Abstract
This article re-examines the debate about industrialisation and modernity in pre-war Germany. Whereas most historians have concentrated on the critical, nostalgic, doom-laden and volatile reaction of writers and academics to economic transformation this study assesses the much more optimistic and approving verdict of popular newspapers, magazines and books. By 1900 the economy of the Kaiserreich was widely believed in Germany to have expanded more quickly and more successfully than that of France. The reversal of the two countries' fortunes, which was extensively covered in the press, overturned a long-held assumption of French superiority. Confronted daily with such evidence of German success vis-a-vis France, Britain and other European states, Wilhelmine public opinion had good cause to feel confident about the Reich's economic future.
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