As the German economic historian Karl Erich Born noted in 1957, the Kaiserreich (1871 to 1918) certainly had an ideology. Formulated by the Prussian school of historians and shared by the educated bourgeoisie, it was a militaristic nationalism that developed into a strident imperialism, expressed in the public writings and pronouncements of the Pan German League and especially in the speeches of Kaiser Wilhelm II himself. In this ideology there was no place for the workers. It spoke of the achievements of the princely houses, of the efficiency and bravery of the army, of the dedication to duty of the…