(MODELO) HEILBRONNER, Oded. From Popular Liberalism To National Socialism

From Popular Liberalism
to National Socialism
This page has been left blank intentionally
From Popular Liberalism to
National Socialism
Religion, Culture and Politics in South-Western Germany,
1860s – 1930s
Oded Heilbronner
Shenkar College of Engineering, Design and Art
and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel
© Oded Heilbronner 2016
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval
system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying,
recording or otherwise without the prior permission of the publisher.
Oded Heilbronner has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act,
1988, to be identified as the author of this work.
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The Library of Congress has cataloged the printed edition as follows:

Heilbronner, Oded.
From popular liberalism to national socialism : religion, culture and politics in south-western
Germany, 1860s-1930s / by Oded Heilbronner.
pages cm
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-4724-5699-1 (hardcover) – ISBN 978-1-4724-6951-9 (ebook) –
ISBN 978-1-4724-6952-6 (ePub) 1. Germany, Southern–Politics and government–19th
century. 2. Germany, Southern–Politics and government–20th century. 3. Regionalism–
Political aspects–Germany–History. 4. Liberalism–Germany, Southern–History. 5. National
socialism–Germany, Southern–History. 6. Political culture–Germany, Southern–History. 7.
Religion and politics–Germany, Southern–History. 8. Catholics–Political activity–Germany,
Southern–History. 9. Germany–Politics and government–1848-1870. 10. Germany–Politics
and government–1871-1933. I. Title.
DD788.H45 2015
943'.408–dc23
2015010979
ISBN 9781472456991 (hbk)
ISBN 9781472469519 (ebk – PDF)
ISBN 9781472469526 (ebk – ePub)
Printed in the United Kingdom by Henry Ling Limited,

at the Dorset Press, Dorchester, DT1 1HD
Contents
Acknowledgements vii
Abbreviations ix
Part I: Introduction
1 The Argument 3
2 Definition of Key Concepts 9
3 Methodological Considerations 33
Part II: The Radical-Liberal Subculture in

Greater Swabia
4 The Local Catholic Bourgeoisie: Anti-Clericalism and Progress 41
5 The Religion of the Subculture: The Old Catholics 63
6 The Verein’s Culture in the Service of Popular Liberalism,

1860–1930 77
7 The Disintegration of the Local Vereine 103
Part III: The Politics of the Subculture, 1860s–1930s
8 The Political Culture of Greater Swabia: An Overview 131
9 Main Stages in the Development of Popular Liberalism in

South Germany 145
vi From Popular Liberalism to National Socialism
Part IV: Conclusion
10 From Popular Liberalism to National Socialism: Currents

of Continuity 179
11 Concluding Remarks 187
Appendix 195
Bibliography 197
Index 251
Acknowledgements
A shorter version of my book was published in German as ‘Freiheit, Gleichheit,

Brüderlichkeit und Dynamik’: Populäre Kultur, populärer Liberalismus und
Bürgertum im ländlichen Süddeutschland 1850 bis 1930 (Munich: Martin
Meidenbauer Verlag, 2007; Peter Lang, 2012). Chapter 7 is a rewritten chapter
based on ‘Disintegration of the Bourgeois Infrastructure and the Rise of the Nazi
Party’, chapter 10 of my book, Catholicism, Political Culture and the Countryside
(Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1998). Chapter 4 is based partly
on material from my article ‘In Search of the Catholic (Rural) Bourgeoisie:
The Peculiarities of the South German Bürgertum’, Central European History
(Cambridge University Press) 29/2 (1996): 175–200. Chapter 6 is based partly
on material from my article ‘The German Bourgeois Club as a Political and a
Social Structure Towards the End of the Nineteenth Century and the Beginning
of the Twentieth Century’, Continuity and Change (Cambridge University
Press) 27/3 (1998): 443–473.
Abbreviations
Archives
BZ Bezirksamt
ErzAF Erzbischöfliches Archiv Freiburg
GLAK Generallandesarchiv Karlsruhe
GmdA Gemeindearchiv
KV Kirchenvisitationen
LKK Landeskommissär Konstanz
PfA Pfarrarchiv
StA Stadtarchiv
StaaF Staatsarchiv
Publications
DT Donaueschinger Tadblatt
DW Donaueschinger Wochenblatt
EvH Echo von Hochfirst
FZ Freiburger Zeitung
Hoch. Schw. Hochwächter auf dem Schwarzwald
Hschw Hochschwarzwald
HZ Historische Zeitschrift
JLB Jungliberale Blätter
NLB Nationalliberale Blätter
SchwB Schwarzwälder Bote
SchwT Schwarzwälder Tageblatt
TB Triberger Bote
x From Popular Liberalism to National Socialism
Associations and Parties
KuMV Krieg und Militärvereine

MGV Männergesangsverein
NL Die Nationaliberale Partei
NSDAP Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiter Partei
Map 1 Germany and the Region Under Investigation.
Source: Adapted from: Mapsofworld.com/deutsch/deutschland.
Map 2 Greater Swabia: Geographical View.

Source: From Hansmartin Schwarzmaier, ‘Politische Grenzziehung und historische
Bewüßtseinsbildung im deutschen Südwesten’, Blätter für deutsche Landesgeschichte, 121
(1985): 86.
Part I
Introduction
Chapter 1
The Argument
Interest in liberalism as a historical, cultural and ideological phenomenon

has certainly increased in recent decades. Although there has always been a
widespread interest in liberalism, the focus has been on national politics and
particularly on constitutional issues. In recent years, however, in the context
of the new school of historiography, cultural history has exercised a new
fascination.1 For example, debates about the relationships between religion
and state, or men and women, take on a different meaning when we realize the
full complexity of the relationship between liberalism and religion or gender.2
1
Ivan Zoltan Denes (ed.), Liberty and the Search for Identity: Liberal Nationalism and
the Legacy of Empires (Budapest, 2006); Domenico Losurdo, Liberalism: A Counter History
(London, 2013).
2
For the case of Germany, see Oliver Zimmer, Remaking the Rhythms of Life: German
Communities in the Age of the Nation State (Oxford, 2012); Dagmar Herzog, Intimacy and
Exclusion: Religious Politics in Pre-Revolutionary Baden (Princeton, 1996); Michael B. Gross,
The War Against Catholicism: Liberalism and the Anti-Catholic Imagination in Nineteenth-
century Germany (Ann Arbor, MI, 2004); Manuel Borutta, Antikatholizismus: Deutschland
und Italien im Zeitalter der europäischen Kulturkämpfe (Göttingen, 2009); Helmut W.
Smith, German Nationalism and Religious Conflict: Culture, Ideology, Politics, 1870–1914
(Princeton, 1995); Oded Heilbronner, “Freiheit, Gleichheit, Brüderlichkeit und Dynamit”:
Populäre Kultur, populärer Liberalismus und Bürgertum im ländlichen Süddeutschland von
den 1860ern bis zu den 1930ern (Munich, 2006); Thomas Mergel, “Für eine bürgerliche
Kirche: Antiultramontanismus, Liberalismus und Bürgertum 1820–1850. Rheinland und
Südwestdeutschland im Vergleich”, Zeitschrift für die Geschichte des Oberrheins, 144 (1996):
397–427; Rebecca Bennette, Fighting for the Soul of Germany: The Catholic Struggle for
Inclusion after Unification (Cambridge, MA, 2012); Barbara Stambolis, “Nationalisierung
trotz Ultramontanisierung oder: ‘Alles für Deutschland. Deutschland aber für Christus’.
Mentalitätsleitende Wertorientierung deutscher Katholiken im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert”,
Historische Zeitschrift, 269 (1999): 57–97. For European perspectives, see Paul Seeley, “O
Sainte Mère: Liberalism and the Socialization of Catholic Men in Nineteenth-century
France”, Journal of Modern History, 70/4 (1998): 862–891; Carol Harrison, The Bourgeois
Citizen in Nineteenth-century France: Gender, Sociability, and the Uses of Emulation (Oxford,
1999); Jon Lawrence, Speaking for the People: Party, Language and Popular Politics in England,
1867–1914 (Cambridge, 1998), chapter 3; G.R. Searle, Morality and the Market in Victorian
Britain (Oxford, 1998); Anthony Howe, Free Trade and Liberal England 1846–1946
(Oxford, 1998); Eugenio F. Biagini, Liberty, Retrenchment and Reform: Popular Liberalism
4 From Popular Liberalism to National Socialism
Accordingly, there is a real need for some fresh ideas concerning liberalism as a
mass movement.
One of the new arguments concerning liberalism is that, like socialism and
Catholicism in continental Europe, liberalism in nineteenth-century Europe was
a mass movement, and sometimes a radical one.3 This argument, however, is not
applied to Germany. Liberalism as a mass movement, it was said until recently,
only existed in Germany until 1849, or, some will say, until the early 1870s.4 In this
study, however, I would like to speak of German nineteenth- and early twentieth-
century liberalism not in terms of crisis and collapse, but in terms of a success
story, or – to put it in a more guarded manner – of limits and paradoxes. I would
like to offer new interpretations of the strength and peculiarities of liberalism in
Germany by introducing the term “popular liberalism”. Until recently this term
has usually been applied to a British political and social phenomenon which was
one, although not the only, pattern of political behaviour of urban and rural
societies in mid and late nineteenth-century Britain.5
in the Age of Gladstone, 1860–1880 (Cambridge, 1992); Andrew Gould, Origins of Liberal
Dominance: State, Church and Party in Nineteenth-century Europe (Ann Arbor, MI, 1999);
Chris Otter, “Making Liberalism Durable: Vision and Civility in the Late Victorian City”,
Social History, 27/1 (2002): 1–13; Uday Singh Mehta, Liberalism and Empire: A Study in
Nineteenth-century British Liberal Thought (Chicago and London, 1999); Paul Leontovitsch,
The History of Liberalism in Russia (Pittsburgh, 2012).
3
Dieter Langewiesche, “Liberalism and the Middle Classes in Europe”, in J. Kocka
(ed.), Bourgeois Society in Nineteenth Century Europe (Oxford, 1992), 40–69.
4
For example, this is the main argument of some works on south Germany: see Paul
Nolte, Gemeindebürgertum und Liberalismus in Baden 1800–1855 (Göttingen, 1994);
idem, “Republicanism, Liberalism, and the Market Society: Party Formation and Party
Ideology in Germany and the United States, c. 1825–1850”, in Jürgen Heideking et al. (eds),
Republicanism and Liberalism in America and the German States, 1750–1850 (Cambridge,
2002), 187–207; see also Lothar Gall, “Die partei- und sozialgeschichtliche Problematik des
badischen Kulturkampfes”, Zeitschrift für die Geschichte des Oberrheins, 113 (1965); idem,
Der Liberalismus als regierende Partei: Das Grossherzogtum Baden zwischen Restauration und
Reichsgründung (Wiesbaden, 1968); Gerd Zang (ed.), Provinzialisierung einer Region. Zur
Entstehung der bürgerlichen Gesellschaft in der Provinz (Frankfurt am Main, 1978); Dieter
Hein, “Die bürgerlich-liberale Bewegung in Baden 1800–1880”, Historische Zeitschrift.
Beihefte, new series 19 (1995): 19–39; Geoff Eley, “Liberalism, Europe, and the Bourgeoisie
1860–1914”, in David Blackbourn and Richard Evans (eds), The German Bourgeoisie
(London, 1990), 307; Dieter Langewiesche, “Deutscher Liberalismus im europäischen
Vergleich: Konzeption und Ergebnisse”, in idem (ed.), Liberalismus im 19. Jahrhundert
(Göttingen, 1988), 16–17; Jürgen Heideking, Republicanism and Liberalism in America and
the German States, 1750–1850 (Cambridge, 2001).
5
The classic study on popular liberalism is still John Vincent, The Formation of the
British Liberal Party (London, 1966).
The Argument 5
By using the term “popular liberalism” in the context of German liberalism,

I seek to understand political and cultural patterns in Germany up to the early
1930s. I argue that popular-radical liberal pressure groups and parties persistently
focused their criticism on the need to change the political system of the Second
Reich and the Weimar Republic in a more radical direction. By studying this
political and cultural formation, I believe I can prove the existence of German
popular liberalism in a specific region: Greater Swabia in south Germany. There,
local liberals (mostly members of the National Liberal Party and peasants’
organizations) were proudly conscious of their radical identity and strongly
determined to survive as an electoral and social force. It can even be said that in
some southern regions, popular liberalism, together with popular Catholicism,
were the movers and shakers of the local political culture, and at election time,
the local National Liberal dominated the school, the pub, the local Verein and
the Old Catholic church.6
In short, the existence of a long tradition of plebeian radicalism, and its
cultural and institutional expression, are certainly significant features.
My study also has a major goal. I would like to offer a new explanation for the
success of National Socialism before 1933 in certain regions of south Germany:
one connected with the fact that there was a substantial continuity in popular
liberalism throughout the second half of the nineteenth and the first third of
the twentieth centuries. Now, one of the difficulties with discussing National
Socialism is that it is a subject we seem to know so well that we are unable to
reconsider its historical roots. Here I wish to examine the relations between
popular liberalism and National Socialism from a new angle, in the hope that
a different viewpoint will produce a deeper understanding of the Nazi success
before 1933. My argument is based on the continuity of radical-liberal politics,
which in this period continued to be dominant in many parties, pressure
groups and associations. According to this interpretation, National Socialism
of the post-1920s had a variety of cultural sources. It was eclectic especially
before 1933, drawing on many different traditions and reacting pragmatically
to changing circumstances.7 It is further argued that National Socialist thought
6
For a general history of part of the region, see Martina Steber, Ethnische Gewissheiten:
Die Ordnung des Regionalen im bayerischen Schwaben vom Kaiserreich bis zum NS-Regime
(Göttingen, 2010).
7
Later, the party went through several organizational reforms initiated by Gregor
Strasser and Heinrich Himmler to eliminate independent and anti-centralizing forces and
trends within the party. See Dietrich Orlow, The History of the Nazi Party, vol. I (Pittsburgh,
1969), 129–130, 257–260; Paul Gerhard, Aufstand der Bilder: Die NS Propaganda vor 1933
(Bonn, 1990), 95–103; Peter Stachura, Gregor Strasser and the Rise of Nazism (London,
and action did not just emerge from within the Nazi Party itself, but also grew
up autonomously and at the same time within the various subcultures and
regions of Weimar Germany which mostly had liberal traditions. For example, I
think we need to look afresh at the relationship between local-regional identities
and national politics, which is illustrated by the fact that a rural liberalism with
a radical legacy existed in certain regions where the Nazi Party won massive
electoral success. In contrast to prevailing beliefs, I suggest that this radical-
liberal subculture was not submerged by the Nazi Party, but changed its form
of representation.
Together with the famous völkisch faction and the Leftist (Strasser) faction
within the chapters (Ortsgruppen) of the Nazi Party,8 there were radical-liberal
associations, ex-members of radical-liberal parties, sympathizers with these
parties and notables with a radical orientation derived from family and regional
traditions. These people and associations believed that the Nazi Party could
fulfil their radical-liberal vision, rooted in the local democratic and liberal
traditions which stretched from 1848 to the early twentieth century. Until the
late 1920s, liberal and peasants’ parties, organizations and associations were the
socio-political representatives of this vision and culture. From the late 1920s to
the beginning of the 1930s, the representatives of these organizations formed
the Nazi Party chapters in many towns and villages. By the early 1930s, at least in
south Germany and as a result of the Strasser–Himmler organizational reforms
within the Nazi Party, this unique radical-liberal legacy within the Nazi Party
had started to disintegrate and lose its radical appeal.9
To sum up my previous arguments: it is well known that in most regions
which were the strongholds of German liberalism in the decade before 1914
(Schleswig-Holstein, Oldenburg, Hannover, Pfalz, Hessen, Baden, Franconia,
southern Swabia), the Nazi Party won massive support from the late 1920s.
Many explanations have been offered in recent decades for Nazi success in these
1983), 67–72; Detlef Mühlberger, “Central Control versus Regional Autonomy: A Case
Study of Nazi Propaganda in Westphalia 1925–1932”, in Thomas Childers (ed.), The
Formation of the Nazi Constituency 1919–1933 (London, 1986), 64–103.
8
Among the vast material on these two trends within the Nazi Party, see recently
Susanne Meinl, Nationalsozialisten gegen Hitler. Die nationalrevolutionäre Opposition um
Friedrich Wilhelm Heinz (Berlin, 2000); Ulrich Herbert, Best. Biographische Studien über
Radikalismus, Weltanschauung und Vernunft, 1903–1989 (Bonn, 1996); Kyra T. Inachin,
“‘Märtyrer mit einem kleinen Häuflein Getreuer’. Der erste Gauleiter der NSDAP in
Pommern Karl Theodor Vahlen”, Vierteljahreshefte f. Zeitgeschichte, 1 (2001): 31–52.
9
I have discussed this radical-liberal trend within the Nazi Party in my book,
Catholicism, Political Culture and the Countryside: A Social History of the Nazi Party in South
Germany (Ann Arbor, MI, 1998), chapters 9–10.
The Argument 7
regions.10 The terms “Proto-Fascism”, “folkism”, “demagogy” and “populism” have

very frequently been used to explain this continuity in these and other regions
from (national) liberalism to National Socialism. I would like to add another
dimension: I wish to exonerate the provincial liberals from the accusation of
being proto-fascists and völkisch-nationalists, and explain the dual nature of
south German liberalism and National Socialism before 1933. In order to do
this, I shall examine neglected radical-liberal elements in the south German
liberalism of the late nineteenth century in regions which were strongholds of
National Socialism in the late 1920s and early 1930s, and draw attention to the
continuity and similarity between radicalism within liberal organizations of
the second half of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and National
Socialism before 1933. Here I should like to follow the advice of the German
political historian Karl Rohe: “One is in a better position to estimate the Nazi
Party’s regional strength if one knows not only the social composition of the
regional electorate but its voting behaviour in the Kaiserreich, that is to say its
political-cultural composition.”
This book is divided into four parts. The first is a methodological introduction
where, after a historiographical survey, I define key concepts such as “popular
liberalism”, “Catholic rural bourgeoisie”, “voluntary association” (Verein – a
key term in this study), “marginality” and “subculture”, and locate them in the
particular conditions of the Greater Swabian region from the 1860s to the late
1920s. In the second part, I describe the unique radical-liberal subculture in
10
A few examples from recent years: Horst Möller et al. (eds), Nationalsozialismus
in der Region: Beiträge zur regionalen und lokalen Forschung und zum internationalen
Vergleich (Munich, 1996); Jürgen R. Winkler, Sozialstruktur, politische Traditionen und
Liberalismus: eine empirische Längsschnittstudie zur Wahlentwicklung in Deutschland 1871–
1933 (Opladen, 1995); Eric A. Kurlander, The Price of Exclusion: Ethnic Preoccupation and
the Decline of German Liberalism, 1898–1933 (New York and Oxford, 2006); Ulrich Pfeil,
“Partikularismus, Sonderbewusstsein und Aufstieg der NSDAP. Kollektive Denkhaltungen
und kollektive Erinnerung in Dithmarschen 1866–1933”, Zeitschrift der Gesellschaft für
Schleswig-Holsteinische Geschichte, 124 (1999): 135–163; Wille Kay Dohnke, “Propaganda
für die Nazis – auf Platt Volkes Mund und Führer”, in Ministerium für Wissenschaft,
Forschung und Kultur des Landes Schleswig-Holstein (ed.), Ende und Anfang im Mai 1945.
Das Journal zur Wanderausstellung des Landes Schleswig-Holstein (Kiel: Malik, 1995), 147–
151; Celia Applegate, A Nation of Provincials: The German Idea of Heimat (Berkeley, CA,
1990). For Franconia, see Manfred Kittel, Provinz zwischen Reich und Republik. Politische
Mentalitäten in Deutschland und Frankreich 1918–1933/36 (Munich, 2000); Karl H.
Nassmacher, “Zerfall einer liberalen Subkultur. Kontinuität und Wandel des Parteiensystems
in der Region Oldenburg”, in H. Kühr (ed.), Vom Milieu zur Volkspartei (Konigstein/Ts.,
1979), 29–134.
Greater Swabia. Here I concentrate on two key players: the local bourgeoisie
and the local Vereine which, in the name of historical-cultural slogans such as
“progress”, “freedom”, “people’s community” (Volksgemeischaft) and the “people”
(Volk), fought and challenged the local Catholic-Ultramontane forces. In
the third part, I describe the principal stages in the development of popular
liberalism in south Germany from the mid nineteenth century to the final
years of the Weimar Republic. In the final part, I show how this unique radical-
liberal subculture changed its form of representation from popular liberalism to
National Socialism.
Chapter 2
Definition of Key Concepts
Popular Liberalism
By popular liberalism, I mean a political and cultural mass phenomenon

characterized by six main elements:
1. Support for a liberal economy (in England, mainly free trade; in south
Germany, a moderate support for free trade).
2. Political populism expressed in an encouragement of freedom and liberty
(particularly constitutional liberty), egalitarianism (in the form of anti-
elitist, anti-Junkerish sentiments) and republicanism (in the form of the
desire for the common good and the preservation of the community).
3. A religious identity based on non-conformity, anti-clericalism (in south
Germany) and anti-Anglicanism (in England).
4. Advocacy of a nationalist-imperialist foreign policy.
5. The view that politics was underpinned by the notion of a “community”
(Gemeinschaft) or a “people”, rather than a class or the state.
6. Disestablishmentarianism.1
In short, I would like to put forward some German–English comparisons (in this
case relating to one region in Germany) about the form that popular liberalism
took in these two different contexts. First, in Germany, as in mid nineteenth-
century England, all these six elements found expression in middle-class
1
Here I rely mainly on E. Biagini, Liberty, Retrenchment and Reform: Popular-
Liberalism in the Age of Gladstone, 1860–1880 (Cambridge, 1992), 6; Jane Vickers, Pressure
Group Politics, Class and Popular Liberalism: The Campaign for Parliamentary Reform in the
North-west, 1864–1868, PhD Thesis, Manchester Metropolitan University, 1996, 38ff. Peter
Gurney, in his new book Wanting and Having: Popular Politics and Liberal Consumerism
in England, 1830–1870 (Manchester, 2014), 20, adds another dimension. According to
Gurney, “popular liberalism [in nineteenth-century Britain] was a hegemonic political
project that managed to reconcile successfully the ambition and identities of free trade
utopianists and affluent middle-class consumers with a concern for the specific experiences
of workers as consumers. In short we see popular liberalism as liberal consumerism”.
(bourgeois) liberal extra-parliamentary actions, pressure-groups and “faddist”

groups.2 Secondly, and especially in England, popular liberalism was self-
generating and self-sustaining. It was a union of many ad-hoc groups: a union
always potentially explosive, always gaining supporters as well as losing them.
Thirdly, in both places popular liberalism was essentially provincial and was the
delayed outcome of industrial and religious changes earlier in the nineteenth
century and the product of a new kind of mass politics resulting from these
changes.3 Fourthly, popular liberalism can be viewed in England and Germany,
in the mid nineteenth century above all, as an exceptional development of class
politics. Working-class and middle-class interests fused within the context of
popular liberalism.
In addition, and this is the most important argument in my German–
English comparison, mid nineteenth-century popular liberalism is viewed as
the continuation of a popular tradition which preceded eighteenth-century
radicalism, Chartism and the reform campaign of the 1860s (in England), and
local south German radicalism which began in the early modern period and
lasted until 1848.4 In both cases the relationship between popular liberalism,
politics, culture and tradition is crucial for understanding the phenomenon. For
example, one should emphasize the language of radicalism which was persistent
in English and southern German liberalism after the 1840s. In both cases one
discerns points of continuity between pre-1848 radicalism and mid nineteenth-
century (and in south Germany even later) popular liberalism. These factors in
the culture of radicalism played an important role, not only in the formation
of the liberal parties and associations, but also in the fragile alliance between
elements of the working classes and middle classes/bourgeoisie. All this gave
popular liberalism in both countries its own motivations, its organizations for
campaigning, its special media and leadership.
2
D.A. Hamer, The Politics of Electoral Pressure: A Study in the History of Victorian
Reform Agitations (Sussex, 1977); Vickers, Pressure Group Politics. The most important study
of popular liberalism in Britain is still John Vincent, The Formation of the British Liberal
Party (London, 1966), 11–35; see also D.A. Hamer, Liberal Politics in the Age of Gladstone
and Roseberry (Oxford, 1972), vii–x; see also Biagini, Liberty, Retrenchment and Reform;
Vickers, Pressure Group Politics; and Jon Lawrence, Speaking for the People: Party, Language
and Popular Politics in England, 1867–1914 (Cambridge, 1998).
3
Here I mean a new kind of press – the “penny press” – new forms of mass
communication and, above all, the emergence of non-conformist ideologies and groups
which provided much of the fuel for popular liberalism in both England and Germany.
4
In the German case, this point will be discussed below. See recently, Oliver Zimmer,
Remaking the Rhythms of Life: German Communities in the Age of the Nation State (Oxford,
2012).
Definition of Key Concepts 11
On the other hand, one can discern some important differences. The
uniqueness of German popular liberalism is that it was a regional phenomenon,
while in England popular liberalism was a national phenomenon.5 Much more
important is the fact that in England until the 1880s, one can discern in popular
liberalism the persistence of “pre-industrial”, traditional politics in which local,
aristocratic and religious influences remained untouched. It is the persistence
of the aristocracy in liberal politics, evident not only in the electoral reforms of
1832 and the 1860s, but also in party and governmental politics in the period
between the 1830s and the 1880s, that stands in contrast to our findings from
south Germany where (as I will show) from the 1860s, the local radical and
modern bourgeoisie were the heralds of new forms of politics. These groups
were the main component of popular liberalism.6
Another important difference is that in Greater Swabia (and this is the main
argument here), popular liberalism survived the turn of the nineteenth century,
the First World War and the first years of the Weimar Republic. In England
one can already speak about “The Strange Death of (Popular) Liberal England”
during the Great War, as a result, among other things, of the challenge of Labour.7
Popular Politics and Liberalism in Germany: A Historiographical

Overview
In general, until the 1980s, interpretations of the rise of National Socialism

tended to emphasize some continuities from the mid nineteenth century to
1933. According to the influential theory of the German Sonderweg, from
the 1860s onwards the German liberals were the precursors of the National
Socialists. It was claimed that the weakness of the German bourgeoisie and
German liberalism, which gave rise to such phenomena as demagogy and
5
Biagini, Liberty, Retrenchment and Reform; Vickers, Pressure Group Politics; Patricia
Lynch, The Liberal Party in Rural England 1885–1910 (Oxford, 2003); Lawrence, Speaking
for the People, chapter 3.
6
On the persistence of “pre-industrial”, traditional forms of politics in England until
the 1880s, see mainly H.J. Hanham, Elections and Party Management: Politics in the Time of
Disraeli and Gladstone (London, 1959); T.J. Nossiter, Influence, Opinion and Political Idioms
in Reformed England: Case Studies from the North-East 1832–1874 (Brighton, 1975);
David C. Moore, The Politics of Deference: A Study of the Mid Nineteenth-century English
Political System (Hassocks, 1976); Vincent, The Formation of the British Liberal Party; idem,
Pollbooks: How Victorians Voted (Cambridge, 1968); Hamer, Liberal Politics.
7
G. Dangerfield, The Strange Death of Liberal England (London, 1935); Lynch, The
Liberal Party, chapter 6.
populism, led many liberals – especially the conservative National Liberals –

into the pre-Fascist nationalist camp (for example, the Pan-German League
[Alldeutscher Verband], and the Vaterland Partei) which was finally incorporated
in the National-Socialist-Fascist camp.
In recent years, however, some pioneering studies have argued that liberalism
not only survived the crisis of the late 1870s, but remained a major political force
with a substantial impact on Wilhelmine society. These studies argue (mainly
from an urban regional perspective) that liberalism in nineteenth-century
Germany was a mass movement. The mass support for the National Liberal Party
(perhaps the least researched of all the major parties in the Second Reich) and
the Leftist liberal parties in several Protestant regions of Germany usually serves
as the basis of these interpretations. Recent studies (Hettling, Pohl, Palmowski
and Thompson) have pointed to the fact that on the communal level, in big
cities, German liberalism was a major force until the First World War, and it
was mainly the federalist structure and the constitution of the German Empire
that blocked liberal influence on the national level and in the rural regions of
Germany.8
Zimmer, Remaking the Rhythms of Life; Konrad Jarausch and Larry E. Jones (eds),
8
In Search of a Liberal Germany: Studies in the History of German Liberalism from 1789 to
the Present (New York, 1990), 18ff.; Dieter Langewiesche writes: “with the foundation
of the Reich, German liberalism became a Protestant phenomenon.” Langewiesche,
“Deutscher Liberalismus im europäischen Vergleich: Konzeption und Ergebnisse”, in Dieter
Langewiesche (ed.), Liberalismus im 19. Jahrhundert (Göttingen, 1988), 16; for a practical
overview, see the following recently published works: Hollger Tober, Deutscher Liberalismus
und Sozialpolitik in der Ära des Wilhelminismus (Husum, 1999), 1–25; Jan Palmowski,
“Mediating the Nation: Liberalism and the Polity in Nineteenth-Century Germany”,
German History, 19/4 (2001): 573–598; Alastair Thompson, Left Liberals, the State and
Popular Politics in Wilhelmine Germany (Oxford, 2000); Jan Palmowski, Urban Liberalism
in Imperial Germany (Oxford, 1999); Jennifer Jenkins, Provincial Modernity: Culture,
Politics and Local Identity in Hamburg 1885–1914, PhD Thesis, University of Michigan,
Ann Arbor, 1997; Manfred Hettling, Politische Bürgerlichkeit. Der Bürger zwischen
Individualität und Vergesellschaftung in Deutschland und der Schweiz von 1860 bis 1918
(Göttingen, 1999); George Vascik, Rural Politics and Sugar in Germany: A Comparative
Study of the National Liberal Party in Hannover and Prussian Saxony 1871–1914, PhD
Thesis, University of Michigan, 1988; James Retallack, “Liberals, Conservatives and the
Modernizing State: The Kaiserreich in Regional Perspective”, in Geoff Eley (ed.), Culture,
Society and the State in Germany 1870–1930 (Ann Arbor, MI, 1996), 221–256; Karl H.
Pohl, “‘Einig’, ‘kraftvoll’, ‘machtbewusst’. Überlegungen zu einer Geschichte des deutschen
Liberalismus aus regionaler Perspektive”, Historische Mitteilungen, 7 (1994): 61–80; idem,
“Die Nationalliberalen in Sachsen vor 1914”, in Lothar Gall and Dieter Langewiesche (eds),
Liberalismus und Region (Munich, 1995), 195–216; idem, “Sachsen, Stresemann und die
Nationalliberale Partei”, Jahrbuch zur Liberalismus Forschung, 4 (1992); Michael John,
On the other hand, some new studies have argued that the behaviour of the
German (mainly Prussian) liberals during the wars of unification of the 1860s,
and their surrender to Bismarck with regard to the constitutional aspects of the
military budget and the way in which Germany should be united, sowed the seeds
of the illiberal nature of German liberalism after the 1870s.9 The nationalization
of German liberalism had its roots in the national mass festivals, which had
their beginnings in the Schiller festivals of 1859, the celebrations of the battles
of Leipzig and Waterloo, and the Turnerfest (gymnastics festival) in Leipzig in
1864. All these festivals demonstrated (as Michael John wrote concerning the
Hanover liberals) “the extent to which the nationalist mood had permeated
Hanoverian public opinion before Bismarck’s ‘revolution from above’”.10 But
again, it is the Protestant-urban aspect of German liberalism which has claimed
most attention, while rural liberalism, especially in Catholic regions, does not
seem to have interested the researchers of German liberalism.
By focusing on the success of popular liberalism in rural Catholic south
Germany in the period between the 1860s and the years before 1914 and the
early 1930s, I wish to explain why and how it happened, and to examine the
people who supported these parties, their beliefs and the degree to which the
latter corresponded to the reality. My thesis is that those who were originally
called National Liberals were later called “liberal” National Socialists by
contemporary observers.11
“Kultur, Klassen und Liberalismus in Hannover 1848–1914”, in Gall and Langewiesche,

Liberalismus und Region.
9
Andreas Biefang, Politisches Bürgertum in Deutschland 1857–1868 (Düsseldorf,
1996); Frank Becker, Bilder von Krieg und Nation: die Einigungskriege in der bürgerlichen
Öffentlichkeit Deutschlands 1864–1913 (Munich, 2001); Marc-Wilhelm Kohfink, Für
Freiheit und Vaterland: eine sozialwissenschaftliche Studie über den liberalen Nationalismus
1890–1933 in Deutschland (Konstanz, 2002).
10
Michael John, “Associational Life and the Development of Liberalism in Hanover,
1848–66”, in Jarausch and Jones (eds), In Search of a Liberal Germany, 178; Oded Heilbronner,
“The German Bourgeois Club as a Political and a Social Structure Towards the End of the
Nineteenth Century and the Beginning of the Twentieth-Century”, Continuity and Change,
27/3 (1998): 443–473; Eric Kurlander, The Price of Exclusion: Ethnic Preoccupation and the
Decline of German Liberalism, 1898–1933 (New York and Oxford, 2006).
11
I should mention that the late Georg Mosse suggested that National Socialism was
seen by many members of the liberal bourgeoisie as the guardian of bourgeois morality. See
the interview with Michael Ledeen in Nazism: A Historical and Comparative Analysis of
National Socialism (New Brunswick, 1978), 43, cited in Steven Aschheim, “George Mosse at
80: A Critical Laudatio”, Journal of Contemporary History, 34/2 (1999): 304. On this topic,
see the second part of the article.
In German historiography, the cultural and political behaviour of rural

Catholic southern Germany in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries has
not been sufficiently researched.12 This is part of the long tradition of Prussia-
centred historiographical hegemony which has dominated German historical
studies until today in which the southern regions of Germany get shunted aside.
On the other hand, southern German regional initiatives by local institutions
or research groups are well known to researchers who study the political culture
of south Germany.13 For example, local institutions and historical associations
some years ago initiated long-term projects for the study of the Vormärz
period and the 1848 revolution in south-west Germany. This has resulted in an
abundance of regional studies focusing on political events in southern Germany
in the 1840s and their implications for the following decade. As relevant cases
for this project which study southern German liberalism, one should mention
G. Zang’s pioneering study on the region of Konstanz, L. Gall’s massive study
of Baden liberalism and W. Blessing’s study of aspects of religious life in some
parts of Bavaria. These works were perceived in broad academic circles in and
outside Germany as a model for the utilization of regional studies as a basis
for supra-regional national history. But apart from these three distinguished
studies, southern Germany’s unique path to liberalism (as compared to Prussia’s,
for example) in the period of the 1860s, 1870s and beyond is still waiting for a
scholarly rehabilitation.14
I made some attempt to deal with liberalism and National Socialism in South Baden
12
and Swabia in Oded Heilbronner, Catholicism, Political Culture and the Countryside: A
Social History of the Nazi Party in South Germany (Ann Arbor, MI, 1998); idem, “In Search
of the Catholic (Rural) Bourgeoisie: The Peculiarities of the South German Bürgertum”,
Central European History, 29 (1996): 175–201; idem, “Reichstagswahlkämpfe im Allgäu
1871–1932: Ein abweichender Fall?”, Zeitschrift für Bayerische Landesgeschichte, 60 (1997);
idem, “Populärer Liberalismus in Deutschland: Entwicklungstendenzen der badischen
Wahlkultur”, Zeitschrift für die Geschichte des Oberrheins, 146 (1998): 481–521; see also Gert
Zang (ed.), Provinzialisierung einer Region. Zur Entstehung der bürgerlichen Gesellschaft in
der Provinz (Frankfurt am Main, 1978).
13
Some examples: Kommission für bayerische Landesgeschichte; Der Schwäbischen
Forschungsgemeinschaft; Haus Der Geschichte Baden-Württemberg; Kommission für
geschichtliche Landeskunde in Baden-Württemberg.
14
Zang, Provinzialisierung einer Region; Lothar Gall, Der Liberalismus als regierende
Partei: Das Großherzogtum Baden zwischen Restauration und Reichsgründung (Wiesbaden,
1968); Werner Blessing, Staat und Kirche in der Gesellschaft. Institutionelle Autorität und
mentaler Wandel in Bayern während des 19. Jahrhunderts (Göttingen, 1982). Geoff Eley’s
brief account of Bismarckian Germany has used Zang and Blessing’s studies to support his
thesis of liberal hegemony. See Geoff Eley, “Bismarckian Germany”, in Gordon Martel (ed.),
Modern Germany Reconsidered, 1870–1945 (London, 1995). Another important study
Historical scholarship on the rise of the Nazi Party has hardly considered
the idea of a radical-liberal faction which existed among the Nazi rank and file.
Rudy Koshar and Robert Hopwood may be the only ones who have tried to
touch upon this topic.15 Needless to say, the radical Right völkisch groups and
the Leftist revolutionary groups within the Nazi Party have claimed the most
attention.
The German Catholic Rural Bourgeoisie and its Cultural Activities
Two cultural elements played a significant role in German popular liberalism:

the German bourgeoisie and the German voluntary associations (Vereine).
In rural Catholic southern Germany (and not only there), these two cultural
elements were the vanguard of local anti-clerical activities from the mid
nineteenth century to the late 1920s. In the following account, I would like to
give a historiographical survey of these cultural formations before I turn to their
local activities in the following chapters.
The German Catholic Bourgeoisie from the Second Half of the Nineteenth
Century to the Early Twentieth Century
The intensive involvement with the German bourgeoisie (Bürgertum) in the

past decade has found scholars busy pasting labels and branding trademarks
on a social group sweepingly dubbed “bourgeoisie”.16 Not the least of the traits
which was devoted to south Germany and won wide recognition well beyond local southern
German academic circles is Paul Nolte, Gemeindebürgertum und Liberalismus in Baden
1800–1850 (Göttingen, 1994).
15
Robert Hopwood, “Paladins of the Bürgertum: Cultural Clubs and Politics in Small
German Towns 1918–1925”, Historical Papers (Canadian Historical Association) (1974):
213–235; idem, “Mobilization of a Nationalist Community, 1919–23”, German History, 2
(1992): 149–176; Rudy Koshar, Social Life, Local Politics and Nazism: Marburg 1880–1935
(Chapel Hill, NC, 1986).
16
The literature is too substantial to note in full. Key texts include: Jürgen Kocka (ed.),
Bürger und Bürgerlichkeit im 19. Jahrhundert (Göttingen, 1987); idem (ed.), Bürgertum
im 19. Jahrhundert. Deutschland im europäischen Vergleich, 3 vols (Munich, 1988); idem
and Allan Mitchell (eds), Bourgeois Society in Nineteenth-Century Europe (Oxford, 1993);
Lothar Gall (ed.), Stadt und Bürgertum im 19. Jahrhundert (Munich, 1990–1993); Werner
Conze and Jürgen Kocka (eds), Bildungsbürgertum im 19. Jahrhundert, 4 vols (Stuttgart,
1985–1992); David Blackbourn and Richard J. Evans (eds), The German Bourgeoisie:
Essays on the Social History of the German Middle Class from the Late Eighteenth to the Early
brandished by current research are those of religious persuasion and geographical

location. Though numerous historians and sociologists, both German and
Anglo-American, have made the German bourgeoisie the focus of their studies,
it is the urban Protestant bourgeoisie that invariably claims scholarly attention,
while the rural bourgeoisie (in small towns and villages with less than 5,000
inhabitants) and the Catholic bourgeoisie hardly get a foot in the door.17 But
when we consider that the societies in the countryside were still one of the main
features of European society and Catholics comprised approximately one third
of the population in the second half of the nineteenth century – the backdrop
of current research about the German bourgeoisie – this fact becomes all the
more astonishing. Is it possible to write the history of the German bourgeoisie
without its country elements (Bürgertum auf dem Lande) and without the
Catholic bourgeoisie? Can so large and prominent a sector of German society
be so casually dismissed? Last but not least, can one write a cultural history
of agrarian small-town Catholic south Germany without its most influential
cultural force?
Research on German society and politics from the nineteenth century
onwards changed radically in the 1960s, following the adoption of research
methods used by the social sciences and the emergence of critical questions
concerning the behavioural patterns of contemporary German society and
elites.18 The influence of Max Weber has been immense in these areas.19 It is my
Twentieth Century (London and New York, 1991); see also the (so far) nine monographs in
the Bürgertum series of Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht Verlag, Göttingen.
17
See the conclusions in Jürgen Kocka, “Bürgertum und bürgerliche Gesellschaft
im 19. Jahrhundert. Europaische Entwicklungen und deutsche Eigenarten”, in idem (ed.),
Bürgertum, 63–64; Michael Klöcker, “Katholizismus und Bildungsbürgertum. Hinweise
zur Erforschung vernachlässigter Bereiche der deutschen Bildungsgeschichte im 19.
Jahrhundert”, in Reinhard Koselleck (ed.), Bildungsbürgertum im 19. Jahrhundert, part II,
Bildungsgüter und Bildungswissen (Stuttgart, 1990), 117–138; Blackbourn and Evans (eds),
The German Bourgeoisie, 9–10; Lucian Hölscher, “Die Religion des Bürgers. Bürgerliche
Frömmigkeit und Protestantische Kirche im 19. Jahrhundert”, Historische Zeitschrift, 250
(1990): 595–630.
18
Hans-Ulrich Wehler, “Historiography in Germany Today”, in Jürgen Habermas
(ed.), Observations on “The Spiritual Situation of the Age” (Cambridge, MA, 1984), 221–259;
Jürgen Kocka, “Recent Historiography of Germany and Austria”, Journal of Modern History,
2 (1975): 101–119.
19
Roger Fletcher, “Recent Developments in West German Historiography: The
Bielefeld School and its Critics”, German Studies Review, 3 (1986): 460ff.; Gerhard A. Ritter,
“Neuere Sozialgeschichte in der Bundesrepublik”, in Jürgen Kocka (ed.), Sozialgeschichte im
Internationalen Überblick (Darmstadt, 1989), 44ff.; Geoff Eley, From Unification to Nazism
(Boston, 1986), 26; Richard J. Evans, Rethinking German History (London, 1987), 35. On
opinion, however, that Weber’s negative approach towards Catholic society and
its role in Germany from the mid nineteenth century onwards has had a decisive
impact on the research.20 The pioneering figures of the new socio-criticism –
H.U. Wehler, J. Kocka, H.A. Winkler and W. Mommsen, to name only a few
of the pioneering figures of the socio-critical school of thought that arose in
Germany during the 1960s – were deeply influenced by Weber and his ideas
about Imperial Germany, developed towards the close of the nineteenth century.
Thus it came about that in the modernization theory so central to the thought
of Wehler, Kocka and others, no room was found for so marginal a social group
as the German Catholics. The Catholic population did not fit easily into their
premodern versus modern dichotomy, nor into the bourgeois versus proletarian
one. They were perceived as a rather fossilized anachronism, their socio-
economic and cultural patterns providing a stark contrast to the Second Reich
infused by the dynamics of modernization, industrialization and capitalism.21
Nor was it Max Weber alone whose influence propelled German Catholics
into the margins of research. Both Catholic and Protestant scholars have, since
the close of the nineteenth century, tended to write off Catholic society as a
backward and under-developed one characterized by pre-industrial behaviour
patterns. Catholic backwardness in the full spectrum of human endeavour –
economics, commerce, culture, scholarship, the civil service and the army – has
become a byword in studies written since the Wilhelmine period up to the last
decade.22
Weber’s influence on Wehler, see Hans-Ulrich Wehler, “Max Webers Klassentheorie und die
neuere Sozialgeschichte”, in idem, Aus der Geschichte lernen? (Munich, 1988), 152–160.
20
Max Weber, “Die protestantische Ethik und der Geist des Kapitalismus”, in idem,
Gesammelte Aufsätze zur Religionssoziologie, vol. I (Tübingen, 1988); Hartmut Lehmann
and Guenther Roth (eds), Weber’s Protestant Ethic: Origins, Evidence, Contexts (Cambridge,
1993); Weber’s negative approach had a deep influence on contemporary researchers
investigating the underdevelopment of Catholicism in the Second Reich. See Hans Rost, Die
wirtschaftliche und kulturelle Lage der deutschen Katholiken (Cologne, 1911).
21
See just two pages in Hans-Ulrich Wehler, The German Empire 1871–1914
(Leamington Spa, 1985), 116–117; Wolfgang Schieder, “Sozialgeschichte der Religion
im 19. Jahrhundert. Bemerkungen zur Forschungsanalyse”, in idem (ed.), Religion und
Gesellschaft im 19. Jahrhundert (Stuttgart, 1993), 17; Wolfgang Altgeld, Katholizismus,
Protestantismus, Judentum (Mainz, 1992), 32ff.
22
Rost, Die wirtschaftliche und kulturelle Lage; Martin Offenbacher, Konfession und
Soziale Schichtung: Eine Studie über die wirtschaftliche Lage der Katholiken und Protestanten
in Baden (Tübingen, 1908); Alfons Neher, Die wirtschaftliche und soziale Lage der Katholiken
im westlichen Deutschland, vol. 1: Statistische und kulturpolitische Untersuchung von
Rheinland-Westfalen (Rottweil, 1927); Karin K. Hanisch, “The Titled Businessman: Prussian
Commercial Councillors in the Rhineland and Westphalia during the Nineteenth Century”,
This disregard of the Catholic bourgeoisie is no less patent among the

scholars and research institutes affiliated with German Catholicism. Until the
last decade, the research discussing German Catholicism was primarily in the
hands of scholars who might aptly be termed the German Catholic research
establishment. This group of scholars was concentrated primarily in research
institutes such as the Kommission fur Zeitgeschichte or publishing houses such
as F. Schöningh and M. Grünewald, and was characterized by studies lacking any
critical approach to German Catholicism (Christoph Weber is an exception).
Their studies never utilize the socio-cultural research methods so important
in identifying and examining a social group such as the German bourgeoisie.
As stated, the Catholic bourgeoisie as a social formation is absent from every
discussion among these scholars. The thesis of the rupture between German
Catholicism and the bourgeois modern world is confirmed by one of the
most distinguished members of the German Catholic research establishment,
Clemence Bauer, who even claims that at least until the Weimar period there
can be no talk of a Catholic counterpart to the Protestant German bourgeoisie.
Yet this claim is not substantiated by an empirical examination via the research
methods of the social sciences.23
in Blackbourn and Evans (eds), German Bourgeoisie, 101–102; Wehler, The German Empire,
117; Rudolf Boch, Grenzenloses Wachstum? Das rheinische Wirtschaftsbürgertum und seine
Industrialisierungsdebatte 1814–1857 (Göttingen, 1991), 244–245; Werner Rösener, “Das
katholische Bildungsdefizit im deutschen Kaiserreich”, Historisches Jahrbuch, 1/112 (1992):
104–124. See the historiographical conclusion in Martin Baumeister, Parität und katholische
Inferiorität: Untersuchungen zur Stellung des Katholizismus im Deutschen Kaiserreich
(Paderborn, 1987). For critical suggestions, see Antonius Liedhegener, “Marktgesellschaft
und Milieu. Katholiken und katholische Regionen in der wirtschaftlichen Entwicklung des
Deutschen Reichs 1895–1914”, Historisches Jahrbuch, 2/113 (1993): 283–354.
23
Schieder, “Sozialgeschichte”, 11–12; Clemens Bauer, “Der deutsche Katholizismus
und die bürgerliche Gesellschaft”, in idem, Deutscher Katholizismus: Entwicklungslinien und
Profile (Frankfurt am Main, 1964), 52–53; E.W. Böckenförde, “Der deutsche Katholizismus
im Jahre 1933”, Hochland, 54 (1962): 24ff. For the representative historians in the
Kommission für Zeitgeschichte, see Rudolf Lill, “Der deutsche Katholizismus in der neueren
historischen Forschung”, in Ulrich von Hehl and Konrad Repgen (eds), Der Deutsche
Katholizismus in der zeitgeschichtlichen Forschung (Mainz, 1988), 41–64. See Winfried
Becker’s attack on social history methods in “Christliche Parteien und Stromungen im 19.
und 20. Jahrhundert”, Historisches Jahrbuch, 2/114 (1994): 461–463. For suggestions for
new directions in Catholic historiography, see Ulrich von Hehl, “Umgang mit katholischer
Zeitgeschichte: Ergebnisse, Erfahrungen, Aufgaben”, in Karl Dietrich Bracher et al. (eds),
Staat und Parteien: Festschrift für Rudolf Morsey zum 65. Geburtstag (Berlin, 1992), 386–
387. See the outstanding study by Christoph Weber, Kirchliche Politik zwischen Rom, Berlin
und Trier 1876–1888 (Mainz, 1970).
Pioneering studies do exist. T. Mergel has recently published his social history
of the Catholic Bürgertum in Cologne and Bonn. H.J. Henning – although he
has very little to say about confessions – has contributed to our understanding of
the Bildungs Bürgertum and the civil service (where there were many Catholics)
in the Rhineland and Westphalia in the second half of the nineteenth century; D.
Schott and G. Zang have furthered our knowledge of the Catholic bourgeoisie
in the region of Konstanz.24 Yet apart from these studies, no attempt was made
until the last decade to examine the existence of the Catholic bourgeoisie, either
by socio-critical historians or Catholic establishment historians.
In recent years, however, there has been a group of German and Anglo-
American scholars whose common denominator is the utilization of socio-
economic methods for critically researching the Catholic milieu that evolved
in nineteenth-century Germany (for example, patterns of cultural, social and
political behaviour among large sections of German Catholics; patterns that
bore the authoritative hallmark of the Catholic Church, the Centre Party
and the Catholic associations).25 The starting point for all these scholars
24
Thomas Mergel, Zwischen Klasse und Konfession: Katholisches Bürgertum im
Rheinland, 1794–1914 (Göttingen, 1994); Hansjoachim Henning, Das westdeutsche
Bürgertum in der Epoche der Hochindustrialisierung 1860–1914, pt. I, Das Bildungsbürgertum
in den Preussischen Westprovinzen (Wiesbaden, 1972); Zang, Provinzialisierung einer
Region; Dieter Schott, Die Konstanzer Gesellschaft, 1918–1924. Der Kampf um Hegemonie
zwischen Novemberrevolution und Inflation (Konstanz, 1989).
25
By the “Catholic milieu”, I refer to specific patterns of cultural, social and political
behaviour manifested among large sections of German Catholics toward the end of
nineteenth-century Germany, patterns that bore the authoritative hallmark of the Catholic
Church, the Centre Party and the Catholic associations (Vereine). See works by scholars
such as Josef Mooser, “Volk, Arbeiter und Bürger in der katholischen Öffentlichkeit des
Kaiserreichs”, in Hans Jurgen Puhle (ed.), Bürger in der Gesellschaft der Neuzeit (Göttingen,
1991), 259–273; idem, “Katholische Volksreligion, Klerus und Bürgertum in der zweiten
Halfte des 19. Jahrhunderts. Thesen”, in Schieder (ed.), Religion und Gesellschaft, 144–156;
Ursula Krey, Vereine in Westfalen 1849–1855. Strukturwandel, soziale Spannungen, kulturelle
Entfaltung (Paderborn, 1993); Wilfried Loth, Katholiken im Kaiserreich. Der politische
Katholizismus in der Krise des wilhelminischen Deutschlands (Dusseldorf, 1984); idem,
“Soziale Bewegungen im Katholizismus des Kaiserreiches”, Geschichte und Gesellschaft, 3/17
(1991): 279–310; idem (ed.), Deutscher Katholizismus im Umbruch zur Moderne (Stuttgart,
1991); Eric Yonke, “The Emergence of a Roman Catholic Middle Class in Nineteenth-
Century Germany: Catholic Associations in the Prussian Rhine Province 1837–1876”, PhD
Dissertation, University of North Carolina, 1990; Jonathan Sperber, Popular Catholicism in
Nineteenth-Century Germany (Princeton, 1984); David Blackbourn, Populists and Patricians:
Essays in Modern German History (London, 1987); idem, Marpingen: Apparitions of the
Virgin Mary in Bismarckian Germany (Oxford, 1993), chapter 3; Margaret L. Anderson,
“Piety and Politics: Recent Works on German Catholicism”, Journal of Modern History,
is the backwardness of Catholic society, and not only in the economic,

social and political life of the Second Reich but even in the historiography
concerning it. Their goal is to wrest German Catholicism out of the fastness
of its historiographical ghetto, as it were – a trend especially marked among
the scholars of the German socio-critical school. These same scholars – most
ably represented by T. Mergel, but also W. Blessing, I. Götz von Holenhusen, J.
Mooser, W. Loth, M. Klöcker and C. Weber in Germany, and D. Blackbourn,
M.L. Anderson and J. Sperber in the United States – are indeed conscious of the
historiographical problem concerning the Catholic bourgeoisie.26
Potential directions of research have emerged from a number of studies, such
as those focusing on the political involvement of the Catholic bourgeoisie in the
upper echelons of the Centre Party.27 Other fruitful possibilities are provided
by those studies concentrating on urban areas with a Catholic bourgeois
63 (1991): 681–717; Jürgen Herres, “Stadtische Gesellschaft und katholische Vereine im

Rheinland 1840–1860/70”, PhD Dissertation, University of Trier, 1991; Helmut Walser
Smith, German Nationalism and Religious Conflict: Culture, Ideology, Politics, I870–1914
(Princeton, 1995); Olaf Blaschke and Frank-M. Kuhlemann (eds), Religion im Kaiserreich.
Milieus, Mentalitäten, Krisen (Gutersloh, 1996); Oded Heilbronner, “Regionale Aspekte
zum katholischen Bürgertum. Oder: Die Besonderheit des katholischen Bürgertums in
landlichen Suddeutschland”, Blätter für Deutsche Landesgeschichte, 131 (1995): 223–259.
26
Mergel, Zwischen Klasse; David Blackbourn and Geoff Eley, The Peculiarities of
German History: Bourgeois Society and Politics in Nineteenth-Century Germany (Oxford,
1994), 262; David Blackbourn, “Introduction”, in idem and Evans (eds), German
Bourgeoisie, 9–10; Christoph Weber, “Eine starke einggeschlossene Phalanx”: Der politische
Katholizismus und die erste deutsche Reichstagswahl 1871 (Essen, 1992); Margaret L.
Anderson, Windthorst: A Political Biography (Oxford, 1981); Sperber, Popular Catholicism;
Werner Blessing, “Kirchenfromm-Volksfromm-Weltfromm. Religiositat im katholischen
Bayern”, in Loth (ed.), Deutscher Katholizismus, 106ff.; Loth, “Einleitung”, in idem (ed.),
Deutscher Katholizismus, 9–19; Klöcker, “Katholizismus”, 132–138; Mooser, “Volk”, 269ff.;
idem, “Katholische Volksreligion”; I. Götz von Olenhusen, “Klerus und Ultramontanismus
in der Erzdiözese Freiburg: Entbürgerlichung und Klerikalisierung des Katholizismus nach
der Revolution von 1848/49”, in Schieder (ed.), Religion und Gesellschaft, 113–143; I.
Götz von Olenhusen, Klerus und abweichendes Verhalten. Zur Sozialgeschichte katholischer
Priester im 19. Jahrhundert: Die Erzdiözese Freiburg (Göttingen, 1994); Olaf Blaschke, “Der
Altkatholizismus 1879 bis 1945. Nationalismus, Antisemitismus und Nationalsozialismus”,
Historische Zeitschrift, 261 (1995): 51–99. For the religion of the Protestant bourgeoisie,
see Christian Hölscher, “Bürgerliche Religiosität im protestantischen Deutschland des 19.
Jahrhunderts”, in Schieder (ed.), Religion und Gesellschaft, 157–180.
27
Loth, Katholiken im Kaiserreich.
stratum,28 on the Catholic Vereine,29 on the social origin and education of

the Catholic clergy30 and on the link between German Catholicism and the
processes of modernization.31 Last but not least of these possibilities would be
research on sectarian Catholic groups that broke off from the Catholic Church
and opposed conservative Catholic thought (ultramontanism).32 Finally, even
such veteran and experienced scholars as the late T. Nipperdey and J. Kocka
still entertain the possibility that a Catholic bourgeoisie never even existed.
Other scholars, from a quite different perspective, have suggested that one
should pay attention to the ambivalent situation of the Catholic bourgeoisie:
David Blackbourn suggests that “they [the Catholic bourgeoisie] nevertheless
found that religious loyalties transcended class loyalties when it came to
making a political choice. In social terms they still had more in common with
28
Mergel, Zwischen Klasse; see also F. Lenger, “Bürgertum und Stadtverwaltung in
rheinischen Grossstädten des 19. Jahrhunderts”, in Lothar Gall (ed.), Stadt und Bürgertum
im 19. Jahrhundert (Munich, 1991), 97–170. In Lothar Gall’s series above, there is no
article on the urban Catholic bourgeoisie. See also some PhD dissertations on the Catholic
bourgeoisie of the Rhineland cities, for example, Jürgen Herres, “Stadtische Gesellschaft”, and
the ongoing dissertations of Gisela Mettele and Klara Eyll on the bourgeoisie of Cologne, or
Susanne Kill on the bourgeoisie in Münster.
29
Yonke, “Emergence”; John Eidson, “German Club Life as a Local Cultural System”,
Comparative Study in Society and History, 32/2 (1990): 357–382; Herres, “Stadtische
Gesellschaft”.
30
Götz von Olenhusen, Klerus und abweichendes Verhalten; Olaf Blaschke, “Die
Kolonialisierung der Laienwelt. Priester als Milieumanager und die Kanale klerikaler
Kuratel”, in Blaschke and Kuhlemann (eds), Religion im Kaiserreich.
31
A.H. Leugers Scherzberg, “Die Modernisierung des Katholizismus. Das Beispiel
Felix Porsch”, in Loth, Deutscher Katholizismus, 225–227; Liedhegener, “Marktgesellschaft”;
Michael Ebertz, “‘Ein Haus voll Glorie schauet’: Modernisierungsprozesse der
romischkatholischen Kirche im 19. Jahrhundert”, in Schieder (ed.), Religion und
Gesellschaft; Winfried Becker, “Modernismus und Modernisierung”, Zeitschrift für Bayerische
Landesgeschichte, 1 (1994).
32
Schieder, “Sozialgeschichte”, 16–17; Sperber, Popular Catholicism, 233–240;
H. Gründer, “Rechtskatholizismus im Kaiserreich und in der Weimarer Republik”,
Westfalische Zeitschrift, 134 (1984): 107–155; N. Schlossmacher, “Antiultramontanismus
im wilhelminischen Deutschland. Ein Versuch”, in Loth, Deutscher Katholizismus, 164–198;
K.J. Rivinius, “Integralismus und Reformkatholizismus”, in Loth, Deutscher Katholizismus,
199–218. On the liberal Bildungsbürgertum, see Christoph Weber, “Der deutsche
Katholizismus und die Herausforderung des protestantischen Bildungsanspruchs”, in
Koselleck, Bildungsbürgertum, 139–167; Christoph Weber (ed.), Liberaler Katholizismus:
Biographische und kirchenhistorische Essays von Franz Xaver Kraus (Tübingen, 1983);
Winfried Grohs, Die liberale Reichspartei 1871–1874: Liberale Katholiken und föderalistische
Protestanten im ersten deutschen Reichstag (Frankfurt, 1990); see also Smith, German
Nationalism, 144; Blaschke, “Altkatholizismus”.
their National Liberal peers than with the mariolatrous Catholic peasants: in
political terms they sided with the peasants.”. Mergel wrote about the Catholic
bourgeois Spagat (“splits”) – one leg in the liberal-secular bourgeois world,
the other in the Roman Catholic Church.33 In short, the topic is of current
scholarly interest but still relatively little investigated, and, needless to say, in
all the cases discussed above, and in all the abundant Bürgertum Forschung, it
is mainly the urban bourgeoisie that claims scholarly attention, while its rural
counterpart gets only minor attention.
The Catholic bourgeoisie which I propose to examine existed on the
periphery of the Catholic milieu, or even outside it altogether. It was not
affiliated with either political Catholicism or the Catholic Church, and its
cultural hegemony was so strong that it influenced the patterns of life of wide
segments of population. It was a cultural formation, to repeat Blackbourn, that
socially and politically had “more in common with its National Liberal peers
than with the mariolatrous Catholic peasants”.
The Verein (Voluntary Association)
The German voluntary association (hereafter Verein) has played an important

role in the study of German society in the nineteenth century and the first
third of the twentieth century. This association (or club) was the cornerstone
of European Enlightenment society at the end of the eighteenth century, of
the liberal society of the Vormärz, and of the German political parties in the
years 1848–1849. Moreover, the Verein was one of the main features of the rise
and hegemony of the German bourgeoisie in the second half of the nineteenth
century, and one of the cornerstones of the different milieux that developed in
Germany towards the end of the 1890s.
Research on the German Vereine is very advanced. To this day, historical
research continues to benefit from Thomas Nipperdey’s pioneering article
concerning the importance of the Vereine in the rise of bourgeois-liberal society
prior to 1848.34 Otto Dann, Wolfgang Hardtwig and Dieter Duding expanded
Thomas Nipperdey, “Aspekte der Verbürgerlichung”, in Jurgen Kocka (ed.), Arbeiter

