture war) is often used to describe any conflict between secular and religious authorities or deeply opposing values, beliefs between sizable factions within a nation, community, or other group.

Undertaken only within the Kingdom of Prussia, Kulturkampf did not extend to other territories of the German Empire such as Bavaria. As one scholar put it, "the attack on the church included a series of Prussian, discriminatory laws that made Catholics feel understandably persecuted within a predominantly Protestant nation."Jesuits, Franciscans, Dominicans and other orders were expelled in the culmination of twenty years of anti-Jesuit and antimonastic hysteria.

In 1871, the Catholic Church comprised 36.5% of the population of the German Empire. This included Germans in western Prussia, as well as millions of Poles who were subject to official discrimination. Bismarck sought to appeal to liberal Protestants, who comprised 62% of the German Empire, by reducing the political and social influence of the Catholic Church and attempting to eradicate the Polish minority. Priests and bishops who resisted the Kulturkampf were arrested or removed from their positions. By the height of anti-Catholic legislation, half of the Prussian bishops were in prison or in exile, a quarter of the parishes had no priest, half the monks and nuns had left Prussia, a third of the monasteries and convents were closed, 1800 parish priests were imprisoned or exiled, and thousands of laypeople were imprisoned for helping the priests.

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