Editing History of Germany (section)

==== A three-class system: Aristocracy, middle class, and working class ====

The new Empire provided attractive top level career opportunities for the national nobility in the various branches of the consular and civil services and the army. As a consequence the aristocratic near total control of the civil sector guaranteed a dominant voice in the decision making in the universities and the churches. The 1914 German diplomatic corps consisted of 8 princes, 29 counts, 20 barons, 54 representants of the lower nobility and a mere 11 commoners. These commoners were indiscriminately recruited from elite industrialist and banking families. The consular corps employed numerous commoners, that however, occupied positions of little to no executive power.<ref>{{Cite journal |first=J. C. G. |last=Röhl |date=1967 |title=Higher Civil Servants in Germany, 1890–1900 |url=https://archive.org/details/sim_journal-of-contemporary-history_1967-07_2_3/page/101 |journal=Journal of Contemporary History |publisher=Sage Publications, Ltd. |volume=2 |issue=3 |pages=101–121 |doi=10.1177/002200946700200306 |jstor=259809 |s2cid=160827181}}</ref> The Prussian tradition to reserve the highest military ranks for young aristocrats was adopted and the new [[Constitution of the German Empire|constitution]] put all military affairs under the direct control of the Emperor and beyond control of the [[Reichstag (German Empire)|Reichstag]].{{Sfn|Clark|2006|pp=158, 603–623}} With its large corps of reserve officers across Germany, the military strengthened its role as ''"The estate which upheld the nation"'', and historian [[Hans-Ulrich Wehler]] added: ''"it became an almost separate, self-perpetuating caste".''<ref>{{Cite web |first=Hans-Ulrich |last=Wehler |title=Hans Ulrich Wehler-The German Empire 1871-1918-Berg (1985) |url=https://www.scribd.com/document/371706306/Hans-Ulrich-Wehler-The-German-Empire-1871-1918-Berg-1985 |access-date=31 March 2019 |via=Scribd |page=157}}</ref>

Power increasingly was centralized among the 7000 aristocrats, who resided in the national capital of [[Berlin/Brandenburg Metropolitan Region|Berlin and neighboring Potsdam]]. Berlin's rapidly increasing rich middle-class copied the aristocracy and tried to marry into it. A peerage could permanently boost a rich industrial family into the upper reaches of the establishment.{{Sfn|Richie|1998|p=207}} However, the process tended to work in the other direction as the nobility became industrialists. For example, 221 of the 243 mines in Silesia were owned by nobles or by the King of Prussia himself.{{Sfn|Blackbourn|1998|p=32}}

The [[middle class]] in the cities grew exponentially, although it never acquired the powerful parliamentary representation and legislative rights as in France, Britain or the United States. The [[Bund Deutscher Frauenvereine|Association of German Women's Organizations]] or BDF was established in 1894 to encompass the proliferating women's organizations that had emerged since the 1860s. From the beginning the BDF was a [[Bourgeoisie|bourgeois]] organization, its members working toward equality with men in such areas as education, financial opportunities, and political life. Working-class women were not welcome and were organized by the Socialists.<ref name="auto">{{Cite book |last=Mazón |first=Patricia M. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=_SKPLZtwulQC&pg=PA53 |title=Gender and the Modern Research University: The Admission of Women to German Higher Education, 1865–1914 |publisher=Stanford U.P. |date=2003 |isbn=978-0-8047-4641-0 |page=53}}</ref>

The rise of the Socialist Workers' Party (later known as the [[Social Democratic Party of Germany]], SPD), aimed to peacefully establish a socialist order through the transformation of the existing political and social conditions. From 1878, Bismarck tried to oppose the growing social democratic movement by [[Anti-Socialist Laws|outlawing the party's organisation]], its assemblies and most of its newspapers. Nonetheless, the Social Democrats grew stronger and Bismarck initiated his [[State Socialism (Germany)|social welfare program]] in 1883 in order to appease the working class.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Moses |first=John Anthony |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Yy6oSv2N_iIC&pg=PA149 |title=Trade Unionism in Germany from Bismarck to Hitler, 1869–1933 |publisher=Rowman & Littlefield |date=1982 |isbn=978-0-8604-3450-4 |page=149}}</ref>

Bismarck built on a tradition of welfare programs in Prussia and Saxony that began as early as the 1840s. In the 1880s he introduced old age pensions, accident insurance, medical care, and unemployment insurance that formed the basis of the modern [[European welfare state]]. His paternalistic programs won the support of German industry because its goals were to win the support of the working classes for the Empire and reduce the outflow of immigrants to America, where wages were higher but welfare did not exist.<ref>{{Citation |last=Hennock |first=E. P. |title=The Origin of the Welfare State in England and Germany, 1850–1914: Social Policies Compared |date=2007}}</ref><ref>{{Citation |last=Beck |first=Hermann |title=Origins of the Authoritarian Welfare State in Prussia, 1815–1870 |date=1995}}</ref> Bismarck further won the support of both industry and skilled workers by his high tariff policies, which protected profits and wages from American competition, although they alienated the liberal intellectuals who wanted free trade.<ref>{{Citation |last=Spencer |first=Elaine Glovka |title=Rules of the Ruhr: Leadership and Authority in German Big Business Before 1914 |date=Spring 1979 |journal=Business History Review |volume=53 |issue=1 |pages=40–64 |publisher=[President and Fellows of Harvard College, Cambridge University Press] |doi=10.2307/3114686 |jstor=3114686 |s2cid=154458964}}</ref><ref>{{Citation |last=Lambi |first=Ivo N. |title=The Protectionist Interests of the German Iron and Steel Industry, 1873–1879 |date=March 1962 |journal=Journal of Economic History |volume=22 |issue=1 |pages=59–70 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |doi=10.1017/S0022050700102347 |jstor=2114256|s2cid=154067344 }}</ref>