TheJunkers (/ˈjʊŋkər/YUUNG-kər;German:[ˈjʊŋkɐ]) were members of thelanded nobility inPrussia. They owned great estates that were maintained and worked by peasants with few rights.[1] These estates often lay in the countryside outside of major cities or towns. They were an important factor in Prussian and, after 1871,German military, political and diplomatic leadership. One of the most famousJunkers was ChancellorOtto von Bismarck.[2] Bismarck held power in Germany from 1871 to 1890 asChancellor of the German Empire; he was dismissed byKaiser Wilhelm II.[3]
ManyJunkers lived inthe eastern provinces that were annexed by eitherPoland or theSoviet Union afterWorld War II.Junkers fled or were expelled alongside other German-speaking populations by the incoming Polish and Soviet administrations, and their lands were confiscated. In western and southern Germany, the land was often owned by small independent farmers or a mixture of small farmers and estate owners, and this system was often contrasted with the dominance of the large estate owners of the east. Before World War II, the dividing line was often drawn at the river Elbe, which was also roughly the western boundary of Slavic settlement by theWends in the so-calledGermania Slavica prior toOstsiedlung. The term for theJunker-dominated East was thusOstelbien, or'East Elbia'. They played a prominent role in repressing theliberal movement in Germany, and were often described asreactionary.
Junker is derived fromMiddle High GermanJuncherre, meaning'young nobleman'[4] or otherwise'young lord' (a derivation fromjung andHerr), and originally was the title of members of the higheredelfrei (immediate) nobility without or before theaccolade. It evolved to a general denotation of a young or lesser noble, often poor and politically insignificant, understood as "countrysquire" (cf.Martin Luther's disguise as "Junker Jörg" at the Wartburg; he would later mockKing Henry VIII of England as "Juncker Heintz"[5]). As part of the nobility, manyJunker families only hadprepositions such asvon orzu before their family names without further ranks. The abbreviation of the title isJkr., most often placed before the given name and titles, for example:Jkr. Heinrich von Hohenberg. The female equivalentJunkfrau (Jkfr.) was used only sporadically. In some cases, thehonorificJkr. was also used forFreiherren (barons) andGrafen (counts).
A good number of poorerJunkers took up careers as soldiers (Fahnenjunker), mercenaries, and officials (Hofjunker [de],Kammerjunker) at the court ofterritorial princes. These families were mostly part of the German medievalUradel and had carried on the colonisation andChristianisation of the northeastern European territories during theOstsiedlung. Over the centuries, they had become influential commanders and landowners, especially in the lands east of the Elbe in theKingdom of Prussia.[6]
As landed aristocrats, theJunkers owned most of the arable land in Prussia. Being the bulwark of the rulingHouse ofHohenzollern, theJunkers controlled thePrussian Army, leading in political influence andsocial status, and owning immense estates worked bytenants. These were located especially in the north-eastern half of Germany (i.e. the Prussian provinces ofBrandenburg,Pomerania,Silesia,West Prussia,East Prussia, andPosen). This was in contrast to the predominantlyCatholic southern states such as theKingdom ofBavaria or theGrand Duchy ofBaden, where land was owned by small farms, or the mixed agriculture of the western states like theGrand Duchy ofHesse or even the PrussianRhine andWestphalian provinces.[7]
Junkers formed a tightly-knit elite. Their challenge was how to retain their dominance in an emerging modern state with a growing middle and working class.
TheJunkers held a virtual monopoly on allagriculture in the part of theGerman Reich lying east of theRiver Elbe. Since theJunker estates were necessarily inherited by the eldest son alone, younger sons, all well-educated and with a sense of noble ancestry, turned to the civil and military services, and dominated all higher civil offices, as well as the officer corps. Around 1900 they modernised their farming operations to increase productivity. They sold off less-productive land, invested more heavily in new breeds ofcattle andpigs, used newfertilisers, increased grain production, and improved productivity per worker. Their political influence achieved the imposition of hightariffs that reduced competition from imported grain and meat.[8]
DuringWorld War I,Irish nationalist MPTom Kettle compared theAnglo-Irish landlord class to the PrussianJunkers, saying, "England goes to fight for liberty in Europe and forjunkerdom in Ireland."[9]
Their political influence extended from theGerman Empire of 1871–1918 through theWeimar Republic of 1919–1933. It was said that "if Prussia ruled Germany, theJunkers ruled Prussia, and through it the Empire itself".[10] A policy known asOsthilfe ('Help for the East') grantedJunkers 500 millionReichsmarks in subsidies (equivalent to €1.97 billion in 2021; US$2.3 billion[11]) to help pay for certain debts and to improve equipment.[12]Junkers continued to demand and receive more and more subsidies, which gave them more money in their pockets, thus resulting in political power.Junkers exploited a monopoly on grain by storing it to drive up the price. This increased wealth aided them in maintaining control over political offices.Junkers were able to force people to continue paying more money for their product, while keeping who they wanted in office.[13] Through the controlling of politics behind a veil,Junkers were able to influence politicians to create a law that prohibited collecting of debts from agrarians, thus pocketing even more money and strengthening their power.[14]
Supportingmonarchism and military traditions,Junkers were seen asreactionary,anti-democratic, andprotectionist byliberals andsocialists, as they had sided with theconservative and monarchist forces during theGerman revolutions of 1848–1849. Their political interests were served by theGerman Conservative Party in theReichstag and the extraparliamentaryAgriculturists' League (Bund der Landwirte). This political class held tremendous power over industrial classes and government alike, especially through thePrussian three-class franchise. When German chancellorLeo von Caprivi in the 1890s reduced protectiveduties on imports of grain, these landed magnates demanded and obtained his dismissal; andin 1902, they brought about a restoration of these higher duties on foodstuffs.
