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Junker (Prussia)

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This article is about the informal term for the noble class in modern Prussian history. For the noble honorific, see Junker. For other uses, see Junker (disambiguation).

photo of von Hindenburg seated
Paul von Hindenburg was born into a wealthy Junker family.

The Junkers (/ˈjʊŋkər/ YUUNG-kər; German: [ˈjʊŋkɐ]) were members of the landed nobility in Prussia. They owned great estates that were maintained and worked by peasants with few rights.‍[1] These estates often lay in the countryside outside of major cities or towns. They were an important factor in Prussian and, after 1871, German military, political and diplomatic leadership. One of the most famous Junkers was Chancellor Otto von Bismarck.‍[2] Bismarck held power in Germany from 1871 to 1890 as Chancellor of the German Empire; his resignation was forced by Kaiser Wilhelm II.‍[3]

Many Junkers lived in the eastern provinces that were annexed by either Poland or the Soviet Union after World War II. Junkers fled or were expelled alongside other German-speaking populations by the incoming Polish and Soviet administrations, and their lands were confiscated. In western and southern Germany, the land was often owned by small independent farmers or a mixture of small farmers and estate owners, and this system was often contrasted with the dominance of the large estate owners of the east. Before World War II, the dividing line was often drawn at the river Elbe, which was also roughly the western boundary of Slavic settlement by the Wends in the so-called Germania Slavica prior to Ostsiedlung. The term for the Junker-dominated East was thus Ostelbien, or 'East Elbia'. They played a prominent role in repressing the liberal movement in Germany, and were often described as reactionary.

Origins

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Further information: Junker

Junker is derived from Middle High German Juncherre, meaning 'young nobleman'‍[4] or otherwise 'young lord' (a derivation from jung and Herr), and originally was the title of members of the higher edelfrei (immediate) nobility without or before the accolade. It evolved to a general denotation of a young or lesser noble, often poor and politically insignificant, understood as "country squire" (cf. Martin Luther's disguise as "Junker Jörg" at the Wartburg; he would later mock King Henry VIII of England as "Juncker Heintz"‍[5]). As part of the nobility, many Junker families only had prepositions such as von or zu before their family names without further ranks. The abbreviation of the title is Jkr., most often placed before the given name and titles, for example: Jkr. Heinrich von Hohenberg. The female equivalent Junkfrau (Jkfr.) was used only sporadically. In some cases, the honorific Jkr. was also used for Freiherren (barons) and Grafen (counts).

A good number of poorer Junkers took up careers as soldiers (Fahnenjunker), mercenaries, and officials (Hofjunker [de], Kammerjunker) at the court of territorial princes. These families were mostly part of the German medieval Uradel and had carried on the colonisation and Christianisation of the northeastern European territories during the Ostsiedlung. Over the centuries, they had become influential commanders and landowners, especially in the lands east of the Elbe in the Kingdom of Prussia.‍[6]

As landed aristocrats, the Junkers owned most of the arable land in Prussia. Being the bulwark of the ruling House of Hohenzollern, the Junkers controlled the Prussian Army, leading in political influence and social status, and owning immense estates worked by tenants. These were located especially in the north-eastern half of Germany (i.e. the Prussian provinces of Brandenburg, Pomerania, Silesia, West Prussia, East Prussia, and Posen). This was in contrast to the predominantly Catholic southern states such as the Kingdom of Bavaria or the Grand Duchy of Baden, where land was owned by small farms, or the mixed agriculture of the western states like the Grand Duchy of Hesse or even the Prussian Rhine and Westphalian provinces.‍[7]

Junkers formed a tightly-knit elite. Their challenge was how to retain their dominance in an emerging modern state with a growing middle and working class.

German and Prussian Empires

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Supporting monarchism and militaristic traditions, Junkers were seen as reactionary, anti-democratic, and protectionist by liberals and socialists, as they had sided with the conservative and monarchist forces during the German revolutions of 1848–1849. Their political interests were served by the German Conservative Party in the Reichstag and the extraparliamentary Agriculturists' League (Bund der Landwirte). This political class held tremendous power over industrial classes and government alike, especially through the Prussian three-class franchise. When German chancellor Leo von Caprivi in the 1890s reduced protective duties on imports of grain, these landed magnates demanded and obtained his dismissal; and in 1902, they brought about a restoration of these higher duties on foodstuffs.