33
und Bürger im 19. Jahrhundert (Munich, 1986), 51; Kocka, “Bürgertum und bürgerliche
Gesellschaft”, 64; Blackbourn and Eley, Peculiarities, 262; Mergel, Zwischen Klasse, 144–147.
34
Stefan-Ludwig Hoffmann, “Democracy and Associations in the Long Nineteenth
Century: Toward a Transnational Perspective”, Journal of Modern History, 75 ( June 2003):
269–299; Thomas Nipperdey, “Verein als soziale Struktur in Deutschland im späten 18. und
frühen 19. Jahrhundert”, in idem (ed.), Gesellschaft, Kultur, Theorie (Göttingen, 1976), 174–
205.
our knowledge concerning the importance of the Vereine to the rise of bourgeois
nationalism and liberalism before 1848.35 Regional studies emphasized these
aspects during the Vormärz period36 and beyond.
Folkloristic-anthropological research is indebted to Hermann Bausinger’s
article on the importance of the connection between the Vereine and the
development of German folklore.37 Similarly, Max Weber paved the way for the
sociological research dealing with the Vereine that has flourished since the 1860s,
led by sociologists such as Hans Jürgen Siewert and Gerhard Würzbacher.38
These are the two dominant streams in current research on the Vereine, but there
is no reason to explore them here.
It is my intention to focus here on the basic historiographical assumptions
concerning the German Verein after 1848; more specifically, I would like to focus
on the deficiency of this research and to propose an additional course of research
that has previously been marginal in that of the German Vereine. I intend to
examine their contribution to the political behavioural patterns in Germany
at the end of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth centuries
(until 1933), especially in rural areas of Germany. I contend that the Vereine,
particularly those formed for the purpose of socializing, sport and music, played
35
Wolfgang Hardtwig, “Strukturmerkmale und Entwicklungstendenzen des
Vereinswesens in Deutschland 1789–1848”, in Otto Dann (ed.), Vereinswesen und bürgerliche
Gesellschaft in Deutschland (Munich: 1984), 11–50; Otto Dann, “Die Anfänge politischer
Vereinsbildung in Deutschland”, in U. Engelhardt et al. (eds), Soziale Bewegung und politische
Verfassung. Beiträge zur Geschichte der modernen Welt (Stuttgart, 1976); Dieter Düding,
“Organisierter gesellschaftlicher Nationalismus (1808–1847)”, in idem, Bedeutung und
Funktion für die deutsche Nationalbewegung (Munich, 1984).
36
Some examples: Hans W. Hahn, Altstandisches Bürgertum zwischen Beharrung und
Wandel. Wetzlar 1689–1870 (Munich, 1991), 399–450; E. Illner, Bürgerliche Organisierung in
Elberfeld 1775–1850 (Neustadt, 1982); Ursula Krey, Vereine in Westfalen; Karin Schambach,
Stadtbürgertum und industrieller Umbruch. Dortmund 1780–1870 (Munich, 1996), 352–
371; Ralf Roth, Stadt und Bürgertum in Frankfurt am Main 1760–1914 (Munich, 1997),
440–471; Petrum Muller, Liberalismus in Nürnberg, 1800 bis 1871 (Nürnberg, 1990),
330–336, 255ff.; Dietmar Klenke, “Nationalkriegerishes Gemeinschaftsideal als politische
Religion. Zum Vereinsnationalismus der Sanger, Schützen und Turner am Vorabend der
Einigungskriege”, HZ, 260/2 (1995): 395–448.
37
Hermann Bausinger, “Vereine als Gegenstand der volkskündlichen Forschung”,
Zeitschrift für Volkskunde 55 (1959): 98–122.
38
Max Weber, “Rede auf dem ersten Deutschen Soziologentag in Frankfurt 1910”,
in idem, Gesammelte Aufsätze zur Soziologie und Sozialpolitik (Tübingen, 1988), 431–449;
Hans J. Siewert, “Zur Thematisierung des Vereinswesens in der deutschen Soziologie”, in
Otto Dann (ed.), Vereinswesen (n. 2), 151–180; Gerhard Würzbacher, “Der Verein in der
freien Gesellschaft”, in Grundsatzreferate des DSB-Bundestages (Berlin, 1962).
a crucial role in the formation of German local politics and the shaping of the
local public sphere (lokale Öffentlichkeit) in small towns and villages. Therefore,
in contrast to accepted ideas, I do not believe that the Vereine should be viewed
as an apolitical institution after 1870.39
A number of historiographic conclusions can be drawn from my assertion:
the first (accepted by most researchers) is the uniqueness and importance of the
Vereine to the formation of German political and social life, particularly before
the 1860s40 and the formation of the hegemony of the bourgeois in German
society, as well as in German politics from the 1850s and earlier.41 The second
conclusion is that, while much research has been done on the functions of
the Vereine before the 1860s, relatively little attention has been paid to their
further development and functions in the late nineteenth and early twentieth
centuries.42 Studies dealing with the Weimar period are even fewer.43 Current
See the articles in Heinrich Best (ed.), Vereine in Deutschland (Bonn, 1993).
39
See particularly Nipperdey, “Verein als soziale Struktur” (n. 1), 176; all the
40
articles in Dann (ed.), Vereinswesen (n. 2); Michael Sobania, “Vereinsleben. Regeln und
Formen bürgerlicher Assoziationen im 19. Jahrhundert”, in D. Hein and A. Schulz (eds),
Bürgerkultur im 19. Jahrhundert. Bildung, Kunst, und Lebenswelt (Munich, 1996), 170–190.
For researchers who underestimate the role of the Verein, see “Zusammenfassung”, in Lothar
Gall (ed.), Stadt und Bürgertum im Übergang von der traditionellen zur modernen Gesellschaft
(Munich, 1993), 238–239; Nolte, Gemeindebürgertum, 161.
41
For key texts on the connection between Vereine and the bourgeois hegemony, see
Rudy Koshar, Social Life, Local Politics and Nazism: Marburg 1880–1935 (Chapel Hill,
NC, 1986); Klaus Tenfelde, “Die Entfaltung des Vereinswesens wahrend der Industriellen
Revolution in Deutschland (1850–1873)”, in Dann, Vereinswesen (n. 2), 55–114; Hahn,
Altständisches Bürgertum (n. 3), 399–450; Illner, Bürgerliche Organisierung (n. 3);
Schambach, Stadtbürgertum (n. 3); Muller, Liberalismus in Nürnberg (Anm. 3), 355.
42
Dieter Hein, “Soziale Konstituierungsfaktoren des Bürgertums”, in Gall, Stadt und
Bürgertum (n. 7), 181; Tenfelde, “Entfaltung” (n. 8), 57; Schambach, Stadtbürgertum (n. 3),
352.
43
Koshar is an exception in Social Life (n. 8); idem, “Cult of Associations? The Lower
Middle Classes in Weimar Germany”, in idem (ed.), Splintered Classes: Politics and the Lower
Middle Classes in Interwar Europe (New York, 1990), 31–54. See also Friedrich Zunkel,
“Die westdeutschen Bürgergesellschaften zwischen Kaiserreich und Nationalsozialismus”,
in Jürger Heideking et al. (eds), Wege in die Zeitgeschichte (Berlin, 1989), 30–48; Robert
Hopwood, “Paladins of the Bürgertum: Cultural Clubs and Politics in Small German
Towns 1918–1925”, Historical Papers (Canadian Historical Association) (1974): 213–235;
idem, “Mobilization of a Nationalist Community, 1919–1923”, German History, 2 (1992):
149–176; Oded Heilbronner, “Der verlassene Stammtisch. Vom Verfall der bürgerlichen
Infrastruktur und dem Aufstieg der NSDAP am Beispiel der Region Schwarzwald”,
Geschichte und Gesellschaft, 19/2 (1993): 178–201.
sociological research on the Vereine in the twentieth century deals mainly with
44
the periods after 1918 and 1945 as part of the study of leisure culture.
My third conclusion concerns a special type of Vereine. I believe that the
Vereine for socializing purposes (Vereine fur gesellige Zwecke), in contrast to
political or economic Vereine, played a primary role in the moulding of both
the social and particularly the political life of the community, and historical
research recognizes their importance in the period before the 1870s.45 After
this period, however, the research mainly focuses on the different Kriegervereine
(veterans’ associations) which suddenly appeared and flourished in urban and
rural Germany. Although these Vereine played a part in the formation of the
local public sphere, their influence was limited, owing to their high acceptance
standards (only ex-military personnel were allowed to take part in their activities)
and their almost exclusive allegiance to the German political right.46 In contrast,
44
Recently, see Erwin Scheuch, “Vereine als Teil der Privatgesellschaft”, in Best, Vereine
in Deutschland (n. 6), 143–208; Heinz Sahner, “Vereine und Verbände in der modernen
Gesellschaft”, in ibid., 11–118 See the articles in the Archiv für Sozialgeschichte 33 (1993),
devoted to the historical aspects of leisure culture.
45
It is mainly Dieter Düding who has written on Vereine of this kind: Dieter Düding,
“Die deutsche Nationalbewegung des 19. Jahrhunderts als Vereinsbewegung”, Geschichte in
Wissenschaft und Unterricht 42 (1991): 601–624; idem, “Nationale Oppositionsfeste der
Turner, Sanger und Schützen im 19. Jahrhundert”, in idem et al. (eds), Öffentliche Festkultur,
Politische Feste in Deutschland von der Aufklärung bis zum Ersten Weltkrieg (Reinbek,
1988), 166–190; idem, “Organisierter gesellschaftlicher Nationalismus” (n. 2). For a later
period, see Dietmar Klenke, “Bürgerlicher Männergesang und Politik in Deutschland”,
Geschichte in Wissenschaft und Unterricht, 40 (1989): 8–10, Teil 1–3; idem, “Zwischen
nationalkriegerischem Gemeinschaftsideal und bürgerlich-ziviler Modernitat”, Geschichte
in Wissenschaft und Unterricht, 45/6 (1994): 207–223; Michael John, “Associational Life
and the Development of Liberalism in Hanover, 1848–1866”, in Konrad. Jarauch and
Larry Eugene Jones (eds), In Search of a Liberal Germany: Studies in the History of German
Liberalism from 1789 to the Present (New York and Oxford, 1990), 161–185; Michael Krüger,
Körperkultur und Nationsbildung: die Geschichte des Turnens in der Reichsgründungsära,
Habilitationsschrift (Schorndorf, 1996).
46
Some examples from the vast literature on the Kriegervereine: Hansjoachim
Henning, “Kriegervereine in den preußischen Westprovinzen 1860–1914”, Rheinische
Vierteljahresblätter, 32 (1968): 430–475; Hans-Peter Zimmermann, “Der feste Wall gegen
die rote Flut”. Kriegervereine in Schleswig-Holstein 1864–1914 (Neumünster, 1988); M.
Siedenhans, “Nationales Vereinswesen und soziale Militarisierung. Die Kriegervereine im
wilhelminischen Bielefeld”, in J. Meynert (ed.), Unter Pickelhaube und Zylinder. Das ostliche
Westfalen im Zeitalter des Wilhelminismus 1888–1914 (Bielefeld, 1991), 369–399; Dieter
Düding, “Die Kriegsvereine im wilhelminischen Reich und ihr Beitrag zur Militarisierung der
deutschen Gesellschaft”, in H. Dülffer and K. Holl (eds), Bereit zum Krieg. Kriegsmentalität
im wilhelminischen Deutschland 1890–1914 (Göttingen, 1986), 99–121; T. Rohkramer,
Vereine such as gymnastic clubs (Turnvereine), shooting clubs (Schützenvereine),

men’s singing clubs (Männergesangsvereine – MGV), veterans’ clubs (Krieger
und Militärereine – KuMV) and those of lesser importance such as museum-
theatre or bicycle Vereine, as well as many others, were a field for grassroots
political mobilization, particularly in small towns and villages. Sociological
research recognizes the importance of these Vereine in the formation of German
society, especially in speeding up local democratization processes, promoting
social mobility and providing financial incentives, leisure activities and many
other benefits ascribed to these Vereine in particular.
I make the claim that these Vereine contributed not only to the consolidation
of the bourgeois hegemony in the German countryside,47 but first and foremost
to the processes of political mobilization that took place in Germany in
Protestant and Catholic nationalist-conservative societies, especially in two
periods: at the end of the 1860s and in the early 1870s, when men above the
age of 25 were granted the right to vote, and in the 1890s with the maturation
of the democratization process and the “mobilization from below” among the
middle classes and farmers in the German countryside.48 As mentioned earlier,
Der Militarismus der “Kleinen Leute”. Die Kriegervereine im deutschen Kaiserreich 1871–
1914 (Munich, 1990).
47
Renate Pflaum, “Die Vereine als Produkt und Gegengewicht sozialer
Differenzierung”, in Gerhard Wurzbacher (ed.), Das Dorf im Spannungsfeld industrieller
Entwicklung (Stuttgart, 1954), 151–182; W. Bühler and H. Kanitz, Lokale Freizeitvereine.
Entwicklungen, Aufgaben, Tendenzen (St Augustin, 1978); idem, “Der Verein. Zur
lokalpolitischen und sozialen Funktion der Vereine in der Gemeinde”, in Hans Wehling (ed.),
Dorfpolitik: Fachwissenschaftliche Analysen und didaktische Hilfen (Opladen, 1978), 65–83;
Christel Köhle-Hezinger, “Gemeinde und Verein”, Rheinisches Jahrbuch für Volkskunde, 22
(1978): 181–202; D. Jauch, “Die Wandlung des Vereinslebens in ländlichen Gemeinden
Südwestdeutschlands”, Zeitschrift für Agrargeschichte und Agrarsoziologie, 28 (1980): 48–77.
48
For a general survey, see Karl Rohe, Wahlen und Wahlertraditionen in Deutschland
(Frankfurt, 1992). For political mobilization in the 1860s and 1870s, see Peter Steinbach,
Die Zahmung des politischen Massenmarktes. Wahlen und Wahlkampfe im Bismarckreich im
Spiegel der Hauptstadt und Gesinnungspresse, vol. 1 (Passau, 1990); Margaret L. Anderson,
“Voter, Junker, Landrat, Priest: The Old Authorities and the New Franchise in Imperial
Germany”, American Historical Review, 98/5 (1993): 1448–1474. For the 1890s, see Geoff
Eley, Reshaping the German Right: Radical Nationalism and Political Change after Bismarck
(New Haven, 1980); idem, “Notable Politics, the Crisis of German Liberalism and the
Electoral Transition of the 1890s”, in Jarauch and Jones, Liberal Germany (n. 12), 187–216;
Stanley Suval, Electoral Politics in Wilhelmine Germany (Chapel Hill, NC, 1985); Michael
John, “Kultur, Klasse und regionaler Liberalismus in Hannover 1848–1914”, in Lothar Gall
and Dieter Langewiesche (eds), Lberalismus und Region (Munich, 1995), 161–193. The
significance of political transformation in the 1890s has recently been called into question
my claim is based on sociological research that grants these Vereine a special

status, especially in rural areas.
Before I analyse the political significance of the Verein’s activities in depth, I
wish to point out the historiographical difficulty concerning the existence of the
rural bourgeoisie, the social group that founded and controlled these Vereine and
played a crucial role in political mobilization in rural Germany in the nineteenth
and first third of the twentieth centuries.49 This social group is marginal to the
intensive research conducted in the last decade on the German bourgeoisie.
In contrast to the research on other European countries that recognizes the
existence of a bourgeoisie in small towns and villages,50 in Germany the research
on this topic is still in its infancy.51 The mainstream in the study of the German
bourgeoisie claims to this day that a bourgeoisie could not exist in rural society.52
I believe that the activities of the Vereine for social purposes in small towns and
villages are evidence (together with other factors, of course) of the existence of
a rural bourgeoisie.53
by James Retallack, The German Right 1860–1920: Political Limits of the Authoritarian
Imagination (Toronto, 2006).
49
Bernhard Deneke, “Fragen der Rezeption bürgerlicher Sachkultur bei der ländlichen
Bevölkerung”, in Gunter Wiegelmann (ed.), Kultureller Wandel im 19. Jahrhundert
(Göttingen, 1973), 50–71; Ernst Wallner, “Die Rezeption stadtbürgerlichen Vereinswesen
durch die Bevölkerung auf dem Lande”, in Wiegelmann (ed.), Kultureller Wandel.
50
See the essays in Wolfgang Jacobeit, Joseph Mooser et al. (eds), Idylle oder Aufbruch?
Das Dorf im bürgerlichen 19. Jahrhundert (Berlin, 1990). For England, see L. Davidoff and
C. Hall, Family Fortunes: Men and Women of the English Middle Class 1780–1850 (London,
1988). For France, see Barnett Singer, Village Notables in Nineteenth-century France: Priests,
Mayors and Schoolteachers (Albany, 1983).
51
The articles in Wiegelmann (ed.), Kultureller Wandel (n. 16) were written mainly
from the anthropological point of view. See the articles in Jacobeit, Mooser et al., Idylle oder
Aufbruch? (n. 17); Wolfgang Jacobeit, “Dorf und dörfliche Bevoelkerung Deutschland im
bürgerlichen 19. Jahrhundert”, in J. Kocka (ed.), Bürgertum im 19. Jahrhundert Deutschland
im europaischen Vergleich, vol. 2 (Munich, 1988), 315–339; Nolte, Gemeindebürgertum (n.
7), 426; Ulrike Hoeflein, “Landliche Tracht – Hort bürgerlicher Wunsche und Sehnsuechte”,
Beitrage z. Volkskunde Baden-Wuerttemberg, 3 (1989): 224–298; Heide Wunder, Die
bauerliche Gemeinde in Deutschland (Göttingen, 1986), 126–138.
52
J. Kocka, “‘Bürgertum’ and Professions in the Nineteenth Century: Two Alternative
Approaches”, in M. Burrage and R. Torstendahl (eds), Professions in Theory and History:
Rethinking the Study of the Professions (London, 1990), 65–66; J. Kocka, “The Middle
Classes in Europe”, Journal of Modern History, 67 (1995): 787.
53
Nolte, Gemeindebürgertum (Anm 7) 161ff.; Oded Heilbronner, “In Search of the
Catholic (Rural) Bourgeoisie: The Peculiarities of the South German Bürgertum”, Central
European History, 29 (1996): 175–201.
Culture and Region: Greater Swabia. “A Sense of Place”54: The Regional

Method
Regional study is an important method that I use in my research. I suggest that

radical-liberal culture in Germany, as well as other political cultures including
Nazi culture, originated in the local and regional rather than the national
context. The study of local conditions ought to be fundamental to any analysis
of political and ideological formations. As C. Applegate has argued, we should
consider regions rather than nations as the locus of economic and political
change, and so examine the ways in which the formation of identity and cultural
change have centred in regional rather than national contexts; and we should
lay emphasis on regions as spatial and geographical entities and thus as places
subject to the forces of cultural and political change. Applegate, Oliver Zimmer
and Alon Confino, in their important work on Heimat culture in south-west
Germany, highlight local factors, provincial social groups and the relationship
between these and national identities. Confino shows how Heimat symbolism
and the Heimat genre became popular after the 1880s because everyone in a
given region could identify with them and believe in them.55 At the same time,
Confino argues that we should not forget that regionalism is fundamentally
an act of “translation”, of “invention”, of imagination. As Roberto Dainotto
argued, regions are no more real than nations; they are “simply inventions,
poetic acts, metaphors”.56
As indicated above, I wish to present a regional case study which serves
as evidence for the existence of a popular liberalism in the Germany of the
nineteenth and early twentieth centuries which was later partly transformed
into National Socialism. Since in the emergence of popular liberalism in some
parts of southern Germany the liberal and later National Socialist movements
were not monolithic entities, the study of their regional, religious and cultural
variations becomes very important. One of the ways to study the different groups
My discussion here was influenced by, among other things, David Blackbourn’s
54
discussion in his 1998 Annual Lecture at the German Historical Institute, A Sense of Place:
New Directions in German History (London, 1998), 10–14.
55
This is the main argument in Celia Applegate, “A Europe of Regions: Reflections on
the Historiography of Sub-National Places in Modern Times”, American Historical Review,
104/4 (October 1999): 1157–1182, esp. 1180–1181.
56
Celia Applegate, A Nation of Provincials: The German Idea of Heimat (Berkeley,
CA, 1990); Zimmer, Remaking the Rhythms of Life; Alon Confino, The Nation as a Local
Metaphor: Württemberg, Imperial Germany and National Memory, 1871–1918 (Chapel
Hill, NC, 1997); Roberto Dainotto, Place in Literature: Regions, Cultures, Communities
(Ithaca, NY, 2000), 162.
and cultures within the liberal and Nazi movements is to shift our attention
“from structures to human behaviour, to human expectations and the way they
perceived the ‘reality’ in a specific place, a specific landscape”.57 As I will show
here, much of that ‘reality’ in a “specific place, a specific landscape” in south
Germany was limited to certain cases.
My evidence for the existence of a popular liberalism in the second half of the
nineteenth and first third of the twentieth centuries consists of regional surveys
of some of the Catholic rural areas in southern Germany along the Austrian,
Swiss and French borders. In areas with “frontier conditions”58 – such as the
south German regions of South Baden, the Allgäu, Hohenzollern (particularly
Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen) and the south-western parts of Upper Bavaria (in
other words, “Greater Swabia” or Gross Schwaben)59 – the predominance of
stock-raising permitted greater independence of the working class (mainly rural
workers), artisans (who were the main supporters of liberalism and National
Socialism), independent farmers and – most important of all – the rural
bourgeoisie.60 In this landscape, anti-clericalism, democratic values and a close-
knit community life were the characteristics of rural liberalism. Greater Swabia
is often regarded as a classic region of large-scale capitalist farming.61 And finally,
57
Blackbourn, A Sense of Place.
58
Here I am employing the English expression used by Henry Pelling, The Social
Geography of British Elections 1885–1910 (London, 1967), 320.
59
My study is based on the following districts in Greater Swabia: in the Allgäu:
Kempten, Immenstadt, Lindau, Sonthofen, Weiler, Markt Oberdorf; in South Baden:
Bonndorf, Donaueschingen, Neustadt, St Blasien, Schönau, Triberg, Villingen. In
southern Württemberg: the principality of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen. I adopted the
term “Greater Swabia” (Gross Schwaben) from Stefan Heinze, Die Region Bayerisch-
Schwaben (Augsburg, 1995), 96–100; Otto-Heinrich Elias, “Vom Schwäbischen Kreis
zum Südweststaat”, Blätter für Deutsche Landesgeschichte, 132 (1996): 151–165; Juergen
Klöckler, “Reichsreformdiskussion, Grossschwabenpläne und Alemannentum im Spiegel
der südwestdeutschen Publizistik der frühen Weimarer Republik ‘Der Schwäbische Bund’
1919–1922”, Zeitschrift für Württembergische Landesgeschichte, 60 (2001): 271–315
(esp. 306–312); Martina Steber, Ethnische Gewissheiten: Die Ordnung des Regionalen im
bayerischen Schwaben vom Kaiserreich bis zum NS-Regime (Göttingen, 2010), 42–52.
60
For the local bourgeoisie, see Heilbronner, “In Search of the Catholic (Rural)
Bourgeoisie”. For artisans, see Helmut Sedatis, Liberalismus und Handwerk in
Südwestdeutschland (Stuttgart, 1979), 185–193. For peasants, see Paul Hertenstein, “Das
oberbadische Bauerntum. Eine Studie über seine soziale und wirtschaftliche Entwicklung
unter besonderer Berücksichtigung des Amtsbezirks Stockach”, Berichte über die
Landwirtschaft, N.F., 14/3 (1931): 407–428.
61
Heilbronner, “In Search of the Catholic (Rural) Bourgeoisie”; Sedatis, Liberalismus
und Handwerk in Süddeutschland, 185–193; Hertenstein, “Das oberbadische Bauerntum”.
in the period up to the 1850s, Greater Swabia was a centre of covert rural protest
(mainly expressed in arson and thieving) and political unrest.
The “Sense of Place”, the cultural construction of the south German landscape,
the peculiarity of the Swabian mental topography, the threatening quality of the
Black Forest, the Alpine character of the Allgäu and the warm, sunny climate
of the region of Lake Konstanz (the Bodensee) played an important role in
determining the cultural construction of Greater Swabia, which in turn had
a deep influence on the local political culture. But it was a “reactionary sense
of place”. In terms of Doreen Massey’s distinction between a progressive and
a reactionary sense of place, I would describe Greater Swabia as a reactionary
region in which place is restricted rather than open, protective of its own history
rather than alive to different historical connections, embracing a single identity
rather than multiple identities.62
In Greater Swabia, the centres of radical-liberal activity were towns and
villages with a strong Catholic majority, such as Memmingen, Lindenberg,
Günzburg, Immenstadt, Lindau, Konstanz, Sigmaringen, Stockach, Messkirch,
Donaueschingen, Bonndorf, Loerrach and Breisach. Together with an awareness
of the legacy of the republican traditions of the “Old Reich”, the Salpeter
rebellion of 1768, the conflicts between lords and peasants and the revolution of
1848, the “sense of place” in this particular instance is an important precondition
for understanding the uniqueness of the local political culture, and not only in
Greater Swabia.63
Doreen Massey, “Places and Their Pasts”, History Workshop, 39 (1995): 182–192.
62
Kurlander, The Price of Exclusion; Blackbourn, A Sense of Place, 12ff.; Thompson,

63
Left Liberals, the State and Popular Politics, 264–265; Andreas Würgler, Unruhen und
Öffentlichkeit: Städtische und ländliche Protestbewegungen im 18. Jahrhundert (Tübingen,
1995); Jakob Ebner, Die Geschichte der Salpeterer des 19. Jahrhunderts (Waldshut, 1952);
Tobias Kies, Verweigerte Moderne? Zur Geschichte der “Salpeterer” im 19. Jahrhundert
(Konstanz, 2004); David Martin Luebke, His Majesty’s Rebels: Communities, Factions and
Rural Revolt in the Black Forest, 1725–1745 (Ithaca, 1997); Nolte, Gemeindebürgertum;
idem, “Bürgerideal, Gemeinde und Republik. ‘Klassischer Republikanismus’ im frühen
deutschen Liberalismus”, HZ, 254/3 (1992): 609–656; Peter Blickle (ed.), Verborgene
republikanische Traditionen in Oberschwaben (Tübingen, 1998); “‘Debate’: The Peasantry
in Early Modern Central Europe: The State of the Field”, Central European History, 24/3
(2001): 313–418; Hans-Peter Becht, “Moritz Möller – Fabrikant, Publizist, Parlamentarier,
Bildungsbürger”, in idem (ed.), Pforzheim im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert (Sigmaringen, 1996),
65; Klaus Schönberger, “Die ‘Schwäbische Legion’ in der badischen Revolution 1849”, in
Margarete Lorinser and Roland Ludwig (eds), Die Revolution hat Konjunktur. Soziale
Bewegungen. Alltag und Politik in der Revolution 1848/49 (Münster, 1999), 59–86; Armin
Heim, “Die Revolution 1848/49 in der badischen Amtsstadt Messkirch”, in Edwin Ernst
Weber (ed.), Für die Sache der Freiheit des Volkes und der Republik, Die Revolution 1848/49
The Question of Marginality, the Lure of the Periphery
The regions under study here were marginal areas. By marginal, I mean that in
the nineteenth century they were poor and backward, and they were distant
from centres such as Munich, Berlin or the Rhineland.
The distance from the centre had complex implications.64 It meant a lack of
political power and social influence for the leading regional notables, and, not
least, long and costly journeys for those who were forced to conduct business
in the financial centres (for example, Mannheim, Cologne, Munich). Distance
from the centre also meant that there were fewer trade links, less chance of
reaching the richer markets of the core regions of Germany, and therefore less
developed commercial and financial institutions. But at the same time, and of
greater importance as far as this study is concerned, being beyond the reach
of the central political organs and institutions also implied less control and a
greater measure of freedom and independence. If the people and institutions of
Greater Swabia were sometimes ignorant of what went on in Berlin, in Berlin
they were not always well informed on what went on in the distant periphery.
In this respect, remoteness from central government or party headquarters had
certain advantages, in this case creating a unique brand of liberalism (that is to
say, popular liberalism) and, in the late 1920s, of National Socialism. William
Gladstone carefully distinguished between the “Liberal Party within the walls of
Parliament” and the Liberal Party “out of doors”. So, my study is less concerned
with the actions of the government, Parliament and “ruling circles” in Berlin,
Munich and Frankfurt than with the attitudes and activities of men and women
“outside the walls”, in the provinces that had liberal inclinations before 1914 and
before 1933.
im Gebiet des heutigen Landkreises Sigmaringen (Sigmaringen, 1998), 168–206; Andreas

Zekorn, “Alte Strukturen und neue Elemente während der Revolution von 1848/49 in
Hohenzollern”, Zeitschrift für Hohenzollerische Geschichte, 35 (1999): 7–24.
64
Zimmer, Remaking the Rhythms of Life. See a discussion of this topic in Sidney
Pollard, Marginal Europe: The Contribution of Marginal Lands Since the Middle Ages
(Oxford, 1997), 223–224.
Chapter 3
Methodological Considerations
Cultural Methods
My work relies mainly on the methods of cultural studies. The claims of

continuity since the 1860s or before must rest on certain cultural concepts
rather than on any formal organizational history, political facts or class analysis.
The study of cultural phenomena is crucial to an understanding of the growth
of these political and social movements (in this case, popular liberalism and
National Socialism). In addition, we must pay special attention to the context in
which the formation of classes and social groups takes place. As I said above, one
of the ways to study the continuity from popular liberalism to National Socialism
is to look at its cultural significance, to find out what National Socialism meant
for the former supporters of liberalism. To understand the development of the
Nazi tradition (in this case in Greater Swabia), it is necessary to understand
the kind of liberal “consensus” that was dominant in the mentality of the
region. Gramsci, the Italian Marxist, argued that each one of us constructs his
own “spontaneous philosophy” out of the scraps of belief available to us, the
language we use, the “common ideas” current in our society, religious practices
and accepted customs.1 My argument is that in south Germany in the 1920s,
many of these elements derived from an earlier radical-republican tradition. In
south Germany, the “consensus” of the region was, among other things, radical-
liberal. Many people were anti-clerical, anti-Prussian and demonstrated anti-
establishment rhetoric and behaviour. Many believed in republican ideas, and
the spirit of 1848 was still alive in the early twentieth century.2
My approach to this radical-liberal consensus has been much influenced by
the work of historians such as (among others) E.P. Thompson, Gareth Stedman
Jones, Patrick Joyce, James Vernon, Jon Lawrence and the late Raphael Samuel in
1
Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, ed. Q. Hoare and G. Nowell-
Smith (London, 1961), 323–324.
2
Jan Merk, “‘Nationality Separates, Liberty Unites’. The Historical Commemoration
of 1848/49 in Baden, a European Frontier Region”, in Axel Körner (ed.), 1848: A European
Revolution? (London, 2000); P. Alexandre, “Die Erben der 48er Revolution in Schwäbisch
Hall der kaiserlichen Zeit (1871–1914)”, Württembergisch Franken, 83 (1999): 351–389.
England, and Rainhart Koselleck, Manfred Hettling and Alf Lüdtke in Germany.
They have stressed the importance of rethinking the nature of popular political
movements and suggested the need to interpret a political culture far broader
than that represented by formal local and national institutions. Thompson’s
The Making of the English Working Class, Stedman Jones’ Rethinking Chartism
and Koselleck’s monumental work Geschichtliche Grundbegriffe are some of the
influential studies produced by these scholars.3 But, by concentrating mainly
on formal public discourse and excluding the people themselves, their informal
networks, their local discourses, their visions and aspirations from their studies,
Stedman Jones and Koselleck have left us in ignorance about politics on a
popular level. Thompson, of course, and later on Lüdtke, Hettling, Joyce, Vernon
and Lawrence, tried to fill this gap by exploring the language not of class but of
populism, not of the working classes but “of the people”, and their works have
inspired my thinking on the nature of popular liberalism and National Socialism
in Germany.
My thinking on the nature of popular liberalism and National Socialism
thus begins with the assumption that popular politics needs to be evaluated
in the first place within its own political context, rather than in terms of what
it “ought” to have been, defined, for example, in terms of consistency or of
teleological models of historical development (as in the Sonderweg argument).
What ordinary people thought, their beliefs and expectations, their way of life
and the way in which they expressed it (in short, their popular culture) matters
and ought to be taken seriously by historians. Once we do this in the case of
the National Socialists and replace their popular activities in their political and
cultural context, we shall see that there was a continuity with popular liberalism.
I would like to follow the late Raphael Samuel in arguing that the way to
study popular politics and culture, or, in other words, the way to study history,
is by reconstructing the popular memory, by studying the “hidden curriculum”
(as against the “official curriculum”) of local societies, and by studying their local
newspapers, songs and ballads, their local stories and customs, their cultural
reality. Here we are not primarily concerned with the sources in official archives,
but the hidden, unofficial sources of the culture. Public discourse has played a
prominent role in developing influential ideas about politics and culture, but
3
E.P. Thompson, The Making of the English Working Class (London, 1963); Gareth
Stedman Jones, “The Languages of Chartism”, in James Epstein and Dorothy Thompson
(eds), The Chartist Experience: Studies in Working-Class Radicalism and Culture, 1830–1860
(London, 1982), 3–58. On the Geschichtlichen Grundbegriffe project, see recently Christof
Dipper, “Die Geschichtlichen Grundbegriffe. Von der Begriffsgeschichte zur Theorie der
historischen Zeiten”, HZ, 270/2 (2000).
Methodological Considerations 35
as the British historian Jon Lawrence has suggested, much less attention has
been paid to the “nominally ‘objective’ languages of social description encoded
both in administrative practices, and in the symbolic organisation of social
space from the field, factory, pub or church congregation. It is in this low-key
but pervasive ‘language of culture’ that one finds the most determined attempts
to reconstitute social understanding in the nineteenth and early twentieth
century.”4 Paraphrasing Samuel’s argument, I would like to suggest that if these
sources and this language “were made integral to the study of history, culture and
politics could be given a quite different set of benchmarks” when considering,
say (as here) German popular liberalism and National Socialism.5
For example, it is usual to think of the liberal and Nazi movements in terms of
classes and social groups. But there is no automatic relationship between social
structure and political movements, and when these social structures are broken
down into individuals – that is, if one removes from them the labels: workers,
artisans, bourgeois, Catholics and Protestants – we find people of various
cultural outlooks in which localities, traditions, local customs, the family and
personal desires – in other words, the intimate sphere – play an important part,
and this side of the picture has to be looked into when studying political and
other cultural behaviours. Here I follow the German scholar Rudolf Heberle’s
explanation of the liberals’ and later the Nazis’ victories in Schleswig Holstein,
both of which, he claims, derived from past experience: the bitter feelings
towards Prussia and the state administration. Both political camps (the liberals
and the National Socialists) exploited those sentiments, which added to their
popular appeal and attractiveness.6 These feelings were expressed (among other
ways) in both the intimate and the public sphere: in family tales of Prussian
brutality, in the activities and stories of the Geschichtsverein (History Society), in
local customs, or in the way both movements used the local dialect (Plattdeutsch
in the case of Schleswig Holstein).7 In Celia Applegate’s study of the Pfalz, she
said: “… Pfaelzer Nazism … in some ways represented a striking revival of an
4
Jon Lawrence, “Review Article: The British Sense of Class”, Journal of Contemporary
History, 2 (2000): 308.
5
R. Samuel, The Theatres of Memory (London, 1994), 15.
6
Rudolf Heberle, From Democracy to National Socialism: A Regional Case Study on
Political Parties in Germany (New York, 1970), 40–41.
7
Dieter Kramer, “Nostalgie und Politik in der Geschichte von Geschichtsvereinen”,
Budinger Geschichtsblätter, 8 (1974/1975); Georg Kunz, Verortete Geschichte. Regionales
Geschichtsbewußtsein in den deutschen Historischen Vereinen des 19. Jahrhunderts (Göttingen,
2000); Celia Applegate, A Nation of Provincials: The German Idea of Heimat (Berkeley, CA,
1990), 197–227; Wille Kay Dohnke, “Propaganda für die Nazis – auf Platt Volkes Mund
und Führer”, in Ministerium für Wissenschaft, Forschung und Kultur des Landes Schleswig-
old local political tendency toward volatility, radical populism … A travestied

Jacobinism, stripped of concern for liberty or civic virtue.”8 Here I would like
to introduce the idea that stories (narratives) may guide action, that people
construct identities (however multiple and changing) by locating themselves or
being located within a repertoire of interconnected stories, that “‘experience’ is
constituted through narratives, and that people are guided to act in certain ways,
and not others, on the basis of projections, expectations, and memories derived
from a multiplicity of available social, public and cultural narratives”.9 I think
we must adopt the approach of first looking at the actual narrative patterns of
the past, and then at the kinds of identity these convey. To some degree, this
approach contradicts the old, class-based theory that we have first to arrive at a
definition of a class and then decide whether the narratives facilitate or hinder
the class thus defined.10
The “Subculture” Response
The cultural phenomenon called popular liberalism in Catholic south Germany

in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries also represents a kind of
response: in the nineteenth century, a response to the dominant (ultramontane)
Catholic culture as well as to the dominant north German–Prussian–Protestant–
liberal culture. Later on, in the late 1920s and early 1930s, the popular radical-
liberalism in the National Socialist chapters was a response to the official Nazi
ideology and activities to be found in Munich, Berlin and many northern rural
areas, to the Catholic Church and to the Weimar central administration. I
would describe this reaction as a “subculture response”. Following the British
cultural scholars Sarah Thornton and Dick Hebdige among the influential
theorists of contemporary popular culture, I would describe popular liberalism
in Catholic south Germany as a cultural phenomenon which represents a “group
of people that have something in common with each other which distinguishes
them in a significant way from the members of other social groups … What is
Holstein (ed.), Ende und Anfang im Mai 1945. Das Journal zur Wanderausstellung des Landes
Schleswig-Holstein (Kiel, 1995), 147–151.
8
Applegate, A Nation of Provincials, 184.
9
Margaret Somers and Gloria Gibson, “Reclaiming the Epistemological ‘Other’:
Narrative and the Social Constitution of Identity”, in C. Calhoun (ed.), Social Theory and the
Politics of Identity (Oxford, 1994), 37–99 (here at 65ff.)
10
Patrick Joyce, Democratic Subjects: The Self and the Social in 19th Century England
(Cambridge, 1994), 157.
Methodological Considerations 37
unique [about them] is … also that there is something innately oppositional in

[their] world … which [is] perceived to deviate from the normative ideals …”
Subcultures, in other words, are condemned to and/or enjoy a consciousness
of “otherness” or difference. Hebdige sees a subculture as a “noise (as opposed
to sound): interference in the orderly sequence which leads real events …
spectacular subcultures express forbidden contents in forbidden forms …” A
subculture is a “declaration of independence, of otherness, of alien intent. And at
the same time it is also a confirmation of the fact of powerlessness, a celebration
of impotence.” According to Hebdige, the “subculture response” is “neither
simply affirmation nor refusal … It is neither simply resistance against some
external order nor straightforward conformity with the parent [or dominant
– O.H.] culture”.11 Although their radical anti-clerical activities were certainly
an act of revolt against the Catholic Church and its agencies, the south German
radical liberals (many of whom were Catholics) never tried to rebel against the
Prussian-liberal ideas dominant in the nineteenth century as they did against the
National Socialist culture in Munich or Nürnberg in the early 1930s. They were
always trying to express their independence, their otherness as south German
radicals with a long tradition of revolt against political Catholicism, against
ultramontanism, against the establishment, against the state, but always within
the framework of the hegemonic politics and culture.
To sum up the first section of this book, I would like to suggest a new
framework for understanding the German men and women, voters and party
members, whether in the popular radical-liberal camp or the National Socialist
camp. In the 1920s and maybe before, the political aspirations of social groups
can no longer be regarded simply in terms of class or party loyalty, but must
also be considered in terms of culture. Their orientations bear the traces of
past traditions, linguistic conventions and cultural phenomena which became
integral parts of the reality. Moreover, individuals entered the public sphere with
a variety of social identities. One can speak of the multi-dimensional behaviour
of the group or the individual in his/her political activities.12 That means that as
late as the 1920s and the early 1930s, one could be a liberal or radical liberal (in
the nineteenth-century sense of the word) and still support National Socialism,
and by exploring his memories, traditions and cultural activities, we can discover
11
Sarah Thornton, “General Introduction”, in Ken Gelder and Sarah Thornton (eds),
The Subcultures Reader (London, 1997), 1–5; Dick Hebdige, Hiding in the Light: On Images
and Things (London, 1988), 35; idem, Subculture: The Meaning of Style (London, 1979),
90–91, 101.
12
Albert Hirschman, Shifting Involvements: Private Interest and Public Action
(Princeton, NJ, 1979), 119–120.
the vision of such a person. As G. Eley observed, we should study “the ability [of
the Nazi Party – O.H.) to articulate together a diverse and hitherto contradictory
ensemble of ideological appeals … We need to work hard at understanding how
it came to occur”.13
Geoff Eley, “What is Cultural History?” New German Critique, 65 (1995): 35.
13
Part II
The Radical-Liberal Subculture in
Greater Swabia
Chapter 4
The Local Catholic Bourgeoisie:
Anti-Clericalism and Progress
As I explained in the historiographical chapters, the Catholic bourgeoisie I

propose to examine existed on the periphery of the Catholic milieu, or even
outside it altogether. It was not affiliated with either political Catholicism or the
Catholic Church, and its cultural hegemony was so strong that it influenced the
patterns of life of wide segments of the population. It was a cultural formation,
to repeat Blackbourn, that in social and political terms had “more in common
with its National Liberal peers than with the mariolatrous Catholic peasants”.
In order to find such a cultural formation, I will turn to regional research
in order to describe and analyse cultural patterns of behaviour from a distinct
territorial perspective. In the following study, I propose to concentrate on
southern Germany, since the rural Catholic bourgeoisie of this region provides a
striking contrast to its counterparts in western Germany.
In Bavaria, a Catholic bourgeois cultural formation crystallized in Catholic
cities and towns in the years following 1848, the period of the New Era (Neue
Ära) and the age of liberalism leading up to the unification of Germany. This
cultural formation developed a faith that differed from the traditional folk piety
with regard to the Catholic Church. Its members did not, at this time, see the
Catholic faith as providing a binding code of behaviour, or perceive religion
as having any existential significance. The cultural trend was decidedly secular,
and the Enlightenment in northern Germany provided them with a model
for emulation. The burgeoning German book market and the press had their
impact on Bavarian society, as did the proliferation of humanistic gymnasia
(high schools), and the romantic, sentimental, traditional and Baroque culture
of Catholic southern Germany was now weakened. For the bourgeois cultural
formation, secular-liberal ideas had more appeal.1
1
Werner Blessing, “Kirchenfromm – Volksfromm – Weltfromm: Religiosität im
katholischen Bayern”, in Wilfried Loth (ed.), Deutscher Katholizismus im Umbruch zur
Moderne (Stuttgart, 1991); idem, “Eine Krise des Katholizismus im vorigen Jahrhundert.
Das katholische Bürgertum Bayerns und die Religion nach dem ersten Vatikanischen
Konzil”, in Unbekanntes Bayern, vol. 11 (Munich, 1980), 107–125; idem, “Gottesdienst
Understandably, it was the diffusion of liberal-capitalistic economics and the

liberal new social order which caught the attention of the Bavarian Catholic
bourgeoisie, who found the slogans in favour of liberty and progress hard to
resist. The wars of unification towards the close of the 1860s gave the Catholic
bourgeoisie an opportunity to stress their sympathy for national liberalism.
The contradiction between allegiance to a reactionary church and adoption of
a new and modern social order was resolved by relegating the church and its
leaders to the domain of private life. For these people, the marginal role of the
church during the period of unification obviated the need to choose between
the Roman Catholic Church and the “Religion der Bürger”. The Catholic
bourgeoisie was not limited to the upper echelons of industrialists, the well-
educated and civil servants. The local bourgeoisie of the towns and hamlets
(teachers, council officials, well-to-do residents) also aspired to emulate the
new bourgeois religion in order to attain a higher social standing. The powerful
impact of such liberal Catholic journals as the Münchner Neueste Nachrichten
on the urban and rural Catholic bourgeoisie went far in creating the “golden
years” of the liberal Catholics of Bavaria between the 1860s and 1890s. Changes
in consumer patterns and the growing potential for exploiting the print media
also reinforced their self-confidence.2
Together with this group there were many members of the bourgeoisie
who still attended church services every Sunday and who duly performed
their religious duties at Easter. They took part in pilgrimages, read the church
press and voted for the Centre Party. They were pious as far as the church was
concerned, but eminently bourgeois in everything that pertained to their social
standing. Both of these groups were characteristic of the Bavarian bourgeoisie,
and opposed to the anti-clerical group of “Old Catholics” (Alt Katholiken) which
turned its back on the Roman Catholic Church following the elevation of papal
infallibility to the status of a dogma. This group cannot be termed anti-clerical,
and if some of them did join the Old Catholics, they generally returned to the
als Sakularisierung? Zu Krieg, Nation und Politik im bayerischen Protestantismus des 19.
Jahrhunderts”, in Wolfgang Schieder (ed.), Religion und Gesellschaft im 19. Jahrhundert
(Stuttgart, 1993), 233, 248.
2
Werner Schrobak, “Politische Parteien, Verbände und Vereine in Regensburg
1869–1914” (Teil 2), Verhandlungen des historischen Vereins für Oberpfalz und Regensburg,
20 (1980): 306–362; Blessing, “Kirchenfromm”, 108; Christa Stache, Bürgerlicher
Liberalismus und katholischer Konservatismus in Bayern 1867–1871 (Frankfurt, 1981);
Lothar Kuppelmayr, “Die Tageszeitungen in Bayern (1867–1972)”, in Max Spindler (ed.),
Bayerische Geschichte im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert 1800–1970 (Munich, 1978), 1150ff.;
Wolfgang Zorn, “Das Augsbürger Patriziat im Königreich Bayern 1806–1918”, Zeitschrift
des Historischen Vereins für Schwaben, 87 (1994), 167–188.
The Local Catholic Bourgeoisie 43
Roman Catholic Church by the end of the 1870s. Distinguishing between the
pious Catholic bourgeoisie and the liberal Catholic bourgeoisie is not always
easy, and individual factors of education, living quarters and places of work must
be considered. Be that as it may, the return of many liberal Catholic bourgeois
to the church (Kirchlichkeit) constitutes a striking phenomenon of the late
nineteenth century. This phenomenon can be traced to the consolidation of the
Catholic milieu throughout Germany.
Similar groups can be discerned in South Baden along Lake Konstanz. The
bourgeoisie which sprang up on the periphery of Baden prided itself on its
progressive and liberal, innovative and modern outlook.3 A number of factors
contributed to this self-image: competition with the industrialized region
of North Baden, the desire to create a local independence in the face of the
centralizing tendencies emanating from Karlsruhe, and the impact of the region’s
nascent tourist industry. During the 1860s and 1870s this cultural formation
waged a successful struggle against the local Catholic Church. The battle over
cultural hegemony found expression first and foremost in the desire to gain
control of the church foundations (Stiftungen) and to assume responsibility for
the city poor, with the aim of ensuring maximum freedom for utilizing church
property. This would create a basis for instituting free economic enterprise and
winning the sympathy of the lower strata of society.4
During the 1860s, the majority of local residents seem to have supported the
bourgeois goals of the town of Konstanz. Among other things, socio-economic
reforms caused a decline in the power of the Catholic Church and it drew
3
Dieter Schott, Die Konstanzer Gesellschaft, 1918–1924. Der Kampf um Hegemonie
zwischen Novemberrevolution und Inflation (Konstanz, 1989), 26–53; Dieter Bellmann,
“Der Liberalismus im Seekreis (1860–1870). Durchsetzungversuch und Scheitern eines
regional Eigensteandigen Entwicklungskonzeptes”, in Gert Zang, Provinzialisierung
einer Region (Frankfurt am Main, 1978), 183–263; Gert Zang, “Die Konstanzer
Kreisselbstverwaltung (1865–1878)”, in Zang, Provinzialisierung einer Region, 265–305;
idem, “Der kurze Sommer des Liberalismus in Überlingen”, in Dieter Schott and Werner
Trapp (eds), Seegrunde (Weingarten, 1984), 147–163; Otto Ammon, Zur Geschichte der
liberalen Parteien in Baden (Konstanz, 1880); Konrad Gröber, “Der Altkatholizismus in
Konstanz”, Freiburger Diözesan-Archiv, 39 (1911): 135–198; idem, “Der Altkatholizismus in
Messkirch”, Freiburger Diözesan-Archiv, 40 (1912): 97–134; Erwin Keller, Die altkatholische
Bewegung in Tiengen/Oberrhein (Wangen im Allgäu, 1961); Josef F. Waldmeier, Ein Beitrag
zur Geschichte des Altkatholizismus in Sudbaden. Der altkatholische Klerus von Sackingen,
Waldshut und Zell im Wiesental (Aarau, 1984).
4
Bellmann, “Liberalismus”, 202ff.; Schott, Konstanzer Gesellschaft, 26–28; Heiner
Siefken, Verkehrspolitik und liberales Bürgertum in Konstanz im 19. Jahrhundert (Konstanz,
1975); Claudia Koelling, Liberale Agrarpolitik im Seekreis (1860–1880), Strategie und
Probleme ihrer Durchsetzung, Habilitationsschrift, University of Konstanz, 1979.
support from the labour associations (associations for workers’ further education
[Arbeiterfortbildungsvereine]), the village people outside the town, and, of
course, the local middle class. The bourgeoisie employed strategies which were
diversified in the extreme, making skilful use of the press and visiting tourists, as
well as convening evening meetings in taverns as civic evenings (Bürgerabende).
They demanded the replacement of teachers and school reforms, and created
disturbances during public events and sermons. Unlike in Bavaria, however, “the
Liberal spring” in Konstanz proved to be short-lived. For various reasons, the
local bourgeoisie alienated a considerable portion of the Catholic populace.
The Catholics disliked both the bourgeoisie’s focus on national problems
in the wake of the Prusso-Austrian War and the establishment of the North-
German Confederation, and their policies on everything concerning the church
foundations and municipal common lands (Allmende). Of greater impact,
however, was the economic crisis which struck southern Germany in 1867–
1868 and which recurred even more harshly in 1873. The establishment of the
“Old Catholic” Church alienated a large group of supporters. The Kulturkampf
also contributed to gathering opposition to the hegemony of the bourgeoisie.5
Politically, the bourgeoisie splintered between members and supporters of the
Old Catholics – many of them supporters of the liberal, national and Leftist
parties – and those who either returned to the Baden Catholic Party (Badische
Volkspartei, later the Badische Zentrum) or were now supporting them for the
first time. However, apart from a few members of the Old Catholics, most of
the local bourgeoisie accepted the authority of the Roman Catholic Church in
everything connected to behaviour patterns in the cultural and public spheres.
True, many of the bourgeoisie voiced their reservations regarding the winds of
ultramontanism now affecting the local clergy, but they neither withdrew their
support from the Zentrum and the church foundations nor absented themselves
from church on Sundays and Catholic holidays.
Once again, as happened in Bavaria from the 1880s onwards, the bourgeoisie
in Konstanz exhibited a strong tendency both to return to the bosom of the
church and to identify with popular Catholicism. This tacitly implied a kind of
double standard, for it combined capitalistic economic activity with political-
cultural activities that were firmly anchored in political Catholicism. The
elections to the local council in 1912, which were still held according to the
three-class suffrage system, serve as an example. The wealthier residents of the
city gave the Zentrum nearly 40 per cent of their support, with the National
Liberals and the Progressive Party drawing some 60 per cent of the vote.
5
Schott, Konstanzer Gesellschaft, 35–47; Zang, “Der kurze Sommer”.
However, this political behaviour pattern did not reflect the cultural patterns of
the local bourgeoisie.6
A different Catholic bourgeoisie from that of Bavaria and Lake Konstanz
can be found in some nearby rural districts (with a more than 80 per cent
Catholic population) in Greater Swabia.7 This group will be the focus of this
study. I will first examine its members’ exceptional political behaviour. In
Greater Swabia, class loyalties were present that transcended religious loyalties
and there was significant Catholic support for the German National Liberal
Party from the 1870s until the outbreak of the First World War. In contrast to
the Rhineland, the Catholic bourgeoisie in Greater Swabia were not alienated
from the National Liberal Party during the Kulturkampf. In the 1871 Reichstag
elections, the National Liberal candidates gained their best results in Greater
Swabia. Although by the 1890s the regional inhabitants had increasingly given
6
Schott, Konstanzer Gesellschaft, 52–53.
7
Researchers who noticed, but did not concentrate on, the peculiarities of Greater
Swabia are: Christoph Weber, “Eine starke enggeschlossene Phalanx”: Der politische
Katholizismus und die erste deutsche Reichstagswahl 1871 (Essen, 1992), 67, 135; Helmut
W. Smith, German Nationalism and Religious Conflict: Culture, Ideology, Politics, 1870–
1914 (Princeton, 1995), 107, 149; Jonathan Sperber, Political Catholicism in Nineteenth-
Century Germany (Princeton, 1984), 291–292; Karl Rohe, Wahlen und Wahlertraditionen
in Deutschland (Frankfurt, 1992),76–77, 156–157; Carl Zangerl, “Courting the Catholic
Vote: The Center-Party in Baden 1903–1913”, Central European History, 10/3 (1977):
233–234, 238; Dietrich Thränhardt, Wahlen und politische Strukturen in Bayern 1848–
1953 (Düsseldorf, 1973), 71–78; Jurgen Winkler, Sozialstruktur, politische Traditionen
und Liberalismus: eine empirische Langsschnittstudie zur Wahlentwicklung in Deutschland
1871–1933 (Opladen, 1994), 337. On election results in the areas, see Rohe, Wahlen und
Wahlertraditionen in Deutschland, 76–77. In 1871 the National Liberal Party received 60 per
cent of the votes in Wahlkreis Immenstadt in the Allgäu (national average = 30.1). In 1887
the party received 53 per cent (national average = 22.1) and in 1912 40.5 per cent (Stichwahl
= 52 per cent; national average = 13.6). In the same Wahlkreis in 1912, the Zentrum received
46.3 per cent of the votes (Stichwahl = 48 per cent), and the SPD 13.1 per cent. In the district
(Bezirk) of Bonndorf in the southern part of South Baden in 1871, the National Liberal Party
received 80 per cent of the votes. In 1893 it received 65 per cent and in 1912 38.4 per cent of
the votes – well above the Baden state average. In the district of Neustadt in 1877, the party
still received 57 per cent of the votes, in 1893 48.5 per cent and in 1912 only 26.2 per cent.
For election results in Allgäu, see Thränhardt, Wahlen und politische Strukturen, 71–78; for
South Baden, see Oded Heilbronner, “Freiheit, Gleichheit, Brüderlichkeit und das Dynamit”:
Populäre Kultur, populärer Liberalismus und das Bürgertum in ländlichen Deutschland von
den 1860ern bis zu den 1930ern (Munich, 2006); idem, “‘Long Live Freedom, Equality,
Fraternity and Dynamite’ Popular Liberalism in Germany in the Second Half of the 19th
Century and the Early 20th Century (Until the Early 1930s)”, Journal of Social History, 39/1
(2005): 181–220.
their support to the Baden and Bavarian Centre Party, the National Liberal
Party still commanded unusual support in these regions when compared with
the national average. Since this was the case, one of the features of the regular
voting patterns of the German bourgeoisie was to be seen in a markedly Catholic
region. A caveat is in order here: does a political deviation from the characteristic
traits of the Catholic milieu necessarily indicate a bourgeois cultural formation?
Obviously not. Yet an examination of socio-economic and cultural patterns of
behaviour in Greater Swabia does testify to a deviation from the behavioural
norms of the Catholic milieu. It is this issue which shall now be addressed.
The cultural traditions of both regions go far in explaining the significance of
these unique electoral patterns. Until the 1820s the South Baden region belonged
to the bishopric of Konstanz, known for its spirit of reform and enlightenment.
The Catholic Enlightenment had begun to flourish in the bishopric at the
beginning of the eighteenth century. Paramount to its aims was the desire to
raise the educational level of the clergy, emphasizing modern education for the
priests within its jurisdiction. Reforms inaugurated during that period were
made in the spirit of Vernunftreligion: free will, tolerance, the importance of the
individual, and inner religious conviction.8 Most of the clergy active in South
Baden identified with this approach at least until the 1850s and 1860s. This
was long after the Konstanz bishopric had been dismantled and also long before
the establishment of the conservative Freiburg bishopric. The ultramontanism
upheld by the latter stressed the importance of the pope and a strengthened bond
with Rome, as well as belief in the traditional hierarchical order and affirmation
of family, chastity and sentiment. Opposition to modernism and liberalism was
inherent in this line of thinking, and the priest was perceived as the community’s
institutional authority par excellence. Modern secular education and upbringing
were neglected in the desire to uphold the pre-industrial social order.
The Allgäu region boasted several large towns (Kempten, Kaufbeuren,
Lindau, Memmingen) which had a prominent Protestant minority (in
Memmingen they were the majority) and a tradition of political and religious
independence. In the centre of my study are many small towns (Sonthofen,
Ffissen, Weiler, Immenstadt, Lindenberg, to name just a few) and villages with
absolute Catholic majorities. Politically and economically, the region looked
toward Switzerland and the Tyrol. Annexation of the region to Bavaria in the
first decade of the nineteenth century created antipathy towards the Bavarian
Karl H. Braun, “Konstanzer Traditionen im Erzbistum Freiburg”, Freiburger Diözesan
8
Archiv, 110 (1980): 26–28; I. Götz von Olenhusen, Klerus und abweichendes Verhalten. Zur
Sozialgeschichte katholischer Priester im 19. Jahrhundert: Die Erzdiözese Freiburg (Göttingen,
1994), chapter 1.
royal house and aroused feelings of particularism. Aversion to the Catholic royal
house of Bavaria, champion of the pope and of Austria, contributed to anti-
clerical sentiments and opposition to ultramontanism in the Allgäu region.9
Two regions served as the hub of Catholic anti-church activity as far back
as the 1848 revolution. The Allgäu region in general, and the town of Kempten
in particular, constituted a centre for the activity of the Democratic Liberal
Party, most of whose members were Catholic. In this region antipathy to the
Catholic Church was rooted in the 1525 Peasants’ War and resentment over
church support of the partition and appropriation of peasant holdings in the
late eighteenth century.10
The South Baden region, especially its southern part, launched activities
against the Catholic Church,11 and both regions experienced repressive
measures in the reactionary period following the revolution of 1848.12 The
impetus for this protest activity came from groups formed by members of
the bourgeoisie. In the Allgäu they came from Catholic as well as Protestant
professionals and local civil servants schooled in the tradition of municipal
sovereignty of the local imperial cities (Kempten, Kaufbeuren, Memmingen).
9
Heinz Gollwitzer, “Die politische Landschaft in der deutschen Geschichte des
19./20. Jahrhunderts. Eine Skizze zum deutschen Regionalismus”, Zeitschrift für Bayerische
Landesgeschichte, 27 (1964): 534–535; Karl Bachmann, Die Volksbewegung 1848/49 im
Allgäu und ihre Vorläufer, Dissertation, Erlangen, 1954, chapter 1; Fried Pankraz, “‘Schwaben
in Altbayern’. Ein Beitrag zur historischen Regionalismusforschung”, in Dieter Albrecht et
al. (eds), Forschungen zur bayerischen Geschichte (Frankfurt, Berlin and Bern, 1993), 321–
331; Martina Steber, Ethnische Gewissheiten: Die Ordnung des Regionalen im bayerischen
Schwaben vom Kaiserreich bis zum NS-Regime (Göttingen, 2010), 71–78.
10
Karl Filser, “Industrialisierung und Urbanisierung: Kempten 1850 bis 1918”, in
Volker Dotterweich and Karl Filser (eds), Geschichte der Stadt Kempten (Kempten, 1989),
390–395; Dietmar Nickel, Die Revolution 1848/49 in Augsburg und Bayerisch-Schwaben
(Augsburg, 1965); Bachmann, Die Volksbewegung.
11
Josef Becker, Liberaler Staat und Kirche in der Ära von Reichsgrundung und
Kulturkampf (Mainz, 1973), 135; Clemens Rehm, Die katholische Kirche in der Erzdiözese
Freiburg während der Revolution 1848/49 (Munich, 1987), 19–20; Götz von Olenhusen,
Klerus und abweichendes Verhalten, 210–217, 305ff.
12
Franz Fettinger and Franz Beha, Auf dem Hohen Wald. Heimatgeschichte
von Eisenbach, Bubenbach und Oberbrand (Eisenbach, 1991), 473–474; Paul Nolte,
“Gemeindeliberalismus. Zur lokalen Entstehung und sozialen Verankerung der liberalen
Partei in Baden 1831–1855”, Historische Zeitschrift, 252 (1991): 86ff.; Paul Revellio,
“Die Revolution der Jahre 1848 und 1849, vornehmlich in den Amtsstädten Villingen,
Donaueschingen und Hufingen”, Schriften des Vereins für Geschichte und Naturgeschichte der
Baar, 22 (1950): 219ff.; Generallandesarchiv Karlsruhe (GLAK) 236/3109, Bericht des
Amtes Donaueschingen. For post-1848 Allgäu, see Nickel, Revolution 1848/49 in Augsburg
(n. 50), 135ff.
Yet most prominent among these anti-church bourgeois activists of the Allgäu
were prosperous local peasants who engaged in cattle and dairy farming, and
professional people in the small towns and villages. In South Baden they were
tavern-keepers, owners of small factories, private entrepreneurs and peasants
with large holdings (mainly in the south).13 Geographical factors help clarify the
reason for this oppositional ferment. Remote and mountainous, the harshness
of the climate not infrequently cut these regions off from their surroundings.14
The sense of geographical “strangulation” necessarily affected patterns of local
socio-economic activity and contributed to the “ghetto-like” consciousness
of some parts of the population, especially in those segments requiring closer
economic ties with inhabitants of neighbouring areas.15 All the traditions and
religious behaviour patterns in the spirit of ultramontanism which the church
strove to disseminate throughout the regions during the 1850s were deplored as
social and spiritual fetters by the entrepreneurs and members of the middle class.
For this cultural sector, the church’s position in the stormy “church controversy”
(Kirchenstreit), which centred around the educational system in Baden at
the beginning of the 1850s, bore eloquent witness to the conservatism of the
Freiburg bishopric.16
G. Nebinger, “Das Bürgertum der Reichsstadt Kempten”, Allgäuer Geschichtsfreund,
13
89 (1989), 27–52. For liberal notables in the Allgäu, see Nickel, Revolution 1848/49 in
Augsburg, 233–250. For resistance in South Baden, see Revellio, “Revolution”; Fettinger
and Beha, Auf dem Hohen Wald, 472; Ingeborg Wittmer, Urwahlen im Oberrheinkreis des
Großherzogtums Baden (1846–1868) (Frankfurt am Main, 1983), 571–574; Hermann
Baier, “Die politische und wirtschaftliche Lage im Amtsbezirk Donaueschingen im Jahre
1852”, Zeitschrift für die Geschichte des Oberrheines, 80 (1928): 90 (i.g. Bachheim); Detlef
Herbner, Titisee-Neustadt. Stadt im Schwarzwald (Freiburg: Rombach, 1996), 199–206.
14
Fettinger and Beha, Auf dem Hohen Wald, 503; Staatsarchiv Freiburg (StaaF),
Bezirksamt (BZ) Villingen, 1979/87 P.7 Nr. 1929 - BZ - Triberg Jahresbericht 1906/1912,
97. For conditions in the 1920s, see Erzbischöfliches Archiv Freiburg (ErzAF) B2/ 55-82 -
Katholischer Volksverein, Tätigkeitsbericht 1920/21.
15
Romulus Kreuzer, Zeitgeschichte von Furtwangen und Umgebung (Villingen, 1880),
chapter 10; F. Schauenburg, Der Holzhandel des badischen Schwarzwaldes, PhD Thesis,
University of Heidelberg, 1899, chapters 4 and 5. See their desire for railway connections
with other parts of Baden and Europe in Die Schwarzwälder, 22/8/1865.
16
Robert Siedle, Zum dreissigjährigen Bestehen der Firma S. Siedle & Sohne
in Furtwangen, 1884–1914 (Furtwangen, 1914), 237–238; Walter Tritscheller, Die
Lenzkircher Handelsgesellschaft (Tübingen, 1922); Hochwächter auf dem Schwarzwald
(Hoch. Schw.), 5/6/1870; Götz von Olenhusen, Klerus und abweichendes Verhalten, 309–
314; Becker, Liberaler Staat; Die Schwarzwälder, 25/2/1868. For the Allgäu, see Josef
Rottenkolber, Geschichte des Allgäus. Das 19. Jahrhundert (Munich, 1938), 232–233;
Filser, “Industrialisierung”, 390–392; Kemptner Zeitung, 9/5/1869. See also Josef Mooser,
“Das katholische Vereinswesen in der Diozese Paderborn um 1900”, Westfalische Zeitschrift,
Just who were the local bourgeoisie of Greater Swabia? In the mid nineteenth
century we find in South Baden a broad socio-cultural formation of clock factory
owners, most of whom lived in the villages close to their factories. In Eisenbach
there were 12 factory owners, in Gütenbach 16 and in Vöhrenbach 24. There
were also many merchants throughout the region. In the town of Triberg there
were 11 shopkeepers (nearly 1 per cent of the total population), in the village
of Löffmgen there were 12 merchants (1.2 per cent of the population) and in
the village of Kappel three (0.7 per cent). Tavern-keepers (Wirte) were also
numerous: Eisenbach had six, Schollach had three and Viertaler (known today as
Titisee) had eight. Bourgeois families such as the Faller, Thoma and Tritscheller
(all owners of clock factories) of Lenzkirch, the Blessing (owners of a musical
instrument factory) from the village of Unterkirnach, or the Benetz (owners of
a screw factory) from the village of Falkau, dominated the social scene in the
southern region of South Baden.17 This socio-cultural formation regarded the
liberal bourgeoisie – so influential in Bavaria and Baden – as a lever for realizing
its economic and political hopes. The laws of Freizügigkeitsgesetz (freedom of
movement), Gewerbefreiheitsgesetz (freedom of occupation) and the abolition
of the guilds were only some of those initiated by liberals in Bavaria and Baden
in the 1850s and 1860s. These laws contributed to the high expectations of
the bourgeoisie in the remote regions of Greater Swabia, as they anticipated
the end of their isolation. For example, they sparked the Landtag debate in
Baden over the construction of the Donaueschingen–Freiburg railway via the
Hochschwarzwald, in addition to the already existing Offenburg–Villingen line
via Triberg. The Catholic bourgeoisie saw these railways as the physical means by
which they could link up with the liberal Protestant bourgeoisie in Baden, and
as a factor that would improve their economic situation by increasing the flow of
141 (1991): 448; Winfrid Halder, Katholische Vereine in Baden und Württemberg 1848–
1914 (Paderborn, 1994), 82–106. For a similar situation in Württemberg, see Christel
Kohle-Hezinger, “Religion als Protest. Zur Dissoziation kirchlicher und bürgerlicher
Öffentlichkeit”, Zeitschrift für Volkskunde, 82 (1986): 58ff.
17
Schwarzwälder Adress-Kalender für das Jahr 1860 (Neustadt, 1862), 28f.; Kurt
Blessing, Die Familie Blessing und das Orchestrion: Entstehung und Entwicklung der
Orchestrion-Industrie in Unterkirchnach in Schwarzwald (Neustadt an der Aisch, 1983);
GLAK, 366/1933/7-Nr.21 - Der Streik in der Draht und Schraubenfabrik Falkau/Schw. -
29.4.1910. For other South Baden bourgeois families, see, for example, Leopold Schieble,
“Der Hufinger Lowenwirt. Joh. Gg. Franklin und seine Familie”, Badische Familienkunde,
7 (1964): 47–75, 10 (1967): 91–107; Walter Tritscheller, “Geschichte der Familie Gumpp.
Ein Beitrag zur Heimatgeschichte d. Stadt Bräunlingen”, Mein Heimat, 22 (1935): 112–122;
O.E. Sutter, Hotel “Adler Post” Neustadt, Festgabe zum Jubiläum der Fam. Ketterer (Steinhardt,
1950).
tourists and pilgrims.18 These expectations deepened the rift with the Catholic
Church, which so fervently opposed politically motivated liberal economic
measures. In the eyes of the local bourgeoisie, this opposition only served to
confirm the church’s image as an outdated institution which undermined the
spirit of the liberal New Era.
Baden’s liberal legislation of the 1850s and 1860s also helped to strengthen
the connection between the South Baden bourgeoisie and that of the Baden
Protestants in another way. Many farms in the region had long complied
with the “Closed Farm Law” (Geschlossenes Hofgüterrecht), which did not
recognize the partition of the patrimonial farm as practised, for example, in
the Rhine valley. Instead, it bestowed the entire holding upon the youngest
son, facing the other family members with the decision either to remain on
the land as farm workers or craftsmen, or to try their luck elsewhere. This law
contributed to greater individualization (which already existed, mainly for
climatic reasons) among many local young farmers, which in turn helped to
develop a positive attitude toward liberalism, the ideological manifestation
of individualism in mid nineteenth-century bourgeois Europe. Initially, it did
more than that: the laws concerning freedom of trade, freedom of movement
and the dissolution of the guilds now provided new opportunities for those
who had to leave the farm, and helped make the youngest son – the inheritor
of the farm – and other members of the family sympathetic to the idea of
liberalism, particularly economic liberalism, one of the mainstays of the
European bourgeoisie. In the long run, however, these laws generated poverty,
distress and resentment among those family members forced to abandon the
family holdings. These disgruntled souls later helped to constitute the basis of
the Baden Centre Party in South Baden.19
Industrialization reached Greater Swabia relatively late. Only towards the
end of the nineteenth century did towns with an industrial base develop in South
Baden; not until then did a propertied middle class come into being. This new
class relied on the manufacture of clocks and wooden articles, and even more
on the operation of hotels and inns, which made Greater Swabia into a tourist
Die Schwarzwälder, 19/11/1867, 12/12/1868; Echo vom Wald, 1/1/1874.

