The Divided German Society

The German Empire was a deeply divided society. German society was divided along religious lines, along socio-cultural lines, and along the line of access to education. It was a class society with limited opportunities for social advancement. At the core of this class society was the schooling system that produced and reproduced through sorting students according to their social background into the Volksschule, the Realschule, and the Gymnasium, the three social classes of the upper class, the middle class, and the working class. Anti-Catholic and Anti-Socialist policies created further divisions of society and contributed to the creation of subcultures that became an outer shell in which Germans lived their lives. These subcultures provided its inhabitants with nearly everything needed from cradle to grave. New developments such as football had to be integrated not just into one German culture, but rather into each of its subcultures. Football was, thus, introduced and reinvented not just once, but at least two times as Socialist and as Conservative Football.