Zur Lage der Landwirtschaft in Pommern (1929)

Emil Lederer, Käthe Bauer-Mengelberg, and Svend Riemer’s Zur Lage der Landwirtschaft in Pommern. Exkursionsbericht des Instituts für Sozial- und Staatswissenschaften an der Universität Heidelberg presents a study of Pomeranian agriculture based on a June 1929 excursion, estate visits, accounts, and discussions with agricultural representatives. The Pommerscher Landbund’s invitation gave large estates particular prominence. Moving through production conditions, profitability, labor, and settlement, the report identifies a structural mismatch between intensive estate farming and changing markets, aggravated by debt and unstable labor relations.

Poor soils, restricted crop choices, distance from consumers, and altered borders constrain agricultural production and sales. Transport costs exemplify the disadvantages facing regional producers:

Die Tatsache ist nicht erstaunlich, wenn man hört, daß die Fracht von Stolp nach Berlin über das Doppelte der Fracht von Kanada nach Berlin beträgt.

English translation: The fact is not astonishing when one hears that the freight charge from Stolp to Berlin amounts to more than double the freight charge from Canada to Berlin.

Freight depresses receipts while increasing input costs, and industrial contraction weakens local demand. Diversification offers limited relief: processing industries face their own competitive constraints, while crop rotations, labor requirements, and existing commitments obstruct rapid adjustment. The authors summarize the resulting exposure:

In dieser Situation ist somit durch eine gewisse Starrheit des Angebots eine starke Marktabhängigkeit gegeben.

English translation: In this situation a strong dependence on the market is thus given by a certain rigidity of supply.

Intensification can therefore deepen distress rather than remedy it. Estate accounts reveal losses and interest obligations that consume operating gains. The report distinguishes the survival of present owners from the viability of agricultural production after debt relief or ownership transfer. Official valuations obscure diminished earning capacity; recognizing lower values would expose indebtedness but clarify the basis for reorganized enterprises. The authors also criticize a conception of value centered on output extracted from the soil regardless of its cost. Technical competence and determination do not guarantee economically sustainable management.

The labor discussion connects profitability with low wages, payments in kind, family labor, and seasonal employment. Deputat arrangements complicate wage comparisons and constrain workers’ spending choices. Employers’ preference for Polish seasonal workers is explained chiefly through cheaper accommodation and greater attachment to the workplace, rather than superior aptitude. Rural departure likewise reflects industrial earnings and wider opportunities, not merely unemployment benefits.

Die Probleme, die sich hier stellen, liegen weitaus komplizierter als diejenigen, die in den Lohndiskussionen des Industriearbeitertums erörtert werden.

English translation: The problems that present themselves here are far more complicated than those discussed in the wage debates of the industrial working class.

This complexity is institutional as well as financial. The Landarbeiter-Verband seeks clearer contracts, money wages, and regulated hours. The Landbund’s corporative approach instead joins employers and workers within a common agricultural interest, subordinating internal conflict to sectoral solidarity. Linking wages to agricultural returns thus raises the question of whether workers should accept employer predominance as the price of collective protection. The report treats the tension between patriarchal estate relations and modern social expectations as fundamental.

Settlement provides no automatic solution. Neu-Gartschow and Lübbersdorf illustrate how smallholders’ prospects depend on acreage, plot arrangement, capital, equipment, debt service, and prices. Subdivision need not increase population when settlers replace displaced estate workers. Small farms may survive through unpaid family labor and exceptionally long hours despite lower yields. Ownership mobilizes effort, but survival cannot establish either superior productivity or adequate remuneration.

The concluding analysis situates these difficulties within a rigid social geography. Closely connected estate owners remain separated from peasants, workers, and small urban groups, limiting occupational mobility. Economically, less intensive estate farming and subdivision offer alternative responses, each with social costs. Political concerns complicate the choice: borderland depopulation appears dangerous, while displacing estate owners threatens established provincial relationships.

The report consequently favors differentiated transitional assistance, settlement where conditions permit, and gradual technical and economic adjustment toward independence from subsidy. Its distinctive contribution is to separate profitability, ownership, labor organization, and national policy analytically while demonstrating their practical interdependence. Agricultural rescue ultimately depends on the wider economy whose resources nationalist political recklessness could undermine.