State and Civil Society in Prussia: Thoughts on a New Edition of Reinhart Koselleck's "Preussen

zwischen Reform und Revolution"

Author(s): Jonathan Sperber
Source: The Journal of Modern History, Vol. 57, No. 2 (Jun., 1985), pp. 278-296
Published by: The University of Chicago Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1877554
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Review Article
State and Civil Society in Prussia: Thoughts on a New
Edition of Reinhart Koselleck's Preussen zwischen
Reform und Revolution1
Jonathan Sperber
University of Missouri-Columbia

Reinhart Koselleck's Preussen zwischen Reform und Revolution spans two

periods of German historiography. The book's emphasis on the role of the

Prussian bureaucracy in promoting economic development and social
changetakes up, albeit in a novel and sophisticatedway, a themefirstproposed
in the classic accounts of Gustav Schmoller and Otto Hintze aroundthe turn
of the century, while its discussion of the social consequences of bureaucratic
action was one of the first examples of a renewed interest in the study of
social history in the Federal Republic of Germany. Since the work's first
publication in 1967, this interest has produced an ever-increasing body of
scholarly literature, and the appearanceof a thirdedition of Koselleck's book
in 1981, a remarkablefeat for a lengthy scholarly monograph, provides an
opportunity to compare his account with the conclusions of more recent
work.
Briefly stated-and such a statementcan hardly do justice to all the intricacies of a lengthy and complex study-Koselleck argues that the Prussian
bureaucracy,a socially homogeneousand intellectuallyclosely aligned group,
possessing through its collegial organization a strong sense of collective
identity, realized towardthe end of the eighteenth centurythat the continued
existence of the Prussian state required a series of deep-reaching reforms.
Prussia would have to adopt by peaceful means many of the violent accomplishments of the French Revolution: more liberal, self-governing political
institutions, a more flexible and open social structure,and a growth-oriented
capitalisteconomy. Following a not overly successful dry runin this direction,
dominated by the judicial bureaucracyand culminating in the Allgemeines
Landrechtof 1794, the crisis of the Prussianstate after its defeat at the hands
of Napoleon's armies in 1806 allowed reform-minded officials, this time
primarily from the administrativebureaucracy, to carry out their program.
1 Unless otherwise indicated, page references are to ReinhartKoselleck, Preussen
zwischen Reform und Revolution: Allgemeines Landrecht, Verwaltung und soziale
Bewegung von 1791 bis 1848, IndustrielleWelt: Schriftenreihedes Arbeitskreisesfur
moderne Sozialgeschichte, Band 7, 3d. ed. (Stuttgart:Klett-Cotta, 1981), pp. 739,
DM 88.

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State and Civil Society in Prussia

279

Yet the results of the subsequent Reform Era-and this is a key point in
Koselleck's work-showed the program's inherent contradictions. Socioeconomic modernization and liberalization-abolition of serfdom, noble
privilege, and feudal relations of productionin agriculture;the creation of a
free land market;the parallel creation of a free labor marketby the abolition
of compulsory guilds and of restrictions on the freedom of movement, settlement, andoccupation;encouragementof industrial-capitalistenterprisewere vigorously resisted by the existing corporatesocial bodies, the estates
(Stdnde). The nobility used the experimental representative institutions of
the Reform Era to demand a returnto serfdom, the urbanmaster artisans a
reinstatement of compulsory guilds. Seeing their socioeconomic program
threatenedby theirpolitical one, the reformingofficials decidedon the former's
priority, and after 1815, ratherthan grant a constitution and representative
parliamentaryinstitutions, they set themselves up as the representatives of
society. This "intraadministrativeconstitutionalism" (p. 264) was based on
the collegial organization of the administration,with its constant debate and
reexamination at different levels of proposed laws or decrees, allowing the
bureaucracyto articulate the interests of different social groups and guide a
still backward society on its journey toward modernity. The successful application of this program produced over several decades two new social
groups:a capitalistbourgeoisie, conscious of its economic influence,impatient
with bureaucratictutelage, the leading element in an emancipatoryliberalism,
and a propertyless proletariat, unprotectedby the abolished patriarchalrural
social order or the urbanguilds, ready for violent action. The opposition of
these two social groups, culminating in the revolution of 1848, broughtdown
rule-"The state of the administrative
the system of bureaucratic,authoritarian
bureaucracy succumbed to its own creation" (p. 587)-but the Prussian
constitution emerging from the revolution sanctioned the results of the bureaucracy's reform program.2
I feel a certain reluctance to criticize such an elegantly dialectical thesiswithin the book, Koselleck uses Hegel's ideas as a running commentaryon
his empirical research-but, allowing analytic interest to overcome aesthetic
reserve, I would suggest three ways in which the work can fruitfully be
considered. To start, it is an account of class formation, one which stresses
the role of the state in shaping social structures. The book is also a social
history of the Prussianbureaucracy,taking it up, as Koselleck notes (p. 16),
from Hans Rosenberg'sportrayalof the group'srise to power in the eighteenth
century, and examining it at the height of its power and influence. Finally,
the work can also be seen as an attemptto explain the uniquenatureof Prussia
among the various German states and, more broadly, among the European
2

Besideshis massivebook,Koselleckhasalsoprovideda shortsketchof his ideas,

"StaatundGesellschaftin Preussen1815-1848," in StaatundGesellschaftim deutschen

Vormdrz1815-1848, ed. WernerConze(Stuttgart,1962), pp. 79-112. Any serious

considerationof Koselleck'sworkmusttake into accountJurgenKocka'scritical
review of the 1st ed. of Preussen zwischenReformundRevolution,in Vierteljahrschrift
far Sozial- und Wirtschaftsgeschichte57 (1970): 121-25.

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280

Sperber

powers, emphasizing in its explanation the interrelationship between the

state and the economy.
I

Seemingly one of the strongest points in Koselleck's argumentconcerns the

relationshipof bureaucracyto capitalism, as the role of the state in promoting
economic development in Prussia, starting in the eighteenth century and
continuing onward, has long been regardedas empirically well proved. More
recent work, however, has cast the Prussian authorities' policies in quite a
differentlight, emphasizing the obstacles they placed in the way of economic
development. Senior bureaucratsopposed incorporationlaws and refused to
grantpermissionfor the formationof joint stock companies.Patentlegislation
was neglected, and credit policies designed to funnel money into agriculture
made mobilizationof capitalfor industrydifficult. State officials in the closely
regulated mining industryconsistently refused to allow innovations either in
miningmethodsor in the utilizationof the minedcoal andore. The authorities'
policies toward railroad construction, the leading sector of the Germanindustrialrevolution, was particularlyburdensome. Alone among the German
states, the Prussiangovernmentprovidedalmost no assistancefor the creation
of a railroadnetwork, and the authorities' skeptical and at times downright
hostile attitude toward dealing in railroad company shares -their procrastination over or refusal of requests for right-of-way-was no small obstacle
to the task of raising the unprecedentedamounts of capital needed to build
the railroads.3
The very officials responsible for these policies simultaneously attempted
to furtherthe growth of industry. They used state-owned establishments to
experimentwith new industrialtechniquesandofferedfinancial,administrative,
and technical assistance to newly founded businesses-policies closely associated with Peter ChristianBeuth, for decades director of the Division of
Tradeand Industry, and Christianvon Rother, presidentof the Seehandlung,
the Prussianstate bank. Such policies have often been described, but a certain
skepticism about their success seems in order. State foundries built steam
3 A convenient summary of the older scholarship is in William Henderson, The
State and the Industrial Revolution in Prussia, 1740-1870 (Liverpool, 1958). More
critical voices include RichardTilly, Financial Institutions and Industrialization in
the Rhineland 1815-1870 (Madison, Wis., 1966), and "The Political Economy of
Public Finance and the Industrializationof Prussia," Journal of Economic History 26
beim industriellen
(1966): 484-97; FriedrichZunkel, "Die Rolle der Bergbauburokratie
Ausbau des Ruhrgebietes, 1815-1848," in Sozialgeschichte Heute: Festschrift far
Hans Rosenberg zum 70. Geburtstag, ed. Hans-UlrichWehler(Gottingen, 1974), pp.
130-47; Dietrich Eichholtz, Junker und Bourgeoisie vor 1848 in der preussischen
Eisenbahngeschichte(EastBerlin, 1962);RainerFremdling,Eisenbahnenunddeutsches
Wirtschaftswachstum1840-1879 (Dortmund, 1975), esp. pp. 123-29; Paul Martin,
"Die Entstehungdes preussischen Aktiengesetzes von 1843," Vierteljahrschriftfiir
Sozial- und Wirtschaftsgeschichte56 (1969): 499-542; FrankTipton, Regional Variations in the EconomicDevelopmentof Germanyduring the NineteenthCentury(Middletown, Conn., 1976), pp. 68-72.