18
G. Koch, Die gesetzlich geschlossenen Hofgüter des badischen Schwarzwaldes (Tübingen,

19
1900), 107–115; Schwarzwalder Wochenblatt, 6/5/1862; Helmut Sedatis, Liberalismus und

Handwerk in Sudwestdeutschland (Stuttgart, 1979), 92–116, 151–157; Lothar Gall, “Die
partei- und sozialgeschichtliche Problematik des badischen Kulturkampfes”, Zeitschrift
für die Geschichte des Oberrheins, 113 (1965): 118–124; Götz von Olenhusen, Klerus und
abweichendes Verhalten, chapter 7.
and health resort area known ever since throughout Europe.20 This emerging
bourgeoisie adopted socio-economic behaviour patterns characteristic of the
Protestant bourgeoisie in the Baden parts of the Rhine valley (Oftenburg, Lahr,
Freiburg, Lorrach), and was in permanent conflict with the Catholic Church.21
A number of factors contributed to bringing about a partial emergence of
the Catholics from their geographic, socio-economic, and cultural isolation:
(1) improved connections between South Baden and the Protestant cities in its
foothills, especially through the building of railways throughout the region;22
(2) the founding of a syndicated press of a bourgeois nationalist orientation;23
and (3), most important of all, an acceptance of the process of industrialization.
This Catholic “exodus from the ghetto” was also a way of sounding a protest.
The regions of Greater Swabia (like Lake Konstanz and Old Bavaria mentioned
above) had a large concentration of Old Catholic groups which came from
the middle class. They affirmed the capitalistic economic order and supported
the liberal and conservative German parties; their goal was to forge a more
progressive economic and cultural Catholic order, one that would inculcate
cultural values bearing the stamp of the Protestant bourgeois hegemony.24 In
20
For industrial development in South Baden, see Eberhard Gothein,
Wirtschaftsgeschichte des Schwarzwaldes und der angrenzenden Landschaften (Strasbourg,
1892); and also n. 35 below. For the development of industry and tourism in the Allgäu, see
Filser, “Industrialisierung”, 380–382; Rottenkolber, Geschichte des Allgäus, 296ff.; Wolfgang
Zorn, Handels- und Industriegeschichte Bayerisch-Schwabens 1648–1870 (Augsburg, 1961),
176–194; Michael Petzet, Landkreis Sonthofen (Munich, 1964); L. Reinhard, “Die 1865
geplante Fabrikschule”, Kaufbeurer Geschichtsblätter, 6 (1974): 161–165.
21
For the conflict concerning economic questions between the Catholic Church
and the local bourgeoisie in the Black Forest, see Robert Siedle, Funfzig Jahre Furtwangen
(Furtwangen, 1924), chapter 9; StaaF, BZ Neustadt, 20/10/1980, P. 176 - Ortsbereisung
Lenzkirch, 1 May 1898; Pfarrarchiv (PfA) Löffingen – Kirchenvisitationen (Kv) 283 (1907).
In the Allgäu, see L. Weissfloch, “Das Leben in Kaufbeuren und seiner Umgebung in der
Mitte des vorigen Jahrhunderts”, Kaufbeurer Geschichtsblätter, 10/11 (1989): 415–421,
466–471.
22
Eltz Erwein, Die Modernisierung einer Standesherrschaft: Karl Egon III. und das
Haus Fürstenberg in den Jahren nach 1848/49 (Sigmaringen, 1980), 110–112; Kreuzer,
Zeitgeschichte, 198–205; Rottenkolber, Geschichte des Allgäus, 303–305.
23
See my discussion in the following notes.
24
ForOld Catholics in South Baden, see Badischen Statistischen Landesamt (ed.),
Die Religionszugehorigkeit in Baden (Freiburg, 1928), 69–71; Siedle, Zum dreissigjährigen
Bestehen, 116–121; ErzAF. B/2-17/7, Historische Entwicklung der Altkatholiken in Baden;
Götz von Olenhusen, Klerus und abweichendes Verhalten, 385–387; see also n. 30 below. In
the Allgäu, see Rottenkolber, Geschichte des Allgäus; Filser, “Industrialisierung”, 392. For the
cultural hegemony of the Protestant bourgeoisie, see Thomas Nipperdey, Deutsche Geschichte
1866–1918, vol. 1: Arbeitswelt und Bürgergiest (Munich, 1990), 394, 756.
Bavaria and the Rhineland they represented the most striking testimony to the
presence of the Catholic bourgeoisie.25 This group did not preach renunciation
of Catholicism; quite the contrary. They saw themselves as upholding the true
Catholicism, blaming the church for the backwardness and socio-economic
isolation of German Catholics. Moreover, they regarded themselves as pioneers
of a modern Catholicism and set their sights on strengthening the bond with
their social surroundings.
As previously stated, many Old Catholics lived in the regions of Greater
Swabia. In a number of villages in South Baden they formed almost 20 per
cent of the population (for example, Gütenbach). In 1872 some 400 families in
Kempten were Old Catholics, some 30 per cent of them residing in the nearby
village of Walterhofen.26 Yet their attitude was typical of many other members
of the Catholic bourgeoisie who were not Old Catholics. These might be termed
anti-clerical bourgeois who were not part of the Catholic public sphere. From
their point of view, relations with the Almighty demanded neither public
expression nor the mediation of church and priest. Nor did it require accepting
the political, social, and cultural norms of the established church. Education,
a liberal spirit, enlightenment, nationalism, the worth of the individual: these
were but a few of the values claimed by members of this group.27
Catholic bourgeois activity in Greater Swabia is most strikingly characterized,
as mentioned in Part I, by the activities of the bourgeois voluntary associations
(Vereine). The Verein was able to accommodate, rather than displace, the more
traditional bonds of community life. Small towns and even farming villages
found it easier to organize Vereine of all kinds. This is especially true of Baden,
where the liberal community ordinances gave municipal status to hundreds of
hamlets and villages. In these communities there was no obvious demarcation
line between “traditional” and “Bürgerliche” forms of organization. The latter
were merely superimposed on the former. Social relations and leisure activities,
whether in the home, village or church, were all imbued with the national and
Olaf Blaschke, “Der Altkatholizismus 1879 bis 1945. Nationalismus, Antisemitismus

25
und Nationalsozialismus”, Historische Zeitschrift, 261 (1995): 51–99; Sperber, Popular

Catholicism, 233–240; Thomas Mergel, Zwischen Klasse und Konfession: Katholisches
Bürgertum im Rheinland, 1794–1914 (Gottingen, 1994), chapter III, 4; Blessing,
“Kirchenfromm”, 106–107.
26
Badischen Statistischen Landesamt (ed.), Religionszugehorigkeit; Rottenkolber,
Geschichte des Allgäus; Götz von Olenhusen, Klerus und abweichendes Verhalten, 385–387.
27
Becker, Liberaler Staat, 306–309, 331–342.
liberal spirit, with all the symbols, rituals and ceremonies of the bourgeois
(“bürgerliche”) culture characterized by Vereine (Vereinswesen).28
Among Catholics, all this came about relatively late. The Protestant
bourgeoisie had inaugurated Vereine for social and cultural purposes at the
beginning of the nineteenth century, and by mid century the process was fast
gathering steam.29 But as noted, our region’s Vereine were remote and relatively
isolated; cultural and social influences were late in arriving, and industrialization
only reached South Baden at the close of the century. The consolidation of the
tourist industry, the creation of a syndicated newspaper of a national-bourgeois
orientation, the vast support offered to the National Liberal Party and the
firm grip of Old Catholic groups help us to understand why bourgeois Vereine
totally unconnected to the local Catholic milieu of the church flowered during
this period. At the head of the Vereine stood local notables. Though staunchly
Catholic, their primary goal was to extend the socio-economic and cultural life
of the region beyond the limits of Catholic social activity. Similarly, they tried
to gain cultural hegemony and, naturally, to enjoy the economic byproducts
of their activities in the Vereine: the material privileges and influences of an
economic power-broker.30
Though members of the middle class – inn-keepers, burgomasters of villages
and towns, highly placed local officials, factory owners, well-to-do peasants –
would inevitably be in the forefront of Verein leadership, the social composition
of the Vereine ultimately reflected the community in which they existed. A
Verein in a town whose economy was based on clock-making and woodwork
would cull its members mostly from the ranks of the journeymen and master
28
Werner Blessing, “Umwelt und Mentalitat im landlichen Bayern. Eine Skizze zum
Alltagswandel im 19. Jahrhundert”, Archiv für Sozialgeschichte, 19 (1979): 38.
29
See the articles by Otto Dann and Klaus Tenfelde in Otto Dann (ed.), Vereinswesen
und bürgerliche Gesellschaft in Deutschland. Historische Zeitschrift, Supplement 9 (Munich,
1984).
30
Gerhard Würzbacher (ed.), Das Dorf im Spannungsfeld industrieller Entwicklung
(Stuttgart, 1954); Wolfgang Kaschuba and Carola Lipp, Dörfliches Überleben: zur
Geschichte materieller und sozialer Reproduktion ländlicher Gesellschaft im 19. und frühen
20. Jahrhundert (Tübingen, 1982), 594–596. The industrialist Hubert Blessing established,
and was chairman of, the Männergesangsverein in Unterkirnach in the 1850s; see Blessing,
Familie Blessing, 14–15. The industrialist Oskar Ketterer of Furtwangen was the chairman
of the Männergesangsverein and a member of the local council in the 1920s. For the financial
help given to his Verein, see Stadtarchiv (StA) Furtwangen, 322/12a - 1574, and also
Gemeindearchiv (GmdA) Eisenbach X 1, 3/3 - Firma Morat. For the same case in Kempten,
see StA Kempten AA III 1073, especially P. 28, 37.
craftsmen,31 in resort towns primarily from inn-keepers and hoteliers;32 and in

villages where Vereine on the urban-bourgeois pattern were not always to be
found in abundance, the few that did exist were usually established by a rich
local peasant or the village burgomaster, by a city dweller who owned a farm
nearby, or a local inn-keeper. In the village Vereine peasants and agricultural
workers provided the dominant element. Patterns of activity in the Catholic
bourgeois Vereine resembled those of the Protestant regions: gatherings in
the tavern around the “regulars’ table” (Stammtisch), the non-representation
of women, and the use of flags, signs and other emblems characteristic of the
bourgeois Vereine. In addition to this there were the monthly meetings to agree
upon Verein activity, the annual designation of a new chairman and directorship,
participation in inter-regional tournaments, and the use of music as the leitmotif
of Verein activities. Speech was also under Verein jurisdiction, as certain patterns
of diction were adopted and the vocabulary was characterized by popular, almost
folkish, qualities connected to the German landscape.33
Many of the Vereine adopted anti-church phenomena harking back to the days
of the “church controversy”, the battles of church and state and the Kulturkampf
in Baden and Bavaria.34 The events of the Kulturkampf reverberated less intensely
in Greater Swabia than in regions such as the Rhineland, Westphalia, Silesia,
and even central and northern Baden itself.35 The fact that liberal aspirations
StA Neustadt - 3214, Krieger- und Militärverein.

31
100 Jahre Trachtenkapelle Hinterzarten 1874–1974, Hintenzarten, 1975.

32
Jubiläumstage vom 12. bis 15. Juli 1974; Christine Eckert, “Das Vereinsleben der Stadt
Füssen”, Alt-Füssen, 41 (1981): 53–59.
33
StaaF, BZ Neustadt, 1974/31 - 910; Lesegesellschaft Löffingen 1854, BZ Schönau
186 - Verschönerungsverein, Schönau 1895. BZ Villingen 1985/110 - 1636, Vereine in
Schönwald, Turnverein - 19/9/1894; Protokollbuch - Turnverein Schonach - 1883.
34
For South Baden, see Hans Kremer, “Die Krieger- und Militärvereine in der
Innenpolitik des Grossherzogtums Baden (1870–1914)”, Zeitschrift für die Geschichte des
Oberrheins, 133 (1985): 326; Hoch. Schw., 25/2/1871; PfA Bonndorf - 252, 20/6/1928;
ErzAF, B2 - 55/135, 8/10/1930 - Löffingen. For the Allgäu, see Kemptner Zeitung,
4/3/1871; Max Ziegelbauer, “Katholische Kirche und Katholizismus in Memmingen von
1900 bis 1975”, Jahrbuch des Vereins für Augsbürger Bistumsgeschichte, 10 (1976): 392–398;
H. Salm, “Der Kampf gegen das Kurpfuschertum in der Stadt Kaufbeuren vor allem im 19.
Jahrhundert”, Kaufbeurer Geschichtsblätter, 8 (1980): 18–26.
35
The matter of the Kulturkampf in Greater Swabia has not been sufficiently researched.
From some remarks in the secondary literature, one might conclude that the events of the
Kulturkampf in those regions were less strongly felt than in other regions like the Rheinland or
Westphalia. For South Baden, see Becker, Liberaler Staat; Hermann Lauer, Kirchengeschichte
der Baar (Donaueschingen, 1928), 360–364; and also the local press: Freiburger Katholisches
Kirchenblatt, 11/11/1876. For the Allgäu, see Rottenkolber, Geschichte des Allgäus, 226. For
did not spark a popular Catholic protest movement in these regions served to
underscore the weight of the local bourgeois Catholic forces. And indeed, the
upheavals of the Kulturkampf, so much less perceptible in Greater Swabia, only
contributed to a firmer entrenchment of the National Liberal Party. Together
with this, there were the movements of anti-clerical peasants and a weakening
of political Catholicism, a factor that began to make itself felt only at the turn
of the twentieth century, with the establishment of workers’ and Catholic,
church-oriented Vereine. This new phenomenon bore eloquent testimony to
the increasing disenchantment of the supporters of the bourgeois hegemony:
workers, small and middle-sized farmers, artisans and, of course, women.
In addition to anti-clerical rhetoric, the bourgeois Vereine were characterized
by a spirit of marked anti-socialism. This prominent trait of the German
bourgeoisie was also to be found among the bourgeoisie of Greater Swabia and
its representative Vereine.36 The more the processes of industrialization took root
in the region, and the scope of activity in the workers’ Vereine increased, the
more hostile the bourgeoisie became to them.37 As in the Protestant bourgeoisie,
we find in anti-socialist rhetoric in Greater Swabia support for the policies of
imperialism, the expansion of the navy, and even elements of nationalism. This
latter trait was especially marked in times of international crisis. However,
these ideological characteristics were not restricted to the Catholic bourgeoisie
of Greater Swabia. Similar voices were also to be heard among the Catholic
bourgeoisie involved in political Catholicism: party leaders, members of
parliament and high office holders in the Catholic Centre Party.38 Obviously,
anti-clerical political groups in the Allgäu, see Thränhardt, Wahlen; Ian Farr, “Populism in
the Countryside: The Peasant Leagues in Bavaria in the 1890s”, in Richard J. Evans (ed.),
Society and Politics in Wilhelmine Germany (London, 1978), 136–159. For the problems
of the foundation of political Catholicism in South Baden, see Oded Heilbronner, Die
Achillesferse des deutschen Katholizismus. Die katholische Gesellschaft der Weimarer Republik
im Spannungsfeld von Krise und Nationalsozialismus. Die Schwarzwaldregion als Fallstudie
(Stuttgart, 1998); and also PfA Bonndorf - 315 Seelsorge, 254 - 6/12/1924, 252 - 20/6/1928.
36
Triberger Bote (TB), 10/12/1931 - Schonach; Werner Hamm, Chronik der Gemeinde
Schonach im Schwarzwald (Karlsruhe, 1981), 568–569; Hans-Peter Zimmermann, “Der
feste Wall gegen die rote Flut”. Kriegervereine in Schleswig-Holstein 1869–1914 (Neumünster,
1989).
37
For the foundation of the Arbeitervereine in the Black Forest, see StaaF, BZ Villingen,
1979/82 - Nr. 1579, Vereinsstatistik in Triberg - June 1904; StaaF, BZ Oberkirch, Nr. 394 -
Verzeichnis - Oppenau. For the Allgäu, see Albert Wehr (ed.), 1891–1981. 90 Jahre SPD in
Kempten (Kempten, 1981); Eckert, “Das Vereinsleben der Stadt Füssen”.
38
Wilfried Loth, “Soziale Bewegungen im Katholizismus des Kaiserreichs”, Geschichte
und Gesellschaft, 17/3 (1991): 296–297.
such sentiments were no less prevalent among the leadership of the Catholic
Church in Germany.
The liberal-bourgeois press also enjoyed widespread distribution in the
regions of Greater Swabia. In South Baden, newspapers affiliated with the
church and political Catholicism were only established at the beginning of the
twentieth century. Thus the Donaubote of Donaueschingen was founded in
1897, the Furtwanger Nachrichten in 1900. The daily National Liberal press
(for example, the Schwarzwälder Tagblatt and the Hochwächter) was established
in the region in the 1860s, and the Donaueschinger Wochenblatt even earlier
(1786). In the Allgäu, the liberal Kemptner Zeitung appeared as early as 1783,
the liberal Memminger Zeitung in 1862. The Catholic press, as represented by
the Kaufbeuren Volkszeitung or the Memminger Volksblatt, was founded toward
the end of the nineteenth century.39 At the beginning of the twentieth century
Catholic priests in South Baden still admitted the weakness of the local Catholic
press and its poor distribution.40 More important than its scale of distribution
was its content. In numerous articles (particularly on the family) and the Heimat
romances that appeared every weekend, the local bourgeoisie demonstrated its
hegemony by presenting the local community with a vision of a “new bourgeois
world”. Some weekend stories – such as “Life within a Decent Family”, “The
Boys and the Peasant Girl”, “Gone Astray and Found” and “Elinor” – were
written by local notables, while some were copied from national newspapers.
In these romances and tales of local folklore (Heimat), the rural bourgeoisie
expressed its pride in its achievements, its faith in technology, its patronage of
the workers, its attitude toward gender and, most important and popular of all,
the value of the home and its moral function. Most of the stories took place
in middle-class houses in the countryside. The home was described in terms
of bourgeois achievement. In “The Boys and the Peasant Girl”, the farmhouse
contained, among other things, a piano, a garden, servants and a huge wooden
clock. The presence of the first three in a farmhouse was the author’s invention,
as they rarely existed on farms in mid nineteenth-century South Baden and the
Sperlings Zeitschriften – Adressbuch: Handbuch der deutschen Presse (Leipzig, 1876),
39
1908.
40
In 1907 the bourgeois Donaueschinger Tagblatt (DT) sold 3,200 copies, while the
newly established Catholic Donaubote sold only 2,000 copies. The Hochwächter auf dem
Schwarzwald sold 1,500 copies, while the new (still weekly) Catholic Echo von Hochfirst
(EvH) sold 800. For the Allgäu and bourgeois Catholic newspapers, see Hans Zech,
Geschichte der im bayerischen Allgäu bis 1900 erschienen Zeitungen, PhD Thesis, Munich
University, 1949, 45–68. For the early twentieth century, see TB, 12/10/1931; ErzAF,
Dekanat Kinzigtal, 22/10/1930, 6/4/1932; Handbuch der Deutschen Tagespresse, vol. IV
(1932) (Baden, Bayern).
author must have borrowed them from national family magazines such as the
Gartenlaube (first published a few years earlier). The wooden clock was the most
popular furniture in local bourgeois houses, as cuckoo clocks (Kuckucksuhren)
were the main local industry. Here the symbolic was an important tool in the
creation of the social.41
Local newspaper advertisements helped the bourgeoisie in the acquisition of
their cultural and material possessions – mahogany furniture, wallpaper, carpets,
curtains, bookshelves, napkins, tablecloths and silver. In numerous personal
columns, local notables wrote on table manners and piano lessons, and suggested
reading matter for the evenings. Stories about trains also served as a powerful
symbolic element in the bourgeois vision: “Whoever supports the idea of the
Höllentalbahn [the local Black Forest train] belongs to the progressive camp,
to the intelligent people. Those against it belong to Rome, to the uneducated
elements of society …” Through such symbolic means did the local bourgeoisie
express its presence, vision and Weltanschauung.42
The development of tourist and health resort regions in Greater Swabia
contributed to the growth of a broad middle class engaged in these fields, and
its impact did not end there.43 The sheer contact with visitors frequenting the
region’s facilities was of importance, whether these came from the Protestant
population or from a Catholic, liberally oriented public of the French or Belgian
bourgeoisie. All this exposed the Catholic bourgeoisie of Greater Swabia to
influences that contributed to a process of detachment from the Catholic milieu
and a disinclination to form part of it.44 With the tourist industry (winter skiing)
in South Baden forming the economic backbone of the area, regional economic
41
Donaueschinger Wochenblatt (DW), 3/6/1857; Die Schwarzwälder, 7/3/1857;
Kemptner Zeitung, 28/10/1881; Tag und Anzeigerblatt für Kempten und das Allgäu ,
18/6/1903. A different picture emerges from Helmut Smith’s excellent study of the reading
habits of Catholics in rural south Germany. Smith stresses the popularity of religious literature
and the absence of cultured bourgeois literature in Bavaria, Württemberg and Baden. In
general, Smith rejects the possibility of the existence of a bourgeoisie in the countryside. See
Smith, German Nationalism, 80–85, 108–109.
42
I looked for advertisements in the back pages of the above-mentioned newspapers.
The representative of bourgeois culture in the Allgäu was the Tag und Anzeigerblatt; see
Zech, Geschichte der im bayerischen Allgäu, 62–68. The Höllentalbahn quotation is from the
Hochwächter auf dem Schwarzwald, 12/3/1872.
43
Karin Holleit, Die Einflusse des Fremdenverkehrs auf die Umgestaltung einer
landlichen Gemeinde am Beispiel Lenzkirch im Schwarzwald, Zulassungsarbeit, Freiburg,
1970, 14–16.
44
Hamm, Chronik der Gemeinde Schonach, 437–458; Fettinger and Beha, Auf dem
Hohen Wald, 523–527. PfA Hinterzarten, Kv - 1928; PfA St Blasien, Kv - 1932.
interests ranked high among the concerns of the members of the local middle
class. Development and encouragement of the tourist industry ultimately meant
a need to expand the network of local roads, import foreign newspapers, extend
sports facilities and enlarge local inns.45 Most of all, it meant containment of the
influence of the church. Between the 1860s and the 1890s the Roman Catholic
Church eschewed all contact with secular, liberal cultures, fearful lest the latter’s
liberalism and modernity would open the door to influences injurious to local
Catholic life. Hence the local tourist industry contributed to the domination of
foreign secular influences over segments of the local population and accelerated
the process of local middle class disaffection with the predominant mentality of
the Catholic milieu.
All this demonstrates, through behaviour patterns foreign to the spirit
of the Roman Catholic Church, that a broad Catholic bourgeois cultural
formation did exist in the regions of Greater Swabia. Most important were the
founding of anti-clerical, anti-socialist Vereine whose activities were patterned
on the Protestant bourgeois model, such as voting for a nationalistic party,46
reading and writing in the style of bourgeois literature (for example, Dickens,
Flaubert, Fontane, Mann),47 adopting urban (bourgeois) dress and installating
as bourgeois an instrument as the piano, educating children in a Gymnasium
(the most prestigious institution of the German Protestant bourgeoisie),48 and
accepting the cultural codes of the bourgeois home and family.49
The anti-clerical, cultural and political activities in schools, Vereine, reading
in the evenings and the symbolic world created in the local newspaper, all helped
local rural societies to create – and to concentrate around – a cultural world that,
owing to geographical isolation, was in certain aspects imagined, but was also
real. Thus, cultural factors (or should I say cultural experiences?) based partly
TB, 2/12/1889 - Schonach; Hoch. Schw., 25/6/1870, 4/2/1912 - Eisenbach.

45
See n. 25 above.
46
47
See, for example, an evening reading organized by the Leseverein of the village of
Lindenberg (Allgäu): Tag und Anzeigerblatt, 16/9/1882; Zech, Geschichte der im bayerischen
Allgäu, 62–68. See also an advertisment in the Kemptner Zeitung, 1/7/1876, for a book by
Dickens.
48
Herbner, Titisee-Neustadt, 160ff.; W. Trapp, “Volksschulreform und liberales
Bürgertum in Konstanz” in Zang, Provinzialisierung einer Region, 375–434; Hof und
Staatshandbuch des Grossherzogtums Baden (Karlsruhe, 1868) - Schule: Donaueschingen,
Neustadt; Volker Dotterweich et al. (eds), Geschichte der Stadt Kempten (Kempten, 1989),
289 ff., 372–401; Kemptner Zeitung, 3/4/1863; J. Schelbert, Das Landvolk des Allgäu in
seinem Thun und Treiben (Kempten, 1873; 1983; here 2nd edn by A. Kolb and E. Kohler,
Kempten, 1974),192–196.
49
Blessing, Familie Blessing, 14–15; Zech, Geschichte der im bayerischen Allgäu, 62–63.
on economic activities created a class. These experiences created cultural groups

which became imagined cultural communities exhibiting the characteristics of
bourgeois life.
Among the faithful adherents of the Catholic Church in Germany, were
there not bourgeois strata other than those portrayed in this chapter up to
this point? The reply to this question depends to a great extent on the criteria
employed in defining the bourgeoisie. The use of social criteria alone can
contribute to the research on the Catholic bourgeoisie in additional places as
well, but using political and predominantly cultural criteria, as I have done in
this book, can be a stumbling block in identifying similar Catholic groups in
other regions. Geographical criteria, such as urban versus rural areas, or western
Germany versus the southern part, can also play an important role here. In order
to substantiate my conclusions, additional studies would doubtless be required,
but there is no doubt that the history of the German bourgeoisie without its
rural and Catholic elements is a history in which many of the main cultural and
political developments are left unexamined.
What occurred in Greater Swabia is not representative of nineteenth-
century German Catholicism as a whole. The model of the Catholic bourgeoisie
presented above may possibly have existed in other, mainly urban, regions as well,
such as the cities on the Rhine, or, as I have shown, in Munich and Konstanz.
But a broad social cultural formation, with behaviour patterns similar to those
existing in Greater Swabia, is difficult to identify in other rural areas. Without
further evidence, we might conclude that these patterns of both social and
political behaviour are unique to the regions of this study. It is hard to discern
deeply rooted support for the National Liberal Party as early in the twentieth
century in Catholic-agrarian regions elsewhere in Germany. The economic traits
typical of the regions of Greater Swabia, together with the traditional weakness
of the Catholic Church, tend to reinforce the finding that it is primarily here
that we will be able to detect the dominance of a socio-cultural formation
capable of challenging political Catholicism, a social group whose class loyalties
transcended religious loyalties.
This model of a Catholic bourgeois society in rural Germany is composed of
highly specific patterns of political-economic behaviours and mentalities. Chief
among these are support for parties of national-bourgeois, anti-clerical bias,
support of progress, and affirmation of the capitalistic economic order, partial or
complete rupture with the Catholic Church, and the adoption of socio-cultural
patterns typical of the Protestant bourgeoisie. The rupture with the Catholic
Church is a highly important point. I regard this as a vital condition for the
creation of a bourgeois formation that has cultural hegemony. There is no doubt
that, while many Catholics remained in one or another Catholic milieu and were
supportive of the Centre Party, they were very close to the Catholic bourgeoisie
described above with regard to economic ideology (liberalism) and in their
attitudes to secular cultural practices. This was the case, for example, in the cities
of Cologne, Aachen, Bonn, Boppard and Mainz. Yet how did they regard the
Catholic Church and the Centre Party? As mentioned above, Thomas Mergel
has suggested the model of the “Catholic splits”. However, not all members of
the bourgeoisie in Greater Swabia belonged to the group of Old Catholics;
indeed, most of them did not. How, then, did they express their rupture with
the Catholic Church?
A majority did not openly display signs of irreconcilable alienation. The
model of Old Catholics publicly throwing down the gauntlet to church authority
was not followed by other Catholic groups. The Old Catholics upheld the
“bourgeois religion” (Bürgerliche Religion). They believed in private Christian
piety, salvation in the personal sphere and complete detachment from the Roman
Catholic Church and its agencies. We can call them the “pragmatic” faithful. The
more “moderate” religious model was “the religion of the bourgeoisie” (Religion
der Bürger).50 They saw themselves as an enlightened bourgeoisie, loyal to the
state. Their goal was the separation of state and religion and the preservation
of liberal relations between state and polity. From a cultural perspective, they
expressed their belief in part through anti-clerical activity, and in this differed
radically from the Rhineland non-Old Catholic bourgeoisie. Although they
staunchly upheld elementary church requirements such as participating in the
rites of Christmas and Easter, they saw themselves as part of humanist–liberal
civilization, and their links with the church and the priest were purely formal.
We may suppose that participation in these rites for many of the Catholic
bourgeoisie was less a matter of religious conviction than a concern for “what
the neighbours will say”, or fear of possible social and economic sanctions. Such
social groups could, of course, be found in the large Catholic cities of Germany,
as well as in South Baden and the Allgäu.
The desire to leave the “ghetto” behind and to be incorporated in the
national agenda dictated by the Protestant bourgeoisie of Imperial Germany did
not end with the nineteenth century. Even in the Weimar period the Catholic
bourgeoisie in Greater Swabia demonstrated their unique behavioural patterns
vis-à-vis Catholic society. It is true that Catholic support swung increasingly
toward the socialists, the peasant parties and the conservative Right. Yet, if
H. Kleger and A. Muller (eds), Religion des Bürgers. Zivilreligion in Amerika und
50
Europa (Munich, 1986), 13.

in the main Catholic Germans still supported the Catholic Centre Party and
the Bavarian People’s Party, the Catholic bourgeoisie of Greater Swabia opted
for another course. After having abstained from voting (especially after 1924),
or having supported the Weimar bourgeois parties up to 1930, the Catholic
bourgeoisie of these regions, like the Protestant bourgeoisie, preferred from that
year onwards to transfer its support to the Nazi Party.51
51
For voting patterns in Greater Swabia, see Heilbronner, Achillesferse; idem, “The
Failure that Succeeded: Nazi Party Activity in a Catholic Region in Germany 1929–1932”,
Journal of Contemporary History, 27/3 (1992): 531–549; idem, “Der verlassene Stammtisch.
Vom Verfall der Bürgerlichen Infrastruktur und dem Aufstieg der NSDAP am Beispiel
der Region Schwarzwald”, Geschichte und Gesellschaft, 19/2 (1993): 179–201; idem, “The
Impact and Consequences of the First World War in a Catholic Rural Area: The Black
Forest as a Case Study”, German History, 11/1 (1993): 15–29; idem, “Die Leute auf dem
Wald: Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft im Schwarzwald in der Zeit der Weimarer Republik”,
Zeitschrift für Agrargeschichte und Agrarsoziologie, 43/1 (1995): 42–72; idem, “Die
Nationalsozialistische Partei: ein bürgerlicher Verein?”, Tel Aviver Jahrbuch für Deutsche
Geschichte, 23 (1994): 63–79; idem, “Catholic Plight in a Rural Area of Germany and the
Rise of the Nazi Party”, Social History, 20/2 (1995): 219–234.
Chapter 5
The Religion of the
Subculture: The Old Catholics
As noted above, Greater Swabia was the centre of anti-ultramontane activity.

This was well expressed in the activities of the Old Catholic movement. In the
1870s, Greater Swabia was known throughout Germany for its high density of
Old Catholic communities and their aggressive policy towards the Catholic
Church.1 In the Allgäu, the villages around Sigmaringen, and most of all in
backward and heavily populated Catholic South Baden (on which I will focus
in this chapter), Old Catholicism was more prevalent and more popular than in
other places in Greater Swabia. Although this tendency declined towards the
end of the nineteenth century, it was still possible to find small Old Catholic
communities that were centres of National Socialist activity in the Weimar
period.2
In the chapters above I tried to situate the popularity of Old Catholicism
within the broader spectrum of the liberal subculture of Greater Swabia. Here
I would like to trace the origins and the first initiatives of the Old Catholics
during their formative and more successful years, the 1870s. I have already
identified some villages where up to 90 per cent of the Catholic population
joined Old Catholicism in the 1870s.3 The average membership in Old Catholic
communities (in places where there was any membership at all) was anywhere
1
Hans J. Kremer, Das Grossherzogtum Baden in der politischen Berichterstattung
der preussischen Gesandten 1871–1918, part 1 (Stuttgart, 1990), 63, 73–76, 92–94. For
Germany, see the ground-breaking study by Olaf Blaschke, “Der Altkatholizismus 1870
bis 1945. Nationalismus, Antisemitismus und Nationalsozialismus”, Historische Zeitschrift,
261 (1995): 51–99. For a broader perspective, see Manuel Borutta, Antikatholizismus:
Deutschland und Italien im Zeitalter der europäischen Kulturkämpfe (Göttingen, 2009).
2
I. Götz von Olenhusen, Klerus und abweichendes Verhalten. Zur Sozialgeschichte
katholischer Priester im 19. Jahrhundert: Die Erzdiözese Freiburg (Göttingen, 1994), 386;
Wilhelm Bürger (ed.), Erzbistum Freiburg in Vergangenheit und Gegenwart. Ein kirchliches
Heimatbuch (Freiburg, 1976), 50–51.
3
Bühl bei Waldshut, Baltersweil. As in South Baden, during the Weimar Republic the
German Old Catholics found their way to the Conservative and Radical Right and finally to
the Nazi Party. Blaschke, “Altkatholizismus”, 90–99.
up to 30 per cent of the Catholic population.4 So, South Baden, with its Old
Catholic strongholds like Konstanz, Messkirch, Furtwangen, Säckingen,
Tiengen and Waldshut, is a very interesting case for the study of the cultural-
religious basis of the popular liberal subculture of Greater Swabia.
The position of the city of Konstanz as the centre of resistance to the Roman
Catholic Church might explain the broader effect of the new religion in South
Baden.5 In addition, the high percentage of participation in Old Catholic
rituals and ceremonies in towns and villages in the surroundings of Konstanz
may be explained by the strong influence of one or several notables. But there
is no doubt that there were additional factors that influenced around 30 per
cent or even more of the Catholic population of South Baden to join and take
part in Old Catholic communities. The resistant nature of South Baden society
described in the last chapters may explain some motivations for joining the new
church. Some others will be discussed in the following chapter.
As mentioned above, from the mid 1860s, South Baden was known all over
south Germany as the driving force behind anti-ultramontane policies. In the
1870s, it became a radical Old Catholic centre, whose representatives in the
Landtag initiated the Badische Alt Katholikensgesetz (Old Catholics Law) of
June 1874 which unconditionally recognized the Old Catholic Church as a
religion.6
Class and Religion
The modern literature about Old Catholics in Baden claims that they were
mostly made up of the Bildungbürgertum. Helmut W. Smith claims that Old
Catholics were “nationalist in sentiment and rationalist in theology … their
ethics were grounded in the higher ideals of German Kultur”. Olaf Blaschke
In northern Baden, for example, the average was 9 per cent, and in northern
4
Germany – Westphalia and the Rheinland – it did not exceed 5 per cent. For Baden, see
Badischen Statistischen Landesamt (ed.), Die Religionszugehorigkeit in Baden (Freiburg,
1928), 69. For west Germany, see Jonathan Sperber, Popular Catholicism in Nineteenth-
Century Germany (Princeton, 1984), 234–240. The Bezirksämter Donaueschingen,
Waldshut and Konstanz areas were the most populated with Old Catholics.
5
In the following chapter, most of my evidence for the city of Konstanz is based on the
MA thesis by Sharon Gordon, Between Tradition and Modernity: The Rise of the Old-Catholic
Community in Konstanz, 1872–1874, Tel Aviv University, 2001.
6
Josef Becker, Liberaler Staat und Kirche in der Ära von Reichsgründung und
Kulturkampf (Mainz, 1973), 331–337.
The Religion of the Subculture: The Old Catholics 65
supports this argument too.7 Their claim probably has some factual basis. The
Old Catholic agenda perfectly fitted the ethos of the educated bourgeoisie
(Bildungsbürgertum), and as such it was pretty well understood.8 Old Catholics
were proud of being educated and placed emphasis on education,9 and they
wanted to spread this ethos among other Catholics too. Here, the ethos of the
Old Catholic Church was responsible for the image of the social structure.
Moreover, the public image of the Old Catholic Church was usually represented
by the educated Bürger among Old Catholics, obscuring the voice of other
members of the public, a fact that contributed to this image.
An analysis of the social structure of Old Catholic communities in South
Baden10 reveals that the educated bourgeoisie (Bildungsbürgertum) were not
the only leading sector among Old Catholics. In Konstanz, Old Catholics were
concentrated in the higher socio-economic strata and in the Wirtschafts- und
Bildungsbürgertums sectors: merchants, bankers, industrialists, prominent
civil servants (Beamten), and including many members of the free professions,
particularly from the artisans’ sector. In the villages, they were mainly drawn
from the local Artz, Tierartz, Advocat, Communitiesrechner, Bürgermeister,
7
Helmut W. Smith, German Nationalism and Religious Conflict: Culture, Ideology,
Politics 1870–1914 (Princeton, 1995), 56; Blaschke, “Altkatholizismus”.
8
Thomas Mergel, Zwischen Klass und Konfession: Katholisches Bürgertum im
Rheinland, 1794–1914 (Gottingen, 1994), 288; Thomas Nipperdey, Deutsche Geschichte
1866–1918, vol. 1, Arbeitswelt und Bürgergiest (Munich, 1990), 431; Till van Rahden,
“Unity, Diversity, and Difference: Jews, Protestants, and Catholics in Breslau Schools During
the Kulturkampf ”, in Helmut Walser Smith (ed.), Protestants, Catholics and Jews in Germany,
1800–1914 (New York, 2001), 230–232; R. Sauter, “Erinnerungen aus stürmischen Tagen”,
Erzbischöfliches Archiv Freiburg, B2 17/7 (Historische Entwicklung der Altkatholiken
Gemeinde in Baden 1905–1917). In this article, Sauter speaks about the “classier people
from Singen … the civil servant group …” But also about “… the innkeepers, the bakers, the
butchers who conducted their activity against the local clergyman from the inns”. Hermann
Lauer speaks about “leading men … higher civil servants, mayors”. Lauer, Kirchengeschichte
der Baar (Donaueschingen, 1928), 361.
9
Blaschke, “Altkatholizismus”, 53–57.
10
Based on the Altkatholische Petition from Konstanz (1874) which 670
Altkatholiken signed. See Gordon, Between Tradition and Modernity, 48ff.; Josef Laible,
Chronik der altkatholischen Gemeinde zu Konstanz von 1873 bis 1893 (Konstanz, 1898);
Josef F. Waldmeier, Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte des Altkatholizismus in Südbaden. Der
altkatholische Klerus von Säckingen, Waldshut und Zell im Wiesental (Aarau, 1984), 58;
Erwin Keller, Die altkatholische Bewegung in Tiengen/Oberrhein (Wangen im Allgäu, 1961),
26 ; Lauer, Kirchengeschichte der Baar, 361–362; Erzbischöfliches Archiv Freiburg, B8/8 -
Altkatholiken - Furtwangen - 16/1/1873, 20/3/1875, 23/6/1875, B8/9 - Altkatholiken -
Gutenbach - 16/12/1874.
Oberamtmänner and, again, artisans.11 This fact indicates a strong tendency

towards Old Catholicism among all bourgeois groups.
It is important to consider the fact that the lower the status of the group,
the more Roman Catholic it was. White-collar workers, factory workers and
peasants, for example, were usually identified with the Roman Catholic Church
in many towns and villages in South Baden.12 Roman Catholic testimonies of
that time claim that all civil servants joined Old Catholicism, and the people
(das Volk) were still identified with the Roman Catholic Church.13 But we
should distinguish between rural areas and cities: in Konstanz, for example, it
seems that the main motive to join Old Catholicism was the very same ethos
of Bildung that was to be found in all Protestant and Catholic Bürgertums in
Germany at that time.14 In Singen, it was mainly civil servants who worked in the
local train company, and artisans.15 In the villages, the traditional bourgeoisie’s
attitude towards Old Catholics was ambivalent: small tradesmen and peasants
showed only a moderate tendency towards Old Catholicism. On the other
hand, artisans and owners of taverns, inns and hotels were dominant among Old
Catholic communities.16 While the attraction of Old Catholicism to bourgeois
sectors may be explained by the shared Bildung ethos, the actions of traditionally
bourgeois groups such as artisans may be explained by the republican spirit of
freedom rooted in their local heritage even before the 1848 revolution.
First Initiatives
The main event which officially marked the spread of the Old Catholic
movement was the petition signed by 670 Catholics on 9 February 1873 in
11
Lauer, Kirchengeschichte der Baar; Keller, Die altkatholische Bewegung, 26–28.
12
Konrad Gröber, “Der Altkatholizismus in Konstanz”, Freiburger Diözesan-Archiv, 39
(1911), 135–198; see the letter from the Pfarrer Seyfried Johann Baptist-Furtwangen to the
Ordinariat in Freiburg in 1875 on the artisans in Furtwangen who were the main supporters
of the Roman Church in the town. Erzbischöfliches Archiv Freiburg, Personalakten. In the
nearby village of Schonach, the local Pfarrer W. Baumann wrote in the Kv that most farmers
in the area supported the Roman Church. See PfAes Schonach, Kv. Berichte und Bescheide,
5/8/1879.
13
Lauer, Kirchengeschichte der Baar, 361.
14
Gordon, Between Tradition and Modernity, 53–56.
15
Sauter, “Erinnerungen aus stürmischen Tagen”.
16
For example, in the small village of Vöhrenben in the Baar region, where
many members of the local Altkatholische communities were farmers and artisans;
Communitiesarchiv Vöhrenbach IV/1-2 Ortsbereisung 1879.
Konstanz, declaring their support for the Old Catholic Church and requesting
the government to allocate them one of the Catholic churches in Konstanz for
their religious rituals. This event was the culmination of a process lasting some
years in which a base for Old Catholic communities was established throughout
South Baden.17
The first signs of an interest in the new movement appeared in October 1871
in the reports of the local liberal newspaper, Konstanzer Zeitung: “More and more
people are joining the new movement.”18 In fact, the status of Old Catholicism
in South Baden was determined even earlier, and not only in Konstanz, through
municipal actions, personal relationships and meetings of anti-ultramontane
groups. In the town of Bonndorf, the priest Buck had struggled against many
liberals who wanted to sign the petition against the Dogma of Papal Infallibility
(Erklärung der päpstlichen Unfehlbarkeit).19 In the county of Donaueschingen,
towards the end of 1871, Old Catholic activity was mainly directed against the
Oberamtman Wallau.20
But the first real organization, with identifiable figures, emerged in April
1872, when a group of important local members convened an assembly in
which a new Old Catholic association (Verein) was established with the strong
support of the local radical-liberal Bürgermeister Max Stromeyer.21 In many
towns around Konstanz the same process was taking place: in Furtwangen, for
example, in January 1873, around 20 people declared their dissatisfaction with
the local priest, Seyfried Johann Baptist, and asked for a permit (ein Erlaubnis)
to create their own Old Catholic Church. In Tiengen, the first physical action
against the local priest Knoblauch by the supporters of the (still) new idea of
a separated church occurred in late 1873. Before that, “doctors Kimming and
Maier in their house-visiting won new members to the Old Catholic community,
and the notary Schupp seized the opportunity to influence people who came
Waldmeier, Beitrag zur Geschichte des Altkatholizismus in Südbaden, 58ff.

17
Konstanzer Zeitung, 6/10/1871, cited in Gordon, Between Tradition and Modernity,

18
59.
See, for example, the meeting in Bonndorf of some Bürger who rejected the decisions
19
of the Vatican Concilium of 1870 in the Schwarzwälder Zeitung, 14/3/1871. The name of
Ignaz von Döllinger was mentioned several times as an example of a brave Widemtändler
against the pope. Bonndorfer Anzeiger, 13/1/1874. See also the article by Sauter,
“Erinnerungen aus stürmischen Tagen”, which was written in 1926 about Old Catholics in
Singen.
20
21
Schwarzwälder Zeitung, 19/4/1872; Joseph Schofer, Friedrich Hug, der Kämpe vom
Bodensee (Karlsruhe, 1929), 36–38.
to his office to testify”.22 Economic power, local influence and rumour played a
very important part in this struggle. In the village of Riedböhringen, the local
innkeeper was against the Old Catholics. In the nearby town of Hüfingen,
many people were waiting for steps to be taken first by the anti-ultramontane
faction in the nearby town of Donaueschingen. In Donaueschingen, the local
community civil servant (Oberamtmann) Wallau encouraged people to leave the
Catholic Church, while the Bürgermeister Ganter was against it. In Waldshut,
Oberamtmann Baader and Bürgermeister Kromer both favoured the Old
Catholics.23
The newly instituted local train was of great help here. Already in January
1873, the leader of the national Old Catholic movement, Friedrich Michelis,
used it when visiting Konstanz.24 A few months later, another prominent Old
Catholic, Gallus Hosemann, together with Michelis, visited the nearby town of
Waldshut in order to persuade local Catholics to participate in the new religion.
During this visit, and as a result of their activity, a petition was signed by many
Bürger in Konstanz, Waldshut and Säckingen asking for permission to establish
their own Old Catholic Verein. The spread of the Old Catholic idea in Singen
was due to the town’s position as a central train junction. In 1874 the Old
Catholic Bishop Reinkens and Professor Michelis used the Donaueschingen–
Singen train to visit many villages in the Baar Region.
In late 1873, Old Catholic Vereine in many places were transformed into
communities and established action committees. In addition, a new leadership
was established in many communities by democratic elections in which all male
members of the community took part.25
Old Catholicism as “the Sun of the Peoples’ Freedom” (“die Sonne der
Völkerfreiheit”)
The leadership of the new Old Catholic communities in South Baden consisted
of members of the Baden National Liberal Party. Some of them (Stromeyer of
Erzbischöfliches Archiv Freiburg, B8/8 - Altkatholiken - Furtwangen - 16/1/1873;

22
Keller, Die altkatholische Bewegung, 19.

23
24
Freiburger Katholisches Kirchenblatt, March 1873.
25
Laible, Chronik der altkatholischen Gemeinde zu Konstanz, 15–17; Waldmeier, Ein
Beitrag zur Geschichte des Altkatholizismus in Südbaden, 27–28, 58. For Hosemann. see
Laible, ibid., 45; Sauter, “Erinnerungen aus stürmischen Tagen”; Lauer, Kirchengeschichte der
Baar, 362.
Konstanz, Adalbert Sartori of Breisach) were members of the democratic wing

of the party, and some (Dr Gustav Kimming of Tiengen, the bank manager Karl
Eckhard of Waldkirch, and Dr Josef Volk, a notable representative from nearby
Allgäu) were members of the newly established anti-ultramontane Catholic
liberal party, the Liberal Reich Party.
This should not surprise us. Already in the preceding chapters I mentioned
that from the beginning of the 1860s, liberal notables throughout Greater
Swabia, mostly from the cultural and economic bourgeoisie (Bildungs-und
Wirtschaftsbürgertums), wished to implement a more modern and liberal
policy, especially one that could endow the region with a higher and more
advanced economy.26 At that time, northern Baden was undergoing a process
of industrialization, while the south of the state remained backwards and was
becoming peripheral.27 These liberals tried to convince the local leadership, who
generally had a liberal-conservative orientation, to take action to prevent this
deterioration, but in vain. They also tried to gain support from the government
in Karlsruhe, but it remained indifferent. The only option they could have hoped
for was to direct the local municipal institutions and gain popularity among the
local inhabitants through their local hegemony. Mobilizing the people for the
Old Catholic idea was an effective strategy, and in so doing, they were utilizing
a powerful local heritage. It was a democratic form of action which drew on the
spirit of “die Sonne der Völkerfreiheit”, a glorious uprising in the past.28
Free and democratic forms of activity were a prominent characteristic
of South Baden, with its hostility towards any kind of authority, particularly
religious. Part of the local population favoured the idea of a people’s community
(Volksgemeinschaft) as a kind of communal public sphere in which each
individual had full and equal rights. An example of the manner in which the
liberals in South Baden used this “democratic” idea of the Volksgemeinschaft
for their own purposes was the way they addressed the people. Already in the
second half of the 1860s a new informal institution was created by the bourgeois
liberals in Konstanz, Messkirch, Tiengen, Furtwangen and Donuaeschingen
– the civic evening (Bürgerabend). As Gordon writes concerning Konstanz:
“the Civic Evening took place once every one or two weeks, attended by all
the local male inhabitants, citizens and non-citizens, rich and poor, educated
26
See, for example, the petition signed by dozens of Bürger from Donaueschingen after
the war against Austria in July 1866. DW, 27/7/1866.
27
This is the main thesis of Gert Zang’s anthology, Provinzialisierung einer Region. Zur
Entstehung der bürgerlichen Gesellschaft in der Provinz (Frankfurt am Main, 1978).
28
Sauter, “Erinnerungen aus stürmischen Tagen”.
and illiterate, to discuss current topics”.29 There is a direct link between this
democratic institution in the public sphere of the mid 1860s and the Old
Catholic assemblies and Vereine seven years later. In Konstanz and Messkirch,
many of the Bürger who took part in the civic evenings later found their way
into the Old Catholic communities.30
Despite the diversified nature of Old Catholic liberals in South
Baden (conservative versus democratic wings, free trade supporters versus
protectionists), one issue on which they all agreed and which still had wide
popular support was anti-clericalism, particularly in the educational system.
Already in the 1860s, Konstanz, Messkirch, Furtwangen, Bonndorf, Säckingen,
Waldshut and many other localities in South Baden were examples of the
implementation of anti-clerical educational policies. For instance, as soon as
the Baden government published, in 1868, an act to establish Simultanschulen
(schools to which all confessions were admitted) with separate religious teaching
for each confession, Konstanz was the first to successfully implement the act,
followed a few months later by Donaueschingen. The new School Law was
discussed at many civic evenings by enthusiastic Bürger who were later founders
of Old Catholic communities.31
A Short Period of Hegemony and Decline
There is no doubt that Roman Catholic leaders in Konstanz were right in

blaming the Old Catholic leadership for forcing people, with the use of their
influential positions, to join the new religion. In a letter sent to the bishopric
in Freiburg, it was said that “the Old Catholics [in Konstanz] with the support
of the Bürgermeister Stromeyer, are going from house to house, using their
influence in workplaces, warning and threatening the local Catholic citizens. As
a result, all the local civil servants are for the Old Catholics”.32 It seems that this
Freiburger Zeiting (FZ), 8/7/1867; Gordon, Between Tradition and Modernity, 80.
29
The best treatment of the civic evening is still Dieter Bellmann, “Der Liberalismus im
30
Seekreis (1860–1870). Durchsetzungversuch und Scheitern eines regional Eigensteandigen

Entwicklungskonzeptes”, in Zang (ed.), Provinzialisierung einer Region, 197ff.
31
DW, 7/3/1868; Wener Trapp, “Volksschulreform und liberales Bürgertum in
Konstanz”, in Zang (ed.), Provinzialisierung einer Region, 413–419; Franz Fettinger and
Franz Beha, Auf dem hohen Wald. Heimatgeschichte von Eisenbach, Bubenbach und Oberbränd
(Eisenbach, 1991), 724; GLAK, 236 - Innen Ministerium, 10393 - Jahresbericht, BZ Triberg
1868 (Religion).
32
Gröber, “Der Altkatholizismus in Konstanz”, 207–208, cited in Gordon, Between
Tradition and Modernity, 90; see also Schofer, Friedrich Hug, 37.
letter exaggerated the situation, but there is no doubt that this reflects the fact
that Old Catholics were strongly represented in all positions of power in South
Baden.
Most civil servants in the local communities were Old Catholics. In the
local and county courts, the civil servants, judges, barristers and lawyers were
Old Catholics (of course many were also Protestants, a fact that helped the Old
Catholics in their legal initiatives). In the 1870s, many members of the councils
of the county schools were Old Catholics.33 Between 1871 and 1874, twelve
powerful candidates in the Konstanz and Freiburg county elections, who held
key positions in the local communities as lawyers, bank managers, pharmacists
and factory owners, and were also members of the State Parliament (Landtag)
and Reichstag, were Old Catholics.34
Political success was among the chief means of establishing local hegemony.
It seems that the Old Catholic leadership, all members of the National Liberal
Party, was encouraged by the massive support it gained in the Reichstags-und-
Landtagswahlen in 1873 and 1874. The electoral success of the liberals surprised
even them. In many villages the National Liberal Party gained a clear majority,
sometimes even higher than 70 per cent. In many Old Catholic communities,
local Old Catholics established private schools and dominated the local school
council. They also held powerful positions in the local bi-confessional schools.
Their power was particularly demonstrated in their ability to get permission for
the permanent use of Catholic churches in villages and towns. After the Old
Catholics Law of 1874, local church property could be used or transferred to
the local Old Catholic community on condition that they were the majority
in the community. So, the Augustinus church in Konstanz, the Kreuzkapelle
in Tiengen, the Fridolinsmünster in Säckingen and the Gottesackerkapelle in
Waldshut are examples of local church property seized by the Old Catholics on
the direct orders of the state authorities in June 1874. As a result, local Catholics
were obliged to establish an emergency church (Notkirche).35 The law was
initiated by South Baden Old Catholic members of the Baden local parliament.36
33
StaaF, Landeskommissär Freiburg - A 95/3 - 8; Die Verhalten der katholischen
Geistliche- Neustadt - 22/3/1868 and 23/3/1868; idem, 215 - Altkatholikenverhatnisse in
Mundelfingen 1874.
34
Karl Eckhard, Emil Fieser, Johann B. Fischer, Josef Frick, Mathias Intlekofer, Karl
Kimming, Karl Richter, Johann Roder, Otto Sachs, Adalbert Satori, Anton Schmid, Hans P.
Becht, Badische Parlamentarier, 1867–1874, Düsseldorf, 1995.
35
Gordon, Between Tradition and Modernity, 90–93; Schofer, Friedrich Hug,
37–38; Keller, Die altkatholische Bewegung, 26; Waldmeier, Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte des
Altkatholizismus in Südbaden, 58, 148; Lauer, Kirchengeschichte der Baar, 363.
36
Becker, Liberaler Staat, 332–333.
Local newspapers were another means by which Old Catholics gained

hegemony. In January 1873, the Konstanzer Zeitung announced, after years
of declaring itself an “independent” newspaper, a commitment to the Old
Catholic movement.37 The Donaueschinger Wochenblatt, the Hochwächter auf
dem Schwarzwald (Neustadt), the Breisgauer Zeitung, the Höhgauer Erzähler
(Engen) and many other liberal newspapers in South Baden followed suit. But it
was the popularity that these newspapers gained among the local population that
shows how widely accepted Old Catholic ideas and opinions were in the early
1870s. In Konstanz, the radical Protestant Otto Amon edited the Konstanzer
Zeitung from 1868 onwards. During the time of his editorship its circulation
grew, and it was even sometimes published twice a day. During the crucial years
of the establishment of Old Catholic communities in Konstanz in 1872 and
1873, it even occasionally reached a third daily issue. The Catholic press suffered
a sharp decline in those years and its daily newspapers only came out three or
four times a week.38
In addition to the use of the press as a means to influence the people in a
democratic direction, in the first period of their activity Old Catholic leaders
used a semi-democratic means resembling the civic evening of the 1860s. As
part of Old Catholic events in Konstanz in the winter of 1873, when the Old
Catholic petition was signed, all the city’s male inhabitants were invited to
participate, and many did take part. Many more – rich and poor, citizens and
non-citizens – took part in the local Vereine activities and council meetings.39
In this way, Old Catholicism seemed to represent that part of Konstanz society
which longed for an open and equal form of participation, as against the
authoritarian character of religious meetings organized by the Catholic Church.
In Tiengen the same process took place: in the marketplace, the local notable,
Dr Kimming, made a speech and invited all the peasants, teachers and other
Free Bürger to participate in the new movement. This democratic approach
also had implications for family life. The Bonndorfer Anzeiger reported the case
of the wife of an influential Old Catholic notable in one of the surrounding
villages who, after visiting the confessional (Beichtstuhle), complained that the
Konstanzer Zeitung, 12/1/1873, 14/1/1873.

