Did Bismarck spoke about “labor officials”?

On social networks, you can often find pictures with a quote from a German chancellor about nearby officials. We checked whether it is true to attribute these words to Otto von Bismarck.

A completely widespread quote sounds like this: “officials are drones that write laws by which a person cannot live. Why do ministers have a salary constantly and regardless of whether the population is well or bad? Now, if the quota of salaries of bureaucrats hesitated up and down depending on the standard of living of the people, then these fools would have written less laws, but would have thought more. ” The mention of this phrase can be found on sites with quotes, V Facebook, Twitter And "Live magazine", on "Classmates", Pikabu And "Yandex.Zen". The statement attributed to the Bismarck is also found in printed sources - for example, in "A Big Book of Aphorisms, everyday wisdom and quotes".

The first doubts about the authenticity of these words Bismarck appear if you try to look for a phrase in foreign sources. Even on amateur and often rather poor -quality resources, where they collect quotes of famous people, we will not find anything about “labor officials”. There are no these words neither in English -speakingnor in German -speaking "Wikisytatnik", not to mention Collections of quotes On the website of the Foundation Otto von Bismarck - an organization that studies the legacy of politics. The closest phrase with the indisputable authorship of Bismarck: “Having bad laws and good officials, the nearest, but not formulating, but even the best laws will not help us with bad officials.” He wrote about this in 1850.

The absolute unknown of the phrase of interest to us abroad suggests that it with a high probability has no direct attitude to Bismarck. Moreover, a lot of chance that she was invented after the death of the chancellor and immediately in Russian. Apparently, the genealogy of the verified statement is just such - its earliest mention You can find In the historical novel by Valentin Pikul “The Battle of Iron Chancellors”, for the first time published in 1977.

Although Pikul was one of the most popular authors of his time, he remained precisely the writer, not a historian. Professional researchers often and many Criticized It is for historical inaccuracies and errors. We were not able to find information that when writing a fragment with a quote of interest to us, Pikul studied the diaries or correspondence of Bismarck. Most likely, the writer completely invented this phrase and did not see anything bad in this, because more than once He emphasizedthat the novel is not a historical study. However, the millions of his readers in the USSR and in the post -Soviet space, unfortunately, were not seen.

Incorrect attribution of quote

What do our verdicts mean?

Read on the topic:

1. V. Pikul. The battle of iron chancellors
2. Otto von Bismarck Foundation. Quotes