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State and Civil Society in Prussia

281

engines and locomotives to encourage private industrialists and show them

the proper techniques, but the steam engines produced no power and a locomotive ran for just twenty or thirty feet, and that only when workers pushed
and shoved it. Large sums were offered entrepreneurs to open factories: one
took the money and fled the country, while another proved a technical incompetent who went bankrupt several times. Elaborate plans were drawn up
for state-sponsored industrial exhibitions which opened without any exhibitors.
A Seehandlung steamboat service on the Elbe ran so slowly and erratically
that it ended up with a 700,000 Thaler deficit. Totally extraneous matters,
like a govemment wool warehouse, designed to rescue tenants on state domains
from the collapse of wool prices during the 1820s, were put on the budget
for the promotion of industry.4
Rather more successful were the Prussian govemment's industrial education
policies. Some 800 industrial technicians were trained before 1850 at the
Berlin Gewerbeinstitut (Industrial Institute), forerunner of today's Technische
Hochschule in West Berlin. Of course, this establishment was not uniquely
Prussian: The Technical Institute in Zurich and the Karlsruhe Polytechnic,
to name just two of the more important of such institutions in Central Europe,
also dated from the early years of the nineteenth century, and they, like their
Prussian counterpart, were created as imitations of the pioneering example
of technical education, the Paris Ecole Polytechnique, founded in 1795.5 The
success of the Prussian government's efforts in technical education and in
such related policies as financing trips abroad to gather information on the
latest industrial techniques may well have reflected not a state-sponsored
4 All these examples are from Ilja Mieck, Preussische Gewerbepolitik in Berlin
1806-1844 (West Berlin, 1965), pp. 63-67, 126-32, 141-49, 164-69, 180-81,
186-93. It is a testimony to the weight of scholarly stereotypes that Mieck, after
cataloging this long list of fiascos against a much smaller number of modest successes,
notes the growth of Berlin industry and attributes it to state assistance (p. 225ff.). A
more balanced judgment on these sorts of state policies can be found in the works of
the GDR historians Horst Blumberg ("Manufaktur, Staat und beginnende Industrialisierung in Deutschland," Jahrbuch far Wirtschaftsgeschichte, pt. 4 [1967], pp.
409-44) and Karl Larmer ("Maschinenbau in Preussen: Ein Beitrag zur Problematik
Staat und Industrielle Revolution," ibid., pt. 2 [1975], pp. 13-32).
5 Peter Lundgreen's Techniker in Preussen wdhrend der friuhen Industrialisierung
(West Berlin, 1975) is a detailed and insightful history of the origin and activities of
the Berlin Gewerbeinstitut and the careers of its students. In spite of its title, it is not
a history of engineers and industrial technicians in Prussia, because it has nothing to
say about the still undetermined number of those trained outside the Gewerbeinstitut
(a point made by Ulrich Troitzsch in his review of Lundgreen's book in Vierteljahrschrift
far Sozial- und Wirtschaftsgeschichte 64 [1977]: 243-45). For some very fragmentary
figures on the training of engineers, see Lars Ulrich Scholl, Ingenieure in der Fruhindustrialisierung: Staatliche und private Techniker im Konigreich Hannover und an
der Ruhr (1815-1873) (Gottingen, 1978), pp. 329, 363, 375, 393, 422. The lowerlevel and less successful Prussian provincial industrial schools are studied by Christiane
Schiersmann, Zur Sozialgeschichte der preussischen Provinzial-Gewerbeschulen im
19. Jahrhundert (Weinheim and Basel, 1979). On industrial education outside Prussia,
see Wolfram Fischer, Der Staat und die Anfdnge der Industrialisierung in Baden
1800-1850 (West Berlin, 1962), pp. 161-72.

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Sperber

creation of industry, but a cooperation of official institutions and already

existing capitalist enterprise. An importantpart of a student's education at
the Gewerbeinstitut
was a period spent gathering practical experience in a
cooperating factory, and government assistance for information-gathering
foreign travel encouraged entrepreneursto continue something they were
already doing on their own.6
Possibly the most importantcontributionof Prussianstatepolicy to fostering
economic growth, although still a surprisingly little-investigated one, was
the authorities' stubborninsistence on retaining freedom of occupation, residence, and mobility, an adherence to laissez-faire unmatchedby the other
Germanstatesbefore 1850. Abolitionof compulsoryguilds, while best known,
was probablynot the most significantaspectof this policy. Differinglegislation
seems to have had virtually no effect on the social andeconomic development
of the artisanate, and early industrial initiatives were almost exclusively in
textiles and metalworking, two trades that were largely nonguilded by the
eighteenth century. Rather, preservation of freedom of mobility gave early
industrial entrepreneursaccess to cheap labor, which could be attractedto
industrial centers in boom times and let go back to the countryside during
downturnsin the business cycle. Master-artisan-dominatedtown councils in
southern Germany, on the other hand, often exercised their legal power to
refuse residencepermitsto factoryworkers,fearingthat in slumpsthe workers
might become a burdenon municipal poor relief, and thus created problems
for industrialists seeking to staff their factories.7
In discussing the effects of state policies on industrializationit is easy to
forget the actual course of economic development in the first half of the
nineteenth century. Industrializationin this period was sporadic, tentative,
andregionallylimited:most of Prussia'ssteamengines, factories, andrailroads
were located in the two western provinces, the Rhine province and, to a
lesser extent, Westphalia. Capitalist industry in these -regions did not begin
with their complete incorporationinto the Prussian state in 1815 but dated
back to the mid-eighteenth century and had developed, albeit erratically, in
the intervening period, including especially the post- 1800 era of Napoleonic
rule. Given the backgroundto this key industrialarea, it is difficultto perceive
6
Lundgreen, pp. 156-65; Martin Schumacher,Auslandsreisen deutscher Unternehmer 1750-1871 unter besonderer Beriicksichtigungvon Rheinland und Westfalen
(Cologne, 1968).
7 Friedrich-WilhelmHenning, "Die Einfiihrungder Gewerbefreiheitund ihre Auswirkungen auf das Handwerk in Deutschland," in Handwerksgeschichte in neuer
Sicht, Wilhelm Abel et al. (Gottingen, 1970), pp. 142-72, shows that legislation
concerning the guilds had little influence on either the developmentof the artisanate
in differentpartsof Germanyor on the process of industrialization.JiirgenBergmann,
Das Berliner Handwerkin den Friihphasender Industrialisierung(WestBerlin, 1973),
pp. 45-54, offers a useful local study of how little influence abolition of compulsory
guilds had on the Berlin artisanate. Heilwig Schomerus, Die Arbeiter der MaschinenfabrikEsslingen (Stuttgart, 1977), pp. 103-5, discusses the difficulties strictly
enforced residence laws made for south Germanindustrialists,while Steve Hochstadt,
"Migration and Industrializationin Germany, 1815-1977," Social Science History
5 (1981): 445-68, points out the extraordinarypopulationfluctuationsin accordance
with the business cycle in the early industrialRhineland.

