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Social Background of German Elites and Members of the Clergy (1800-1919)

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II. Social background of Protestant and Catholic Clerics

c) of Protestant clergy

d) of Catholic clergy

Father's occupation

Prussia
1887-1900
(%) (3)

Württemberg
1876-1900
(%) (3)

Prussia
1887-1900
(%) (3)

Württemberg
1876-1900
(%) (3)

Higher civil servants

4

4

1

1

Officers

1

0

0

-

Professors, teachers
(higher schools)

3

5

1

0

Clergy

23

34

-

-

Lawyers

0

-

0

Physicians, pharmacists

1

3

1

2

Large landowners

0

1

0

0

Entrepreneurs

5 (c)

7

5 (c)

0

Higher strata

37

54

8

3

Artisans, retailers

-

-

-

-

Tavern-keepers

16 (c)

14

31 (c)

32

Farmers

11

3

26

35

Mid-level civil servants

14

8

13

4

Salaried employees

2

2

3

1

Teachers

18

17

14

13

Middle strata

61

44

87

85

Workers

1

2

4

3

Domestics

0

-

0

-

Lower civil servants

-

3

-

7

Lower strata

1

5

4

10

Number of cases

5,769

1,350

2,195

1,089



3) Calculated on the basis of the background of theology students.
a. Also: veterinarians, chemists, architects, engineers.
b. Here: industrialists and wholesalers. "Merchants" were assigned to the first position of the middle class, since the majority of them were most likely small-scale trades-people.
c. These are estimates. It is only after 1900 that university statistics in Prussia divide self-employed trades-people into entrepreneurs, on the one hand, and artisans, retailers, etc., on the other hand. The average ratios from 1901-1911 (physicians: 29% entrepreneurial fathers vs. 71% fathers from the commercial middle class; teachers at higher schools: 26% to 74%) are posited here as the most favorable approximation.


Source: Hartmut Kaelble, „Sozialer Aufstieg in Deutschland 1850-1914” [“Social Advancement in Germany 1850-1914”], Vierteljahrschrift für Sozial- und Wirtschaftsgeschichte [Quarterly for Social and Economic History] 60 (1973): 52, 56, 63.

Reprinted in Gerd Hohorst, Jürgen Kocka and Gerhard Ritter, eds., Sozialgeschichtliches Arbeitsbuch: Materialien zur Statistik des Kaiserreichs 1870-1914 [Social History Workbook: Materials on Kaiserreich Statistics 1870-1914]. Munich, 1975, vol. 2, pp. 125-26.

Translation: Thomas Dunlap

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