37
Fred L. Sepaintner, “Die Badische Presse in Kaiserreich – Spiegelbild der

38
Parteienverhältnisse vor dem Ersten Weltkrieg”, Zeitschrift für die Geschichte des Oberrheins,
128 (1980): 403–414; G. Zang, “Die Kreisselbstverwaltung als ein gescheiterter Versuch
zur ökonomischen und gesellschaftlichen Entwicklung der Region (1865–1878)”, in idem,
Provinzialisierung einer Region, 279ff.
39
Gordon, Between Tradition and Modernity, 63, 85; Keller, Die altkatholische
Bewegung, 19–20.
local priest was afraid of the equal relationships and spirit of freedom fostered
by the Old Catholic public sphere. This, according to the priest, would ruin
relationships within her family.40
The democratic form of activity, and the way in which Old Catholicism used
the concept of freedom, should draw our attention to some elements of the Old
Catholic world outlook (Weltanschauung). In view of the discussion in the next
chapter on the political form of popular liberalism, it is interesting to briefly
note some ideological issues discussed in the mass meetings of Old Catholics in
Konstanz.41 There, high-ranking Old Catholics such as Michelis and Reinkens
were the leading speakers. Here we will not consider the full philosophical and
ideological aspects of their teachings. We will only point out that glorious local
events from the past (see the more extensive discussion of this in the first part of
this book) were invoked in order to attract as many people as possible.
Firstly, the personality of the legendary Archbishop of Konstanz, Ignaz
Heinrich Wessenberg in the early nineteenth century, der Alte Kämpfer vom
Bodensee (the old fighter of Lake Konstanz), was praised for his support of
freedom, tolerance and the right of the individual to conduct his religious
rituals as he wished. Wessenberg was boycotted by the church in 1815, and
although he continued as the archbishop of the small bishopric of Konstanz, he
lost much of his authority and power, and retired in 1827 when the bishopric
was disestablished. Wessenberg became one of the major heroes of Old Catholic
ideology.42
Secondly, the Vatican Council which took place in Konstanz in the years
1414–1418 with the aim of reforming the church was another event in the
past which Old Catholics used in the early 1870s. Here Konstanz was praised
for its tradition as a centre of reform, and the Vatican Council of 1414–1418
was compared to the Old Catholic Congress of 1873. In both cases (those of
Wessenberg and the Vatican Council), events from the past were invoked
and partly invented in order to stress continuity from glorious local medieval
traditions to early nineteenth century and present-day Old Catholicism in
South Baden, and also to legitimize the Old Catholic aspiration to hegemony
in the local public sphere.
40
Bonndorfer Anzeiger, 13/1/1874.
41
The discussion which follows is based on Gordon, Between Tradition and Modernity,
120–135.
42
Götz von Olenhusen, Klerus und abweichendes Verhalten, 284–286; Karl-Heinz
Braun, “Konstanzer Tradition im Erzbistum Freiburg”, Freiburger Diözesan-Archiv 110
(1990): 261–280.
Finally, Old Catholics also tried to develop a specific south German–Baden

world outlook based on the idea of the people’s community and freedom
(Volksgemeinschaft und Freiheit). “The church is the people’s community” (die
Kirche ist die Gemeinschaft des Volkes) claimed the Konstanzer Zeitung.43 In
many speeches and events, two aspects of the Gemeinschaft ideal were invoked:
the people and their freedom (das Volk und die Freiheit). Old Catholic leaders
believed that the new movement should be based on these two concepts in
order to build a true people’s community. In order to fulfil this concept, Old
Catholicism founded the congress as a platform for all members of the church,
laymen and priests alike. It elevated its members to the top of the church
hierarchy. While theologians discussed religious and theological questions in
the synod, the congress represented the new secular, civil and libertarian view
of relations between the state and the people. Here, Old Catholicism suited the
traditions of democracy and freedom of Greater Swabia.
These means were effective among many Bürger, but not strong enough to
attract everyone. From the late 1870s the Old Catholic movement was in decline
in South Baden. There were reasons for this. Firstly, there were social tensions in
many towns and villages. The religious struggle between Old Catholics and the
Catholic Church turned partly into a class struggle between part of the local
bourgeoisie and the lower classes. The latter were headed by local priests. They, in
turn, had many effective weapons to mobilize the people, chiefly from the lower
classes, against bourgeois Old Catholicism. A second reason for the decline in
the attractiveness of Old Catholicism was that the priests, saints, superstitions
and pilgrimages were all mobilized against Old Catholicism, which lacked
sacred rituals and means of spiritual persuasion of its own.44 Thirdly, negotiations
between the state of Baden and the Catholic Church towards the end of the
1870s led to the state’s partial withdrawal of the legitimisation that it lent to
Old Catholic communities in matters such as finance and education.45 Finally,
tensions between the North Baden wing of the movement, with Heidelberg as
its centre, and the South Baden wing, with its centre in Konstanz, weakened
the southern part of the movement. The northern part, which possessed most
of the finance and organizational resources of the Old Catholics in Baden,
Konstanzer Zeitung, 10/8/1872 (from a speech by the Old Catholic historian H.J.
43
Reinkens in Konstanz), cited in Gordon, Between Tradition and Modernity, 135.

44
David Blackbourn, Marpingen: Apparitions of the Virgin Mary in Bismarckian
Germany (Oxford, 1993), 405.
45
Handbuch der Baden-Württembergischen Geschichte, vol. 3: Vom Ende des Alten
Reiches bis zum Ende der Monarchien (Stuttgart, 1992), 184–188; Keller, Die altkatholische
Bewegung, 55.
favoured the communities in Heidelberg, Karlsruhe and Mannheim. Tensions

also appeared among the communities’ members themselves, particularly in
relation to questions such as the path that Old Catholicism should take after
its success in consolidating its power while the masses were unaffected by the
new movement.46 As we will see in the next section, political activities with the
same Weltanschauung as that of Old Catholics were part of the solution to the
weakness of Old Catholicism in Greater Swabia.
Blaschke, “Altkatholizismus”, 80–90.

46
Chapter 6
The Verein’s Culture in the Service
of Popular Liberalism, 1860–1930
In the following discussion, the focus of my interest will be the Catholic

bourgeoisie. As I have already pointed out, much has been written about
the German bourgeoisie in recent decades, but little has been said about
the Catholic bourgeoisie.1 The focus of interest has been almost exclusively
the bourgeoisie in the Protestant sector. The many studies dealing with the
backwardness of the Catholic population and the “ghetto” mentality of
German Catholicism generally mention the absence of a Catholic bourgeois
stratum, at least until the Weimar period.2 Yet such a stratum did exist in South
Baden, and it is this that I wish to explore. As we will see below, the founding
and activities of Vereine, the “social, cultural and political cornerstone of
1
Things have started to change recently. See Thomas Mergel, Zwischen Klasse und
Konfession: Katholisches Bürgertum im Rheinland, 1794–1914 (Göttingen, 1994); idem,
“Ultramontanism, Liberalism, Moderation: Political Mentalities and Political Behavior of
the German Catholic Bürgertum, 1848–1914,” Central European History, 29/2 (1996):
151–174; Oded Heilbronner, “Wohin verschwand das katholische Bürgertum? Oder: Der
Ort des katholischen Bürgertums in der neueren deutschen Historiographie”, Zeitschrift
für Religions-und Geistesgeschichte, 47/4 (1995): 320–337; idem, “Regionale Aspekte
zum katholischen Bürgertum. Oder: Die Besonderheit des katholischen Bürgertums im
ländlichen Süddeutschland”, Blätter für Deutsche Landesgeschichte, 131 (1995): 223–259;
idem, “In Search of the Catholic (Rural) Bourgeoisie: The Peculiarities of the South German
Bürgertum”, Central European History, 29/2 (1996): 175–201.
2
Clemens Bauer, “Der deutsche Katholizismus und die bürgerliche Gesellschaft”,
in idem, Deutscher Katholizmus: Entwicklungslinien und Profil (Frankfurt, 1964), 28–53;
David Blackbourn, “Introduction”, in idem and R. Evans (eds), The German Bourgeoisie:
Essays on the Social History of the German Middle Class from the Late Eighteenth to the
Early Twentieth Century (London, 1991), 9–10; Michael Klöcker, “Katho1izismus und
Bildungsbürgertum. Hinweise zur Erforschung vernachlässigter Bereiche der deutschen
Bildungsgeschichte im 19. Jahrhundert”, in Reinhard Koselleck (ed.), Bildungsbürgertum
im 19. Jahrhundert, part II: Bildungsgüter und Bildungswissen (Stuttgart, 1990), 117–138;
Wilfried Loth (ed.), Deutscher Katholizismus im Umbruch zur Moderne (Stuttgart, 1991);
Mergel, Zwischen Klasse und Konfession (n. 26), 5–14; Hei1bronner, “Wohin verschwand”
(n. 26), 320–325.
the Bildungsbürgertum”3 on the model of the Protestant bourgeois Verein,

provides us with our most eloquent testimony to the existence of this stratum.
I will examine the functioning of the bourgeois Vereine during the great
economic crisis in Germany and try to relate it to the success of the Nazi Party.
Contrary to scholarly consensus on the subject, I would claim that Verein
activity was adversely affected by the economic crisis. This in turn damaged the
bourgeois infrastructure in villages and small towns, thus hastening the collapse
of the bourgeois political parties.
Once the Vereine lost their economic basis, members and sympathizers
abandoned both the Vereine and their political representatives, and turned to
the Nazi alternative. This line of argument raises a number of questions: to what
extent did the Vereine depend on their economic basis in order to function?
What was the relationship between the Vereine and the bourgeois parties? What
caused the voters of the bourgeois parties to transfer their support to the Nazi
Party? What was the nature of the connection between the Nazi Party and the
cultural Vereine?
These and other questions will guide us in our study of the disintegration of
the bourgeois infrastructure in South Baden. We have already seen how, through
the Verein’s influence, the bourgeois bloc leaned towards nationalist activities.
This study relies heavily on methods taken from the field of political science, and
it will thus make extensive use of techniques such as voting patterns and political
behaviour analysis.
Clearly, the bourgeois Vereine were entirely different from the Catholic
Vereine, although both were of crucial importance in local society. In the
agrarian regions of South Baden and the Baar, however, bourgeois Vereine were
no more common than Catholic ones. The villages of the Wutach and the Baar
did not have a bourgeois stratum. Peasant villages in these regions were socially
and economically backward, traditionally reluctant to take co-operative action
in any shape or form. Bitterness over the socio-economic situation in these
regions led to an atomization of social life and a surge in anti-capitalistic and
anti-bourgeois feelings. One way in which these characteristics were expressed
was initially through support for the local peasant party (Badischer Landbund),
and later for the Nazi Party. Towards the end of the 1920s there were few Vereine
in this backward region.4
3
Cf. Jürgen Kocka, “Bürgertum und Bürgerlichkeit a1s Prob1eme deutscher
Geschichte vom späten 18. bis zum frühen 20. Jahrhundert”, in idem, Bürger und
Bürgerlichkeit im 19. Jahrhundert (Göttingen, 1987) (n. 1), 34.
4
On the small number of Vereine in the regions, see StaaF, BZ Neustadt 1980/10 -
1980/20, P. 287 - Reiselfingen, Ortsbereisung - 5/8/1929; P. 14 - Bachheim - 1930; 1974/31,
The Verein’s Culture in the Service of Popular Liberalism, 1860–1930 79
In contrast to this region, bourgeois Vereine flourished in other parts of

South Baden. The founding of these Vereine was closely related to the region’s
socio-economic development. Industrialization came relatively late here. Only
in the last third of the nineteenth century did industrially based towns emerge,
and it was only then that a propertied middle class anxious to adopt the socio-
economic patterns of the Protestant bourgeoisie came into existence. That is not
to say that the region lacked any propertied social class whatsoever prior to the
advent of industrialization. At the beginning of the nineteenth century, owners
of factories for clock-making, lumber and precision mechanics had already
emerged as a social and economic force in the region, one that found itself
constantly struggling with the Catholic Church for “cultural hegemony”. The
local bourgeoisie aspired to become the dominant social stratum in the region,
similar to the Protestant model in Baden and the Reich. The harsh geographical
conditions made it difficult for foreign influences to penetrate South Baden, so
that the local bourgeoisie found itself relegated to a kind of cultural ghetto. The
establishment of rail connections with the large Protestant cities at the edge of
South Baden, industrialization, the end of the Kulturkampf and the founding
of a newspaper network with a bourgeois national orientation all contributed
to a partial exodus of the Catholic bourgeoisie from the isolation in which they
were stranded. This was expressed, among other ways, in the establishment of
professional and social bourgeois Vereine totally unrelated to the life of the local
Catholic Church. The men presiding over these Vereine were local notables
and, though Catholic, they were also anti-clerical. These men were primarily
interested in strengthening the “cultural hegemony” of the local bourgeoisie
by extending local socio-cultural life beyond the closed circle of the Catholic
Church, and in reaping, moreover, all the extra benefits and personal influence
that went with being active in the Vereine.5
The Verein was able to accommodate, rather than displace, the more
traditional bonds of community life. Small towns and even agricultural villages
found it easier than large towns to organize all kinds of Vereine. This is especially
true of Baden, where the liberal Community Ordinance of 1832 granted
municipal status to hundreds of tiny hamlets and villages. In these communities
P. 168 - Münchingen - 1930. An extraordinary phenomenon in the region was the fact that
peasants were not ready to join sport, music or cultural Vereine or societies with economic
aims. See Binder’s remarks on peasants’ reasons for not joining the Verein: Hans Binder, “Ein
dörflicher Verein als Spiegelbild gesellschaftlicher Entwicklungen”, Beitrage zur Volkskunde in
Baden-Württemberg, 1 (1985): (n. 14), 110–113.
5
Some examples of the foundation of Vereine can be found in StaaF, BZ Villingen,
1985/110 - 2025, Vereine in Triberg, 1635–1636, Vereine in Schönwald.
there was no clear demarcation line between “traditional” and “bürgerlich”

forms of organization, and the latter were simply superimposed on the more
traditional forms. Social relations and leisure activities in every aspect of life –
the home, the village corner, the church – were remoulded in the national and
liberal spirit, with ample use of all the symbols, rituals and ceremonies of the
bourgeois culture of Vereinswesen.6
Music and sport Vereine were only established in the region towards the end
of the nineteenth century. Some communities could boast of Vereine as early
as the mid nineteenth century, but most of these were dissolved following the
Reaktionzeit of the 1850s, and their subsequent re-establishment took place
on a different basis. A similar process occurred with the Vereine associated
with the Catholic Church and workers. Many of these were established in the
second half of the nineteenth century. The bourgeois Vereine were established
and supported by local notables and small industrialists as a means of helping
to maintain their socio-cultural control.7 The social composition of the
Vereine reflected the make-up of the individual communities. Towns with a
broad industrial infrastructure provided the Vereine with members who were
skilled workers, especially craftsmen. Other members came from the ranks of
merchants, innkeepers, tavern owners and councilmen, and even included the
Bürgermeister. In villages, on the other hand, it was not always possible to find
Vereine on the model of the urban bourgeoisie. When such Vereine did exist,
they generally owed their establishment to wealthy local peasants, tavern-
keepers or the Bürgermeister. The dominant members of the village Vereine came
from the ranks of peasants, craftsmen and agricultural workers. In towns based
on tourism, the dominant members were primarily hotel owners, tavern-keepers
and government officials. The most respected and prestigious Vereine were the
KuMV, the male singers’ clubs (MGV), the shooting club (Schützenverein) and
the gymnastics club (Turnverein), and it is these Vereine that will be the focus of
the following discussion.
The members of these last-named Vereine came from the ranks of the petty
bourgeoisie and skilled workers. They were usually headed by a local notable
or by prominent members of the local bourgeoisie: owners of factories and
hotels or members of the local council. There were some people who belonged
to several different Vereine with the same goals, though in the years of the great
6
Werner Blessing, “Umwelt und Mentalität im ländlichen Bayern. Eine Skizze zum
Alltagswandel im 19. Jahrhundert”, Archiv für Sozialgeschichte, 19 (1979): 38.
7
StA Furtwangen 233/12a/1574, 27/6/1923, Gesangverein “Arion” und Oskar
Ketterer; GmdA Eisenbach, XI, 3/3 - Firma Morat; Todtnau - 100 Jahre Turnverein Todtnau,
53.
economic crisis, they were forced to limit their activities to a single Verein, as they
were unable to pay more than one set of membership dues or to devote more
time to leisure activities. The fact that workers preferred the bourgeois Vereine
to those related to the workers’ camp may possibly be due to their nationalist
conservative outlook which had no proletarian consciousness, and their desire
to become part of the local bourgeoisie. We may also be able to learn something
about the nature of the bourgeois Vereine themselves, for their open-door policy
not only permitted upward mobility but also served to prevent social unrest.
In opening their doors, the bourgeois Vereine helped to integrate social groups
that had formerly been outside the bourgeois camp and on the margins of local
society.
Activities in the Catholic bourgeois Vereine followed a similar pattern to
those of the Vereine in Protestant regions: gatherings in the tavern around the
Stammtisch, the absence of women and the use of such items as flags, banners
and placards. Like their Protestant counterparts, the bourgeois Catholic Vereine
appointed a new chairman and board every year, held monthly meetings in order
to schedule activities, participated in inter-regional tournaments and used music
as the leitmotif of Verein activities. Even language came under the jurisdiction of
the Verein as members cultivated distinctive speech patterns and the vocabulary
was studded with popular, almost folk-like, idioms connected to the German
Heimat.
Many of the Vereine adopted anti-clerical expressions, a tradition that
went back to the earliest days of the Kulturkampf. One should remember that
we are speaking of Catholics who tried to emulate the ways of the Protestant
bourgeoisie, of which anti-Catholic rhetoric was so much a part. Even after
the Kulturkampf came to an end in the late 1870s, hostility towards political
Catholicism continued to smoulder, in some places as late as the 1930s. The
perennial struggle between the Catholic Vereine and the bourgeois Vereine made
the latter regard Catholic demands as a threat.8 Yet, despite the hostility of
these relations, it was not the anti-clerical but rather the anti-socialist rhetoric
that stands out as the most striking characteristic of the bourgeois Vereine.
Anti-socialist feelings ran high among all elements of the bourgeois camp and
constituted their single common denominator. The more the workers increased
their Verein activities, the more hostile the bourgeois Vereine became. The fact
that the bourgeois Vereine opened their doors to the workers can be seen as a
8
Hans-Jürgen Kremer, “Die Krieger- und Militärvereine in der Innenpolitik des
Grossherzogtums Baden (1870–1914)”, Zeitschrift für die Geschichte des Oberrheins, 133
(1985): 326; PfA Bonndorf - 252, 20/6/1928; StA Wolfach 055-00/1 - Turnverein Wolfach
- 1866, 11/2/1932; ErzAF B2-55-135, 8/10/1930 - Löffingen.
strategy designed, among other things, to erode the strength of the working
camp.
These brief comments concerning the attitudes of the bourgeois Vereine
have been made in order to show that the members of these Vereine were not
oblivious to matters of political concern in South Baden. However, the bourgeois
Vereine in the Second Reich and Weimar Republic were more preoccupied with
nationalist sentiment than with the need to make a strong political stand or to
express their position on party affairs.
As I said in the historiographical chapter, the bourgeois Vereine were the
bread-and-butter, the cornerstone, of the bourgeois public sphere in Greater
Swabia. In the last chapter, Vereine were mentioned several times, mainly in the
context of anti-clerical activities and disseminating bourgeois cultural ideas.
In addition, and sometimes together with the above, their political activities,
particularly in local branches of the National Liberal Party, played a major role
at the time of elections.
At the beginning of the 1860s, many Vereine were formed for social purposes
in Greater Swabia. The initiators were local notables, some of them active in
the Progressive Party.9 Together with their participation in conferences of a
nationalist nature, such as the Schutzenfeste in Frankfurt or the Sangerfest in
Leipzig,10 the Vereine were very active in developing the national consciousness
of the members of their communities: members of the Vereine, women, children,
workers, farmers and other social groups.
The following description, though it was made in 1874, is relevant to later
periods as well. It describes the consecration of the flag (Fahnenweihe) by the
Veteranenvereine in the town of Lenzkirch in South Baden. In honour of the
ceremony, all the houses were decorated with flags, flowers and declarations
such as “German brothers, hand-in-hand, be strengthened by love and trust
against the external enemies of the Reich [France] and the internal ones [the
ultramontanes]”. All the Vereine in the town marched to the square in front of the
church. A prayer ceremony was held in the church, followed by the Fahnenweihe.
Schwarzwalder Wochenblatt, 11/4/1862; Reingart Kaestner, “Dr. Josef Voelk und die
9
deutsche Frage in Bayern 1866–1870”, Zeitschrift des die historischen Vereins für Schwaben, 54
(1941): 7–59.
10
Dietmar Klenke, “Nationalkriegerisches Gemeinschaftsideal als politische
Religion. Zum Vereinsnationalismus der Sänger, Schützen und Turner am Vorabend der
Einigungskriege”, Historische Zeitschrift, 260/2 (1995): 395–448 (n. 3); Schwarzwalder
Wochenblatt, 2/5/1862; Christine Eckert, “Das Vereinsleben der Stadt Füssen”, part II, Das
Jahrbuch Alt Füssen (1982): 98. For liberal-bourgeois organizations in the 1860s, see Andreas
Biefang, Politisches Bürgertum in Deutschland 1857–1868. Nationale Organisationen und
Eliten (Düsseldorf, 1994), 154–185.
All the people of the town were present: they wore a Verein or military uniform.
The priest spoke of brotherhood and belief in a strong and liberal Germany.
The county representative in the Reichstag, Franz Faller of the National Liberal
Party, praised the Kaiser and Bismarck. Once the ceremony was concluded,
several Vereine went to the local tavern and began a drink festival (Drinkfest)
in which emotional speeches were made in support of Germany, the Kaiser
and the strengthening of the army, and a plea was made for the town’s workers
(Lenzkirch had a large watch factory) to increase their involvement in the local
Turnverein and MGV. The women and children waited outside the tavern. The
children cheered each time a notable left the tavern, while the women were busy
preparing food.11 Incidentally, that same year the National Liberal Party won 99
per cent of the vote for the Reichstag in this Catholic town.
In the Swabian regions of Württemberg, most of the Sängervereine expressed
anti-Austrian sentiments in the 1866 war.12 In the Prussian north, in Münster
(known for its anti-Prussian sentiments), the local MGV supported Bismarck and
the Kaiser, and played a central role in recruiting local residents (however few)
to be active nationalists. Like the Kriegerverein, their activities revolved around
drinking and singing at the Stammtisch, marches, and musical performances in
support of German nationalism. Only later, at the beginning of the 1890s, did
increasing numbers of local residents participate in their activities.13
A considerable amount of evidence of recruitment “from below” by
the bourgeois Vereine in the countryside in the 1860s can be found in the
Rhineland and Bavaria.14 The modus operandi was similar: local notables who
were close to the liberal parties and their local branches (National Liberal
11
Hoch. Schw., 28/5/1874.
12
Dieter Langewiesche, “Die schwäbische Sängerbewegung in der Gesellschaft des 19.
Jahrhunderts – ein Beitrag zur kulturellen Nationbildung”, Zeitschrift für Württembergische
Landesgeschichte, 52 (1993): 291–292.
13
Annegret Heemann, Männergesangsvereine im 19. und frühen 20. Jahrhundert. Ein
Beitrag zur stadtischen Musikgeschichte Münsters (Frankfurt, 1992), 181–213.
14
Hansjoachim Henning, Das westdeutsche Bürgertum in der Epoche der
Hochindustrialisierung 1860–1914, part I: Das Bildungsbürgertum in den preußischen
Westprovinzen (Wiesbaden, 1972), 109–205, 256, 361; Heinz Reif, Die verspätete Stadt,
Industrialisierung, städtischer Raum und Politik in Oberhausen 1846–1929 (Cologne,
1993), 257–258; Carola B. Padtberg, Rheinischer Liberalismus in Köln wahrend der
politischen Reaktion in Preussen nach 1848/49 (Cologne, 1985), 30–31; Lydia Maria
Hüskens, Vereine und Politik: politische Vereine exemplarisch untersucht für den Kreis Geldern
in den Reichsgründungsjahren und Während des Kulturkampfes, PhD Thesis, Westfälischen
Wilhelms-Universität, Münster, 1990 (n. 22), 226–229; Blessing, “Umwelt und Mentalitat
”, 38; Kemptner Zeitung, 9/3/1871.
Vereine) initiated the establishment or re-establishment (following the post-

1848 era of reaction) of Vereine for social, sporting and musical activities. The
activities of the Vereine became deeply significant to all members in the area,
and in the absence of a similar social alternative (it would take a few years
until the Catholic Church organized similar groups, and about two decades
and more until the socialists took similar steps, mostly in the cities) the liberal-
nationalist spirit spread among most residents: women, farmers, workers and
industrialists were all affected by the hegemony of the local bourgeoise via
their control of the local Vereine.
Contrary to the assumption in the research literature, the Vereine and their
modus operandi started and functioned at the grassroots level.15 The initiative
came, as mentioned above, from local notables. They were the chairmen, they
wrote the Statuten full of nationalist pathos, they organized rehearsals and
performances in the shade of German flags. Despite the voluntary nature of the
Verein and its claim of opening its doors to all who came, the leaders refused to
accept people labelled by the notables as enemies of the Reich (Reichsfeinde).
In the 1870s these were ultramontanes, and from the 1890s they also included
workers affiliated with the socialist party, the SPD.16
The electoral battles at the end of the 1860s and the beginning of the 1870s
were a fertile ground for the activities of the bourgeois Vereine. In southern
Germany the elections to the Customs Parliament (Zollparlamentswahlen)
were for many Vereine an opportunity to engage in activities supporting the
solution of a Small Germany (Kleindeutschland Losung). Their purpose was to
recruit voters for the National Liberal Party. The bourgeois liberal newspaper
Der Schwarzwälder called on the residents of South Baden to enlist in support
of the liberal idea: “All members of the MGV must now prove their loyalty to
promoting the interests of customs and industry and freedom of movement
[Freizugigkeit] and be active among their friends in support of a strong Germany”.
The chairman of the Turnverein summarized the activity of the Verein in 1867 in
Klenke, “Nationalkriegerisches Gemeinschaftsideal” (n. 3); idem, “Bürgerlicher

15
Männergesang und Politik in Deutschland”, Geschichte in Wissenschaft und Unterricht,

40/8 (1989): 458–485 (part I), 40/9 (1989): 534–561 (part II) (n. 12); Dieter Düding,
“Die deutsche Nationalbewegung des 19. Jahrhunderts als Vereinsbewegung”, Geschichte in
Wissenschaft und Unterricht, 42 (1991): 601–624 (n. 12).
16
Echo vom Wald (Triberg), 3/3/1874; Werner Querfeld, Kultur- und Vereinsleben in
der Stadt Greiz wahrend des 19. Jahrhunderts. Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte des Partikularismus
in Deutschland ( Jena, 1957), 121–122; 90 Jahre MGV und Chorgemeinschaft Harmonie
1901–1991, Immenstadt, 1991; Männergesangsverein Bonndorf e.V. Festbuch zum 75.
Jubelfest am 1., 2. und 3. Juli 1922.
the town of Neustadt with the words “the elections reflect the desire for a strong
and large nation”.17
In the town of Immenstadt (Allgäu/Bavaria), members of the Schutzenverein
were called upon to take part in the activities of the National Liberal Verein.
Attacks on priests, which had become part of the everyday activities of the local
Vereine, now took a political form. On the day of the Customs elections, German
Bund flags were hung on the premises of the different Vereine.18 The outcome of
the elections in these areas met the expectations of the members of the Vereine
and the local notables. Representatives of the National Liberal Party in these
areas won a majority of the votes.19
At the beginning of the 1870s, the Vereine aided the National Liberal Party in
its campaign in local and national elections, in its struggle against ultramontanism
and even in the party’s activities for strengthening the nationalist consciousness
of German society. The party’s strength in those years was the consequence of
a series of events;20 I will attempt to reveal a different aspect of the successful
recruitment by the party in certain regions of Germany and pinpoint the reason
for its failure in other regions. The Kulturkampf provided a perfect opportunity
for the National Liberals to establish their cultural hegemony, especially at the
local level,21 and the Vereine were important ammunition in this battle. In places
17
Die Schwarzwälder, 11/2/1868; Badische Zeitung, 7/2/1868.
18
Kemptner Zeitung, 13/3/1868; Horst Hesse, “Behördeninterne Information über
die Volksstimmung zur Zeit des liberal-ultramontanen Parteikampfes 1868/69”, Zeitschrift
für Bayerische Landesgeschichte, 34 (1971): 636–640.
19
Die Schwarzwälder, 22/2/1868, 25/2/1868; “Die badischen Wahlen zum
Zollparlament”, Historisch-Politische Blätter, 61 (1868): 771–772; Dietrich Thränhardt,
Wahlen und politische Strukturen in Bayern 1848–1953 (Düsseldorf, 1973), 71–72; Oded
Heilbronner, “Reichstagswahlkämpfe im Allgäu 1871–1932: Ein abweichender Fall?”,
Zeitschrift für Bayerische Landesgeschichte, 60 (1997): 297–326 (n. 20).
20
See explanations in James Sheehan, German Liberalism in the Nineteenth Century
(Chicago, 1978), 141–177; Geoff Eley, “Bismarckian Germany”, in Gordon Martel (ed.),
Modern Germany Reconsidered, 1870–1945 (London, 1995), 1–32; Karl Rohe, Wahlen
und Wahlertraditionen in Deutschland (Frankfurt, 1992), 57–73, 95; Karl H. Pohl, “Die
Nationalliberalen. Eine unbekannte Partei?”, Jahrbuch zur Liberalismusforschung, 3 (1991):
82–112. See also the excellent research conducted by G. Zang on the region of Konstanz:
Gert Zang (ed.), Provinzialisierung einer Region. Zur Entstehung der bürgerlichen Gesellschaft
in der Provinz (Frankfurt, 1978).
21
Dieter Bellmann, “Der Liberalismus im Seekreis (1860–1870). Durchsetzungversuch
und Scheitern eines regional eigensteandigen Entwicklungskonzeptes”, in Zang,
Provinzialisierung einer Region (n. 31), 183–263. For a different opinion, see Helmut W.
Smith, German Nationalism and Religious Conflict: Culture, Ideology, Politics, 1890–1914
(Princeton, 1995), 42–49; David Blackbourn, Marpingen: Apparitions of the Virgin Mary
where the opposing activities of the ultramontanes were weak, the Vereine were
able to recruit many supporters for the National Liberal Party, and in places
where the ultramontanes were well-organized and able to provide a reasonable
answer to the liberal-nationalist challenge, the Vereine struggled, often in vain,
against the ecclesiastical-political challenge. Greater Swabia, where traditionally
the ultramontane spirit was weak, is an example of the first case, whereas western
Germany – especially the Rhine region (which I will not discuss here), the main
stronghold of ultramontanism in the 1870s and 1880s – is an example of the
second.
Economic, educational, municipal and, above all, social activities were the
means of attack on the Ultramontanen in Greater Swabia. Many leaders of the
Vereine, who were also local entrepreneurs, municipal treasurers and mayors,
refused to give support to the renovation of priests’ houses and churches,
claiming that anti-nationalist and pro-French propaganda was emanating from
those places.22 Schools were invited to attend performances of the MGV in the
town of Bonndorf in South Baden and in so doing were also given a dose of
anti-clericalism.23 In Kempten (Allgäu) Turnverein youths were sitting in the
tavern and reciting (together with the owner and other guests): “Das grosse
deutsche Vaterland blickt mit Stolz auf seine Sohne am Fusse der eisumstartten
Alpen, die die südlichste Grenze des Reiches bilden”.24 (The great German
Fatherland observes with pride its sons at the feet of the icy Alps which form
its southernmost border). The nationalist veteran Vereine also joined the “anti-
clerical” National Liberal Party and called upon their friends not to have any
contact with the priest in church on Sundays. Their slogan was: “Wir sind
katholisch, gut katholisch, aber nicht Ultramontanen!”25 (We are Catholics,
good Catholics, but not Ultramontanes!)
Before and during elections, the Vereine provided services for the National
Liberal Party. Nationalist and anti-clerical propaganda was plentiful at their
meetings. The members of the MGV in Triberg in South Baden published an
announcement on the eve of the 1874 Reichstag elections, declaring that “the
in Bismarckian Germany (Oxford, 1993), chapter 9; Margaret Anderson, “Voter, Junker,

Landrat, Priest: The Old Authorities and the New Franchise in Imperial Germany”, American
Historical Review, 98/5 (1993): 1448–1474 (n. 15); idem, “The Kulturkampf and the Course
of German History”, Central European History, 19/1 (1986): 82–115.
22
Freiburger Katholisches Kirchenblatt (1873): 315; Echo vom Wald, 17/1/1874; Tag-
und Anzeigerblatt für Kempten und das Allgäu, 13/2/1874.
23
Freiburge Katholisches Kirchenblatt (1873): 203.
24
Kemptener Zeitung, 5/3/1871.
25
Die Schwarzwälder, 23/2/1875.
Catholics must understand that the involvement of the church and the priests
in politics is detrimental to their wellbeing”, and in a nearby village, members of
the Schutzenverein intended to prevent the priest from bringing the elderly and
infirm to the voting booth.26 Even the different Vereine’s commemorative books
declared that in the 1870s they were active in the service of the German nation
and the German Reich that had just arisen to protect the Germans from their
enemies.27 The Verein served a goal that stood above narrow political interests:
in their activities for the National Liberal Party, which at this time saw itself
as committed to the new German nationalism, the Verein, perhaps more than
any other organization, contributed to the transformation of peasants, factory
owners, workers, women and children, among others, into Germans, especially
in Catholic Greater Swabia where there were a multitude of political, economic
and social strata.
National celebrations such as the Sedan festivities (celebrating the victory
over France) and the Kaiser’s birthday provided fertile grounds for the Vereine
to increase nationalist sentiment among Catholics in Greater Swabia. Much
was written on Protestant festivities. This literature even stresses the fact that
Catholics did not participate in these festivities.28 Although ultramontane
Catholics did refrain from celebrating in certain regions (for example, in western
Germany, as we will see later on), in Greater Swabia the Vereine succeeded in
enlisting the Catholic population in these festivities. It is true that Sedan Day
was not celebrated in every Catholic community, but again the loyalty to
Prussia and Germany of the South Baden region, the Allgäu and regions of
26
Echo vom Wald, 20/1/1874, 22/1/1874.
27
125 Jahre Turn- und Sportverein Sonthofen, Sonthofen, 1988; Männergesangsverein
Bonndorf; 100 Jahre Musikverein Eisenbach 1880–1980; 125 Jahre Musikverein Ewattingen
1858–1983.
28
Werner Blessing, “Gottesdienst als Säkularisierung? Zu Krieg, Nation und Politik
im bayerischen Protestantismus des 19. Jahrhunderts”, in Wolfgang Schieder (ed.), Religion
und Gesellschaft im 19. Jahrhundert (Stuttgart, 1993), 216–255; Monika Wienfort,
“Kaisergeburtstagsfeiern am 27. Januar 1907. Bürgerliche Feste in den Stadten des Deutschen
Kaiserreichs”, in M. Hettling and P. Nolte (eds), Bürgerliche Feste: symbolische Formen
politischen Handelns im 19. Jahrhundert (Göttingen, 1993), 157–191; Fritz Schellack,
“Sedan- und Kaisergeburtstags-Feste”, in Dieter Düding et al. (eds), Öffentliche Festkultur.
Politische Feste in Deutschland von der Aufklärung bis zum Ersten Weltkrieg (Reinbek, 1988)
(n. 12), 278–297; Ute Schneider, Politische Festkultur im 19. Jahrhundert: die Rheinprovinz
von der französischen Zeit bis zum Ende des Ersten Weltkrieges (1806–1918) (Essen: Klartext,
1995) (n. 33 ), 191–196; Fritz Schellack, “Feier nationaler Fest- und Gedenktage im
Hunsrück wahrend des Kaiserreiches 1817–1918”, Hunsrücker Heimatblätter, 51 (1981):
23–38.
Upper Bavaria attracted the attention of political observers from Prussia.29 The
Sedanfest was generally celebrated in taverns and on the streets. The Vereine were
in charge of the festivities and took advantage of the opportunity to incite anti-
ultramontanism,30 to spout anti-socialist rhetoric and to make political speeches
that were generally presented by one of the National Liberal representatives.
The growing strength of clericals in Greater Swabia from the 1880s onwards31
made the political, social and cultural positions of many organizations more
extreme, and made it more difficult for the bourgeois Vereine to function. In
many communities the population was threatened by the local clergy not to
participate in Vereine activities. There were also troubles in the liberal camp.
Towards the end of the 1870s, together with the split that began in the National
Liberal Party in Berlin, many Vereine began to disintegrate or completely cease
to exist.32 Although there is no doubt that the crisis trickled down from the
upper ranks of the National Liberal Party to the lower ranks, it was present in
this period at the grassroots level, as well as in the upper echelons of the National
Liberal movement. On the local level, the source of the crisis (in the areas under
discussion here) was the Verein’s difficulty in struggling against the church;
and, moreover, the escalating struggle with the ultramontanes resulted in the
establishment of many Vereine that dealt with the same cultural activities. In small
towns and villages there were sometimes two Vereine for singing or sport which,
in addition to their regular activities, spent their spare time fighting the clericals.
As the government’s struggle against the church in Prussia and the southern
states was coming to an end and was also mirrored on the local level, there was
Hans J. Kremer (ed.), Das Grossherzogtum Baden in der politischen Berichterstattung

29
der preussischen Gesandten 1871–1918, part I, 1871–1900 (Stuttgart, 1990), 7/9/1874.

30
“Nach Canossa gehen wir Nicht!”, Kemptner Zeitung, 7/3/1874.
31
Werner Blessing, “Kirchenfromm – Volksfromm – Weltfromm: Religiositat im
katholischen Bayern”, in Wilfried Loth (ed.), Deutscher Katholizismus im Umbruch zur
Moderne (Stuttgart, 1991), 95–123; idem, Staat und Kirche in der Gesellschaft: Institutionelle
Autoritat und mentaler Wandel in Bayern wahrend des 19. Jahrhunderts (Göttingen, 1982);
Kremer, Grossherzogtum Baden (n. 45), 19/4/1887, 8/11/1888; I. Götz von Olenhusen,
Klerus und abweichendes Verhalten. Zur Sozialgeschichte katholischer Priester im 19.
Jahrhundert: Die Erzdiözese Freiburg (Göttingen, 1994), chapter 7.
32
Dieter Schott, Die Konstanzer Gesellschaft, 1918–1924. Der Kampf um Hegemonie
zwischen Novemberrevolution und Inflation (Konstanz, 1989), 26–39; Querfeld, Kultur-
und Vereinsleben (n. 29), 110; Henning, Das westdeutsche Bürgertum (n. 27), 205–209;
Hüskens, Vereine und Politik (n. 22 ), 202; Männergesangsverein Bonndorf (n. 29), 15; 100
Jahre Musikverein Eisenbach 1880–1980, 12; “‘Where People Sing – You Can Settle with
Confidence’. Aus der Geschichte der Liedertafel Traunstein”, Chimgau-Blätter, 30/3/1957.
On the National Liberal Party in those years, see Dan White, The Splintered Party: National
Liberalism in Hessen and the Reich 1867–1918 (Cambridge, MA, 1976), chapter 2.
really no need for such a large number of Vereine.33 The great depression of the
1870s which resulted in an inability of local councils to give adequate support
to the activities of the bourgeois Vereine, a difficulty in paying membership dues
and a lack of spare time to devote to the Verein’s activities, also contributed to the
Verein’s crisis in small towns and villages. Local notables who found themselves
in a difficult financial situation as a result of the economic crisis decreased their
involvement in the Verein’s activities and sometimes even abandoned it.34 The
crisis in the infrastructure of the National Liberal Party, which from the 1880s
onwards resulted, among other things, in the malfunctioning of the bourgeois
Vereine, has hitherto been given very little attention in academic literature. This
crisis is now central to this book.
The crisis was also caused by social and demographic changes which parts of
German society underwent. From the end of the 1880s the “new generation” of
youth entered the cycle of social activities in the German countryside, as well as
in the cities. Unlike their parents, they were not aware of the importance of the
Vereine to the National Liberal issue. In their eyes, a united Germany was a fact
and not a cause that needed to be fought for, certainly not in their free time. The
social profile of the Vereine changed. More groups from the lower middle class
were represented. Primary school teachers are a good example of a social group
that, until the 1880s, refrained or was prevented from joining the prestigious
Vereine. However, rapid demographic changes in German society, the financial
crisis and the growing importance of schools as vessels of nationalist education
gave value to social groups that hitherto were not considered significant, and
this was reflected in the social profile of the Vereine in the German countryside.
The constituency of national liberalism changed without its leaders being aware
of it. From a social stratum party (Milieupartei), the National Liberal Party
turned into a collective movement (Sammlungsbewegung) that contained all the
people opposed to socialism, political Catholicism and parties of local interest.35
33
Männergesangsverein Bonndorf (n. 29), 15.
34
Chronik des Musikvereins Grafenhausen/Hochschwarzwald 1863–1963, 16; Henning,
Das westdeutsche Bürgertum (n. 27), 205–209; Josef Rahier, “Der Jülicher Kriegerverein
1868–1933”, Jülicher Geschichtsblätter: Jahrbuch des Jülicher Geschichtsvereins, 39 (1972):
10–24 (n. 48); StaaF, Kart. 261/318 - Jahresbericht 1884 (Vereine).
35
Henning, Das westdeutsche Bürgertum (n. 27), 256, 207, 467; Blessing, Staat und
Kirche (n. 53), 169–173, 217–225; Hüskens, Vereine und Politik (n. 22), 475–481; Rudy
Koshar, Social Life, Local Politics and Nazism: Marburg, 1880–1935 (Chapel Hill, NC, 1986)
(n. 8), 112–113; Heemann, Männergesangsvereine (n. 26), 181: 100 Jahre Trachtenkapelle
Hinterzarten 1874–1974, Hintenzarten, 1975; 100 Jahre Musikverein Schenkenzell 1875–
1975, Schenkenzell, 1991, 29; 100 Jahre Musikverein Eisenbach 1880–1980 (n. 55), 9; Karl
Rohe, “German Elections and Party Systems in Historical and Regional Perspective: An
Sociological-anthropological research strongly supports the claim that the

Verein (in Germany) and the voluntary association (in England, for example)
served as a sort of cultural seismograph for the changes that were taking place
in society, particularly in rural regions.36 The crises and changes that German
and English society underwent at the end of the nineteenth century were
reflected in the Vereine, and in our case, the bourgeois Vereine. In addition to
the demographic and social changes briefly mentioned above, the discussion in
the following chapter is overshadowed by various processes that took place in
Germany (and not only there) and were reflected in the bourgeois Vereine. I
refer to both the strengthening of the state and economic changes, especially
the rise of the mass consumer society, the new leisure culture and the growing
importance of economic issues in everyday life.
The growing importance of the state and its process of centralization was
characteristic of European political conditions at the turn of the century. In our
case this resulted in the establishment and re-establishment of an increasing
number of Vereine, and especially of those which had dissolved in the 1870s.
The process was initiated “from above”. They were more committed to a
central organization, whether that of the region in which they functioned (for
example, the Baden Shooting Association [Badengauverbandsschiessen]) or a
national organization (for example, the German Singers Association [Deutsche
Sängerbund]). The dominance of the state was felt more strongly. With the aid
of modern means of communication, nationwide developments penetrated
deep into the periphery, the local cultural system.37 As the activities of the
Vereine in towns and villages reflected the national agenda, one can understand,
for example, the less anti-clerical tone of Vereine activities in southern and
western Germany after the 1880s:38 on the one hand, the failure of the struggle
Introduction”, in idem (ed.), Elections, Parties and Political Traditions: Social Foundations of
German Parties and Party Systems, 1867–1987 (New York and Oxford, 1990), 12.
36
John Eidson, “German Club Life as a Local Cultural System”, Comparative Study in
Society and History, 32/2 (1990): 357–382; Binder, “Ein dörflicher Verein”, 103–118. For
England, see Stephen Yeo, Religion and Voluntary Organisations in Crisis (London, 1976),
chapter 11; R.J. Morris, “Clubs, Societies and Associations”, in F.L.M. Thompson (ed.), The
Cambridge Social History of Britain 1750–1950, vol. 3 (Cambridge, 1990), 395–430.
37
The opposite also occurred: local processes could sometimes be reflected in the
“centre”, although the probability of this was much less than that of movement “from top to
bottom”, especially at the turn of the century.
38
Very important here are Celia Applegate, A Nation of Provincials: The German Idea
of Heimat (Berkeley, CA, 1990); Alon Confino, “The Nation as a Local Metaphor: Heimat,
National Memory and the German Empire, 1871–1918”, History and Memory, 5/1 (1993):
42–86. For anti-clerical rethoric, see Blessing, Staat und Kirche (n. 53), 238–250; idem,
of the bourgeois Vereine seen in the bourgeois-nationalist infrastructure in west

Germany gave rise to a more restrained policy of the National Liberal branches
towards the Zentrum in various areas. On the other hand, Bismarck’s reneging on
his commitment to the Kulturkampf at the end of the 1870s, the abolition of the
anti-clerical laws, the split among the liberals and demographic changes affected
the approach to the ultramontanes on a local level in the 1880s. Similarly, there
was a reason for the anti-socialist and pro-nationalist tone of the activities of the
bourgeois Vereine from the 1890s onwards. The increasing power of the SPD as
a result of rapid industrialization and the abolition of anti-socialist laws in 1890,
and the increase in populist nationalist propaganda, were expressed on the local
level in the Vereine as a reflection of local sentiments which in turn mirrored
these cultural changes. In the case of the bourgeois Vereine, they were expressed
in the anti-socialist activities of the Vereine. In the case of the socialists, they were
reflected in the great increase in the number of socialist Vereine.
In addition to the strengthening of the state and the increase in centralization,
changes in the economic behaviour of ideologies and organizations, especially in
the field of leisure, greatly affected the activities of the Vereine. Financial interests
and considerations were often dominant in fields that were previously far from
the Verein’s consideration. The populist character of the new leisure culture, the
circulation of widely published newspapers and the invention of the telephone
and the gramophone slowly penetrated the towns and cities and deeply affected
the cultural and political activities of the bourgeois Vereine. The new leisure
culture was expressed in the activities of the bourgeois Vereine: women were
allowed to participate in the activities of the MGV. Even in small towns, a
gramophone, movies (especially on the eve of the war) and public libraries were
adopted by the Vereine in their presentations, but were also often owned by an
organization outside the region. Thus the traditional Vereinskultur competed
with the new one.39
“Kirchenfromm – Volksfromm – Weltfromm” (n. 53), 110–112; Hochwächter auf dem

Schwarzwald, 23/10/1884; DW, 26/5/1903, 16/6/1903. For the autonomy of National
Liberal grassroots activities, see White, The Splintered Party (n. 54), 7–8, chapter 6; Beverly
Heckart, From Bassermann to Bebel: The Grand Bloc’s Quest for Reform in the Kaiserreich
1900–1914 (New Haven, 1974), 265; Michael John, “Kultur, Klassen und regionaler
Liberalismus in Hannover 1848–1914”, in Lothar Gall and Dieter Langewiesche (eds),
Liberalismus und Region (Munich, 1995) (n. 15),190–193.
39
For economic and financial problems in the Vereine which led to internal crisis,
see 90 Jahre MGV und Chorgemeinschaft Harmonie, 14. On the desire of the Turnverein
in Schonach to appear in the local hall because more people would watch them and the
revenue would be much higher than in their regular and smaller Vereinlokal in the school,
see Protokolbücher-Turnverein, 19/1/1895. I would like to thank Herr Werner Hamm of
In the (second) massive political mobilization that began in the 1890s (and
took place for reasons that need not be discussed here), the bourgeois Vereine
once again took an active part, but this time using new means. The political
system of the notables was in crisis and this affected the recruitment of voters
by the bourgeois Verein. The mechanism of recruitment “from below”, with
the help of the Vereine who were led by notables, did not work as it had in the
past, and many people, especially the young, sought new political directions.
They turned, especially in rural areas, to the various peasants’ organizations.
Nevertheless, the Vereine adopted new recruitment strategies and acquired new
enemies. In Kempten, the Vereine recruited the local fire brigade (Freiwillige
Feuerwehrvereine) in support of the “liberal question”, and the local bicycle club
(Fahrradverein) was used by the National Liberals to transport election results
from the surrounding villages to the Nationalverein centre in town. In elections
in the 1890s and the beginning of the new century, some Vereine in South Baden
were involved in a new type of activity for the National Liberal Party: playing
Heimatlieder on the gramophone in the tavern, coupled with political speeches.
The liberal newspaper Donaueschinger Wochenblatt became a daily paper at the
beginning of the century and announced that, with the help of “modern printing
machines, (the newspaper) will carry the National Liberal message every day
to the Baar villages”.40 On the eve of local elections in 1910, the Turnverein
at Vörhenbach was mobilized to distribute the local liberal newspaper to the
town’s residents.41 The train and the telegraph tightened the connection with the
National Liberal Party headquarters, as well as the connection with the Verein’s
Schonach who gave me the opportunity to study the Protokolbücher. Koshar, Social Life (n.
8), 107–108, 156ff.; Querfeld, Kultur- und Vereinsleben (n. 29), 127–129; Stephan Pahs and
Norbert Kirchner, “Volkskündliche Vereinsforschung und regionale Differenzierung des
Schützenwesens”, Westfalische Forschung, 39 (1989): 306ff; Andreas Gestrich, Traditionelle
Jugendkultur und Industrialisierung: Sozialgeschichte der Jugend in einer ländlichen
Arbeitergemeinde Württembergs, 1800–1920 (Göttingen, 1986), 111–115; Winfried
Speitkamp, Die Verwaltung der Geschichte. Denkmalpflege und Staat in Deutschland, 1871–
1933 (Göttingen, 1996), 114–127. For the same process in England, see Yeo, Religion and
Voluntary Organisations (n. 59), 308–390.
40
Geoff Eley, Reshaping the German Right: Radical Nationalism and Political Change
after Bismarck (Ann Arbor, MI, 1991) (n. 15), 33–34; Allgäuer Zeitung, 26/10/1884; Tag
und Anzeigerblatt für Kempten und das Allgäu, 21/6/1894 (“Das Fahrrad im Dienste der
Politik”).
41
Heemann, Männergesangsvereine (n. 26), 202, 212–213; Hilmar Dressel, Die
politischen Wahlen in der Stadt Trier und in den Eifel- und Moselkreisen des Regierungsbezirks
Trier, 1888–1913 (Bonn, 1962) (n. 52), 240; Freiburger Katholisches Kirchenblatt (1898):
315; Schwarzwalder Zeitung (Bonndorf ), 14/5/1893, Grafenhausen; DT, 23/6/1902; StA
Vöhrenbach XI/3–4, 23/2/1910.
headquarters in different areas of Germany. Modern communications facilitated

the conveyance of orders, printed materials and travelling entertainments to
places much further away. These entertainments were effective in attracting new
members, despite the fact that they involved even greater expenses. In general,
the National Liberal Vereine reorganized and increased their activities at the
beginning of the century all over Germany. It appears that, despite the difficulties
with the political system of the notables and the changes described above, the
party was able to reorganize itself, or at least to prevent its disintegration.42
Although this evidence, as well as much more that I have not mentioned,
indicates that there was vigorous activity in support of the National Liberal
Party, one must ask whether it was politically successful. Moreover, how can
one explain the contradiction between these activities of the Vereine that
continued a successful twenty-year-old tradition and the decline in the power
of the National Liberal Party in Germany, especially in the western regions?
They were indeed successful, on the local level, in maintaining their electoral
power, or at least preventing a steep decline similar to that which occurred at
the end of the 1870s in the Reichstag elections. The accelerated activities of the
Vereine described here, together with political manipulations linked to voting
rights, contributed, among other things, to the continuation of the bourgeois
hegemony on the local level.43 However, what about national elections? Why
42
John, “Kultur, Klassen und regionaler Liberalismus in Hannover” (n. 15), 162–163;
Geoff Eley, “Notable Politics, the Crisis of German Liberalism and the Electoral Transition
of the 1890s”, in Konrad Jarauch and Larry Eugene Jones (eds), In Search of a Liberal
Germany: Studies in the History of German Liberalism from 1789 to the Present (New York,
1990) (n. 15), 207, 211–213; White, The Splintered Party (n. 54), 174ff.; James Retallack,
“Antisocialism and Electoral Politics in Regional Perspective: The Kingdom of Saxony”,
in L.E. Jones and J. Retallack (eds), Elections, Mass Politics, and Social Change in Modern
Germany (Cambridge, 1992), 49–92; Rohe, Wahlen und Wählertradition (n. 15); George F.
Mundle, The German National Liberal Party 1900–1914, Dissertation, University of Illinois,
1975; Anthony O’Donnell, National Liberalism and the Mass Politics of the German Right
1890–1907, Dissertation, Princeton University, 1974; Dieter Langewiesche, Liberalismus
in Deutschland (Frankfurt, 1988), 211–227; Pohl, “Die Nationalliberalen” (n. 36), 106ff.;
idem, “‘Einig’, ‘kraftvoll’, ‘machtbewusst’. Uberlegungen zu einer Geschichte des deutschen
Liberalismus aus regionaler Perspektive”, Historische Mittteilungen, 7 (1994), 61–80. For
general trends, see Jürgen Schmädeke, Wählerbewegung im Wilhelminischen Deutschland,
part I: Die Reichstagswahlen von 1890 bis 1912 (Berlin, 1995), chapter 5.
43
Harmut Pogge von Strandmann, “The Liberal Power Monopoly in the Cities of
Imperial Germany”, in Jones and Retallack (eds), Elections, Mass Politics, and Social Change
(n. 64), 93–118; Sheehan, German Liberalism (n. 36), 222–238; idem, “Liberalism and
the City in Nineteenth-century Germany”, Past and Present, 51 (1971): 116–137; Zunkel,
“Die westdeutschen Bürgergesellschaften zwischen Kaiserreich und Nationalsozialismus”,
did the National Liberal Party suffer from failures, despite the active support
of the Vereine? Historical research is much preoccupied with the reasons for
the decline in the power of German liberalism, especially the National Liberal
Party, from the 1870s onwards, and this is not the place to deal with them. I
wish to point to certain aspects of the activities of the bourgeois Vereine with
regard to mass political mobilization at the beginning of the 1890s which may
explain the breakdown of the traditional National Liberal infrastructure (that
is to say, that which came into being at the end of the 1860s and the beginning
of the 1870s) and the transformation of the party from a Milieupartei into a
Sammlungsbewegung. The first explanation is linked to the centralization
processes (mentioned above) which parts of German society and politics were
undergoing. The Vereine which actively supported the liberals but retained their
independence and local uniqueness became a sort of “branch” of the National
Liberal Party in various states.44 As part of the changes that the German
political map was undergoing, some members of the Vereine “drifted” into
conservative parties, the Zentrum party (as mentioned above), and sometimes
into local parties or parties representing interests. Party headquarters were less
sensitive to local uniqueness and traditions and the Vereine became involved in
subjects completely irrelevant to the local culture in which they were operating.
Economic and social issues often accompanied nationalist propaganda (the
financial aspects of naval politics, tariff laws, overseas colonies), and from the
end of the 1890s became a legitimate means by which to recruit new members
and voters as part of the attempt to “nationalize” the feelings of the population
(in this case, a rural one). These and other subjects penetrated the daily routine of
the party’s branches including the Vereine.45 Unlike in the past, when the Vereine
in Jürgen Heideking et al. (eds), Wege in die Zeitgeschichte (Berlin, 1989), 30–48 (n. 10),
34; Renate Ehrismann, Der regierende Liberalismus in der Defensive. Verfassungspolitik im
Grossherzogtum Baden 1876–1905 (Frankfurt am Main, Berlin and Bern, 1993); Pohl,
“‘Einig’, ‘kraftvoll’, ‘machtbewusst’. Uberlegungen” (n. 64).
44
Hüskens, Vereine und Politik (n. 22), 394; Querfeld, Kultur- und Vereinsleben (n. 29),
135; Heckart, From Bassermann to Bebel (n. 59), 248 (see also n. 61). For a different argument,
see Eley, Reshaping the German Right, 33; and idem, “Notable Politics”, 194–195 (n. 15). For
the National Liberals in different regions, see the articles in Gall and Langewiesche (eds),
Liberalismus und Region (n. 15).
45
Brett Fairbairn, “Interpreting Wilhelmine Elections: National Issues, Fairness Issues,
and Electoral Mobilization”, in Jones and Retallack (eds), Elections, Mass Politics, and Social
Change (n. 64), 17–48; Tag und Anzeigerblatt für Kempten und das Allgäu, 23/6/1906;
Allgäuer Zeitung, 8/1/1907. For the trends in England, see S.J.D. Green, Religion in the Age
of Decline: Organisation and Experience in Industrial Yorkshire, 1870–1920 (Cambridge,
1996), 24ff., chapter 4; Yeo, Religion and Voluntary Organisations (n. 59), 306–307. Koshar
initiated discussion of national issues but were also able to combine the “central”
and “peripheral” and to present the problem as a local one, the Vereine now lost
touch with local traditions and cultures. True, appearances of the Turnvereine
or the MGV in the Black Forest were filled with Heimat (regional) pathos in
songs like “O Schwarzwald, O’ Heimat wie bist du so schön” (Oh Schwarzwald,
O Homeland, how lovely you are!) Here, the MGV tried to accustom the local
population to High German (Hochdeutsch).46 In the Stammtisch and meetings
of the Vereine, during performances and rehearsals, political arguments were the
norm47 and even found their way into the Vereine’s events in carnival time. Thus,
for example, the elections for the Reichstag in 1887 were held on the day of
the Bavarian carnival (Fasching), and the victory of the liberals in the village of
Lindenberg in Allgäu so pleased the members of the veterans’ Verein that they
stood opposite the Catholic candidate’s house, cursing and insulting him, the
Fasching masks still on their faces all the while.48
Anti-socialist propaganda now took the place of anti-clerical and was pursued
with even greater intensity. Although the bourgeois Vereine continued to
proclaim their traditional commitment to educating the masses, the workers and
factory owners left the bourgeois hegemony and established their own Vereine.
Nationalist associations such as the Pan-German League and the Navy League
established chapters all over Germany and sometimes competed, sometimes
co-operated with the bourgeois Vereine, with their moderate nationalist
propaganda. The ultra-nationalist Pan-German League and Navy League
targeted the local bourgeois-nationalist society, and the latter sometimes found
it difficult to differentiate between them and Vereine such as the Schützenvereine
or the Kriegervereine.49 So, the political and social rifts on the national level were
reflected at the grassroots level, in the sphere of the Vereine.
A conspicuous sign of the decline in political importance of the Vereine was
their delegation to the periphery of national festivals. In sporting and musical
sees the Verein as an apolitical social institution and rejects the idea of political issues
influencing its agenda. See Koshar, Social Life (Anm 8), 157ff.
46
Hochwächter auf dem Schwarzwald, 1/8/1911; Schellack, “Feier nationaler Fest- und
Gedenktage” (n. 44), 31; Langewiesche, “Die schwäbische Sängerbewegung” (n. 15), 299.
47
Protokollbuch - Turnverein Schonach, 19/1/1895; Querfeld, Kultur- und Vereinsleben
(n. 29), 121–122; Hüskens, Vereine und Politik (n. 22), 216–221.
48
Allgäuer Zeitung, 30/1/1887. For the connection between carnivals and politics,
see Annegret Pollard, Carnival as History: Mainz 1838–1888, PhD Thesis, University of
Michigan, 1993, 370ff.
49
Roger Chickering, We Men Who Feel Most German: A Cultural Study of the Pan-
German League, 1886–1914 (Boston, 1984), 143–145; Koshar, Social Life (n. 8), 111;
Gemeindearchiv Bonndorf 1786 – Schützengesellschaft, 1/2/1909.
events, of course, they were initiators. In national events such as the Sedan
festival and the celebration of the Kaiser’s birthday, however, they changed from
being initiators and sponsors of the events in the 1860s and 1870s to being just
another organization participating in the festivities, together with nationalist
organizations, representatives of the Catholic Church, economic Vereine,
political parties, and other social and political groups.
In this way, the Vereine changed from being the only local source of cultural
influence to just another source of cultural influence in the community; from
being one of the cornerstones of German political culture to just another feature
of the cultural organizations, of the milieu existing at the end of the nineteenth
century; from being a hallmark of the bourgeois hegemony to just another of its
components. The National Liberal Party underwent a similar transformation.
It went from being the cornerstone of the bourgeois hegemony, the sole
representative of German nationalism, to one of the political manifestations of
the bourgeois hegemony and German nationalism.
I will now try to summarize the reasons for the crisis of the bourgeois
Vereine: 1) Co-operation and competition between the bourgeois Vereine
and the nationalist ones – particularly that between the Kriegervereine and
the nationalist leagues, which went hand-in-hand – together with increasing
international tension and nationalist propaganda in Germany. This fact
sometimes attenuated the liberal-national character of the Vereine. 2) The
opening of the gates of the bourgeois Vereine to social groups which, until
the end of the century, had refrained or were prevented from joining the
activities of the Vereine (liberal pro-ultramontane Catholics, Jews, SPD
supporters, although few), in addition to inclusion of the lower middle
class, and labourers who did not support the SPD. All these obscured the
somewhat elitist identity of the Vereine. 3) The transformation of the Vereine
into a “branch” of the National Liberal Party obscured the traditional message
that the Vereine tried to pass on as the representatives of local cultures and
traditions – the Heimattradition – but within a strong and liberal Germany.
4) An additional factor detrimental to the bourgeois Vereine was the adoption
of economic-capitalistic patterns of behaviour: the rise of popular culture and
the penetration of capitalist behavioural patterns even in the countryside, in
conjunction with the activities of the younger members who believed that the
liberal struggle for the unity of Germany was a thing of the past and were now
more exposed to the modern consumer society. This transformation resulted
in modern forms of cultural activity (which I discussed earlier) contributing to
the Verein’s identity crisis caused by the erosion of the traditional uniqueness
of the Vereine. In short, these developments created a contrast between
the Verein as a representative of the modern civilized bourgeois world, and