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State and Civil Society in Prussia

283

the growth of factory industry, a capitalist bourgeoisie, or an industrialproletariat in Prussia primarily as products of state initiative.8
Industrialization was not the dominant fact of the Prussian or German
economy before 1850. Factory workers and machine-made products were
still outnumbered by protoindustrial outworkers, nominally independent
nonguild artisanproducers, working underthe direction and de facto control
of merchant capitalists.9 This form of production was expanding from its
previous strongholds in textiles and metalworking and moving into such
previously guilded crafts as shoemaking, tailoring, and furniture making.
There were some 21,000 workers in the Berlin garment industry in 1849, a
tradeorganizedalong outworkinglines, threetimes as many as were employed
in machineand optical equipmentmanufacture,a centerof factoryproduction.
Both critics and defenders of the Prussian bureaucracy'seconomic policies
have focused their attention primarilyon the early factories, as they were to
be the dominant element in post-1850 developments, but to provide a more
complete picture of the bureaucracy'srelation to civil society in the firsthalf
of the nineteenth century more attention needs to be paid to protoindustry
and other forms of outworking. 0
8Tilly, Financial Institutions, pp. 15-16; Herbert Kische, "From Monopoly to
Laissez-Faire: The Early Growth of the WupperValley Textile Trades," Journal of
EuropeanEconomicHistory 1 (1972): 298-407; id., "GrowthDeterrentsof a Medieval
Heritage:The Aachen-AreaWoolensTradebefore 1790," Journalof EconomicHistory
24 (1964): 517-37; id., "The Impact of the French Revolution on the Lower Rhine
Textile Districts: Some Comments on Economic Development and Social Change,"
EconomicHistoryReview, 2d. ser., 15 (1962/63): 304-27; Max Barkhausen,"Staatliche
Wirtschaftslenkungund freies Unternehmertumim westdeutschen und im nord- und
siidniederliindischenRaum bei der Entstehungder neuzeitlichen Industrie," Vierteljahrschriftfiir Sozial- und Wirtschaftsgeschichte45 (1958): 168-241; Karl Heinrich
Kaufhold,Das Metallgewerbeder GrafschaftMarkim 18. undfriihen19. Jahrhundert
(Dortmund, 1976); id., Das Gewerbe in Preussen um 1800 (G6ttingen, 1978), p.
34ff. and passim. Parts of the Rhineland and Westphaliahad been Prussianterritory
underthe old regime, but there is no reasonto thinkthatFredericianeconomic policies
helped the industryof the region andplausible groundsto thinkit had negative effects.
Id., Metallgewerbe der GrafschaftMark, pp. 68-71; Gewerbe in Preussen, pp. 44749; HerbertKisch, Prussian Mercantilism and the Rise of the Krefeld Silk Industry:
Variations on an Eighteenth CenturyTheme(Philadelphia, 1968).
9 On the concept of protoindustry,PeterKriedte,HansMedick, JiirgenSchlumbohm,
Industrialisierungvor der Industrialisierung:GewerblicheWarenproduktion
auf dem
Lande in der Formationsperiodedes Kapitalismus(Gottingen, 1977) (now in English
as IndustrializationbeforeIndustrialization:RuralIndustryin the Genesisof Capitalism,
trans. Beate Schemp [Cambridge, 1982]). Kriedte et al. defended and elaboratedon
their views in "Die Proto-Industrialisierungauf dem PriifstandderhistorischenZunft:
Antwort auf einige Kritiker," Geschichte und Gesellschaft 9 (1983): 87-105. An
empirical regional study of the development of protoindustryis Wolfgang Mager,
"Protoindustrialisierungund agrarischheimgewerblicheVerflechtungin Ravensberg
wahrendder FruhenNeuzeit. Studienzu einer Gesellschaftsformationim Ubergang,"
Geschichte und Gesellschaft 8 (1982): 435-74. Koselleck's figures on the numberof
factory workersin Prussia in 1846 are exaggerated, as they include large numbersof
journeymenmillers and protoindustrialoutworkingspinners and weavers (p. 698).
10 Figures are from Otto Busch, "Das Gewerbein der Wirtschaftdes RaumesBerlin/
Brandenburg1800-1850," in Untersuchungenzur Geschichte der friihen Industrialisierungvornehmlichim Wirtschaftsraum
Berlin/Brandenburg,ed. OttoBusch(Berlin,
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Sperber

Gustav Schmoller's thesis of a state-directed development of industry in

Prussiaseems ever less convincingwith the progressof historicalinvestigation.
The thesis fits the firsthalf of the nineteenthcenturyespecially poorly, since
the development of factory industry was not the main economic trend, and
state efforts hampered such development that did occur as much as they
helped it. A comprehensive reinvestigation of the problem would involve
consideringthe strangeblendof pro-andanti-industrialpolicies, often espoused
by the same state officials. Did these reflect the conflicting pressures of
different economic interest groups-Rhineland capitalists and East Elbian
Junkers,for instance-or did they exemplify a conscious bureaucraticstrategy
whose goal, althoughcalled "industrialization,"might have been something
quite different from the industrialeconomy which emerged after 1850? The
relationshipbetween the motivationsof official policy, copiously documented
in the archives, and the effects of state action, often more obscure and hard
to analyze, also need to be considered, especially in the light of the actual
developmentof the economy in the firsthalf of the nineteenthcentury.Perhaps
it would be more helpful to stress the continuities with the years 1750-1800,
both in statepolicy andin economic development,thanto searchfor precursors
of post-1850 trends.11
II
Throughoutthe first half of the nineteenth century, agricultureremainedthe
most importantbranch of the Prussian economy: farm prices continued to
dominate economic cycles, most investment was placed in the land, and a
majorityof the populationcontinuedto earnits living there. Socially decisive
consequences of state action should be most apparentin the agrarianworld,
and the importance of the liberation of the peasantryfrom serfdom and the
relatedagrarianreformsfor futureeconomic, social, andpoliticaldevelopments
long have been recognized. In spite of the enormousliteratureon the Prussian
agrarianreforms, perfectly clear answers have not emerged to such crucial
questions as the state of agriculturebefore the reforms, the motives of the
authoritiesin planningthe reforms, the attitudesof lords andpeasantstoward
them, the way they were carried out, and their effects on agriculturalproductivity and the distribution of rural property. Published sources are con-

1971), pp. 4-105; on outworking, see Bergmann(n. 6 above), pp. 280-91; further
information on outworking can be expected from Friedrich Lenger's forthcoming
Dusseldorf dissertation on the Dusseldorf artisanatein the nineteenth century. On
general trends in the first half of the nineteenth century, Karl Heinrich Kaufhold,
"Handwerkund Industrie 1800-1850," in Handbuchder deutschen Wirtschafts-und
Sozialgeschichte, ed. HermannAubin and Wolfgang Zorn, 2 vols. (Stuttgart, 197176), 2:321-68.
" Different interpretationsof official policies are discussed by JiirgenKocka in his
illuminatingessay, "PreussischerStaat und Modernisierungim Vormarz:Marxistischleninistische Interpretationenund ihre Probleme," in Sozialgeschichte Heute, ed.
Hans-UlrichWehler (Gbttingen, 1974), pp. 211-27.

