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The Executive Committee of the Bund der Landwirte in 1900, on the left Dr. Diederich Hahn, center Conrad Baron von Wangenheim, and to the right Gustav Roesicke
The Bund der Landwirte (Agrarian League) (BDL) was a German advocacy group founded 18 February 1893 by farmers and agricultural interests in response to the farm crisis of the 1890s, and more specifically the result of the protests against the agrarian policies of Chancellor Leo von Caprivi, including his free trade policies.[1][2]
Background
The Reichstag was dissolved in June 1878 because it refused Bismarck's Anti-Socialist Law.
The Anti-Socialist Laws or Socialist Laws (German: Sozialistengesetze; officially Gesetz gegen die gemeingefährlichen Bestrebungen der Sozialdemokratie, approximately "Law against the public danger of Social Democratic endeavours") were a series of acts, the first of which was passed on October 19, 1878 by the German Reichstag lasting until March 31, 1881, and extended four times (May 1880, May 1884, April 1886 and February 1888).[1] The legislation was passed after two failed attempts to assassinate Kaiser Wilhelm I by the radicals Max Hödel and Dr. Karl Nobiling;...Emil Max Hödel (27 May 1857 – 16 August 1878) was a plumber from Leipzig, Germany and a propaganda of the deed anarchist, who became known for a failed assassination. A former member of the Leipzig Social-Democratic Association, he was expelled from the organization in the 1870s[1] and eventually became involved in anarchism.
Hödel used a revolver to shoot at the German Emperor, Wilhelm I, on 11 May 1878, while the 81-year-old and his daughter, Princess Louise of Prussia, paraded in their carriage.[2] Hödel was seized immediately. He was tried and convicted of high treason, and sentenced to death on 10 July by the Prussian State Court. Julius Krautz, Prussian state executioner, beheaded Hödel on 16 August 1878 in Moabit prison.[3][4]
Although Hödel had been expelled from the Social Democratic Party, his actions, and those of Karl Nobiling, were used as justification to ban the party through the Anti-Socialist Law in October 1878.
-- Max Hödel, by WikipediaKarl Eduard Nobiling (10 April 1848 – 10 September 1878) was a German attempted assassin, who in 1878 made an attempt on the life of Emperor Wilhelm I.
Nobiling was born in Kolno near Birnbaum (Międzychód) in the Prussian Province of Posen, where his father was the tenant of the local manor. He attended school in Züllichau (Sulechów) and studied political science and agriculture at the University of Halle and Leipzig University, where he received a doctor's degree in 1876. During his studenthood he may have had some minor contact with Socialist circles, though an affiliation with the contemporary Social democratic movement has not been conclusively established.
-- Karl Nobiling, by Wikipedia
... it was meant to curb the growing strength of the Social Democratic Party (SPD, named SAP at the time), which was blamed for influencing the assassins.
Although the law did not ban the SPD directly, it aimed to cripple the organization through various means. The banning of any group or meeting of whose aims were to spread social democratic principles, the outlawing of trade unions and the closing of 45 newspapers are examples of suppression. The party circumvented these measures by having its candidates run as ostensible independents, by relocating publications outside of Germany and by spreading Social Democratic views as verbatim publications of Reichstag speeches, which were privileged speech with regard to censorship.
The law also banned the display of emblems of the Social Democratic Party. To circumvent the law, social democrats wore red bits of ribbons in their buttonholes. These actions, however, led to arrest and jail sentences. Subsequently, red rosebuds were substituted by social democrats. These actions also led to arrest and jail sentences. The judge ruled that in general everyone has a right to wear any flower as suits their taste, but when socialists as a group wear red rosebuds, it becomes a party emblem. In a final display of protest against this clause of the anti-socialist laws, female socialists began wearing red flannel petticoats, and when they wanted to show a sign of solidarity, they would lift their outer-skirts. Female socialists, especially, would display in protest their red petticoats to the police, who were constrained by social norms of decency from enforcing this new sign of socialist solidarity.[2]
The laws' main proponent was Chancellor Otto von Bismarck, who feared the outbreak of a socialist revolution similar to the one that created the Paris Commune in 1871. Despite the government's attempts to weaken the SPD, the party continued to grow in popularity. A bill introduced by Bismarck in 1888 which would have allowed for the denaturalization of Social Democrats was rejected. After Bismarck's resignation in 1890, the Reichstag did not renew the legislation, allowing it to lapse.
