Editing Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg (section)

== Political legacy and historical assessment ==
None of Bethmann Hollweg's circle of friends achieved significant influence during the [[Weimar Republic]]. The only politician whose worldview was related to Bethmann Hollweg's was Gustav Stresemann. But it was he who, as a National Liberal member of the Reichstag, had railed against Bethmann Hollweg.

[[Adolf Hitler]] was hostile towards the Reich chancellor's personality in his book ''[[Mein Kampf]]''. He lamented the "miserable attitude and weakness of this philosophizing weakling". He called his Reichstag speeches a "helpless stammering".{{Sfn|von Vietsch|1969|p=298}} Grand Admiral [[Alfred von Tirpitz]] condemned the "leaning of our intellectuals toward Western culture".{{Sfn|von Tirpitz|1919|p=150}}

Bethmann Hollweg's dealings with the Social Democrats influenced the course of the party's history. As a result of {{Lang|de|Burgfriedenspolitik}}, the SPD became "electable" for large sections of the middle classes and, as a people's party, was able to exert great influence on the constitution of the Weimar Republic as well as on that of the [[Federal Republic of Germany]]. According to historian Eberhard von Vietsch, the SPD's development into a bourgeois people's party to the left of center would have been more difficult without Bethmann Hollweg's initiative to integrate the SPD into the political system.{{Sfn|von Vietsch|1969|pp=302 ff}}

Bethmann Hollweg's domestic opponents accused him of being a "defeatist" who wanted to cheat the "people of the fruits of victory" with a "rotten peace". The assessment was preserved by national parties in the Weimar Republic until it finally became official with the victory of the [[Nazi Party]]. After 1945 Bethmann Hollweg was considered a "chancellor without qualities", an "indecisive [[Hamlet]] who doubted himself".{{Sfn|Stern|1968|p=46}}

In Hohenfinow today, only the weathered and partially destroyed grave of the former Reich chancellor remains. He is the only Reich chancellor of the German Empire after whom no street was named.