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State and Civil Society in Prussia

285

tradictory or unreliable; unpublished ones are not always easily accessible

to historians from Western countries.12
Besides empirical problems, there areconceptual ones, for termslike "liberation of the peasantry" or "agrarianreforms" cover a variety of social and
economic changes: (1) the liberation of the peasants from their feudal obligations, whether in cash, kind, or labor services, and the compensationpaid
the lords for this in money or land; (2) the division of the common lands and
the cultivationof formerwasteland;(3) the consolidationof formerlyparcelized
agriculturalproperty;(4) the introductionof new crops and methods of cultivation and stock raising. These developments overlapped and influenced
each other, but did not occur simultaneously. Separating out the strandsof
causality is a difficult task.
It does seem that rising agriculturalprices in the late eighteenth century
led to experiments in East Elbian Prussiawith more productiveforms of crop
rotation, the cultivation of root crops, improvedstock breeding, and the stall
feeding of animals. Still far from determined are both the extent of these
new practices and the identity of the rural social groups employing them.
However widespread this new market-oriented,labor-intensive agriculture
may have been, its furtherexpansion was limited by the collective natureof
three-field agriculture and the feudal relations of production-that is, the
lord's obligation to provide his serfs with their own farms and the latter's
extensive labor-services,which took up an enormousportionof theireconomic
resources.13
The changes initiated by the agrarianreforms, begun in 1807 after some
preliminaryinitiatives and largely completed in PrussianEast Elbia (except
for Silesia) by the 1830s, created a more favorable environmentfor capitalist
12
East German historians have, with apparentjustification, accused the Prussian
authorities of manipulatingofficial statistics to minimize the extent of peasant land
loss. HartmutHarnisch,"StatistischeUntersuchungenzum Verlaufder kapitalistischen
Agrarreformenin den preussischen Ostprovinzen (1811 bis 1865)," Jahrbuchfiur
Wirtschaftsgeschichte,pt. 4 (1974), pp. 149-82. Contradictionsin the official statistics
are pointed out by Robert Dickler, "Organization and Change in Productivity in
EasternPrussia," in European Peasants and Their Markets, ed. William Parkerand
EricJones (Princeton,N.J., 1975), pp. 269-92. The recentattemptof HannaSchissler,
PreussischeAgrargesellschaftim Wandel(Gottingen,1978), to offera syntheticaccount
of the Prussian agrarianreforms runs into problems precisely because the authorhad
to rely on unclear secondary literatureand published sources.
13 A leading studentof eighteenth-centuryEast Elbian agricultureis Hans-Heinrich
Muller (see his Markische Landwirtschaftvor der Agrarreform in 1807: Entwicklungstendenzendes Ackerbauesin der zweitenHdlfte des 18. Jahrhunderts[Potsdam,
1967], and among his many articles, "Das Bodennutzungssystemund die Separation
in Brandenburgvor den Agrarreformenin 1807," JahrbuchfiirWirtschaftsgeschichte,
pt. 3 [1965], pp. 82-126; "Entwicklungstendenzender Viehzucht in Brandenburg
vor den Agrarreformenvon 1807," ibid., pt. 2 [1966], pp. 137-89; and "Bauern,
Piichterund Adel im alten Preussen," ibid., pt. 1 [1966], pp. 259-77). Schissler, pp.
59-74, provides a summaryof the literatureon eighteenth-centuryEast Elbian agriculture. On the (overwhelming) extent of feudal burdens on the peasantry, there is
the importantstudy of Friedrich-WilhelmHenning, Dienste undAbgabender Bauern
im 18. Jahrhundert(Stuttgart, 1969).

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agricultureas serf labor was abolished, the commons divided, ruralproperty

in partdeparcelized,and collective cultivationended. However, these changes
included a majorredistributionof ruralproperty:Junkerlandownersreceived
sizable amounts of land from the peasantry as compensation for abolished
feudal obligations. Largerpeasants' holdings declined slightly, in numbers
as well as land owned, but peasants were in partcompensatedfor their losses
to the nobility by gains from the division of the commons. And the number
of both landless laborers and smallholders possessing plots insufficient to
support a family, and thus dependent on income from working for estate
owners and larger peasants, increased sharply. Capitalist agriculture had
triumphedand agriculturaloutputgrew, althoughit is still debatablewhether
this increase reflected a growth in productivity or just in the area under
cultivation, but this triumphwas also one of the landed nobility. 14
FromStein's OctoberEdict of 1807 to the supplementaryprovincialdecrees
of the 1820s and 1830s, the bureaucracyvigorously pursued these reforms
against the embitteredopposition of noble landowners. Given the favorable
outcomes of the reforms for the landed nobility, it seems worth pondering
how this result came about. Did the authorities, in planning and executing
the reforms, intend to strengthenthe position of the large landowners?And
if they did, why were the nobles so hostile to measures taken in their behalf?
Koselleck's insistencethatChancellorHardenbergandhis leadingcoworkers
saw the introduction of a capitalist economic order in the countryside as a
basic necessity for the survival of the state has recently been supportedin
an impressiveessay by BarbaraVogel.15Yet supportingprocapitalistagrarian
reform-abolition of feudal obligations, division of the commons, consolidation of parceled property-did not necessarily imply supportingpolicies
in favor of noble large landowners. There were officials who saw peasant
farmers as the most efficient producers;even some who did not agree with
this estimation looked to reforms as a way of improving peasant productivity
14
The two best-known studies of rural propertyredistributionin the wake of the
reforms, GunterIpsen, "Die preussische Bauernbefreiungals Landesausbau"(ZeitschriftfiirAgrargeschichteundAgrarsoziologie2 [1954]: 29-54) andDietrichSaalfeld,
"ZurFrage des biuerlichen Landesverlustesim Zusammenhangmit der preussischen
Agrarreform"(ibid., 9 [1963]: 163-71), the former rathermore sanguine than the
latteraboutthe effects on the peasantry,have been supersededby Harnisch.A detailed
regional study can be found in Rudolf Berthold, "Der sozial6konomische Differenzierungsprozess der Bauernwirtschaftin der Provinz Brandenburgwahrend der industriellen Revolution (1816 bis 1878/82)," Jahrbuchfiir Wirtschaftsgeschichte,pt.
2 (1974), pp. 13-50. All this subsequent research has fully confirmed Koselleck's
account of the transformationof East Elbian rural society (p. 487ff.) and it remains
one of the most impressiveaspectsof his book. Schissler, pp. 153-59, offers a summary
of researchresults on the growth of agriculturaloutput.
15 BarbaraVogel, "Die 'allgemeine Gewerbefreiheit' als biirokratischeModernisierungsstrategiein Preussen," in Industrielle Gesellschaft und politisches System,
ed. Dirk Stegmann, Bernd-JiirgenWendt, and Peter-ChristianWitt (Bonn, 1978), pp.
59-78. See also her introductoryessay, "Die preussischen Reformenals Gegenstand
undProblemder Forschung,"in Preussische Reformen1807-1820, ed. BarbaraVogel
(K6nigstein, 1980), pp. 1-27.

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State and Civil Society in Prussia

