Social Class in Germany

To understand the physical geography of Germany, one must bear in mind its four-fold division. The Northern Plains; the Mid-Mountain Region; the Glacis of the Alps; the Alps. And just as clearly must one comprehend the four great divisions of the social stratification of Germany. The Bauer; the Burger; the Adel; the Proletariat. The Bauerstand is like the great level plain; the Burgerthum like the Mid-German hill region; the Adelstand tower aloft like the Alps, with the Proletariat lying at their feet.

An old print in a German inn illustrates the position of the Bauerstand. The Emperor stands on a throne, and out of his mouth comes the motto: "I live on the taxes."

On the next lower step stands the noble, his motto: "I pay no taxes."

Beneath the whole crew stands the patient Bauer, with bent back, exclaiming: "Dear God, help me, for I have to maintain them all!"

The Bauer, or peasant class, of Germany corresponds to the Yeomanry of England during the Middle Ages. In early times all of the German land belonged to the German Emperor; he granted it out in sections, to the German nobles, who in turn let it out in sections to the peasantry. The nobles gave military service; the peasants gave corn, or its equivalent per acre.

The Bauer built his house and lived upon his land and tilled it from generation to generation. It was as much his as his master's, since they each gave an equivalent to the Emperor; thus the Bauer could not be dispossessed so long as he fulfilled his contract. After the great European wars the landed gentry were without money; the Bauers bought out the claims of the Nobles, whose claims were released by the State, and so it came about centuries ago, as it is to-day, that a large proportion of German land belongs to the Bauerstand or German peasantry.

In England, the Yeomanry, by land purchase, became in time the gentry, and in a few generations were granted a Coat of Arms, which marked them "Gentlemen." But it was never so with the German Bauer; he never dreamed of becoming a gentleman. The Bauer is proud of his position. The Noble has ceased to be an important factor; the Burger has had to change his trade, or methods, and is to the Bauer little else than a money-worshipper.

The Bauer has remained a Bauer, digging and sowing and reaping in the land as his forefathers did a thousand years ago. The Germany of the past lives on in the present Bauerstand; the very features of the Bauer bear a generic type to faces sculptured in past ages in churches and town halls.

Schools and enforced military service break up the routine of Bauer life for a time, among the young people; but the restraint once removed, the Bauer goes back with pride to the simplicity of his thatched cottage-life.

The Bauer is without ambition beyond his farm; without envy of any class above him; women and men are upon a perfect equality as regards work; cows and donkeys and dogs and sheep and chickens are treated as children, and often housed under the same roof with them, for they all contribute to the produce of the farm.

Baring Gould says: "The Bauerstand is the armmuscle of Germany, the good heart of the country, but it is not in any sense its brains."

It is not easy to outline the German Burgerstand, the class next above the Bauer in the German Social Structure. It represents the great Middle Class, the bone and sinew of every country, the active, progressive element in the history of civilization. In the Middle Ages, for protection, the tradespeople built close under the castle walls. These towns which arose were called Bourghs, or Boroughs. The people who lived in the Boroughs had certain privileges, and were hence called Burgers. Thus almost from the beginning the three classes existed; the country Bauer, the town Burger, and the Nobles living in Castle Halls.

The Burgerstand, or tradespeople, form a distinct class between the Bauer and the Nobility, partaking of the stationary element of the one and the retarding element of the other; thus in the truest sense of the word it is the "Middle Class." The thirty years' war in Germany (1618-1648) was more than a mere rupture with the Past; it widened the spaces already existing between the classes. It did away with the landed gentry, a source of communication between the Burger and the Nobles. The Burger became isolated; he had nothing in common with the Bauer, and was no longer brought into contact with the Court. This had a hardening influence and the breach widened; each class in time was divided into higher and lower.

Frederick List says: "The power of gaining wealth is greater than the power of wealth." This is the recognition of the fact that makes the Middle Class of all nations the chief power in the modern world; the chief source of all activity and of all progress, both intellectual and material.

Between the Burger and the Noble there is an Intermediate Class peculiar to Germany. It is not confined to Burgher wealth, nor can an Emperor, Prince or Noble at will belong to it, yet the humblest Bauer and the greatest Noble may become an honored member. It forms, in fact, a German Republic within the German Empire.

This Republic of Science and Letters is being more and more recognized. A French writer on Germany says: "It must be frankly admitted, that among no people in the world is the universality of knowledge cultivated as in Germany. The course of instruction in German Universities extends to the limit of human knowledge." There are twenty-two Universities in Germany, training, in all, twenty-eight thousand students. Germany is thus rearing a race of thinking men, and her victory over France in 1870-71 was due, it is said, to the intelligence of her well-drilled soldiers. There are no separate colleges, as in the English Universities; the students board in the town, and only meet in the University Halls. They are free to do as they choose; may or may not attend the lectures; no compulsion is used, and they may go from one University to another as often as they will. At the end of three years, however, a candidate for any profession or branch of science must pass an official examination, not on the text-books he has studied, but upon the general principles involved. Graduates of a German University then receive authority from the Emperor, as Literaturists or Scientists, to take their place in the Republic of Letters, largely a class unto themselves.

The German word for Aristocracy is "Adel," and it means both "nobility" and "gentry." There are two kinds of Adelige, the Upper Nobility and the Lower. The Upper Class consists of the reigning princes and their families and those princes who were once "immediate," or sovereign. They have the right of marrying only with reigning families or with one another. The Lower nobility consists of those who are descended from the old free imperial knights. They have the right to be called Freiherren; also those who have been raised to the peerage as Baron or Count. The Proletariat Class are the daily wage-workers; those who have no property and no steady employment.

S. Baring Gould says: "Socialism in all countries originates with the Proletariat Classes. In Germany, Proletarianism is a protest against the principle of Roman law, introduced into Germany at the Reformation. Before that there was no such thing as personal property, except that actually acquired by labor. The land belonged to the Emperor as the representative of the nation. Trade and manufactures were restricted; competition was forbidden; the laws of trades-unions were the laws of the German towns.

"The introduction of Roman law upset all this; it gave to man absolute freedom, allowed him to acquire personal property, and to compete with his neighbor. The German Proletariat desires to return to the methods of Mediaevalism. They wish to do away with personal property, and to make all property, all commerce, all trades to be held in trust by the Government for the commonwealth. They would substitute Socialism again for Individualism. Yet the German Proletariat is no Nihilist. He does not desire to destroy the Government and society, but to make the Government more absolute than it is at present.

"The theory of the German Proletariat was tried in the Middle Ages, and it broke down utterly before the principle of Individualism, which is the principle of the Reformation and Modern Life."