Page:EB1922 - Volume 31.djvu/267

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page needs to be proofread.
GERMANY
233


were Hesse and Baden. The least densely populated were the agricultural territories (or Lander) Mecklenburg, Waldeck, Olden- burg and Bavaria. Of the Prussian provinces, those of the Rhine- land, Westphalia and Upper Silesia, which are mainly industrial, were the most densely populated, whilst the least densely populated were the agricultural provinces of W. Prussia, Posen, Pomerania and E. Prussia.

Corresponding to this development, there was a continuous movement between 1910 and 1920 towards the increase of the urban population. According to the 1910 census 20,374, 127 (34-3%) of the total pop. were residing in towns of over 20,000 inhabitants. In 1919 this number had increased to 21,345,289 (35%).

In Table Ilia list is given of the principal cities of over 100,000 inhabitants according to the 1919 census.

The growth of individual German towns has varied greatly. Table IV gives index-numbers for the increase shown by the pop. in 1920, if that of 1871 is taken at 100.

TABLE IV. Growth of Town Population 1920 (1871 pop, = ioo).

Berlin

Hamburg .

Cologne

Munich

Leipzig

Dresden

Breslau

Essen

Frankfort -on-Main

Dusseldorf.

Niirnberg .

Charlottenburg

Hanover .

Stuttgart .

Chemnitz .

Dortmund

Magdeburg

Berlin-Neukolln

Konigsberg

230 Bremen .

412 Duisburg

490 Stettin

371 Mannheim

565 Kiel

299 Halle

254 Berlin-Schoneberg

852 Altona

Gelsenkirchen

Cassel

Elberfeld

Barmen .

Aix-la-Chapelle

Bochum .

Brunswick

Karlsruhe

Crefeld .

Plauen im Vogtland

311

800

35 579 646

346

3,844 227

2,154 350

220 2IO 196

673 241

371 217

449

587

424

1,653

354

337

445 664

338

. 3,226 . 232

The figures in Table IV, however, do not adequately represent the concentration of population in the towns which took place during 1910-20. In order to form an accurate judgment of the develop- ment of the large towns and the trend towards urban life, the in- fluence of a large town on the communities within its immediate neighbourhood must be considered. These neighbouring communi- ties show a considerably higher rate of increase as compared with communities farther removed from the town.

It was not yet possible in 1921 to ascertain whether the trend towards the large towns was being modified by the altered conditions arising out of the World War. There were signs that this was the case. The pop. of Berlin (2,071,257 in 1910; 1,902,509 in 1920) had decreased since 1910, although not to any great extent. This retrogression, however, was likely to cease when it once more be- came possible for German industries to make adequate provision for their workmen. The trend towards urban life is largely identical with the trend towards the workshop. This was especially evident during the war years 1914-8; internal migration assumed enormous proportions, and was directed away from those places where the conditions of war had restricted production towards the centres of increased production arising out of direct or indirect war require- ments. After the signature of the Armistice there was a wide-spread retrograde movement, still governed by prospects of production and therefore of wage-earning. At the same time rural districts experi- enced a not inconsiderable increase in population, and this applies above all to the great coal-mining districts of Germany, the Ruhr region, Upper Silesia and the lignite district in central Germany.

Emigration from Germany overseas had been steadily decreasing after 1891; and it was almost entirely stopped during the war. Between 1871 and 1880 the overseas emigrants had numbered 625,- 968; between 1881 and 1890, 1,342,423; 1891 to 1900, 529,875; and 1901 to 1910, 279,645. For later years the official figures were: 1911, 22,690; 1912, 18,545; 1913, 25,843; 1914, 11,803; I9I5- 528; 1916, 326; 1917, 9; 1918, none; 1919, 3,144; 1920, 8,458.

As regards foreign immigration into Germany, no recent de- tailed statistics were available in 1921. But the census returns showed that on Dec. I 1910 there were 1,259,873 foreigners in Germany. More than one-half of these were Austro-Hungarians. Holland was represented by 144,175, Russia by 137,697, Italy by 104,204, England by 8,319, France by 19,140, Switzerland by 68,257, Denmark by 26,233, Belgium by 13,455, an d the United States by 17,572. In 1920 the number of foreigners in Germany was very considerable, but precise figures were wanting. The number of immigrant Russians and so-called Eastern Jews and Galicians was particularly great. The number of Germans outside Germany greatly increased after the war. In the ceded territories there were (accord- ing to the census of 1910) 3,217,053 inhabitants speaking German as their mother-tongue. These must be reckoned among the Ger- mans resident abroad in 1920. The number of Germans abroad before the war was estimated at over 30 millions. Of these only a comparatively small proportion returned to Germany after 1918. Outside Germany itself, in 1920, the countries to be reckoned more

especially as German-speaking were Austria, parts of Switzerland and Belgium, Luxemburg, Liechtenstein, and stretches of country in Czechoslovakia and in Hungary.

