Bridging the Popular Divide: Forging German Identity in the Agrarian League, 1893-1918

This work examines the nature of the community of the German Agrarian League (Bund der Landwirte). In particular, it focuses on the interactions of the elite, Junker membership and the peasant membership. An examination of previous work reveals a theme of Junker domination of the League. This work challenges that theme by examining one possible avenue for agency within the League: the associated newspapers. Using Benedict Anderson's theory of printcapitalism and Marshall Sahlins' definitions of community interactions and space definition, it becomes possible to reveal a non-coerced peasant voice within the League by searching for rhetorical shifts in the newspapers that correspond with shifts in peasant membership and political focus of the League. This allows for a model of community that is more interactive for all participants, not just the elite membership, and fundamentally alters the basic concept of conservatism in the German Empire. Avenues of further research to examine this model in greater detail are provided.