ABSTRACT
The German working class knew little of this kind of experience. At the onset of industrialisation in the early part of the nineteenth century, the pauperised section of the population probably formed a smaller part of the population than in Britain. If on the eve of the events of 1848 the German working class was entering a period of transition from an estate society to a class society so was the attitude of its middle class. When the workers’ movement came alive again in the 1860s it did so within a frame of reference of renewed discussion and political manoeuvring towards German unification. The main characteristic of German industrialisation and of the social developments so closely associated with it was its relative lateness, conditioned in part by the fact that the country’s progress to nationhood had been retarded in comparison with other major nationalities in Europe.
