Migrants, Marginal Groups and the Early Modern German State

In: Immigrants & minorities, Band 19, Heft 3, S. 67-78

Abstract

A review essay on books by (1) Wolfgang von Hippel, Armut, Unterschichten, Randgruppen in der fruhen Neuzeit ([Poverty, Lower Classes, Marginal Workers in Modern Times] Munich: Oldenbourg, 1995); (2) Carsten Kuther, Rauber und Gauner in Deutschland ([Theft and Criminals in Germany] 2nd edition, Gottingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1987); (3) Terence McIntosh, Urban Decline in Early Modern Germany: Schwabisch Hall and Its Region (Chapel Hill, NC, & London: U of North Carolina Press, 1997); & (4) Mack Walker, The Salzburg Transaction: Expulsion and Redemption in Eighteenth-Century Germany (Ithaca, NY, & London: Cornell U Press, 1992). These studies represent the influence of the social sciences on German historiography, which has spawned new forms of gender history & history from below. They all focus on the early modern phase of the Holy Roman Empire, especially the period following the Thirty Years War. Von Hippel's survey of poverty & marginal groups covers the whole early modern period (1495-1806). He offers insights into both shifting meanings of terms like "poor" & changing relationships between individuals & society. Kuther's study of bandits & robbers in late-18th- & early-19th-century Germany advances an interpretation of the state as malevolent that has been challenged by his critics. McIntosh's doctoral study of urban decline in southwestern Germany highlights the initiative of small town residents who shifted to different forms of economic activity in response to German territorialization & international conflict. His work contests the thesis of "small town insularity" in Walker's study of the forced expulsion of Salzburg Protestants in 1731/32 & their subsequent emigration to Hohenzollern East Prussia. J. Lindroth