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Urbanization, Industrialization, and Crime in Imperial Germany: Part II**

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 January 2016

Vincent E. McHale  and
Eric A. Johnson
Vincent E. McHale
Affiliation:
Case Western Reserve University
Eric A. Johnson
Affiliation:
Central Michigan University
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Extract

In Part I of this study, our focus was on the bases of crime in Imperial Germany during the 1880s—the “take-off” stage of German industrial development. In Part II, we will extend the time dimension of our analysis to include the period of growth between the 1880s and 1914, and we will also broaden the scope of the issues and explanatory variables to be considered.

In many ways, German society in the decades prior to the outbreak of World War I represents an excellent historical context for a study of the impact of urban-industrial development on crime. The German criminologist Aschaffenburg notes: “The last twenty years [1885-1905] of German criminality are especially suitable for such an analysis, because no transfiguring upheavals have taken place; the years having been marked by a great economic and cultural advance.” German society during this time enjoyed a period of international peace unknown since the years between 1815 and 1848. This period of relative tranquility allows the scholar a chance to analyze the problem of crime in its relations to socioeconomic conditions without having to control for the serious disturbing factors induced by war. La belle époque, as this period has been referred to by contemporary historians, also graced Germany with a respite from the bellicose domestic turmoil that it suffered in the past century. The movement for national unification had finally been completed, and the struggle for social reform had changed from the vitriolic confrontations of the watershed years of 1830 and 1848 to a peaceful and evolutionary, if no less manifest, nature.

Type
Research Article
Information
Social Science History , Volume 1 , Issue 2 , Winter 1977 , pp. 210 - 247
Copyright
copyright © Social Science History Association 1977 

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Footnotes

**

This research is part of a larger project dealing with the social and political effects of developmental change in Western Europe. Portions of the data and analysis have been drawn from our paper, “Urbanization, Industrialization and Crime in nineteenth-century Germany,” presented at the 1975 Annual Meeting of the American Historical Association, Atlanta, Georgia. We wish to thank all those who commented on the paper during its various stages of evolution, in particular Erwin K. Scheuch of the Institute of Applied Social Research, University of Cologne; and Marvin Wolfgang, Director of the Center for Studies in Criminology and Criminal Law at the University of Pennsylvania.

References

Notes

1 Aschaffenburg, Gustav, Crime and its Repression, trans. Adalbert Albrecht (Boston, 1913), 102Google Scholar.

2 For comparative figures, see Köllman, Wolfgang, “The Population of Germany in the Age of Industrialization,” in Muller, Herbert, ed., Population Movements in Modern European History (New York, 1965), 100-08Google Scholar.

3 Ibid. Migrations in Germany can be divided into two distinct periods. The first lasted until the 1880s and was characterized by the prevalence of short-distance movements and the attraction of nearby towns. The period after 1890 represents the era of long distance migrations all over Germany, particularly along the east-west axis.

4 Comparative data for this period can be found in the annual series, Static tisches Jahrbuch für den Preussischen Stoat.

5 Köllman, , “The Population of Germany in the Age of Industrialization,” 105Google Scholar.

6 The origins of organized socialism in Central Europe can be traced back to the German Workingman’s Society founded by Lasalle in 1863.

7 Sheehan cautions that fluctuations in the crime rate may simply reflect changes in the efficiency of the recording system, not changes in the actual rate of criminal activity. While it is difficult to know for certain, there is no evidence that the data used in this study have been distorted in this fashion. See Sheehan, James J., “Quantification in the Study of Modern German Social and Political History,” in Lorwin, Val R. and Price, Jacob M., eds., The Dimensions of the Past (New Haven, 1972), 301-31Google Scholar.

8 The extent to which increases in crime were the work of a distinct criminal class in nineteenth-century society has been the subject of considerable debate. See Gatrell, V.A.C. and Hadden, T.B, “Criminal Statistics and their Interpretation,” in Wrigley, E.A., ed., Nineteenth Century Society (Cambridge, 1972), 381-83Google Scholar.

9 Ibid., 367-69.

10 Tobias has argued that crime is not the result of want or economic hardship, and that fluctuations in economic conditions had little effect on the crime rate in nineteenth-century England. See Tobias, J.J., Crime and Industrial Society in the 19th-century (New York, 1967), 150-52Google Scholar.

11 For early German studies which attempted to establish links between economic conditions and crime, see: Fuld, L., Der Einfluss der Lebensmittelpreise auf die Bewegung der Sozialethik (Mainz, 1881)Google Scholar; Mayr, Georg von, Moralstatistik mit Einschluss der Kriminalstatistik (Tubingen, 1917)Google Scholar; Renger, Eswald, Kriminalität: Preis und Lohn (Leipzig, 1933)Google Scholar; Starke, W., Verbrechen und Verbrecher in Preussen 1854-1878 (Berlin, 1884)Google Scholar; and Valentini, H. von, Das Verbrecherthum im preussischen Stoat (Leipzig, 1869)Google Scholar.

12 Even though several scholars have noted a positive relationship between fluctuations in certain economic indicators and the rate of criminality in society, critics, such as Dorothy S. Thomas, argue that such relationships are spurious, and are the result of a misuse of the data. The examples given by Thomas are less than convincing. The issue is whether or not time series can be related theoretically. See Thomas, Dorothy S., Social Aspects of the Business Cycle (New York, 1927)Google Scholar.