287

and strengthening the peasantry's position on the land. Internaldifferences

within the bureaucracy, of which the exact nature is not well understood,
combined with actions of the nobility to create the specific outcome of the
Prussian agrarianreforms.16
The attitude of the landowning Junkers toward the agrarianreforms has
long been understoodas purelynegative and reactionary,a stubborninsistence
on the retention of feudal-patriarchalinstitutions, and a denunciationof bureaucraticreformefforts as the resultof a conspiracyof Jews and subversives.
However, the East GermanhistorianKlaus Vetter has shown thatthe nobility
of the Mark Brandenburgwas by no means hostile to the economic reform
program. Most nobles were quite willing to free their serfs, provided they
received the maximum possible compensation. To secure their economic
positionin the transitionto capitalistproductiverelations,they bitterlyopposed
any attempts to weaken their political position, successfully maintaining
their patrimonialjudicial and police powers, as well as their control over the
office of the Landrat. The gendarmerie edict of 1812, which would have
placed the countryside under the direct control of the central Berlin bureaucracy, remaineda deadletter.17 Brandenburgnobleshad, in the Berlinconsumer
market, a major incentive to engage in capitalist agriculture. It remains to
be seen how typical was their position among the East Elbian Junkers-the
Silesian nobility, by contrast, stubbornly clung to their feudal rights until
the revolution of 1848-but the attitudes and activities of the Brandenburg
nobilityprovidean importantclue to understandingthe outcomeof the Prussian
agrarianreforms.18
A look at the agrarianreforms elsewhere in Germanymay help elucidate
features of the Prussian development. Unlike their Prussian counterparts,
eighteenth-century West Elbian nobles (as well as most of the nobility of
East Elbian Saxony) were a rentier class, receiving cash and kind payments
from their peasants rather than running their own large estates with serf
16 A
striking example of a propeasantofficial is providedby Bogdan Wachowniak,
"Die Entwicklung der LandwirtschaftHinterprommernsin den Reiseberichten des
RegierungsratesHaese aus den Jahren 1835 und 1837," Jahrbuchfulr Wirtschaftsgeschichte, pt. 4 (1977), pp. 127-37. See also Schissler, pp. 115-23, although her
attributionof differencesof opinionwithin the reformbureaucracyto personalrivalries,
intrigue, and confusion seems insufficient.
17 Klaus Vetter, KurmdrkischerAdel undpreussische Reformen(Weimer, 1979); a
summaryof the conventional view of the nobility is in Schissler, pp. 123-30. One
Brandenburgnobleman, Friedrich August Ludwig von der Marwitz, was such an
uncompromisingopponent of the agrarianreforms that a frustratedChancellor Hardenberghad him imprisonedin a fortress. Von der Marwitz's papers, published by a
descendant, have become a prime source for historians studying noble attitudes (see
JeromeBlum, The End of the Old Order in Rural Europe [Princeton,N.J., 1978], p.
401, where he appearsas the spokesmanof the entire Prussiannobility), but as Vetter
can show from unpublished sources, von der Marwitz's extreme attitudes were not
sharedby the majority of his fellow BrandenburgJunkers.
18 On the situation in Silesia, see HelmutBleiber, ZwischenReformundRevolution:
Lage und K2mpfeder schlesischen Bauern undLandarbeiterim Vormarz1840-1847
(East Berlin, 1960).

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Sperber

labor. Such a group had little interest in the dissolution of feudal obligations:
lacking both their own large estates and easy access to urbanmarkets, either
domestic or in WesternEurope, they had no incentive to engage in capitalist
agriculture. Consequently, the agrarianreforms in Saxony, Bavaria, Baden,
and the NapoleonicGrandDuchy of Berg andKingdomof WestWiurttemberg,
phalia were carried out slowly and reluctantly. Attempts by reform-minded
bureaucratsto abolish feudal obligations were quickly halted, both by the
hostility of the nobles and by official reluctance to underminethe economic
position of the nobility. Whetherabolishing or preservingfeudal obligations,
encouraging or hindering market agriculture, agrarianreform in almost all
of Germany was shaped by the interests and influence of the landowning
nobility and usually occurred to the disadvantage of the peasantry.19
More than in industry, the Prussian bureaucracyplayed a leading role in
the creation of capitalist productive relations in agriculture, initiating the
agrarianreforms and determiningtheir legal forms. The social andeconomic
content of the reforms, in Prussia as well as elsewhere in Germany, was
decided less by bureaucraticinitiative than by the power and influence of the
affected social groups. Even when they wanted to-and at least sometimes
they did not-officials were unableto protectpeasantinterests in the process
of providingcompensationfor abolished feudal obligations. Peasantinterests
were best protected by peasant actions, and the rustic uprisings of 1830 in
Saxony or 1848 in Wurttembergbroke a legal and administrativeparalysis,
leading to the redemptionof feudal obligations on terms relatively favorable
to the peasantry.20
Although there were repeated agrariandisorders in some parts of Prussia,
the absence of a widespread rural uprising meant that the Prussian agrarian
reform was shaped by the interaction of bureaucraticintentions and noble
interests. Researchers have concentratedon portrayingthe effects of these
interactions on the decision-making process at the ministerial level, and
19On agrarianreforms outside of Prussia, see the monographicstudies of Reiner
Gross,Die burgerlicheAgrarreformin Sachsenin der erstenHalftedes 19. Jahrhunderts
(Weimar, 1968); Friederike Hausmann, Die Agrarpolitik der Regierung Montgelas
(Frankfurtam Main, 1975); Wolfgangvon Hippel, Die Bauernbefreiungim Konigreich
Wurttemberg,2 vols. (Boppard, 1977); HelmutBerding, Napoleonische Herrschaftsund Gesellschaftspolitik im Konigreich Westfalen(Gottingen, 1973), esp. p. 76ff.;
and Elisabeth Fehrenbach,Traditionelle Gesellschaft und revolutionaresRecht: Die
Einfuhrungder Code Napoleon in den Rheinbundstaaten(Gottingen, 1974), esp. p.
79ff. The contrast between the Prussian and West Elbian agrarianreforms is well
broughtout in id., "Verfassungs- und sozialpolitische Reformenund Reformprojekte
in Deutschlandunterdem Einflussdes napoleonischenFrankreichs,"Historische Zeitschrift 228 (1979): 288-316. Christof Dipper, Die Bauernbefreiungin Deutschland
1790-1850 (Stuttgart, 1980), is a useful synthesis of much recent work which points
out the need for furtherstudy of the relationship among liberation from feudal obligations, other agrarianreforms (division of the commons, deparcelization), and the
development of agriculturalproductivityoutside of East Elbian Prussia.
20 See the works of von Hippel and Gross cited in the previous note. The two earliest
and most radical agrarianreforms in Germany, those in Schleswig-Holstein and on
the left bankof the Rhine, carriedout undervery differentpolitical auspices and from
equally different socioeconomic startingpoints, have still not been well studied.

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State and Civil Society in Prussia

289

although much remains to be learned there, it might also be useful to see

how these centrally determined policies were executed. The Generalkommissionen, special state agencies which fixed compensation rates for feudal
obligations and directed the division of the commons and the consolidation
of parcelized property, have yet to find their historian, and a study of their
activities might well provide a new insight into the extent and natureof the
bureaucracy's role in reshaping rural society.21
III
More than his account of the bureaucracy'sinfluence on social andeconomic
developments, Koselleck's discussion of its political role has been subject
to critical scrutiny.One importantobject of criticismhas been his explanation
of the Prussian central authorities' refusal to grant a promised constitution
in the decade after 1815. HerbertObenaus has shown that it was not liberal
officials motivated by fear of a possible dismantling of their socioeconomic
reform program who sabotaged a constitution, but a reactionary group of
nobles and senior bureaucratswho enjoyed the king's confidence and saw
their restorationist political programas a means of increasing the power of
the Stdnde and limiting the effects of liberal social and economic reform.
Obenaus has also cast doubt on the notion of an intra-administrativeconstitutionalism by pointing out that the reactionaryclique was able to set up a
special commission-the Immediatkommissionfur die stindischen Angelegenheiten-which, as its name implies, reported directly to the king and
simply ignored all the memorandaand proposals in favor of a constitution
and representativeassembly so carefully gatheredby the liberal authorities.
Like other versions of constitutionalism existing in Prussia later in the nineteenth century, intra-administrativeconstitutionalism was a pseudoconstitutionalism, in politically decisive questions limited by the final authorityof
a monarchpromptedby his aristocratic close advisers.22
As was noted above, developments in Prussia's western provinces fit Koselleck's thesis poorly, andthis is especially trueof constitutionalquestions.
From 1815 onward, a considerable body of middle-class public opinion in
the Rhineland-representing merchantsand industrialistsas well as lawyers
and notaries, experts in the still legally valid Napoleonic Code, and rentier
purchasers of church property secularized in the revolutionary era-was
stronglyin favorof both a constitutionwith statewiderepresentativeinstitutions
anda liberalsocial andeconomic system. The Rhinelanders'wishes, expressed
21 Koselleckhas some suggestivecommentson these institutions,esp. pp. 493-

98.

