Junker (Prussia)

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As Junker (from Middle High German Juncherre = young gentleman, Mr. Jung) were lords of the manor in the rural areas east of the Elbe called, which usually (but not necessarily) the Prussian nobility belonged.

Prominent representatives of the East Elbe country nobility are Otto von Bismarck , Elard von Oldenburg-Januschau , Paul von Hindenburg , Marion Countess Dönhoff and Veruschka Countess von Lehndorff .

history

The term Junker, which was originally used positively, first became a battle term for the liberals and later for the socialists in the 19th century to designate a strong bastion of their conservative and reactionary opponents - the East Elbe land nobility  . The pejorative term Junker has been established in liberal political parlance at the latest since the Junker Parliament . It was, however, actively taken up again and again by the so-called East Elbian nobles and used to designate themselves. As a sociological term, the term Junker is difficult because a clear classification is hardly possible. The fact that it is used again and again to this day is primarily due to the long-term lines of tradition from Max Weber to Hans Rosenberg to Hans-Ulrich Wehler , through which fighting terms from the political disputes of the empire were seamlessly and hardly questioned into socio-historical interpretations.

In the 19th century and still in the first half of the 20th century, the Junkers held a significant political and economic position of power in the core area of Prussia east of the Elbe, also known as Eastern Elbe , which was politically and economically due to the three-class suffrage until 1918 and economically due to the considerable large estates of this class was consolidated.

The landed gentry was seen as very conservative , militaristic and anti-liberal. He was the reactionary pillar of the Hohenzollern monarchy and the Prussian state and military system. The landed aristocracy sharply rejected democracy . He dominated practically the entire political elite of the Prussian homeland with the exception of the city of Berlin, which is characterized by its urban structures . The rule of the Junkers was supported by the aristocratic traditions deeply rooted in rural areas and the ties of the families to the Prussian military , in which the sons had served as officers for generations . The Junkers obtained their income primarily from agriculture , in which they held a monopoly-like position, which they successfully maintained not only in the East Elbe regions, but also in the rest of Prussia and then throughout the empire .

Neetzow Castle , GDR 1954, original text: “The castle… was… the seat of the Krautjunker Rittmeister von Kruse. Now the state ensemble of village youth has moved into its rooms. "

The word “Junker” got a negative connotation in more liberal circles and became a polemical battle term in the era of Wilhelminism , which evoked the idea of ​​a backward, narrow-minded and uncultivated landlord with uncouth manners and authoritarian demeanor. The derisive expression “herb junker” has been used in a similar way since the 1850s. In this sense, the SPD politician Kurt Freiherr von Reibnitz, who himself came from the Silesian landed gentry and was dubbed a “red baron” by his political opponents, spoke disparagingly of the “little east Elbian landed gentry”.

In a call for the abolition of the census suffrage , co-signed by many prominent figures from the business, scientific and cultural sector, the liberal journalist Theodor Wolff demanded in the Berliner Tageblatt in 1909 that the "agrarian conservative dominance over Prussia" be broken and spoke of "that small upper class, which successfully opposes the penetration of the modern spirit in the eastern provinces of Prussia ”. In addition to Theodor Wolff and Max Weber, the first group of signatories included Lujo Brentano , Franz von Liszt , Ignaz Jastrow , Karl Lamprecht , Hugo Preuss , Alfred Weber , Georg Simmel , Engelbert Humperdinck , Frank Wedekind , Ludwig Ganghofer , Gerhard Anschütz , Ferdinand Tönnies , Friedrich Meinecke , Edgar Jaffé , Gerhart Hauptmann , Hans Gregor , Walther Schücking , Max Slevogt , Lovis Corinth and Eugen Diederichs .

In the Weimar Republic , the agrarians gathered in the German National People's Party (DNVP). Research sees the reactionary sentiments and the influential position of the Junkers and large agrarians in the political life of Prussia as a decisive obstacle to German development and writes to some Junkers who in 1932/1933 belonged to the influential circle of the so-called " camarilla " around Reich President Paul von Hindenburg, shared responsibility for the seizure of power by the NSDAP under Adolf Hitler . However, some leading figures of the later German resistance also came from the Prussian "Junkers", so Erwin von Witzleben and Henning von Tresckow .

Land reform monument in the Uckermark : “ Junkernland in peasant hands ”, inaugurated on September 6, 1985 by the GDR authorities.
Harvest festival in the days of the GDR with the slogan “ Junker land in peasant hands ”, October 19, 1985

After the Second World War , land reform in the Soviet occupation zone was under the motto Junkerland in peasant hands . In addition to the eastern regions of the German Empire on the other side of the Oder-Neisse line , which at that time were already under Polish and Soviet administration, agriculture in Mecklenburg , Western Pomerania and the Margraviate of Brandenburg was also characterized by large Junk landowners. The Junker estates were first divided among small farmers and, in the course of later collectivization, were combined to form agricultural production communities ( LPG ). In this context, the old resentment against the Prussian Junker rule that existed in some circles of people in Germany should be used for propaganda purposes with the motto "Junkerland in peasant hands" in order to increase the acceptance of the land-political goals of the Soviet occupying power among the German population. The destruction of the East German aristocratic world of the Junkers is described by the social historian Hans-Ulrich Wehler as "an enormous structural benefit for the development of the Federal Republic ".

