ABSTRACT
The agrarian question was one of the most decisive economic, social and political issues confronting the Prusso-German state before the First World War. This chapter examines the contribution of the German agrarian complex to an unusual political situation: before 1914, the increasingly organized capitalist system had not called forth any considerable peasant movement with revolutionary or even progressive political goals and programmes. The inability of estate-owners east of the Elbe to adjust to long-term economic changes contrasts sharply with their capacity to defend their status though political channels. The Social Democratic Party also took no steps to mobilize peasant and smallholding supporters, thereby forfeiting a chance to split the united agrarian front under east Elbian leadership. The agrarians toyed with the idea of economic councils and organizations defined by professions, a policy they advocated more often than the industrialists, and they opposed all democratization and parliamentarization. These tendencies provide clear indications of what could be called German proto-fascism.
