Towards an Urban Nation: Germany since 1780 9781474214339

Citation preview

Editorial Preface

The IIurposr of this series of books is to present the results of research by (ierman historians and social scientists to readers in English-speaking countries. Each of the volumes has a particular therne that will Ije hantlletl from tlifTerent points of view by specialists. t also T h e series is not limited to the ~ ~ r o b l e r nofs Germany I ~ u will involve pu1,lications dealing with the history of other countries, with the general ~ ~ r o l , l e nof~ spolitical, economic, social and intellectual history as well as international relations ancl studies in comparative history. We hope the series will hell, to ovrrcome the language barrier that experience has shown ol~structsthe rapid appreciation of German rcsearch in English-speaking countries. The pul~licationof the series is closely associatetl with the German Visiting Fellowship at St Antony's College, Oxfortl, which has existed since 1965, having been originally funded by the Volkswagen Stiftung, later I,y the British Leverhulme Trust, by the Ministry of Eclucation ant1 Sciencc in the Fetleral Repu1,lic of Germany, and starting in 1990, I)y the Stifterver1)antl fur tlie Deutsche Wissenschaft with special funding from C:. bi A. Mode Dusseldorf. Each volume is based on a scries of seminars held in Oxford, which has been conceived ant1 tiirected l,y the Visiting Fellow and organized in collaboration with St Antony's College. T h e editors wish to thank the Stifterverl~andfiir die Deutsche Wissenschaft for meeting the expenses of the original lecture series ant1 for generous assistance with the publication. They hope that this entrrprise will hell, to overcome national introspection and to further in ternational academic tliscourse ant1 co-operation. Gerhard A. Ritter

Anthony J. Nicholls

vii

KIAUS TENFE:I,L)E

Urbanization and the Spread of an Urban Culture in Germany in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries

CIvarly, it is too arnl~itiousa task t o present a comprehrnsivc ovt:rvit*wof'thr fascinating process of urbanization within the scope of one essay even when referring to just one, albeit comparativt.ly largc, country like German): All the more ambitious against the in(-kgrountl of a n amazing amount and quality of research that has I ~ e c ntlevotetl to url~anizationin Britain, much of it in a comparative prrsprctivc:, so that for a time, for a student of urbanization in (;t.rrnan)i, it sc:ernctl atlvisable to study a t a selection of places in Britain whcre a solitl knowletlge of German url~anizationhad also h e n ;trcluirctl. This is not just a c(1f)totio betleuolerltioe on British scholarship. There is no tloul,t that British stutlies on comparative demographic features of urlx~nization,on types of cities, on the urban space, or on the history an ant1 urban utopias in a comparative perspective of ~ ~ r l ~planning have ol~cnetlup many avenues, ant1 have been extentled to Germany ant1 other European countries, strongly influencing a growing number of rccrnt German cast stuclies. In addition, it is well known that a profi)nntl British interest in German url,anization,' or rather, in the motle 1)y which G e r m a n u r l ~ a nplanners and city administrators managetl to cope with the many problems caused by industrialization ant1 url~anization,tlates back to the turn of the twentieth century. Also, the legal contlitions ant1 procetlures, and the consequences of (ierrnan cornrnunal self-atlministration, woultl have been stutlied. The I)ooks pul)lishctl in the course of that interest generally display a

Burgher Cities on the Road to a Civil Society: G e m a n y 1780

'I'hc Krsrarch Projrct 'Stadt uncl Biirgertum im 19.Jahrhuntlcrt', which will I)c tlescril~etlIIelow, was initiated by Lothar Gall a t the Univrrsity of Frankfurt a m Main in 1988 and ran until 1996. It \V;IS an rxtensivc comparative study of the historical origins and rnilirus of thc (ierrnan I l ~ r ~ e r t u t r as r ' the key to an unclerstancling of the, ninrtrrnth-cc,nt~rrypolitical, socio-economic and cultural makeup thiit I~roughti~l)outthe transition from the corporate u~orldto the motlrrn age of thtx l3u\.crturrl. T h e project's central hypothesis was that t h r Biirger~utrr was createtl ant1 clefinetl I)y processes of social communication ant1 interaction in the cities. Consequently, the aim \*as to uncovrr the social networks which estabIished the cohesion of the, Biirgerturn ant1 which also matle it ~ ~ o s s i bfor l e intliviclual citizens t o e x l ~ c r i e n c rit. T h e single-mintlrd concentration on individual con11)onvnt groups of t h r Biirgertunr, such as entrepreneurs, members of the etlucatrcl classcs or artisans, or on single aspects, as for exarliple rconomic trentls, cultural activities or education, which until then \vas common in studic,s of the German Burgerturn, was abandoned in klvonr of a 1argc.r ~)erspective.Thus it was possible to exj~lorethe ixogrtm of the constitution of modern civil society in connection with economic, j)olitical iis well as cultural factors and their interplay. Anlongst thr vilrious factors that characterized the Biirgerturn in the ninrtccnth crntury thcx focus was ~,laceclon the following: 1.

l'he IIurgerrec.ht ('l~urghrr-right')as the central constituent factor of mitltllc-class society in the traditional sense and its continuing significance (tlifferent in thc various cities) in the nineteenth ccxntury.