History

Political culture and democratization

Document Type

Book Chapter

Abstract

In March 1908, political trouble was brewing in the suburbs of Cologne. Elections to the Prussian state parliament (Landtag) were scheduled just three months hence, and the dominant party in the electoral district of Sieg-Mülheim-Wipperfürth, the Catholic Centre Party, faced the prospect of open rebellion in its ranks. This district lay on the east side of the Rhine River and had been a secure seat for the Centre since the mid-1870s, when the mobilization of Catholic voters during the Kulturkampf made it a ‘bomb-proof’ bastion of party support. (The district’s population was over 85 per cent Catholic.) Even though this district sent three representatives to the lower house of the Prussian Landtag, and even though its social profile was very heterogeneous, no other party stood a realistic chance of winning even one of those three mandates. Partly for this reason, in the spring of 1908 metal-workers in the city of Mülheim felt they deserved to have ‘one of their own’ in the Landtag — a true worker, not just a candidate who adhered to the Centre’s programme or promised to lobby for working-class interests. In fact, local workers had been voicing this demand for three years. How would the Centre’s nomination committee respond?

Publication Title

Imperial Germany 1871-1918

Publication Date

10-31-2023

First Page

174

Last Page

195

ISBN

9781383034431

DOI

10.1093/oso/9780199204885.003.0009

Keywords

Kulturkampf, Handwerker, Honoratiorenpolitik, Junkers, working-class

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