His First Thought

This cartoon from the German humor magazine Simplicissimus illustrates that Germany had never experienced that "bourgeois revolution against the remnants of feudalism" that Barrington Moore considers necessary for the process we call liberal modernization. The young man, recognizable as a member of the bourgeoisie by his dress, has not paid attention to the sign that says: "Crossing the railroad tracks is forbidden." While his fiancée is distraught that her future husband has been crippled, "his first thought" is despair that he cannot now become a member of the reserve army corps. It is important to recognize here, that becoming a reserve officer was a means by which men of middle-class origin could serve under officers who were overwhelmingly of the aristocracy and perhaps become comrades of younger fellow-officers. This could provide them entree into the much esteemed aristocratic society and might even provide the avenue to a marriage with a daughter of an aristocrat. Through this cartoon we can see that Germany was a society which, although undergoing rapid modernization, still had a social structure in which the aristocracy was prominent, that is a society in which the old order had not been overthrown by revolution, but was, rather, a conservative modernizer. Despite the fact that it constituted only 1 per cent of the society, the aristocracy enjoyed great social prestige, as is illustrated by the cartoon. As well as holding most of the powerful positions in the army and navy, many of the most influential positions in the government and the bureaucracy, some aristocrats had also made the transition to the world of capitalism as bankers and industrialists.