-- Anti-Socialist Laws, by Wikipedia
Chancellor Bismarck in the newly elected parliament relied on a broad agro-conservative majority with the slogan: Agriculture is owed by the state the same attention as industry; if both do not go hand in hand, the strength of one will not suffice for a lack in the other.[3] Bismarck helped foster support from these conservatives by enacting several tariffs protecting German agriculture, and incidentally industry, from foreign competition.[4]
In the early 1880s agriculture employed more people than industry and trade combined. However, Germany was fast becoming an industrialized state with increased rural exodus to the cities. After Bismarck resigned in 1890 and Leo von Caprivi became chancellor, the demands of industry were much more compelling, and the free trade treaties with Russia and Austria as well as legislation favorable to industry was seen as a threat to agriculture.[5]
The inaugural meeting of the Bund der Landirte was held in the Berlin Tivoli Brewery and was attended by some ten thousand people.[6] It drew its support from the most Protestant areas of the empire, northern and central Germany, and particularly from Prussia. In May 1893, just three months after its establishment, it campaigned for farmers' rights and won over 140 of the deputies who were elected in July, or about one-third of the members of the Reichstag, including the influential group that would found the Economic Association (Wirtschaftliche Vereinigung) some years later with Wilhelm von Kardorff, Berthold von Ploetz and Diederich Hahn.[7][8]
Organisation
By the end of 1893 the BDL had over 200,000 members. Only about 1% were rural landlords, with 24% coming from large family-owned farms, and the rest being small plot and tenant farmers. However, the leadership were from that 1%, primarily the Junkers from the east Elbe region, Saxony and Pommerania.[9] Exemplifying this control was Conrad Freiherr (Baron) von Wangenheim, a Pommeranian with extensive estates, who was chairman from 1898 to 1920. Thus the organisation favored the landlord interests as well as playing up to the interests of the actual farmers. Both the landlords and the farmers felt the shifting of political and economic power away from the land, and desired to maintain their vested interests. As a result, they worked closely with the political parties most aligned with that interest, but most especially with the Conservative Party (DKP).
By 1897 the BDL was headed by a three-member Executive Committee, one of whom was the chairman. It had a number of divisions, a speakers bureau which sent out inspirational speakers to the farming villages in the less labour-intensive winter months, an electoral division to identify candidates to support and to lobby candidates into supporting BDL initiatives, during election run-ups they had a propaganda division that provided BDL viewpoints on the candidates. There was a separate lobbying division for elected members of the Reichstag. In addition the organisation provided things like purchasing cooperatives which offered economic benefits to the members and acted as incentives to retain membership. By 1913 the BDL had over 330,000 members, employed more than 350 staff at headquarters, and approximately 400 regional workers.[10][11]
Policies and goals
The goal of the BDL was to preserve the leading position of agriculture in the economy and politics of Germany. In one of the founding documents it says: "German agriculture is the primary and most important industry, the strongest support of the empire and of the several states. To protect and strengthen agriculture is our first and most serious task because by the blossoming and flourishing of agriculture, the welfare of all professions is secured."[12] But the BDL also came to the defense of the mom and pop shops as against big-city department store chains, they safeguarded the interests of the rural and small urban middle class, the shop assistants, rural workers, sailors and fishermen and small wine growers. Basically they took all non-industrial workers, and small businesses under their wing.[1]
The most major demand of the BDL was the restoration of protective tariffs on food stuffs.[13] Other major demands were:
• the introduction of a state monopoly on foreign grain cereal with guaranteed minimum prices for domestically produced cereals.
• the introduction of a dual currency. In addition to the gold and silver, bank notes should be reinstated. It was hoped that the associated inflationary effects would help relieve the burden on rural borrowers.
• stock market reform - specifically to abolish grain futures trading and the Commodity Exchange.
