ABSTRACT
By the beginning of the twentieth century social differentiation had become very marked in the Magdeburg ‘black-earth’ region.1 The rich soil and the district’s close proximity to major market centres, notably Magdeburg itself, had stimulated the middle and larger farmers to specialise in sugar beet production, while those with too little land to profit from this development had been gradually impoverished. In 1900, 70 per cent of the farms had become so small that they accounted for only 6 per cent of the cultivated land in the area. By contrast, while the capitalist agricultural enterprises made up only 7 per cent of the total number of farms, they had expanded to cover no less than 70 per cent of the district’s cultivated land. Some of the biggest landowners of the district could be found among the names listed in the Handbook o f German Millionaires. The average size of landholdings was: the largest estates, 323 hectares; large peasant-farmers, 40 hectares; middle peasant-farmers, 10.4 hectares; and small peasant-farmers, 3.4 hectares. Those with land of 0.5 hectares were increasingly forced to work in the factories in the nearby towns, especially in Magdeburg, and left the cultivation of the land to their wives.
