The Grand Duchy of Mecklenburg-Schwerin, was a member state of the German Confederation from 1815 to 1866. Mecklenburg-Schwerin sided with Prussia during the 1866 war. After the Prussian-Austrian War it became a member state of the North German Confederation in 1867. It became a member state of the German Empire in 1871. The grand duchy was a monarchy limited by the representation of two estates. There was no parliament. Mecklenburg was the closest thing to medieval serfdom in Germany . Serfdom was eliminated in Mecklenburg in 1820. However, it was replaced by a citizenship system that was very similar to serfdom.Under the concept of serfdom, landowners were responsible for the workers when they became old or disabled. Under the new system landowners were only responsible to those workers who had been granted a "right of establishment" by the landowner. As a result, landowners kept few permanent workers, and granted the right of establishment to few. It was not a right of all residents of Mecklenburg, but rather a privilege granted by the landowner. A side result of this was that residents were not citizens of Mecklenburg as much as they were citizens of this city or village in which they got their right of establishment. Residents who did not have the right of establishment could not get married, start a permanent home, or have children. A large part of the population that was temporary laborers was refused the right of establishment by the ruling class for their whole lives. They were given only a limited right to residence - only for as long as they had work. As a result, it was fair to say that many Mecklenburgers were homeless inside their own country.
The byproduct was that Mecklenburg had the third highest emigration rate in Europe. 261,000 Mecklenburgers left their home country (the Grand Duchies of Mecklenburg-Schwerin and Mecklenburg-Strelitz) between 1820 and 1890. Without the right of establishment the lower classes did not have any prospects for the future in Mecklenburg.
Mecklenburg was so backward oriented that Bismarck once said: “If one day the world will be destroyed I’ll move to Mecklenburg because there everything happens at least a hundred years later.”
Between 1850 and 1890 approximately 146,000 Mecklenburgers emigrated overseas, most going to the United States of America. This loss of population was most prevalent from the rural farm land. 88.5 percent of all emigrants came from rural areas. Most of them came from the manor houses of noble and titled big land-owners. Despite the emigration there still was a total population growth between 1830 and 1850. However, new births could not make up for the high number of emigrants between 1850 and 1905 and the population in the rural areas dropped by 25,000. After 1871 the number of people that moved overseas decreased and internal migration increased. More people that were willing to emigrate went to cities and industrial towns outside of Mecklenburg, such as the areas of Berlin. Almost 1/3 of the people, who were born in Mecklenburg, lived outside of their home state. There were 648,000 people living in Mecklenburg in 1914
Despite conventions with Prussia dating back to 1849, the formal convention between Mecklenburg-Schwerin and Prussia about the military was not ratified until January 2, 1873. Special note was taken in the convention to ensure cost differentials between Mecklenburg uniforms and Prussian uniforms were accounted for. |
FRIEDRICH FRANZ IV, Grand Duke of Mecklenburg-Schwerin, renounced the throne 14 Nov 1918 (Palermo 9 Apr 1882-Flensburg 17 Nov 1945); m.Gmunden 7 Jun 1904 Alexandra Pss of Hannover (Gmunden 29 Sep 1882-Glücksburg 30 Aug 1963)
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