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Class and Politics in Wilhelmine Germany: The Center Party and the Social Democrats in Württemberg

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 December 2008

David G. Blackbourn
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Between 1890 and 1914 the Center party was, in Friedrich Naumann's words, “the measure of all things” in German politics. Throughout this period it possessed a quarter of the seats in the Reichstag, and held the balance of power between left and right. Its importance from the standpoint of Bismarck's successors as chancellor stemmed from the electoral and parliamentary decline of the National Liberals and Conservatives, the parties which had formed theKartell through which Bismarck governed the Reichstag. After 1890 these no longer commanded a majority, and other parties had to be won over by the government. With the Social Democrats permanently hostile, this narrowed the government's choice down to the Progressives and Center, either of which would give the Kartell parties a majority, and both of which were to be used to this effect. However, the Progressives were used only sparingly (above all during the Biilow Bloc of 1907–9) because of their increasing shift to the left. The historic reason for this was the party's antimilitarism; and this move to the left was reinforced by fears among Progressive leaders that their supporters might otherwise defect to the Social Democrats. The Center was therefore the only alternative. For most of the Wilhelmine period successive chancellors depended for their parliamentary majorities on the Center, which in turn showed itself willing to become a “party of government.”

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Articles
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Central European History , Volume 9 , Issue 3 , September 1976 , pp. 220 - 249
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Copyright © Conference Group for Central European History of the American Historical Association 1976

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References

I should like to thank Geoff Eley, Joseph Lee, and Norman Stone for their criticisms and advice.

1. Naumann, F., Die politischen Parteien (Berlin, 1910), p. 39.Google Scholar

2. Röhl, J. C. G., Germany without Bismarck (London, 1967), pp. 45–46;Google ScholarStegmann, D., Die Erben Bismarcks: Parteien und Verbände in der Spätphase des wilhelminischen Deutschlands; Satnmlungspolitik, 1897–1902 (Cologne, 1970), pp. 29–31.Google Scholar

3. A Hohenlohe memorandum in 1898 (after the Reichstag elections) summed up the dilemma: “The election statistics provide irrefutable evidence that it will not be possible in the forseeable future to form a majority from the so-called national parties. One must therefore seek to win over one of the opposition parties. The only party which comes into consideration here is the Center, the overwhelming part of which is monarchist.” Hohenlohe, C. zu, Denkwürdigkeiten der Reichskanzlerzeit, ed. von Müller, K. A. (Stuttgart, 1931), pp. 451–53.Google Scholar For earlier calculations by Caprivi leading to the same conclusion, see Röhl, p. 80.

4. Morsey, R., “Die deutschen Katholiken und der Nationalstaat zwischen Kulturkampf und dem ersten Weltkrieg,” Historisches Jahrbuch 90 (1970): 31–64.Google Scholar

5. Heckart, B., From Bassermann to Bebel (New Haven, 1974).Google Scholar See also Schmidt, G., “Parlamentarisierung oder ‘Präventive Konter-Revolution‘? Die deutsche Innenpolitik im Spannungsfeld konservativer Sammlungsbewegung und latenter Reformbestrebungen 1907–1914,” in Ritter, Gerhard A., ed., Gesellschaft, Parlament und Regierung: Zur Geschichte des Parlamentarismus in Deutschland (Düsseldorf, 1974), pp. 249–78;Google Scholar and “Innenpolitische Blockbildungen am Vorabend des Ersten Weltkriegs,” Das Parlament 20 (1972): 3–32.Google Scholar

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7. See, for example, the Center leader Herding on the importance of the struggle over education in Prussia: Herding, G. von, Erinnerungen aus meinem Leben, 2 vols. (Munich, 1919–1920), 2: 98–99.Google Scholar

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9. Center leader Porsch, in an 1893 memorandum to Cardinal Kopp, wrote of the declining impact of such appeals: “People now weigh things up much more coolly, where once they followed without thinking,” quoted in Gottwald, H., “Zentrum und Imperialismus” (Ph.D diss., University of Jena, 1966), p. 129.Google Scholar Also, Nipperdey, T., Die Organisation der deutschen Parteien vor 1918 (Düsseldorf, 1961), p. 268.Google Scholar On the Center's declining share of the Catholic vote, see below, p. 248, and n. 78.

