Prussian Junkers (; ) were members of the landed nobility in the eastern part of Prussia from the late Middle Ages until the end of World War II. The large manorial estates over which Junkers had special rights of legal jurisdiction and law enforcement were initially worked by serfs in inherited servitude. Over time, the manors moved towards market agriculture and serfdom was abolished in 1807, but semi-feudal elements that contrasted sharply with agricultural practices in the rest of Germany remained on the large-scale Junker estates.
In the early eighteenth century, Junkers solidified a prominent role in the Prussian government and military. They filled many high-ranking positions in the administration of the state and provided the majority of the army's officers. When Prussia obtained a constitution mid-century, Junkers came to dominate both houses of the parliament, giving them an all but certain veto power over legislation. Under the German Empire (1871–1918), the Junkers' economic situation worsened and many estates fell into debt, but their political position remained strong, and their values of military honour, duty and loyalty were emulated by Prussia's upper classes.
During the Weimar Republic era (1918–1933), Junkers lost much of their power in the military and politics, although they retained enough influence to obtain significant subsidies for their indebted estates through the Eastern Aid program. Although many Junkers held important military positions under the Nazi government (1933–1945), there were others who were involved in the resistance against Adolf Hitler. At the end of World War II, the Russians drove Junkers from their estates and destroyed their manors. A large percentage of former Junker land was in the region from which Germans were expelled after it was ceded to Poland or the USSR. In what became East Germany, all landholdings over 100 acres were expropriated. Junkers as a class ceased to exist in 1945.
History Origins
Prussian Junkers were descendants of the knights who took part in the Germanic settlement of the Slavic regions east of the Elbe river (East Elbia) during the early Middle Ages. The class grew out of the feudal nobility that developed under the manorial system of the late Middle Ages. The Junkers' land was worked by a once-free peasantry that paid rents in cash or labour under a type of serfdom known as inherited servitude (). By the end of the Thirty Years' War in 1648, almost all peasants in the region were no longer free. They were subject to compulsory labour (corvée), could be forbidden to move away from the manor and forced to return if they did. Penalties for misbehaviour went as far as flogging and imprisonment. The Junkers were able to impose the system because over time they had wrested significant legal powers from their territorial lords. Their rights of jurisdiction and law enforcement on their manors made them self-contained political entities over which the Junkers were the sovereign authority. As the manors became demesne farms that produced grain, wool and livestock for the market, Junkers used pressure tactics to evict peasants from the land in order to increase the acreage they could cultivate. The change also took the grain trade away from the cities and permanently weakened the region's middle class. The still feudal situation in the east contrasted sharply with the western parts of Prussia and Germany where a mercantile middle class was forming.
Pre-imperial period Under the Hohenzollern dynasty, which ruled both Brandenburg and Prussia from 1618, the crown and the Junkers were in a relationship of mutual dependence whose balance varied significantly over time. Junkers received positions of honour and economic benefit from the state, which in turn received administrative and military service from the Junkers. The Thirty Years' War left the Junkers as a class in significant financial difficulty. Frederick William, from 1640 to 1688 the Duke of Prussia and Elector of Brandenburg (called the "Great Elector"), instituted reforms after the war which left few Junkers in his administration. In Brandenburg between 1640 and 1740, only 10% of the top positions in the court, diplomatic corps and military were filled by its landed nobility. In addition, the Junkers' special judicial powers came increasingly under the legal system and as a result were less arbitrary. Frederick William I, King in Prussia from 1688 to 1740 and known as the "Soldier King", divided Prussia into cantons and structured the army based on them, with officers coming from the Junker class and soldiers from the peasantry. In recompense for the peasants' service, the King barred landowners from taking peasant land.
