The Economy 1807-1815 The Economy 1849-1862
Domestic Policy, 1815-1847 Intellectual Life, 1815-1847






Prussia 1815-1847 : the Economy



Economic Geography The Prussian Kingdom in her borders of 1815 was composed of economically diverse regions. The provinces of Brandenburg, Pomerania, West and East Prussia and Posen were predominantly agrarian, and here the estates of noble families dominated. Silesia, Prussian Saxony, Westphalia and the Rhine Province had strong agricultural sectors (but especially in the Rhineland and Westphalia, large estates owned by noblemen were much less significant). Here, other industries such as textile industry (eastern Westphalia; Lower Silesia; Barmen-Elberfeld in the Rhine Province), coal mining (Saar / Rhine Province, Ruhr valley / Westphalia, Upper Silesia), a steel and metal industry (Rhine Province, Westphalia) added to the economic picture. The ongoing Industrial Revolution affected the western provinces earlier and stronger than those of the east.
Brandenburg-Prussia, in economic terms, had been backward, neither having major centers of trade nor major industries, importing techniques and technologies rather than developing these. In 1815, with the comparatively wealthy, diverse and developed Rhine Province, a more advanced region was integrated into the Prussian state. The city of Cologne had a Chamber of Commerce, dating back into the period of French administration. Elsewhere in Prussia, such institutions had to be founded later (Potsdam/ Berlin as late as 1898/1902). Only in 1848 an ordinnance was decreed which called for the establishment of Chambers of Commerce in all major cities of Prussia.

The Zollverein In 1818 Prussia abolished internal customs barriers, establishing the Prussian Customs Union. Until 1828, a number of smaller German states joined; in 1834 several customs unions were merged to form the Zollverein (German Customs Union) which abolished customs barriers between member countries, standardized the currencies, facilitated the construction of railway lines. The Zollverein provided a historical role model for economic development through the means of cooperation of states.

The Economy during the Industrial Revolution In 1817 steamboats connected Berlin and Potsdam. In 1826 Berlin was provided with street lighting based on gas. With the beginning of the railway construction boom in the 1830es industrial production and urbanization took off. The establishment of a railroad network in Belgium provided merchants and businesses in the Rhine Province to circumvent the Dutch Rhine toll at Lobith; railway construction greatly increased the demand for coal and steel. The industrial centers attracted workers from near and far; boomtowns mushroomed in the Ruhr Valley, but also the cities of Berlin, Kön, Breslau grew strongly.
The Industrial Revolution also negatively affected entire trades, such as the weavers of Lower Silesia, who experienced salary cuts which were insufficient to finance their daily expenses; in 1844, in desparation, they destroyed machinery they blamed for their misery, until the military put an end to this. In 1845, c. 2000 construction workers employed on the comstruction of the railway connecting Cologne and Minden (Rhine Prov./Westphalia) entered a strike.



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EXTERNAL
FILES 		Geschichte der IHK Köln, from IHK Köln
Der Hungeraufstand der Schlesischen Weber 1844, from Preussen Chronik
DOCUMENTS Zollvereinigungsvertrag 1833, from Verfassungen.de, in German
REFERENCE Hans-Joachim Schoeps, Preussen, Geschichte eines Staates, Berlin : Propyläen 1966, in German [G]
Institut für Geschichte der Deutschen Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Berlin, ed., Deutsche Geschichte in Daten, Berlin (Ost) : Deutscher Verlag der Wissenschaften 1967 [G]



This page is part of World History at KMLA
First posted on May 6th 2004, last revised on November 12th 2004

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