BACHEM, JULIUS. - Lawyer, politician and publicist, b. 2 July 1845 at Mülheim on the Ruhr, d. 22 Jan. 1918 at Cologne. He was one of the principal editors of the Kölnische Blätter, later the Kölnische Volkszeitung. A friend and pupil of Windthorst, B. was one of the directing personalities of the Centre Party, of which until 1890 he was himself one of the representatives in the Prussian Chamber. B.'s historical significance lies in the effort he made to clarify the political character of the Centre Party. During the so-called Kulturkampf, unleashed by Bismarck, and after its end, he combated the current opinion that the Centre Party had as its purpose the defense of the Church, and made it clear that this party, like all other authentic political parties, had as its goal the common good of the State understood in its broadest sense, but differed from the others in that in the choice of the means useful for realizing that end it followed as its supreme norm the Catholic conception of the world and of men. Every citizen, even a non-Catholic, could therefore join this party, provided he had accepted its program. On these foundations
B. spent all his efforts to develop and spread the living force of Catholicism in every field of life, seeking to establish a profitable and practical collaboration between Catholics and non-Catholics. Against the introduction of social democracy among the German working masses he upheld the Christian-national trade unions. He defended the Catholic school, promoted the press (Kölnische Volkszeitung, Augustinusverein), and the scientific activity of Catholics (Staatslexikon, legal and sociological section of the Görresgesellschaft) and energetically demanded the equality of Catholics and Protestants in all branches of administration and public education.
If one takes into account the confessional division of Germany, one cannot but approve B.'s work and the principles he followed, and defend him also against the accusations leveled at him by Catholic circles professing a radical "integralism" and an over-zealous anti-modernism, especially after the publication of the article: "We must come out of the tower," published in the Historisch-politische Blätter in 1906. It is true that the line followed by B. contributed to making German Catholics less attentive than would have been necessary to the essential defects of the empire founded by Bismarck, just as on the other hand it appeared to underestimate the open and cold aversion that the Church and Catholicism encountered in Germany.