With these were a host of minor demands such as strengthening the disease control on meat imports, thus making them more expensive, and a ban on adding yellow food colouring to margarine, thus increasing the market for domestic butter. When the tariffs were raised in the Bülow tariff bill, the demand changed to defending the protectionist tariffs.[14]
BDL members, rural, conservative and generally Protestant, in general despised the immorality of city life, and often associated it with Jews.[13] They believed that Jews were genetically incapable of farming.[15] Within the BDL this anti-semitism served a unifying function to help bring together the divergent interests of the Junker landowners and Hessian peasants. This commonality allowed the BDL to form large voting blocks which helped sway many a rural election, using machine politics.[16]
The Pan-German League (German: Alldeutscher Verband) was a Pan-German nationalist organization which officially founded in 1891, a year after the Zanzibar Treaty was signed.[1]
Primarily dedicated to the German Question of the time, it held positions on German imperialism, anti-semitism, the Polish Question, and support for German minorities in other countries.[2] The purpose of the league was to nurture and protect the ethos of German nationality as a unifying force. By 1922, the League had grown to over 40,000 paying members. Berlin housed the central seat of the league, including its president and its executive, which was capped at a maximum of 300. Full gatherings of the league happened at the Pan-German Congress. Although numerically small, the League enjoyed a disproportionate influence on the German state through connections to the middle class, the political establishment and the media, as well as links to the 300,000 strong Agrarian League.[3]
-- Pan-German League, by Wikipedia
As the BDL grew in strength, the Conservative Party depended upon them more and more for the defense of conservative positions in the Reichstag and in regional assemblies. However, this dependence ultimately changed the character of the party. The goals of the old-time conservatives, empire and enforced morality, defense of "throne and altar", became less important, while higher income for agroproducers gained in importance. Sometimes conflicts arose between the BDL and the party, and the BDL would withdraw its support from a troublesome conservative candidate, or throw its weight on a parliamentary vote over to the minority parties. However, the BDL's attempt to act independently of the Conservative Party did not always work. Thus in the Reichstag elections of 1903 the BDL attempted to run their own candidates, however only four were elected to the Reichstag. After this failure, Conservatives and the BDL recognized their need for each other, and there was greater unanimity.[17]
In the areas where the Conservatives were poorly represented, for example, in the Province of Hanover, in Hesse and in the Palatinate, the BDL worked together with the right wing of the National Liberals. After all, the BDL had enlisted the support of about 60% of the National Liberal candidates for their programme before the general election of 1907. In parts of the southwestern states of Germany, the BDL operated in conjunction with or as the local farmers' union or league.[18]
The BDL met with some successes and some failures. After several years they brought down the Caprivi government over the question of tariffs. But they never got the strict import restrictions on grain that they desired. The BDL was particularly effective on small issues, where the Reichstag members were less committed to their constituencies, such as forbidding yellowing of margarine and stiff restrictions on brandy and sugar imports. On the political side they along with their political ally, the Conservative Party, were unable to prevent the fall of the Bülow government over budget issues and the reform of the inheritance tax in 1909.
Overall, the BDL operated a highly successful lobbying effort both within and outside the Reichstag and regional assemblies. The BDL solicited the various candidates before the elections and only supported those who affirmed in writing their support of the BDL programme. Contemporary critics claimed that this was an unconstitutional practice, but it wasn't legal challenged, and the loss of BDL support could be critical for a candidate. As the BDL was not a political party, they had representation in most of the parliamentary caucuses. After nearly every election there would be up to 100 Reichstag members who belonged to the BDL or were otherwise politically tied to them. In the Prussian parliament, the BDL could always rely on at least a third of the deputies.
During World War I, the BDL, consistent with its conservative position, had expansive war aims. At the beginning of the Weimar Republic, it merged with the Deutschen Landbund (German Agricultural League) and others to form the Reichslandbund (RLB) (German Empire Agricultural League) in 1921,[13] which then further merged with the Union of German Farmers to form the Grüne Front (Green Front). However, the strong Junker influence in the Grüne Front drove many farmers out.[19] Nonetheless in 1933 under the National Socialist German Workers' Party (Nazi Party) it became the Reichsnährstand (Reich Food Estate).[13]
Notes
1. Puhle, Hans-Jürgen (1971). "Der Bund der Landwirte im Wilhelminischen Reich: Struktur, Ideologie und politische Wirksamkeit eines Interessenverbandes in der konstituellen Monarchie 1893- 1914". In Rüegg, Walter; Neuloh, Otto (eds.). Zur soziologischen Theorie und Analyse. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. pp. 145–162. OCLC 78878922.
