Berlin beginnings
Gustav Stresemann grew up in Berlin during the confident decades after German unification. His father ran a modest beer distribution business, placing the family outside the old aristocratic elite but within the striving commercial world of the new empire. That background mattered. Stresemann understood the ambitions of the educated middle class, the importance of industry, and the connection between economic strength and national power. Berlin itself was a political education: imperial authority, socialism, liberalism, militarism, and modern mass politics all pressed against one another in the capital. Stresemann's later career would carry this imprint. He was never a romantic outsider. He was a practical nationalist shaped by business, education, and the belief that Germany had to be strong enough to be respected.
