BERLIN — The holidays are over. The New Year has begun. It is a time when many of us roll off the couch, pull on the trainers we were given for Christmas and head to the gym or out for a run in the woods. This year we are definitely going to be healthier. According to one survey, in 2024 almost half of Germans have made a resolution to do more exercise or eat more healthily.
However, “the resolution is good, but the fulfillment is difficult,” as Johann Wolfgang von Goethe so aptly put it.
If you ask Germans how long they stick to their resolutions, only a fifth say that they never break them. Around a quarter last for at least a few months, while 39% give up within four weeks. Often the plans formed with the best of intentions around New Year turn out to be incompatible with work or family life.
That was also the case for Otto von Bismarck. The “iron chancellor” was under constant strain after the German Empire was founded in 1871. Like many people, he turned to food, smoking and alcohol, until he became so overweight and ill that, according to his own assessment in the early 1880s, he could only work for two hours a day.
Bismarck therefore had plenty of reasons to make changes to his lifestyle. But diet after diet failed. In the end it was a young doctor from Bavaria who helped the chancellor to lose 20 kg (44 lbs), keep the weight off and be more physically active – without having to cut down on work.
What was the secret of the Bismarck diet? It was the invention of a doctor who saw his work more as an art than a science.
The Prussian patient
Bismarck was by no means an easy patient. The extent of his health issues meant that the many wonder diets that already existed at the time had little chance of working. In the early 19th century, the famous British doctor William Wadd was already recommending a whole host of measures, some of which are still used today, such as “moving your limbs through fast walking”, others – drinking soapsuds and chewing tobacco – less so.
What Bismarck needed was more than a short-term diet. He had never been able to stick to one anyway. The Chancellor had set up the Empire’s constitution in such a way that it was closely tied to his own person, so that he was the centre around which the entire new nation state revolved. Ministers were not even allowed to talk to each other without him being present. Bismarck simply did not have any time to leave the corridors of power in Berlin behind every day and go walking for hours. He also couldn’t easily leave conferences to dissolve small pieces of soap in water and drink the concoction to make himself urinate.
But Bismarck had to do something. As early as the second year of his chancellorship, he said, “My oil has run out. I can’t go on.” He was getting sick more often, suffering from digestive issues, rheumatism and such severe pain in his leg that doctors considered whether they should amputate it. Bismarck had been very active when he was a student – 1.93 m tall and an excellent fencer, horse rider, swimmer and dancer – but by 1879 he had swelled to 124 kg and couldn’t even walk properly, let alone ride a horse. He also had trouble sleeping.
Of course these complaints were not solely due to stress. Even in his younger years, Bismarck enjoyed a life of excess. When he took over the family estate of Schönhausen after finishing his studies, his neighbours called him the “mad squire” because he smoked “very strong cigars” and “drank his guests under the table”, as he wrote to a university friend in 1845.
“Shockingly altered”
As chancellor, his lifestyle was no less excessive. Hildebard von Spitzemberg, a socialite who held a literary salon in her Berlin home, described Bismarck’s daily life in 1872 as follows: “Throughout the year he gets up at two o’clock in the afternoon, eats three rich meals between then and evening, attends to important affairs of state until 11.30pm, then smokes and sees friends until one or two o’clock in the morning, then of course lies sleepless in bed until morning and catches up on his sleep during the day.” She also wrote in her diary that the chancellor took morphine.
Again and again Bismarck sought advice from doctors, only to reject it
All of this took its toll on the 57 year old. Christoph von Tiedemann, who was head of the newly formed Chancellery of the Reich from 1878, wrote in his diary in 1880 that Bismarck’s appearance was “shockingly altered”. “He thinks that last night he had a stroke, didn’t sleep, has been constantly throwing up.” Bismarck’s wife Johanna told him that “last night her husband consumed huge quantities of woodruff-flavoured punch ice cream and ate six eggs with butter”.