Frederick William's son and successor, Frederick II (Frederick the Great, ruled 1740–1788), gave the Junkers both monetary and political aid through loans and legal changes which amounted to a "re-feudalization of Prussia". They retained their status on the manors, including dispensing patrimonial justice, and were put at the forefront of access to positions with the state. The Prussian Legal Code of 1794, which Frederick had initiated, defined the Junkers as a separate estate with its own privileges and limits. Junkers could not engage in bourgeois activities, sell their estates to anyone not in the nobility or marry contrary to their station. The code also gave civil servants the legal status of a corporate body separate from the bourgeois and aristocratic estates, essentially making them "the first citizens of the state". Under Frederick, Junkers dominated their local districts as heads of the manor and as , the administrative officers who represented local interests and served as officials of the state. As military officers, Junkers controlled the cantons and garrisons. Their positions in politics and the military put them at the top of the social sphere as well.
Prussia undertook significant reforms to its government and military after its defeats during the Napoleonic Wars (1803–1815). Although they were intended to bring Prussia more in line with the Enlightenment ideals that had reshaped other European countries, Junkers emerged from the reforms stronger than before. In the agricultural sector, the reforms abolished serfdom, allowed non-nobles to buy land and paved the way for the introduction of agrarian capitalism. The resulting land cessions that released peasants from the services they owed to the manorial lords were used by many Junkers as an opportunity to buy the land and expand their estates. By blocking other reforms they were able to retain their time-honoured privileges: patrimonial jurisdiction on the manors was not lost until the revolutions of 1848, manorial exemption from property taxes remained in effect until 1861 – although even then it was generally a local official close to the lord of the manor who set the rate – and police jurisdiction, which was briefly rescinded during the 1848 revolutions, lasted until 1872.
In the decades after the 1848 revolution, many younger Junker sons were sent to universities as a way to help preserve their status and improve their financial outlooks. Graduates went on to high positions in the bureaucracy and officer corps. By 1859 three out of four senior officers in the German army were nobles, as were nine out of ten generals.
King Frederick William IV unilaterally enacted a constitution for Prussia in 1848 which included an elected upper house (), although by 1853 the constitution had been amended so that all members were appointed by the king. As a result of pressure exerted by the nobility, the life-members included 90 who were proposed () by the "old and established" estates and who were primarily Junkers. Since legislation required the support of the king and both houses of the Prussian parliament, the 90 Junkers obtained, according to historian Hans-Ulrich Wehler, "an insurmountable veto power in the legislative process" that lasted until 1918.
German Empire
Otto von Bismarck, Germany's first chancellor, came from an old Junker family, but in many ways he was not typical of the class. He rejected corporatism – a system in which political representation is through economic or professional groups such as large landholders – and resisted the Junker class solidarity that sometimes stood in the way of what he saw as Germany's best interests. Conservatives as a result never fully trusted him any more than did the liberals who had championed the German unification that he was instrumental in bringing about in 1871.
The creation of the German Empire in 1871 after France's defeat in the Franco-Prussian War increased the respect that the middle class had for the state and its institutions, especially the Junker-dominated military. The Junkers nevertheless lost some of their former local authority under the 1872 law that took away the feudal police and judicial powers that they had long had on their manors, and again as a result of the 1892 reform that put the districts that had been controlled by one landowner on the same legal footing as municipalities. In spite of the new laws, Junkers were able to maintain much of their former dominance on their estates, thanks in large part to their overall political strength in the Empire. They continued to hold many local Landrat positions, the Prussian House of Lords remained under their control, and the Prussian three-class franchise, which weighted votes based on the amount of taxes paid, gave them a position of dominance in the Prussian House of Representatives as well.
Two years of rapid economic expansion followed the foundation of the Empire (the Gründerzeit), but the Panic of 1873 ushered in a period of falling prices and deflation that lasted until the mid-1890s and which hit agriculture and the Junkers particularly hard. Junkers were able to use their strength at court and in the government to lobby successfully for the introduction of protective agricultural tariffs in 1879. Bismarck, whose main political base had been with the free-trade National Liberals, broke with them and from that point on allied with the German Conservative Party. It had been founded in 1876 to represent agricultural interests, with most of its membership coming from the eastern provinces of Prussia. In 1893, the Junkers were among those who organized the German Agrarian League in response to Chancellor Leo von Caprivi's (1890–1894) reversal of Bismarck's high-tariff policies. The League, whose leadership came primarily from the Junkers, served as agriculture's chief pressure group and was notably antisemitic. It was instrumental in having tariffs raised again in 1902.