(after the turn of the century) as a representative of the ideal of a belligerent
nationalist community (Nationalkriegerisches Gemeinschaftsideal).50
Germany at the beginning of the twentieth century is often described as a
capitalist country in a transitory stage towards a mass consumer culture, split
by rivalries and cultural, class and political divisions, torn between her desire to
nationalize her regional identities and the continuation of regional traditions,
and last but not least, moving towards democratization in her political life. The
bourgeois Verein as a local seismograph of national developments was involved in
all these processes, sometimes voluntarily and sometimes through compulsion.
As a local representative of national liberalism, the Vereine reflected the crisis
that overtook the party at the turn of the century, but also the innovations that
part of the “young liberals” (Die Junge Liberalen) tried to introduce, sometimes
successfully, in order to increase their strength. These included, among other
things, co-operation with socialists, democratization and blind support of
an adventurous foreign policy.51 It is difficult to give a decisive answer to the
question asked earlier regarding whether the developments that began at the
local level, among the ranks of the bourgeois Vereine, affected the behavioural
patterns of the National Liberal Party on the national level, or vice-versa. I
assume that a growing importance of the bourgeois Vereine could be discerned
in small communities. A clue supporting my assumption is the fact that the
announcement of mobilization in Berlin in the summer of 1914 was announced
in the village of Schenkenzell in South Baden by the local Musikverein whose
members travelled through the streets of the village with their instruments and
declared that war had broken out.52
By the year 1933 many of the bourgeois Vereine had ceased to exist. The
Nazi Party did not need to make a great effort to impose the Gleichschaltung
50
Applegate, A Nation of Provincials (n. 59); Confino, “The Nation as a Local
Metaphor” (n. 59); Langewiesche, “Die schwäbische Sängerbewegung” (n. 25), 299–300;
Karl Ditt, “Vom Heimatverein zur Heimatbewegung. Westfalen 1875–1915”, Westfalische
Zeitschrift, 39 (1989): 238. On the new forms of leisure culture, see the articles in the Archiv
für Sozialgeschichte, 33 (1993), especially Ernst G. Eder, “Sonnenanbeter und Wasserratten.
Korperkultur und Freiluftbadbewegung in Wiens Donaulandschaft 1900–1939”, 245–274;
Gestrich, Traditionelle Jugendkultur (n. 60), 111–115; Klenke, “Nationalkriegerisches
Gemeinschaftsideal” (n. 3).
51
Langewiesche, Liberalismus in Deutschland (n. 64), 211–227; idem, “The Nature
of German Liberalism”, in Martel (ed.), Modern Germany Reconsidered (n. 36), 96–116;
Heckart, From Bassermann to Bebel (n. 59), chapter 8; White, The Splintered Party (n. 55 ),
chapters 1, 6.
52
100 Jahre Musikverein Schenkenzell 1875–1975, 31.
laws upon them. As we will see below, the Vereine had been in a state of crisis
in rural areas of Germany for quite some time. At the end of the 1920s it
was already difficult to distinguish between them and the other national
groups that were active in the countryside, and by the years 1933–1934 their
integration into the National Socialist state (as seen by the members of the
Vereine in the 1930s), or their disintegration (as research in recent decades has
shown),53 was complete.
Historical research has neglected the German bourgeois Vereine active during
the First World War and the Weimar Republic. Once again, it is mainly in
sociological-anthropological studies that one can find references to the Vereine in
the Weimar period:54 the few historical studies of the bourgeois Vereine come from
outside Germany. Rudy Koshar and Robert Hopwood in the United States have
attempted to describe the Verein’s patterns of activity in rural areas of Germany
and in medium-sized cities.55
In the memorial books of many Vereine, the First World War is represented
as the low point in the history of the Vereine. Despite the fact that the bourgeois
Vereine, as a result of processes that had already began before the war, were in
the midst of an identity crisis, they could have used their position as one of the
spokesmen for German nationalism in towns and villages to regain their status
during the war by mobilizing the population for physical and spiritual sacrifice
for the Vaterland. However, mass mobilizations and the emphasis on financial
mobilization damaged the Vereine in this matter as well. The members of the
Vereine all served on the front and many of them were killed or injured. On the
home front, the extreme economic distress also hurt the activities of the Vereine:
financial contributions ceased to arrive. Halls for performances were appropriated
by the army, and even taverns experienced difficulties, often refusing to serve the
53
Rudy Koshar, “Cult of Associations? The Lower Middle Classes in Weimar
Germany”, in idem (ed.), Splintered Classes: Politics and the Lower Middle Classes in
Interwar Europe (New York, 1990), 31–54 (n. 10), 48ff.; idem, Social Life (n. 8). See
also some brief remarks in Michael Maass, Der Männerbund “Schlaraffia” in den Jahren
1914–1937: eine Studie zum weltanschaulich ungebundenen Vereinswesen in Weimarer
Republik und Nationalsozialismus (Nürnberg, 1983), 51–63; idem, Freizeitgestaltung und
kulturelles Leben in Nürnberg 1930–1945: eine Studie zu Alltag und Herrschaftsausübung
im Nationalsozialismus (Nürnberg, 1994).
54
Konrad Dussel and Matthias Frese, “Von traditioneller Vereinskultur zur modernen
Massenkultur? Vereins- und Freizeitangebote in einer südwestdeutschen Kleinstadt 1920–
1960”, Archiv für Sozialgeschichte, 33 (1993), 59–105.
55
See Koshar, Social Life; Robert Hopwood, “Paladins of the Bürgertum: Cultural
Clubs and Politics in Small German Towns 1918–1925”, Historical Papers (Canadian
Historical Association) (1974): 213–235.
Verein, or, to be more precise, what was left of it. In short, the social and economic
foundations of the Vereine in towns and villages were destroyed in the war.56
In the first years after the war it seemed that the bourgeois Vereine in the
German countryside were recovering. The reasons for this are twofold: first, one
could see a trend of many new members joining the ranks of the Vereine; many of
these new members were young. The desire for a traditional and supporting social
and cultural environment in a time of distress played an important role here.57
The traditional connection between the Vereine and charity, as well as welfare
activities, was reinforced after the war by the extreme socio-economic distress.
The Vereine forged strong relations with various philanthropic organizations
such as churches and charities as a way of overcoming their financial difficulties.
The Vereine became, among other things, an “aid organization” in the eyes of the
local populations. Thus, for example, arguments between the different Vereine
concerning the use of heated and unheated halls for training and rehearsal often
appeared in the protocols of Vereine meetings and in correspondence with local
municipalities. The bourgeois Vereine were favoured and the socialist and Catholic
Vereine were discriminated against.58 This made the bourgeois Vereine very
popular. The inability of young people to serve in the army (as stipulated by the
Treaty of Versailles) also contributed to their desire to belong to a legal alternative
organization that had some of the characteristics of the old German army.
Another reason for the popularity of the bourgeois Vereine in the first years
after the war was their capacity to dissociate themselves from the guardianship
56
Gestrich, Traditionelle Jugendkultur (n. 61), 115; 90 Jahre MGV und Chorgemeinschaft
Harmonie, 14; 100 Jahre Schützenverein Laubenberger Stein e.V. (1991). For the different
conditions in Marburg and Hamburg, see Koshar, Social Life (n. 8), 143–144; Herbert
Freudenthal, Vereine in Hamburg: ein Beitrag zur Geschichte und Volkskunde der Geselligkeit
(Hamburg, 1968), 328.
57
Koshar, Social Life (n. 8), 156ff; idem, “Cult of Associations?” (n. 10); Freudenthal,
Vereine in Hamburg (n. 81), 327ff.; Gestrich, Traditionelle Jugendkultur (n. 60), 115;
Zunkel, “Die westdeutschen Bürgergesellschaften” (n. 10), 35; Doris Maurer and Arnold
Maurer, 200 Jahre Lese- und Erholungs-Gesellschaft, Bonn 1787–1987 (Bonn, 1987), 63;
Oded Heilbronner, “The Impact and Consequences of the First World War in a Catholic
Rural Area: The Black Forest as a Case Study ”, German History, 11/1 (1993): 20–35;
Wolfgang Kaschuba and Carola Lipp, Dörfliches Überleben: zur Geschichte materieller und
sozialer Reproduktion ländlicher Gesellschaft im 19. und frühen 20. Jahrhundert (Tübingen,
1982), 193.
58
Oded Heilbronner, “Der verlassene Stammtisch. Vom Verfall der bürgerlichen
Geschichte und Gesellschaft, 19/2 (1993): 178–201 (n. 10); ErzAF, B2-55-135 (Sportvereine),
8/10/1930, 23/11/1930; PfA Bonndorf 254 - 6/12/1924; Gemeindearchiv Löffingen,
1905, Turnerbund 6/12/1920.
of the nationalist-bourgeois parties, from their role as “chapters” of the party

(usually the liberal ones). The difficulties of the liberal and nationalist parties
in the Weimar regime immediately after the war gave their “chapters” in the
periphery much room to manoeuvre. Rrelease from this political burden
provided the Vereine with freedom. The Vereine voluntarily united in support of
the devastated Vaterland, and thus they could also lace their message with appeals
to Heimat sentiments and local traditions. The performances of the bourgeois
Vereine after the war abounded in national-folkish propaganda, propaganda that
originated “from below”, from the desire of part of the population to express
their identification with the world of yesterday – the imperial period – their
dislike of the new political system, their aversion to materialism, their demand
for a harmonious society without class differences, and especially their loathing
of the Left.59 The bourgeois Vereine represented these national sentiments and
in the initial years after the war enjoyed popularity. In addition to all this,
the Vereine adopted certain democratic features such as votes of confidence
in the chairman, the establishment of a committee to examine the finances of
the Vereine, and the inclusion of women.60 These two elements, nationalism
and democratization, did not contradict each other. In the political culture of
German nationalism in the years after the war, they emphasized, more than
once, the principles of equality and “true democracy”. In the eyes of new and old
members of the Vereine, the two elements actually complemented each other.
They corresponded to the Vereine’s needs and contributed to their popularity.
Indeed, this was the “swan song” of the bourgeois Vereine. Two developments
that began before the war and a third one originating after the war together
brought about the dissolution of the Vereine. The first development was the
leisure, mass-consumer culture that provided an alternative to the cultural
activities of the bourgeois Vereine. Competition for the hearts and pockets of
Weimar consumers, even in the countryside, increased at the beginning of the
1920s, and thus attractive alternatives to the bourgeois Vereine’s activities arose,
and were even offered by other Vereine, especially the socialist and Catholic ones
which, to a certain extent, abandoned their ideological character in favour of
pragmatic consumerism. Moreover, other factors such as movies, public libraries,
EvH, 4/9/1926; Koshar, Social Life (n. 8), 157ff.; Hopwood, “Paladins of
59
the Bürgertum”; idem, “Mobilization of a Nationalist Community, 1919–1923”,

German History, 2 (1992): 149–176 (both n. 10); Manfred Kieserling, Faschisierung
und gesellschaftlicher Wandel. Mikroanalyse eines nordhessischen Kreises 1928–1935
(Wiesbaden, 1991), 115–116.
60
Gestrich, Traditionelle Jugendkultur (n. 61), 115; Protokollbuch Männergesangsverein
Schonach (see n. 61), 15/9/1923.
organized and subsidized tourism, and other elements did much to diminish the
attractiveness of the traditional bourgeois organization.61
The second development was centralization and the strengthening of the
state. This process began before the war and gained strength during the war
and afterwards. The Vereine released themselves from the burden of the Right
wing and liberal parties, but became more and more dependent on the state.
The Weimar Republic was characterized by a strong tendency to centralization,
especially after the abatement of the economic crisis at the beginning of the
1920s. The activities of the Vereine were supervised, as before the war, by local
authorities. Their nationalist propaganda was toned down in the 1920s due to
orders given by various Ministers of the Interior in the German states.62 They
were forced, for instance, to take part in Constitution Day and to refrain from
nationalist agitation, lest they be construed as critical of the government. Their
financial dependence on local councils as a result of the financial crises at the
beginning of the 1920s narrowed their field of manoeuvre so that they did
not have the same political and cultural independence as they enjoyed at the
beginning of the 1920s.63 The Vereine found themselves in the same predicament
with regard to their identity as before the war: on the one hand, there was a
desire to represent tradition and local sentiments, and on the other hand, a
dependence on nationwide developments.
Local folkish nationalism provided many of the bourgeois Vereine with a
solution. Many of the Vereine elected men associated with the extreme traditional
Right to be their chairmen. Folkish propaganda continued to be prominent in
the Vereine performances. Thus, in 1928, the MGV in Allgäu expressed their
hope that their brothers on the other side of the border (in the Tyrol) would
unite with them and that “No border post any longer stands as a barrier between
German tribes!” And they continued: “Now we are in the Spring month of May,
though this does no honour to its epithet after the tough election campaigns;
these have taught us once again how dearly the German Nation needs unity!” The
61
Dussel and Frese, “Von traditioneller Vereinskultur” (n. 79); Eder, “Sonnenanbeter
und Wasserratten” (n. 74); Adelheid von Saldern, “Cultural Conflicts, Popular Mass Culture
and the Question of Nazi Success: The Eilenriede Motorcycle Races 1924–1939”, German
Studies Review, 15/2 (1992): 317–338; Detlev Peukert, The Weimar Republic (London,
1992), chapter 8.
62
Koshar, Social Life (n. 8), 107–108, 155, 157ff.; EvH (n. 84), 6/9/1926
(“Hauptversammlung des badischen Sängerbundes in Neustadt”).
63
Heilbronner, “Der verlassene Stammtisch” (n. 10); idem, Die Achillesferse des
deutschen Katholizismus. Die katholische Gesellschaft der Weimarer Republik im Spannungsfeld
von Krise und Nationalsozialismus. Die Schwarzwaldregion als Fallstudie (Stuttgart, 1998),
chapter 10.
MGV in Wetzlar presented the ideology of the Vereine as “Community in Song

is Community as a Nation” and demanded that the nation be educated through
sport, adherence to morals, modesty, sacrifice and loyalty to the Vaterland. It
also claimed that the Verein was the essence of bourgeois society, of the virtue
(Tugend) of the bourgeois way of life.64 The entire vocabulary of the bourgeois
Vereine was taken from the world of death, battle and nationalism. However, this
vernacular characterized other groups as well. Many other nationalist groups, led
by the Nazi Party, professed similar ideas. Since this was the case, what remained
of the uniqueness of the bourgeois Vereine?
The third development that fatally harmed the Vereine was the financial crisis
that began at the end of the 1920s. The damage to the financial structure of
the Vereine was critical. Many of them disintegrated or amalgamated with twin
Vereine from nearby towns or villages. Many members left and the number and
size of contributions diminished. Training and performances were conducted
under difficult conditions. The Vereine could have taken advantage of this
difficult period and offered a reasonable solution to the masses of people suffering
from financial distress. However, their hard financial situation, the decrease in
status that began years earlier, and the overt political label that they created
for themselves all prevented them from functioning effectively in this difficult
period.65 The social vacuum left in German towns and villages was quickly filled
by a new type of bourgeois Vereine – “Vereine hoherer Ordnung”66 (Associations
of Higher Order), the National Socialist Workers’ Party, or Nazi Party.67
Allgäuer Zeitung, 29/5/1928; Kieserling, Faschisierung (n. 84), 117–119.

64
Heilbronner, “Der verlassene Stammtisch” (n. 10); idem, Achillesferse (n. 88), chapter
65
10. Koshar does not see a direct connection between the economic depression of the 1930s and
the collapse of the Vereine: see Koshar, Social Life (n. 8); also Maass, Männerbund (n. 78), 60.
66
Kieserling, Faschisierung (n. 84), 122.
67
Oded Heilbronner, “Die nationalsozialistische Partei: ein bürgerlicher Verein?”, Tel
Aviver Jahrbuch für Deutsche Geschichte, 23 (1994): 63–79; Kieserling, Faschisierung (n.
84), 120ff.; Rudy Koshar, “Contentious Citadel: Bourgeois Crisis and Nazism in Marburg/
Lahn 1880–1933”, in Thomas Childers (ed.), The Formation of the Nazi Constituency
1919–1933 (London, 1986), 11–36; idem, “From Stammtisch to Party: Nazi Joiners
and the Contradictions of Grass Roots Fascism in Weimar Germany”, Journal of Modern
History, 59/1 (1987): 1–24; Friedrich Schäfer, Das Eindringen des Nationalsozialismus
in das Alltagsleben einer unterfrankischen Kleinstadt: dargestellt am Beispiel der Stadt
Hammelburg für die Jahre 1922 bis 1935 unter besonderer Berücksichtigung der Lokalpresse
(Wurzburg, 1994), 64–67; Peter Miesbeck, Bürgertum und Nationalsozialismus in
Rosenheim. Studien zur politischen Tradition (Rosenheim, 1994), 332–334; Paul Hoser,
“Die politische Gemeinde von 1818 bis 1990”, in Wilhelm Liebhart (ed.), Schwangau.
Dorf der Königsschlösser (Sigmaringen, 1996), 165.
Chapter 7
The Disintegration of the Local Vereine
The Struggle to Preserve Sociocultural Hegemony: The Bourgeois Vereine

in the Weimar Period
The flourishing state of Verein activities after the First World War left its imprint
on South Baden. Of the numerous Vereine devoted to sports in this region, as
everywhere else in Germany, approximately half were founded between the years
1919 and 1921. The Sportvereine brought together the bourgeoisie and the strata
close to the bourgeoisie. In the town of Lenzkirch, it was only in the mid 1920s
that the bourgeois Sportverein was refounded. The climate of mass politics,
the SPD’s new-found strength just after the war, and the impact of national
political events even in small, relatively isolated communities, were all perceived
as a threat to local bourgeois hegemony. The bourgeoisie did not respond to
events in a direct fashion, but through the organization of its members and the
founding of new Vereine. The Vereine were made to accommodate those elements
of society seen as posing the greatest threat to the existing social order. One can
ascribe the founding of new Vereine and the flourishing state of the old ones
to the economic conditions of the period of inflation. During the economic
“prosperity” of the mid 1920s, which affected Germany as a whole and South
Baden in particular, many Vereine took out substantial loans in order to improve
and expand their activities.1
1
Oded Heilbronner, “The Impact and Consequences of the First World War in
a Catholic Rural Area: The Black Forest as a Case Study”, German History, 11/1 (1993):
—20–35; Badisches Statistisches Landesamt, Statistisches Jahrbuch für das Land Baden, 1925
- Sportvereine, 162; StA Lenzkirch 332 - Fußballklub, 329 - Schützengesellschaft; StaaF, BZ
Offenburg - 128, P. 5 - Ortsbereisung Bad Peterstal, 7/12/1928. The local music Verein had
been founded in 1927; StA Haslach, XI, 3/5, 23/10/31, Turnverein. On the Sportvereine
in theWeimar Republic, see C. Eisenberg, “Massensport in der Weimarer Republic: Ein
statistischer Überblick”, Archiv für Sozialgeschichte, 33 (1993): 137–177; Eisenberg has
argued that the Sportvereine had a bourgeois character, while workers, women and young
people mainly joined the Turnvereine, which were committed to a particular political and
religious worldview.
However, the bubble burst in the South Baden region as Germany began
to face increasing economic difficulties in the “golden” 1920s. The economic
crisis that struck South Baden in the mid 1920s had a perceptible impact on the
activities of certain Vereine, especially in towns with an industrial basis. From
1926, more and more Vereine turned to local councils or individual contributors
with appeals for assistance.2 Even at this date there was a perceptible movement
of people deserting the Vereine, and the numbers increased at the beginning of
the 1930s. Many of the Vereine were no longer able to meet their heavy debts,
and they turned to their creditors with requests for relief. There were cases in
which a Verein was forced to take leave of its chairman, either because he had
his own business obligations to attend to or because the Verein was dissatisfied
with his performance. Such changes in Verein personnel should not be lightly
dismissed. The forced replacement of a chairman testifies to a situation in
which things were running less than smoothly. The chairman of the Verein was
generally the owner of a local business, a highly respected figure in his town, and
if such a person was unable to devote most of his time to Verein activities, this
was probably a sign of financial trouble. Another important change involved
the funds formerly channelled to the Vereine by individuals and businesses in
the community. This had been the financial backbone of the Vereine, the basis
of their existence. These contributions now began to slow down considerably.
Local councils ran into their own financial problems and so cut back their
support of the Vereine. A number of Vereine were forced, much to their dismay,
to take part in church activities in order to supplement their income, while
others were forced to transgress the most fundamental of Verein laws and charge
admission to their performances.3 A further negative factor to be considered is
the numerous losses incurred in the war and the impact this had on the younger
age groups in the region.
Even though many of the Vereine were only founded after 1918, few young
people became members, and this was not because they found them unappealing.
Needless to say, the impact that the war had on this particular sector greatly
On the “golden years” of the Weimar Republic, see Harold James, The German
2
Slump: Politics and Economics 1924–1936 (Oxford, 1987); Gerald Feldman, The Great
Disorder: Politics, Economics and Society in the German Inflation 1914–1924 (Oxford, 1993),
837–854; Niall Ferguson, Paper and Iron: Hamburg Business and German Politics in the Era
of Inflation, 1897–1927 (Cambridge, 1995) (n. 4). In the Black Forest: StA Furtwangen,
Gesangsverein “Orion” 322/12a-1574, 112/311-1037, 21/9/1927, 1/5/1929, GmdA
Breitnau, 368 - Musikverein, 2/6/1927; GmdA Bonndorf, 1789 - Männergesangsverein,
22/81929; GmdA Eisenbach, XI, 3/2, 21/7/1928, XI, 3/4, 31/5/1928.
3
GmdA Breitnau, 368, 2/6/1927; GmdA Eisenbach, XI, 3/4, 21/7/1928.
The Disintegration of the Local Vereine 105
depleted the Vereine’s pool of potential members, especially the Vereine devoted
to athletics. Sportvereine were founded at an accelerated pace after the war, but
their programmes were not always comprehensive, nor their ranks filled with
members.4
Despite these telltale signs of the malfunctioning of the Vereine, the
consequences were largely restricted to the rural, relatively undeveloped
regions of South Baden. The activities of the bourgeois Vereine there, never
that flourishing to begin with, came to a virtual halt as a result of the severe
economic crisis in this part of South Baden, while the activities of the bourgeois
parties ceased altogether. Taken in conjunction with the weakness of political
Catholicism in the region, the early mass enthusiasm for the Nazi Party becomes
more readily comprehensible.
The lessons of the period 1926 to 1928 were studied by both the Vereine and
the organizations that supported them. The Vereine tried to rely more and more
on private sources of income and to improve their operations through voluntary
activities that required little financial help from local councils.5 However, the local
councils reached the conclusion that there was little to be gained economically
from such a large number of Vereine in such small communities, even if they did
contribute to local pride and prestige. While it was true that the large number of
Vereine helped to diversify local society and culture, those who wielded power
locally felt there were more important considerations at stake. The sheer number
of organizations made it effectively impossible for the bourgeoisie to control
them or to use them as a means of perpetuating the local bourgeois hegemony.6
The rivalry with the workers’ and Catholics’ Vereine, together with the growing
socialist presence in everyday life, deepened the anxieties of the leaders of the
bourgeois camp.
On the eve of the great economic crisis, the local bourgeoisie found itself
in a dilemma over its policies toward the bourgeois Vereine. Though unable to
control and support such a vast number of Vereine, they also feared their rivals’
activities. The dilemma was eventually resolved through a policy that clearly
discriminated in favour of the bourgeois Vereine, but that also cut back their
financial support. The transfer of funds to the bourgeois Vereine continued,
though not at the same rate as in former years, while funds to the Catholic and
4
TB, 4/2/1932, Schönwald - Turnverein. StaaF, BZ Neustadt - 1980/10, P. 287
- Ortsbereisung Reiselfingen, 5/8/1929; 1974/31, P. 168 - Ortsbereisung Münchingen,
21/7/1930.
5
StA Schönau, XI/ 3, 15/6/1928 - Turnverein.
6
SchwB - Lautenbach, 14/2/1930; DT, 31/1/1930; StA Schiltach, Lehengericht, XI,
3/2, 16/4/1930 - Musikverein.
especially the workers’ Vereine, increasingly viewed as a threat to the bourgeois

hegemony, ground to an almost complete halt.
Another way of perpetuating the bourgeois hegemony was to refuse to defray
the travel expenses of the rival Vereine when they took part in activities outside
the community. These journeys were important to the Vereine, both as a means
of social consolidation and as an additional source of income. The use of motor
vehicles, the cost of fuel, food and lodging: these were all expenses that had once
been borne to one extent or another by local councils. Now, however, it was
only in the case of a bourgeois Verein that the council continued this policy.
Even the mass-media – the radio, cinema and theatre – were harnessed to the
greater glory of the bourgeois hegemony. Concerts of the MGV were broadcast
live on the radio (even though radio was still in its swaddling stages in the
region), the movies screened at Vereine meetings bore a nationalist character,
and a few Vereine even put on anti-Bolshevist plays.7 There was nothing new in
the rivalry between the Vereine: the fear of socialism had long been gnawing at
the bourgeoisie.8 But the rapidly growing strength of the rival Vereine (and their
political and economic support), the economic crisis that temporarily harmed
the Vereine, and the heightened passions of the new mass politics all made the
bourgeoisie increasingly fearful about their ability to retain their grip on the
community.
Yet even while discriminating and inciting against the rival Vereine, the
bourgeoisie was also laying the foundations for co-operative action with the
very social forces it feared. Opening its doors to the workers and clergy was only
one of the steps that the bourgeois Vereine took in this direction. In one unusual
Hoch. Schw. - Löffingen, 4/9/1929; TB, 27/12/1929 - Schonach; SchwT, 23/2/1932
7
- Riedböhringen; TB, 10/12/1931 - Schonach. “Kreuz und Sowjetstern” (The Cross and
Soviet Star) was an anti-Bolshevist film which described the terror in Russia; more details
can be found in Oded Heilbronner, “Weimar Society: The Image of Soviet Russia”, Tel Aviver
Jahrbuch für Deutsche Geschichte, 24 (1995): 179–192.
8
Peter Fritzsche, Rehearsals for Fascism: Populism and Political Mobilization in
Weimar Germany (Oxford, 1990) (n. 5), 6–13; Charles S. Maier, Recasting Bourgeois Europe:
Stabilization in France, Germany, and Italy in the Decade after World War I (Princeton, NJ,
1988), 36–37; Hans-Ulrich Wehler, “Wie bürgerlich war das deutsche Kaiserreich?” in
Jürgen Kocka (ed.), Bürger und Bürgerlichkeit im 19. Jahrhundert (Göttingen, 1987) (n. 1),
273; Jürgen Kocka, “Bürgertum und Bürgerlichkeit als Probleme der deutschen Geschichte
vom späten 18. bis zum frühen 20. Jahrhundert”, in idem (ed.), Bürger und Bürgerlichkeit (n.
28), 33; Hans Mommsen, “Die Auflösung des Bürgertums seit dem spaten 19. Jahrhundert”,
in Kocka (ed.), Bürger und Bürgerlichkeit (n. 1), 289; Geoff Eley, “Conservatives and Radical
Nationalists in Germany: The Production of Fascist Potentials 1912–1928”, in Martin
Blinkhorn (ed.), Fascists and Conservatives: The Radical Right and the Establishment in
Twentieth-century Europe (London, 1990), 51.
case, in the town of Furtwangen, the chairman of the Arbeitergesangverein

was asked to preside over the local MGV.9 The inclusion of people from all
walks of life in the various memorial services, national ceremonies and even
in the festivities of a specific Verein was aimed at preventing social unrest. Yet
this step should not be seen as purely manipulative as it also demonstrates
a desire to preserve social tranquility and to make at least an outward show
of community solidarity. The fear that the bourgeoisie had of socialism
reveals more about its own insecurity than about the actual intentions of its
opponents. The fact that the workers established Vereine of their own testifies
to a desire to create a new identity within the bourgeois framework and to
cultivate bourgeois values and goals. Every Verein was anxious to represent its
community with dignity. This was no less true of the workers, who tried to
end class rivalry in a way that would not threaten the existing socio-economic
order. If social tensions did exist, they were closely held in check, for the
lower class was highly dependent, both socially and economically, on the
bourgeoisie. Had certain workers’ groups wished to wage a battle against the
sources of local economic influence, their lack of political organization would
have been a real obstacle.10 Due to the weakness of the workers’ union and
the SPD in the region and the dominance of the Catholic Church over some
social groups, the workers confined themselves to socio-cultural activities and
did not indulge in political activism. There were very few strikes in the region,
and disturbances caused by the socio-economic situation never took place,
even in the tense days following the revolutions of November 1918.
Crisis and Dissolution: The Disintegration of the Vereine and the

Bourgeois Parties
The years 1932 to 1933, which are usually regarded in academic studies as the
end of one chapter in Weimar history and the beginning of another, also saw
9
FZ, 7/9/1929 - Furtwangen.
10
Gerhard Wilke, “The Sins of the Fathers: Village Society and Social Control in the
Weimar Republic”, in Richard J. Evans and W.Robert Lee (eds), The German Peasantry:
Conflict and Community in Rural Society from the Eighteenth to the Twentieth Centuries
(London, 1986), 174–204; Wolfgang Kaschuba, “Peasants and Others: The Historical
Contours of Village Class Society”, in Evans and Lee (eds), German Peasantry, 259–261;
Wolfgang Kaschuba and Carola Lipp, Dörfliches Überleben: zur Geschichte materieller und
sozialer Reproduktion ländlicher Gesellschaft im 19. und frühen 20. Jahrhundert (Tübingen,
1982) (n. 15), 177–204, 265–266.
significant changes in the functioning of the South Baden Vereine. Processes set
in motion in the 1920s, which led to the slow disintegration of the Vereine even
before 1930, were now in full swing. The withdrawal of council support was
keenly felt from both a financial and an organizational point of view. Together
with this, the rival Vereine continued to grow in both scope and membership,
especially those that belonged to the workers’ camp. The loss of financial support
and the rapidly declining finances of its members did nothing to alter the sense
of common cause or the spirit of volunteerism, and there was a perceptible rise
in the number of new members, most of them now unemployed. The weakness
of the bourgeois camp found expression first and foremost in the disintegration
of its political representation. The collapse of the bourgeois parties was the
culmination of the process that led to the disintegration of the bourgeois
infrastructure and provides a key to understanding the success of the Nazi Party
in the region in 1932.
After the elections of 1930, there was no way of knowing what lay ahead.
In both the Reichstag elections of September 1930 and the local elections
(Gemeindewahlen), the bourgeoisie maintained its strength. The local elections
of November 1930 were especially important, as such elections had served the
bourgeoisie in the past as a means of retaining its control over local politics
and society. Local social issues figured prominently in the elections, and the
candidates mainly represented groups of an improvised character with clear
economic interests. There was little of the party politics that characterized
elections to the Landtag or the Reichstag.11 The candidates of the bourgeois
parties were local notables with an obvious financial stake in the outcome,
eager to protect the interests of a specific economic sector in the community.
The candidates who identified with the bourgeoisie all came from the upper
echelons of the bourgeois Vereine, especially the more prestigious ones like the
MGV and the Turnverein. The Vereine served them as a kind of launching pad
from which to begin their political careers, and also as a lobby, an economic
pressure group, since a Verein activist who was also a member of the local council
held enough economic power in his hands to use it for his own benefit or for
that of his Verein. It was one of the ironies of fate that the very men who worked
as central activists in the Vereine were later to serve in the same councils when
they cut off the flow of funds to the Vereine and thus hastened their end.
11
Schwarzwälder Zeitung (Bonndorf ), 4/11/1930; Kaschuba and Lipp, Dörfliches
Überleben (n. 15), 595–596; Theodor Pfizer and Hans-Georg Wehling (eds), Kommunalpolitik
in Baden-Württemberg (Stuttgart, 1985), 35–40. Some examples: Haslach – Fortschrittliche
Wahlgemeinschaft; Lenzkirch – Parteilose Wirtschaftsvereinigung; Furtwangen – Bürgerliche
Vereinigung; Wolfach – Gemeindeinteressen Vertretung.
As in the past, the results of the local elections permitted the bourgeoisie to
control the local councils, together with the Zentrum. The only innovation was
the appearance of a relatively new and triumphant group, the Nazi Party, which
did not pretend to represent any specific social or economic sector. The fact that
the Nazis and the workers managed to get more of their representatives into the
local councils than in 1926 was the only thing to cast a shadow over the triumph
of the bourgeoisie (and that of the Zentrum), or to raise any doubt about its
unchallenged position in the South Baden community.
But it was a Pyrrhic victory. The bourgeois Vereine were the very foundation
of the bourgeois infrastructure, and the ground underneath them was burning.
The policy that local councils adopted towards the Vereine did not respond
to the new socio-economic reality, of which the economic crisis was the most
material expression. On the surface, the Vereine were able to broaden the scope
of their activities at this time and to anchor their position even more firmly.
Under the sheltering wing of the Vereine, any person who suffered either
physical or psychological distress because of the crisis could seek relief in the
volunteering services of the Vereine, which offered a sense of fellowship and a
warm and congenial atmosphere. These services, however, were contingent on
two things: the ability of the Verein to provide them, and the willingness of the
Verein to take on new members. The more prestigious Vereine made strenuous
requirements of their members. There were some Vereine, such as the MGV
or the Turnverein, which required certain kinds of physical prowess or a good
singing voice, while the KuMV demanded military service of its members. It
was the KuMV which had the most difficult time during the great economic
crisis. One might have expected this Verein to absorb many new members at
the beginning of the crisis, given its high reputation and the relative ease with
which one could join, as well as its nationalistic-bourgeois image. This image
attracted many people who were not connected to the workers’ camp, and
who were not even particularly sympathetic towards them. Nevertheless, the
KuMV failed to increase its membership or to keep its promise of supporting
the families of fallen soldiers. Its attempt to use nationalist propaganda in order
to recruit new members was rejected by the local population, which was anxious
to protect the region’s health-resort image at home and abroad and thus prevent
financial loss.12 The plight of the cultural Vereine was even more serious. Being
12
StaaF, BZ Villingen - 1979/82, 1584, 29/6/1929; Kinzigtal Nachrichten, 25/1/1930
– Haslach. Before 1929 more than half of the members of the Krieg-und Militärverein in
Eisenbach left. See GmdA Eisenbach Bücher, XII/4 - KuMV - 1917–1929; Hoch. Schw.,
24/2/1932 – Altglashütten; SchwT, 4/3/1932 – Furtwangen. On South Baden inhabitants’
desire for political tranquility in order to preserve the reputation of the region as a holiday
accepted into these Vereine was always more difficult since they maintained high
professional standards and ascribed a great deal of importance to one’s family
name and background. We have already mentioned that, because of the war’s
impact on the younger age groups, the reservoir of potential members was
considerably depleted, especially where the sports Vereine were concerned. We
have already seen that in the years prior to the outbreak of the great economic
crisis, the straitened finances of these Vereine left them less able to meet the needs
of those hurt by the crisis. The bourgeois Vereine, whose stated goals might have
led people to assume otherwise, found it hard to carry out their objectives and to
support local society, as they themselves had fallen on hard times.
There were many aspects to the crisis of the bourgeois Vereine in the period
1930 to 1932, but the decline in membership and activities was by far the most
striking. The loss of members was due to several factors. For example, not every
member or potential member was able to pay the membership dues. This not
only led to a drop in new members, but also to the resignation of long-standing
members, now largely unemployed. So stringent were the demands of the sports
and music Vereine that members were obliged to make certain sacrifices of family
life and economic interests. In times such as these, few people could permit
themselves the luxury of taking part in rehearsals, even though it meant risking
their membership in the Verein altogether. Cutting back on rehearsals meant
compromising the quality of the performance, and this resulted in the issue
of fewer invitations. The KuMV reduced its support of the families of fallen
or wounded soldiers, causing some people to give up their membership. The
dwindling number of activities made the Vereine seem less attractive, and hence
much less likely to attract new members.13 The payment of membership dues –
especially to the bourgeois Vereine – constituted one of the heaviest burdens of
all. Over the course of the years, many Vereine did what they could to lighten
the burden. But this was the one source of income on which the Verein could
depend, and the only one not dependent on the good graces of benefactors or
the number of invitations sent out. This being the case, it is no surprise that
many Vereine found it difficult to take the plunge and reduce membership fees.
As late as 1930 there were some Vereine that refused to give their unemployed
members a discount, and it was some time before this policy changed. However,
membership dues were never totally eliminated, and even the lower sums caused
resort, see StaaF, BZ Villingen, ibid.; FZ, 1/6/1931; BZ Schopfheim, T.l - 505, 10/2/1930 –
Bernau.
13
Hschw, 29/3/1932 – Neustadt; TB, 4/2/1932 – Schönwald; Hoch. Schw. - Neustadt,
2/3/1932; FZ, 6/6/1932; StA Wolfach, 032/Bd.2 – Männergesangsverein, 3/9/1930,
5/3/1931.
members to grumble. Moreover, many Vereine were unable to cope with the
reduced financial support and thus raised their membership dues, a step that
only led to the loss of additional members.
Together with the decline in membership, the slowdown in Verein activity
was a painful blow to members and community alike. The decline in membership
obviously meant less activity as well. However, even in cases where members
remained faithful to their Verein, and even when there was a stream of new
members, the Vereine were no longer able to hold their annual Christmas and
New Year festivities, to make public appearances or to take part in a long list
of former activities. None of this did the Verein’s public image much good, and
it certainly did nothing to improve its financial resources. This situation also
reflects the plight of the institutions where the Vereine had formerly been wont
to appear, such as health spas, hotels, local councils and schools.14 Blow after
blow rained down on the Vereine, as councils and contributors reduced their
support or put an end to it altogether. There were even cases where the local
council slapped a tax on the Verein’s earnings. The local tavern-keeper was no
longer willing to turn his tavern over to the Vereine for their meetings. Why
should he, when the members could no longer pay for the drinks they imbibed
or the wood with which they warmed themselves? What was even worse was
that they no longer attracted an audience who would come to hear and buy
drinks. The tavern-keeper became especially adamant when the local council
was no longer paying its share in his relationship with the Verein. As a result,
more and more Vereine were forced to rehearse in open lots or private homes. Yet
another blow was the death of several Verein leaders and supporters, and of local
notables whose prestige reflected favourably on their Vereine. Such things were
a common occurrence, to be expected in any period, but in these difficult times
they took on an added gravity.
The bourgeois Vereine responded to the new situation in a variety of ways.
Some of them made a change of administration. Any attempt of the council
14
On the importance of the Verein as a financial source, see Hschw, 12/5/1932
– Waldau. On the decline of the activities of the Vereine, the cancellation of Christmas
celebrations and of activities outside the communities, see TB, 16/12/1930 – Schonach,
3/11/1932 – Schönwald; FZ, 7/8/1932 – Neustadt; 100 Jahre Musikverein Schenkenzell
1875–1975, Schenkenzell, 1991, 33; SchwT, 14/7/1931 – Furtwangen; Hoch. Schw.,
15/12/1931 – Lenzkirch; TB, 21/12/1931 – Triberg; StA Wolfach 032/Bd. 2, 9/12/1930.
On the decline of invitations by hotels and tourist organizations, see StA Neustadt, 3182,
14/7/1932. On the cutback of financial support by community councils, see StA Neustadt,
3208 – Gemeinderatssitzung, Ratsprotokoll 39/25, 23/4/1931; GmdA Grafenhausen 322,
19/12/1931; Albert Cottel, Chronik der Stadtmusik Neustadt (Neustadt: Theiss, 1977);
Donaubote, 17/2/1932.
to intervene in the matter was rejected by Verein members who felt that, if the
council was going to cut off its support, it also lost the right to intervene in
its affairs. In a number of cases, highly respected members of a Verein were no
longer willing to serve as chairmen, and in order to prevent total collapse the
Verein offered the job to the head of the council. However, in many cases the
Vereine were forced to cease their functioning or to disband altogether, a step
that spelt disaster for the region’s cultural activities.15
One solution already undertaken by many of the Vereine in 1929 was to unite
Vereine of a similar nature in the same geographical region. In South Baden
the Vereine devoted to music combined in one single Verein. The bourgeois
Vereine were now willing to perform with members of the workers’ Vereine,
even at political events, in order to make some money. The plight of their fellow
townsmen no doubt spurred the Vereine into action, seeing that not the least
of their goals was to make local life more agreeable. It was for this reason that
they held charity functions for the poor and unemployed, and also mobilized
themselves for the sake of special projects that the council devised for the needy.
In many Vereine, however, members were perceptibly reluctant to take part in
such activities when they themselves were in need, so that the initial wave of
enthusiasm soon waned and the Vereine renounced one of their most cherished
goals: personal commitment to the well-being of the community.
In order to change their image in the eyes of the young and to make them
eager to join, a few Vereine tried to amend their charter to allow young people
to serve as leaders of the Verein, to give new members a grace period of three
months before paying their dues, to reduce the payment to the Verein, and to
allow the Verein’s passive members to forgo their dues altogether. However, not
only did young people fail to join the Vereine in significant numbers, but the few
who did often dropped out after a short period. Those who did remain often
brought something of the frenetic prevailing political climate into the Verein,
severely criticizing the present leaders and in a few cases even demanding that
they be changed. The performances that the Vereine traditionally gave in honour
of the Weimar “Constitution Day” were now rejected by many young people,
and some of them left the Vereine for political reasons.
In a number of Vereine in the towns of Donaueschingen, Triberg, Wolfach
and Neustadt, there was a perceptible decline in the number of members and
the amount of activity. These Vereine were the most important ones devoted to
Hschw, 19/1/1932 – Lenzkirch; FZ, 18/9/1930; Hschw, 30/4/1932 – Seppenhofen;

15
SchwT, 4/3/1931 – Furtwangen; Hschw, 8/6/1932, 12/1/1932 - Lenzkirch; Kurt-Erich

Maier, Oberwolfach: Die Geschichte einer Schwarzwaldgemeinde (Oberwolfach, 1958), 172.
culture and social life. Not all of them, however, showed a drastic decline in
activity. In the town of Neustadt, the Vereine devoted to social life showed an
increased activity from the end of 1930 to the beginning of 1932. The same
applied to the Vereine that engaged in music and singing in Triberg in the months
of October to December in 1930 and 1931. The sports Vereine in Neustadt and
Triberg, on the other hand, reduced their activities in a significant fashion. The
funds required by the Vereine for the purpose of maintaining their activities
– the leasing of a lot, the purchase of implements, clothing, travel – were no
longer available as in former years. There was a considerable drop in the number
of members in important Vereine such as the MGV and Turnerein-1864 in the
towns of Donaueschingen and Wolfach. In the case of Turnerein-1864, there
was a perceptible rise in the number of events in the years 1929 (13) to 1932
(21), despite the decline in its membership. However, many of the Vereine in
that period experienced the crisis in one of two ways: a decline in membership
or a decline in activity.16 This was certainly true of the KuMV, for though it
increased the frequency of its meetings between the years 1929 and 1932, the
drastic decline in membership beginning in 1931 led to its collapse just prior to
the Nazi rise to power. In contrast to the trend to disintegration of the bourgeois
Vereine, the Vereine of the Catholics and workers held their own during the years
of the crisis and even increased their activities, as we will shortly see.
What can be said about the political behaviour of the bourgeois camp in
the light of the facts we have mentioned? The number of eligible voters rose
significantly between elections to the national Landtag in 1929 and the
Reichstag elections in September 1930. This was the source of Nazi strength in
the elections of September 1930. Although there can be no denying that the Nazi
Party also won the votes of people who had formerly supported other parties
(as happened in Wolfach), most of its support came from people who had not
voted in 1929. The Catholic and workers’ blocs maintained their stability and
even enjoyed the support of new voters. In the summer of 1932 the trend was
entirely different, and this is important for my own conclusions. In the workers’
camp there was a trend of continuing stability with a tendency toward decline
(Neustadt); in the Catholic camp there was a rise in support for the Zentrum;
the bourgeois camp lost almost half its strength; and the Nazi Party doubled
its. Since the number of eligible voters rose very little in these elections when
compared with the Reichstag elections of 1930 (the unique character of local
elections does not permit me to compare this election campaign to those to the
Landtag and Reichstag), one may suppose that this time many supporters of the
16
GmdA Bonndorf – 1798, 22/8/1929 – Männergesangsverein.
bourgeois parties gave their vote to the Nazis. To be sure, the few new votes were
distributed between the Nazi Party, the Zentrum and the workers’ party (which
won very little support), and there may possibly have been some shift of voting
from the Zentrum to the bourgeois parties, and even from the Zentrum to the
Nazi Party. Nevertheless, in my opinion, the doubled strength of the Nazi Party
was due to the collapse of the bourgeois parties rather than to votes from the
Catholic and workers’ blocs, or to the appearance of new voters.
My assessment of voting patterns in the bourgeois camp in 1932 is accepted
by many scholars who seek to explain Nazi success in the summer of 1932.
However, connecting Nazi success to the disintegration of the bourgeois Vereine,
and hence to the disintegration of the bourgeois infrastructure – which caused
bourgeois voters to transfer their vote to the Nazi Party – is to some extent a
new argument. However, contemporary spectators perceived this process quite
clearly. Thus, on the eve of the Reichstag elections in the summer of 1932, the
Donaubote implored the bourgeois camp to be on its guard against the threatening
wave of National Socialism. The fragmentation within the bourgeois camp, the
passivity, the disintegration of values, the cessation of Verein activity were all
said by the Donaubote to be “laying the grave of the good and ancient traditions
of the German bourgeoisie”. The Freiburger Zeitung called the inability of the
Sportvereine to function in times of crisis a harsh blow to the bourgeoisie, while
the Süddeutsche Musikverein beseeched the council in Gutenbach to support the
local Musikverein, for in their words, “the national importance of folk music in
these times is great … the efforts of the Verein members to make the life of our
poor people pleasant must be recognized … They are making the bourgeoisie
strong against those who have risen to destroy it”.17
The Bourgeois Vereine, Bourgeois Society and the Rise of the Nazi Party
Why did the bourgeois camp turn to the Nazi Party? Is there a connection
between the activities and structures of the cultural-bourgeois Vereine and those
of the Nazi Party? Did the party seek to win control of this vital source of power
as it had done in the case of other important organizations? Were the members of
the Vereine also members of the Nazi Party? In order to answer these questions,
let me briefly consider some points of methodological interest. It is necessary
to distinguish between support for the Nazi Party that received expression at
Donaubote, 26/7/1932; FZ, 6/6/1932; StaaF, Landeskommissär Konstanz (LKK),

17
3657, 2/8/1932 - Gütenbach.

the polls and the kind of support that expressed itself on a daily basis through
membership of the Nazi Party and activity on its behalf. In South Baden the
party began intensive activities only at the beginning of 1930, and while many
were willing to give it their vote, working for the party or even joining its ranks
was quite another thing. There were a number of reasons for this: the Catholic-
conservative nature of the region, the fear of social and religious ostracism,
the activities of the church and clergy, and even the fumbling and not always
convincing ways of the party itself. Though the party was able to attract the
protest vote, it was less successful in signing up actual members. Another point
worth mentioning is the transience of support for the Nazi Party. Not every
person who joined the party after September 1930 remained there through 1931,
and not every person who supported the party prior to election day continued
to do so once the results were in. Membership rosters of local branches are not
always reliable as they reflect only one specific period of time. Many members
left a year after joining the party, and much depends on the person who was
compiling the lists. The local policeman, for example, would enter the name
of anyone whom he considered to be even remotely identified with the party,
whereas the chapter leader published only his dues-paying members, so that the
attempt to match the two lists yields unreliable results.
Thus, it is difficult on the basis of the existing data to arrive at any definitive
conclusions concerning the composition of the party chapters and their
connections with the bourgeois Vereine. That some Vereine members also
belonged to the Nazi Party goes without saying. However, the prohibition of
political wheeling and dealing in the Vereine, the relatively minor importance of
rank-and-file members (many of whom were probably quite passive) in Verein
decision-making, together with an inability to identify Vereine members who
belonged to the party or to assess their importance in their Vereine all makes the
question irrelevant.
On the other hand, it is very important to identify the Nazi vanguard in
the upper echelons of Verein leaders and members. Influential Verein members
who also belonged to or supported the Nazi Party would have been able to
influence the path taken by their Verein and the attitude it adopted towards the
party. However, there is little evidence that leaders of respected Vereine were
also supporters or members of the Nazi Party. There are known cases of Nazi
Party members who played leading roles in different Vereine years before joining
the Nazi Party and who thus acquired a certain local prestige.18 A number of
18
Benedikt Kuner of Schonach had been head of the Turnverein between 1920 and
1922. Eight years later he joined the Nazi Party (NSDAP) and became Ortsgruppenleiter.
party members also helped form new Vereine, such as the Segelfliegerverein and
even the Jazzverein (!) in Schonach, but these Vereine exerted only a marginal
influence in local society. There were indeed some towns in which senior
members of the Vereine were also members of the Nazi Party or supported it in
local elections. It is precisely in Vereine such as the KuMV, which had the most
potential for drumming up support, that we do not find highly placed members
who also belonged to the Nazi Party. None of this proves, however, that party
supporters used their Verein to disseminate Nazi propaganda, or that they tried
to whip up Nazi support among Verein members. Indeed we may assume just
the opposite. The Verein dislike of politics, the hostility of local councils towards
the Nazi Party and the need to receive financial support from either the local
council or private businesses – most of which were unsympathetic to the party –
provide a basis for conjecturing that the few Nazis who also served as leaders in
the Vereine did not actively try to emphasize their party affiliations. In any case,
the fact that we are speaking of such a small number of people makes the entire
question something of a moot point.
The Nazi Party, for its part, tried to penetrate the ranks of the Vereine,
especially the ones devoted to sports, in order to provide its members with
military training, political clout and, in the case of the Reiterverein and the
Schützenverein, access to weapons. It was of the greatest importance to gain
a foothold in the local tavern, so that party members would later have a place
for their political meetings. This is what Gauleiter Wagner ordered in 1931,19
but things turned out somewhat differently in practice. This was especially true
of traditional bourgeois Vereine where membership, and especially leadership
positions, did not depend solely on a person’s talents but also, and even primarily,
on family prestige and one’s local socio-political status. To sum up: despite the
picture generally given of the Verein in many localities, in South Baden relations
See Werner Hamm, Chronik der Gemeinde Schonach im Schwarzwald (Karlsruhe, 1981),
614; PfA Schonach, NSDAP - Ortgruppe Schonach, 28/11/1931. Robert Köhler of
Eisenbach was a member of the Krieg-und Militärverein between 1919 and 1929. In 1930
he joined the NSDAP. See GmdA Eisenbach, XII/4; StaaF, BZ Donaueschingen - 1977/52
- 345, Eisenbach, 4/7/1931. Valentin Schneider, head of the local fire brigade in Schonach
in 1927, joined the NSDAP in 1931. See Hamm, Chronik der Gemeinde Schonach, 534; PfA
Schonach, NSDAP - Ortgruppe Schonach, Mitgliederverzeichnis, 1932.
19
GLAK, 233/27915 - 1932 - Der agrarpolitische Apparat der bad. Nationalsozialisten,
7. For different opinions, see Zdenek Zofka, Die Ausbreitung des Nationalsozialismus auf
dem Lande: Eine regionale Fallstudie zur politischen Einstellung der Landbevölkerung in der
Zeit des Aufstieg und der Machtergreifung der NSDAP 1928–1936 (Munich, 1979) (n. 24),
37, 81; Kaschuba and Lipp, Dörfliches Überleben (n. 15), 267; Rudy Koshar, Social Life, Local
Politics and Nazism: Marburg, 1880–1935 (Chapel Hill, NC, 1986), chapter 5.
between the Nazi Party and the bourgeois Vereine devoted to culture and
fellowship were extremely weak.
If this was the case, what motivated many of the bourgeoisie to support
the Nazi Party, and what was the connection between this support and
their membership of the Vereine? There are solid grounds for thinking that a
considerable number of party supporters in 1932 had either left the Vereine
or were in the process of doing so, and thus found themselves beyond the pale
of local society. In their search for a refuge, an organization willing to accept
them, the Nazi Party appeared to be another Verein, as indeed it even appeared
to some of the organized bourgeoisie.20 It was a Verein with a different style,
to be sure – more political – but in terms of structure, it was organized like
a Verein. Like the Verein, it too had a local chapter, leader, treasurer, secretary,
daily agenda, departments for sports and singing. Even more important, Nazi
ideology and political terminology were amazingly similar to those of the
bourgeois establishment.21 Here I refer to the anti-clerical slogans, the aversion
to political Catholicism, the political populism, and the fight against socialism
and especially Bolshevism. Participation in the events of the cultural Vereine was
now exchanged for National Socialist “German Evenings” (Deutscher Abend),
whose content was similar to that of the Vereine. In many cases, supporters of
the party found their fellow Verein members providing music for the party for
a fee. Bourgeois music Vereine were hired by the party “to make the German
Evenings pleasant” and the Vereine were only too glad to snap up such offers.
20
Oded Heilbronner, “Die nationalsozialistische Partei: – ein bürgerlicher Verein?”,
Tel Aviver Jahrbuch für Deutsche Geschichte, 23 (1994): 63–79; Roger Chickering,
“Political Mobilization and Associational Life: Some Thoughts on the National Socialist
German Workers Club (e.V.)”, in Larry E. Jones and James Retallack (eds), Elections, Mass
Politics, and Social Change in Modern Germany (Cambridge, 1992), 307–328. Donaubote,
26/7/1932, 17/2/1932 (“Brief aus dem mittleren Schwarzwald”); Manfred Hildenbrand,
“Die nationalsozialistische Machtergreifung in einer Kleinstadt – Haslach i. Kinzigtal im
Jahre 1933”, Die Ortenau, 63 (1983): 27–29.
21
During a discussion about the problem of wearing uniforms in church, the local
priest in Lahr, Schwarzwald compared the local Turnverein with the NSDAP, and not
only because of his refusal to let either of them enter the church, but because of their anti-
clerical positions. See ErzAF B2/NS1. Other Catholic regions where the Nazi Party’s
activities resembled those of the bourgeois Vereine can be found in Cornelia Rauh-Kühne,
Katholisches Milieu und Kleinstadtgesellschaft. Ettlingen 1918–1939 (Sigmaringen, 1991)
(n. 21), 271; Friedrich Schäfer, Das Eindringen des Nationalsozialismus in das Alltagsleben
einer unterfränkischen Kleinstadt: dargestellt am Beispiel der Stadt Hammelsburg für die Jahre
1922 bis 1935 unter besonderer Berücksichtigung der Lokalpresse (Würzburg, 1994), 65; Toni
Siegert, “Braune Spürensuche: die Anfange der NSDAP in der Nordoberpfalz”, Heimat
Landkreis Tirschenreuth, 2 (1990) (n. 24), 134.
Their economic state did not permit them to turn down these invitations, even
when they came from the socialists or the church, and certainly not when they
came from the Nazis, whose ideology was congenial to them. The fact that a
bourgeois Verein appeared in the Nazi chapter gave the local party chapter a
certain legitimacy. For its part, the Nazi Party projected itself as another Verein,
something along the lines of the Sportvereine, sworn to the traditions of the local
bourgeois Vereine.22 Most important of all, however, was the fact that the party’s
strongly anti-socialist/Bolshevist populist character (which went together with
anti-capitalist slogans) was well suited to the mood of many members of the
bourgeois camp who still belonged to the Vereine, but who could feel the ground
shaking under their feet following the economic crisis and the growing strength
of the communists.
In addition to all the reasons already mentioned, one must also consider the
possibility that, for the local Catholic bourgeoisie, the Nazi Party represented a
way of escaping from its socio-economic and political isolation. We have already
pointed out that certain sectors of the local bourgeoisie sought to use Verein
activity as a means of emulating the Protestant bourgeoisie and of extricating
themselves from the ghetto-like isolation of their existence. Identification with
the National Liberal Party was also characteristic of this trend. Support for the
Nazi Party in 1932 was probably another way of expressing the desire to take part
in a social and economic order that challenged the one decreed by the Catholic
establishment. If so, in the eyes of some of the local bourgeoisie, the Nazi Party
appeared a modern phenomenon, an alternative that would hasten the path of
modernization. If we accept this argument (supported by a substantial literature
that views Nazism as a modern revolution, in contrast to the no less popular
attitude that sees Nazism as an anti-modern revolution or movement), it should
come as no surprise to learn that many craftsmen were members of the bourgeois
Vereine, and Nazism appealed to them. This group, whose economic problems
during the Weimar Republic were partly caused by an inability to adapt to the
processes of modernization and the rationalization of the German economy, was
panic-stricken at the idea of being “demoted” to the class of skilled labourers.
Segments of this anti-clerical bourgeois class (or “petit bourgeoisie”, as they were
called by the upper bourgeoisie) perceived the benefits of leaving the socio-
economic isolation and backwardness so characteristic of South Baden, first
StA Wolfach, 055-00/1, 21/1/1932; Kinzigtal Nachrichten, 19/3/1932, Haslach,

22
Wanderverein.
by emulating the cultural-political model of the Protestant bourgeoisie, and

ultimately, by supporting the Nazi Party.23
The NSDAP Chapter – A Bourgeois Verein?
The fragmentation and crisis of the bourgeois superstructure, which has been
outlined in the last section, was also reflected in the bourgeois infrastructure of
the cities, towns and villages of Greater Swabia. The bourgeois Vereine offered an
intensification and increase of activity vis-à-vis the bourgeois infrastructure; but,
despite this, they could not provide an effective resistance to the social, political
and economic shocks sustained by society, particularly the mobilization of the
masses by parties of both the Left and Right.
The local bourgeoisie often viewed the Nazi Party (Nationalsozialistische
Deutsche Arbeiterpartei [NSDAP]) as a pleasant substitute for the activities
previously undertaken within the framework of the Vereine; this at least partly
explains the support which the bourgeois middle classes gave to the Nazi Party.
The older bourgeois Vereine were unable to compete effectively with the newer,
and rather similar, Nazi frameworks. The forms of activity and aims of the
NSDAP in certain regions matched those of the bourgeois cultural Vereine,
especially the sport and music Vereine. Many residents of villages and small
towns regarded local chapters of the NSDAP as yet another bourgeois Verein.
This situation arose because, on the micro level, the Nazi Party’s activities
looked completely different from how they appeared on the macro level. The
image of the party in the streets, at the Sports Palace in Berlin, at the party
headquarters in Munich, in the appearances of Hitler before the masses in the
cities, and in the widespread ideological writings put out by party leaders, was
entirely different from the image prevailing in a village or a small town. Here
the “local public” dominated the foreground, local politics, everyday social
behaviour and life that had grown up gradually and adapted itself to local
traditions. This was the case in many of the villages and smaller towns of Greater
Swabia.24
23
A general discussion about the modern and anti-modern characteristics of the
NSDAP can be found in Ian Kershaw, The Nazi Dictatorship: Problems and Perspectives
of Interpretation (London, 1989), chapter 7. Michael Prinz and Rainer Zitelmann (eds),
Nationalsozialismus und Modernisierung (Darmstadt, 1991), 1–20.
24
Henning Dunckelmann, The Local Public: A Community Sociological Study
(Stuttgart, 1975); Hans Jaschke, Social Base and Social Function of Nazism (Opladen, 1982),
164–170, 223–225; Oded Heilbronner, Catholicism, Political Culture and the Countryside:
Members and chairmen of the Nazi chapter were natives of the regions in
which they were elected, and they often personally identified with the anti-
clerical, anti-socialist and anti-Bolshevik content that the local groups expressed
in their events, as well as with their national aims. They were in touch with their
respective local National Socialist group.25
On this level, the concept of the Volksgemeinschaft propagated by Hitler
and Rosenberg was received in a different way than it was on the national
level. All citizens, whether German Catholic, socialist or communist, villagers
or townspeople, men or women, could join the body of the Volksgemeinschaft,
irrespective of the local Nazi group. Thus it was possible to make a contribution
to the formation of the Volksgemeinschaft in which the tensions and divisions
so characteristic of the Weimar Republic were abolished. The majority of the
population, in particular members of the local bourgeoisie, found this possibility
inspiring. Their desire to adapt to the Protestant pattern was linked to an attempt
to escape from the spiritual “ghetto” in which the Catholic bourgeoisie in
Germany had lived for generations, and from the related geographical isolation
of the mountainous southern regions of Swabia.26 As we have seen in the case
of Greater Swabia, just as the bourgeois cultural Vereine in the late nineteenth
century offered the population the possibility of integration into mainstream
society and the adoption of bourgeois Protestant values, so the NSDAP, with its
substantive programme and events, at least in the eyes of the local bourgeoisie,
seemed to offer a way to remove their own backwardness in relation to the
Protestant bourgeoisie and an effective tool to combat their enemies (socialism,
communism, priests and clerics).
With the help of Nazi Party propaganda in the region, it was made clear to
the local bourgeoisie that the local Nazi group was more than just a substitute
for the bourgeois Vereine, which functioned poorly due to the economic
crisis. These local Nazi groups were represented as replacing the dysfunctional
bourgeois cultural Vereine, supplementing their traditional cultural curriculum
with added social and political dimensions.27
A Social History of the Nazi Party in South Germany (Ann Arbor, MI, 1998), chapter 2;
Chickering, “Political Mobilization”.
25
PfA Schonach, NSDAP Akten - 13/10/1930 (Aus der Heimat und Umgebung);
Franz Merk, in Der Führer, 17/11/1928, and in Feldberg Rundschau, 7/11/1931; Friedrich
Sattler, in “Die Entwicklung der NSDAP in Neustadt/Schwarzwald”, Bundesarchiv Koblenz
NS 26/132, 19/11/1937.
26
Heilbronner, Catholicism, Political Culture and the Countryside; idem, “Der
verlassene Stammtisch”.
27
PfA Schonach - NSDAP, Turnverein, 20/6/1931; StaaF, BZ Villingen 1979/82 -
1243, 30/5/1930.
The political aspects of the local National Socialist group (henceforth

