Social developments 1871-1914

Question 1

Describe ‘the elites’ as a social group

Answer 1

• Consisted of old landed aristocracy
• Core is Prussian Junkers (many being military officers)
• Also consisted of rick industrialists like the Krupps, Thyssens and Hugenbergs (though they didn’t have the same social status as landed aristocracy)
• Lived in spacious homes, often with servants, and were very politically involved directly or through pressure groups

Question 2

Describe the upper middle class as a social group

Answer 2

• Consisted of industrial managers, highly skilled experts in new techniques, educated professionals (eg. doctors, lawyers, engineers)
• Bought comfortable houses, paid for children’s education, had a few servants
• Sometimes involved in local town governments or Lander politics
• Often staunch supporters of the Church

Question 3

Describe the lower middle class as a social group

Answer 3

• White-collar workers
• Clerks, small businessmen, shopkeepers, minor officials
• Proud of having a non-manual job
• Aspirational. Wanted education for their children, leaned towards Conservatism politically

Question 4

Describe the urban working class as a social group

Answer 4

• Divided
• Highly skilled workers, foremen, and perhaps head butlers of elite households at the top
• Middle ranks are semi-skilled workers, eg. coal miners
• Lower working class were most liable to economic lay-offs and fluctuations. Described by marxists as the ‘Lumpenproletariat’. Largely uninterested in politics

Question 5

Describe peasants as a social group

Answer 5

• Worked in the countryside
• Interests sometimes coincided with Junkers
• Quite conservative politically
• Victims to industrial change
• Increasing numbers leave the land and drift to the towns

Question 6

What was the position of women?

Answer 6

• Upper class women live a leisurely life, sometimes taking on charitable work
• Middle class were often more directly involved in the household, perhaps managing accounts (though still completely dependent on their husbands for income/status)
• Women begin to be more independent by 1914, with lower middling ranks getting new jobs in office work (though this was still a small amount of women)
• Working class/peasant women often were manual labourers, tilling fields alongside men
• Some women got jobs in factories, leading to growing numbers of illegitimate children in industrial cities and growing prostitution
• Women’s position began to be questioned. BDF is est. in 1894 and campaigns for women’s rights
• August Bebel wrote about female equality/campaigned for the female vote

Question 7

How was anti-semitism apparent in 1914?

Answer 7

• Ring wing pressure groups (eg Pan-German League) call for a ban on Jewish immigration and for their rights to be curtailed
• Blamed Jewish influence as the reason for growing liberalism
• Ideas influenced by social darwinism ideas and the superiority of the aryan race

Question 8

How did the Prussian Officer Corps maintain influence?

Answer 8

• The army had played a large part in German unification
• Prussian military tradition was strong
• Kaiser Wilhelm II’s inclinations towards militarism - Troops took a personal oath of loyalty to the Kaiser rather than the state. Felt more comfortable with military personnel rather than civilians and his ambition for Weltpolitik required military strength
• Also linked to aristocratic power. Over half of army officers had Junker titles
• Reichstag (after 1874) only votes on military budget every seven years, allowing them to avoid unwanted civilian control

Question 9

How big was the army by 1914? (compared to 1890)

Answer 9

Army of 4 million men, eight times how big it had been in 1890

Question 10

In what ways did the people prosper socially?

Answer 10

• Developments in hygiene, inoculations, and measures which lengthened people’s lives
• Better transport, improving leisure opportunities
• Cinema invented in 1895, along with other devices like telephones, typewriters, and electric trams

Question 11

In what ways was life tough for the bottom end of the working class? (how did this cause protests and strikes?)

Answer 11

• Forced to live in cramped inner-city streets
• Families would often have to share rooms and live with the threat of unemployment around the corner (even though wages rose in most cases)
• Protests rose because of conditions in towns (200,000 people went on strike between 1905 and 1913)
• Peasant conditions were also unfavourable

Question 12

How much did the population grow by 1914?

Answer 12

By 40%

Question 13

How did conditions for some of the working class get better?

Answer 13

• Plentiful jobs
• Wages rising
• Able to enjoy material benefits of the rapid industrialisation going on around them

Question 14

Which job sector was the largest growing?

Answer 14

White-collar sector