After reunification , some families from the East Elbe aristocracy returned to their former homeland in order to buy back or lease their former properties, which had been expropriated during the land reform.

reception

The literary caricature of a typical East Elbian Junker can be found in the figure of the cocky Prussian District President von Wulckow in Heinrich Mann's novel Der Untertan (1914). Impressive descriptions of the conditions and mentalities in the landed gentry of the Margraviate Brandenburg, which at that time belonged to Prussia, are also found in Theodor Fontane's novel Der Stechlin (1898).

literature

  • Bruno Buchta: The Junkers and the Weimar Republic. Character and importance of aid to the east in the years 1928–1933. VEB Deutscher Verlag der Wissenschaften, Berlin 1959
  • Walter Görlitz : The Junkers: Nobility and Peasants in the German East. Historical record of seven centuries. Starke, Glücksburg (Baltic Sea) 1956
  • Francis L. Carsten : History of the Prussian Junkers. Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt 1988, ISBN 3-518-11273-2
  • Francis L. Carsten: The Prussian nobility and its position in state and society until 1945. In: Hans-Ulrich Wehler (Hrsg.), European Adel 1750–1950. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 1989 ISBN 3-525-36412-1 pp. 112-125
  • Heinz Reif (Ed.): East Elbian Agricultural Society in the Empire and in the Weimar Republic. Agricultural crisis - Junker interest politics - Modernization strategies. Academy, Berlin 1994, ISBN 3-05-002431-3 .
  • Heinz Reif: The Junkers. In: Etienne François , Hagen Schulze (ed.): German places of memory. Vol. 1, Beck, Munich 2001, ISBN 3-406-47222-2 , pp. 520-536.
  • Johannes Rogalla von Bieberstein : Prussia as Germany's fate. A documentary essay on Prussia, Prussia, militarism, Junkerism and hostility to Prussia. Minerva publication, Munich 1981, ISBN 3-597-10336-7
  • Hans Rosenberg : The pseudo-democratization of the manorial class. In: Ders .: Power elites and economic cycles: Studies on recent German social and economic history (= critical studies on historical science. Vol. 31). Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 1978 ISBN 3-525-35985-3 pp. 83-117
  • René Schiller: From a manor to a large estate. Economic and social transformation processes of the rural elites in Brandenburg in the 19th century (= elite change in modernity. Vol. 3). Akademie-Verlag, Berlin 2003, ISBN 3-05-003449-1 .
  • Hanna Schissler : The Junkers. On the social history and historical significance of the agrarian elite in Prussia. In: Hans-Jürgen Puhle , Hans-Ulrich Wehler (Hrsg.): Prussia in retrospect (= history and society. Special issue 6). Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 1980, ISBN 3-525-36405-9 pp. 89-122
  • Cornelius Torp: Max Weber and the Prussian Junkers. Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen 1998 ISBN 3161470613
  • Patrick Wagner : farmers, junkers and civil servants. Local rule and participation in East Elbe in the 19th century. (= Modern times. 9). Wallstein, Göttingen 2005, ISBN 3-89244-946-5 (also habilitation thesis University of Freiburg im Breisgau 2003).

Remarks

  1. ^ René Schiller: From manor to large estate. Economic and social transformation processes of the rural elites in Brandenburg in the 19th century . Berlin 2003.
  2. ^ So: Louise von François : Die last Reckenburgerin (1871) , Leipzig 1965, p. 286.
  3. ↑ Cf. Stephan Malinowski: From the king to the leader: Social decline and political radicalization in the German nobility between the German Empire and the Nazi state. 3. Edition. Berlin 2003, p. 467.
  4. ^ For the Prussian electoral reform. Rally in the Berliner Tageblatt , No. 620 of December 7, 1909. Printed in: [[Horst Baier (Mediziner) |]] et al. (Hrsg.); Max Weber : Economy, State and Social Policy: Writings and Speeches, 1900-1912. Tübingen 1998 (Vol. 8 of the Max Weber Complete Edition ), p. 458.
  5. ↑ Horst Baier et al. (Ed.); Max Weber : Economy, State and Social Policy: Writings and Speeches, 1900-1912. Tübingen 1998 (Vol. 8 of the Max Weber Complete Edition), p. 455.
  6. ^ Heinrich August Winkler: The revolution of 1918/19 and the problem of continuity in German history. In: Historische Zeitschrift, 250 (1990), pp. 303-319, here p. 317.
  7. ^ Hans-Ulrich Wehler: German history of society. Vol. 4: From the beginning of the First World War to the founding of the two German states 1914–1949. Beck, Munich 2003, p. 956.