German Agrarian League
The Bund der Landwirte (Agrarian League) (BDL) was a German advocacy group founded 18 February 1893 by farmers and agricultural interests in response to the farm crisis of the 1890s, and more specifically the result of the protests against the low-tariff policies of Chancellor Leo von Caprivi, including his free trade policies.
The new tariffs were designed to lower the cost of food to consumers, and open up new business opportunities for German exporters.
[4] Bismarck helped foster support from these conservatives by enacting several tariffs protecting German agriculture, and incidentally industry, from foreign competition.
[6] The inaugural meeting of the Bund der Landwirte was held in the Berlin Tivoli Brewery and was attended by some ten thousand people.
In May 1893, just three months after its establishment, it campaigned for farmers' rights and won over 140 of the deputies who were elected in July, or about one-third of the members of the Reichstag, including the influential group that would found the Economic Association (Wirtschaftliche Vereinigung) some years later with Wilhelm von Kardorff, Berthold von Ploetz and Diederich Hahn.
Only about 1% were rural landlords, with 24% coming from large family-owned farms, and the rest being small plot and tenant farmers.
[10] Exemplifying this control was Conrad Freiherr (Baron) von Wangenheim, a Pommeranian with extensive estates, who was chairman from 1898 to 1920.
Both the landlords and the farmers felt the shifting of political and economic power away from the land, and desired to maintain their vested interests.
In addition the organisation provided things like purchasing cooperatives which offered economic benefits to the members and acted as incentives to retain membership.
In one of the founding documents it says: "German agriculture is the primary and most important industry, the strongest support of the empire and of the several states.
[16] Within the BDL this anti-semitism served a unifying function to help bring together the divergent interests of the Junker landowners and Hessian peasants.
This commonality allowed the BDL to form large voting blocks which helped sway many a rural election, using machine politics.
[18] In the areas where the Conservatives were poorly represented, for example, in the Province of Hanover, in Hesse and in the Palatinate, the BDL worked together with the right wing of the National Liberals.
[20] The BDL was particularly effective on small issues, where the Reichstag members were less committed to their constituencies, such as forbidding yellowing of margarine and stiff restrictions on brandy and sugar imports.