The Junkers held a virtual monopoly on all agriculture in the part of the German Reich lying east of the River Elbe. Since the Junker estates were necessarily inherited by the eldest son alone, younger sons, all well-educated and with a sense of noble ancestry, turned to the civil and military services, and dominated all higher civil offices, as well as the officer corps. Around 1900 they modernised their farming operations to increase productivity. They sold off less-productive land, invested more heavily in new breeds of cattle and pigs, used new fertilisers, increased grain production, and improved productivity per worker. Their political influence achieved the imposition of high tariffs that reduced competition from imported grain and meat.‍[8]

Since the dawn of German Liberalism there had been a desire to see the Junkers abolished. Figures such as Friedrich Naumann and Max Weber believed the middle class and the proletariat would unite to abolish the Junkers and revered Britain as a model of this process.[9]

Weimar Republic

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The Junkers believed that their existence was inherently linked to the existence of the German Monarchy and so they viewed the November Revolution as a crushing defeat. One Junker, Elard von Oldenburg-Januschau testified that "I felt a world was collapsing and burying under its ruins everything that had been the content of my life". And while the trappings and terminology changed after the revolution, the basic existence of the Junkers remained mostly unchanged in the Weimar Republic: the structure of German agriculture didn't change and the Junkers received large government subsidies to survive.[9]

During the Weimar era 41 percent of Prussian land belonged to estates of more than 200 hectares, while 1,155 landlords owned over 1,000 hectares each. Although only a fourth were owned by those with titles of nobility, the typical Junker managed to maintain conditions much as they had been in the german Empire. Junkers’ political position however was threatened after 1918. The German Conservative Party which had worked to defend the interests of big agriculture, gave way to the new German National People's Party (DNVP), a party that openly supported the middle class and was not dominated by Junkers.

In response to these threats the Junkers worked to maintain their dominance of the German countryside. Groups like the Stahlhelm and the Pan-German League were viewed as the political protectors of the Junkers in the new republic. In 1921 two Junker lobbying groups united to form the Reichslandbund ("Agricultural League").[9]

As the 1920s progressed the economic position of the Junkers continuously worsened, high tariffs on the import of rye and wheat helped somewhat but where not sufficient.[9] A policy known as Osthilfe ("Eastern Aid") granted Junkers 500 million Reichsmarks in subsidies (equivalent to €1.97 billion in 2021; US$2.3 billion‍[10]) to help pay for certain debts and to improve equipment.[11]

Junkers continued to demand and receive more and more subsidies, which increased their wealth, resulting in increased political power by maintaining control over political offices. Junkers exploited a monopoly on grain by storing it to drive up the price.[11] By controlling political offices, Junkers were able to influence politicians to create a law that prohibited collecting of debts from agrarians, thus pocketing even more money and strengthening their power.[11]

During the end of the Weimar Republic the Junkers were not the primary force supporting the Nazis, East Elbia agriculture was very divided when the Nazis rose to power and many Junkers were distressed at the Nazis rise. While the Junkers were anti-republican few supported the Nazis; the Monarchist resurgence they sought had little in common with the Nazi's anti-monarchist leanings. But the Junker's political power was undercut by DNVP chairman Alfred Hugenberg, by the Great Depression, which drove many German peasants and agricultural laborers to support the Nazis, and by Nazi infiltration of the Agricultural League.[9]

Nazi Rule

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The Junkers lobbying for a nationalization of agriculture was finally achieved under the Nazis, but their previous efforts sped this process along greatly. The Junkers, by fighting for their economic and political existence helped contribute to the rise of the Nazis and their own extinction, finally fulfilling the desires of the German Left .[9]

Many World War II field marshals were also members of the Junkers, most notably Gerd von Rundstedt, Fedor von Bock, and Erich von Manstein. Many Junkersm used forced labourers from Poland and the Soviet Union.‍[12] However, Helmuth James Graf von Moltke formed the Kreisau Circle as part of the resistance to Nazi rule, and as World War II turned against Nazi Germany, several senior Junkers in the Wehrmacht participated in Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg's 20 July plot. Fifty-eight of them either were executed when the plot failed,[13] among them Erwin von Witzleben and Heinrich Graf von Lehndorff-Steinort, or committed suicide like Henning von Tresckow. During the advance of the Red Army in the closing months of the war, and subsequently, most Junkers had to flee from the eastern territories that were turned over to the re-established Republic of Poland with the implementation of the Oder–Neisse line according to the Potsdam Agreement.

