The big land owners who dominated the German army and bureaucracy believed that the state was obliged to protect their privileges. Most of the agricultural population, still influenced by feudal traditions, accepted the leadership of this minority group. The preponderant influence of the feudal estate owners during the Empire was the more striking since not they, but the middle-class farmers, were the backbone of German agriculture. To understand the position of the farm worker in Imperial Germany and the Weimar Republic, one must go back to the origins of this social structure.