Lokalverein) did not worry the followers of the petit bourgeois tradition.
As previously pointed out, the politicization of everyday life in the Weimar
Republic had by this time also penetrated the bourgeois infrastructure. As a
result, the bourgeois Vereine had already been accustomed for some years to
political activities within the context of the bourgeois parties.28
The activities of the local Nazi Vereine were similar in nature to those of the
Militär und Kriegervereine or to the Sports und Musikvereine. Similarly, some of
the local Nazi Vereine had statutes. The election of the manager of the local Verein
(some locals still used the term Vorsitzender [“Chairman”]) took place during
a meeting of members, sometimes even without consultation or co-ordination
with the district leadership, although these often insisted on having the choice
of a local group leader presented to them for approval. In some cases, the choice
of leader was made by a majority vote.29 The main position, beside that of the
chairman, was the clerk. He was also elected by the Verein’s members, and was
charged with presenting a report on the Verein’s financial situation twice a year.30
Banners and flags (not always with the swastika) decorated the meetings and
activities of the local Nazi group. The colours as well as the symbols on the flags
and banners were those of Hohenzollern Germany. Often, Nazi flags displayed
the characteristic features of the region: hunting lodges, animals, musical
instruments, cuckoo clocks and pictures of mountains, forests and lakes.31 Images
of Hitler and the slogan “Jews are not welcome” appeared relatively rarely on
invitations to local Verein meetings. Images of Hitler were used more regularly
during the presidential elections in the spring of 1932. Similarly, images of
Hindenburg appeared at that time on the posters of Sportvereine.32
The outward signs of local Nazi Vereine thus corresponded to the external
features of bourgeois Vereine. Numerous studies have already pointed out these
structural similarities, so there is no need to discuss the matter further in the
present context. Another feature that the Nazi Verein had in common with
the bourgeois Verein, however, should be considered in detail, namely the use
28
StA Wolfach 032/Bd. Club, 30/6/1930, 25/8/1932, Männergesangsverein;
“Liederkranz” - 2; ErzAF, B2-55-135, 8/10/1930 - Löffingen.
29
PfA Schonach - NSDAP, 9/4/1930, 9/11/1930, 20/11/1932.
30
Bundesarchiv Koblenz NS 22/1044, Richtlinien für die Bildung von Ortsgruppen,
Stützpunkten, Zellen; StaaF, BZ Neustadt 244/183, 28/7/1930 - Bonndorf.
31
Generallandesarchiv Karlsruhe (GLAK) 347 - 1948/18/29 - Donaueschingen,
25/11/1929 Münchingen; PfA Schonach - NSDAP, 22/3/1931.
32
StA Wolfach 032/Bd. 2, 24/3/1932 Männergesangsverein “Liederkranz”; StaaF,
Plakatsammlung Teil 1. - NSDAP, Nr. 21, 243, 245, 287, 289.
of the local tavern. The local tavern was equally important for the work of the
bourgeois Verein and the local Nazi Verein.33 This was where the bourgeois
Verein held their rehearsals and often also their events. Accordingly, local Nazi
Verein meetings were also held there. The bourgeois Verein met in the back
room of the tavern, where it also preserved the Verein’s memorabilia, prizes and
photographs of past performances, as well as its flags, banners and documents.
The connection to the tavern was both emotional and economic. Over the
years, the tavern became almost identified with the Verein; the innkeeper and
his family themselves often became Verein symbols.34 Similarly, the local Nazi
Verein frequented certain taverns, which had been chosen specially, as places for
its events.35 The identification of members with premises, and especially with
the Verein’s table, the “regular” table, was extraordinarily strong. Each Verein and
each local group of the party had a private table reserved for itself exclusively,
where they met for drinks and conversation. The tavern was the place where
the Verein was formed; it was here that its goals were set.36 For an innkeeper,
the connection with the Verein – be it the bourgeois cultural Verein or the local
Nazi Verein – was primarily an economic issue. Of lesser importance, though
still relevant, was the question of public image. Members of the Verein and the
party chapter regularly “stopped by” at the tavern during their events to buy a
drink or to purchase “glasses for members” (at other bourgeois Vereine they were
also called “Sondergläser” [“special glasses”]). In addition, all Vereine had to pay
rent for the room they used. In return, the owner of the tavern had to undertake
to heat the rooms when in use.37 In regions with climatic conditions like Greater
Swabia, a heated room is still today a fundamental condition for cultural and
political activities. In the time of the Great Depression, the inability to pay for
this service constituted the downfall of many Vereine. The local Nazi Verein,
33
Ralf Berckmann, “Verein, Dorfkneipe und Alternativen. Welchen Einfluß haben
Treffpunkte auf soziales Handeln?”, Hessische Blätter für Volks- und Kulturforschung, 16
(1984): 157–164; Robert Wagner, Propaganda und Organisation im Gau Baden der NSDAP
(Karlsruhe: Füfrer-Verlag, 1931), 6; Der Führer, 13/5/1931; Der Alemanne, 9/3/1932 –
Menzenschwand.
34
Heinz Schmitt, Das Vereinsleben der Stadt Weinheim (Weinheim, 1963), 69–75,
160–162; Chickering, “Political Mobilization”, 317.
35
“Lafette” in Titisee; “Zum Ochsen” in St Blasien; “Gebert” in Löffingen; “Zum
Engel” in Neustadt; “Zur Krone” in Grafenhausen; and “Hotel Adler” in Lenzkirch.
36
Schmitt, Vereinsleben der Stadt Weinheim (Anm. 119), 161; StA Hasloch XI/3-
2 - Männergesangsverein, 25/10/1932; SchwB, 3/4/1930 - Gutach; StaaF, BZ Neustadt
244/183, 21/9/1931, Grafenhausen.
37
StA Wolfach 032/Bd. 2 - Männergesangsverein, 9/12/1930; StA Neustadt - 3208,
29/9/1932; StA Haslach.
however, could continue using the pubs without fearing the ruin of the Verein’s
finances because of high membership fees. To these were added additional
entrance fees requested for events with a speaker, a practice which the bourgeois
Vereine never dared to adopt.
The affinity between Musik and Sportvereine and the Nazi Vereine was also
expressed in other areas. Songs during meetings and activities, especially songs
about national political themes, were often given prominence in both Vereine, as
well as love of one’s country and home region. Moreover, both Vereine organized
parades and trips in the locality. Among the mottos of the Musikvereine were
such statements as “communities of song [Liedergemeinschaft] are communities
of the people [Volksgemeinschaft]”.38 In effect, this phrasing blurred the difference
between the local Nazi Verein and the bourgeois cultural Verein. Sporting
activities and the Vereine for sport (Schützenverein [Verein for hunting and the
use of firearms]) also contributed to the affinity between sporting, shooting and
military Vereine and the local NS Verein, which frequently led parades, shooting
exercises and paramilitary actions. The vocabulary of these Vereine was in any
case drawn from the spheres of traditional nationalism, war, sacrifice, death, the
work ethic and belief in the wealth of the individual and community.39
The more difficult the economic and social situation in the villages and
towns of Greater Swabia was, the worse the situation of the bourgeois Vereine
became. The almost empty banks forced the Vereine to “rent out” their musical
and sporting performances to all sorts of socio-political bodies and institutions
with whom they were competing at that time. Thus, for example, the MGV
(men’s singing Verein) was ready to perform in villages in celebrations of the
Catholic Church, while the Turnverein (the gymnastics Verein) co-operated
with the socialist Gymnastics Federation during sports festivals.40 It is not
surprising, therefore, that at “German evenings” held by the local Nazi Verein in
many villages and small towns in Greater Swabia, the music was played by the
bourgeois Musikverein.
Their songs (“Geschichten aus dem Wiener Wald”, “Schwarzwaldmädel
Tongemälde”, “Ewig liebe Heimat”) were not only familiar to members of the
Vereine but also to members of the local Nazi Verein and the participants in their
38
StaaF, LKK 3657, 8/2/1932 Gütenbach Musikverein, see also Manfred Kieserling,
Faschisierung und gesellschaftlicher Wandel. Mikroanalyse eines nordhessischen Kreises 1928–
1935 (Wiesbaden, 1991), 117.
39
GLAK 347 - 1943/18 - 29, Donaueschingen, 10/6/1930; GmdA Gutach XIII/5,
26/3/1931; StaaF BZ Villingen 1979/82 - 1243, 30/5/1930.
40
TB, 16/12/1930 - Triberg; Schwarzwälder Tageblatt, 21/4/1931 - Vöhrenbach.
election meetings.41 At the end of the evening, members of the different Vereine,
including the Nazis, gathered to drink and joke around their regular tables in
the pubs.
It cannot be denied that the political aspect was more emphasized in the Nazi
Vereine than was usual in the bourgeois Vereine. I should like to point to some
political aspects of the Nazi Vereine. The knowledge that the Nazi Verein was part
of a party whose political aim was to make their Führer the leader of the Reich
was clearly brought home to all members of the bourgeois and non-bourgeois
Vereine in Greater Swabia. Some other important features, to which I have not
drawn attention, have to be mentioned. Nazi speakers and leaders did not attend
meetings of the local Nazi groups in these regions and did not have control over
them. Local party activists and members could therefore point proudly to the
independent nature of meetings, where local speakers and activists took the floor
and stressed that they were an integral part of local political life and tradition.42
Many chapter leaders and members simply did not try to join the party as
members and carry the NSDAP membership card. They retained their status
in the community as debtors or clerks, or as members of municipal councils.43
Although the name of Hitler was definitely mentioned in meetings and political
problems were discussed, similar things (albeit with a different name) were to
be found in discussions of the bourgeois Vereine. The idea that the Nazi “Verein”
had a “leader” only made it more attractive to members of the bourgeois Vereine.
The Nazi chapters were an attractive alternative. There were also the distinctive
military characteristics of the Nazi Verein: the prevailing tone of command, the
military awards and uniforms that indicated that, although it was a Verein of a
more political character, it was compatible with accepted behaviour, and was
accompanied by an appropriate terminology of unconditional willingness to
sacrifice for the ideology. Due to these factors, the local Nazi Verein had the
image of a “Verein of a higher order”.44
The activities of the Nazi Vereine in local politics and council meetings, as well
as in public life, the nomination of the local Nazi group leader in the bourgeois
lists of candidates for regional elections, and the promotion by the Nazis of
explicitly bourgeois interests in the meetings of local councils contributed to the
Der Führer, 15/4/1931 - Gutach; Der Alemanne, 5/10/1932 - Lenzkirch; StaaF

41
BZ Neustadt 253/192 Deutscher Abend; Albert Cottel, Chronik der Stadtmusik Neustadt
(Neustadt, 1977).
42
Oded Heilbronner, “The Failure that Succeeded: Nazi Party Activity in a Catholic
Region in Germany 1929–1932”, Journal of Contemporary History, 27/3 (1992): 542–543.
43
PfA Schonach - NSDAP, 5/8/1932.
44
Kieserling, Faschisierung, 122.
impression that they identified emotionally, as groups or individuals, with the

community and with bourgeois interests.45
The leaders and activists of the local Nazi groups, as already mentioned, were
not necessarily registered as party members of the NSDAP, and they utilized
their status in the community for the promotion of their personal and political
interests. Like the bourgeois Vereine, the Nazi Vereine participated in communal
activities and thereby not only contributed to their goals, but also corresponded
to the generally accepted image of the public work of the bourgeois Vereine that
existed in small towns and villages. “Evidence” that the Nazi Verein could present
that it was the Verein that did most to fight communism also corresponded to
the expectations of the bourgeoisie and its Vereine in Greater Swabia.
In addition to the bourgeoisie’s traditional hatred and fear of the Left, there
was concern at the end of the 1920s about reports from Bolshevist Russia
regarding Stalin’s policies against the churches, the peasants and the Russian
bourgeoisie.46 This news arrived in the region together with a deterioration of
the socio-economic situation, which led to an increase in the political power of
the Communist Party and reinforced the fears of the middle class. The decline in
the activities of the bourgeois Vereine, which had previously been the stronghold
of the hegemony of the bourgeoisie, also increased the concern of part of the
Catholic middle class.47 At the beginning of the 1930s, several bourgeois groups
noticed that the use of the Vereine for ceremonies, public meetings, festivals
and events of a national or local character could not really succeed. In these
circumstances, the Nazi Vereine seemed to have become the “guardians” of the
old bourgeois tradition.
From the autumn of 1930, the former voters of the bourgeois parties
increasingly supported the NSDAP. In regional elections in late 1930 and
especially during the election campaigns in 1932, most members of the bourgeois
Vereine deserted their parties and voted for the Nazi Party, as the chapters of
their Vereine were apparently only able to offer that political alternative at that
time. Many left the bourgeois Vereine and joined the local Nazi Verein.48 The
45
PfA Schonach - NSDAP, 21/1/1932; EvH, 30/8/1930, 6/10/1930; TB,
16/10/1930, 17/11/1930 - Schönwald.
46
Heilbronner, “The Failure that Succeeded”, 543–544; see also Hans-Peter
Zimmermann, “Der feste Wall gegen die rote Flut”. Kriegervereine in Schleswig-Holstein 1864–
1914 (Neumünster, 1989).
47
Heilbronner, “Der verlassene Stammtisch”; Donaubote, 26/7/1932 (“Bürger, sei auf
der Hut”).
48
Heilbronner, “Der verlassene Stammtisch”; idem, “The Failure that Succeeded”;
idem, Catholicism, Political Culture and the Countryside.
local press declared that, while it certainly supported the political goals of the
Nazi Party, it did not approve of the entry of many young people into the Nazi
Vereine.49 Some pastors noticed that the activities of the Nazi Party were similar
to those of the sports Vereine, a fact which, in their opinion, led to many additions
to the local Nazi groups.50 In a number of villages and small towns there was a
cultural vacuum due to the decrease or complete cessation of the activities of the
bourgeois Vereine, which further increased the attraction of the Nazi Vereine.
Many new supporters were workers, artisans or labourers who had formerly
been members of bourgeois Vereine and had now joined the Nazi Verein. This
occurred quite frequently in the area in question. Many people became members
of several, often competing Vereine: the bourgeois choral Verein, the socialist
sports Verein and often a Catholic Verein under the sponsorship of the church.
This behaviour was often dictated by boredom or personal interest. But at the
beginning of the economic crisis, and with the increased financial burdens that
fell on this society, some members were no longer able to afford the monthly
membership fees for more than one club.51 The distinctive political culture
of the bourgeois Vereine and the desire to play a leading role in the “national
community” led to the exit of many members of the bourgeois and socialist
Vereine and their entry into the Nazi Verein. The reasons given here for support
of the Nazi Party by the Catholic middle class constitute an attempt to explain
the success of the Nazi Party on the micro level.
The politics of the local public, whose characteristics are very different from
those of the national public, are concerned with daily and social life, differing
from region to region and often from community to community. This was
also true in the time of the Weimar Republic, which was still dominated by
particularistic economic, religious, cultural and political traditions.
I will summarize my findings so far. The attempt made here to explain the
behaviour of the Catholic middle class and bourgeois Vereine, as well as the
support of the NSDAP by the Greater Swabian subculture, does not apply
to other rural regions of Germany. The research literature has not considered
this case in relation to other accounts of the success of Nazi local groups in the
national-bourgeois milieu, and therefore there is insufficient information for a
comparison.
Donaubote, 17/2/1932 (“Brief aus dem Mittleren Schwarzwald”); Anzeiger vom

49
Kinzigtal, 12/9/1930; Hoch. Schw., 4/8/1932.

50
ErzAF B 2/NS 1, 4/7/1931 - Lahr.
51
Heilbronner, “Der verlassene Stammtisch”.
The peculiarity of Greater Swabia in comparison with other regions was

manifested in several ways. The local bourgeoisie found itself in simultaneous
confrontation with two traditional opponents of the Protestant middle classes:
the Catholic Church and its priesthood on the one hand, and socialist and
communist groups on the other. It seems to me that this dual confrontation
never existed in other Catholic or Protestant areas of Germany. The geographical
features of Greater Swabia also led to the development of politically divergent
patterns of behaviour within the local population. In the nineteenth century, it
was a matter of widespread support for the National Liberal Party. Later, in the
twentieth century, local branches of the NSDAP in the region could develop
relatively independently of the activities of the party centres in Karlsruhe and
Munich, and adapt to the conditions and structures of local traditions. These
circumstances may possibly give rise to the objection that the case presented
here applies only to a small number of regions in Germany, although the latest
research on the bourgeois Vereine in the Weimar Republic indicate that the
NSDAP often functioned in some respects as a bourgeois Verein.52
The abandoned Stammtisch at the meeting of the Krieger-und Militärvereins
in Titisee faced the crowded rooms of the nearby tavern where a Nazi propaganda
event was being held,53 and explains the ease with which the Nazi regime was able
to prevail in its policy of Gleichschaltung against the declining infrastructure of
the bourgeoisie in Greater Swabia and other regions of Germany.
52
Kieserling, Faschisierung, 120–124; Koshar, “Cult of Associations?”, 45; idem,
“From Stammtisch to Party: Nazi Joiners and the Contradictions of Grass Roots Fascism in
Weimar Germany”, Journal of Modern History, 59/1 (1987): 20–22; Chickering, “Political
Mobilization” (n. 78).
53
StaaF, BZ Neustadt 245/184, 25/1/1932 Joostal - Titisee.
Part III
The Politics of the Subculture,
1860s–1930s
Chapter 8
The Political Culture of Greater Swabia:
An Overview
Very few scholars have examined the Catholic radical-liberal subculture

in south Germany, and even those who have done so have dealt with the
matter briefly, without considering its causes.1 Scholars’ main interest has
undoubtedly been the Catholic ultramontane anti-liberal culture dominant
in the region. Those who have examined the special liberal tendencies in south
Germany have pointed out that the political culture of the inhabitants of most
areas of Greater Swabia is evidence that not all German Catholics remained
within the church milieu and that there were many who favoured a radical-
liberal order within “Small Germany” under a liberal-democratic hegemony
and later a National Socialist hegemony. Most scholars, however, have come to
this conclusion on the basis of election results, not on the basis of a systematic
investigation of the local liberal culture. Although an electoral investigation
of these areas shows a definite, unusual and not always explicable attraction
1
Oliver Zimmer, Remaking the Rhythms of Life: German Communities in the Age
of the Nation State (Oxford, 2012); Rebecca Bennette, Fighting for the Soul of Germany:
The Catholic Struggle for Inclusion after Unification (Cambridge, MA, 2012); Christoph
Weber, “Eine starke enggeschlossene Phalanx”: Der politische Katholizismus und die
erste deutsche Reichstagswahl 1871 (Essen, 1992), 67, 135; Jonathan Sperber, Popular
Catholicism in Nineteenth-Century Germany (Princeton, 1984), 291–292; idem, The
Kaiser’s Voters: Electors and Elections in Imperial Germany (Cambridge, 1997), 145; Karl
Rohe, Wahlen und Wählertraditionen in Deutschland (Frankfurt, 1992), 76–77, 156–157;
Ian Farr, “Peasant Protest in the Empire: The Bavarian Example”, in Robert Möller (ed.),
Peasants and Lords in Modern Germany: Recent Studies in Agricultural History (Boston
and London, 1986), 118; Helmut W. Smith, German Nationalism and Religious Conflict:
Culture, Ideology, Politics, 1870–1914 (Princeton, 1995), 107, 149; Dietrich Thränhardt,
Wahlen und politische Strukturen in Bayern 1848–1953 (Düsseldorf, 1973), 71–78;
Alastair Thompson, Left Liberals, the State and Popular Politics in Wilhelmine Germany
(Oxford, 2000), 264–265; Jürgen R. Winkler, Sozialstruktur, Politische Traditionen und
Liberalismus: eine empirische Langsschnittstudie zur Wahlentwicklung in Deutschland
1871–1933 (Opladen, 1995), 337; Helmut Steindorfer, Die liberale Reichspartei (LRP)
von 1871 (Stuttgart, 2000), 25ff., 29ff., 441ff.
towards liberal parties and movements, it was the anti-clerical Catholic

peasants’ organizations and later the National Socialist Party which finally
inherited the liberal heritage. And even when the Zentrum Party, the main
rival to south German radical liberalism, succeeded in regaining an electoral
majority, it was a small one, in contrast to the impressive achievements of
political Catholicism in the Catholic areas in Württemberg, North Baden,
North Bavaria and, of course, north of the River Main, in Prussia. In a number
of counties (Bezirksämten) and in many Catholic villages in Greater Swabia,
the liberals even succeeded in preserving a relative majority until the end of
the First World War.2 Later, I shall describe at length the characteristics of the
popular-liberal subculture in Greater Swabia and its stages of development
from the 1860s to the beginning of the 1930s.
Both in the period of the Second Reich and in the Weimar period, the
radical liberals in Greater Swabia built their success on special traditions
and a special infrastructure. Side by side with the accepted image of south
Germany as an ultramontane domain where liberalism failed after 1870,3 we
must consider the case of Greater Swabia, which constituted a definite liberal
subculture, with agents who carried the popular-liberal culture beyond the
end of the nineteenth century.
I would like to dwell briefly on the reasons for the strong support for the
radical liberals in Greater Swabia. Greater Swabia was an unusual area in south
Germany. It did not form part of the political landscape (politische Landschaft) of
the states of Bavaria, Württemberg and Baden in the first half of the nineteenth
century. The identity and regional consciousness of the area was formed by events
which had happened centuries earlier. One can say that in other areas of south
Oded Heilbronner and Detlef Mühlberger, “The Achilles Heel of German

2
Catholicism: ‘Who Voted for Hitler’ Revisited”, European History Quarterly, 27/2
(1997): 221–249; Oded Heilbronner, “Reichstagswahlkämpfe im Allgäu 1871–1932:
Ein abweichender Fall?”, Zeitschrift für Bayerische Landesgeschichte, 60 (1997): 297–326;
idem, “Populärer Liberalismus in Deutschland: Entwicklungstendenzen der badischen
Wahlkultur”, Zeitschrift für die Geschichte des Oberrheins, 146 (1998): 481–521; Martina
Steber, Ethnische Gewissheiten: Die Ordnung des Regionalen im bayerischen Schwaben vom
Kaiserreich bis zum NS-Regime (Göttingen, 2010).
3
Lothar Gall, “Die partei- und sozialgeschichtliche Problematik des badischen
Kulturkampf ”, Zeitschrift für die Geschichte des Oberrheins, 113 (1965); idem, Der
Liberalismus als regierende Partei: Das Grossherzogtum Baden zwischen Restauration und
Reichsgründung (Wiesbaden, 1968); Gert Zang (ed.), Provinzialisierung einer Region. Zur
Entstehung der bürgerlichen Gesellschaft in der Provinz (Frankfurt am Main, 1978); Dan
S. White, The Splintered Party: National Liberalism in Hessen and the Reich 1867–1918
(Cambridge, MA, 1976).
The Political Culture of Greater Swabia 133
Germany to the north of Greater Swabia the political and governmental élites
had succeeded in supplanting the traditional connection with the Habsburg
Empire, in fostering patriotic sentiments towards state institutions and in gaining
administrative control during the process of state-building after the period of
Napoleon. This was achieved through strengthening the Catholic or Protestant
sentiments of the population (under state supervision, of course), giving the
inhabitants of the area representation in the local parliament (Landtag) and
acknowledging the special needs of the inhabitants within the framework of the
legitimate government.4
In contrast, most towns and villages in Greater Swabia had a tradition of self-
administration (Selbstverwaltung) which was contrary to the political culture of
some areas to the north of Greater Swabia which, from the seventeenth century,
were under a centralized government, whether a regional ruler or the Habsburg
emperor. During the process of state-building at the beginning of the nineteenth
century, a number of areas of Greater Swabia again developed their traditional
hostility towards the post-Napoleonic central authority. In Bavarian Swabia,
there were hostile feelings towards the old kingdom of Bavaria (Altbayern, whose
kings, of the house of Wittelsbach, had annexed Swabia). Until the 1820s, the
areas of Lake Konstanz, Hohenzollern and South Baden formed part of the
archbishopric of Konstanz, known for its tolerant liberal attitude which, both
religiously and politically, was in opposition to the archbishopric of Strassburg,
and from 1820 to the newly founded archbishopric of Freiburg and the central
government in Karlsruhe. Even before the year 1848 and especially in that year,
the area was a focus of social and political protest against the Baden government.
In Prussian Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen, there was resentment against the
Prussian government from 1850 onwards, when the area was annexed to Prussia.
Feelings of hostility towards Prussia continued to be widespread at the beginning
of the twentieth century, especially in Bavaria and Baden.5
4
Heinz Gollwitzer, “Die politische Landschaft in der deutschen Geschichte
des 19./20. Jahrhunderts. Eine Skizze zum deutschen Regionalismus”, Zeitschrift für
Bayerische Landesgeschichte, 27 (1964): 533–534; Werner Blessing, Staat und Kirche in
der Gesellschaft. Institutionelle Autorität und mentaler Wandel in Bayern während des 19.
Jahrhunderts (Göttingen, 1982); Hansmartin Schwarzmaier (ed.), Handbuch der Baden-
württembergischen Geschichte. vol. 3: Vom Ende des Alten Reiches bis zum Ende der Monarchien
(Stuttgart, 1992), part II (Baden 1800 bis 1830), part V (Württemberg 1800 bis 1866), part
VII (Hohenzollern 1800 bis 1918).
5
Hans J. Kremer, Das Grossherzogtum Baden in der politischen Berichterstattung der
preussischen Gesandten 1871–1918, part 1: 1870–1899 (Stuttgart, 1990), 629–630; Irmtraud
Götz von Olenhusen, Klerus und abweichendes Verhalten. Zur Sozialgeschichte katholischer
Priester im 19. Jahrhundert: Die Erzdiözese Freiburg (Göttingen, 1994), chapter 1; Pankraz
In the 1860s, cultural strategies were forged which typified the radical-
liberal subculture in the area until the eve of the First World War: that is to say,
a fierce struggle against ultramontanism, and opposition, which sometimes
took the form of physical protest, to any form of central government
organization.6 This opposition was accompanied by the development of
organizational, cultural and linguistic tools of expression and the formation
of social groups which stressed a tradition of freedom, anti-élitism and an
awareness of the special quality of the locality and region (Heimatgefühl):7 for
example, the local liberal newspapers, the cultural bourgeois clubs (Vereine)
which cultivated sport, music, culture and local folklore, the local schools
which even after the 1870s were under the control of the liberals, and finally
the local bourgeoisie, craftsmen and anti-clerical groups which concentrated
around the Alt-Katholiken (“Old Catholic”) church in towns like Kempten,
Lindenberg, Lindau, Konstanz, Messkirch and Donauschingen. This
subculture was based on a partial opposition, or rather reaction, to the two
hegemonic cultures, or – it would be more accurate to say – a reaction to
the image of the two hegemonic cultures. One was the hegemonic political
culture which originated north of the River Main, which stood for a Prussian-
German nationhood, bureaucracy, strong state, militarism and Protestantism,
and which was to be found both in Berlin and in the governmental regional
Protestant centres of south Germany: Karlsruhe, Stuttgart and Frankfurt. The
other was the culture associated with the Catholic-ultramontane hegemony in
south Germany in its regional centres in Freiburg, Augsburg and Munich. The
response and partial opposition to these two cultures created a radical-liberal
subculture characterized by protest and reaction. Although in certain periods
in the second half of the nineteenth century and even in the Weimar period,
the national-liberal Prussians and even Bismarck served as temporary models
for many of the cultural élites in the area, especially in Hohenzollern,8 the
Fried, “Schwaben im Altbayern. Ein Beitrag zur historischen Regionalismusforschung”, in

Dieter Albrecht et al. (eds), Forschungen zur bayerischen Geschichte (Frankfurt, Berlin and
Bern: P. Lang, 1993), 321–331.
6
Bennette, Fighting for the Soul of Germany; Fridolin Eisele, “Hohenzollern unter
preußischer Verwaltung”, in Alfred Dove (ed.), Im neuen Reich, vol. I (1872), 553–570;
Jungliberale Blätter (JLB), 10/6/1908 - “Badische Politik” ( Jungliberale in Konstanz); Die
Hilfe. Nationalsoziales Volksblatt, 29/10/1905.
7
Steber, Ethnische Gewissheiten, 133–155.
8
DW, 27/7/1866; Thompson, Left Liberals, the State and Popular Politics, 256ff.; Paul
Busching, “Der Liberalismus in Bayern”, Süddeutsche Monatshefte (November 1909): 595ff.;
Eberhard Gönner, “Hechingen in preußischer Zeit”, in 1200 Jahre Hechingen (Hechingen,
1987), 106.
republican traditions of the early modern period, the memory of the frequent
rebellions against the central government in the seventeenth and eighteenth
centuries9 and the strong hatred for the Catholic Church, especially in its
ultramontane form, fuelled radical-liberal activity during most of the period
until the First World War, and also afterwards.
After 1848, in the second half of the nineteenth century, social protest,
sometimes of a violent nature, was directed against the representatives of the
state who visited the area, especially if it was for the purpose of supervising
finances or imposing legislation. But most of the physical and verbal violence
was directed against the ultramontane Catholic Church. In addition to the
traditional rebelliousness of the lower classes, generally caused by disputes
about common land (Allmende) or forestry, or by poverty, poor conditions
of life or hostility to the local priest,10 radical-liberal protest and violence
could often be traced to liberal organizations and clubs (Liberale Vereine)
or bourgeois clubs (Bürgerliche Vereine) concerned with culture and sport
together with dissemination of the local culture and folklore. As well as
engaging in protest, popular liberalism in south Germany stressed popular-
liberal values such as science and progress, imperialism and free trade (this last
point became particularly topical in the 1860s and 1870s, and again at the
beginning of the twentieth century).
In addition, a great deal was said about a constitution being the basis
of all governmental actions, and about the importance of the concept of
freedom and the liberty of the individual. This was not the accepted model
of the German idea of freedom, in which Obrigkeit (the authority of the
state) determined the degree and limits of freedom. But here it was a freedom
determined by a local authority, voluntary bodies, and which existed in a
narrower framework – whether it was the Heimat, the village, the place of
residence or the “community” (Gemeinschaft) – to which all who shared
the same belief in a vision of freedom deeply rooted in the local culture
belonged. The idea of self-administration as a protection for the freedom of
the individual and the community against the encroachments of the state and
the central authority was extremely popular and continued to be influential
9
See n. 26.
10
Rainer Wirtz, “Widersetzlichkeiten, Excesse, Crawalle, Tumulte und Skandale”:
Soziale Bewegung und gewalthafter sozialer Protest in Baden 1815–1848 (Frankfurt, 1981);
Pankraz Fried, “Voraussetzungen und Auswirkungen der frühen Industrialisierung in Bayern
– Die Situation auf dem Lande”, in Claus Grimm et al. (eds), Aufbruch ins Industriezeitalter,
vol. 2: Quellen zur Wirtschafts- und Sozialgeschichte Bayerns vom ausgehenden 18. Jahrhundert
bis zur Mitte des 19. Jahrhunderts (Munich, 1985).
in the Weimar period.11 A figure like Otto Merkt,12 the mayor of Kempten,
who developed the idea of Greater Swabian self-administration as a protection
for the Swabian tradition of freedom against Prussian policies and, later on,
the Weimar central administration, represents this continuity. The son of an
Old Catholic family in the small town of Kempten in southern Swabia, Merkt
was a liberal activist before the war in both Kempten and Munich, then a
member of the radical organization the Jungliberale and a member of the Nazi
Party already at the beginning of the 1930s. Merkt strongly supported the
Heimatbewegung movements in Bavarian Swabia, and exerted his influence
as the mayor of the second-largest town in Bavarian Swabia on behalf of the
aspirations of his friends in Greater Swabia.13 Merkt and the radical-liberals in
Greater Swabia – Anton Fehr, Jakob Herz, Anton Mayer and Jacob Vögel –
advocated constitutional and social reform as the way to achieve the desired
freedom within the frameworks of community and legality.14
In view of these traditions and the response of the radical-liberal subculture
to the ultramontane threat and Prussian hegemony, it is hardly surprising that
the Catholic political press, the journalism of the National Liberal Party and
other political observers described the liberals in a number of regions of south
Germany as radical and rebellious.15 Catholic towns like Messkirch, Sigmaringen,
11
Herbert Müller, Parteien oder Verwaltungsvorherrschaft? Die Kommunalpolitik
der Stadt Kempten (Allgäu) zwischen 1929–1953 (Munich, 1988), 26; Steber, Ethnische
Gewissheiten.
12
13
Alfred Weitnauer, “Otto Merkt”, in Wolfgang Zorn (ed.), Lebensbilder aus dem
Bayerischen Schwaben, IX (Munich, 1966), 426–450; Herbert Müller, “Der Nachlaß
Dr. Merkt im Stadtarchiv Kempten”, Allgäuer Geschichtsfreund, 89 (1989): 151; Juergen
Klöckler, “Reichsreformdiskussion. Grossschwabenpläne und Alemannentum im Spiegel
der südwestdeutschen Publizistik der frühen Weimarer Republik ‘Der Schwäbische Bund’
1919–1922”, Zeitschrift für Württembergische Landesgeschichte, 60 (2001): 306ff. Hermann
Missenharter, editor of “Der Schwäbische Bund” of West Swabia, who advocated a
particularist policy for Swabia, is another example of a radical-liberal activist of this kind: see
Klöckler, “Reichsreformdiskussion”, 285ff.
14
Hoch. Schw., 29/11/1911, 30/11/1911; Nationalliberale Jugend (March 1905): 41
(“Süddeutsche Wahlkämpfe”); Deutsche Stimmen, 15/12/1906; Nationalliberale Blätter
(NLB) (August 1904): 134 - Kempten; Deutsche Stimmen, 1/12/1906 (“Liberale Einigung
und Parteidisziplin”). Even Catholic priests declared that the anti-clerical activity of local
liberals derived less from anti-religious positions than from local traditions embodying old
concepts of freedom and protest against the Obrigkeit. Erzbischöfliches Archiv Freiburg,
Personalia, Ferdinand Eisele, Reiselfingen, 20/10/1908.
15
Busching, “Der Liberalismus in Bayern”; Die Hilfe, 29/10/1905 (“Der radikale
Liberalismus”); idem, 2/1/1913; Badischer Beobachter, 12/6/1907; Freiburger Bote,
Bonndorf and Immenstadt had the reputation of being places where liberalism
was manifested at its fullest.16
The economic infrastructure provided strong support for economic
liberalism, which in turn provided a basis for popular liberalism. The economic
structure of Greater Swabia was unique in south Germany. In addition to many
backward farms and villages, there were also large, prosperous farms covering
more than 20 acres. In southern Swabia there were farmers of substance who
were generally engaged in dairy farming (Milchindustrie), but there was little
agriculture based on wheat and grain (Getreide) in the region, which made a
policy of economic protectionism less attractive. In addition to this agriculture,
there were rural industries in South Baden and Hohenzollern geared to export,
like precision mechanics, woodworking and the manufacture of clocks and
watches. As well as dairy farming in South Baden, there were regions devoted
to cereals and cattle. In Allgäu and Hochschwarzwald there were large, isolated
farms which were subject to the Inheritance Law (Geschlossene Hofgüterrecht),17
whereby holdings could not be divided.
A large and visible segment of the Catholic bourgeoisie, wealthy farmers,
prosperous artisans and owners of workshops had existed in the region since
the eighteenth century.18 As a result of all this, an economy with agrarian-
13/6/1903; Deutsche Stimmen, 11/3/1906 (“Aus Baden”); Prozeß Dr. Wassmannsdorff ’s

Oberamtmann’s in Bonndorf gegen 1. Redakteur Heinrich H. Müller (“Freiburger Bote”)
und Redakteur Friedrich Lanz (“Oberbadisches Volksblatt”) (Bonndorfer Anzeiger, October
1895); GLAK, Nationalliberale Partei 69-102-Charlottenburg, 29/8/1911: Kommission
zur Sammlung, Verwaltung und Verwendung des industriellen Wahlfonds – Berlin; Hugo
Baur, Mein politischer Lebenslauf (Konstanz, 1929), 24–25, 29; Kremer, Das Grossherzogtum
Baden, part 2: 1900–1918 (Stuttgart, 1990–1991), 268.
16
See, for example, Schwarzwälder Zeitung, 21/12/1897 (“In Bonndorf the state of
affairs is liberal in the truest and fullest sense of the word”); Armin Heim, “Die Revolution
1848/49 in der badischen Amtsstadt Messkirch”, in Edwin Ernst Weber (ed.), Für die Sache
der Freiheit des Volkes und der Republik, Die Revolution 1848/49 im Gebiet des heutigen
Landkreises Sigmaringen (Sigmaringen, 1998), 205–206.
17
G. Koch, Die gesetzlich geschlossenen Hofgüter des badischen Schwarzwaldes
(Tübingen, 1900); Rosalie Horstman-Haines, The Youngest Sons: Ultimogeniture and Family
Structure among German Farmers in Eastern Westphalia 1680–1980, PhD Thesis, Bryn
Mawr College, 1990, 12.
18
Oded Heilbronner, “In Search of the Catholic (Rural) Bourgeoisie: The Peculiarities
of the South German Bürgertum”, Central European History, 29/2 (1996): 175–201; idem,
“Regionale Aspekte zum katholischen Bürgertum. Oder: Die Besonderheit des katholischen
Bürgertums im ländlichen Süddeutschland”, Blätter für Deutsche Landesgeschichte, 131
(1995): 223–259.
capitalist characteristics had developed in the area.19 Representatives or

supporters of the liberals, most of whom were anti-clerical Catholics,
directed the main economic institutions of the region: agricultural
institutions like the Agricultural Association, (Landwirtschaftliche Vereine),
the Co-operative and Further-Education Association (Genossenschafts- und
Fortbildungswesen für Landwirschaft) and the Cattle Insurance Association
(Viehversicherungsvereine).
In the regions of South Baden, liberals headed the Savings Bank (Sparkasse)
and strongly supported economic liberalism.20 Liberals native to the region
like P. Trischeller and R. Gerwig were among the initiators of the South Baden
railway to Konstanz. Both of them represented the liberal-democratic wing
of the National Liberal Party in Baden. So did Ernst Friedrich Kraft of St
Blasien, who ran the local Spinnerei (spinning mill) and was a partner in the
local branch of the Savings Bank, together with another liberal, Otto Sach, who
also represented the Baden government in the province. While small farmers,
artisans and agricultural workers depended on these financial institutions
because of their debts, they, together with the local bourgeoisie, expressed much
admiration and support for the people who headed them, and their economic
and political contribution to the region was remembered for many years after
their deaths.21
Many of the more well-to-do inhabitants of the area, including farmers,
factory owners and prosperous artisans, favoured free trade (Freihandel). In the
period between the late 1870s and the 1890s, when many peasants, members of
the landed aristocracy, artisans and industrialists in Germany – many of them
Sidney Pollard, Marginal Europe: The Contribution of Marginal Lands Since the
19
Middle Ages (Oxford, 1997), 199–200; Ulrich Crämer, Das Allgäu: Werden und Wesen eines
Landschaftsbegriffs (Remagen, 1954); Hans Haller, Die Strohhutindustrie im bayerischen
Allgäu (Kempten, 1920); Karl Lindner (ed.), Geschichte der Allgäuer Milchwirtschaft
(Kempten, 1955); Wolfgang Zorn, Handels- und Industriegeschichte Bayerisch-Schwabens
1648–1870 (Augsburg, 1961), 176–194.
20
Lindner, Geschichte der Allgäuer Milchwirtschaft, 127–159; Joseph Schelbert, Das
Landvolk des Allgäu in seinem Thun und Treiben (Kempten, 1983), 27–29, 30–31; Prozeß
Dr. Wassmannsdorff ‘s Oberamtmann‘s in Bonndorf, 13; Paul Hertenstein, “Das oberbadische
Bauerntum. Eine Studie über seine soziale und wirtschaftliche Entwicklung unter besonderer
Berücksichtigung des Amtsbezirks Stockach”, Berichte über die Landwirtschaft, N.F., 14/3
(1931): 411–413; Detlef Herbner, Auf der Baar, für die Baar. 150 Jahre Bezirkssparkasse
Donaueschingen (Stuttgart, 1989).
21
Bernhard Steinert, “Das nachklösterliche St. Blasien im 19. Jahrhundert”, in Heinrich
Heidegger and Hugo Ott (eds), St. Blasien 200 Jahre Kloster und Pfarrkirche (Munich,
1978), 322–323.
members of liberal parties – favoured protectionism, support for a moderate

free-trade economy (mässiger Freihandel) was current among the bourgeoisie of
the villages and small towns of Greater Swabia.22 Most regions of Greater Swabia
were centres of tourism (Fremdenverkehr Industrie). From the mid nineteenth
century, the regions of the Allgäu, the Schwarzwald and Lake Konstanz were
popular areas for vacations and convalescence. This contributed to the special
liberal character of the region, both by exposing it to the ideas of people from
outside Germany (especially English, Swiss and Dutch, who constituted most of
the tourists in the area) and by promoting economic liberalism as beneficial to
the development and prosperity of the region. The character of Greater Swabia
as a tourist centre contributed to the secular, anti-clerical tendencies which were
so prevalent there, so that it was generally Catholic priests who opposed the
penetration of the tourist culture into the towns and villages of the area, thereby
arousing the anger of the local bourgeoisie.23
Another south German socio-economic peculiarity was that in most regions
of Greater Swabia, artisans remained faithful to radical liberalism many years
after the 1870s, the period which is usually seen as the one when the break took
place between liberals and artisans in Germany. The radical legacy of the artisans
already from the eighteenth century created a fixed basis of support for radical-
liberal forces, which was a phenomenon for which it is hard to find a parallel
in other areas of Germany.24 Later on, this group was the main supporter of
National Socialism in the region.
22
Hans-Wolfgang Scharf and Burkhard Wollny, Die Höllentalbahn. Von Freiburg in
den Schwarzwald (Löffingen, 1985), 53–55; Neues Schwarzwälder Tagblatt, 15/11/1911
(“Bürgerausschußwahl”).
23
White, The Splintered Party, 94ff.; Werner Schunke, Die preußischen Freihändler und
die Entstehung der Nationalliberalen Partei (Leipzig, 1916); Deutsche Stimmen, 15/12/1906,
Landesversammlung der Nationalliberalen Partei - Villingen; Busching, “Der Liberalismus
in Bayern”, 590–600, bes. 591, 595.
24
Dieter Bellmann, “Der Liberalismus im Seekreis (1860–1870).
Durchsetzungsversuch und Scheitern eines regional eigenständigen Entwicklungskonzeptes”,
in Zang, Provinzialisierung einer Region; Gert Zang, “Der kurze Sommer des Liberalismus
in Überlingen”, in Dieter Schott and Werner Trapp (eds), Seegründe: Beiträge zur Geschichte
des Bodenseeraums (Weingarten, 1984), 147–163; Karin Holleit, Die Einflüsse des
Fremdenverkehrs auf die Umgestaltung einer ländlichen Gemeinde am Beispiel Lenzkirch
im Schwarzwald, Zulassungsarbeit, Freiburg, 1970; Franz Fettinger and Franz Beha, Auf
dem Hohen Wald. Heimatgeschichte von Eisenbach, Bubenbach und Oberbränd (Eisenbach,
1991), 519–532; Franz Bertold-Fackler, Überblick über die Geschichte des Reisens in
Mitteleuropa, speziell Deutschland: exemplarisch dargestellt am Beispiel der Ostallgäuer
Gemeinde Schwangau, Dissertation, Augsburg University, 1993. Detlef Herbner, in his
book on Titisee-Neustadt (South Baden), stressed the close relationship between liberalism
The unique infrastructure of Greater Swabia relied on three major cultural

institutions which were of great assistance to the liberal cultural élites of the
region. One has already been mentioned: the Old Catholic (Alt-Katholiken)
Church, which until the end of the nineteenth century provided the moral
support for popular liberalism. The second was the local liberal press, which
played a key role in the formation of local and national sentiment until the late
1920s, when they turned towards National Socialism. This was not a uniquely
south German phenomenon: the Heimatzeitungen (local newspapers)
played a key role in developing regional peculiarities, in increasing people’s
identification with the region and the local authorities, and in reducing pan-
German national sentiment, especially towards the end of the nineteenth
century.25 The local press in Greater Swabia was mainly owned by liberals (some
of them liberal democrats such as Karl Pfisterer, the editor of the newspaper
Tag- und Anzeigeblatt in the town of Kempten), and was extremely popular in
the region.26 It stressed local particularity within the German Reich, while at
the same time attacking Prussian liberal conservatism, and – especially – the
priests, the wielders of authority in the local government (even when identified
with the liberals) and the national government (the Junkers, the aristocracy
and the bureaucracy were routine targets of this criticism). Articles supporting
German nationalism and imperialism often appeared next to repeated calls
for the liberation of south Germany from economic servitude to Prussia, and
for more democracy and freedom in Swabia and south Germany within the
framework of a written constitution.27 Thus, for example, some newspapers
and the tourist industry: see Titisee-Neustadt. Die stadtgeschichtliche Entwicklung eines
fürstenbergisch-badischen Amtsortes unter besonderer Berücksichtigung der wirtschafts- und
sozialgeschichtlichen Aspekte, PhD Thesis, Freiburg, 1995, 352ff.
25
Helmut Sedatis, Liberalismus und Handwerk in Südwestdeutschland (Stuttgart,
1979), 185–193. On the lives of local artisans, see Heilbronner, “In Search of the Catholic
(Rural) Bourgeoisie”.
26
Alon Confino, The Nation as Local Metaphor: Württemberg, Imperial Germany
and National Memory, 1871–1918 (Chapel Hill, NC, 1997), 64ff.; Manfred Hanisch, Für
Fürst und Vaterland. Legitimitätsstiftung in Bayern zwischen Revolution 1848 und deutscher
Einheit (Munich, 1991), 304–319; Celia Applegate, A Nation of Provincials: The German
Idea of Heimat (Berkeley, CA, 1990), 65ff.; Georg Kunz, Verortete Geschichte: Regionales
Geschichtsbewußtsein in den deutschen Historischen Vereinen des 19. Jahrhunderts (Göttingen,
2000).
27
The following are the main liberal newspapers which were used here: Kemptner
Zeitung, Memminger Zeitung, Tag und Anzeigerblatt für Kempten und das Allgäu, Kaufbeurer
Anzeigerblatt, Konstanzer Zeitung, Freiburger Zeitung, Allgäuer Anzeigerblatt, Immenstadt
Zeitung, Lindauer Tagblatt, Lindenberg Tagblatt, Donaueschinger Wochenblatt, Hochwächter
auf dem Schwarzwald, Hohenzollerische Blätter, Echo vom Wald, Schwarzwälder Zeitung,
claimed that they represented “the interests of the people of the region, who
are … liberal, democratic and have a good German consciousness”.28 The liberal
press not only represented the interests of the local bourgeoisie but also the
economic interests of local peasants and craftsmen, and expressed the point of
view of opponents of ultramontane Catholics. The Allgäuer Molkereizeitung,
which was a supplement (Beilage) to the Tag- und Anzeigeblatt, brought the
news of the Landwirtschaftlichen Verbänden (agricultural associations) to the
entire region. The Donauschinger Wochenblatt stressed its commitment to the
farmers of the Baar and artisans in the towns of the region, and the Konstanze
Zeitung was the main anti-ultramontane newspaper in the Bodensee region.29
After the First World War, most of the local press supported the militant
peasants’ and artisans’ organizations, and by the end of the 1920s, most of
them directly or indirectly supported the National Socialist movement.30
A third institution which helped to preserve the bourgeois-national
anti-clerical hegemony in the region and disseminate radical ideas was
the Bürgerlicher Verein (the Bourgeois Club). From the 1860s onwards,
Vereine like Turnvereine, Krieger und Militätvereine, Schützvereine, MGV,
Museum-Theatervereine, Fahrradvereine, Historischevereine and many others
disseminated the idea of radical-liberal freedom in their meetings and events.
Oberbadischer Grenzbote, Breisgauer Zeitung, Der Schwarzwälder and Hehgauer Erzähler.

For the popularity of newspapers, see Sperlings Zeitschriften und Zeitungsadressbuch.
Handbuch der deutschen Presse (Leipzig, 1876, 1908). In 1907 the bourgeois DT sold
3,200 copies while the newly established Catholic Donaubote sold only 2,000 copies. The
Hochwächter sold 1,500 copies while the new (still weekly) Catholic EvH sold 800. For the
1920s, see TB, 12/10/1931; ErzAF, Dekanat Kinzigtal, 22/10/1930, 6/4/1932; Handbuch
der Deutschen Tagespresse, vol. IV, 1932 (Baden); Fred Ludwig Sepaintner, “Die Badische
Presse im Kaiserreich – Spiegelbild der Parteienverhältnisse vor dem Ersten Weltkrieg”,
Zeitschrift für die Geschichte des Oberrheins, 128 (1980): 403–413.
28
Breisgauer Zeitung, 3/3/1868, “Die Wahlen zum Zollparlament”: “Every peasant
knows the meaning of the alliance between aristocracy, high-ranking officials, and
ultramontane priests against the people. Already in the Middle Ages they exploited the
peasants and oppressed them.”
29
Tag und Anzeigerblatt für Kempten und das Allgäu, 21/6/1903; for South Baden,
see: DW, 27/7/1866. For the history of these particular regional newspapers, cf. Hans
Wagner et al., Enzyklopädie der bayerischen Tagespresse (Munich, 1990), 725–740; “Beitrag
zur Geschichte der Kemptner Tageszeitungen”, Allgäuer Tagblatt (75 Jahre Allgäuer
Tagblatt) (Sonderbeilage, 1937); Hans Zech, Geschichte der im bayerischen Allgäu bis 1900
erschienenen Zeitungen, PhD Thesis, Munich University, 1949, 45–68; Martin Walchner,
Entwicklung und Struktur der Tagespresse in Südbaden und Südwürttemberg-Hohenzollern
(Sigmaringen, 1986); Sepaintner, “Die Badische Presse”, 412.
30
Tag und Anzeigerblatt für Kempten und das Allgäu, 21/6/1903; DW, 3/6/1887.
There were ceremonies and reminiscences evoking the spirit of freedom

and protest which existed in the area before 1849, together with strong
anti-ultramontane sentiment, calls for a national unity in which the special
characteristics of each region would find a place, and a hope for liberty and
fraternity for all members of the community. On the eve of the First World
War many members of the bourgeois Vereine were also members of the local
Liberale Verein. Because of their relative youth, many of them were also
members of the local Jungliberale Verein (Young Liberals’ Association), which
was usually a source of radical activities or of conflict with the priesthood.
Many members of the Vereine, in addition to their membership of the Young
Liberal Verein, the National Liberal Party or the Leftist Liberal Party, held
leading economic positions in their communities or had functions in local
councils. The disputes in which the liberals were involved usually concerned
the source of local authority in matters of grazing and forestry, grievances
against the Catholic Church, the control of schools and the desire for
greater democracy.31 The bourgeois Verein represented the modern, civilized,
democratic bourgeois world on the one hand, and – particularly after the end
of the nineteenth century – the ideal of the belligerent nationalist community
(the Nationalkriegerisches Gemeinschaftsideal) on the other. Many Vereine
supported co-operation with socialist workers’ groups, and they idealized ideas
connected with freedom, nature and rebellion. In the Weimar period, many of
them turned towards the nationalist-folkish ideology, stressing the values of
direct democracy without the intervention of parties, and the freedom of the
individual within a “people’s community” (Volksgemeinschaft).32
See, for example, the Allgäuer Tagblatt (formerly Tag und Anzeigerblatt für Kempten
31
und das Allgäu), 12/9/1930; Bundesarchiv Koblenz, Hauptarchiv der NSDAP, NS26/47-
966-Allgäuer Tagblatt; for South Baden and the Konstanz region, see: Schwarzwälder
Zeitung, 24/2/1922; DT, 7/11/1931; Hoch. Schw., 4/8/1932. On the Hohenzollerischen
Blättern, see Fritz Kallenberg, Hohenzollern (Stuttgart, 1996), 379.
32
Konstanzer Zeitung, 17/3/1903 - Stockach; Nationalliberale Jugend (May 1903): 62,
Stockach; Adolf Deissmann, “Badische Jungliberale”, Die Hilfe, 13/12/1903; JLB, 8/8/1909,
“Brief aus Schwaben”; Staatsarchiv Augsburg, BZ Memmingen, 6179, Gründung eines Vereins
zur Erziehung volkstümlicher Wahlen im Wahlkreis Illertissen 1892. Oded Heilbronner,
“The German Bourgeois Club as a Political and Social Structure Towards the End of the
Nineteenth Century and the Beginning of the Twentieth Century”, Continuity and Change,
27/3 (1998): 443–473; idem, “‘Der Fahrradverein im Dienste der (Nationalliberalen)
Politik’. Der bürgerliche Verein als politische und soziale Struktur in Deutschland im späten
19. und frühen 20. Jahrhundert”, Jahrbuch zur Liberalismus Forschung, 8 (1996); idem, “Der
verlassene Stammtisch. Vom Verfall der bürgerlichen Infrastruktur und dem Aufstieg der
NSDAP am Beispiel der Region Schwarzwald”, Geschichte und Gesellschaft, 19/2 (1993):
178–201; idem, “Die nationalsozialistische Partei: ein bürgerlicher Verein?”, Tel Aviver
Thus, the main pillars of popular liberalism in Greater Swabia were: 1) local
traditions and memories, concentrated mainly around self-administration,
freedom, independence and disestablishmentarianism; 2) the local bourgeoisie
and anti-clerical activists; 3) the economic infrastructure which permitted
capitalist activity and encouraged enterprise and free trade; 4) the National
Liberal Party chapters; 5) the radical press; and finally 6) the bourgeois
associations.
Jahrbuch für Deutsche Geschichte, 23 (1994): 63–79. Here, Provinzialisierung einer Region,
the volume edited by Zang, is most instructive.
Chapter 9
Main Stages in the Development of
Popular Liberalism in South Germany
Between the 1860s – the period of the birth of popular liberalism in the region
– and the beginning of the 1930s, with the ascendancy of dogmatic National
Socialism, five stages in the development of the radical-popular liberal subculture
in south Germany may be discerned.
Freedom and Anti-clericalism: From the End of the 1860s to the

Beginning of the 1890s
This was the period when the radical-liberal subculture came into being. Its
guiding principles were opposition to ultramontane tendencies in the Catholic
Church, the call for a free-trade economy and the struggle for a united Germany
in which the southern regions would find their independent position. The
struggle against the ultramontanes was the most prominent factor in that
period, but there were also other matters which preoccupied south German
liberals. The struggle against the priesthood was combined with demands for
far-reaching reforms in schools and the administrative bureaucracy, and for
equal opportunities for every man, whatever his status or origin, to realize his
abilities in the economy and in social life.1 This demand was not only part of
local tradition and the heritage of 1848 but was also influenced by the radical
struggle regarding the Second Reform Act in England in 1867–1868, and it
1
Lothar Gall, Die Partei und Sozialgeschichtliche Problematik des badischen
Kulturkampfes”, Zeitschrift für die Geschichte des Oberrheins, 113 (1965): 151–196. See the
declaration of 22/9/1865 by one of the leading liberals in South Germany, Moritz Müller:
“I am a republican … I do not like rule by Princes, but I wish to say what is most sensible in
the case of our Germany – I see with certainty that Prussia is gradually rising to the lead …”:
Hans-Peter Becht, “Moritz Müller – Fabrikant, Publizist, Parlamentarier, Bildungsbürger”,
in idem (ed.), Pforzheim im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert (Sigmaringen, 1996), 65–118, at 95;
Christian Jansen, Einheit, Macht und Freiheit. Die Paulskirchenlinke und die deutsche Politik
in der nachrevolutionãre Epoche 1849–1867 (Düsseldorf, 2000), 558–559.
was combined at that period with a struggle for a liberal economy, and with
opposition to the Prussian aristocracy and bureaucracy and also, to a lesser
degree, to those of Bavaria and Baden.
The Alt-Katholiken Church played a prominent role in Greater Swabia, and
it attracted to its ranks many local bourgeois. It sought to represent a subculture
in which every individual was free to decide about his faith. From this religious-
ideological milieu the message also went out to the political and economic spheres,
and it was supported by many Catholic liberals who were not members of the Old
Catholic Church. This was the republican-democratic model of a free society in the
tradition of the struggle of Jan Hus against the church in the days of the Council
of Konstanz in the years 1414–1415, and of the tolerant Archbishop Wessenberg
in Konstanz in the first decades of the nineteenth century. In the vision of Old
Catholics, a constitution would play a central role in the new German Reich. The
king or emperor might serve in their position, but the people alone had the right
to decide on its fate. The individual, with the resources at his disposal, could follow
any profession he wished, in any place he wanted, and he also had the right to hold
his own religious beliefs, which were not a matter to be determined by the state.
It is hardly surprising that these ideas aroused the anger of clerical Catholics, the
local aristocracy and conservative liberals.2
For radical liberals in Greater Swabia – people such as Paul Trischeller
(Lenzkirch), Max Stromeyer (Konstanz), Karl Friedrich Kiefer (Lörrach),
Julius Röck (Memmingen), Marquand Barth (Kaufbeurer), B. Huttler (Füssen),
Fridolin Eisele (Sigmaringen) and Karl Pfisterer (Kempten) – a German Reich
under the hegemony of the Prussian emperor was the theoretical model that
they aspired to, but a Germany in which a constitution would fix the role of
the government and the various states and where south Germany would have a
special status. Its connection to the areas to the north of the River Main would
be chiefly economic: the inhabitants would benefit from Prussian economic
progress but could preserve the local democratic governmental apparatus.
They would preserve their independence as Catholics, although not of the
ultramontane kind, and would nurture their local cultural traditions.3
All these aspirations found expression in the struggle against the ultramontane
Catholic Church (the Kulturkampf), which was basically a struggle for the
future character of Germany.4 Only 20 years had passed since the glorious year
DW, 11/3/1869, Paul Tritscheller in Neustadt.

2
Hans Spielhofer, “Bayerische Parteien und Parteipublizistik in ihrer Stellung zur

3
deutschen Frage 1866–1870”, Oberbayerisches Archiv, 63 (1922): 143–233, at 151.

4
David Blackbourn, “Progress and Piety: Liberals, Catholics and the State in
Bismarck’s Germany”, in idem, Populists and Patricians: Essays in Modern German History
Main Stages in the Development of Popular Liberalism in South Germany 147
of 1848–1849, which in Greater Swabia was a revolutionary year in which

republican-democratic ideas played a central role. Democratic associations like
the Volksverein continued to exist in various regions of Swabia, and in the 1860s
many of them developed an aggressive and nationalistic quality.5 Already in
elections to the Customs Parliament (Zollparlamentswahlen), and all the more
at the beginning of the 1870s, the radical liberals put forward a programme
which was an almost exact copy of that of 1848: the priests, senior officials,
Junkers and local aristocracy were to give way to the educated and democratic
bourgeoisie and the productive class of artisans and skilled workers. The new
society which emerged would be more egalitarian, and every citizen would
be free to hold whatever religious beliefs he wished. As a result of economic
freedom, there would be an economic prosperity which would not only benefit
the middle classes (Mittelklassen) but also the workers.6 The Kulturkampf was a
pretext for obtaining a new socio-political arrangement, exactly as the question
of slavery and the civil war in the United States a few years before, or the struggle
over the Second Reform Act in England in the same years, were both pretexts
for creating a new society.7 If it had not been the ultramontane ideology and
institutions which were the chief objects of attack in the mid nineteenth
century, the local aristocracy and royal houses would undoubtedly have come in
for similar treatment from the democratic liberals.
The repercussions of opposition to the priests and the representatives of the
old order were felt in many communities in south Germany in the first months
of 1871, which was the time of the establishment of the Second German Reich,
the first elections to the Reichstag and the anniversary of Kaiser Wilhelm I.
Thus, for example, in the town of Kempten, the founding of the Second German
Reich was seen as a return to the glorious era before Napoleon, when south
German communities knew freedom, economic prosperity and independence.
In the town of Tiengen there were violent struggles in those months between
Old Catholics and ultramontane priests on the right of entry into the local
(London, 1987), 143–167; Margaret L. Anderson “The Kulturkampf and the Course of
German History”, Central European History, 19/1 (1986): 82–115.
5
“An die Wähler des Wahlkreises Illertissen”, 4/2/1868, Staatsarchiv Augsburg,
Regierung, 8831; Hoch. Schw., 4/3/1869, Neustadt; Hochberger Bote – Intelligenz- und
Verkündigungsblatt für die Ämter Emmendingen, Kenzingen, Breisach und Waldkirch,
19/1/1869, GLAK – Nachlaß Ludwig Kirsner – 5 (“Mitbürger wählt zum Zollparlament”).
6
Kaufbeurer Anzeigerblatt, 8/12/1870; Kemptner Zeitung, 14/3/1871; DW,
14/3/1871 – Bonndorf, Hüffingen; Helmut Steindorfer, Die liberale Reichspartei, (LRP)
von 1871 (Stuttgart, 2000), 25ff., 29ff., 441ff.
7
Catherine Hall, Keith McClelland and Jane Rendal, Defining the Victorian Nation:
Class, Race, Gender and the Reform Act of 1867 (Cambridge, 2000).
church and the activities which took place there. The Old Catholics claimed that
the individual had the right to perform his ceremonies everywhere, including
the Catholic church, which did not belong to the ultramontanes but to the
German state which had just been founded.8 The question of the freedom of the
individual and the necessity of preventing the interference of the establishment,
élites and state in his affairs also preoccupied the radical liberals of the region in
the first decade of the German Reich. Thus, for instance, the local authorities’
decision that at a certain hour in the evening (Polizeistunde) strong drinks
would not be sold in the local tavern was seen by many liberals as an example
of state interference in the affairs of the individual. The conscription of the sons
of peasants into the army at harvest-time in summer was also considered an
intrusion into the private sphere.9 The German and especially the Prussian army
was highly regarded by many inhabitants of the region, including liberals, but
this admiration stopped at the entrance to the farmer’s home or farm. In South
Baden, the Schwarzwälder Zeitung in the town of Bonndorf reported that young
people refused to join the Turnverein, which cultivated military values.10
The Memory of 1848: The Final Years of the Nineteenth Century
In the final years of the nineteenth century the radical-liberal subculture entered
a new phase. The reasons for this were the increasing conservatism of the
National Liberal Party in the regions north of the River Main, the participation
of a younger generation in politics on a local level, and social and religious
changes caused by economic conditions in Germany (which was emerging
from a period of economic depression), the modern consumer culture and the
increasing national consciousness of the masses.
In all this, there was a geographical aspect: in Swabia and Bavaria the liberals
were weakened and the hegemony passed to their temporary successors, the
Bavarian Peasants’ Association (Bayerische Bauernbund), which operated chiefly
in Lower Bavaria but also had influence in a few regions of Swabia. Although
Erwin Keller, Die altkatholische Bewegung in Tiengen/Oberrhein (Wangen im

8
Allgäu, 1961); Sharon Gordon, Between Tradition and Modernity: The Rise of the Old-
Catholic Community in Konstanz, 1872–1874, MA Thesis, Tel Aviv University, 2001; Josef
Waldmeier, Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte des Altkatholizismus in Südbaden. Der altkatholische
Klerus von Säckingen, Waldshut und Zell im Wiesental (Aarau, 1984).
9
Hoch. Schw., 14/12/1875, 16/12/1875; StaaF BZ Neustadt (alte Signatur), Kart.
259/308-1874/75, 19/3/1875 ( Jahresbericht).
10
Schwarzwälder Zeitung, 19/10/1893.
the Bavarian Peasants’ Association – in Swabia sometimes called the Swabian

Peasant Association (Swäbische Bauernbund) – did not have equal success in all
areas, and the organization contained a variety of elements – democratic, liberal,
nationalist,11 conservative – it often engaged in a struggle against the Obrigkeit,
the government representatives and the Catholic Church which resembled the
radical-liberal activities of the 1860s and 1870s.12 In Swabia many members of
the Bund were farmers and artisans, former activists of the National Liberal Party
who were disappointed at the party’s swing in an urban-national-conservative
direction from the end of the 1870s. Some of them left the liberal chapters
and established liberal-democratic Vereine before joining the Bauernbund.13
The radicalism of Swabian liberal farmers in their former party, the National
Liberals, was now expressed in the Schwäbische Bauernbund, especially in the
Mindelheim-Günzburg region. In this region, the Peasants’ War of 1525 was
seen as the model for a struggle for freedom which still had to be waged at the
beginning of the twentieth century. The “rebellious peasants” of that period
devoted their efforts to the struggle against clericalism, opposition to the
aristocracy, bureaucracy and urbanization, and championship of the needs and
rights of the individual, especially the small farmer and agricultural labourer.14
Not all branches of the Bauernbund in Swabia and Bavaria were as radical in their
policies, however. Some were dependent on the Prussian-conservative Farmers’
Association (Bund der Landwirte), but there were undoubtedly many branches
whose actions were closer to the particularistic-radical model described above.15
11
Manfred Kittel, “Zwischen völkischem Fundamentalismus und gouvernmentaler
Taktik. DNVP-Vorsitzender Hans Hilpert und die bayerischen Deutschnationalen”,
Zeitschrift für Bayerische Landesgeschichte, 59/3 (1996): 849–902; Anton Hochberger, Der
Bayerische Bauernbund 1893–1914 (Munich, 1991); Alois Hundhammer, Geschichte des
Bayerischen Bauernbundes (Munich, 1924); Ian Farr, “Peasant Protest in the Empire: The
Bavarian Example”, in Robert Möller (ed.), Peasants and Lords in Modern Germany: Recent
Studies in Agricultural History (Boston and London, 1986); idem, “From Anti-Catholicism
to Anti-clericalism: Catholic Politics and the Peasantry in Bavaria 1860–1900”, European
Studies Review, 13/2 (1983), 249–268.
12
Volker Dotterweich, et al. (eds), Geschichte der Stadt Kempten (Kempten, 1989),
395.
13
Ibid., 396.
14
Staatsarchiv Augsburg, BA Memmingen, 6205 (“Aufruf ”), BA Memmingen, 6181,
12/2/1895, 10/3/1898; Gerhard Hetzer, “Bauernräte und Bauernbündler 1918–1920
– Überlegungen zu Bayerisch-Schwaben”, in Reinhard Baumann and Paul Hoser (eds),
Die Revolution von 1918–19 in der Provinz (Konstanz, 1996), 23; Rolf Kiessling, “Der
Bauernkrieg”, in Hagen Schulze and Etienne Francois (eds), Deutsche Erinnerungsorte, vol. 2
(Munich, 2001), 137–154.
15
Hochberger, Bayerische Bauernbund, 78–79.
In the speeches of Theodor Dirr, the Catholic peasants’ leader in Swabia and
a former member of the National Liberal Party, the radical language survived:
expressions like struggle and war against the church, the “extermination” of the
clerical enemy, demolishing the homes of the aristocracy and granting all power
to the representatives of the people (Volksvertreter), which undoubtedly went
back to the period of the revolution of 1848, continued to figure in his speeches
and in the culture of the peasants’ organizations.16
In other areas of Greater Swabia, there was a significant weakening in the
electoral strength of the liberals. Although relative to their electoral strength
north of the River Main the liberals in southern Swabia (Allgäu), Hohenzollern-
Sigmaringen and South Baden still provided a considerable counterweight to the
Zentrum, they were very much weakened in comparison to their achievements
in the 1870s. This electoral weakening reflected a decline in the drawing power
of the liberals due to the arrival of a new generation of voters, a weakening of the
Old Catholic Church, and – perhaps most important of all – the movement of
the liberals in a more conservative direction.17 But it was precisely the electoral
weakening of the liberals in South Baden and Hohenzollern which gave rise
to extreme and sometimes violent manifestations against Catholic priests,
government officials and even the Kaiser.18 In addition to the many anti-clerical
liberal activists (many of them schoolteachers [Landlehrer]) working against
the priests, one finds radicalism in the activities of the bourgeois Vereine in
southern Swabia, and especially in South Baden and the Lake Konstanz area.
The members of the bourgeois Vereine, who, as I said, were mostly supporters
of the National Liberal Party, reacted – as a compensation for the weakening
of their party – with a lively activism aimed at re-enlisting support for the local
liberals. This was expressed in a number of ways. In the Illertissen region of
southern Swabia there was the Society for Education in Election Voting (Verein
zur Erziehung volkstümlicher Wahlen), the purpose of which was to explain to
the peasants their rights at election time. Many of the activities of the Vereine
in the Lake Konstanz area (Messkirch-Überlingen) were accompanied by
rhetoric and sometimes violent action against clerics, anti-socialist rhetoric, and
agitation against the local establishment. Certain Vereine even sought to woo the
Staatsarchiv Augsburg, Regierung, 9626, 20/2/1899, 9745, 29/1/1898.