10. It was in this context that Julius Bachem made his famous appeal for a move away from the politics of confessional isolation (“Wir müssen aus dem Turm heraus”). Bachem, J., Erinnerungen eines alten Publizisten und Politikers (Cologne, 1913), pp. 177–95;Google ScholarBergsträsser, L., Geschichte der politischen Parteien in Deutschland (Munich, 1960), pp. 174–76.Google Scholar

11. Kopp's persistent efforts to swing the Center behind the 1893 military bill were unsuccessful, and when Caprivi asked him to use his position to modify the party's 1893 electoral strategy, Kopp was obliged to admit his lack of influence outside the narrow area of Silesia. See Gottwald, pp. 127–40. In 1898 Hohenlohe also sought to use Kopp to guide Center strategy, and the latter was once again forced to confess his inability to do so. Hohenlohe, pp. 450–51.

12. The Christian Peasant Associations in Württemberg (Anton Keilbach), Baden (Philipp Gerber and Josef Pfaff), and Trier (Georg Dasbach) were organized by priests. The associations arranged for the provision of credit, the purchase of feedstuffs and fertilizer, and the cooperative marketing of crops. They also protected the peasant against the middleman: the Trier association fought over thirteen thousand legal actions against moneylenders and cattle dealers between 1884 and 1918. Jacobs, F., Deutsche Bauernführer (Düsseldorf, 1958), p. 76.Google Scholar

13. The concept of a “general” or “universal” class can be traced back to Hegel, for whom the bureaucracy embodied the general interest of society as a whole (just as the state tended toward the universal). The sense of “general class” intended here is drawn from Marx, who rejected as illusory the Hegelian claim for the universality of the bureaucracy (just as he rejected Hegel's view of the state). Rather, for Marx, different social classes, at particular times in history, succeeded each other in representing the general will and potential of society. Marx, like the German Social Democrats, believed that the bourgeoisie had once represented this “general” interest, but had become the embodiment of partial class rule whose claim to universality had been exploded. It was the proletariat which now inherited the mantle of the “general class.” See Avineri, S., The Social and Political Thought of Karl Marx (Cambridge, 1970), chap. 2, pp. 41–64.Google Scholar It is significant that the Social Democrats in Wilhelmine Germany saw in the proletariat not only the general class whose triumph would abolish (aufheben) the contradictions between political power and productive forces, between the state and civil society, etc.: with the supposed onset of the decadent, declining phase of bourgeois liberalism, the proletariat also embodied and subsumed the potential of all society in spheres such as culture. See Fill-berth, G., Proletarische Partei und bürgerliche Literatur (Neuwied, 1972), p. 7.Google Scholar On the general problem of the middle class as a general class, see Briggs, A., “Middle-Class Consciousness in English Politics, 1780–1846,” Past and Present, no. 9 (1956), pp. 65–74.CrossRefGoogle Scholar The ideologues of political Catholicism, and Center politicians, could agree with much of the argument that the middle class had lost its former role: they saw the middle years of the nineteenth century as a transitory phase of self-assured liberal bourgeois ascendancy, arrogating to itself (as, for example, in the matter of laissez-faire economic legislation) the claim to embody a general interest.

14. From the 1903 Reichstag election program. Bergsträsser, L., Der politische Katholizismus: Dokumente seiner Entwicklung, 2 vols. (Munich, 1921–1923), 2: 330.Google Scholar

15. Molt, P., Der Reichstag vor der improvisierten Revolution (Cologne-Opladen, 1963),CrossRefGoogle Scholar describes the Center (p. 296) as a “people's party cutting across all classes and interests.” For similar judgments, see Bergsträsser, Geschichte der politischen Parteien, p. 191; Mann, G., The History of Germany since 1789 (London, 1968), p. 214;Google ScholarWehler, H.-U., Das Deutsche Kaiserreich 1871–1918, (Göttingen, 1973), pp. 83–84.Google Scholar

16. Forberger, J., Die wirtschaftliche und kulturelle Rückständigkeit der Katholiken und ihre Ursachen: Flugschriften des Evangelischen Bundes, Heft 263/4 (Leipzig, 1908).Google Scholar

