Robert von Puttkamer, after a short course of law, began his official career in 1850 as Auskultator in the courts at Danzig, but in 1852 he entered the civil service, and after his promotion to the rank of Assessor in 1854 he was given a post in the railway department of the ministry for trade and industry.

In 1879 Puttkamer was appointed Prussian minister of education and public worship, the chosen instrument of the Clerical Conservative policy initiated by Bismarck when the Socialist peril made it expedient to conciliate the Catholic Centre.

His reactionary conservative temper was in complete harmony with the views of Bismarck and the Emperor William, and with their powerful support he attempted, in defiance of modern democratic principles and even of the spirit of the constitution, to re-establish the old Prussian system of rigid discipline from above.

He was above all concerned to nip in the bud any tendencies in the civil service to revolt, and it was on his initiative that on 4 January 1882 a royal ordinance laid it down as the duty of all officials to give the government their unconditional support at political elections.

In a vain effort to combat social democracy, he seriously interfered with the freedom to hold public meetings and attempted the forcible suppression of strike movements.