ABSTRACT

In a number of counties and in many Catholic villages in Greater Swabia, the liberals even succeeded in preserving a relative majority until the end of the First World War. This chapter describes the characteristics of the popular-liberal subculture in Greater Swabia and its stages of development from the 1860s to the beginning of the 1930s. In contrast, most towns and villages in Greater Swabia had a tradition of self- administration which was contrary to the political culture of some areas to the north of Greater Swabia which, from the seventeenth century, were under a centralized government, whether a regional ruler or the Habsburg emperor. In the 1860s, cultural strategies were forged which typified the radical-liberal subculture in the area until the eve of the First World War. The economic infrastructure provided strong support for economic liberalism, which in turn provided a basis for popular liberalism. The economic structure of Greater Swabia was unique in south Germany.