The Population-part four –The Proletariat-second half
The proletariat lived in residential segregation and feared layoffs or any change in circumstances that would affect their ability to earn wages. Between 1870 and 1885, rents increased an estimated 63 percent in the industrialized cities. In 1875 in Berlin, one-half of the houses had only one heated room and 20 percent of the city’s inhabitants lived at least five people to a room. Overcrowding, dampness, lack of proper ventilation, and primitive sanitary conditions all led to frequent outbreaks of infectious diseases such as cholera, consumption, pneumonia, and typhus. An epidemic of tuberculosis was responsible for nearly half of the deaths of 15 to 40-year-olds in the 1880s.
To the poor, something as significant as the height of the buildings in which they lived meant everything. Buildings in every neighborhood had occupants from a variety of different social backgrounds. Not having to climb the stairs was an indication of class status. The lower floors were the residences of choice. The upper floors that lacked plumbing and possibly lighting were reserved for the poorest. An example of the class divisions would be a rich widow living on the first floor, an insurance company employee and his wife on the second level, a retired couple on the third floor, and a mechanic on the fourth level.
The infant mortality rate also escalated; in the large cities it was often higher than one-third. Some industrial districts had infant mortality rates as high as 40 percent as late as 1911. Economic necessity dictated that already overcrowded families often had to take in lodgers. Twenty-five percent of those involved were female. In the same way as male workers, they often rented a bed from families for certain hours of the day, which meant that the family could rent the same bed to workers on different shifts.
The German criminal code of 1871 contained no penalties for cohabitation, but the pressure to legalize a living situation as a marriage was intense. Individual states declared co-habitation to be punishable if it caused a public nuisance. A vengeful spouse or neighbor only had to report a couple in order to show that they constituted a public nuisance. Homelessness was also a major issue, with 200,000 men a year accommodated by the Berlin Homeless Shelter Association.
Families spent one-half to two-thirds of their income on food. The remainder went for housing and utilities. Another set of statistics shows that families spent 52 percent of their income on food with an additional 33 percent on housing, heating, light, and clothing. The same study says that a family typically spent at least a quarter of their food budget on bread alone.
Working-class urban districts were violent places where major riots took place in 1906 and 1910 over increases in beer prices. Prussians moving to an urban area from the east initially bought a watch and then a gun. Many locations had a Wild West reputation. In rural areas, there were pitched battles to drive out gypsies and for servants to revenge themselves on former employers. In some areas, both crimes against property and violent crime rates doubled in the decade before the war. Nonetheless, the murder rate was about 20 times lower than that of Italy or Spain and of the 30-40 murders in Berlin annually, half of them were infanticide.
As a result of endemic poverty, some workers became involved in the labor movement and left-wing socialist parties, but it would be a mistake to equate the Socialists with the proletariat. By 1914, only about 25 percent of the working class belonged to trade unions or the socialist parties.
The majority of the German working class did not have the luxury of looking to the future. They were driven by need. Most did not have stable jobs, appeared aimless, and wandered from company to company doing a variety of unskilled jobs. This group consisted primarily of young single men who epitomized a culture of poverty. The biggest vulnerability of the proletariat was that the labor market was a buyer’s market. Population was increasing and laborers were interchangeable. Employers and markets were comparatively free of rules.