"Junker" acquired its current and oftenpejorative sense during the 19th-century disputes over the domestic policies of the German Empire.[15] The term was used by sociologists such asMax Weber and was even adopted by members of the landed class themselves. ChancellorOtto von Bismarck was a notedJunker, thoughhis family hailed from theAltmark region west of the Elbe. After World War I many Prussian agriculturists gathered in thenational conservativeGerman National People's Party (DNVP). The term was also applied toReich PresidentPaul von Hindenburg, lord ofNeudeck in West Prussia, and to the "camarilla" around him urging the appointment ofAdolf Hitler asChancellor of Germany—personified by men likevon Hindenburg's sonOskar and his West Prussian "neighbour"Elard von Oldenburg-Januschau, who played central roles in theOsthilfeskandal of 1932/33.
ManyWorld War IIfield marshals were also members of theJunkers, most notablyGerd von Rundstedt,Fedor von Bock, andErich von Manstein. ManyJunkers usedforced labourers fromPoland and theSoviet Union.[16] However,Helmuth James Graf von Moltke formed theKreisau Circle as part of theresistance to Nazi rule, and as World War II turned against Nazi Germany, several seniorJunkers in theWehrmacht participated in ColonelClaus von Stauffenberg's20 July plot.[clarification needed] Fifty-eight of them either were executed when the plot failed,[17] among themErwin von Witzleben andHeinrich Graf von Lehndorff-Steinort, or committed suicide likeHenning von Tresckow. During the advance of theRed Army in the closing months of the war, and subsequently,mostJunkers had to flee from theeastern territories that were turned over to the re-establishedRepublic of Poland with the implementation of theOder–Neisse line according to thePotsdam Agreement.
After World War II, during the communistBodenreform [de] (land reform) of September 1945 in theSoviet Occupation Zone, laterEast Germany, all private property exceeding an area of 100hectares (250 acres) was expropriated, and then predominantly allocated to 'New Farmers' on condition that they continued farming them. As most of these large estates, especially inBrandenburg andWestern Pomerania, had belonged toJunkers, theSocialist Unity Party of Germany (SED) promoted their plans with East German PresidentWilhelm Pieck's sloganJunkerland in Bauernhand! ('Junker land into farmer's hand!').[18] The former owners were accused ofwar crimes and involvement in the Nazi regime by theSoviet Military Administration and the SED, with many of them being arrested, brutally beaten and interned inNKVD special camps (Speziallager), while their property was plundered and themanor houses demolished. Some were executed. Many womenwere raped.[19] From 1952 these individual farms were pressured by a variety of means to join together ascollectives and incorporated intoLandwirtschaftliche Produktionsgenossenschaften ('agricultural production comradeships', LPG) ornationalised asVolkseigene Güter ('publicly owned estates', VEG).[citation needed]
AfterGerman reunification, someJunkers tried to regain their former estates through civil lawsuits, but the German courts have upheld the land reforms and rebuffed claims to full compensation, confirming the legal validity of the terms within theTreaty on the Final Settlement with Respect to Germany (Two Plus Four Agreement) (and incorporated into theBasic Law of the Federal Republic), by which expropriations of land under Soviet occupation were irreversible. The last decisive case was the unsuccessful lawsuit ofPrinceErnst August of Hanover in September 2006, when theFederal Administrative Court decided that the prince had no right to compensation for thedisseized estates of theHouse of Hanover aroundBlankenburg Castle inSaxony-Anhalt. Other families, however, have quietly purchased or leased back their ancestral homes from the current owners[20] (often the German federal government in its role as trustee). A petition for official rehabilitation of the ousted landowners was rejected by the GermanBundestag in 2008.[citation needed]
Notes
Last year [in] the east German state of Brandenburg... I came across half a dozen members of the Prussian diaspora—their parents had fled the communists in 1945 and settled in West Germany—who had become wealthy (an eye surgeon, a gallery owner, a banker) and returned to buy back and restore their crumbling ancestral homes.
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