Brandy plague
The rapidly increasing consumption of spirits since the first half of the 19th century in Germany was called brandy plague . The change in drinking habits from beer to high-proof alcoholic beverages within a few decades was reminiscent of an epidemic, so the term plague was used analogously .
With the use of potatoes as an inexpensive starting material for distillation , the price of schnapps fell considerably. Many distilleries came into being where conditions were favorable for growing potatoes. This was particularly the case in north and east Germany. The potato schnapps almost became a staple food for the lower classes of the population, and it was partly part of their wages. While the per capita consumption of brandy in Prussia was only two to three liters (pure alcohol) annually around 1800, it was more than eight liters by 1830. In Brandenburg it even reached 13 liters. Frightened by the negative side effects of alcoholism , bourgeois counter-initiatives, so-called moderation associations, as well as church movements, e.g. B. under Friedrich von Bodelschwingh . Doctors such as Christoph Wilhelm Hufeland published treatises on the dangers of alcohol consumption. In 1887, the Reichsntweinsteuer reform doubled the price of spirits, which immediately reduced consumption by around 40 percent. A large part of the consumers returned to beer. Because something similar happened in the German colonies of Cameroon and Togo in Africa, especially through imports from Germany, Adolf Stoecker , a member of the Reichstag, spoke on May 14, 1889 about the "soul-killing brandy plague". There were also problems in Tyrol and Switzerland. The term potato schnapps was common there.
literature
- Heinrich Zschokke: The brandy plague . In: HR Sauerländer (Hrsg.): Novellen und Dichtungen, Sixteenth Part . tape 16 . Aarau 1837, p. 297–394 ( Heinrich Zschokke : The brandy plague in the Gutenberg-DE project ).
- Carl Ignaz Lorinser: The victory over the brandy plague in Upper Silesia, illuminated historically, medically and mystically . Opole: F. Weilshäuser, 1845. ( Online )
- Heinrich Tappe: Alcohol Consumption in Germany . In: State Center for Political Education Baden-Württemberg (Ed.): The citizen in the state - food culture - eating and drinking in transition . 52nd volume, issue 4. Stuttgart 2002, p. 213-218 ( online PDF (2.4 MB)).
- Alfred Heggen: Alcohol and civil society in the 19th century , a study on German social history. Colloquium Verlag Berlin, 1988.