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be described as the common type of housing accommodation for all classes in 
Germany, and it is a characteristic feature of German towns that, whilst there 
are purely working-class districts, yet the working classes are generally scattered 
throughout the whole of a town, occupying either the upper floors of houses whose 
lower floors may be occupied by middle-class tenants, or else housed in buildings 
—the " back houses” (Hinterhäuser) referred to below—which lie concealed 
behind the better-class houses visible from the street. There are some excep 
tions, but as a general rule the large house with a considerable number of 
tenements is becoming more and more predominant. Bremen is unique 
amongst the large towns of Germany in that a very considerable proportion of 
its population live in one-family houses ; in Remscheid and Solingen houses of 
an old type for one or two families, and in Crefeld two-family houses, originally 
built for weavers, are still important ; houses of a similar size are also found 
to some extent in a number of other towns (as, for example, in Elberfeld, 
Königshütte, and Munich), but almost everywhere, even in the quite small 
towns, they are giving way before the large houses with many tenements. 
In some of the larger towns these erections often resemble large barracks built 
round small paved courtyards, there being in addition to the block fronting 
upon the street another block lying behind and parallel to it (Hinterhäuser or 
Hofhäuser), and not infrequently also one or more side blocks (Seitenhäuser or 
Flügelhäuser) either isolated or running back from the front block and connect 
ing it with the one at the rear. The rents in these back and side houses are as 
a rule lower than those paid in the front blocks. In the more modern erections 
there-are many variants of this plan, tending on the whole to the elimination of 
either the back or the side blocks, or of both. 
The traditional and still normal working-class dwelling in such a house 
consists of three rooms, called respectively “ Stube, Kammer, Küche ” (living- 
room, bedroom, and kitchen), together with certain appurtenances such as a 
share of the cellar for the storage of fuel, &c., and even for laundry use, and 
the use, on a particular day, of a loft for drying purposes.- A large number of the 
newer tenements have at the front or (more usually) back a balcony which is used 
in this latter way also. Two-roomed tenements, usually with appurtenances, are 
also very common, and these two types—with the three-roomed tenement 
predominant—may be taken as representing the prevalent standard of working- 
class housing throughout Germany. Four-roomed tenements are of impor 
tance in this connexion only in rare cases, the chief being Leipzig, where 
the general level of housing for the working-class population appears to be 
higher than in any other of the large towns investigated, with the exception of 
Bremen. Tenements of one room, though fairly frequent, are not sufficiently 
so to be regarded as constituting an important type, whilst working-class 
dwellings of five or more rooms are scarcely to be found. The rooms on any 
floor of a tenement house are frequently so arranged that any combination of 
rooms may be made for letting purposes, and this is facilitated where, as in the 
Rhineland-Westphalia industrial area, in most parts of Northern Germany 
and in Mülhausen, the tenant has himself to provide heating and cooking 
stoves—the open fireplace is practically unknown in Germany. In Saxony, 
and generally in South Germany, on the other hand, the stoves are fixtures 
supplied by the landlord. 
Of each of these general types there are naturally many variations of 
which descriptions will be found in the separate town reports. One of the chief 
difficulties in classification is caused by the kitchen. In Stuttgart a so-called 
“ kitchen ” is always additional to the two or three rooms of the tenement but 
it is a quite small place, capable, indeed, of use for culinary purposes, but not 
as a living-room. The same is true, to a greater or less extent, in other towns 
such as Aschaffenburg, Hamburg, Munich, Nuremberg, Brunswick, Bochum and 
Mülhausen ; but on the other hand the kitchen elsewhere is often a fairly l ar p- e 
room and used as a living-room. In a number of cases the practice prevails of 
letting an attic with each tenement. This applies more especially to Saxon towns 
and in Chemnitz every tenement is required to comprise an attic capable of bein j' 
used as a bedroom. Only where attics are so used have they been counted as 
rooms when a “ two-roomed ” or “ three-roomed ” tenement is spoken of. 
For the purpose of comparison, therefore, it has appeared desirable to reckon 
as “ rooms ” all kitchens large enough to be used to any extent as living-rooms