ABSTRACT
'Initially, almost all local self-governance bore the stamp of exclusivity', wrote political scientist and jurist Hugo Preuss in the book Die Entwicklung des deutschen Städtewesens in 1906, 'but the expansion of the base is inextricably bound to the maturity of self-governance, lest it topple. In the years around 1900, it became clear that the municipalities had obligations that stretched far beyond local economic administration and which were more general by nature. There had long been criticism of the property owners' influence in municipal politics in Berlin and Prussia's other major towns, but it had not led to any change in the town ordinance. According to established liberal criteria, to be a fully adequate urban citizen, politically speaking one needed a certain level of refinement and in addition economic independence. Some way into the twentieth century, it was still difficult to speak of true political parties in Berlin City Council.
