We see Junker Otto leaving his father’s house at a very early age, as did his brother. The reasons for this we can not assign, but no doubt they were well meant, although scarcely wise. Bismarck used subsequently himself to say that his early departure from the paternal roof was any thing but advantageous to him. Perhaps his mother was afraid he might get too early spoilt; for with his gay nature and constant friendliness, the little boy early won all hearts. He was especially spoilt by his father, and by Lotte Schmeling, his mother’s maid, and his own nurse.
At the boarding-school of Plamann in Berlin, whither he was next brought, he did not get on at all well. This then very renowned institution had adopted the thorough system of old Jahn, and carried out the theory of “hardening up,” then fashionable, by starving, exposure, and so forth—not without carrying it to extremes in practice. Bismarck, who had always submitted meekly to all his masters, could not, in later days, refrain from complaining bitterly of the severity with which he was treated in this institution. He was very miserable there, and longed for home so much, that when they were out walking, he could not help weeping whenever he saw a plough at work. The masters were especially obnoxious to him on account of the strictness with which they insisted on gymnastics and athletic sports, from the hatred of the French they methodically preached, and by the tough German usage they exercised towards the little scion of nobility. In his paternal house, Bismarck had not been educated in class-hatred, as it is called; on the contrary, his mother was very liberal, and had no sympathy with the nobility. Marriages between nobles and citizens were then much more unfrequent; Madame von Bismarck had very likely encountered some slights from the proud families of the Alt Mark and of Pomerania, and caste feeling could scarcely have been felt by Bismarck in his childhood. It was not any want of sympathy with his school-fellows, but the democratic doctrines of some of the masters, which roused the Junker in the bosom of the proud lad. We shall see that in later years it was the incapacity of two masters at the Graue Kloster which caused them to handle him ungently, because of his noble birth, and thus impelled him to resistance.
It is easy to understand that Otto von Bismarck, as long as he stayed at the hateful Plamann Institute, and at the Gymnasium, longed ardently for the holidays, for these times are the bright stars in the heaven of every schoolboy.
And how was the holiday journey performed in those days from Berlin to Kniephof in the Circle Naugard? The stagecoach of Nagler—then the pride of Prussia—set off in the evening from Berlin, and arrived at Stettin at noon the next day. There were not over-good roads at that time from Berlin to the capital of Pomerania. From Stettin young Bismarck proceeded, with horses sent by his parents, to Gollnow, where his grandfather was born, and where proverbially there was a fire once a fortnight. In Gollnow he slept at the house of an aged widow named Dalmer, who held some relation to the family. This aged lady used to tell the eager lad stories of his great grandfather the Colonel von Bismarck, who fell at Czaslau, and who once lay in garrison at Gollnow with his regiment of dragoons—the Schulenburg Regiment, afterwards the Anspach Bayreuth. After almost a century, the memory of the famous warrior and huntsman remained alive. Stories were told of the Colonel’s fine dogs and horses. When he gave a banquet, not only did the sound of trumpet accompany each toast, but the dragoons fired off volleys in the hall, to heighten the noise. Then the Colonel would march with the whole mess, preceded by the band and followed by the whole regiment, to the bridge of Ihna, where the Wooden Donkey stood. This terrible instrument of punishment—riding the Donkey was like riding the rail—was then cast into the Ihna, amidst execrations and applause. “All offenders are forgiven, and the Donkey shall die!” But the applause of the dragoons could not have been very sincere, for they knew very well that the Provost would set up the Donkey in all its terrors the very next morning; therefore they only huzzaed to please their facetious Colonel.
This is a picture of garrison life under King Frederick William I. There still exists a hunting register belonging to this old worthy, which reports that the old soldier in one year had shot a hundred stags—an unlikely event nowadays. One of the first sportsmen of the present day—H.R.H. Prince Frederick Charles of Prussia—shot three hundred head of game between the 18th of September, 1848, and the 18th of September, 1868, pronounced “worthy of fire.” A correspondence of the old Colonel’s is still extant, which evinces a highly eccentric stanchness; in this his cousin, the cunning diplomatist Von Dewitz, afterwards Ambassador to Vienna, is severely enough handled. It was doubtless from these statements of the acute colonel of cavalry that the Great Frederick did not allow his son, Charles Alexander, to accompany him to Vienna in the Embassy, but ordered him to become a cornet, with some very unflattering expressions concerning the diplomatist.
The next day young Otto von Bismarck used to leave Gollnow, and thus on the third day he reached Kniephof, where for three weeks he led a glorious life, troubled only by a few holiday tasks. Among the most pleasant events of holiday time were visits to Zimmerhausen, to the Blanckenburgs, which possessed an additional charm from a sort of cheese-cake prepared in this locality.
From Plamann’s school, Bismarck passed to the Frederick William Gymnasium; and here he immediately attracted the attention of a master with whom he was afterwards to be more closely associated, and of whom mention will afterwards be made in this work. This gentleman (the Director, Dr. Bonnell) relates:—“My attention was drawn to Bismarck on the very day of his entry, on which occasion the new boys sat in the schoolroom on rows of benches in order that the masters could overlook the new comers with attention, during the inauguration. Otto von Bismarck sat—as I still distinctly remember, and often have related—with visible eagerness, a clear and pleasant boyish face and bright eyes, in a gay and lightsome mood among his comrades, so that it caused me to think, ‘That’s a nice boy; I’ll keep my eye upon him.’ He became my pupil first when he entered the upper third. I was transferred at Michaelmas, 1829, from the Berlin Gymnasium to the Graue Kloster, to which Bismarck also came in the following year. He became an inmate of my house at Easter, 1831, where he behaved himself in my modest household, then numbering only my wife and my infant son, in a friendly and confiding manner. In every respect he was most charming; he seldom quitted us of an evening; if I was sometimes absent, he conversed in a friendly and innocent manner with my wife, and evinced a strong inclination for domestic life. He won our hearts and we met his advances with affection and care—so that his father, when he quitted us, declared that his son had never been so happy as with us.”
Bismarck to this day has preserved the most grateful intimacy with Dr. Bonnell and his wife; even as Minister-President he loved to cast a passing glance at the window of the small chamber he had occupied in Königsgraben No. 18, while he resided with Dr. Bonnell. The window is now built up. The powerful minister and great statesman ever remained the friendly and kindly Otto von Bismarck towards his old teacher. He sought his counsel in the selection of a tutor for his sons, and afterwards sent them to the Werder Gymnasium, that still flourishes under the thoroughly excellent guidance of Bonnell.