16
Julius Katz, Die politische Lage in Baden (Karlsruhe, 1893), 13–14; Otto Ammon,
17
Zur Geschichte der Liberalen Partei in Baden: Sonderabdruck einer Reihe von Artikeln in der
“Konstanzer Zeitung” vom März und April 1880 (Konstanz, 1880).
18
StaaF, Landgericht Konstanz, Gen.244 – 140–141 (Weisser Sebald); Oded
Heilbronner, “Populärer Liberalismus in Deutschland: Entwicklungstendenzen der
badischen Wahlkultur”, Zeitschrift für die Geschichte des Oberrheins, 146 (1998): 481–521.
lower classes with a series of actions and publications stressing the equality and
brotherhood of all Germans. A number of Vereine were also ready for women to
appear in them. In addition to supporting German nationhood, the Bismarckian
heritage and an anti-socialist policy, the Vereine stressed the local culture and the
necessity of finding a place for it within the German Reich. Once again, one
finds here the combination of a call for liberty and equality, activism against the
local establishment, strong anti-clericalism, imperialism, nationalism and a view
of the German Reich as a suitable framework for local cultures.19
Verbal and physical violence were expressed at that period by groups other
than the Vereine against the opponents of liberalism, which included the few
inhabitants of the area who favoured the conservatives, anti-semites, the
aristocracy, Catholic priests and socialists.20 It was not only the Vereine which
attacked priests but also supporters of the liberals, representatives of the
local authorities in the area (Oberamtmann), schoolteachers, artisans and the
owners of small local factories who were often guilty of attacking, insulting
and denigrating anyone who disagreed with them.21 In Bavarian Swabia, as I
said previously, there was a political organizational channel for this violence:
the Schwäbische Bauernbund. In South Baden there was nothing parallel to
this movement: the groups which usually opposed the liberals, such as anti-
semites, conservatives and socialists, were extremely weak there, and thus one
only had the opposition to the National Liberals, who were the hegemonic force
in the region until the 1880s, by the radical liberals (apart, of course, from the
priests and representatives of the church), who saw themselves as the successors
of the liberal democrats of the 1860s, or, going even further back, of 1848.
Their opposition to the conservative National Liberals was not expressed, as in
Swabia, by establishing or joining opposing groups, but by independent unco-
ordinated action. The slogan “Es lebe die Freiheit, Gleichheit, Brüderlichkeit und
der Dynamit” (“Long live liberty, equality, fraternity and dynamite!”), from the
19
Protokolbücher-Turnverein Schonach, 19/1/1895. I would like to thank Herr Werner
Hamm of Schonach who gave me the opportunity to study the Protokolbücher of several
Vereine in the town; Allgaüer Zeitung, 30/1/1887; Allgäuer Zeitung, 26/10/1884; Tag
und Anzeigerblatt für Kempten und das Allgäu, 21/6/1894 (“Das Fahrrad im Dienste der
Politik”). For more details, see Oded Heilbronner, “The German Bourgeois Club as a Political
and Social Structure Towards the End of the Nineteenth Century and the Beginning of the
Twentieth Century”, Continuity and Change, 27/3 (1998): 443–473.
20
Hoch. Schw., 25/10/1884, “Unsere Schwarzwälder Wähler wollen durch keinen
Junker im Reichstage vertreten sein …”
21
In 1898–1901, a court case was brought against Emil Laube of the village of Saig for
setting fire to the homes of members of the Zentrum Party. See StaaF, Landgdericht Freiburg
,1991/534-595-617.
declaration made by the “brutal” liberal, the senior civil servant (Oberamtmann)
Dr Wassmansdorf, at his trial, regarding his attitude to Catholic priests in South
Baden, could also be applied to the behaviour of the radical liberals in Messkirch,
Bonndorf, Donaüschingen and Konstanz.22 The heads of the various districts
of South Baden, such as Dr Wassermansdorf, Heinrich Freiherr von und zu
Bodman and Dr Turban, were bitter anti-clericals who did not hesitate to resort
to verbal and sometimes physical violence against their opponents.23
It seems that at the end of the nineteenth century, a period regarded as
both a low point in the history of German liberalism and as a period in which
north German liberalism was attempting to decide on the path to take in the
future,24 in Greater Swabia as well as other regions a special German model of
a radical democratic movement came into being. Much has been written about
the rise of the democratic-anti-semitic movements in Hessen and Saxony,25 the
newly established Catholic mass organizations and the extension of the scope
of socialist activities throughout Germany. The expression “politics in a new
key” is a good description of these developments. In south Germany, together
with the struggle against the priesthood, the aristocracy and officialdom, there
now came into existence for the first time since the 1860s a form of radical
liberalism combining national liberal imperialist patriotism with economic
policies based on a compromise between tariff policies (Schutzzölle) and a free
market (Absatz) of industrial products. Other elements of this model were an
emphasis on individualism, an opposition to the traditional élites, a demand
for freedom for workers and peasants under a constitution which would assure
the intervention and assistance of the state in social legislation, and of course
Konrad Gröber, “Der Altkatholizismus in Konstanz”, Freiburger Diözesan-Archiv,

22
39 (1911): 135–198; idem, “Der Altkatholizismus in Messkirch”, Freiburger Diözesan-

Archiv, 40 (1912): 97–134; Markus Vonberg, “‘Durchlauchtigster Fürst! Hochgeborner
Herr!’ Konflikte zwischen Gemeinden, Bauern und Standesherrschaft im Fürstlich
Fürstenbergischen Amtsbezirk Meßkirch im März 1848”, in Landkreis Sigmaringen (ed.),
Für die Sache der Freiheit, des Volkes und der Republik, Die Revolution 1848/49 im Gebiet des
heutigen Landkreises Sigmaringen (Sigmaringen, 1999), 238; Fritz Reinheimer, Meßkircher
Skandale (Konstanz, 1906).
23
Hugo Baur, Mein politischer Lebenslauf (Konstanz, 1929), 21–22.
24
Dieter Langewiesche, Liberalism in Germany (London, 2000), 234ff.; James
Sheehan, German Liberalism in the Nineteenth Century (Chicago, 1978), 221ff.; Kevin Repp,
Reformers, Critics, and the Paths of German Modernity (Cambridge, MA, 2000); Dan White,
The Splintered Party: National Liberalism in Hessen and the Reich 1867–1918 (Cambridge,
MA, 1976).
25
Handjörg Pötzsch, Antisemitismus in der Region. Antisemitische Erscheinungsformen
in Sachsen, Hessen, Hessen-Nassau und Braunschweig 1870–1914 (Wiesbaden, 2000).
the traditional anti-clericalism. The heritage of the republican-democratic

period 1848–1849 continued to be felt. Throughout the elections of 1893 and,
even more, 1898 – in which liberals throughout Germany were supposed to
(but did not) celebrate the 50th anniversary of the revolutionary year 184826 –
the radical liberals of Greater Swabia continually praised the heritage of 1848,
especially the revolt of peasants and artisans in that revolutionary year against
the priests and the local aristocracy. Thus, the Schwarzwalder Zeitung claimed
in 1893: “Vote on Thursday for men of true religion supporting our government
– for someone who suffered in 1848”,27 and on the 900th anniversary of the
founding of the town of Villingen in 1899, the republican Swabian heritage
was celebrated there with an emphasis on the anti-democratic and coercive
character of the Prussian north.28
In the 1860s and 1870s, south German popular liberalism had been
fuelled chiefly by anti-clericalism and the emerging German nationhood.
This was the case in all parts of Greater Swabia. In the 1890s, a geographical
and ideological fragmentation of the radical liberals began. In Swabia, it was
the economic-agrarian issue which was the focus of the radical activities of
liberals in the Schwäbische Bauernbund. In Allgäu, the national liberals and
their Vereine engaged in a traditional anti-clerical activism. In South Baden and
Hohenzollern, a sometimes violent radical-liberal activism began to emerge
which, while not neglecting anti-clerical attacks, was based on the traditions of
1848 and expressed radical ideas in opposition to the Baden and especially the
Prussian Obrigkeit.
Socialism and the question of the workers was also a central concern of the
radical liberals. There were many small towns in the area in which there were
concentrations of workers who worked in the clock and watchmaking industry,
26
Christoph Strupp, “Erbe und Auftrag. Bürgerliche Revolutionserinnerung im
Kaiserreich”, Historische Zeitschrift, 270/2 (2000): 309–343.
27
Schwarzwälder Zeitung, 19/10/1893. For more on south Germany in the 1890s,
see Oded Heilbronner, “Reichstagswahlkämpfe im Allgäu 1871–1932: Ein abweichender
Fall?”, Zeitschrift für Bayerische Landesgeschichte, 60 (1997): 297–326; idem, “Populärer
Liberalismus”.
28
Ingeborg Kottmann, “Revolutionäre Begebenheiten aus Villingen und
Schwenningen”, in Manfred Matusza and Heinrich Maulhardt (eds), Villingen und
Schwenningen. Geschichte und Kultur (Villingen-Schwenningen, 1998), 312–344; Anita
Auer, “Die 900-Jahr-Feier der Stadt Villingen 1899”, in idem et al. (eds), Menschen, Mächte,
Märkte. Schwaben vor 1000 Jahren und das Villinger Marktrecht (Villingen-Schwenningen,
1999), 39–60; Jan Merk, “‘Nationality Separates, Liberty Unites’? The Historical
Commemoration of 1848/49 in Baden, a European Frontier Region”, in Axel Körner (ed.),
1848: A European Revolution? (London, 2000).
precision mechanics and a number of steel and ironworks, and also agricultural
labourers. The Social Democratic Party (SPD) was weak in all areas of south
Germany until the first decade of the twentieth century,29 and thus the radical
liberals and the National Liberal Party did not see the SPD as hostile to the
people, there were no anti-socialist actions and rhetoric in the activities of the
radical liberals, and they supported collaboration with the few branches of the
SPD in the area. All the radical-liberal movements and organizations adopted a
positive position with regard to social questions and showed themselves strongly
in favour of an advanced social legislation. The liberals enjoyed the support of
the majority of workers and artisans in the region, and only just before the war,
in a number of small industrial towns in Greater Swabia, did these social groups
begin to abandon the various liberal groups and support the SPD. The liberals
saw this with concern, but here too they decided not to oppose the socialists
but to increase their collaboration with them, to intensify their social activities
among the lower strata of society and to show them that the local liberals could
look after their interests better than the socialists.30
In the years before the war the bourgoisie in many villages and small towns
in Greater Swabia began to initiate evenings of cultural activities on behalf of
and together with the workers of the area, and to express concern for the rights
of workers in the factories and places of work belonging to local notables, most
of whom were members of liberal Vereine. Thus, for instance, Junghans, the
owner of a factory in Konstanz, said that he intended to reduce his workers’
hours of work and in this way to show his concern for their rights, in contrast
to the humiliating attitude of the National Liberals towards miners in Prussia.
In the election campaigns for local government and the Reichstag, the liberal
candidates were careful to stress that they had nothing against socialism and that
the SPD was doing good work in the Reichstag in social matters, but that this
party had no understanding or experience in administration, in implementing
Karl H. Pohl, “Die deutsche Sozialdemokratie in der Provinz.

29
Wahlvereinsversammlung im Jahre 1900 in Kempten (Allgäu)”, Geschichte in

Wissenschaft und Unterricht, 46 (1995): 494–508; A. Wehr (ed.), 1891–1981. 90
Jahre SPD in Kempten (Kempten, 1981); Annemarie Conradt-Mach, Arbeit und Brot.
Die Geschichte der Industriearbeiter in Villingen und Schwenningen von 1918 bis 1933
(Villigen-Schwenningen, 1990); Pohl, “Die deutsche Sozialdemokratie”; Hans-Jürgen
Kremer, Das Grossherzogtum Baden in der politischen Berichterstattung der preussischen
Gesandten 1871–1918, part 2: 1900–1918 (Stuttgart, 1990, 1992), 326.
30
JLB, 10/3/1907 (“Allgemeine Betrachtungen zum Wahlausfall in Baden”); Die
Hilfe. Nationalsoziales Volsblatt, 13/12/1903; GLAK – Nationalliberale Partei 69/189,
20/4/1913 – Protokoll der am 20. April 1913 im Restaurant “Krokodil” in Karlsruhe
abgehaltenen Versammlung der Wahlkreisvertreter der nationalliberalen Partei.
social reforms and, most important of all, in the struggle against the greatest
enemy of workers in the region – the ultramontane church which threatened to
turn the workers of the area into slaves. And thus only the liberals could struggle
effectively for the rights of workers and succeed.31
Freedom and Democracy: The Years Before the War
Another, and very significant, change in the radical-liberal subculture took place
on the eve of the First World War. In this period, there was a strengthening of
the liberal and radical-liberal elements which had been weakened (especially in
Swabia for the reasons we have mentioned) after the Kulturkampf, and popular
liberalism acquired new characteristics. This was part of a general process of
a strengthening of the electoral basis of German liberalism all over Germany.
The decade before the First World War was marked throughout Germany by a
consolidation of the National Liberal Party and the leftist liberal parties32 (the
Liberal Progessive People’s Party [Freisinnige Fortschrittliche Volkspartei] and the
Vereinigung). South Germany was no exception, apart from the fact that there
popular liberalism formed part of the process.
We shall begin our account of this phase by looking at the establishment of
the Young Liberals’ Associations (Jungliberale Vereine).33 This was part of the
process of national-liberal rehabilitation and reorganization of ranks under the
leadership of Ernst Bassermann. In a number of regions in south Germany, the
Young Liberals’ Vereine had an especially radical character. Time after time their
branches in Baden and Swabia rejected proposals to join the national association
of Young Liberals which was under Prussian (that is to say, traditional) liberal
dominance. The Young Liberals in the south constantly declared their commitment
31
For a general perspective of the situation in south Germany, see Oliver Zimmer,
Remaking the Rhythms of Life: German Communities in the Age of the Nation State
(Oxford, 2012), 301–306; Die Hilfe, 29/1/1901 (Konstanz); Die Hilfe, 19/11/1905
(Lörrach).
32
Langewiesche, Liberalism in Germany, 231; Axel Griessmer, Massenverbände und
Massenparteien im wilhelminischen Reich (Düsseldorf, 2000), 293–301; Alastair Thompson,
Left Liberals, the State and Popular Politics in Wilhelmine Germany (Oxford, 2000); Jan
Palmowski, “Mediating the Nation: Liberalism and the Polity in Nineteenth-Century
Germany”, German History, 19/4 (2001): 573–598.
33
Until now, no modern study has been made of the Young Liberals. See some
observations on this Association in Wolfgang Krabbe, “‘Rekrutendepot’ oder politische
Alternative? Funktion und Selbstverständis der Partei-Jugendverbände”, Geschichte und
Gesellschaft, 27 (2001): 277.
to the local population which professed liberal-democratic values.34 Together

with chapters of the south German liberal-democratic parties (the Badische
Volkspartei and Deutsche Volkspartei), they fought against “reaction” – by which
they meant the south German royal houses, the local aristocracy, and especially
“Prussia” and its attempts to dominate the south culturally and economically
– while declaring their loyalty to the “German community” and the Kaiser.35
Their point of view was well-described by the Swabian Catholic-liberal Dirr (an
archivist from Augsburg, not to be confused with the peasants’ leader Dirrk),
who claimed that the starting point of liberalism was the individual. He said that
freedom and individualism have a limit, which is the good of the community.
The radical-liberal position lay midway between the democratic orientation of
the social democrats and the authoritarian principle of the conservatives and
the Zentrum. He thought that just as the revisionist movement and reformist
movement in the Catholic Church had received attention in circles outside
the church, so liberal principles should receive attention in non-liberal circles.
Dirr concluded by saying that only a “demokratischer Führer” could direct such
policies within the liberal movement.36 The representative of the liberals in
Sigmaringen, Friedrich Wallishauser, declared that, while he owed his loyalty
to the Kaiser and the Reich, his love belonged to the Schwäbischen Heimat,
and it was from there that he promised to work for justice and freedom of the
individual.37
Another outstanding feature of popular liberalism in south Germany at
that period was the establishment (or sometimes re-establishment) of liberal
Vereine representing the National Liberal Party and/or the leftist liberals (not
connected to the Young Liberals). From the beginning of the century, many
of them drew up new statutes in which the words “freedom” and “democracy”
featured prominently.38
34
JLB, 10/6/1908, “Badische Politik”; idem, 10/1/1909, 15/2/1909, 15/3/1909
(“Der badischen Jungliberalen”); idem, 10/1/1908 (Bayern).
35
See, for example, the radical anti-Prussian tone of an article in Badische Landesbote,
the main organ of the democratic Badische Volkspartei, of 19/1/1906. Another example can
be taken from a liberal meeting in the town of Hof. In the meeting, it was said that the Young
Liberal Association was working in collaboration with the Freisinnigen. The chairman, the
baker Karl Schrepfer, made a speech in which he explained that the core of liberalism is the
idea of freedom, free trade and freedom from the Reaktion: JLB (May 1904): 83 (Hof ).
36
JLB ( June 1904) (“Landesverband der jungliberalen Vereine Bayerns r.d.Rh.”)
37
Hohenzollerische Blätter, 22/12/1906.
38
A few examples from southern Swabia: the liberal Verein in Sonthofen
reformulated its principles in 1911, and called for “the encouragement of freedom of
thought and opinion in the regions of the Fatherland [Vaterland]”. The liberal Verein
In all regions of Greater Swabia, there was a rapprochement between these

liberal groups, especially the Young Liberals, and the socialists. Not only was
this expressed in politics, educational reforms and anti-clerical attitudes,
as was demonstrated in the celebrated “Grand Bloc”,39 but there were also
many liberals who expressed sympathy for the workers’ struggle to improve
their conditions of work.40 In accordance with the liberals’ desire to gain the
support of as many groups as possible, peasants and bourgeois came together
in Swabia within the framework of the local liberal Verein (which was in
rivalry with the Swabian Peasant Association) in order to give a stronger
representation of their social and economic demands – especially those of
the peasants.41 Throughout south Germany there was a growing demand
for greater democracy in Prussia, with an emphasis on the contrast between
the authoritarian political conditions north of the River Main and the more
democratic ones to the south of the river. Here the Young Liberals, in sharp
contrast to the interest of the Young Liberals in Prussia, collaborated with the
opponents of Prussia in the south in a struggle against the Prussian electoral
system in which the leftist-liberal and national-liberal movements, Catholic
political groups and of course the socialists all took part.
in Immenstadt in 1889 revised the first paragraph of its Statuten which were originally
written in 1881, replacing “in an Imperial direction” in the sentence “Aim of the Verein
… is promotion of political affairs in an Imperial direction” with “in a liberal direction”.
In the village of Altusried, the liberal Verein declared that its aim was to encourage
liberal as well as social activities, and in the village of Bayersreid, the Verein said that
its aim was to educate the public in “principles of popular freedom” (volkstümlich-
freiheitlicher, nationaler Grundsätze): Staatsarchiv Augsburg, BZ Sonthofen, 3684,
Statuten des liberalen Vereins […], 1881, 1899; 3687, Statuten […] 1911, Regierung, BZ
Kempten, 9756, 30/1/1909; BZ Markt Oberdorf, 108b - Mitgliedkarte und Satzungen
des Liberalen Vereins Bayersried 1911; BZ Sonthofen 3691 - Liberale Vereinigung
Hindelang 1912.
39
Langewiesche, Liberalism in Germany, 241ff.; Beverly Heckart, From Bassermann
to Bebel: The Grand Bloc’s Quest for Reform in the Kaiserreich, 1900–1914 (New Haven and
London, 1974), 91–121.
40
See, for example, the debate concerning the workers’ strike in the screw factory
in Falkau (South Baden) in 1910. The left liberals and the Young Liberals supported the
workers’ demands, although they warned them not to use violence in their struggle. See JLB,
29/4/1910; “Badische Volkspartei”, JLB, 21/5/1910. In southern Swabia, liberals in the
town of Lindenberg supported the demands of the textile workers: Staatsarchiv Augsburg,
Regierung, 10084, 21/2/1910.
41
Staatsarchiv Augsburg - BZ Memmingen - Liberaler Bürger und Bauernverein
Grönenbach und Umgebung, 19/4/1906.
At the beginning of the twentieth century, south German popular

liberalism had a broader base than in previous decades. It collaborated on
an ad hoc basis with groups with which it would not have dreamed of co-
operating a few years earlier. Its message consisted of a demand for political
reform in Prussia, greater democracy and national unity, plus the traditional
south German liberal principles of opposition to “reaction”, the church and the
aristocracy, and the encouragement of individualism and free trade.42 Support
for colonialism, for building up the navy and a more powerful Germany, and
limited support for the army and the Kaiser, continued to be shared by leftist
and national-liberal groups in both north and south Germany.
On the eve of the First World War, there were elements in south German
popular liberalism which emphasized its radical nature. One was the
intensification of the struggle against the Catholic Church, another was support
for an alliance with the socialists and opposition to an alliance with the leftist
liberals, and a third was an intensification of the rhetoric that liberals used.
1. Germany experienced a second Kulturkampf in the decade preceding
the First World War, although this time it was not primarily initiated by the
government and bureaucracy but took place at a grassroots level in areas where
Catholics and Protestants lived together.43 In such areas, inter-religious tension
increased in the first decade of the twentieth century. In the elections of 1907,
the Zentrum and the Catholic Church, together with the socialists, were
the main targets of the Bülow Bloc in which the national liberals and leftist
liberals played a major role. Already in the elections to the Baden and Bavarian
Landtag in the first decade of the twentieth century, there were violent clashes
between the Catholic priesthood and the Zentrum and liberals.44 Here, too,
liberal schoolteachers played a central role in the incitement. While verbal
violence was to be found on both sides, the physical violence originated
with the radical liberals.45 The radical liberals in south Germany and Greater
Swabia largely initiated the attacks on the church, increasing their strength in
Heckart, From Bassermann to Bebel, 154–208.

42
Helmut W. Smith, German Nationalism and Religious Conflict: Culture, Ideology,

43
Politics, 1870–1914 (Princeton, 1995); Margaret L. Anderson, Practicing Democracy:

Elections and Political Culture in Imperial Germany (Princeton, 2000), chapters 4 and 5.
44
Carl Zangerl, “Courting the Catholic Vote: The Center Party in Baden 1903–1913”,
Central European History, 10/3 (1977): 220–240. See the many files about the liberals’
attacks on priests in South Baden in 1907 in PfA Bonndorf-Seelsorge - Schwarzwälder
Zeitung und Geistlichkeit.
45
An account of an especially violent week in South Baden can be found in
ErzAF-B2/28-2, 17/11/1912, 27/11/1912 - Villingen; on the role of teachers, see GLAK -
Nationalliberale Partei 69-118, Heidenhofen.
the process, and thus had repeated electoral successes – sometimes with the
help of the socialists – in some of the areas and villages that they had lost in
the 1880s.46
2. In 1913, a series of debates took place at the National Liberal Party
headquarters in Karlsruhe and South Baden about collaboration with the
socialists and with the liberal-democratic Fortschnittliche Volkspartei (or leftist
liberals) in view of the coming elections to the local Landtag. Representatives
of all chapters of the party in the state of Baden participated in the meetings.47
Their statements not only reveal the major difference between the chapters
in the northern part of the state and the south, and illustrate our earlier
perception of the radical-liberal basis of the South Baden electorate, but also
show the national-liberal attitude to the socialists and the leftist liberals. In
addition, the discussions reveal the outlook, vision and aims of many liberal
activists, as well as the characteristics of their supporters in various regions.
Thus, for instance, the liberal delegates from Villigen, St Blasien, Bonndorf
and other towns declared that local farmers would not support the national
liberals if they made an alliance (Bundnis) with the democrats. In 1911 the
socialist newspaper, Volksfreund, had observed that farmers in South Baden
tended increasingly to go towards the left rather than towards the liberals,48
and they supported the Bund der Landwirte or the socialists simply as a protest
against the national liberals. After that, claimed the South Baden delegates,
the Liberal Party had learned its lesson and had devoted much effort to
successfully building up support among farmers. If the liberals now went with
the democrats, they added, “They would no longer be at our disposal.” “With
such conduct, the troops at our disposal later on will inevitably be weakened,
when the elections take place under the new law” (“Unser Truppren können
doch unmöglich durch solches Verhalten uns später wenn die Wahlen nach
dem neün Recht stattfinden ungeschwächt zur verfügung stehen”),49 claimed
the party representative from St Blasien, and his friend from the nearby region
of Walshut declared that the economic programme of the democrats was
46
See the election results between 1907 and 1912, including the Ersatz-Wahlen in the
counties (Bezirken) of Immenstadt, Konstanz, Überlingen, Freiburg in Swabia and Baden.
In 1907, in Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen, the radical National Liberal candidate Friedrich
Wallishauser, editor of the Hohenzollerischen Blätter, won almost 40 per cent of the votes,
whereas in 1903 the Liberal candidate got only 12 per cent.
47
GLAK, Nationaliberale Partei (NL) 69/189-190.
48
Volksfreund, 1/2/1911.
49
GLAK, NL 190, 16/5/1913.
unsuitable to an area in which farmers and artisans tended more and more to
support the economic programme of the national liberals.50
The leader of the national liberals in Baden, Rebmann, made a pessimistic
forecast concerning the party’s chances of succeeding against the Zentrum
without an alliance with the democrats, but delegates from South Baden,
unlike those from the north, expressed more optimistic opinions. A typical
example was the liberal delegate from Bonndorf, the forester Eberbach, who
claimed that the people of the region saw no difference between a national
liberal and a democrat. The common enemy of both was “die Schwarze” (the
priests), and it was immaterial whether the liberals were headed by a liberal
democrat (Left Liberal) or a National Liberal.51 The delegates of the National
Liberal Party from the Bodensee area were more pessimistic, however. They
believed that, from both an organizational and a financial point of view,
collaboration with the democrats was the key to success. A split between the
national liberals and the leftist liberals in the town of Konstanz would make
effective political activity difficult and therefore they had to go to the elections
united, claimed the liberal delegates from Radolfzell and Messkirch. But an
opposite opinion was voiced by liberal delegates from the areas of Freiburg,
the Baar and the Black Forest. There, they claimed, the “stamm Leute” (simple
folk) supported the national liberals. The farmers were not ready to join the
Vereine of the democrats, claimed the liberal delegate from Eichstetten; they
were against participation in such organizations. And the delegate from the
Freiburg area, Karl Frey, declared towards the end of the discussion that they
must learn from the Zentrum how to struggle. He objected to a loss of hope
(“there’s not a chance”, “hopeless”) [“Aussichtslos”, “Hoffnungslos”]). One must
strive for victory without the assistance of the democrats, he said.52 From the
meeting, it appears not only that there was a difference between the radical
liberals from South Baden who urged a struggle against the authorities with or
without the co-operation of the democrats and delegates from more northerly
areas pessimistic about the chances of victory in elections to the Landtag, but
also that liberal delegates from the south represented a rebellious subculture
whose requirements had to be satisfied with the aid of the leftist liberals or
without it. The liberals were called upon to meet the demands of the farmers
who wanted a struggle.
50
GLAK, ibid., 15/5/1913.
51
GLAK, ibid., 189, 20/4/1913, 11.
52
GLAK, ibid., 25.
3. And finally, attention should be given to the language used by the radical
liberals on the eve of the First World War. In Swabia, the liberals reminded
the farmers that it was they who had initiated and realized the concept of
freedom. In a series of writings entitled Liberalismus und Bauernstand, the
liberals pointed out to the farmers that from 1830 onwards, the liberals
had done more than anyone else to liberate them, and that because of the
Zollfreiheit (anti-protectionism) and Gewerbefreiheit (labour freedom)
championed by the liberals, their conditions of life and the fodder for their
livestock had improved.53 In 1912 there were elections shortly before the
traditional festivities of the carnival (Fasching), and the Narrenvereine and
Faschingvereine (carnival clubs which were closely connected with the liberals)
exploited the election campaign in order to advertise their appearances in the
Fasching, and simultaneously to disseminate strong anti-clerical and pro-liberal
propaganda. In South Baden, the Echo vom Wald claimed before the festivities
that in Baden the word “conservative” meant “anrüchig” (disreputable), and
that radical liberalism was strongly opposed to clerical conservatism and to
powerful figures of the aristocracy and bourgeoisie.54
The liberal delegate to the Reichstag, Friedrich Faller, claimed in an
article in the newspaper Donaueschinger Wochenblatt that the meaning of the
word “liberalism” was freedom for all and in every sphere: political, artistic,
educational and in the realm of ideas. In his article, Faller described the aims
of liberalism in the region: freedom for all, liberation from servitude to
plutocrats and the aristocracy, universal suffrage and a struggle against the anti-
democratic Prussian electoral system.55 In a text next to the article, Faller was
described as “the people’s representative” (Volksvertreter), a model family man
and a devout Catholic with liberal-democratic principles and a deep local Baden
consciousness – something that endeared him to the inhabitants of the region.
In southern Swabia, the liberal delegate Josef Wagner likewise declared in a
newspaper article that the idea of freedom included loyalty to Germany, loyalty
to Bavaria and devotion to the general interest, and that anyone who voted for
the liberals received a “package deal” under the banner of freedom.56 He too was
53
Tag und Anzeigerblatt für Kempten und Allgäu, 3/1/1912, 30/1/1912.
54
Echo vom Wald, 9/1/1912.
55
Donaueschinger Wochenblatt, 26/6/1903.
56
If you “feel really free, really German and really Bavarian; if you wish to serve the
general interest and not the unilateral interests of a denominational party – then vote for
the candidate we propose.” “Wähler des Reichstagswahlkreises Immenstadt”, Tag und
Anzeigerblatt für Kempten und das Allgäu, 16/6/1903.
described as a Volksvertreter, in contrast to Catholic priests or members of the

unions who represented interest groups in the population.
The combination of regionalism and national unity, particularism and
the general good, both in society and the economic sphere, was reflected, for
example, in the summer festival of the National Liberal Party at Triberg in South
Baden. There, party representatives extolled the special character of the locality,
with its costumes, customs and the South Baden dialect, and at the same time
spoke sympathetically of a lowering of customs tariffs and free trade as something
which would benefit farmers. Their speeches were also infused with sympathy
for a liberal economy, a strong navy and a policy of colonialism (Kolonialpolitik).
All these things, they claimed, would strengthen Germany in the face of its
enemies.57 This combination of universal liberal-democratic principles with
loyalty to the locality which is so typical of south German popular liberalism
was also demonstrated in a pamphlet published by the National Liberal Party
during the surrogate election campaign (Ersatzwahlen) in South Baden in 1911,
which took place after the death of the Catholic candidate for the Konstanz
region. In its election propaganda, the party claimed that all Germany had its
eyes on the contest taking place in Konstanz. After the elections, with the victory
of the liberal candidate Schmidt, the liberals claimed that this was the victory
of the Liberal Idea (der liberale Gedanke) (liberal principles). Just as in the far
north of the German Reich reactionary conservatism had given way before the
liberal onslaught, so in the south of the country the allies of the Junkers – that is,
the reactionaries (the Zentrum) – had suffered a defeat.58 In another pamphlet,
aimed at the inhabitants of the Markgrafland in South Baden, those Markgräfler
who had the love of their soil (Scholle), their property, their beautiful Heimat
(home region) and the grosse deutsche Vaterland (great German Fatherland) at
heart were called upon to support liberal principles (Gedanken).59
The rhetoric we have illustrated here was usually directed against the
priesthood and the Zentrum. It was accompanied by verbal and physical
violence. The violent language which had been so noticeable in the time of the
Kulturkampf in the 1870s and late nineteenth century now re-emerged stronger
than ever. It was sometimes used by liberal personalities who were revealed as being
violent in their private lives and public activities as well.60 Expressions like the
GLAK, NL 69/7, 22/8/1911: “Unser nationalliberales Parteifest in Triberg”.

57
GLAK, ibid., 69/7, 31/10/1911.

58
59
GLAK, ibid., 69/103 (“Markgräfler!”)
60
The following are two examples; I do not know to what degree they are representative.
Dr Wassmannsdorff, Oberamtmann in Bonndorf, made especially violent speeches and was
suspected of using force. See Prozeß Dr. Wassmannsdorff ’s Oberamtmann’s in Bonndorf
description of the struggle against the Zentrum as a Vernichtung (extermination)

and the election as a Krieg (war), a Schlacht (battle) or a Kriegsfeldzug (military
campaign) recurred again and again. The liberals assailed the priests as “spiritual
terrorists” (purveyors of geistlichen Terrorismus) or “robbers”. Liberal activists
themselves were described as “liberal troops” (Liberalen Truppen) engaged in
a “crusade” against the church.61 In southern Swabia, liberals were described as
warriors marching forth to war (needless to say, against the priesthood) “with a
calm expression, cold blood and confident steps”.62 This language was apparently
not unique to south German liberalism: in Kassel in 1907, the representative of
the Young Liberals expressed himself as follows: “For us national liberals there
is a clear duty: struggle against the Zentrum and the anti-semites until their
elimination” (“Für uns Nationalliberale ergibt sich eine unzweideutige politische
Aufgabe: Kampf gegen Zentrum und Antisemiten bis zur Vernichtung”).63
This language was also not unique to that particular period. Already in the
1860s and 1870s the liberals had used it in connection with election campaigns
and the struggle against the Zentrum (as the word Kulturkampf had signalled).
At that time, it reflected the process of national revival and the wars of unification
in which military language and a war atmosphere played a prominent role in
daily life.64 On the eve of the First World War, these terms survived as forms
of political expression, especially in south Germany where this unique radical-
liberal language represented a subculture which saw its task as preventing the
whole of south Germany from falling into the hands of the ultramontanes.65
Thus, the continued frequent usage of expressions like “freedom”, “democracy”,
“liberation from slavery”, “constitution”, “Gemeinschaft”, “Vaterland” and
gegen 1. Redakteur Heinrich H. Müller (“Freiburger Bote”) und Redakteur Friedrich Lanz
(“Oberbadisches Volksblatt”) (Bonndorfer Anzeiger, October 1895). The other example from
Swabia is that of Dr Johan Reiter of Türkheim. He was a teacher, educator and schoolmaster
in several towns in Swabia. He was an active liberal in several towns in the Allgäu. In 1919
he was dismissed from his chair in the Türkheim town council for several reasons. One was
using flogging as a punishment. See Gerhard Willi, Alltag und Brauch in Bayerisch-Schwaben
(Augsburg, 1999), 618; Allgäuer Zeitung, 25/2/1887.
61
These observations are based on pamphlets in the GLAK, NL 69/87, 96, 103.
62
Allgäuer Zeitung, 23/2/1887 (“… with steady gaze we go, cool tempered and with
firm steps … like brave soldiers, like men”).
63
Ernst Sunkel, Nationalliberal. Ansprache an die nationalliberale Jugend Cassels
(Cassel, 1907).
64
Frank Becker, Bilder von Krieg und Nation: die Einigungskriege in der bürgerlichen
Öffentlichkeit Deutschlands 1864–1913 (Munich, 2001).
65
GLAK, NL 69/189, 20/4/1913 - Protokoll der am 20. April 1913 im Restaurant
“Krokodil” in Karlsruhe abgehaltene Versammlung der Wahlkreisvertreter der
nationalliberalen Partei, 1.
“Heimat” alongside expressions of opposition to the state, the establishment, the

bureaucracy and the aristocracy, and the verbal violence we have described, show
a remarkable continuity, at least in the culture and political language of Greater
Swabia, despite the difference of atmosphere between the 1860s and the decade
preceding the First World War. This continuity undoubtedly illustrates the
“restless Reich”. But more than anything else, it illustrates the special character
of south Germany: the combination of aggressivity with liberal-democratic-
republican principles gives a unique colouring to south German liberalism on the
eve of the First World War, something which perhaps facilitated its adaptation
to the protest movements after the war and finally to National Socialism.
The Communitarian Ideal and Anti-Establishment Sentiment: The First

World War and the First Decade of the Weimar Republic
The deep discontinuity between the pre-war and post-war periods caused by the
First World War and the post-war German crisis and inflation is well documented.
But, despite these upheavals, there are some cases where a continuity is also well
documented.66 There is no doubt that Greater Swabia suffered like all regions of
Germany from the war, but in spite of the upheavals, on the whole continuity
prevailed over change. Truly, the war effort damaged the handful of industries
which constituted the economic backbone of Greater Swabia. Most branches
of the local economy were harnessed to the needs of war production, and
agriculture, the most important source of livelihood for the local population,
had been placed under state control in 1915. By then, the nationalist enthusiasm
which had swept parts of the region’s population in August 1914 had disappeared
without a trace. In this respect, the inhabitants of Greater Swabia shared the
experience of German society at large from 1916 onwards. However, their plight
was further exacerbated by the position of the region as an economic and social
periphery which rendered them more vulnerable to administrative decrees and
intervention.
In consequence, traditional expressions of opposition to the state, the
establishment, the bureaucracy and the aristocracy, as well as the burgeoning anti-
Prussianism of local radical liberals and verbal anti-Catholic violence, started
See the same argument in Benjamin Ziemann, War Experiences in Rural Germany:
66
1914–1923 (New York and Oxford, 2006); Martina Steber, Ethnische Gewissheiten: Die
Ordnung des Regionalen im bayerischen Schwaben vom Kaiserreich bis zum NS-Regime
(Göttingen, 2010).
to reappear in Greater Swabia.67 Anti-clerical activity, which also embodied

anti-French sentiment, was prevalent in many parts of Greater Swabia. In some
villages army inspectors and state bureaucrats were insulted as French spies, and
the German army was blamed as mainly representing Prussian war aims.68
The revolutions of 1918–1919 in all parts of Germany, including Greater
Swabia, affected the radical-liberal subculture. The events of 1918 were
felt differently in several parts of Greater Swabia.69 In southern Baden and
Württemberg, councils of peasants and workers were established. They confined
themselves to purely economic matters: food supplies and combatting hunger.
In most places it was liberal associations, notables and SPD representatives who
took the initiative in controlling local councils.70 This Lib-Lab co-operation
turned into a conflict after a few months and led to a feeling of resentment against
local workers and socialists. In Bavarian Swabia, however, the Leftist and Rightist
revolutions in Munich and Bavaria at the end of 1918 and the beginning of 1919
had the effect of a radicalization of local society. The Freikorps which, in 1919,
fought the communists in southern Swabia aroused a fear of the communists, as
well as the old fear of the Catholic Church. The revolution of 1918 also changed
attitudes in Greater Swabia: the hatred and fear of socialism and particularly
communism was something new to the political culture of the region.
But before describing these changes, one must note the elements of continuity.
The traditional liberal parties, under new names, continued to operate and to
win considerable sympathy after 1918 in the majority of towns and villages in
which they had been strong previous to the war. In southern Swabia, chapters
of the National Liberal Party continued to operate under the name Deutsche
Volkspartei-Nationalliberalen at least until 1928, and in a large number of
important towns and villages such as Lindenberg, Walterhofen, Immenstadt
and Oberstdorf they won electoral success until 1920.71 In Bavarian Swabia,
the liberals, especially the German Democratic Party (the DDP), succeeded
in putting forward a radical-liberal platform focusing on fear of communism
and of state intervention in the economic sphere. The use of this motif against
67
Baur, Mein politischer Lebenslauf, 38.
68
PfA Bonndorf-Seelsorge. Schwarzwälder Zeitung und Geistlichkeit - 1917;
Staatsarchiv Augsburg, Regierung - 9765 - Wochenberichte der Bezirksaemter - Fuessen
- 1917.
69
Oded Heilbronner, “The Impact and Consequences of the First World War in a
Catholic Rural Area: The Black Forest as a Case Study”, German History, 11/1 (1993), 20–
35; Steber, Ethnische Gewissheiten, 198–216.
70
StaaF, BZ Neustadt, P. 93/199, 21/11/1918.
71
Allgäuer Tagblatt, 3/12/1924. In 1928 the party still called itself “Deutsche
Volkspartei (Nationalliberale Partei)”, Allgäuer Tagblatt, 16/5/1928.
the background of the Leftist and Rightist revolutions in Munich and Bavaria
at the end of 1918 and the beginning of 1919 was effective with dairy farmers
and the representatives of light industries in the area until at least 1920.72 From
the mid 1920s, there was increasing collaboration between the liberals and the
branches of the Bayrische Bauernbund (now called the Bauern-und-Mittelstand
Partei) in the whole of Bavaria and southern Swabia.73 In this co-operation,
peasants’ movements set the tone. In southern Baden, an independent peasants’
movement was set up for the first time: Der Badische Landbund. It grew out
of the post-war peasants’ councils (Bauernräte) and had many radical-liberal
members.74 But here too one finds continuity: in the Lake Konstanz region in
South Baden, the new liberal parties refounded liberal associations in accordance
with the traditions that existed before the First World War. In elections to the
National Assembly and the Reichstag, both in 1919 and 1920, the liberals won
wide support in their traditional strongholds: Konstanz, Messkirch, Waldshut,
St Blasien, Lenskirch, Bonndorf and many other towns and villages.
Old symbols made a reappearance in the region: the republican colours,
the colours of the 1848 revolution, appeared on the standards of the Freikorps
which, in 1919, fought the communists in southern Swabia.75 In the atmosphere
of disintegration which prevailed in the entire Reich and especially in Bavaria
after 1918, plans for an administrative separation of Greater Swabia from
Bavaria and the granting of self-rule to the villages of the region again seemed
feasible. Otto Merkt, a member of the Young Liberals before the war and the
mayor of Kempten, became president of the County Assembly (Kreistag von
Schwaben und Neuburg) which aimed to preserve the independence and special
character of Swabian culture. Although the centre of the society’s activities was
Bavarian Swabia, its intention was to spread the messages of Swabian uniqueness
and the necessity of self-rule to all regions of Greater Swabia. In nearby
Hohenzollern, the liberal Friedrich Wallishauser declared in 1918: “With the
end of Hohenzollern rule in Prussia … We, the people of Hohenzollern must
find, with the construction of the new Reich, a connection to the south German
Mindelheimer Neueste Nachrichten, 17/5/1920. In the first year of the republic, the
72
newspaper was the organ of the Bayerische Bauernbund and also of the DDP.
73
Larry E. Jones, “Crisis and Realignment: Agrarian Splinter Parties in the Late
Weimar Republic”, in Möller (ed.), Peasants and Lords in Modern Germany, 200–201.
74
Emil Bleibtreu, Die Bauernbewegung im Bezirk Bonndorf 1919–1922 (Karlsruhe,
1923), 10; Der Landbund. Sein Auftreten und sein Wirken im Bezirk Bonndorf 1922–1924
(Karlsruhe, 1924).
75
“Wither? To the Swabian Freikorps. Allgäuer National Defence, Memmingen Base”,
Poster of the Swabian Freikorps in Daniel Ritter von Pitrof, Gegen Spartakismus in München
und im Allgäu (Memmingen, 1937), 1; Steber, Ethnische Gewissheiten, 198–199.
condition, to our Swabian folklore. Thus, we do not belong to North, but to

South Germany”.76
In neighbouring Baden, the former liberal activist Hermann Spachholz
declared that the farmers of South Baden should operate independently and not
be absorbed into the northern peasants’ organizations (Nördliche Bauernbünde),
which were under the influence of former members of the Bund der Landwirte
who still represented the aristocracy, in contrast with the situation in Swabia,
“where freedom and independence prevail”.77
A desire for separation existed in almost all parts of Germany in this period.
The peculiarity of Swabia was that there it was the continuation of a very old
tradition, and it had been one of the elements of popular liberalism in the region
for a long time. In a conference of peasants’ organizations, one could hear slogans
such as Volksfreiheit, Volksrecht and Volkswohl which revived old memories.
Likewise, expressions of support for direct, non-party democracy which would
derive its power directly from the people, as desired by the South Baden farmers’
delegates, reappeared in the publications of peasants’ organizations, recalling
similar statements in 1848, 80 years earlier. In South Baden, farmers saw
themselves as “Ein Bund von Brüdern” (a league of brothers).78 The traditional
sentiments of desire for freedom and opposition to the aristocracy were also
strongly expressed in the referendum on the expropriation of the property of
princes (Volksbegehren und Volksentscheid “Enteignung der Fürstenvermögen [the
people’s wish and the people’s decision “expropriation of the princes’ fortunes”])
which took place in 1926. In many towns and villages of South Baden where
radical-liberal elements had been strong before the war, there was strong
support, far beyond the state average (39.7 per cent) or the national average
(37.9 per cent), for the expropriation of the princes’ property. Thus, in the areas
of Waldshut, Stockach and Engen, almost half the inhabitants took part in the
referendum (as against the national average of 37 per cent), and nearly half of
them expressed support for expropriating the princes’ property.79
76
Fritz Kallenberg, Hohenzollern (Stuttgart, 1996), 181; Juergen Klöckler,
“Reichsreformdiskussion, Grossschwabenpläne und Alemannentum im Spiegel der
südwestdeutschen Publizistik der frühen Weimarer Republik ‘Der Schwäbische Bund’
1919–1922”, Zeitschrift für Württembergische Landesgeschichte, 60 (2001): 271–315; Stefan
Heinze, Die Region Bayerisch-Schwaben (Augsburg, 1995); Steber, Ethnische Gewissheiten,
221–226.
77
Schwarzwälder Zeitung (Bonndorf ), 20/7/1920.
78
“Ruf an unsere Berufsgenossen”, Flugblatt, Schwarzwälder Zeitung (Bonndorf ),
15/6/1919.
79
Statistisches Reichsamt (ed.), Volksbegehren und Volksentscheid – Enteignung der
Fürstenvermögen (Berlin, 1926).
In addition to this anti-establishment tendency, there was continuity of

support for a liberal economy among liberal groups and peasants’ organizations.
Slogans in favour of a free liberal economy and respect for private property were
popular, especially in the period of economic control (Zwangswirtschaft) at the
beginning of the 1920s.80 The government’s economic policy especially hurt
the dairy farms of the Allgäu and the woodworking and light manufacturing
industries of South Baden which, even when the war ended, were unable to
market their products in Switzerland, France and Austria as they had done before
1914. In a memorandum written by the church authorities (Ordenariat) in
Freiburg on the process of secularization and the purchase of land by Protestants
in the Bodensee region, the liberal socio-economic orientation of large-scale
farmers and artisans in the towns of the region was mentioned. Here too, said
the writers of the memorandum, one sees continuity of liberal activity from the
years before the war.81
Hostility to the Catholic Church and to political Catholicism remained one
of the cornerstones of the organizational activities of farmers, and especially
of the Badische Landbund, after the war as well. The call for freedom, for the
right of the farmer and the artisan to live as they pleased and to practise religion
as they wanted, and a rejection of the dictates of the priests in schools, reveal
continuity in popular liberalism from the period of the empire to the time of the
Weimar Republic. Attacks on priests were a routine affair in the Baar region in
South Baden after 1920,82 and farmers’ tales of their suffering and exploitation
by priests from the time of the Peasants’ War in the sixteenth century, including
their experiences during the Salpeterer rebellions in the eighteenth century, and
the traditional descriptions of the oppression of the workers by the monastery
of St Blasien, were recycled after the war and disseminated throughout southern
Baden. Local history (Heimatgeschichte) became a vehicle for leaders of the
peasants and a local poet (Heimatdichter) such as Josef Albicker, of the region of
Donaueschingen, to attack the priests and the Zentrum, as was the case during
“Für die Sicherheit des Privateigentums, insbesondere auch des Privateigentums an

80
Grund und Boden”, Schwarzwälder Zeitung, 3/1/1922.

81
ErzAF, B2-28/9 (Protestantische Propaganda – 1931): Gedanken zur konfessionellen
Verschiebung des ländlichen Besitzes im Bodenseegebiet. Vortrag von einem Geistlichen der
Diözese Rottenburg, auf verschiedenen Konferenzen im badischen Bodenseegebiet gehalten.
82
Hermann Lauer, Geschichte der katholischen Kirche in der Baar (Donaueschingen,
1922), 364–365; Schwarzwälder Zeitung, 10/6/1922 (“Zum Beginn des Schulkampfes in
Baden”).
the Kulturkampf and as would again be the case with the radical-liberals, now in
the ranks of the National Socialists, at the beginning of the 1930s.83
The phenomenon of a mutual relationship and partnership between popular
liberalism and the peasants’ protest organizations is reflected in the careers of
liberal activists working in the peasants’ organizations or still working in the
liberal associations. Professor Anton Fehr, a liberal sympathizer from Lindenberg,
was the delegate of the Bayerische Bauernbund to the Bavarian Landtag, and was
Minister of Agriculture (Landwirtschaftminister) in the years 1924–1930. The
head of the Dairy Farming Association (Milchwirtschaftlichen Verein) in Swabia,
which collaborated with the Bayerische Bauernbund, was the ex-liberal Jakob
Herz. In the Allgäu region, many local national-liberal activists, such as Anton
Mayer, J. Vögel and Franz Diebolder, were elected to the general assembly of the
Allgäuer Bauernverband.84 One of the liberal leaders in the Kempten region,
Michael Arnold, joined the Allgäuer Farmers’ Councils (Allgäuer Bauernräte) in
1918 and was chosen as the delegate of the Bauernbund to the Bavarian Landtag.
So was the schoolteacher Peter Herz, delegate of the peasants’ organizations in
Kempten in 1918.85 The Spachholz family of Bonndorf in southern Baden gave
its support to the DDP immediately after the war, and two years later gave it
to the Badische Landbund, as did the Merk, Weishaar and Frank families – all
large-scale farmers or prosperous artisans. Together with these, mayors of towns,
village notables and many schoolteachers (especially primary school teachers
[Volksschullehrer]) emerged, as in the days of the empire, as a radical, anti-clerical
element.86 They were all disappointed at the collaboration between the old
liberal parties and the old-new regime established after the 1920 elections to the
Reichstag, which was mainly composed of representatives of the old Prussian
and local élites.
There was also in south Germany a certain continuity in the activities of
those cornerstones of German liberalism, the bourgeois Vereine. Despite the
crisis which hit many of them during the war and immediately after, from the
83
Der Landbund, 92ff.; Schwarzwälder Zeitung, 14/1/1924 (“Bilder deutscher
Bauerngeschichte”).
84
Staatsarchiv Augsburg, Amtsgericht Kempten II/44 - Allgäuer Bauernverband,
4/5/1922.
85
Hetzer, “Bauernräte”, 27–28, 37.
86
ErzAF-B2-32/556 (1919–1924) - Jahresberichte über den Klerus. Bonndorf,
22/2/1922; Hetzer, “Bauernräte”, 36–37. The teacher as a radical, anti-clerical element is not
a south German peculiarity. Wolfram Pyta has studied this phenomenon in Protestant rural
regions. See Dorfgemeinschaft und Parteipolitik 1918–1933. Die Verschränkung von Milieu
und Parteien in den protestantischen Landgebieten Deutschlands in der Weimarer Republik
(Düsseldorf, 1996), 252–269.
beginning of the 1920s most of them acted on behalf of the unique Swabian
culture in the best pre-war liberal cultural tradition, although now they did not
specifically declare their commitment to popular liberalism. Together with these
activities, there was a nationalist and anti-socialist extremism in the actions of
the Vereine which had not been so noticeable before the war. This extremism
was generally accompanied by anti-clerical activity under the slogan “National
Character versus the Bavarian People’s Party”.87 In addition to their activities on
behalf of the Heimat, the Vereine saw themselves as defenders of the Vaterland
against its external enemies – at that time, the communists.88 Prestigious Vereine
such as the Turnvereine and the MGV saw themselves as representing the true
will of the people divided by opposing party loyalties. Calls for a democracy
which would rise above class and political differences appeared increasingly in
the pronouncements of the Vereine.89
And finally, continuity in the political culture of the radical-liberal subculture
was also seen in the language and rhetoric of Vereine activists, the peasants’
organizations and all the related political parties. The aggressive language, violent
rhetoric and physical violence which had existed before the war, especially in the
towns of Greater Swabia, were now exacerbated by the events of the war, the
Rightist and Leftist revolutions experienced in a number of regions of Bavarian
Swabia and the economic distress and climate of violence experienced by the
people of Germany throughout the Weimar period.90 These naturally intensified
the extreme rhetoric and violence which had been latent in the radical-liberal
subculture from the 1860s onwards. As in the past, expressions of verbal and
physical violence were directed towards priests and people of the Left, but now
also towards government representatives, especially tax collectors and the local
bureaucracy administering the various districts of the region. Military people
were also sometimes insulted. Despite the points of continuity, one should
realize that political and economic tensions in the state which affected some
inhabitants increased after the war. This was reflected in the language and
Allgäuer Tagblatt, 20/7/1924; for more details, see Heilbronner, “The German
87
Bourgeois Club”.
88
Gemeindearchiv Löffingen - 1905 - Turnerbund, 6/12/1920 (A letter to the town
council).
89
Protokollbuch Männergesangsverein Schonach (n. 45), 15/9/1923. For Swabia, see
Steber, Ethnische Gewissenheit, 406–409.
90
Johannes Timmermann, “Die Entstehung der Freikorpsbewegung in Memmingen
und im Unterallgäu”, in Reinhard Baumann and Paul Hoser (eds), Die Revolution von
1918/19 in der Provinz (Konstanz, 1996), 173–189; Paul Hoser, “Die Revolution von
1918/19 in Memmingen – Verlauf, Ursachen, Folgen”, in Baumann and Hoser (eds),
Revolution von 1918/19, 83–101.
expressions of violence unknown in the region before the war. For example, there
was the (new and frequent) use of the terms “communists” and “Bolshevists” to
describe government officials visiting the villages of the Baar in southern Baden
in order to apply some law or other. Use of the word “extermination”, which had
already occurred before the war, was now more frequent, and was accompanied
by an atmosphere of violence which reflected the violence that existed in reality.
In Immenstadt in southern Swabia and Lindau on the shores of Lake Konstanz,
liberal activists and folkish and Right-wing groups (a new phenomenon on the
local scene) used violent language and undertook demonstrations of force in the
streets.91
But the break that took place was as noticeable as the continuity. The clearest
sign of the weakening and, finally, the disintegration of the radical-liberal
subculture in Greater Swabia was the disintegration of the bourgeois Vereine,
especially from the mid 1920s onwards.92 The Vereine stopped providing services
to the liberal parties already from the beginning of the 1920s and had even
become alienated from the peasants’ organizations which were so popular in
South Baden and Swabia. Towards the end of the 1920s, many of them ceased
to function, and those that did adopted a clear anti-socialist and nationalist
ideology.93
The liberal parties also experienced a profound crisis. It is true that
immediately after 1918 liberal sympathizers, mainly farmers and artisans,
supported them in rural communities with a liberal electoral past. But from
1921, many of them directed their support to the local peasants’ organizations:
in Swabia and Bavaria, the Bayerische Bauernband, and in Baden, the Badische
Landbund.94 Even supporters of the Zentrum who felt disappointment with
the party’s record in the Weimar government found their way to the Badische
Landbund. At the beginning of the 1920s, these peasants’ organizations attracted
to their ranks radicals disappointed with the liberals, opponents of the republic,
and many young people who had only just obtained the vote and who, after a
91
Staatsarchiv Augsburg, Regierung, 18224-Wochenberichte, Halbmonatsberichte,
8/7/1922; Bezirksämter, Lindau, 3611 - Krieger und Veteranvereine im BZ Lindau,
17/7/1929; StA Immenstadt, Chronik Glötzle.
92
Oded Heilbronner, “Der verlassene Stammtisch. Vom Verfall der bürgerlichen
93
Heilbronner, “The German Bourgeois Club”; idem, “Der verlassene Stammtisch”.
94
Oded Heilbronner, “Reichstagswahlkampfe im Allgäu 1871–1932: Ein
abweichender Fall?”, Zeitschrift für Bayerische Landesgeschichte, 60 (1997): 297–326; idem,
Catholicism, Political Culture, and the Countryside: A Social History of the Nazi Party in
South Germany (Ann Arbor, MI, 1998), 40ff.
short “romance” with the socialists, decided, like their kinsmen the farmers, to
support the peasants’ organizations, which not only had a rural programme but
also represented an alternative political and social programme to the traditional
liberal organizations.
But it was not only the liberal parties that were weakened. The peasants’
organizations also grew weaker towards the end of the 1920s. The liberals lost
strength to the socialists and the peasants’ parties from 1924 onwards, and
from the mid 1920s the peasants’ organizations began to suffer from internal
disputes. In Swabia, for example, from 1924, the Swabian branch of the
Bayerische Bauernbund began to support the Weimar republican institutions,
demanded a more liberal economy and, in the best local radical-liberal tradition,
insisted on greater economic and administrative independence for the towns
and cities of Bavaria and Swabia. In this it opposed the official policy of the
organization which, from the mid 1920s, was clearly anti-republican and from
1927, with the beginning of the deep crisis in German agriculture, supported
strong government intervention.95 In South Baden some former members
of the Landbund joined the DVP which, under the leaderhip of Stresemann,
supported the Weimar Republic. Others joined the newly founded Baden
Peasant Association (Badische Bauernbund)96 and later joined the Nazi Party,
which had just begun to operate in South Baden.
Popular liberalism also lost its newspapers. Many newspapers which had
supported the liberals before the war began immediately after the war to support
the peasants’ organizations. Examples are the Schwarzwälder Zeitung and the
Tag und Anzeigerblatt (Kempten), which became the Allgäür Tagblatt (Organ
des Bayer Bauernbundes im Allgäu) from 1920 onwards. Other newspapers,
however, supported the liberals until the end of the 1920s: for instance, the
Donaueschinger Tagblatt, the Breisgauer Zeitung and the Hohenzollerische
Blätter, but from 1930 they moved in an increasingly anti-republican and finally
National Socialist direction.
A typical example which also contains some personal biography comes
from South Baden. Ernst Glöckler, born in the famous anti-clerical town of
Überlingen in South Baden, was, in 1911, one of the founders of the football
Verein in the town of Neustadt. There he was co-editor of the national-liberal
newspaper, the Hochwächter. After the war, he supported the DDP and the
DVP. By the end of the 1920s, he was one of the founders of the “Non-party
Economic Union” (“parteilose Wirtschaftsvereinigung”), a nationalist, pro-Nazi
Jones, “Crisis and Realignment”, 214; Algäuer Tagblatt, 4/12/1924.