Modern History

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photo of plow sculpture
1985 Bodenreform memorial in Wolfshagen, Uckermark

After World War II, during the communist Bodenreform  [de] (land reform) of September 1945 in the Soviet Occupation Zone, later East Germany, all private property exceeding an area of 100 hectares (250 acres) was expropriated, and then predominantly allocated to 'New Farmers' on condition that they continued farming them. As most of these large estates, especially in Brandenburg and Western Pomerania, had belonged to Junkers, the Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED) promoted their plans with East German President Wilhelm Pieck's slogan Junkerland in Bauernhand! ('Junker land into farmer's hand!').‍[14] The former owners were accused of war crimes and involvement in the Nazi regime by the Soviet Military Administration and the SED, with many of them being arrested, brutally beaten and interned in NKVD special camps (Speziallager), while their property was plundered and the manor houses demolished. Some were executed. Many women were raped.‍[15] From 1952 these individual farms were pressured by a variety of means to join together as collectives and incorporated into Landwirtschaftliche Produktionsgenossenschaften ('agricultural production comradeships', LPG) or nationalised as Volkseigene Güter ('publicly owned estates', VEG).‍[citation needed]

After German reunification, some Junkers tried to regain their former estates through civil lawsuits, but the German courts have upheld the land reforms and rebuffed claims to full compensation, confirming the legal validity of the terms within the Treaty on the Final Settlement with Respect to Germany (Two Plus Four Agreement) (and incorporated into the Basic Law of the Federal Republic), by which expropriations of land under Soviet occupation were irreversible. The last decisive case was the unsuccessful lawsuit of Prince Ernst August of Hanover in September 2006, when the Federal Administrative Court decided that the prince had no right to compensation for the disseized estates of the House of Hanover around Blankenburg Castle in Saxony-Anhalt. Other families, however, have quietly purchased or leased back their ancestral homes from the current owners‍[16] (often the German federal government in its role as trustee). A petition for official rehabilitation of the ousted landowners was rejected by the German Bundestag in 2008.‍[citation needed]

Reputation

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black-and-white photo of manor house
Rittergut Neudeck, East Prussia (today Ogrodzieniec, Poland), presented to German President Paul von Hindenburg in 1928

During World War I, Irish nationalist MP Tom Kettle compared the Anglo-Irish landlord class to the Prussian Junkers, saying, "England goes to fight for liberty in Europe and for junkerdom in Ireland."‍[17]

It was said that "if Prussia ruled Germany, the Junkers ruled Prussia, and through it the Empire itself".‍[18] "Junker" acquired its current and often pejorative sense during the 19th-century disputes over the domestic policies of the German Empire.‍[19] The term was used by sociologists such as Max Weber and was even adopted by members of the landed class themselves. Chancellor Otto von Bismarck was a noted Junker, though his family hailed from the Altmark region west of the Elbe. The term was also applied to Reich President Paul von Hindenburg, lord of Neudeck in West Prussia, and to the "camarilla" around him urging the appointment of Adolf Hitler as Chancellor of Germany—personified by men like von Hindenburg's son Oskar and his West Prussian "neighbour" Elard von Oldenburg-Janushau who played central roles in the Osthilfeskandal of 1932/33.

Notable Junkers

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See also

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  • Baltic Germans – Ethnic Germans of Latvia and Estonia
  • Gentry – People of high social class, in particular of the land-owning social class
  • German nobility – Status groups of the medieval society in Central Europe
  • East Elbia – Historical region of Germany
  • Jonkheer, the Dutch cognate and rough equivalent
  • Junker Party, 19th-century Swedish political movement

