Bismarck cracks down on the Left following two assassination attempts on the Emperor
In mid-May 1878, a shot was fired at Wilhelm I in Berlin’s Unter den Linden, leaving the Emperor shaken but unharmed. This was followed just three weeks later by a further attack at almost the same location: on 2 June 1878, a further assailant discharged both barrels of his shotgun at the monarch, this time causing serious injury. Although the motives of the would-be assassins remained unclear, Chancellor Bismarck seized the opportunity to blame the Socialists, whom he called “enemies of the Reich” for their internationalism.
Bismarck persuaded the Reichstag to declare Social Democrats, Communists and other left-wing groupings to be revolutionary and seditious, and ban them from forming associations, conducting public or private meetings and publishing any political texts. Only those Social Democrats already elected to Parliament retained the protections afforded by parliamentary immunity. Although the ensuing campaign of repression forced the political representatives of the working man to go underground, Bismarck ultimately failed to stop the spread of social democracy.
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