The inhabitants within the boundaries of the German Republic speaking other languages than German as their mother-tongue are not numerous. At the census of 1910 the question of the mother- tongue was not raised in all the states throughout the Empire. Apart from the territories of Prussia and Saxony, where the mother-tongue was ascertained, there are hardly any but German-speaking in- habitants. In Prussia in 1910 it was estimated that 3,500,621 inhabitants (8-7% of the population) spoke Polish as their mother- tongue; that 141,510 (4%) spoke Danish; that 64,766 (0-2%) spoke Wendish, and that 790,733 (2-0%) had some other mother-tongue that was not German. In Saxony the census of 1910 showed that 24,009 inhabitants (0-5%) spoke Wendish, and 35,083 (0-7%) spoke other foreign languages as their mother-tongue.

Religion. Of the pop. of Germany, 61-6% were, according to the census of 1910, adherents of the Protestant, or, as it is designated in Germany, the Evangelical faith; 33-7% adherents of the Roman Catholic faith ; 0-44 % belonged to other Christian sects, and 0-95 % were Jews. Since the census of 1890 the number of Protestant Christians had been on the decrease, and that of Roman Catholics on the increase. This was to be attributed, on the one hand, to extensive immigration from Catholic countries, and, on the other, to the fact that the Roman Catholic population increased more rapidly than the Protestant, the creed of the former having a direct influence on the birth-rate, while, in addition, the Catholic section of the population contained an immensely larger proportion of the more prolific labouring classes than the Protestant. According to the census of occupations taken in 1907, there were 680 Catholic to 1,000 Protestant wage-earning workers, but to every 1,000 Prot- estant salaried employees or persons engaged in occupations on their own account, there were only 527 Catholics.

Table V shows the distribution by religion within the new frontiers of Germany after the Treaty of Versailles, on the figures of the 1910 census.

TABLE V. Distribution of Religions.

Territories (1920)

Protestants (1910)

Roman Catholics (1910)

aews 910)

Others (1910)

Prussia ....

23,420,842

12,341,123

378,819

318,537

Bavaria ....

2,014,876

4,865,373

55.394

26,466

Saxony ....

4-520,835

236,052

17,587

32,187

Wiirttemberg .

1,671,183

739,995

11,982

14,414

Baden ....

826,364

1,271,015

25,896

19-558

Thuringia

1,456,075

43,102

3,820

7.54 1

Hesse ....

848,004

397-549

24,063

12,435

Hamburg

929,758

51,036

19,472

14.398

Mecklenburg-Schwerin

615,5"

21,043

-413

i,99i

Brunswick

464,175

25,888

.757

2,519

Oldenburg . ' .

371,650

107,508

.525

2,359

Anhalt ....

315,262

12,755

,383

1,728

Bremen ....

259,688

22,233

,843

15.762

Lippe ....

143-961

5,936

780

260

Liibeck ....

"1,543

3,968

623

465

Mecklenburg-Strelitz .

101,513

4-255

254

420

Waldeck

57.817

2,858

590

442

Schaumburg-Lippe

44,385

715

230

1,322

German Reich

38,173,442

20,152,404

547.431

472,804

At the census of 1919 the question of religion was not raised. According to the new constitution of the German Reich, no one is obliged to disclose his religious belief, unless rights or duties depend upon it, or there is a legally authorized interrogation.

Households. The distribution of the population into households in 1910 was as follows: Family households, 13,238,237 (with 61,- 765,065 memBers); single persons' households, 1,045,143; institu- tions, 63,312 (with 2,115,785 members). The size of family house- holds had steadily diminished during successive decades, from 4^70 in 1871 to 4-60 in 1900 and 4-53 in 1910. There were 6,978,324 inhabited buildings in 1910, an increase of 65,703 in the decade. With the exception of the year 1913, there was great activity in building during the years 1911-4, but during the war it gradually came to almost a complete standstill. After 1919 building gradually revived, under the stimulus of the need for providing houses for the enormous number of immigrants and newly married couples; but, for the most part, it was limited to the erection of barracks, emergency dwelling-houses and small back-garden houses. This work was chiefly carried out by public enterprise. The need for new houses had not been by any means met by 1921. The number of those in search of dwellings was continually on the increase. In 1918, in order to form an estimate of the number of empty houses available and of the extent of the housing need, a housing census for the whole Reich was taken. It covered 3,782 communities, mostly the largest ones, and comprised 9,176,137 houses inhabited by 32,330,- 668 persons, or 55-5% of the total civil population of Germany. By this census it was ascertained that only in the smallest portion of the region under examination were there more than 3 % empty houses available. The shortage which arose after the signing of the