The fourth volume of Friedrich Baudri’s diaries, edited here, illuminates the years 1868–1871. It reflects the phase of the establishment of the Reich, which is significant for German history, from the perspective of a Rhenish Catholic with a Greater German disposition. As a pioneer of ultramontanism and founder of political Catholicism, Friedrich Baudri welcomed the results of the First Vatican Council (infallibility), but held Distance to the emergence of the small German empire under cultural protestant auspices. His social empathy as a long-time city councilor in Cologne had its limits when it came to solving the social question. Baudri referred explicitly to the traditional Christian love of neighbor, which blocked his view of the modern structure of mass misery in his presence. As a member of the Prussian House of Representatives (1873/74) and the Reichstag (1874), he joined the central parliamentary group. His sudden death (1874) prevented him from being effective there for a long time.