17. This was the crux of a strong speech made by Karl Bachem at the 1901 Annual Catholic Assembly (Katholikentag) in Osnabrück. See also Windthorst's remarks to Adolf Gröber: “The Jews nest happily in Catholic areas, because the Catholics are lazy; our clergy preach too much about the birds and flowers of the field, which do not sow or reap, but yet receive the means to live. This reminds me of something our Bachem said: the Catholic financiers in Cologne have no spirit of enterprise, otherwise they would long since have had control over the whole trade of the Rhineland and Westphalia.” Cardauns, H., Adolf Gröber (M.-Gladbach, 1921), p. 43.Google Scholar Comparisons between the backwardness of Catholics and the wealth and drive of Germany's Jewish community were frequently made by Center politicians and publicists, often with overtones of resentment.

18. That is, the population of Grossstädte with over one hundred thousand inhabitants.

19. Naumann, F., Demokratie und Kaisertum (Berlin, 1904), p. 122;Google ScholarRost, J., Die wirtschaftliche und kulturelle Lage der deutschen Katholiken (Cologne, 1911), pp. 9ff.;Google ScholarFogarty, M. P., Christian Democracy in Western Europe, 1820–1953 (London, 1957), p. 304.Google Scholar

20. Gabler, H., “Die Entwicklung der Parteien auf landwirtschaftlicher Grundlage von 1871–1912” (Ph.D. diss., University of Berlin, 1934), p. 16, quoted in Gottwald, p. 41.Google Scholar

21. Bachem, K., Vorgeschichte, Geschichte und Politik der deutschen Zentrumspartei, 9 vols. (Cologne, 1927–32), 5: 351–56;Google Scholar Nipperdey, p. 279; Jacobs, F., Von Schorlemer zur Grünen Front (Düsseldorf, 1957), pp. 217ff.;Google ScholarTirrell, S. R., German Agrarian Politics after Bismarck's Fall (New York, 1951), pp. 120–23, 212–24, 225, 245, 294;Google ScholarMüller, K., “Zentrumspartei und agrarische Bewegung im Rheinland, 1882–1903,” in Repgen, K. and Skalweit, S., eds., Spiegel der Geschichte: Festgabe für M. Braubach zum 10. April 1964 (Münster, 1964).Google Scholar

22. Gottwald (pp. 151–52) quotes a letter from Lieber to Heinrich Otto, chairman of the Augustinus-Verein (the association of Center newspapers), complaining of misrepresentation and even of a “war of extermination” (Vernichtungskrieg) being fought against him, and threatening to leave public life completely. Lieber also wrote to the Bavarian Center leader, Schaedler, at this time, deploring the division of the party into economic interest groups, and claiming that this tearing apart of the Center was more advanced than at any time since the Kulturkampf. Lieber to Schaedler, June 6, 1894, Pfälzische Landesbibliothek, Speyer, Ernst Lieber Nachlass, S.32.

23. Bachem, K., 6: 163–65; Cardauns, p. 112. The National Liberals, however, initially supporters of the Center move, later refused to accept a revision of the standing orders.Google Scholar

24. Verhandlungen der Württembergischen Kammer der Abgeordneten auf dem 33 Landtag: Protokoll Band II, p. 1174, 55 Sitzung, June 28, 1895 (henceforth: 33 LT, PB II, p. 1174, 55 S., June 28, 1895);Google ScholarPolitische Zeitfragen in Württemberg: Zwanglos erscheinende Hefte 17 (Stuttgart, 1912), pp. 6–9.Google Scholar

25. On the “inner democratization” of the Center, see Buchheim, K., Geschichte der christlichen Parteien in DeutsMand (Munich, 1953), p. 221;Google Scholar Morsey, p. 48; Nipperdey, pp. 280ff. On the south and west German opposition in the Center to the 1893 bill, K. Bachem, 5: 278; Gottwald, pp. 122ff.; and on opposition to the navy, Kehr, E., Schlachtflottenbau und Parteipolitik 1894–1901: Versuch eines Querschnitts durch die innenpolitischen, sozialen und ideologischen Voraussetzungen des deutschen Imperialisms (Berlin, 1930), pp. 43–50, 194–98; K. Bachem, 5: 473–74, 479–80.Google Scholar