22

HerbertObenaus, review of Koselleck's Preussen zwischen undRevolution, Got-

fur
tingischeGelehrteAnzeigen222 (1970):55-67, and"Die Immediatkommission
derPreussischen
Reaktion
imVormarz,"
diestandischen
alsInstrument
Angelegenheiten
Festschriftifur Hermann H,eimpel,ed. Mitarbeiterdes Max-Planck-Institutsfur Ge-

Obenaus's
schichte,3 vols. (Gottingen,1971), 1:410-46. Koselleckacknowledged
criticismsin the prefaceto the 2d ed. of his book, whichappearsas an unpaginated
in the 3d ed.
introduction
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Sperber

in newspapers, magazines, and a lively pamphlet literature, were often, if

not always, supportedby the provincial authorities, but with the triumphof
reaction in the 1820s, the whole political debate was stifled by imposition
of a rigid censorship. Rhinelandliberalism, by the 1840s the leading element
in the liberal movement in Prussia, was, like the Rhineland capitalism with
which it was closely connected, an outgrowthof the development of regional
society, not the productof bureaucraticinitiative. Although elements within
the bureaucracy were sometimes allied with their movement, must of the
impetus of the Rhinelanders' liberalism, from its very beginnings in 181520, stemmedfromits effortsto defendthe area'spoliticalinstitutions,products
of the French revolutionary and Napoleonic rule, against the Prussian authorities' attempts to abolish them.23
The workingsof anotherRhinelandinstitutioncall into question the picture
of a bureaucracyarticulatingthe interests of society. Rhinelandbusinessmen
could, throughtheir chambersof commerce, collectively voice their opinions
and deal with the authorities and were thus in no way dependenton the latter
to express their interests. Whereas the Rhineland chambers of commerce
were a legacy of the Napoleonic era, the Prussian reformers had created a
similar institution in the Merchants' Corporationsof Berlin and other large
East Elbian cities. These latter seem to have taken a less aggressive stance
toward the authorities during the Vormarz, but it is unclear whether this
reflected a greaterrespect for the authorities' ability to representcapitalists'
interests than was present in the Rhineland, or simply the lesser willingness
of the East Elbian officials to listen to the opinions of businessmen.24
In some ways Koselleck's picture of a bureaucraticallyled civil society is
less appropriateto Prussia than to the south German states Bavaria, Wiirttemberg, Baden, Hessen-Darmstadt,and Hessen-Kassel. South Germanbureaucracies were more likely to be a closed, self-recruiting group than their
Prussian counterparts,and the effects of this greater internal cohesion were
23
On Rhinelandpolitics, see the importantworkof Karl-GeorgFaber,Die Rheinlande
zwischen Restauration und Revolution (Wiesbaden, 1966), esp. pp. 110-304. The
morerecentstudy of RudigerSchutz, Preussen unddie Rheinlande:StudienzurpreussischenIntegrationspolitikim Vormdrz(Wiesbaden,1979), addslittle to Faber'saccount.
Koselleck's argumentthat western industrialists' demandsfor protective tariffs were
comparableto demandsfor a reinstatementof serfdom or compulsoryguilds andhence
an additional reason for liberal bureaucratsto oppose a constitution in the 1820s (p.
323) is unconvincing,especially as the bureaucracyitself was then coming to recognize
the economic importanceof protectivetariffs.TakeoOhnishi,ZolltarifpolitikPreussens
bis zur Grundungdes deutschen Zollvereins (Gottingen, 1973), p. 229.
24 Jeffry Diefendorf, Businessmen and Politics in the Rhineland 1789-1834
(Princeton,N.J., 1980), pp. 289-333; HartmutKaelble,BerlinerUnternehmerwahrend
derfruhen Industrialisierung(Berlin, 1972), pp. 197-216, 236-78. Kaelble argues,
supportingKoselleck's thesis, that until the 1840s Berlin businessmen accepted the
authorities'claim to speak on their behalf, but his own account shows the Merchants'
Corporationoffering suggestions on economic questions anddoubtingthe authorities'
competence in this area as early as the 1820s (p. 253ff.). It would be interesting to
know more about the Merchants' Corporationsin Magdeburg, Stettin, Breslau, or
Konigsberg (see Eichholtz [n. 3 above], pp. 27-29).

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State and Civil Society in Prussia

291

complemented by the different social structures existing in southern and

southwesternGermany. Neither the numerousindustrialbourgeois of Rhineland-Westphalia nor the affluent merchant class of Berlin and other large
East Elbian cities could be found there. While the south Germannobles were
certainly accomplished frondeurswho fought tenaciously to retaintheir privileges, they lacked both the economic influence provided by the Prussian
Junkers' large estates and the latter's monopoly of political power at the
local level in the countryside. Smallholding peasants and small-town master
artisans, major features of the southern and southwestern German social
landscape, were able to resist or sabotage bureaucraticinitiatives but could
not offer an alternative social policy.25
Officials played a major role in the political life of the region, leading in
the 1820s and 1830s both progovernmentaland oppositional groups. Baden,
the Germanstatemost famedfor its liberalbureaucracy,seems to fit Koselleck's
political schema best. Measurestakenby the administrativeauthoritiesduring
the 1820s and 1830s to encourage the growth of an independentbourgeoisie
resultedby the 1840s in the creationof an antibureaucratic,
liberalopposition.26
Administrative efforts to shape social and economic developments took
differentpolitical forms in southernGermanyfromthose in Prussia.Organized
along bureaucratic-hierarchicallines, south Germanstate administrationsdid
not engage in the same internaldebates as characterizedthe collegial Prussian
bureaucracy.They did, however, possess anotherpolitical arenalacking in
Prussia, namely, statewide parliaments, a majorityof whose deputies during
the Vormdrzwere usually state officials. A statewide parliamentand constitution outlining its powers was seen in southernGermanyas a complement
to a reorganized bureaucracy, a means of increasing its influence, and a
weaponagainstparticularistandstdndischinterests.AlthoughPrussianofficials
did not have to worry about obtaining voter approvalfor their actions, they
25 On society and economy in southernand southwesternGermanyin the first half
of the nineteenth century, Mack Walker, German Home Towns: Community,State,
and General Estate 1684-1871 (Ithaca, N.Y., 1971), pp. 185-353; Heinz Gollwitzer,
Die Standesherren(Gottingen, 1964) (a study of a largely, but not exclusively, south
German noble group); Wolfgang von Hippel, "Bev6lkerungsentwicklungund Wirtschaftsstrukturim K6nigreich Wurttemberg1815/65," in Soziale Bewegung undpolitische Verfassung, ed. Ulrich Engelhardt,Volker Sellen, and Horst Stuke (Stuttgart,
1976), pp. 270-371; ManfredBulik, Staat und Gesellschaft im hessischen Vormdrz
(CologneandVienna, 1972), pp. 18-42 (disappointing);Fischer(n. 5 above);Wolfgang
Zorn, "Gesellschaft und Staat in Bayern des Vormairz,"in Staat und Gesellschaft,
ed. WernerConze (Stuttgart, 1962), pp. 113-42. Statistics on the social origins of
state officials are not easy to come by, but compare the over 80 percent of pre-1850
Badenese higher officials who were sons of state officials with the fewer than 50
percent of their Prussian counterparts. Figures from Loyd E. Lee, The Politics of
Harmony:Civil Service, Liberalismand Social Reformin Baden 1800-1850 (Newark,
Del., 1980), p. 251; John Gillis, The Prussian Bureaucracy in Crisis, 1840-1860
(Stanford, Calif., 1971), p. 26. On the origins of the south Germanbureaucracyas a
social group, there is the detailed work of Bernd Wunder,Privilegierung und Disziplinierung: Die Entstehungdes Berufsbeamtentumsin Bayern und Wurttemberg(1780
bis 1815) (Munich and Vienna, 1978).
26 Lee.