Bismarck’s health issues became so severe that he could no longer cope with the strain of holding the newly-formed Empire together. Again and again he sought advice from doctors, only to reject it. The most successful was the Hamburg-born doctor Eduard Cohen, who became Bismarck’s personal doctor in 1880 and whom he trusted so much that he discussed political matters with him. With his help, he lost 8 kg within a few months. The chancellor felt better and became more active, but he found the lifestyle that Cohen prescribed unsustainable, and he “fell back into a bankrupt state of health”, in his own words.
“Relatively” healthy
Bismarck’s salvation came from a man who did not put his faith in catch-all diets, but treated each patient as an individual. Ernst Schweninger was in many respects an unusual choice for Bismarck’s personal doctor. He was always elegantly dressed, hailed from Bavaria, was only 32 years old and seemed completely unimpressed by Bismarck’s brash manner – the chancellor was used to having even the Emperor give way to him if he exerted enough pressure.
When Schweninger asked his famous patient a few questions, in order to get a better sense of his overall health, Bismarck responded sulkily and refused to volunteer any more information. But instead of being cowed, Schweninger calmly replied that if Bismarck wanted a doctor who didn’t ask any questions, he should look for a vet instead. Bismarck was impressed by the young man’s assertiveness, later recalling that Schweninger “identified his illness, treated it correctly and made him feel relatively healthy”. He trusted the doctor, forming a relationship that lasted until Bismarck’s death.
Schweninger’s idea was actually very simple: it put the patient at the center. He had to want to change, and any treatment had to be “individualized, taking into account all the physical and other circumstances of the patient”. Therefore he always reminded the chancellor that he was there out of his own free will and could always go away again, but at the same time worked closely with him to find a new lifestyle that worked for Bismarck.
As well as more moderate eating habits, Schweninger mainly concentrated on regulating Bismarck’s daily routine more strictly: “Wake up at 7 o’clock, 10 until 12.30pm walking and talking with visitors, then lunch together. Walking alone until dark. 6 o’clock dinner, smoke one or two pipes, withdrawing punctually at 9.30pm.”
That way the statesman could still carry out business, meet with his allies and adversaries and plan in time for reflection, without sacrificing physical exercise or a regular sleep schedule. There were specific windows for eating, drinking and smoking, so he didn’t have to give these up entirely, just limit them.
“I only eat what he wants”
When Bismarck wasn’t working, he was supposed to be relaxing on his estate or taking cures. The chancellor even stuck to the diet, with Schweninger’s support. “I only eat what he wants,” he grumbled, but admitted that without this “tyrant” he couldn’t manage it: “When he goes away, I have to go to Munich.”
Schweninger’s direct manner and personalized approach didn’t work wonders, but they did allow the aging chancellor “to feel relatively healthy”, as he later recalled. He lost weight, reaching 103 kg in 1886, and, despite a few small setbacks when his doctor went away, he didn’t exceed this weight for the rest of his life. He was infinitely thankful and made his personal doctor head of the Berlin dermatology clinic, despite many protests from the faculty, who of course recognized the appointment as nepotism.
Get enough fresh air, exercise, eat healthily as part of a regular schedule, and a healthy lifestyle is achievable
Schweninger’s sensitive approach, which at the time seemed so modern and unusual to many of his more traditional colleagues, also helped a number of other prominent patients. Bismarck’s overweight son Wilhelm, known as Bill, was successfully treated by Schweninger. Musician Cosima Wagner and inventor Alfred Krupp were also among his patients.
Today Schweninger’s methods, his choice to view the quest for a healthier lifestyle as an art rather than a science, has somewhat fallen out of fashion. Many people look for advice from self-help books, which always experience a spike in sales around the New Year.
But perhaps the Bavarian doctor had discovered a simple approach that still holds up today: get enough fresh air, exercise, eat healthily as part of a regular schedule, and a healthy lifestyle is achievable. In 2024, the Bismarck diet is still worth a go – though perhaps without the two pipes after dinner.