26. For an account of the left wing within the party, especially at the time of the Center's disagreement with the government over colonial estimates in 1907, see Crothers, G. D., The German Elections of 1907 (New York, 1941),Google Scholar and Epstein, K., Matthias Erzberger and the Dilemma of German Democracy (Princeton, 1959).Google Scholar After the 1912 elections to the Reichstag, the extreme Conservative Roesicke wrote to von Böcklin (June 2, 1912), expressing his concern that the influence of men like Gröber (who leaned “strongly to the left”) was growing, as a result of the frequent absences from Berlin of the conservative Center leader Herding, who was prime minister in Bavaria, and the ineffectiveness of the Center leader Peter Spahn. Stegmann, p. 324.

27. Heckart, pp. 91ff.; Rosenberg, pp. 48–49; K. Bachem, 8: I45ff. In both Baden and Bavaria the Social Democrats and Center combined over electoral reforms designed to “dish the liberals,” the Center gaining in the countryside and the Social Democrats in the towns. But their cooperation did not extend to other issues, and throughout south Germany the Social Democrats found they still had most in common with the National Liberals and Progressives on educational and cultural matters, as on social and economic issues. See Schlemmer, H., “Die Rolle der Sozialdemokratie in den Landtagen Badens und Württembergs und ihr Einfluss auf die Entwicklung der Gesamtpartei zwischen 1890 und 1914,” (Ph.D. diss., University of Freiburg, 1953).Google Scholar

28. On the special features of Württemberg, see Haering, H., “Württemberg und das Reich in der Geschichte,” Zeitschrift für württembergische Landesgeschichte 7 (1943): 294–322;Google ScholarSimon, K., Die württembergischen Demokraten (Stuttgart, 1969), pp. 5–12, 48–49.Google Scholar

29. Compiled from the Mitgliederverzeichnis for the seven parliaments meeting between 1895 and the war, as contained in 33 LT, BB (Beilage-Band) III, pp. 1–4; 33 LT, BB IV, pp. 419–24; 33 LT, BB IX, pp. 117–19; 34 LT, BB II, pp. 303–306; 34 LT, BB III, pp. 1009–12; 35 LT, BB II, pp. 79ff.; 36LT, BB IV, pp. 455–64; 37 LT, BB II, pp. 217ff.; 37 LT, BB V, pp. 627ff.; 38LT, BBIV, pp. 181–84; 38 LT, BB III, pp. 329–55; 39 LT, BB II, pp. 235–42. Further details from the Hauptregister über die Verhandlungen der Stände des Königreichs Württemberg und der Landtage von 1856 bis 1906. Center deputies elected at by-elections were traced in the Literarische Beilage des Staats-Anzeigers für Württemberg (Chronik des Jahres), where by-election details are given at the end of each annual volume.

30. Waldse'er Wochenblatt, May 5, 1895.

31. For a more detailed account, see my article, “The Political Alignment of the Centre Party in Wilhelmine Germany: A Study of the Party's Emergence in Nineteenth-century Wiirttemberg,” Historical Journal 18 (1975): 821–50.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

32. Bachem, K., 5: 294–95;Google Scholar Nipperdey, p. 288. On the hostile temper of peasant opinion generally in Bavaria, Möckl, K., Die Prinzregentenzeit: Gesellschaft und Politik während der Ära des Prinzregenten Luitpold in Bayern (Munich, 1972), pp. 454ff.Google Scholar

33. With the introduction of income tax, the former method of taxing the yield from business now involved an element of “double taxation” on personal earnings from business concerns. The temporary solution found by the Landtag committee was to reduce (by a percentage proportionate to the size of turnover) the scale of liability (Kataster) to tax on businesses (Gewerbesteuer). Agriculture then demanded reductions in the scale of liabilities to tax on land (Grundkataster), their argument based on the falling income from land rather than “double taxation.”

