ABSTRACT
At the beginning of the 1860s, many Vereine were formed for social purposes in Greater Swabia. This chapter examines the functioning of the bourgeois Vereine during the great economic crisis in Germany and tries to relate it to the success of the Nazi Party. Many of the Vereine adopted anti-clerical expressions, a tradition that went back to the earliest days of the Kulturkampf. Even after the Kulturkampf came to an end in the late 1870s, hostility towards political Catholicism continued to smoulder, in some places as late as the 1930s. Many of the Vereine adopted anti-clerical expressions, a tradition that went back to the earliest days of the Kulturkampf. The social profile of the Vereine changed. Primary school teachers are a good example of a social group that, until the 1880s, refrained or was prevented from joining the prestigious Vereine. The constituency of national liberalism changed without its leaders being aware of it.