13 This periodization in German history is quite standard. For its application in contemporary German historical research, see: Kocka, Jurgen, Untemehmensver-waltung und Angestellenschaft 1847-1914 (Stuttgart, 1969)Google Scholar; and Rosenberg, Hans, Grosse Depression und Bismarckzeit: Wirtschaftsablauf, Gesellschaft, und Politik in Mitteleuropa (Berlin, 1967)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

14 German farmers were traditionally in favor of free trade, because they felt they could compete favorably with agricultural elements in other nations. However, after 1878, they shifted to a protective tariff position. This was, no doubt, largely due to their severe economic difficulties at this time.

15 This was especially true for the inhabitants of the northeastern regions of Germany. Köllman reports that in 1910, there were almost two million (1,983,000) persons of east German extraction in Berlin-Brandenberg. In Rhine-Westphalia, including the Ruhr area, the estimate approached 810,000. See Köllman, “The Population of Germany in the Age of Industrialization,” 105.

16 Total annual expenditures for bread were estimated to be more than one-sixth of a worker’s income during this period. See May, Max, Wie der Arbeiter lebt (Berlin, 1897)Google Scholar.

17 Data on grain prices and criminality have been drawn from Aschaffenburg, Crime and its Repression, 111.

18 Such lags have been noted and discussed by Starke in Verbrechen und Verbrecher in Preussen 1854-1878.

19 Fuld argued that fluctuations in prices were particularly severe on youth, and were likely to produce an increase in first offenders rather than repeaters. See Fuld, Der Einfluss der Lebensmittelpreise.

20 Our unit of cross-sectional analysis is the Regierungsbezirk, or government administrative district, of which there were 36 in Prussia and 59 in all of Imperial Germany. In order to permit consistent data analysis across several different time periods, it was necessary to aggregate the six districts of the Province of Hannover into one unit, thereby leaving us with a total of 31 districts for the period between 1885 and 1914. Data have been drawn from the following statistical series: Preussische Statistik; Jahrbuch für die amtliche Statistik des Preussischen Staates; and Statistisches Jahrbuch für den Preussischen Staat.

21 See Aschaffenburg, , Crime and its Repression, 83Google Scholar. These regional variations in personal crime were considered by Aschaffenburg to be related to the incidence of alcoholism. Certain cultural variables defined along regional, ethnic, and religious lines need to be studied more closely in relation to crime. In the case of Imperial Germany, the two major cultural outcasts (Poles and Catholics) consistently had higher rates of criminality than the rest of the population. However, the data presented below indicate the importance of the cultural mix. Although Protestants had a lower rate of criminality nationally, both Catholics and Protestants were more likely to commit crimes in districts where they were in the minority.

Bivariate Correlations Between Religiosity and Crime Rate by Religious Type

*Catholic Crime Rate equals

**Protestant Crime Rate equals

*Catholic Crime Rate equals

**Protestant Crime Rate equals

22 See Mannheim, Hermann, Comparative Criminology (Boston, 1965), 501-06Google Scholar. Many scholars feel there is in fact little evidence to support an anomie based theory of crime, and that whatever evidence has heretofore been marshalled in its support has been the result of mishandled and ill-conceived statistical treat ments of the data. See Bordua, David J., “Juvenile Delinquency and ‘Anomie’ An Attempt at Replication,” Social Problems, VI:3 (1958-1959), 230-38CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

23 For an extensive bibliography of theoretical and empirical studies on anomie, see Clinard, Marshall B., ed., Anomie and Deviant Behavior (New York, 1964)Google Scholar.

24 Lodhi, Abdul Qaiyum and Tilly, Charles, “Urbanization, Crime and Collective Violence in 19th-century France,” American Journal of Sociology, LXXIX (September 1973), 296CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

25 See Orsagh, Thomas, “The Probable Geographical Distribution of German Income, 1882-1963,” Zeitschrift für die gesamte Staatswissenschaft, CXXIV (May 1968), 280-311Google Scholar.

26 By the mid-1860s, every German child received at least a primary school education. At that time, however, many of their parents were illiterate. Educational levels steadily improved in Germany over the course of the nineteenth century. See Landes, David, The Unbound Prometheus (London, 1969), 339-48Google Scholar.

27 One might also argue that Bismarck’s social insurance legislation, passed in the late 1880s, served to reduce the economic pressure on the lower classes in German society, and thereby influenced the relationship between geographical disparities in wealth and crime rates in later years. These were limited measures, however.

28 See Zehr, Howard, “The Modernization of Crime in Germany and France, 1830-1913,” Journal of Social History, VIII (Summer 1975), 117-41CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

29 Evidence that the cities were the bastions of Social Democracy can be found in the correlation between the percentage SPD vote per district (the same districts used in the crime analyses) and the level of urbanity. For all Reichstag elections between 1871 and 1912, the correlation remained above .70.

30 See Heidegger, Hermann, Die deutsche Sozialdemokratie und nationale Stoat, 1870-1920 (Göttingen, 1956)Google Scholar.

31 Tilly, Richard and Hohorst, Gerd, “Sozialer Protest in Deutschland im 19. Jahrhundert: Skizze eines Forschungsansatzes” (Unpublished ms., 1975)Google Scholar.

32 Lodhi, and Tilly, , “Urbanization, Crime and Collective Violence.”Google Scholar

33 In the fifteen years prior to 1861, French urban areas grew by 5.4 percent. In the fifteen years after 1861, the growth rate was only 3.5 percent. See Weber, Adna, The Growth of Cities in the 19th-century (Ithaca, 1963), 68-77Google Scholar.

34 Correlation analysis of the rate of property crime and the level of urbanity for 86 French départements in 1877 and 1887 revealed that the relationship had, in fact, decreased dramatically (r = .32 and .24 respectively).