Falk Laws - Aftermath

Aftermath

The May Laws succeeded in making life harder for the clerics, but the failure of the May Laws to cause the total collapse of Catholic resistance and allow for complete control of the Church by the state is one facet of the broader failure of the Kulturkampf. Bismarck ultimately precipitated the unification of the German Catholics—despite the split-off of the Old Catholic Church—and strengthened their ties with the Roman papacy. In the federal election of 1874, the Catholic Centre Party gained 27.9% of the votes cast, confirming their status as the second strongest parliamentary group in the Reichstag. Furthermore, the chancellor's measures offended several of his Protestant national liberal allies. Bismarck had spotted a new and more serious threat in the rise of the Social Democratic Party, and was aware that he could not go without the Catholics' support to enact his Anti-Socialist Laws.

Pope Pius IX died on 7 February 1878, and in the negotiations with his successoer Leo XIII the implications of the May Laws were attenuated. Diplomatic relations were resumed in 1882 and the Kulturkampf officially ended by the "Peace Laws" of 1886/87.