References

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Notes

  1. ^ Alan J. P. Taylor (2001). The Course of German History: a survey of the development of German history since 1815. Routledge. p. 20. ISBN 9780415255585.
  2. ^ Francis Ludwig Carsten, A History of the Prussian Junkers (1989).
  3. ^ Jonathan, Steinberg (2011). Bismarck a Life. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-978252-9.
  4. ^ Duden; Meaning of Junker, in German. [1]
  5. ^ Henry VIII: September 1540, 26–30', Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, Henry VIII, Volume 16: 1540–1541 (1898), p. 51. URL: http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=76214 Date accessed: 10 June 2012
  6. ^ William W. Hagen, Ordinary Prussians – Brandenburg Junkers and Villagers, 1500–1840 (Cambridge University Press, 2007)
  7. ^ Hagen, Ordinary Prussians – Brandenburg Junkers and Villagers, 1500–1840 (2007)
  8. ^ Torp, 2010)
  9. ^ a b c d e f Vincent, C. Paul (1992). A Historical Dictionary of Germany's Weimar Republic 1918-1933. Greenwood Press. pp. 236–237. ISBN 0313273766.
  10. ^ 1500 to 1850: Ulrich Pfister, 2010. "Consumer prices and wages in Germany, 1500 - 1850," CQE Working Papers 1510, Center for Quantitative Economics (CQE), University of Münster. 1851-1882: Coos Santing, 2007, Inflation 1800-2000, data from OECD, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, Economic Outlook. Historical Statistics and Mitchell, B. R. International Historical Statistics, Africa, Asia and Oceania 1750-1993 London : Macmillan ; New York : Stockton, 1998, International Historical Statistics, Europe 1750-1993 London : Macmillan ; New York : Stockton, 1998, and International Historical Statistics, The Americas 1750-1993 London : Macmillan ; New York : Stockton, 1998. After 1883, German inflation numbers based on data available from the Deutsches Statistisches Bundesamt archive and GENESIS database.
  11. ^ a b c "Heilig". history.hanover.edu. Retrieved 29 October 2018.
  12. ^ Naimark, Norman M. (1995). The Russians in Germany: A History of the Soviet Zone of Occupation, 1945–1949. Cambridge: Belknap Press. p. 145.
  13. ^ MacDonogh, p. 204
  14. ^ Naimark, Norman M. (1995). The Russians in Germany: A History of the Soviet Zone of Occupation, 1945–1949. Cambridge: Belknap Press. p. 143.
  15. ^ Naimark, Norman M. (1995). The Russians in Germany: A History of the Soviet Zone of Occupation, 1945–1949. Cambridge: Belknap Press. p. 86.
  16. ^ Boyes, Roger (26 January 2011). "The Prussians are coming". Retrieved 29 September 2013. Last year [in] the east German state of Brandenburg... I came across half a dozen members of the Prussian diaspora—their parents had fled the communists in 1945 and settled in West Germany—who had become wealthy (an eye surgeon, a gallery owner, a banker) and returned to buy back and restore their crumbling ancestral homes.
  17. ^ Tim Cross (1988), The Lost Voices of World War I, p. 42.
  18. ^ Frederic Austin Ogg, The Governments of Europe (1920), p. 681
  19. ^ Scott, H.M., ed. (2007). The European Nobilities in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries. Vol. 2. UK: Basingstoke. pp. 118–119.

Bibliography

  • Anderson, Margaret Lavinia. "Voter, Junker, Landrat, Priest: The Old Authorities and the New Franchise in Imperial Germany," American Historical Review (1993) 98#5 pp. 1448–1474 in JSTOR
  • Carsten, Francis Ludwig. A history of the Prussian Junkers (1989).
  • Hagen, William W. Ordinary Prussians – Brandenburg Junkers and Villagers, 1500–1840 (Cambridge University Press, 2007)
  • MacDonogh, Giles, After the Reich, Basic Books, (2007) ISBN 0-465-00337-0.
  • Ogg, Frederick Austin, The Governments of Europe, MacMillan Company, 1920.
  • Ogg, Frederic Austin. Economic Development of Modern Europe, Chap. IX (bibliography, pp. 210–211).
  • Stienberg, Jonathan. Bismarck a Life, Oxford University Press, 2011
  • Torp, Cornelius. "The "Coalition of 'Rye and Iron'" under the Pressure of Globalization: A Reinterpretation of Germany's Political Economy before 1914," Central European History (2010) 43#3 pp 401–427
  • Weber, Max. "National Character and the Junkers," in From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology (Routledge classics in sociology) (1991)[2]
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