ABSTRACT
Between the 1860s – the period of the birth of popular liberalism in the region – and the beginning of the 1930s, with the ascendancy of dogmatic National Socialism, five stages in the development of the radical-popular liberal subculture in south Germany may be discerned. In the 1860s and 1870s, south German popular liberalism had been fuelled chiefly by anti-clericalism and the emerging German nationhood. Another outstanding feature of popular liberalism in south Germany at that period was the establishment of liberal Vereine representing the National Liberal Party and/or the leftist liberals. On the eve of the First World War, there were elements in south German popular liberalism which emphasized its radical nature. The phenomenon of a mutual relationship and partnership between popular liberalism and the peasants' protest organizations is reflected in the careers of liberal activists working in the peasants' organizations or still working in the liberal associations.