34. LT, PB VI, 174 S., Dec. 15, 1897; 175 S., Dec. 16, 1897; 179 S., Dec. 22, 1897.

35. Speech by Gröber at the Europäischer Hof hotel, Stuttgart, reported in the Gmünder Tagblatt, Nov. 11, 1900.

36. In Leutkirch, the local election committee picked Nikolaus Braunger as its candidate rather than the sitting deputy Ferdinand Eggmann, the former having been recommended by Gröber in a letter which spoke of his disinterested talents as a potential member of parliamentary committees (Schwäbische Kronik, Nov. 7, 1900). In Gmünd, where internal squabbles had characterized the party in the 1890s, the leadership disregarded the claims of both likely local men and settled on an outsider of proven reliability, the Ravensburg lawyer Alfred Rembold, whose brother Viktor was already Landtag deputy for Schwabisch-Hall, and who was himself an important figure in the Württemberg party, and a member of the Reichstag.

37. In Leutkirch Eggmann was put up against Braunger, and a meeting at Wurzach, attended by over two hundred people, resolved “under no circumstances” to support the leadership's choice. A local man, Eduard Kuen, was put up by constituents in Wangen, and forced the “outsider,” member of the Reichstag Theodor Hofmann, to stand down as official candidate. In troubled Gmünd the candidacy of Anton Klaus (the former deputy) was announced against Rembold: “As there is in our district, in truth, no lack of fitting and capable persons, we shall under no circumstances give our votes to anyone other than a resident of the district…. We oppose categorically the slogan circulated here, that Gmünd must of necessity send off another lawyer to the Landtag, just to provide it with another committee man.” If this trend became general, it was argued, the Landtag would degenerate into a “domain of the lawyers, from which may God preserve us.” Heuberger Bote, Nov. 17, 1900; Nov. 20, 1900; Nov. 21, 1900; Ipf-Zeitung, Nov. 14, 1900; Gmümder Tagblatt, Nov. 24, 1900.

38. The rebel group in Gmünd contrasted the progress achieved by a railway-conscious deputy in Pforzheim (on the border between Baden and Württemberg) with what they might expect from an outsider in Gmünd, with a lawyer's practice in Ravensburg and political commitments in Berlin. Gmünder Tagblatt, Nov. 28, 1900. On Tettnang, see Schwäbische Kronik, Nov. 4, 1900. At the 1913 by-election in Rottweil, the Progressives tried to make political capital, in turn, out of the Center neglect of branch lines. See the Volkspartei pamphlet “Wahlaufruf an die Wähler von Rottweil,” where a “respected citizen” is reported as saying “we are fed up being led around by the nose over our railway by the Rottweil Center party.” Copy in the Hauptstaatsarchiv Stuttgart, Nachlass Conrad Haussmann, Q 1/2, 104.

39. The candidate, Rupp, Joseph, was sufficiently popular locally to win a place in early 1902 on the committee of the Gmünd Landwirtschqftlicher Bezirksverein. Report of the association's annual general meeting of Feb. 9, 1902, in Gmünder Tagblatt, Feb. 11, 1902.Google Scholar

40. On the campaign see Schwäbische Kronik, Nov. 24, 1900, and Gmünder Tagblatt, Nov. 16, 1900; and also the Beobachter, Nov. 11, 1901, and Deutsches Volksblatt, Jan. 14, 1901, and Jan. 21, 1901.

41. Tägliche Rundschau (Berlin), Feb. 4, 1901, quoted in Deutsches Volksblatt, Feb. 12, 1901.Google Scholar

42. Both of these were agricultural constituencies. In Münsingen the agrarian Conservatives (Bauernbund) supported the Center candidate, the tavern keeper Schmitt, against the Progressives, who had to field an “agrarian” candidate of their own, Reihling, and play the anticlerical card, to win. In Mergentheim the Center paid off its debt by helping the Bauerbund candidate, Valentin Mittnacht, to victory over the Progressive candidate, Keller. See Politische Zeitfragen, 12 (Stuttgart, 1906), pp. 633–39.Google Scholar The National Liberals (who shared the candidate Keller with the Progressives in Mergentheim) tried to win the Bauernbund away from the pro-Center alliance, and offered a joint candidate. The Bauernbund secretary, Schrempf, refused outright. See the correspondence, printed in Schwäbische Kronik, Nov. 12, 1904.

