Kaiserreich
Economy 1871-1890		 Germany : WW I, Home Front






The Kaiserreich
the Economy 1890-1914



The German economy continued to expand, the German industry surpassed Britain in steel output; the steel, electric, chemical and pharmaceutical industries grew rapidly. The discovery of ASPIRIN (discovered in 1897, patented in 1899) lead to the success of BAYER; HOECHST was leading in the synthetic production of pigments, BASF another chemo-pharmaceutical giant. Requiring huge amounts of water, these enterprises went on to establish entire cities - LEVERKUSEN, LEUNA focussing on the production of chemicals. WERNER VON SIEMENS produced electric appliances, KRUPP, STINNES, HOESCH and THYSSEN became leading steel producers.
The state nationalized the infrastructure, such as RAILROADS (federal control est. 1878/1887) and the POSTAL SERVICE (declared a state monopoly in 1900). Universities also were nationalized; schools, insofar they were not state-owned (most were run by the catholic resp. lutheran church) were regulated by the state administration.
As a result of labour conflicts anf negotiations, industrial wages had risen to a level which had made them an attractive customer group. The workers' movement organized cooperative shops for them, on a non-profit basis. Malls targeted this customer group with simple, cheap household goods they advertised in newspapers and first mail-order catalogues.


German Government Revenue and Expenditure, 1890-1913
Source : B.R. Mitchell, International Historical Statistics 1750-1988, pp.797, 799, 811, 819, 890, 894
figures in German Marks; NNP = Net National Product
675,000,000
631,000,000
638,000,000
691,000,000
706,000,000
790,000,000
792,000,000
847,000,000
852,000,000
887,000,000
901,000,000
909,000,000
906,000,000
928,000,000
1,055,000,000
1,075,000,000
1,206,000,000
1,121,000,000
1,360,000,000
1,499,000,000
1,676,000,000
1,662,000,000
1,665,000,000
Year

1890
1891
1892
1893
1894
1895
1896
1897
1898
1899
1900
1901
1902
1903
1904
1905
1906
1907
1908
1909
1910
1911
1912
1913 		Revenue

661,000,000 		Expenditure

1,354,000,000
1,245,000,000
1,244,000,000
1,270,000,000
1,337,000,000
1,307,000,000
1,366,000,000
1,746,000,000
1,856,000,000
1,961,000,000
2,197,000,000
2,324,000,000
2,321,000,000
2,357,000,000
2,068,000,000
2,195,000,000
2,392,000,000
2,810,000,000
2,683,000,000
3,266,000,000
3,024,000,000
2,897,000,000
2,893,000,000
3,521,000,000 		NNP

23,676,000,000
22,624,000,000
24,061,000,000
24,357,000,000
24,361,000,000
25,254,000,000
26,979,000,000
28,714,000,000
28,714,000,000
31,761,000,000
32,448,000,000
31,617,000,000
31,928,000,000
34,402,000,000
36,284,000,000
38,878,000,000
40,643,000,000
42,976,000,000
42,441,000,000
44,358,000,000
45,785,000,000
48,106,000,000
51,563,000,000
52,440,000







EXTERNAL
FILES 		German Railway History, from DB Museum
The History of Aspirin, from Bayer US
Harold Baron : The Chemical Industry on the Continent, from Modern History Sourcebook
Timetable of the history of Leverkusen, from Leverkusen.com
DOCUMENTS German banknotes issued 1900-1919, from Ron Wise's World Paper Money
E.D. Howard, The Cause and Extent of the Recent Industrial Progress of Germany, (1907), in excerpt posted by J.V. O'Brien, CUNY


This page is part of World History at KMLA
First posted in 2000, last revised on November 12th 2004

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