ABSTRACT
A few owned the bulk of the wealth and alone possessed power. The monarch was a person set apart with special powers, rights and duties. Aristocratic power depended greatly on possession of most of the wealth. The Jehu-like speed of industrialization helped drive German traditional society to destruction. Factories supplanted domestic industries. Steam power outmoded sailing ships. Industrialization showered many benefits on Germans. Besides international power, prestige and wealth, it brought a general rise in the standard of living, as was revealingly indicated by the increased consumption of sugar and textiles and meat. Gentry and pastor had little hold over the slum-dweller, and civil servants emasculated the power of the clergyman as they took over his non-clerical functions. After the accession of Adolf Hitler to power, the moral void in so many, including working men, was to prove poisonous—literally so to millions of exterminated Jews and Slavs.