43. In the Württemberg constituency III (Heilbronn), for example, Center and Conservative agrarians fought together against Progressives, National Liberals, and Social Democrats. Jakob, K., “Landtagswahlen und Reichstagswahlen in Württemberg,” Süddeutsche Monatshefte 4 (1907): 517ff.;Google ScholarKittler, G., Aus dem dritten württemb. Reichstags- Wahlkreis: Erinnerungen und Erlebnisse (Heilbronn, 1910), pp. 142–43;Google ScholarHeuss, Th., Erinnerungen 1905–1933 (Tübingen, 1963), pp. 59–64.Google Scholar In 1908, while the Bloc still existed, the major political alignment remained—as in Baden—a Conservative/Center agrarian right against a Social Democrat/Progressive/National Liberal left. See, for example, the lineup in the municipal elections in Stuttgart and Neckarsulm, Deutsches Volksblatt, Jan. 17, 1908.

44. Wernicke, J., Kapitalismus und Mittelstandspolitik (Jena, 1922), pp. 143–47;Google ScholarNoll, A., “Wirtschaftliche und soziale Entwicklung des Handwerks in der zweiten Phase der Industrialisierung,” in Rüegg, W. and Neuloh, O., eds., Zur soziohgischen Theorie und Analyse des 19. Jahrhunderts (Göttingen, 1971), pp. 201–5.Google Scholar

45. Württembergische Jahrbücher (Stuttgart, 1847), pp. 179ff. Well over a thousand tradesmen and tavern keepers also had their businesses forcibly sold off in the same period.Google Scholar

46. Schwäbische Kronik, 1848, p. 1130; Schnurre, T., Die württembergischen Abgeordneten in der konstituirenden deutschen Nationalversammlung zu Frankfurt am Main (Stuttgart, 1912), p. 9.Google Scholar

47. See Zorn, W., “Typen und Entwicklungskräfte deutschen Unternehmertums,” in Born, K. E., ed., Moderne deutsche Wirtschaftsgeschichte (Cologne, 1966), pp. 36, 429;Google ScholarEhmer, W., Südwestdeutschland als Einheit und Wirtschaftsraum (Stuttgart, 1930), pp. 48–49, 55.Google Scholar

48. Politische Zeitfragen, 4 (Stuttgart, 1900), pp. 199–200.Google Scholar

49. Sophisticated brewery equipment, such as copper cooling vats, was manufactured in Wurttemberg and found large markets overseas, including the U.S.A. The Feuerbach suburb of Stuttgart was a major center. See Klein, , “Industrie und Handel. Bergbau,” in Bruns, V., ed., Württemberg unter der Regierung König Wilhelms II (Stuttgart, 1916), p. 818.Google Scholar On large Stuttgart brewing cartels, like the Siegelberger Aktienbrauerei-Wulle group, with a combined share capital in 1906 of 3.75 million Marks, see the report in Deutsches Volksblatt, Dec. 3, 1906. On the parallel movements toward concentration in ZomBavaria, W. Bavaria, W., Kleine Wirtschafts- und Sozialgeschichte Bayerns, 1806–1933 (Munich-Pasing, 1962), pp. 47, 53.Google Scholar

50. See the speech of Vogler, Kaspar, Center deputy for Neresheim, 33 LT, PB II, pp. 1071–72, 50 S., June 21, 1895;Google Scholar and on the traditional strength of brewing in the Laupheim and Waldsee areas, Schwab, E., Weiss, P., Holtermann, K. et al. , 100 jahre Obersciwäbische Industrie- und Handelskammer Ravensburg 1867–1967 (Ravensburg, 1967), p. 157.Google Scholar

51. Das Königreich Württemberg: Eine Beschreibung nach Kreisen, Oberämtern und Gemeinden. Herausgegeben von dem K. Statistischen Landesamt, 4 vols. (Stuttgart, 1904), 4: 97.Google Scholar

52. For the brewers' demands, see the report of the 1899 annual general meeting of the Wiirttemberg brewers in Biberach, Ipf-Zeitung, June 7, 1899.