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Sperber

also lacked the support of potential allies from civil society provided by a
parliamentarysystem and found it more difficult to avoid becoming the tools
of a reactionary-aristocratic
clique dominatingthe highestlevels of government.
Neither south German nor Prussian officials could, in the end, do much
againstnoble privileges andinfluence,but they directedtheireffortsin opposite
directions. In Prussia, the authoritieswere sometimes able to dissolve feudal
and seigneurial relations in agriculture but could do nothing to shake the
nobles' hold on local government, while in southern Germany, the state
authoritieswere sometimesvictoriousin theircountlessbattleswith the nobility
for local political power in the countryside, but had enormous difficulties
before 1848 in arranging for the redemption of feudal obligations. South
German officials, although theoretically in favor of laissez-faire, hesitated
to engage in a broadside attack against guild privileges or residence and
marriagerestrictions, so threateningto the numerousclass of masterartisans.
Prussianofficials simply decreedlaissez-faireand the mastercraftsmenlacked
both the numbers and the political influence to reverse this decision.27
Just as forms of bureaucraticrule differed in the Germanstates during the
Vormdrz, so did the nature of oppositional liberalism. Opposition to bureaucratictutelagein political life was a majorfeatureof at least one important
strandof south Germanliberalism, but such opposition was frequentlycombined with a hostility towardor at least suspicionof laissez-faireand industrial
capitalism, both regarded as socially retrograde products of bureaucratic
interference with the naturalworkings of society. Rhenish and Westphalian
liberalism, althoughequally hostile to bureaucraticpolitical domination, saw
its negative socioeconomic effects precisely in its actions against the natural
order of laissez-faire capitalism.28It certainly seems ironic that the south
Germanbureaucrats,so carefulandgradualin theirapproachto guild privileges
and restrictions on freedom of movement and settlement, should have been
denounced as rabidly procapitalist while their Prussian counterparts, who
gave the guilds short shrift, were condemned for their hostility to business
interests. These varying forms of antibureaucraticliberalism, however, reflected the more autonomousposition of the bureaucracyin Vormdrzsouthern
27 This comparisonis based on the importantessay of Fehrenbach,"Verfassungsund sozialpolitische Reformen."
28
James Sheehan, "Liberalism and Society in Germany, 1815-48," Journal of
ModernHistory 45 (1973): 583-604; id., "Partei, Volk and Staat: Some Reflections
on the Relationshipbetween Liberal Thoughtand Action in the Vormarz," in SozialgeschichteHeute, ed. Hans-UlrichWehler(Gottingen, 1974), pp. 162-74; id., German
Liberalism in the NineteenthCentury(Chicago, 1978), pp. 19-50; LotharGall, "Liberalismusund 'burgerlicheGesellschaft': Zu Charakterund Entwicklungder liberalen
Bewegungin Deutschland,"HistorischeZeitschrift220 (1975): 324-56; HelmutSedatis,
Liberalismus und Handwerk in Sudwestdeutschland(Stuttgart, 1979), pp. 9-118.
Muchof this recentworkwas anticipatedin the remarkableandstill not fully appreciated
study of LeonardKrieger, The GermanIdea of Freedom (Chicago, 1957), pp. 280325. The perception of liberalism as exclusively a laissez-faire movement of the
capitalistbourgeoisiefound in TheodoreHamerow,Restoration,Revolution,Reaction:
Economics and Politics in Germany1815-1871 (Princeton, N.J., 1958), pp. 63-64,
seems insufficient to grasp the complexities of Vormarzpolitics and society.

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State and Civil Society in Prussia

293

Germany than it possessed in Prussia. Even the modest steps taken toward
occupational freedom by the south Germanauthoritiesappearedshocking in
a social environmentlargely lackingin capitalistentrepreneurs,while RhenishWestphalianliberals opposed the Prussian authorities because their actions
seemed to discriminateagainst business interests, notjust out of bureaucratic
arbitrariness,but for the profitof anothersocial group-namely, East Elbian
large landowners.
By the 1840s, liberalismin Prussiawas by no meansrestrictedto its western
provinces, but had strongholds in Berlin, Silesia, and East Prussia as well.
It would be of interest to ascertain whether these liberals held a "RhenishWestphalian" or "south German" opinion of the relationshipbetween state
andsociety, or whethera thirdanddifferentpatternprevailed.An investigation
of this question might help to elucidate furtherthe political role played by
the Prussian bureaucracy.
IV
The general tenor of much recent research has been to break many of the
links suggested by Koselleck: those between bureaucraticintention or organization and bureaucraticaction, between such action and socioeconomic
or political change, or between the development of the Prussian state and
the growth of a capitalist social and economic order. I make no pretensions
of being able to reforge these broken links in a new alignment, but I would
like to conclude by discussing some avenues of currentresearchwhich have
the potential for leading to a new understandingof the interaction between
state and civil society in Prussia and Germany during the first half of the
nineteenth century.
One possibility involves a reorientation of historical periodization. The
firsthalf of the nineteenth century is often studied as a precursorto the social
and economic forms of the second, with historians straining, for instance,
to analyze every early form of factory industry. In doing so, they often
neglect the continuities with the preceding fifty years: the breakdown of
precapitalistforms of productionand theirreplacementnot by factoryindustry
but by outworking, an increasingly proletarianizedartisanate,a commercial
agriculture,anda growingrurallowerclass. Theseprocessesplayedthemselves
out against a very different political backgroundbetween 1800 and 1850,
however, from thatof 1750-1800. In such a context, the bureaucraticpolitical
initiatives of the first decades of the nineteenth century may be seen as an
interventionin an ongoingprocessof social changeratherthanas the origination
of a new socioeconomic order. Such a perspective, if not necessarily this
particularperiodization, is a familiar one in English history, given its post1688 political continuity, but it has been applied to the study of the French
Revolution as well, suggesting its application to the history of the German
response to that event.29
29 This pointof view, implicitin theAnnalesschoolcritiqueof the Marxistinterpretationof theFrenchrevolution(e.g., FrangoisFuret,"Lecatechismerevolutionnaire,"AnnalesESC26 [1971]:255-89; or EmmanuelLe Roy Ladurie,"Revoltes

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Moving from temporal to spatial orientation, the importanceof region in

the study of early nineteenth-centuryGermanymight also be fruitfully considered. Given the still considerable limitations on transportation,communications, and the market, as well as the very different historical experiences
of the areasunitedin a largeGermanstatelike Prussia,a statewidebureaucratic
initiative could producewidely varyingresults.30Studies of provincial social
structureor of regionalelites, a staple of Frenchhistoriography,are desiderata
for Prussia and elsewhere in Germany.31
Related to regional particularityis the question of ethnic and confessional
differences. Koselleck explicitly excluded a study of these differences from
his book, quite justifiably seeking to set limits on an alreadymassive work,
but conflicts between Protestantsand Catholics, Germansand Poles, or over
the emancipationof the Jews were not just separatepolitical questions. They
intersectedwith othersocial issues in ways relevantto the relationshipbetween
stateadministrationandsociety. Accordingto HartmutKaelble, half of Berlin's
early industrialentrepreneurswere Jews. Perhapsthis group's relatively deferent attitude toward the state authoritiesdid not stem from economic backwardness but from their cultural isolation and inferior legal position. The
disproportionatelyProtestantclass of industrialistsin the predominantlyRoman
Catholic Rhineland and Westphaliamay also have had noneconomic reasons
for cooperating with the bureaucracy.32Confessional and ethnic differences
also seem to have played a role in the administrationof the agrarianreforms,
et contestationsruralesen Francede 1675 a 1788," ibid. 29 [1974]: 6-22), is explicitly
stated but not systematically explored by Pierre Goubert, L'Ancien Re'gime,2 vols.
(Paris, 1969-73), 1:23-26; 2:242-52. A fascinating pioneering venturein the explorationof breaksandcontinuities across the revolutionarydivide is William H. Sewell,
Jr., Workand Revolution in France: The Language of Laborfrom the Old Regime to
1848 (Cambridge,Mass., 1980). For a similar perspective from a Marxistviewpoint,
E. P. Thompson, "The Peculiarities of the English," in The Poverty of Theory and
Other Essays (New York, 1978), pp. 245-301, esp. p. 257. Some of the essays in
HelmutBerdingand Hans-PeterUllmann, eds., DeutschlandzwischenRevolutionund
Restauration (Konigstein, 1981), suggest the possibilities of such an approachfor
Germanhistory; the remarkablemonographof Heinz Reif, WestfalischerAdel 17701860: Von Herrschaftsstandzu regionaler Elite (Gottingen, 1979), shows just how
fruitful it can be.
30 Koselleck raises this questionin his introduction(p. 18) but a specificallyregional
perspective gets lost in the body of his work. His discussion of the strength of the
liberal movement during the 1840s in the Rhineland, Silesia, and East Prussia, in a
section entitled "revoltof the peripheralprovinces"(p. 366ff.), attributesthis strength,
somewhat mysteriously, to the success of the bureaucracyin creating an integrated
state administration.
31 To mention, virtually at random, a few Frenchstudies: MauriceAgulhon, La vie
sociale en Provence interieure au lendemain de la re'volution(Paris, 1970); Alain
Corbin, Archaisme et modernite'en Limousin au XIXe siecle 1845-1880, 2 vols.
(Paris, 1975); or Andre Tudesq, Les grands notables en France 1840-1849, 2 vols.
(Paris, 1964). Reif's work on the Westphaliannobility (n. 29 above) is a fine example
of such a study for Germany;otherregions and elites, the East Elbianlandednobility,
for instance, call out for emulation.
32 Kaelble, p. 79; FriedrichZunkel, Der rheinisch-westfalischeUnternehmer18151879 (Cologne and Opladen, 1962), pp. 29-33.

