The Germanic culture of the time of Julius Caesar was said to be an egalitarian culture. People did not work the same land permanently. No one privately owned land and the land was worked in a more communal manner. Tacitus said that people were equal and had the right to say what they wanted.
Was this an example of pre industrial communism? Is the German culture of pre Roman up to the fall of Rome an example of a more militaristic form of communism?
It's important to remember that most historical sources about the Germanic tribes are written from a Roman point of view, almost all from imperial times. When the Roman historian Tacitus describes the Germanic tribes as egalitarian and without formal ownership of land, he does so from an imperial Roman point of view, ie. from a society which was extremely hierarchical and had a very legalized concept of land ownership.
Many will point out too, that Tacitus, who did not visit Germania, isn't always reliable in how he portrays the Germanic tribes. In many ways, his books are a criticism of contemporary Roman society, which he saw as corrupted and out of touch with its core values (many of which make an appearance guised as "Germanic values").
In reality Germanic society was highly stratified. It's kings were usually chosen, but they were kings nonetheless. There was a marked difference between freemen (of various classes, including warrior clans or proto-nobility) and freedmen and slaves.
This is typical for all Indo-European societies and for most agricultural societies in Europe and the Near East.