53. Motion of Dentler (Wangen), to ban malt surrogates, 33 LT, BB III, p. 529, Beilage 5; Initiativantrag Vogler und Genossen, 33 LT, BB III, p. 491, Beilage 42 (on the malt tax); and Kiene's interpellation, 33 LT, BB IX, p. 3232.

54. 37 LT, PB VI, p. 6167, 227 S., Aug. p, 1909.

55. In committee the party repeated the demand of family brewers for exemption, and asked for a 10 percent reduction in the malt tax for producers in the 250–500 dz. band. 37 LT, BB VII, p. 70, Beilage 433.

56. A very typical statement of this case is to be found in the article “Zur Handwerkerfrage,” Waldse'er Wochenblatt, Dec. 3, 1895.

57. With the rising consumption of such articles as household furniture and fittings, bicycles, clocks, and watches, the scope for repairs was never greater. There were also many examples of artisans who had accepted a position as skilled outworkers for large concerns and relinquished ideas of “independence.” Wilhelm Keil, later Social Democratic leader in Württemberg, served in his youth as an apprentice under one such Zwischenmeister near Hamburg, who produced only ladies' umbrella handles. Fischer, W., Quellen zur Geschichte des deutschen Handwerks (Göttingen, 1957), p. 171.Google Scholar The raw materials were delivered, and the finished articles collected, by a wholesaler. Theodor Heuss spent six weeks of a school holiday in Heilbronn working with a carpenter whose workshop turned out cupboards for a large furniture store. Heuss, Th., Preludes to Life: Early Memoirs, trans. Bullock, M. (London, 1955), p. 87.Google Scholar

58. Crüger, H., Vortag über gewerbliches Genossenschaftswesen, Warenbazare und Gross-warenhändler gehalten auf dem 41. Verbandstag Württ. Gewerbevereins in Calw im Oktober 1899 (Stuttgart, 1899), p. 28;Google ScholarGemming, A., Das Handwerkergenossenschaftswesen in Württemberg (Stuttgart, 1911), p. 82.Google Scholar

59. The revision of the Reichsgewerbeordnung (RGO) in 1897 did not go far enough for many in the artisan movement, who continued to demand changes in Article 129 of the RGO which would allow only those with the title of “master” to supervise apprentices. This change—the so-called kleiner Befähigungsnachweis—became law in 1908: it represented a significant move away from the concept of freedom of trade, although it still failed to satisfy extreme artisan demands.See Wernicke, pp. 834ff.; Aufmkolk, E., “Die gewerbliche Mittelstandspolitik des Reiches (unter besonderer Berücksichtigung der Nachkriegszeit,” (Inaugural diss., University of Münster, 1930), pp. 15–16.Google Scholar

60. On disaffection and indiscipline among apprentices and journeymen, F. Gerhardt, “Gewerbe und Handwerk,” in Bruns, pp. 867–68. Representative complaints among masters on the schemes whereby apprentices were released from work to attend government-sponsored courses in technical education and so on, as well as on the bidding system, were aired at the 1904 annual general meeting of the Rottenburg Gewerbeverein reported in the Neckar-Bote, Mar. 1, 1904.

61. It is important not to take the claims of the Mittelstandspolitiker at face value, and assume that artisans—the Handwerkerstand—constituted a harmonious, homogeneous group. Quite apart from the unmistakable evidence of growing class conflict in the workshop, between masters and men, there was also a growing differentiation between larger and smaller independent artisans. While the Center (like the Conservatives and Anti-Semites) appealed to those artisans who kept up the struggle for standesgemäss respectability, many of those who had been reduced to indigence drew the political conclusion that their future lay in identifying with the industrial working class and the SPD. See my article, “The Mittelstand in German Society and Politics, 1871–1914,” Social History, no. 4 (1977), pp. 409–33.Google Scholar

62. Of the fifty-six producer and sales cooperatives which existed in Württemberg by 907, twenty-five were accounted for by butchers and bakers. There had been a butchers' cooperative in Stuttgart as early as 1874. Dessauer, L., “Die Industrialisierung von Gross- Stuttgart” (Ph.D. diss., University of Tubingen, 1916), p. 58. On the bakers, see also Crüger, p. 24.Google Scholar

63. Waldse'er Wochenblatt, Jan. 26, 1895.

64. For four examples among many, see Waldse'er Wochenblatt, Feb. 13, 1897 (“Vom Oberland, Feb. 6”), and Apr. 7, 1898 (report of Gewerbeverein meeting); Ipf-Zeitung, June 14, 1899 (report of Gewerbeverein meeting), and June 2,1900 (Rottweil Handelskammer meeting).

