Baron Rudolf von Bennigsen was a Hanoverian politician who combined liberalism with support for Prussian hegemony in a united Germany.
After studying law at the University of Göttingen, Bennigsen, the son of a Hanoverian Major-General, entered the civil service of Hanover, but had to resign in 1856 in order to accept his election to the lower chamber of that kingdom. A vigourous defender of freedom of religion, he became leader of the liberal opposition, and, in 1859, president of the Nationalverein (German National Union), which he founded with Johannes von Miquel. The organisation's aims were a united Germany led by Prussia, an all-German parliament, and the exclusion of Austria's non-Germans. After the Nationalverein was dissolved (in 1867), he was instrumental in founding the National Liberal Party, which was the dominant group in the Reichstag for most of the 1870s.
Bennigsen had unsuccessfully attempted to prevent Hanover from entering the Seven Weeks' War (in 1866) on the side of Austria and, after the defeat of the Austrian alliance, wanted his sovereign's territories to remain a sepatate state. Upon the transformation of Hanover into a province of Prussia, however, he entered the Prussian Chamber of Deputies and the Diet of the North German Confederation, turning down Chancellor Otto von Bismarck's offer to head the provisional government of the new province. From 1871 to 1897, with the exception of a four-year retirement (1883-87), he was a member of the all-German Reichstag and served as its president from 1873 to 1879. In 1877 Bismarck's attempt to bring him into the cabinet collapsed because of Emperor William I's opposition and Bennisgen's insistence on the appointment of two other party colleagues to ministerial posts. Relations with the German chancellor improved when the National Liberals rejected Bismarck's protectionalist policies in 1879, an action which also destroyed the power of the party. That same year a right-wing protectionalist group split away; the next year a radical group.
In 1888, Emperor William II appointed Bennigsen president of the province of Hanover. Bennigsen retired from public life in 1897.
(Portrait is a detail from an oil painting by Franz von Lenbach, 1896)
(So far) By: Baron Michael von Bennigsen. (Sources: Micropĉdia Britannica vol. II, p.106-7; Niedersachsisches Landesmuseum, Hanover. Photo extensively re-touched by Baron Michael von Bennigsen.)
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