It was considered the “Belle Époque” and the age of security “: In retrospect, the Wilhelmine Empire before the First World War was long glorified as being particularly safe and stable. But this ascription is wrong, as a historian from the University of Bonn has now revealed, because even then social conflicts created a feeling of insecurity. This was reflected in the media, but led to the establishment of the first private security company.
In 1941 the writer Stefan Zweig spoke in retrospect of the Wilhelmine era as an “age of security”, even a “golden one” in his autobiographical work “The World of Yesterday”. Compared to the time of the First and Second World War, the reign of Kaiser Wilhelm II, which began in 1888, appeared to him and his contemporaries to be particularly stable and secure. This era was characterized by a very conservative, rather backward-looking social climate and an almost neo-baroque pomp architecture. At the European level, this period is also known as the “Belle Époque”.
Contradictory interpretations
But how “beautiful” and safe was the Wilhelmine era really? And how did the people living then feel? The historian Amerigo Caruso from the University of Bonn examined this in detail for the first time in his study “’Blood and Iron Inside too’ – Social Conflicts, Mass Politics and Violence in Germany before 1914”. To do this, the researcher evaluated historical documents, including above all press releases from the time. The result: Contrary to what the idealized view from the time of the world wars suggests, the people of the German Empire did not perceive their time as particularly peaceful – on the contrary: communication of threats, feelings of insecurity and media-based violence were constantly present at the time, says Caruso.
The historian sees the numerous contradictions that characterized the Wilhelmine Empire as one reason for this – and which produced diametrically opposed interpretations: “For the advocates of democratization, the Empire was an authoritarian system of rule in which legal discrimination and repression were part of everyday life. For opponents of democracy, however, the Wilhelmine system was too liberal, ”explains Caruso. As a countercurrent to the conservative, patriarchal style of government of Wilhelm II and the rigid social order, protests of the workers in particular increased. After the turn of the century, the social democratic free trade unions doubled their membership to around one million in just four years.
“Discursive construction of threats”
The extremely different perspectives on these developments can be seen on the one hand in statements from the conservative side. Wilhelm II threatened with “blood and iron inside too” in order to bring about “healthy conditions”. Businessmen and the conservative press spoke of “strike terrorism” in order to criminalize the strikers and to make them an integral part of a general threat scenario for the established order. Strikes and protest movements were seen as a threat to internal security in several respects: politically and ideologically, militarily, economically and in terms of private capital, as the historian explains in his study.
Caruso sees the increasing number of strikes and the expansion of the trade unions as the reason for this “discursive construction of threats”. They made the economic and political elites of the late Empire feel a need for new repressive and disciplinary strategies. In reality, however, the strikes and political demonstrations of the time were largely peaceful. For the Bonn historian, the threatening legacy of the Wilhelmine era consists, among other things, in the distorted view of these legitimate forms of political opposition. The problem is “that in large parts of society strikes and political protests were not accepted as the basis of democratic culture.”
From collieries to “German Pinkertons”
The increased perception of threat, especially among the conservative classes, also led to the creation of a completely new market for private security: security companies and detective agencies experienced a boom. The multifaceted spectrum ranged from colliery brigades to security and locking companies to private detectives and armed security guards who were deployed to protect strikebreakers, among other things. After the notorious American detective agency Pinkerton, they were also called “German Pinkertons” by the workers’ press.
In addition to social disputes, the background to the new security market was also an increased fear of everyday crime. Many entrepreneurs also saw their interests not being consistently enforced by government agencies. They therefore used the private security companies to actually perform state regulatory functions on the one hand and to assert their interests against the growing labor movement on the other. However, even this privatized violence has not yet led to extreme attacks against political opponents or to counter-violence against the state.
That changed only after the First World War: “Now political instability and the escalation of violence far exceeded the expectations of the crisis and feelings of insecurity of the Belle Époque,” explains Caruso. Strengthened by the war and the brutalization, the foundations have now been laid for the much more intense political and social disputes in the Weimar Republic.
Source: Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn; Publication: “Blood and iron inside too – social conflicts, mass politics and violence in Germany before 1914”