Gutsherren – Bauern – Broker Die ostelbische Agrargesellschaft in der zweiten Hälfte des 19. Jahrhunderts

Abstract

Landlords – Peasants – Brokers. East Elbian Agrarian Society in the Second Half of the Nineteenth Century

The power relations between noble or middle class estate holders, farmers, and the Prussian bureaucracy changed markedly as a consequence of the economic modernization process instigated by the agrarian reforms at the beginning of the nineteenth century. Up until the beginning of the 1870s, the disintegration of the villages and noble landholding led to the end of the estate system and to a notable increase in the power of the local representatives of the Prussian government, above all the county administrator (Landrat). After the reforms of the county and provincial administrations of 1872 and 1875, which strengthened the farmer and middle-class electorates, the Landrat developed into the organizer of conservative majority electorates loyal to the government and into the most important representative of large landholding interests. The farmers were tied into this system of bureaucratic clientelism through tax advantages, subventions, and active state policies regarding the modernization of the infrastructure of agrarian districts. The Prussian Landrat became the dominant broker between the nation state and agrarian society, which was increasingly marginalized in the national context by rapid industrialization. A constellation of powers ensued comparable to the mediating systems, which were established at the same time in the Mediterranean lands.