65. The phrase is that of Center deputy Walter, Karl, 37 LT, PB I, p. 621, 26 S., May 17, 1907.Google Scholar

66. Politische Zeitfragen, 4 (Stuttgart, 1900), p. 180.Google Scholar

67. See Kiene's speech, 35 LT, PB IV, p. 2678, 122 S., July 5, 1902. The Ipf-Zeitung also stressed this point when it carried (May 19, 1899) a summary of a Hanover Chamber of Commerce report on the dangerous mushrooming of small retail concerns in all parts of Germany.

68. See Ipf-Zeitung, Mar. 20, 1899 (“Viel mehr zusammenhalten”).

69. 35 LT, PB IV, p. 2695, 123 S., July 8, 1902.

70. Gemming, p. 79.

71. 33 LT, PB III, p. 1736, 80 S., May 9, 1895.

72. On the difference in character of the two wings, see Bittel, K., Eduard Pfeiffer und die deutsche Konsumgenossenschaftsbewegung: Schriften des Vereins für Sozialpolitik, Untersuchungen über Konsumvereine, 151/1 (Munich and Leipzig, 1915), p. 101.Google Scholar

73. On membership figures, see Feuerstein, F., Geschichte des Verbandes württembergischer Konsumvereine 1904–1929 (Stuttgart, 1929), p. 14.Google Scholar In 1889 the Stuttgart cooperative had fifteen food shops, in 1914 thirty-eight. In 1902 it opened its first shoe shop and added a second in 1908. But its bakery showed the most spectacular expansion: in 1900 the new, enlarged premises on the Schlosserstrasse were using 1.8 million kg. of flour annually; by 1905 this had risen to 2.8 million, and by 1913 to 4 million. Hasselmann, E., Und trug hundertfältiger Frucht: Ein Jahrhundert konsumgenossensch. Selbsthilfe in Stuttgart (Stuttgart, 1964), pp. 71–72. 77.Google Scholar

74. The growing acceptance by the SPD of the political role of the consumer cooperatives had sound doctrinal support from Marx, who at Geneva in 1865 praised the movement as an important stage in the development of working-class consciousness. Feuerstein, F., Denkschrift über die Bedeutung des Genossenschaftswesens für die Entwicklung der Gemeindewirtschqft: Mit besonderer Berücksichtigung der Konsumgenossenschaften (Stuttgart, 1920), pp. 21–22.Google Scholar

75. Feuerstein, Geschichte, p. 4.

76. Hasselmann, p. 68; Feuerstein, Geschichte, p. 4. In 1912 the Württemberg Schutzverein organized a boycott of the candidates from parties which had refused to support its demands. Deutsches Volksblatt, Nov. 4, 1912.

77. Barkin, K. D., Tlie Controversy over German Industrialization 1890–1902 (Chicago, 1970), p. 239.Google Scholar

78. That the Center was able to obtain a regular hundred Reichstag deputies at a time when its share of the poll was declining was the result of two factors: the concentration of the Catholic electorate in compact areas; and (more important) the favoring of rural and small-town areas by a division of constituencies which remained unchanged from 1871 to 1914. Thus the party enjoyed about a quarter more seats in the Wilhelmine Reichstag than it would have obtained under a proportional representation system such as operated in the Weimar Republic. Schauff, J., Die deutschen Katholiken und die Zentrumspartei (Cologne, 1928), pp. 20–23.Google Scholar

79. It was on these grounds that Gröber justified Center support for the payment of Reichstag deputies: “One should above all be concerned with the Mittelstand, which has not received the representation it deserves” (Molt, pp. 43–44, n. 16). In its programs, political statements, and in debates and the party press, the Center took as a principal starting point of its policy the need for the “preservation of a healthy Mittelstand.”