What was the deal with Otto Von Bismarck? I aways heard that he was responsible both directly and indirectly for the political problems on Europe that lead to WW1 and consequently WW2. How true is that?
mm he was instrumental in aligning germany around france and diplomatically isolating them and consolidatinger german/prussian power, he unified germany and consolidated it as a major empire prussia was very militarized and found conflict with other empires in africa, the balkans and along french border as well as naval competition wit hthe british
Yes he was the architect of unification and main person responsible for that. With the note that of course the conditions for unification of Germany were there already and the one unifying it would still be Prussia, so it would be done in max two decades anyway. And given how Prussia was (Marx, Engels and Lenin wrote much about prussian way to transformation to capitalism) WW1 was probably impossible to avoid.
He basically saw that something like WW1 wouild happen eventually, so he tried to prevent it by isolating revanchist france, establishing close ties to Russia and making it clear to the anglos that Germany would be no threat to them (by signing a fleet treaty that allowed ther german fleet only to have a fraction of the tonnage of the anglo one). As long as Otto was in charge, this worked. Also because the first Emperor, Wilhelm I. worked closely with Bismarck.
Eventually Otto wasn’t in charge anymore. The Second Emperor, Wilhelm II. then fucked up where he could. Which lead to WW1 and Willy no longer being Emperor.