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State and Civil Society in Prussia

295

as bureaucraticoppositionto noble landownersandconcernfor peasantinterests

were apparentlymost pronounced in dealings with the Catholic nobility of
Westphalia and the Polish nobility of Poznan.33
While Hegel's notion of the bureaucracyas "universalestate" (allgemeiner
Stand) may have accurately described bureaucraticself-perception, it is not
a particularlyhelpful characterizationof this group's actual social position.
Two contrasting alternativesto this notion have been applied to the study of
Germanstate officials. One viewpoint has been to describe the bureaucracy
as a social class, an autonomous element in the ruling elite whose actions
are directed toward increasing its own power, and to describe the claim to
act in the generalinterestas an ideological veil for groupself-aggrandizement.
Conversely, the bureaucracycan be seen as an instrumentat the disposal of
ruling groups (or one fought over by opposing elites) and the administrative
reforms of the early nineteenth century as leading not to the consolidation
of a socially independent bureaucratic class but to the creation of a new
instrumentthrough which the absolute monarchand traditionalnoble elites
could rule more effectively. JiirgenKocka has comparedthese two viewpoints
in considering actions of the Prussian bureaucracywhich hamperedindustrialization. Both East German Marxist-Leninist and liberal American historians, he points out, have regarded suph policies as proof that the state
apparatuswas controlledby antibourgeoisEast ElbianJunkers,but he suggests
they should be understoodas expressions of a bureaucraticstriving for social
power, a desire by the authorities to keep the pace and nature of industrial
development undercontrol. Although certainly quite differentin intent, these
two explanations are not necessarily mutually exclusive, since the political
and social position of officialdom may have differed in different German
states with different social structuresor in the same state at different points
in its social and political development.34
A study of the bureaucracyin action might provide a way of testing these
theses, or at least of specifying them more concretely. Although there is a
large literatureon the activities of the state administration,most of it consists,
in effect, of transcriptionsof interoffice memos preserved in the archives, a
singularly unimaginative recapitulationof official correspondence, with no
attempt made to pose any critical questions of the sources. Two welcome
exceptions to this trend are Alf Luidtke'sstudy of VormdrzPrussian police
policy and Werner Blessing's account of state and church in nineteenthcentury Bavaria. While Blessing presents Bavarianofficialdom as an autonomous group and an important agent of social change, Liidtke's Prussian
bureaucratsact to preserve noble privilege against bourgeois challenge and
Reif, pp. 383-91, 561 n. 74; Koselleck,p. 543.
Staatund
In termsof the worksconsideredin this essay, Kocka("Preussischer
Vogel, andLee arguefor the firstapproach,whileWunder,FehModernisierung"),
renbach("Verfassungs-und sozialpolitischeReformen"),Obenaus("Die Immediatkommission"),
Gall,Tilly(Financial Institutions), andEichholtztakethesecond.
a relativelyautonomous
Gillis (n. 25 above)suggeststhatthe Prussianbureaucracy,
in thehands
rulinggroupin the 1840s, developedby the 1860sintoa pliantinstrument
of the monarchyandreactionary
agrarianinterests.
33
34

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296

Sperber

to protect all propertiedgroups against the unrulylower classes, the general

social interests the authoritiesimagine they are serving turningout on closer
examination to be those of the possessors of property and privilege. Both
authorsdevelop explicit and detailed theoretical frameworks-Ludtke's derived from French structuralistMarxism, Blessing's from a variantof modernization theory-which at times threatento overwhelm the results of their
empirical research, but both works offer importantinsights into bureaucratic
action and have the virtue of discussing institutions, the churchin Blessing's
case, the army in Liudtke's,not often considered in this context.35
An additionalvirtueof Ludtke'swork is his explicit comparisonof Prussian
policies with those of England and France, although regrettably not with
other German states. The reader may well be weary by now of historians'
constantcalls for comparativestudies, but the relationshipbetween state and
society is an area particularly well suited to this, and possibilities abound
for discovering unexpectedparallels or significant differences.36A less practiced form of comparison, applying the method used by historians of one
country to study a similar topic in another, is also worthy of consideration.
Frenchhistorians in studying state officialdom have emphasizedthe analysis
of bureaucraticcareer patterns, the everyday life of the administration,and
the forms of interactionbetween state servantsand society- all issues which
could profitablybe consideredfor Germany;conversely, the Germanemphasis
on the bureaucracyas a separate social group and a leading element of civil
society could be usefully applied to the study of French history.37
In all these avenues of investigation the questions posed by ReinhartKoselleck about the relationship between state and civil society or the role of
the bureaucracyin the creation of a capitalist socioeconomic and political
order remain dominant considerations. It is rare to find a book which can
synthesize the results of a long historiographicaltraditionyet also provide a
point of departurefor new work. Even if at times it provokesdifferentanswers,
this ability to set the questions is a measure of the lasting importance of
Preussen zwischen Reform und Revolution.
StaatlicheGewaltPolizeiund "Festungspraxis":
35 Alf Ludtke,"Gemeinwohl,"
samkeitund innereVerwaltungin Preussen1815-1850 (Gottingen,1982);Werner
Autoritatundmentaler
Blessing,StaatundKirchein derGesellschaft:Institutionelle
Wandelin Bayernwdhrenddes 19. Jahrhunderts
(Gottingen,1982).
36 Richardson'sdescriptionof the Restorationsubprefect-a provincialnoble, chosen
with the advice of large landowners,"as much local figuresas governmentofficials"sounds suspiciously like the Prussian Landrat (Nicholas Richardson, The French
Prefectoral Corps, 1814-1830 [Cambridge, 1966], esp. pp. 92-93, 127-28).
37 Among examples of work on Frenchbureaucracy,see Guy Thuillier,Bureaucratie

et Bureaucrates
en FranceauXIXesiecle (Geneva,1980);CliveChurch,Revolution
andRedTape:TheFrenchMinisterial
Bureaucracy
1770-1850(Oxford,1981);Bernard
Le Clere and Vincent Wright, Les Pre'fetsdu Second Empire (Paris, 1973). German
historians seeking cross-national comparisonshave often turnedto England, but for
the first half of the nineteenth century, comparisons with France, a country whose
socioeconomic and political structures were then much closer to Germany's than
England's were, might prove more fruitful.

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