95
DT, 8/11/1930 (“Bilanz der politischen Bauernbewegung in der Baar”).

96
group in the town council of Neustadt. In 1932 he, together with some other
people, bought the liberal Hochwächter and gave it a Nazi line.97
Not all the liberal press was drawn towards the Nazis. Some of it continued
to support the liberals until 1933. Part of it sympathized with the positions of
the Zentrum: the Freiburger Zeitung, for instance.
Support for anti-Marxist actions and fear of the Bolshevist menace was
perhaps the main difference between radical-liberal activities before the war and
after it. Anti-Marxist factors became very central to the decisions of liberal voters,
supporters and activists concerning whether to abandon the radical-liberal
subculture. A minority turned to the socialists and communists, but most sought
a definitive answer to what they saw as a growing danger from the Left, a danger
to which popular liberalism failed to provide a solution. The radicalism of the
peasants’ movements seemed to former radical-liberals both a continuation of
the traditional radical response to the Catholic Church, imperial authority, the
local aristocracy and the Prussian Junkers and bureaucracy, and an appropriate
response to the danger from the Left. As I have pointed out, defence of the right
to private property and advocacy of a free market were cardinal principles of the
peasants’ movements in Greater Swabia, and thus the socialists and of course the
communists – especially against the background of the events of 1918–1919
– were a red rag to a bull for the radical liberals.98 The massive mobilization
of the inhabitants of southern Swabia into the ranks of the Freikorps was one
indication of many of this.99
And finally, it must be pointed out that not all those who, before 1914,
belonged to the radical-liberal subculture supported radical peasants’
organizations or the new liberal parties. A few of them in the Weimar period
were attracted by political alternatives that they would not have dreamed of in
the imperial period, such as the Zentrum or even the socialists. As we know,
the Zentrum in most areas of south Germany was less ultramontane than it was
in the Rhineland, and similarly the socialists, the conservative Right and even
the communists in the rural regions of south Germany had a more moderate
character than in north-west and central Germany.100 Among a few radical-
97
Walter Göbel, Chronik und Familiengeschichte von Neustadt (Schwarzwald)
(Neustadt: Neustadt Stadtarchiv, 1951), 371, 379; Roland Weis, Hundert Jahre in der
Wälderstadt: Titisee-Neustadt 1900–2000 (Titisee-Neustadt: self-published), 166. I would
like to thank Dr Detlef Herbner for drawing my attention to this fact.
98
Hetzer, “Bauernräte”, 34ff.
99
Timmermann, “Die Entstehung”.
100
Karsten Ruppert, Im Dienst am Staat von Weimar. Das Zentrum als regierende
Partei in der Weimarer Demokratie, 1923–1930 (Düsseldorf, 1992), 160; Karl H. Pohl,
liberals, a violent hostility to the Marxist Left and socialism, in addition to

traditional hostility to the Catholic Church, led them to support a number
of parties whose platform expressed hostility to the system, to parliamentary
democracy, to the aristocracy, to Weimar centralizing tendencies and to the
popular Catholic revival which had been on the radical-liberal agenda for many
years.
The Radical Substitute
In view of the processes of fragmentation and disintegration, and the present

weakness of the former radical-liberal subculture, many of those who had
belonged to it in the past now sought a cultural alternative which would restore
their vigour and provide a real promise of regeneration. Many flocked to the
National Socialist movement in southern Swabia, Hohenzollern and South
Baden. They came from many different political and cultural backgrounds. In
the ranks of the Nazi Party and among its voters, there were both Catholics and
Protestants, and of course people from many different social strata. The social
composition of the Nazi Party after 1930 could undoubtedly have reminded
many people from both the Catholic clerical camp (who would have regarded
it with deep suspicion) and the radical-liberal camp (who would have been
encouraged by it) of another, similar “people’s party” (Volkspartei): the National
Liberal Party in the days of the Kulturkampf, and especially the southern radical-
liberal faction within it. Thus, together with socialists, communists, bourgeois,
anti-semites and conservative liberals, the radical-liberal faction was one of the
constituent elements of the chapters of the National Socialist movement in
Greater Swabia.101
From 1929, a growing number of priests were disturbed by the resemblance
of the Nazi movement in south Germany to the radical-liberal movement before
the war. In 1931, many conservative bourgeois were also disturbed by it, and
were apprehensive of the radicalism demonstrated by the new movement, its call
for direct democracy, its anti-establishment attitudes, its demand for equality,
its social concerns, its attacks on the ultramontane character of the Catholic
“Die deutsche Sozialdemokratie in der Provinz. Wahlvereinsversammlung im Jahre 1900

in Kempten (Allgäu)”, Geschichte in Wissenschaft und Unterricht, 46 (1995), 494–508;
Christian Trippe, Konservative Verfassungspolitik 1918–1923. Die DNVP als Opposition in
Reich und Ländern (Düsseldorf, 1995), 158–159.
101
On the heterogeneous character of the Nazi Party’s voters and members in South
Baden, see Heilbronner, Catholicism, Political Culture, and the Countryside, chapter 7.
Church and its revival of the idea of a national community (Volksgemeinschaft).

These two groups (the priests and the conservative bourgeois) were aware
of the points of continuity between pre-war radical liberalism and the Nazi
movement:102 that is, the latter’s opposition to the “system”, the Obrigkeit and the
Catholic Church, together with its call for equality and direct democracy which
corresponded to the radical-liberals’ dream of returning to the “lost world”
before the war.103 In addition to them, other parts of local society were attracted
by the National Socialists’ violent use of anti-clerical motifs, and others were
drawn to the movement’s anti-institutional, anti-system image, which recalled
the preoccupations of the Young Liberals just before the war. Others again
thought that the most important thing was the National Socialists’ vigorous
actions against the Left in the towns of northern Germany. It may be assumed
that the capacity of the chapters of the Nazi movement in Greater Swabia to
assimilate time-honoured traditions congenial to pre-war liberal activists, the
activists of the peasants’ movements and supporters of the Weimar liberal parties
created a radical-liberal current side-by-side with the social-Leftist current and
folkish-Rightist current within the chapters of the National Socialist movement.
One can distinguish three patterns of support for the National Socialist
movement among radical liberals.
1. Those who set up chapters (Ortsgruppen), became members and

disseminated National Socialist propaganda with a radical-liberal flavour
in the various regions of Greater Swabia. Examples of such people are:
F. Merk and E. Weishaar, who, although they were not members of the
liberal parties, came from families with a radical-liberal tradition; and F.
Sattler, who was a member of the National Liberal Party before 1914 and
immediately afterwards a member of the DDP.104
2. Another group was the former farmers, artisans and notables
(Honorationen) who (or whose parents) had been members of the liberal
or peasants’ movements in the past, and after 1928 joined chapters of the
National Socialist movement, worked on its behalf but did not become
members out of fear for their jobs and position, and who tended to see
102
ErzAF, B2-55-135 (Sportverein), 23/11/1930 – Löffingen 9 (“… all of them are
more or less children of the old liberal spirit of the age …”); Donaubote, 26/7/1932 (“Citizen,
be on your guard!”)
103
Hetzer, “Bauernräte”, 44.
104
Bundesarchiv Koblenz, NS 26/132 - F. Sattler, Die Entwicklung dere NSDAP; Der
Führer, 17/11/1928; StaaF, BZ Neustadt (alte Signatur), 244/183, 10/12/1928.
National Socialism as the continuation of their radical path before the

war.
3. And finally, there were liberal personalities who, while still active in their
old parties (the DDP or the DVP), expressed public support for the Nazi
movement or for some of its ideas.105
Radical-liberal activists, now members or supporters of the National

Socialist movement, were dealing with a public which still partly retained the
characteristics of the “world of yesterday” – the period before the First World War.
Until 1931–1932, they did not fear to express – in meetings of the movement
or in internal discussions – ideas similar to those they had expressed on the eve
of the war or earlier. In many speeches there can be found the familiar themes
of the Swabian Heimat,106 opposition to Prussia and the monarchy, opposition
to the Junker aristocracy, the call to abolish the republican-democratic system,
and the call for a nationalistic foreign policy and for creating a Volksgemeinschaft
of a democratic-egalitarian anti-clerical character in which there would be no
difference of classes, freedom would prevail and the individual could find his
happiness and develop what is in him.107 At least until 1931, there was no one
amongst the folkish National Socialists or the semi-socialist National Socialists
who would have expressed opposition to the activities of radical liberals in the
chapters of the Nazi Party in the regions of Greater Swabia.
See, for example, the SPD meeting in Neustadt in 1930 where Karl Schillinger, the
105
head of Einheitsliste von Deutscher Demokratischer Partei-Deutscher Volkpartei, expressed

his support for the Nazi Minister W. Frick’s anti-corruption steps in Thuringia. StaaF G
19/12/244, 10/11/1930. In Messkirch in 1930, the local NSDAP chapter called on its
members in the local community elections (Gemeindewahlen) to vote for the local DDP:
Helmut Weisshaupt, “Die Entwicklung der NSDAP in Messkirch bis 1934”, Zeitschrift für
Hohenzollerische Geschichte, 34 (1998): 187–205.
106
107
Allgäuer Tagblatt, 11/9/1930 (“Der Wahlkampf auf dem Höhepunkt”); Heilbronner,
Catholicism, Political Culture, and the Countryside, 123ff.; Weisshaupt, “Die Entwicklung
der NSDAP in Messkirch”.
Part IV
Conclusion
Chapter 10
From Popular Liberalism to National
Socialism: Currents of Continuity
As I said in the last chapter, the deep discontinuity between the pre-war and
post-war periods caused by the First World War and the post-war German
crisis and inflation is well documented. But, despite these upheavals, there are
some cases where continuity is also well documented.1 Here I would like to use
the experiences of ordinary people at the local level in order to put forward
an argument about certain currents of continuity in German political culture,
and as an illustration of this, I claim that the ideologies of popular liberalism
and National Socialism cannot be understood without a knowledge of the
linguistic and historical traditions that they represent. To paraphrase Gareth
Stedman Jones’ thesis, I believe that an analysis of some elements of National
Socialist activities and ideology in south Germany during the late 1920s and
early 1930s must start with what radical liberals actually said, wrote and the
way they acted and organized years before.2 It cannot simply be reduced to the
Sonderweg argument, or to traditions of eliminatory ideology (the Goldhagen
thesis) which prevailed among the German people.
Therefore I will indicate some lines of continuity in the political affiliation
of families and individuals in Greater Swabia, and some similarities between
the rituals and organizational forms of radical liberals in the second half of
the nineteenth century and early twentieth century, and the meetings and
associational activities (Vereinsleben) of supporters of National Socialism in the
late 1920s and early 1930s. Finally, I also wish to demonstrate that supporters of
National Socialism utilized a language similar to that of the radical liberals 20 or
1
See the same argument in Benjamin Ziemann, War Experiences in Rural Germany:
1914–1923 (New York and Oxford, 2006); Monica Steber, Ethnische Gewissheiten: Die
Ordnung des Regionalen im bayerischen Schwaben vom Kaiserreich bis zum NS-Regime
(Göttingen, 2010).
2
Gareth Stedman Jones, “The Languages of Chartism”, in James Epstein and Dorothy
Thompson (eds), The Chartist Experience: Studies in Working-Class Radicalism and Culture,
1830–1860 (London, 1982), 4.
more years before.3 As was demonstrated several times above, there was plenty
of room in the post-First World War radical-liberal subculture for a narrative of
freedom in the spirit of 1848.
Continuity in Personal, Interpersonal and Family Ties
Many families or individuals who were radical liberals or supported popular

liberalism before 1914, or their sons and daughters, continued to have the
same political aspirations after 1918. They expressed their aspirations first by
supporting or joining liberal parties or local interest groups, especially peasant
associations, and later by joining the National Socialist movement.4 In some
cases continuity was expressed by local notables who supported or even agitated
(Agitationsarbeit) on behalf of the liberal parties and, later, the NSDAP.5 Or, in
other cases, local notables who had supported the Liberal Party expressed pro-
Nazi sentiments in NSDAP meetings.6
Parallels in Rituals and Ceremonies
1. The travelling speaker (Wanderredner): both movements used travelling

speakers in their public meetings. Of course this is not an invention of
the radical-liberal subculture. Almost every political movement used
In discussing the National Socialist movement in the following pages, I have mainly
3
drawn on the second part of Oded Heilbronner, Catholicism, Political Culture and the
Countryside: A Social History of the Nazi Party in South Germany (Ann Arbor, MI, 1998).
4
Helena Waddy, “Beyond Statistics to Microhistory: The Role of Migration and
Kinship in the Making of the Nazi Constituency”, German History, 19/3 (2001): 340–368.
In recent decades I have collected many family and individual names whose relations with
both movements (popular liberalism and National Socialism) are well documented. Many
local researchers who helped me with this enterprise asked me not to enter into personal
details such as names, addresses, and so on. If asked, I would be happy to provide the
information, including my sources and, of course, names.
5
The lawyer Dr Rombach of Offenburg was Wanderredner for the National Liberal
Party in the Baar region. Twenty years later, the same Dr Rombach worked for the Nazi
Party in the same region. See GLAK - Nationalliberale Partei - 69/6, 26/4/1911; StaaF, BZ
Neustadt 244/183 (Alte Signatur), 11/5/1931.
6
See the case of Heinz Schilling who owned a hotel in Neustad/Schw. From 1919
he was a prominent liberal (DVP) in the town, and in 1930 he supported some National
Socialist arguments in SPD or liberal meetings, for example, concerning bribery and political
corruption.
From Popular Liberalism to National Socialism: Currents of Continuity 181
travelling speakers. However, the similarity in the content of the speakers’

messages in both movements is striking. Popular liberalism and National
Socialism drew on speakers who were mobilized between or before
election periods. The speaker – who was usually a local notable, and
could be a lawyer, a doctor, a local poet (Heimatdichter) or the owner of a
tavern (Landwirt) – used to deliver many speeches in a few days in local
towns and villages. The political meetings usually took place in a pub,
and were announced in pamphlets and local newspapers. The pamphlet
and the travelling speaker were major elements in the mobilization of the
masses for the national-liberal, and later the Nazi, cause.7
2. The bourgeois Verein in relation to Nazism: for many people, National
Socialist activities on the local level resembled the forms of activity of
the bourgeois Verein. One should consider the idea that for many local
Bürger, Nazi chapters continued local traditions found in the strongholds
of the liberal bourgeoisie: the Schützenverein, the Turnverein, the MGV
or the Narrenverein ( Jesters’ Association).8
3. The tavern (Lokal) as a meeting place: the locus of political activity in
rural Germany was the local tavern. There the political representative
gave an address, followed by a discussion.9 Although it was not
an exclusively liberal/National Socialist ritual, as all parties and
organizations (not only in Germany) used the tavern as a meeting place,
I would like to draw attention to specific places used for meetings by
the liberals before the war, peasant organizations after the war, and
National Socialists at the end of the 1920s and in the early 1930s.
Places like “Die Traube” in Messkirch, “Zur Post” in Bonndorf, the
“Lafette – Restaurant” in Titisee, the “Neustädter Hof” in Neustadt/
Schw., the “Kolosseumsaale” in Kempten, the “Roeck’schen” in the
7
GLAK, Nationalliberale Partei 69/5 1910 (“Ein Mahnwort zur Kleinarbeit”).
8
I have developed these ideas in Oded Heilbronner, “Der verlassene Stammtisch.
Vom Verfall der bürgerlichen Infrastruktur und dem Aufstieg der NSDAP am Beispiel der
Region Schwarzwald”, Geschichte und Gesellschaft, 19/2 (1993): 178–201”; and idem, “Die
nationalsozialistische Partei: ein bürgerlicher Verein?”, Tel Aviver Jahrbuch für Deutsche
Geschichte, 23 (1994): 63–79.
9
Werner Blessing, “Zwei Seiten altbayerischen Wirtshauslebens im 19. Jahrhundert”,
Unbekanntes Bayern, 13 (Munich: Süddeutscher Verlag, 1980), 49–60; Marita Krauss,
Herrschaftspraxis in Bayern und Preussen im 19. Jahrhundert (Frankfurt, 1999), 353–383;
Prozeß Dr. Wassmannsdorf ’s Oberamtmann’s in Bonndorf gegen 1. Redakteur Heinrich
H. Müller (“Freiburger Bote”) und Redakteur Friedrich Lanz (“Oberbadisches Volksblatt”)
(Bonndorfer Anzeiger, October 1895), 30ff.; Friedrich Naumann, “Im Automobil”, Die Hilfe,
10/2/1907.
village of Wildpoldsried in southern Swabia (to give some random

examples) served as meeting places for political and social purposes for
such groups, both before the war and after 1928. The tavern was also a
meeting place for the Vereine which were generally affiliated to political
parties (for example, the bourgeois Vereine which were affiliated to the
liberal and later the National Socialist parties).
4. The middle-class radicalism in both parties: one of the main features
of popular liberalism in Germany was bourgeois radicalism, which in
the period before 1914 was mainly expressed in the activities of the
Young Liberals, or of the radicals within the National Liberal Party. In
Baden in 1911, the liberal newspaper Breisgäuer Zeitung distinguished
between two wings of the liberal movement in south-west Germany:
the moderate Karlsruhe (North Baden) wing, and the radical Konstanz
wing. In the late 1920s, the difference between the conservatives and
the radicals was very noticeable. It was mentioned by the Freiburger
Zeitung in 1930 and the Donuabote in 1932 in connection with the
radicalism of many peasant groups and the NSDAP of the Baar-
Bodensee region, as compared to the more nationalistic-anti-semitic
brand of National Socialism in North Baden.10
5. The Führer cult: in many liberal chapters in Greater Swabia, local leaders
had a significant reputation. In some cases their supporters regarded
them as a Führer. The head of the liberal Verein in Lindau, Schmiede, or
the leader of the liberal Verein in Altusried, Schmägele, were described
in local liberal newspapers and party reports as Führers. In Triberg, the
summer festival was “prepared for the local Baden Führer Thorbecke”.
Of course, these leaders lacked the mythical dimension, the supernatural
powers, ascribed to the future Nazi Führer, but I wish to point out that in
the popular-liberal subculture of Greater Swabia, the term “Führer” was
quite familiar.11
Breisgauer Zeitung, 7/2/1911; FZ, 26/10 1929; Donaubote, 26/7/1932.

10
Tag und Anzeigerblatt für Kempten und das Allgäu, 30/12/1912; Staatsarchiv
11
Augsburg, Regierung, Stadt Lindau, 9759, 27/1/1912 (“Der Führer der liberalen Partei
in Lindau …”); GLAK, NL Partei-69/102, 10/8/1911. For the National Liberal Party in
other regions of Germany and their use of the term “Führer”, see Nationalliberale Blätter,
18/9/1910. From Kassel: “… In the future too, we will stand in closed ranks behind you,
enthused by your leadership [Führung] …”; from Saxonia: “… cordial greetings of loyalty
sent to the esteemed Führer of our Party. We stand unanimously behind our Führer …”;
11/9/1910 – Pomerania: “… and as ever will back him with closed ranks”.
The Language of Radicalism
Cultural codes and values of inclusion and exclusion were major features of liberal
ideology in Germany, as of other political cultures.12 This volume has stressed,
among other topics, the importance of the exclusion of ultramontanism in both
popular liberalism and National Socialist culture, and, especially after the First
World War, the language of exclusion employed against the Left. Of course,
under National Socialism another cultural code and criterion of inclusion
and exclusion found radical expression, and here I am referring to the racial
issue which, in its radical blood and soil form (but not in its traditional form,
traditional anti-semitism, which was widespread in Swabia and south-western
Germany), was almost totally absent from popular liberal thinking.
The radical-liberal subculture before the First World War, and the radical
liberals’ post-war activities, were built around certain narratives.
The Narrative of Struggle
Popular liberalism of the late nineteenth century and National Socialism of the
late 1920s “cherished the notion of a lost golden age, linked to the restoration
of a lost reign of virtue”, with its habits, customs and way of life13 (the “world of
yesterday” before the Great War, the Bismarckian Reich, the Wilhelmine Reich,
the times of the first Kulturkampf, the days of the 1848 Revolution, the Peasant
War of 1525, the Medieval Reich).14 To quote the words of the British historian
Patrick Joyce, who described the language of popular liberalism in northern
12
Dagmar Herzog, Intimacy Exclusion: Religious Politics in Pre-Revolutionary Baden
(Princeton, 1996) (n. 2); Uday S. Mehta, “Liberal Strategies of Exclusion”, in Frederick
Cooper and Ann Laura Stoler (eds), Tensions of Empire (Berkeley, CA, 1997), 59–86; Eric
Kurlander, The Price of Exclusion: Ethnic Preoccupation and the Decline of German Liberalism,
1898–1933 (New York and Oxford, 2006). The first person to draw attention to liberal/
bourgeois strategies of exclusion and inclusion was the late George Mosse in Nationalism and
Sexuality: Respectability and Abnormal Sexuality in Modern Europe (New York, 1985).
13
Ursula Büttner, “‘Volksgemeinschaft’ oder Heimatbindung: Zentralismus und
regionale Eigenständigkeit beim Aufstieg der NSDAP 1925–1933”, in Horst Möller
et al. (eds), Nationalsozialismus in der Region (Munich, 1996), 87–97; Ulrich Pfeil,
“Partikularismus, Sonderbewusstsein und Aufstieg der NSDAP. Kollektive Denkhaltungen
und kollektive Erinnerung in Dithmarschen 1866–1933”, Zeitschrift der Gesellschaft für
Schleswig-Holsteinische Geschichte, 124 (1999): 135–163.
14
Here I was influenced by English radicals and their vision, which was described
by Patrick Joyce, “The Constitution and the Narrative Structure of Victorian Politics”, in
James Vernon (ed.), Re-reading the Constitution: New Narratives in the Political History of
England’s Long Nineteenth Century (Cambridge, 1997), 179–203. For the power of the past
England, the vision of a golden age had “… a particular appeal for the poor, the
powerless and the frustrated people”, and also for those who felt under threat,
or whose days of glory had passed. The narrative of lost virtue, struggle and
triumph “spoke most intensely to those who had known loss and dispossession”.15
My argument is that exciting narratives of struggle have the power to move
people. Before the First World War, one of the characteristic themes of the
liberal subculture in south Germany was the struggle for freedom and justice
manifested in the Peasant War, the Reformation, 1848 and the struggles against
the ultramontane church, the state and the landowners. After the war, in the
disintegrating subculture, the struggle continued, now directed against the
communists and the French, amongst others. This created an environment of
endless struggle between good and evil among radical liberals and National
Socialists. Thus, popular liberalism in Greater Swabia was a cultural movement
which created exciting, optimistic, utopian narratives.
The Narrative of Freedom (Freiheit)
This narrative played an important role in the liberal subculture. The concept
of anti-clericalism and anti-establishmentarianism, so central to this subculture,
was connected to the idea of freedom and progress. To this narrative we
should add the concept of liberation: liberation conceived as drama; liberation
associated with power (always male); liberation from the church, the state, the
aristocracy, officials; and, after the war, liberation from the Young Plan, the
“Weimar System”, Jews, the Catholic Church, “bigwigs” (Bonzen).
The Narrative of the Community and the “People’s Community”

(Volksgemeinschaft)
This narrative was developed among many liberal groups in late nineteenth-
and early twentieth-century Germany (and also in England).16 Until the war,
in European social movements, see James Green, Taking History to Heart: The Power of the
Past in Building Social Movements (Amherst, MA, 2000).
15
Patrick Joyce, Democratic Subjects: The Self and the Social in 19th Century England
(Cambridge, 1994), 156.
16
Ironically, John Vincent also characterized the British Liberal Party as a “truly
national community”, in idem, The Formation of the British Liberal Party (London, 1966),
20. On the German obsession with the “community ideal”, see Paul Nolte, Die Ordnung der
deutschen Gesellschaft: Selbstentwurf und Selbstbeschreibung im 20. Jahrhundert (Munich,
2000).
and especially in Baden, the term “community” was more commonly used than
the völkisch term “people’s community”. It was typical in those days to describe
the people of Württemberg as a “society” (Gesellschaft), while those of Baden
were described as a “community” (Gemeinschaft).17 For liberals, this term was
mainly used in relation to their struggle for the freedom of their community
(self-administration [Selbstverwaltung]) on the model of their struggle in the
“golden age” of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and in the context of
the struggle against clericalism. The expression “the community of German
sentiment” became a narrative attacking those who ought to remain outside it,
those who wished to destroy the community and create a different society, one
with national or supra-national aspirations: ultramontanes or state officials;
and, after 1918, also socialists, communists and, finally, Jews. Both National
Socialism and popular liberalism claimed that individual liberty had meaning
only within the collective identity (that is to say, the “community”). Only
there could the individual realize his abilities. Of course, we should remember
that the National Socialists’ idea of the “people’s community” also had racist
connotations.
The Attitude to the State
Some of the above terms and narratives appeared in both the popular-liberal
and National Socialist camps in the context of an attack on the role of the state
and its organizations. Popular slogans like “Fight corruption!” and “Down
with the system!” were directed against “state parasites” such as the Junkers,
officials (die Bonzen), Jews and priests (die Schwarzen). Within this anti-statist
tendency, there were differences in both camps about how far the government
ought to be involved in the life of the people, but demands for “power to the
people” were one of the most outstanding points of continuity from popular
liberalism to National Socialism in Greater Swabia before 1933. There, and
elsewhere in Germany, both groups were democratic in their commitment to
“government for the people”. Generally, however, popular liberalism before
1914 and National Socialism at least in Greater Swabia and previous to
1931/1932 were characterized by a strong emphasis on pragmatism, and by
an acceptance both of constitutional methods (elections, elected government)
Klaus Koziol, Badener und Württmberger: zwei ungleiche Brueder (Stuttgart: Theiss,
17
1987).
and of the already existing aspirations of the people.18 The resilience of these
attitudes in a variety of different political contexts can be explained by their
very deep historical roots, which can be traced back to 1848 or even before.
18
Heinrich August Winkler also made this point in Weimar, 1918–1933 (Munich,
1993), 612; Detlef Mühlberger, “Central Control versus Regional Autonomy: A Case Study
of Nazi Propaganda in Westphalia 1925–1932”, in Thomas Childers (ed.), The Formation
of the Nazi Constituency 1919–1933 (London, 1986), 64–103; Heilbronner, Catholicism,
Political Culture and the Countryside, 91–97.
Chapter 11
Concluding Remarks
The basic premise of this volume is that, for a certain group of citizens, the Nazi
Party represented a new version of an old phenomenon: popular liberalism.
My approach to this phenomenon is not the usual view that German bourgeois
liberalism was a forerunner of fascism, proto-fascist, but the idea that in certain
areas with certain cultural conditions that I have described as popular-liberal
subcultures, the Nazi Party before 1933 was a direct continuation of elements
of popular liberalism. The method of work adopted was regional cultural
research, with an emphasis on the popular culture of regions of Greater Swabia.
I claim that part of the people in that area, especially the rural bourgeoisie, was
largely autonomous in deciding to revive the popular-liberal subculture, as in
seeing the Nazi Party as the representative of the popular-liberal vision. This
may have been due to many factors, including seduction and manipulation
by the leaders of the Nazi Party, Hitler’s charisma, and the panic and loss of
power of decision in the Weimar period, but there were also autonomous
cultural factors not closely connected with the crisis of Weimar which were
central to the decision of some inhabitants of Greater Swabia to revive the
popular-liberal subculture. In the present work, the focus of research is shifted
from the centre, from national politics, to the regional, the “marginal” culture,
the periphery.
I claim that the First World War was not as great a rupture as historians
have made it out to be. It is true that human memory was damaged as a result
of the war, but in contrast to the view expressed in Stefan Zweig’s Die Welt
von Gestern (The World of Yesterday), there was a political as well as a literary
aspect, and people looked for something that would remind them of the past,
or, as Raphael Samuel asserts, the popular memory is different from the official
memory. It does not change with the advent of different periods or as a result
of wars and events, but changes in a natural way with biological developments
and changes in the family, layer upon layer, each one recalling the one before.
In this respect, man is multi-dimensional, and he can recall many things and
events simultaneously, although official history only expects him to remember
certain ones.
As I have tried to demonstrate in the chapters dealing with the popular

culture of Greater Swabia, I think that if one examines the way of life of people
in different areas of Germany, one will find much continuity between the period
before the war and that after it. In this volume I have tried to connect this idea
with popular liberalism and National Socialism. This is why regional research
dealing with the reconstruction of the popular memory of people in a particular
area is so important. The emphasis here is on grassroots expectations as against
a reconstruction of the official memory recorded in official history written by
official bodies (among others).
In this work, I have tried to examine two social movements that operated in
the same subculture at a distance of 15 to 20 years, not a long time in people’s
memory. An activist of the popular-liberal subculture in Greater Swabia who
was 25 years old at the beginning of the first decade of the twentieth century
was 45 to 50 years old in the period of transition to the Nazi movement. This
activist would have undergone a radicalization during the war and after it, but
together with this radicalization and the effects of the change and rupture so
much stressed by historians, there were also lines of continuity, especially in the
private sphere, which persisted after the “world of yesterday”. In every region, one
must take into account continuity as well as the break in cultural tradition. For
instance, where did the Catholic bourgeoisie stand after the war? Where were
they after 1929? I claim that they saw the Nazi Party as an old-new phenomenon
recalling forgotten days of protest against the authoritarian state. That is how it
was after 1929 when the party appeared as a popular movement opposing non-
elected elites.
In the early 1930s the Nazi movement in Germany contained many different
propagandist and ideological elements. Some, like racial anti-Semitism, lost their
drawing power at that time.1 At the same time, the radical-liberal factor also lost
some of its power of attraction in the movement’s chapters in South Baden, the
Bodensee area and southern Swabia. The worsening of the political and economic
crisis, the ever-increasing violence, the fear of Bolshevism and the strengthening
of communism, together with internal processes within the Nazi Party, such as
the rise of the cult of the Führer at the beginning of 1932, the transference of the
movement’s centre of activity to the corridors of power in Berlin and the policy
shift of the party headquarters in Berlin and Munich in a more totalitarian, anti-
liberal direction (expressed by the imposition of centralization and ideological
Oded Heilbronner, “The Role of Nazi Antisemitism in the Nazi Party’s Activity and
1
Propaganda: A Regional Historiographical Study”, Leo Baeck Institute Year Book, 35 (1990):
397–439.
Concluding Remarks 189
control), influenced the activities of the movement in the provinces2 and made
things difficult for those who felt uncomfortable with the new atmosphere in
Germany, as reflected in the party’s chapters. In south Germany, these were
chiefly radical-liberal activists. It was more difficult for them than for others to
realize their vision in the chapters of the National Socialist movement in south
Germany.3
But that does not mean that many of them went back to supporting their
former liberal parties and the peasant movements or took refuge in political
indifference. Some of them became more extreme in their attitudes and from
1932 supported the new radical Nazi line, with its more anti-liberal, folkish and
extremist tone. Most elements of the traditional slogan of the radical liberals
in Greater Swabia – “Long live liberty, equality, fraternity and dynamite!”(“Es
lebe die Freiheit, Gleichheit, Brüderlichkeit und das Dynamit!”)4 – had now
been abandoned due to the strengthening of the extreme Left and the impasse
reached by the regime, and only dynamite remained. The radical liberals in
south Germany, like many other Germans, wanted a solution which would
bring order and stability, and if it was necessary to use force in order to achieve
this, it was better to do so before a communist revolution broke out.
The year 1932 may perhaps have reminded elderly radical liberals and their
families and children in south Germany of another, similar period: the 1860s
and 1870s. The atmosphere of that period had been perceived at the time as
posing a threat to their existence. Ultramontanism was viewed by liberals
as a threat to freedom of the individual, to a liberal economy, to the right
of Germans to live in a nation-state. This was the background to the rise of
the Old Catholics and the democratic liberal movements. In addition to this
struggle, the radical liberals also launched their campaign against enemies
like the aristocracy and the bureaucracy, whom they regarded as corrupt.
The struggle against the Bolshevists and communists and the popular claims
against the German élites was seen by quite a number of former radical liberals
in 1932 as resembling the struggle against ultramontanism in the period of the
Kulturkampf.
2
Detlef Mühlberger, “Central Control versus Regional Autonomy: A Case Study of
Nazi Propaganda in Westphalia 1925–1932”, in Thomas Childers (ed.), The Formation of the
Nazi Constituency 1919–1933 (London, 1986), 64–103.
3
Oded Heilbronner, Catholicism, Political Culture and the Countryside: A Social
History of the Nazi Party in South Germany (Ann Arbor, MI, 1998), 91–97.
4
Prozeß Dr. Wassmannsdorff ’s Oberamtmann’s in Bonndorf gegen 1. Redakteur
Heinrich H. Müller (“Freiburger Bote”) und Redakteur Friedrich Lanz (“Oberbadisches
Volksblatt”) (Bonndorfer Anzeiger, October 1895), 16.
But there were also definite differences which caused the radical liberals at
the beginning of the 1930s to behave differently and to end their careers in a
different way from their counterparts in the 1870s. From the mid nineteenth
century until the 1880s, liberals had the cultural hegemony in Germany.5
Most Germans saw their culture as unchallengeably bourgeois-liberal. This
culture went together with a successful liberal economy, a bourgeois legal code,
universal values of justice and freedom of the individual, and – in most German
states – a political majority in the local legislative bodies. That Germany was able
to permit the liberals to dictate the nature of the struggle against the Catholic
Church and the aristocracy. Similarly, in south Germany, popular liberalism was
able to develop, within the dominant Catholic culture, a style of its own and its
own forms of reaction and struggle against ultramontanism, the state and the
aristocracy. The special character of south Germany was expressed in the liberal
subculture, which had prolonged success.
But after the First World War and especially at the beginning of the 1930s,
German power structures and culture, including those in south Germany, were
entirely different. The liberal forces were weakened and tired, the liberal economy
was in deep crisis and the liberal political culture was no longer hegemonic but
fragmented, violent and very frightened of the extreme Left. The only force on
which the radical liberals who had come into existence in south Germany felt
they could rely to protect their interests and allow them to act freely were the
chapters of the National Socialist movement in Greater Swabia, some of which
had been founded by liberals, and which closely resembled those of the radical
liberals and their successors, the peasant movements. For some time it seemed
that the radical-liberal subculture might be resurrected. But the more the
German crisis intensified, the more extreme the National Socialist movement
and the German population became, and the hopes of the radical liberals
dwindled. From being radical liberals, they now became National Socialists.
Although every region’s story is unique, the history and fate of popular
liberalism in Greater Swabia from the 1860s to the 1930s is in some sense more
unique than in other liberal strongholds in Germany. As I said earlier, very
few scholars have examined the Catholic radical-liberal subculture in south
Germany, and even those who have done so have dealt with the matter briefly,6
5
Geoff Eley, “Bismarckian Germany”, in Gordon Martel (ed.), Modern Germany
Reconsidered, 1870–1945 (London, 1995), 1–32; Jan Palmowski, “Mediating the Nation:
Liberalism and the Polity in Nineteenth-century Germany”, German History, 19/4 (2001):
573–598.
6
Christoph Weber, “Eine starke enggeschlossene Phalanx”: Der politische Katholizismus
und die erste deutsche Reichstagswahl 1871 (Essen, 1992), 67, 135; Jonathan Sperber, Popular
being chiefly interested in the Catholic ultramontane anti-liberal culture

dominant in the region.
An examination of the different varieties of liberal activities in the various
agrarian regions of Germany, however, reveals the special nature of south
Germany. Naturally, in the Protestant areas north of the River Main and in
south Germany as well, the liberals (whether the Left liberal parties or the
National Liberal Party) had successes comparable to and even greater than those
of the liberal radicals in Catholic south Germany, and in certain areas they put
out a radical platform resembling that of the south German radicals.7 But in
general, in the Prussian areas, liberal activities expressed, by modern technical
means, conservative values such as loyalty to the state and Kaiser, belief in a state
of law and authority (Recht und Obrigkeit Staat) and support of Prussianism.8
Catholicism in Nineteenth-Century Germany (Princeton, 1984), 291–292; idem, The Kaiser’s

Voters: Electors and Elections in Imperial Germany (Cambridge, 1997), 145; Karl Rohe,
Wahlen und Wählertraditionen in Deutschland (Frankfurt, 1992), 76–77, 156–157; Ian Farr,
“Peasant Protest in the Empire: The Bavarian Example”, in Robert Möller (ed.), Peasants
and Lords in Modern Germany: Recent Studies in Agricultural History (Boston, 1986), 118;
Helmut W. Smith, German Nationalism and Religious Conflict: Culture, Ideology, Politics,
1870–1914 (Princeton, 1995), 107, 149; Dietrich Thränhardt, Wahlen und politische
Strukturen in Bayern 1848–1953 (Düsseldorf, 1973), 71–78; Alastair Thompson, Left
Liberals, the State and Popular Politics in Wilhelmine Germany (Oxford, 2000), 264–265;
Jürgen R. Winkler, Sozialstruktur, Politische Traditionen und Liberalismus: eine empirische
Langsschnittstudie zur Wahlentwicklung in Deutschland 1871–1933 (Opladen, 1995), 337;
Helmut Steindorfer, Die liberale Reichspartei (LRP) von 1871 (Stuttgart, 2000), 25ff., 29ff.,
441ff.
7
Thompson, Left Liberals; Hans-Dieter Loose, “Der Wahlkampf des liberalen
Reichstagskandidaten Carl Braband 1911/12”, in Friedrich P. Kahlenberg (ed.), Aus der
Arbeit der Archive. Festschrift für Hans Booms (Boppard, 1989), 735–750; Wolfgang R.
Krabbe, “‘Rekruttendepot’ oder politische Alternative? Funktion und Selbstverständis der
Partei-Jugendverbände”, Geschichte und Gesellschaft, 27/2 (2001): 277; Reinhold Brunner,
“Das Hakenkreuz im Schatten der Wartburg”, Zeitschrift des Vereins für Thüringische
Geschichte, 56 (2002): 347–410 (esp. 350–353); George F. Mundle, The German National
Liberal Party, 1900–1914: Political Revival and Resistance to Change, PhD Thesis, University
of Illinois, 1975; Anthony O’Donnell, National Liberalism and the Mass Politics of the
German Right, 1890–1907, PhD Thesis, Princeton University, 1974; Robert von Friedberg,
Ländliche Gesellschaft und Obrigkeit. Gemeindeprotest und politische Mobilisierung im 18.
und 19. Jh (Göttingen, 1997), chapter 3.3.
8
NLB, 27/7/1913–7/9/1913 (“Aus Ostpreussen”); Michael John, “Kultur,
Klassen und regionaler Liberalismus in Hannover 1848–1914”, in Lothar Gall and Dieter
Langewiesche (eds), Liberalismus und Region (Munich, 1995), 161–193; Margaret L.
Anderson, Practicing Democracy: Elections and Political Culture in Imperial Germany
(Princeton, 2000), 194–196, 374; Thomas Kühne, Dreiklassenwahlrecht und Wahlkultur
The special character of popular liberalism in Greater Swabia is all the more
remarkable in view of the environment in which it operated. While in the
Catholic areas of Prussia the Catholic party, the Zentrum, was wholly in control,
in those in south Germany the bourgeoisie, peasant groups and radical liberals,
under the roof-organization of the National Liberal Party, were serious rivals to
the Zentrum.
This was another regional peculiarity: the popularity of the National Liberal
Party – a popularity due to its radical and belligerent character. This party, in
contrast to the Left liberals, was known throughout Germany for its conservatism
and opposition to radical ideas. On the eve of the First World War, the party
was on the point of splitting up into the Prussian conservative north German
branch and the young radical groups, mostly from south Germany, which
desired a more liberal policy, greater co-operation with the SPD and a break
with Prussian values.9 Thus, in Greater Swabia the party mainly demonstrated its
radical character, thereby gaining many sympathizers. Greater Swabia was also
special in the way it came to support National Socialism. If in many agrarian
areas the Nazi Party succeeded in gaining the support of the local bourgeoisie
and other groups by means of a radical (Right or Left) platform reflecting the
crisis of agrarian society after the war and the break in continuity with the pre-
war period,10 in Catholic south Germany the party was seen as the heir to the
radical democratic tradition.11 As has been pointed out a number of times in
this volume, those who were originally called National Liberals were later called
“liberal” National Socialists by contemporary observers.
And finally, one should point out the special character of the local Catholic
bourgeoisie. This social group constituted a social sector without any parallel
in Catholic agrarian areas and perhaps in Protestant areas as well. The radical
democratic traditions of Greater Swabia and the ceaseless struggle against the
Catholic Church from 1848 onwards created a radical bourgeoisie which sought
to preserve its special character in the face not only of ultramontanism but also
of the Prussian-dominated Reich. After 1918, however, this radical-bourgeois
in Preussen 1867–1914: Landtagswahlen zwischen korporativer Tradition und politischem
Massenmarkt (Düsseldorf, 1994), 519–524.
9
Deutsche Stimmen. Wochenblatt für die Nationalliberale Partei, 21/6/1906 (“Liberale
Einigung”); Christoph Nonn, Verbraucherprotest und Parteiensystem im wilhelminischen
Deutschland (Düsseldorf, 1996), 188–202; JLB, 9/11/1913 (“Gegenwart und Zukunft der
nationalliberalen Partei”).
10
Wolfram Pyta, Dorfgemeinschaft und Parteipolitik 1918–1933. Die Verschränkung
von Milieu und Parteien in den protestantischen Landgebieten Deutschlands in der Weimarer
Republik (Düsseldorf, 1996).
11
Heilbronner, Catholicism, Political Culture and the Countryside.
subculture underwent a process of decomposition and disintegration – a

process which also took place in other Catholic and Protestant areas throughout
Germany after the war.
The socio-political model which we see here shows that, at least until the
First World War and perhaps in the Weimar period as well, it is difficult to speak
of Germany, the German bourgeoisie, German liberalism or the Nazi Party in
Germany. Regional traditions and the special patterns of behaviour of particular
social strata make it hard to reach conclusions concerning the character of
German liberalism and the connection between its supposed “weakness” and
the rise of Nazism. Despite the abundance of studies of the subject in the last
decade, it seems that the last word on these matters has not yet been said.
Appendix
The National Liberal Party
(NL) / National Socialist Party (NS)
connection in Greater Swabia
Election results (%) to the Reichstag in selected districts and towns
Year 1871 1907 1912 1928 1930 1932 ( July)

Party NL * NL NL NS NS NS
National average 30.1 14.5 13.6 2.6 18.3 37.3
Triberg (South Baden) 70.2 32.1 30 8.6 29.5 39.1
District of Donaueschingen 56 51.5 51.7 2.3 21.3 49
(South Baden)
Schlatt (South Baden) 40.3 36.7 50 6.3 36.1 70.4
County of Freiburg 40 33 37 2.5 21 40.3
(South Baden)
Seppenhofen (South Baden) 50.6 48 40.6 54.4 32.5 56.2
District of Neustadt 62 28.6 26.1 2.9 21 39
(South Baden)
Martinszell (Allgäu) 59 65.4 57.3 9 35 45.1
District of Lindau (Allgäu) 66 40 53 6.6 24.6 37.9
Lindenberg (Allgäu) 67 50.6 54.7 5 30.1 41.3
District of Sonthofen (Allgäu) 70.1 46.1 51.6 2.7 21.2 41.4
Wollmatingen 87 34 43.1 4.3 25.3 38.5
(South Baden)
Sigmaringen (Hohenzollern- 58.3 26.3 27.3 3.1 19 37.8
Sigmaringen) **
District of Bonndorf 80.5 50.1 49 7.6 25.6 38.3
(South Baden) ***
* In some counties and districts, the party appeared under the name Liberale Reichspartei.
** Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen was a Prussian province in Greater Swabia. In 1912 the NL
co-operated with the Progressive People’s Party (Fortschrittliche Volkspartei).
*** From 1928 the results apply only to the town of Bonndorf.
Sources
Allgäuer Zeitung, 26/1/1907, 12/1/1912.

Badische Statistische Landesamt (ed.), Karlsruhe, Statistische Mitteilungen uber
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Folge Band, 7 (1914), Wahlen zum Reichstag am 20/5/1928, 14/9/1930,
31/7/1932.
Donaueschinger Wochenblatt, 9/3/1871.
Hochwaechter auf dem Schwarzwald (Neustadt i Schw.), 26/3/1871, 30/1/1907,
20/1/1912.
Statistik des Deutschen Reiches, vol. 382, Die Wahlen zum Reichstag am
14/9/1930, vol. 434, Die Wahlen zum Reichstag am 31/7/1932.
Tag und Anzeigeblatt für Kempten und das Allgäu, 8/3/1871, 30/1/1907,
20/1/1912.
Vierteljahrshefte zur Statistik des Deutschen Reichs, 14 (1912).
Württembergische Jahrbücher für Statistik und Landeskunde, 1907, 1912, 1932.
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Index
Allgäu region 46–7 Greater Swabia 49

anti-clericalism 145–8, 168–9, 184 anti-socialism 55–6
Catholic bourgeoisie’s opposition to Closed Farm Law 50
42–3 connection with Protestants 50
language used 162–3 defining bourgeoisie 59
Old Catholics 70 economic and political hopes
Vereine 81, 86 49–50
anti-establishmentarianism 167, 184 isolation, emergence from 51
anti-socialism by Vereine 81–2 liberal-bourgeoisie press 56–7
Applegate, C. 28 middle class, emergence of 50–1
artisans in Greater Swabia 139 Old Catholics 51–2, 60
associations, see Vereine political behaviour 45–6
tourist industry 57–8
Badan as unique 59
South Vereine 52–5
anti-Catholic Church activity Konstanz 43–5
46–7 national liberalism, sympathy for 41
anti-clericalism 70 Nazi Party as escape from isolation 118
Closed Farm Law 50 and Old Catholic Church 42–3, 44
Old Catholics, prevalence of 63 opposition to anti-clericalism 42–3
political behaviour of Catholic peripheral existence of 41
bourgeoisie 45–6 political behaviour 45–8
Vereine 52–5 self-confidence 42
Bauer, C. 18 struggle against local Catholic Church
Bausinger, H. 23 43–4, 50, 59–60
Blackbourn, D. 21–2 Catholic Church
Blaschke, O. 64–5 anti-Church activity 46–8
bourgeois political parties, disintegration of anti-clericalism 42–3, 70, 81, 86,
107–14, 171 145–8, 162–3, 168–9, 184
bourgeoisie, Catholic, in southern Catholic bourgeoisie’s struggle against
Germany, see Catholic bourgeoisie 43–4, 50, 59–60
in southern Germany popular liberalism’s struggle against
158–9
Catholic bourgeoisie in southern Germany Vereine, anti-Church phenomena of
15–22 54–5
Bavaria 41–3 class and religion 64–6
church kept in private life 42 Closed Farm Law 50
cultural formation of 58–9 communism
actions against by popular liberals economic and political hopes

173 49–50
fear of 165–6 economic structure of 137–9
community industrialization 50
narratives of 184–5 isolation, emergence from 51
people’s 69–70, 74 laws initiated by liberals in 49
Confino, A. 28 liberal-bourgeoisie press 56–7
cultural studies, methods of 33–6 marginality, impact of 31
middle class, emergence of 50–1
Dainotto, R. National Liberal/National Socialist
Dann, O. 22–3 Parties in 195
democratization in the Vereine 100 Old Catholics 51–2, 63, 140
Duding, D. 22–3 political behaviour of Catholic
bourgeoisie 45–6
economic structure of Greater Swabia press, liberal 140–1
137–9 as reactionary region 30
elections regional study method 30
1860s–1870s 84–7 self-administration, tradition of
1930–1932 108–9 133, 135–6
Eley, G. 38 separation, desire for 166–7
England and popular liberalism, as tourist centre 139
comparison with Germany 9–11 tourist industry 57–8
Vereine 52–5, 141–2
Faller, F. 161 during World War I 164–5
freedom, narratives of 184 see also popular liberalism; Vereine
freedom of the individual 145–8, 156,
168 Hardtwig, W. 22–3
Freiburg, bishopric of 46 Hebdige, D. 36, 37
Führer cult 182 Heberle, R. 35
Heimat culture 28
Germany Henning, H.J. 19
and popular liberalism, comparison Hettling, M. 33
with England 9–11 historiography
see also Greater Swabia; popular Catholic bourgeoisie in southern
liberalism; southern Germany Germany 15–22
Gordon, S. 69–70 difficulties re. rural bourgeoisie 27
Gramsci, A. 33 liberalism 11–13
Greater Swabia regional study method 28–30
anti-Church activity 46–8 southern Germany 14
anti-socialism 55–7 Verein 22–7
artisans in 139 Hopwood, R. 98
Catholic bourgeoisie in 49, 59
Closed Farm Law 50 Joyce, P. 33–4
connection with Protestants 50
cultural institutions in 140–2 Kocka, J. 21
Index 253
Konstanz National Socialism

bishopric of 46 bourgeois support of, motivation for
Catholic bourgeoisie in 43–5 117–19
Old Catholics 65 bourgeois Vereine 181
Koselleck, R. 33 collapse of bourgeois parties 114
Koshar, R. 98 connections with the Vereine 114–17
Führer cult 182
language in Greater Swabia 195
of radicalism 183–5 increasing bourgeois support of 125–6
used by popular liberals 161–4, 170–1 leaders of local groups 125
Lawrence, J. 33–4, 35 local elections 1930 109, 113
leftist liberals, opposition to alliance with middle-class radicalism of 182
159–60 and music and sports Vereine 123–4
leisure culture and the Vereine 100–1 narratives of community 184–5
liberalism political aspects of as Verene 124–5
crisis after World War I 171–2 and popular liberalism, new angle on
historiography of 11–13 5–7
as mass, radical movement 4 similarities to Vereine 117–25
new interest in 3–4 similarities with popular liberalism
see also popular liberalism 180–6
local conditions, study of 28–30 state, attitudes towards 185–6
Lüdtke, A. 33 struggle, narratives of 183–4
as substitute for popular liberalism 174
marginality, impact of 31 support for in popular liberalism
Marxism, actions against by popular liberals 175–6
173 taverns, use of 182
mass consumer culture and the Vereine taverns, use of by 121–3
100–1 transience of support for 115
Massey, D. 30 travelling speakers, use of 180–1
Mergel, T. 19, 22 Nazi Party, see National Socialism
Merkt, O. 136, 166 newspapers
methodology, cultural methods of 33–6 Greater Swabia 140–1
middle class, see Catholic bourgeoisie in liberal-bourgeoisie 56–7
southern Germany loss of liberal 172–3
Old Catholics 72
narratives Nipperdey, T. 21, 22
of community 184–5
of freedom 184 Old Catholics
of struggle 183–4 anti-clericalism 70
national celebrations and the Vereine Catholic bourgeoisie’s opposition to
87–8 42–3, 44
National Liberal Party church property seized by 71
in Greater Swabia 195 class and religion 64–6
transformation of 96 decline of 74–5
Vereine aid given to 85–7
democratic activities and meetings anti-clericalism 145–8, 162–3, 168–9

72–3 anti-establishment tendencies 167
early organisations 67–8 anti-Marxist actions 173
educated bourgeoisie as members 64–6 bourgeois Vereine 181
first initiatives 66–8 broadening base of 157
Greater Swabia 51–2, 60, 140 Catholic bourgeoisie in southern
ideological issues discussed 73–4 Germany 15–22
Konstanz 65 Catholic Church, struggle against
leaders of 68–9 158–9, 168–9
local hegemony 70–4 communism/state intervention, fear of
local newspapers 72 165–6
membership in 63–4 as continuation of popular tradition 10
modern and liberal policy 69 continuity after World War I 165–7,
people’s community 69–70, 74 180–6
petition of 1873 66–7 decade before World War I 155–64
popular liberalism 146 defined 9
power, positions of 70–1 disintegration of bourgeois Vereine 171
prevalence of in Greater Swabia 63 fragmentation of 153
social structure of communities 65–6 free economy, support for 168
as ‘Sun of the People’s Freedom’ 68–70 freedom, narratives of 184
visits by leaders to Konstanz 68 freedom of the individual 145–8, 156,
168
Peasants’ Associations 148–50, 166, 171–2 Führer cult 182
peasants’ protest movement, alliance with German-English comparison 9–11
169 Greater Swabia 5
people’s community 69–70, 74, 184–5 artisans in 139
periphery, impact of 31 cultural institutions in 140–2
political behaviour of Catholic bourgeoisie cultural strategies 134–5
in Greater Swabia 45–6 economic structure of 137–9
political context for popular politics 34 freedom and liberty of the
political culture in Greater Swabia individual 135–6
artisans in 139 Old Catholics 140
cultural strategies 134–5 press, liberal 140–1
economic structure of 137–9 protest, engagement in 135
freedom and liberty of the individual reasons for support in 132–7
135–6 self-administration, tradition of
protest, engagement in 135 133, 135–6
reasons for support in 132–7 as tourist centre 139
self-administration, tradition of 133, Vereine 141–2
135–6 heritage of 1848–1849 period 152–3
as tourist centre 139 historiography of 11–13
popular liberalism language of radicalism 183–5
1860s–1890s 145–8 leftist liberals, opposition to alliance
1890s, last years of 148–55 with 159–60
activism by bourgeois Verein 150–2 liberal Vereine 156–7
Index 255
middle-class radicalism of 182 press, local

narratives of community 184–5 Old Catholics 72
and National Socialism, new angle on
5–7 radical liberalism
Nazi Party as substitute for 174 1860s–1890s 145–8
new radical democratic movement 1890s, last years of 148–55
152–3 activism by bourgeois Verein 150–2
Old Catholics 146 anti-clericalism 145–8, 162–3, 168–9
Peasants’ Associations 148–50, 166, anti-establishment tendencies 167
171–2 anti-Marxist actions 173
peasants’ protest movement, alliance bourgeois Vereine 181
with 169 broadening base of 157
and politics, culture and tradition 10 Catholic Church, struggle against
press, loss of 172–3 158–9, 168–9
regional study method 28–30 communism/state intervention, fear of
remoteness from central government, 165–6
impact of 31 continuity after World War I 165–7,
revolutions of 1918–1919 165 180
rhetoric used by 161–4, 170–1 decade before World War I 155–64
separation, desire for in Greater Swabia disintegration of bourgeois Vereine 171
166–7 fragmentation of 153
similarities with National Socialism free economy, support for 168
180–2 freedom, narratives of 184
socialism and the workers question freedom of the individual 145–8, 156,
163–5 168
socialists, alliance with 159–60 Führer cult 182
state, attitudes towards 185–6 Greater Swabia
struggle, narratives of 183–4 artisans in 139
as subculture response 36–7 cultural institutions in 140–2
support for Nazi Party in 175–6 cultural strategies 134–5
taverns, use of 182 economic structure of 137–9
travelling speakers, use of 180–1 freedom and liberty of the
use of term 4 individual 135–6
verbal and physical violence against Old Catholics 140
opponents 150–2 press, liberal 140–1
Verein 22–7 protest, engagement in 135
Vereine, continuity in after World War reasons for support in 132–7
I 169–70 self-administration, tradition of
weakening of electoral strength 150 133, 135–6
World War I and decade following as tourist centre 139
164–74 Vereine 141–2
Young Liberals’ Associations 155–6 heritage of 1848–1849 period 152–3
press, liberal-bourgeoisie 56–7 language of radicalism 183–5
Greater Swabia 140–1 leftist liberals, opposition to alliance
loss of 172–3 with 159–60
liberal Vereine 156–7 Smith, H.W. 64

middle-class radicalism of 182 socialism
narratives of community 184–5 anti-, of Catholic bourgeoisie in Greater
Nazi Party as substitute for 174 Swabia 55–6
new radical democratic movement popular liberalism and 163–5
152–3 popular liberalism’s alliance with
Peasants’ Associations 148–50, 166, 159–60
171–2 southern Germany
peasants’ protest movement, alliance Catholic bourgeoisie in 15–22
with 169 historiography of 14
press, loss of 172–3 marginality, impact of 31
rhetoric used by 161–4, 170–1 regional study method 28–30
separation, desire for in Greater Swabia see also Greater Swabia
166–7 state
similarities with National Socialism centralization and strengthening of 94,
180–2 101
socialism and the workers question intervention by, fear of 165–6
163–5 liberal/National Socialism’ attitudes
socialists, alliance with 159–60 towards 185–6
state, attitudes towards 185–6 Stedman Jones, G. 33–4, 179
struggle, narratives of 183–4 struggle, narratives of 183–4
support for Nazi Party in 175–6 subculture response, popular liberalism as
taverns, use of 182 36–7
travelling speakers, use of 180–1
verbal and physical violence against taverns, use of 121–3, 182
opponents 150–2 Thornton, S. 36
Vereine, continuity in after World War tourist centre, Greater Swabia as 57–8, 139
I 169–70 travelling speakers, use of 180–1
weakening of electoral strength 150
World War I and decade following ultramontanism 21, 36, 37, 44, 46, 47, 48,
164–74 63, 64, 67, 69, 84, 85, 86, 87, 88,
Young Liberals’ Associations 155–6 91, 131, 132, 134, 135, 136, 141,
regional study method 28–30 142, 146–8, 155, 163, 174, 183,
remoteness from central government, 184, 185, 189, 190, 192
impact of 31
rhetoric used by popular liberals 161–4, Vereine
170–1 activities of 81, 111, 113
rural Catholic bourgeoisie in southern activity patterns 54
Germany 15–22 after World War I 99–102
historiographical difficulties 27 anti-clericalism 81, 86
anti-socialism 55, 81–2
Samuel, R. 33–4 centralization and strengthening of the
Schott, D. 19 state 94, 101
self-administration, tradition of in Greater changes in Germany from 1880s 89–90
Swabia 133, 135–6 combining of similar 112
Index 257
connections with the Nazi Party opening up to other groups 106–7

114–17 payment of dues to 110–11
continuity in after World War I personnel changes 104
169–70 policy dilemmas of local bourgeoisie
crisis in 1930–1932 107–14 105–6
crisis of, reasons for 88–97 and popular liberalism/National
democratization and nationalism 100 Socialism 181
disintegration of 107–14, 171 recruitment ‘from below’ 83–4
dissociation from nationalist bourgeois requirements of members 109–10
parties 99–100 social, and political life and
dissolution of 100–1 mobilization 26–7
economic difficulties 1920s 104–5 social composition 53–4, 89
elections 1860s–1870s 84–7 social composition of 80
establishment of 79–80 threat to bourgeois hegemony
festivals and nationalist sentiment 105–6
87–8 veteran clubs (KuMV) 109
financial crisis late 1920s 102 Weimar Republic 99–101, 104–7
flourishing of 53 withdrawal of support to 111
folkish nationalism 101–2 during World War I 98–9
and formation of political and social Young Liberals’ Associations 155–6
life 24 young people, attempts to attract 112
Germany at start of 20th century 97 Vernon, J. 33–4
grassroots level 84 voluntary associations, see Vereine
Greater Swabia 52–5
historiography 22–7 Wagner, J. 161–2
integration into National Socialist state Wallishauser, F. 166–7
98 Weber, M. 16–17, 23
as just one cultural influence 96 Weimar Republic, Vereine in 99–101,
in late 19th century/early 20th century 104–7
24–5 Wessenberg, Ignaz H., Archbishop
leadership of 53, 111–12, 115–16 of Konstanz 73, 146
leisure and mass consumer culture workers’ question, popular liberalism and
100–1 163–5
liberal 156–7 World War I
liberal activism by bourgeois 150–2 Greater Swabia during 164–5
membership of 80–1, 110–11, 113 popular liberalism 164–74
music and sports and the Nazi Party popular liberalism in decade before
123–4 155–64
national celebrations 87–8 Vereine after 99–102
national consciousness, development Vereine during 98–9
of by 82–3
National Liberal Party, aid given to Young Liberals’ Associations 155–6
85–7
Nazi Party similarities to 117–25 Zang, G. 19
Nazis as leaders in 115–16 Zimmer, O. 28

(MODELO) HEILBRONNER, Oded. From Popular Liberalism To National Socialism

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(MODELO) HEILBRONNER, Oded. From Popular Liberalism To National Socialism

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From Popular Liberalism

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

The Library of Congress has cataloged the printed edition as follows:

Printed in the United Kingdom by Henry Ling Limited,

Part I: Introduction

2 Definition of Key Concepts  9

Part II: The Radical-Liberal Subculture in

4 The Local Catholic Bourgeoisie: Anti-Clericalism and Progress  41

5 The Religion of the Subculture: The Old Catholics  63

6 The Verein’s Culture in the Service of Popular Liberalism,

7 The Disintegration of the Local Vereine  103

Part III: The Politics of the Subculture, 1860s–1930s

8 The Political Culture of Greater Swabia: An Overview  131

9 Main Stages in the Development of Popular Liberalism in

Part IV: Conclusion

10 From Popular Liberalism to National Socialism: Currents

11 Concluding Remarks  187

A shorter version of my book was published in German as ‘Freiheit, Gleichheit,

Associations and Parties

KuMV Krieg und Militärvereine

Map 2 Greater Swabia: Geographical View.

Interest in liberalism as a historical, cultural and ideological phenomenon

By using the term “popular liberalism” in the context of German liberalism,

regions.10 The terms “Proto-Fascism”, “folkism”, “demagogy” and “populism” have

By popular liberalism, I mean a political and cultural mass phenomenon

(bourgeois) liberal extra-parliamentary actions, pressure-groups and “faddist”

Popular Politics and Liberalism in Germany: A Historiographical

In general, until the 1980s, interpretations of the rise of National Socialism

populism, led many liberals – especially the conservative National Liberals –

“Kultur, Klassen und Liberalismus in Hannover 1848–1914”, in Gall and Langewiesche,

In German historiography, the cultural and political behaviour of rural

The German Catholic Rural Bourgeoisie and its Cultural Activities

Two cultural elements played a significant role in German popular liberalism:

The intensive involvement with the German bourgeoisie (Bürgertum) in the

brandished by current research are those of religious persuasion and geographical

This disregard of the Catholic bourgeoisie is no less patent among the

is the backwardness of Catholic society, and not only in the economic,

63 (1991): 681–717; Jürgen Herres, “Stadtische Gesellschaft und katholische Vereine im

stratum,28 on the Catholic Vereine,29 on the social origin and education of

The Verein (Voluntary Association)

The German voluntary association (hereafter Verein) has played an important

Thomas Nipperdey, “Aspekte der Verbürgerlichung”, in Jurgen Kocka (ed.), Arbeiter

Vereine such as gymnastic clubs (Turnvereine), shooting clubs (Schützenvereine),

my claim is based on sociological research that grants these Vereine a special

Culture and Region: Greater Swabia. “A Sense of Place”54: The Regional

Regional study is an important method that I use in my research. I suggest that

Kurlander, The Price of Exclusion; Blackbourn, A Sense of Place, 12ff.; Thompson,

The Question of Marginality, the Lure of the Periphery

im Gebiet des heutigen Landkreises Sigmaringen (Sigmaringen, 1998), 168–206; Andreas

My work relies mainly on the methods of cultural studies. The claims of

old local political tendency toward volatility, radical populism … A travestied

The “Subculture” Response

The cultural phenomenon called popular liberalism in Catholic south Germany

unique [about them] is … also that there is something innately oppositional in

As I explained in the historiographical chapters, the Catholic bourgeoisie I

Understandably, it was the diffusion of liberal-capitalistic economics and the

Die Schwarzwälder, 19/11/1867, 12/12/1868; Echo vom Wald, 1/1/1874.

G. Koch, Die gesetzlich geschlossenen Hofgüter des badischen Schwarzwaldes (Tübingen,

1900), 107–115; Schwarzwalder Wochenblatt, 6/5/1862; Helmut Sedatis, Liberalismus und

Olaf Blaschke, “Der Altkatholizismus 1879 bis 1945. Nationalismus, Antisemitismus

und Nationalsozialismus”, Historische Zeitschrift, 261 (1995): 51–99; Sperber, Popular

craftsmen,31 in resort towns primarily from inn-keepers and hoteliers;32 and in

StA Neustadt - 3214, Krieger- und Militärverein.

2 Definition of Key Concepts 9

4 The Local Catholic Bourgeoisie: Anti-Clericalism and Progress 41

5 The Religion of the Subculture: The Old Catholics 63

7 The Disintegration of the Local Vereine 103

8 The Political Culture of Greater Swabia: An Overview 131

11 Concluding Remarks 187