Zahlen, bitte! 23478120 Customs citizens promoted Germany's industrialization
The German Customs Union not only united the small states into a common market, but also carried out the first censuses in the member states.
The first large-scale statistical census on German soil began 190 years ago. On December 3, 1834, the German Customs Union began determining the "customs settlement population". Each country in the customs union had to publish its population figure because it served as a key for distributing the revenue from the customs union. The third of December was set as a fixed day by the customs parliament, as it was expected – Christianity – that most citizens would be at home before Christmas.
The first census of the Customs Union determined a population of 23.5 million people living in the 18 states of the Customs Union. The census lasted four weeks and was then carried out every three years from 1834 to 1867. In 1870, the Franco-Prussian War prevented the census, after which the German Empire was formed.
The first large-scale census had become necessary because the customs union treaties came into force on January 1, 1834. The driving force behind this major economic unification project was Prussia, which attempted to unite its eastern provinces with the Rhine Province. Prussia had already concluded a customs treaty with the Bavarian-WĂĽrttemberg Customs Union in 1829 with the aim of duty-free trade.
(Image:Â CC BY-SA 3.0, Pischdi)
The goal of duty-free travel
Prussia then requested permission to build its own roads through Saxe-Coburg and Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, on which traffic could travel duty-free. When this was successful, Prussia was able to form an economic unit through the annexation of Hesse-Kassel. The Prussian state road network grew from 3261 km in 1816 to 6392 km in 1830 and finally to 12789 km in the Customs Union in 1850.
The Prussian customs tariff, the details of which were negotiated every two years at a "General Customs Conference", prevailed in the Customs Union treaties. This tariff imposed import and export duties on all goods regardless of their origin and destination, with basic foodstuffs and raw materials being exempt. High customs duties were levied on colonial goods and luxury goods; otherwise the tariffs were lower than those of neighboring France and Austria. The smaller states initially benefited from the distribution of customs revenue based on population data.
Population development according to the December census
1834: 23 478 120
1837: 26 008 973
1840: 27 142 116
1843: 28 498 136
1846: 29 461 381
1849: 29 800 063
1852: 30 492 792
1855: 32 721 344
1858: 33 542 352
1861: 34 670 277
1864: 35 886 302
1867: a) 37 512 005 b) 37 426 291
1870: Interruption due to Franco-Prussian War
1871: 39 127 976
1875: 42 337 974
1880: 44 766 183
1885: 46 314 494
Source: Statistical Yearbook for the German Empire, 1887, page 13 [PDF]
The first census of the "customs population" was laborious and took four weeks, much to the annoyance of the statisticians: In most states, the census was carried out by the police, who took their time. Moreover, there were disagreements among the experts, for example on whether children under the age of 14 should be counted. It was not until the third census in 1840 that it was possible to collect the data from the "heads of households" on three consecutive days. The next step forward came in 1843, when enumerators moved from house to house and collected the data on the spot.
Recorded population increases with the expansion of the Zollverein
It took a further 18 years before it was possible to carry out the complete census in 1858, only on the reference date of December 3, and to determine the number of 33,542,352 customs citizens. By this time, the Duchy of Brunswick, the Kingdom of Hanover and the Grand Duchies of Oldenburg, Schaumburg-Lippe and Luxembourg had joined the Customs Union.
A census in the modern sense, in which the enumerators collected a variety of data on a questionnaire (such as denomination, age or gender), was successful in 1867, when Schleswig-Holstein, Mecklenburg-Schwerin and Mecklenburg-Strelitz joined the Customs Union. In this last census for the distribution of customs duties, 37,512,005 customs citizens were counted. The free trade union was thus the third-largest economic zone after Great Britain and the USA.
(Image:Â Hermann Hollerith fĂĽr die Railroad Gazette)
The step of transferring the data to counting cards in order to be able to use them to answer various questions on population statistics was advanced elsewhere: on December 3, 1896, Hermann Hollerith, employed by the US Census Bureau, founded the Tabulating Machine Company in the USA in order to market his electromechanical tabulating machine invented in 1886–1889.
Customs union creates internal German market
In his standard work on the German Customs Union, the British historian and Friedrich Engels biographer William Otto Henderson explains how the founding of the Customs Union and the construction of railroad connections promoted industrialization in the German states. The communication services of the Prussian state were also part of this. The Zollverein put an end to economic fragmentation, not political fragmentation. In his poem "Germany. A Winter's Tale", Heinrich Heine wrote about a trip to Germany in 1843 and gave the floor to a fellow traveler as he crossed the border into Prussia:
"The Customs Union," he remarked,
"Will establish our nationhood,
It will unite the fragmented fatherland
Into one whole.
It will give us external unity,
The so-called material unity;
The spiritual unity gives us the censorship,
The truly ideal one."
The fact that censuses are viewed critically today and even caused storms of protest in the 1980s has its roots in the Third Reich. Recording the population simplified the systematic, brutal injustice against minorities.
(mho)
