ABSTRACT
Historians generally agree that Germany’s problems were related to the phenomenon of telescoped and asymmetrical modernization. Wilhelminian Germany was undergoing very rapid economic and technological development. In 1890 a little less than half of all Germans were still employed in agriculture. At the end of the decade, after the depression had run its course, an unprecedented industrial boom began; by 1914 only a third of the German workforce worked on the land. Drawn by the economic opportunities in industry, the population continued to move westward and from rural to urban areas. Between 1870 and 1914, 2 million Germans moved from the agricultural areas of East Elbia to settle in Berlin and the urban centers of western Germany.