2. Scheck, Raffael (2008). Germany, 1871-1945: A Concise History. Oxford, England: Berg. pp. 61–62. ISBN 978-1-84520-815-8.
3. Der Landwirtschaft schuldet der Staat die gleiche Beachtung wie der Industrie; wenn beide nicht Hand in Hand gehen, wird keine ohne die andere stark genug sein sich zu helfen. quoted in von Kiesenwetter, Otto (1918). Fünfundzwanzig Jahre wirtschaftspolitischen Kampfes: Geschichtliche Darstellung des Bundes der Landwirte. Berlin: Bund der Landwirte. p. 14. OCLC 46253180.
4. Feuchtwanger, Edgar J. (2002). Bismarck. London: Routledge. p. 208. ISBN 978-0-415-21613-5.
5. von Kiesenwetter 1918, p. 14
6. Puhle, Hans-Jürgen (1975). Agrarische Interessenpolitik und preußischer Konservatismus im wilhelminischen Reich (1893-1914): Ein Beitrag zur Analyse des Nationalismus in Deutschland am Beispiel des Bundes der Landwirte und der Deutsch-Konservativen Partei (second ed.). Bonn-Bad Godesberg: Verlag Neue Gesellschaft. p. 34. ISBN 978-3-87831-061-7.
7. Puhle 1975, p. 35
8. Torp, Cornelius (2005). Die Herausforderung der Globalisierung: Wirtschaft und Politik in Deutschland 1860 – 1914 (The Challenge of Globalization: Economics and Politics in Germany 1860 – 1914). Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. p. 196. ISBN 978-3-525-35150-5.
9. Iggers, George G. (1978). "Preface". Two Lectures in Modern German History. Amherst, Massachusetts: Council on International Studies, State University of New York at Buffalo. OCLC 4362496.
10. Ritter, Gerhard Albert, ed. (1967). "Bund der Landwirte Verbandsgeschichte von 1918 (partial)". Historisches Lesebuch 2: 1871-1914. Frankfurt am Main: Fischer Bücherei. pp. 162–165. OCLC 489953883.
11. Nipperdey, Thomas (1992). Deutsche Geschichte 1866 - 1918, Band 2: Machtstaat vor der Demokratie. Münich: Beck. p. 584. ISBN 978-3-406-34801-3.
12. „Die deutsche Landwirtschaft ist das erste und bedeutendste Gewerbe, die festeste Stütze des Reiches und der Einzelstaaten. Dieselbe zu schützen und zu kräftigen, ist unsere erste und ernsteste Aufgabe, weil durch das Blühen und Gedeihen der Landwirtschaft die Wohlfahrt aller Berufszweige gesichert ist.“ quoted in Mommsen, Wilhelm (1951). Deutsche Parteiprogramme: Eine Auswahl vom Vormärz bis zur Gegenwart. Münich: Isar Verlag. p. 28. OCLC 3142603.
13. Biesinger, Joseph A. (2006). "Agrarian League (Bund der Landwirte)". Germany: A reference guide from the Renaissance to the present. New York: Facts On File. p. 207. ISBN 978-0-8160-7471-6.
14. Nipperdey 1998, p. 585
15. Richie, Alexandra (1998). Faust's Metropolis. New York: Carroll & Graf. p. 246. ISBN 0-7867-0510-8.
16. Nipperdey 1998, p. 586
17. Nipperdey 1998, pp. 586–587
18. Nipperdey 1998, p. 587
19. Barmeyer-Hartlieb von Wallthor, Heide (1971). Andreas Hermes und die Organisation der deutschen Landwirtschaft. Christliche Bauernvereine, Reichslandbund, Grüne Front, Reichsnährstand 1928 bis 1933. Stuttgart: G. Fischer. p. 80–82. ISBN 978-3-437-50155-5.