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The Politics of Victimization: Social Pensioners and the German Social State in the Inflation of 1914–1924

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 December 2008

Greg A. Eghigian
Greg A. Eghigian
Affiliation:
University of ChicagoChicago, Ill.
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Extract

Over the years, scholars have identified the Weimar period as among the most pivotal in the development of the German social state (Sozialstaat). Noting what appears to have been an almost unbroken pattern of expansion in the compass of social work since the late nineteenth century, social scientists and historians have recognized the 1920s as a time of especially acute growth in public assistance. Government expenditures from the First World War onward show a particularly marked increase in three areas: public housing, public health, and social insurance. Together, these three spheres constituted the primary sites of Weimar social interventionism. Analysts have found it more difficult, however, to agree on the historical significance of these interventions, with discussion largely centered on the question of whether, and to what extent, the social programs of the Reich and municipalities overburdened the social state and thus contributed to the demise of the Weimar political order.

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Articles
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Central European History , Volume 26 , Issue 4 , December 1993 , pp. 375 - 403
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Copyright © Conference Group for Central European History of the American Historical Association 1993

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References

Research for this article was supported in part by grants from the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) and the International Research and Exchanges Board (IREX), with funds for the latter provided by the National Endowment for the Humanities and the United States Information Agency. None of these organizations is responsible for the views expressed. I especially wish to thank Melissa Watts for her insightful comments on different drafts of this article.

1. I use the term “social” here to refer to the modern and rather nebulous public sphere that consists in the “set of means which allow social life to escape material pressures and politico-moral uncertainties; the entire range of methods which make the members of a society relatively safer from the effects of economic fluctuations by providing a certain security.” Donzelot, Jacques, The Policing of Families (New York, 1979), xxvi.Google Scholar

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4. See, for example, von Kruedener, Jürgen, “Die Überforderung der Weimarer Republik als Sozialstaat,” Geschichte und Gesellschaft 11 (1985): 358–76.Google Scholar The debate has been partly carried on within the wider debate over Borchardt's, Knut Wachstum, Krisen, Handlungsspielräume der Wirtschaftspolitik, translated as Perspectives on Modern German Economic History and Policy (New York, 1991)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Borchardt's thesis—that the German economy was already “sick” before 1929—drew a great deal of attention in the early and mid–1980s, with the journal Geschichte und Gesellschaft serving as the chief forum for debate.

5. This research was sparked by the so-called Inflation Project of Gerald Feldman, Carl-Ludwig Holtfrerich, Gerhard Ritter, and Peter-Christian Witt. Results have done much to revise conventional wisdom by emphasizing a comparative approach, pointing up the non-uniformity of the inflation's effects on the population, and concentrating on the ways in which the early Weimar Republic attempted to and succeeded in stabilizing and reconstructing society. Feldman's, Gerald D.The Great Disorder: Politics, Economics, and Society in the German Inflation, 1914–1924 (Oxford, 1993)Google Scholar impressively and comprehensively synthesizes this research. The project, however, has not been without its critics who fault its researchers for, among other things, their overreliance on political economic analysis. For reviews of the Inflation Project literature, see Schneider, Michael, “Deutsche Gesellschaft in Krieg und Währungskrise 1914–1924: Ein Jahrzehnt Forschungen zur Inflation,” Archiv für Sozialgeschichte 26 (1986): 301–19;Google ScholarKunz, Andreas, “Inflation also Verteilungskampf: Eine Bilanze der Neueren Forschung,” in Abelshauser, ed. Die Weimarer Republik, 171–84.Google Scholar

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12. On one hand, as Crew sees it, pensioner organizations pressured authorities on the basis of models borrowed from the labor movement and bourgeois political parties. Simultaneously, individual pensioners engaged in what he calls “other politics” or “micropolitics” with welfare authorities in an effort to “reconstruct the personal ‘honor’ and dignity” they felt they were losing in the system. See Crew, “Wohlfahrtsbrot,” 244–45.

13. The following will focus on social pensioners from compulsory accident and invalid insurances only.

14. Eghigian, Greg, “Die Bürokratie und das Entstehen von Krankheit: Die Politik um die ‘Rentenneurosen’ 1890–1926,” in Stadt und Gesundheit: Zum Wandel von “Volksgesundheit” und kommunaler Gesundheitspolitik im 19. und frühen 20. Jahrhundert, ed. Reulecke, Jürgen and Rüdenhausen, Adelheid Gräfin zu Castell (Stuttgart, 1991), 203–23.Google Scholar

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16. Whalen, Robert Weldon, Bitter Wounds: German Victims of the Great War, 1914–1939 (London and Ithaca, 1984).Google Scholar

17. Some of the more notable incidents took place in Berlin, Brandenburg, Westphalia, and the Rhineland between 1919 and 1921. For records of these events, see Bundesarchiv Koblenz (hereafter BAK), R89/6695, 6721, and 6715.

18. Feldman, Gerald D., “The Fate of the Social Insurance System in the German Inflation, 1914 to 1923,” in Feldman, et al. , eds. Anpassung, 433–47.Google Scholar

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21. Amato, Joseph A., Victims and Values: A History and a Theory of Suffering (New York, 1990).Google Scholar

22. Mosse, George L., Fallen Soldiers: Reshaping the Memory of the World Wars (New York and Oxford, 1990); Whalen, Bitter Wounds.Google Scholar

23. In the records that I have examined, I cannot find a single example of an accident casualty or invalid before 1914 refer to him/herself as a “victim.”

24. Widows and families were also an important part of this movement. Social pensioner political action groups, however, were predominantly led by the disabled, with their programs centered chiefly around the latter's concerns. While widows were admitted to most organizations, their inclusion as members was simply an extension of their late husbands' insurance coverage. In this, social pensioner organizations reproduced the gendered structure of social insurance compensation, understanding women—like children—primarily as dependents. On the gendered assumptions of social insurance, see Quataert, Jean H., “Social Insurance and the Family Work of Oberlausitz Home Weavers in the Late Nineteenth Century,” in German Women in the Nineteenth Century: A Social History, ed. Fout, John C. (N.Y. and London, 1984), 270–94.Google Scholar

25. In 1920 Berlin, for example, an average male, invalid pensioner with a family received around 45–60 marks a month from his insurance. Even if this income were supplemented by unemployment relief supports (approximately 43 marks), it did not come even close to covering the cost of rationed food alone which, depending on the number of children, could range anywhere from 380–900 marks a month. See Niehuss, “Lebensweise,” 249.

26. Bundesarchiv Potsdam (hereafter BAP), Reichsarbeitsministerium (hereafter RAM), no. 4532, Landesversicherungsanstalt (hereafter LVA) Berlin to RAM, 17 September 1920.

27. BAP, RAM, no. 4532, Franz Wagner to RAM, 7 October 1920.

28. BAP, RAM, no. 4547, Bl. 125–26, Robert Nagel to Preussischen Minister für Volkswohlfahrt, 1 September 1921.

29. BAP, RAM, no. 4533, Bl. 39–40, Pensionär- und Rentenempfänger-Verband Saarland to Reichstag, 20 July 1920.

30. BAP, RAM, no. 4532, Bundes-Vorstand des Invaliden-Bundes “Invalidenheil” der Arbeitsinvaliden Zwickau i. S. an Reichsregierung, 16 October 1920.

31. In Frankfurt am Main, for example, welfare administrators negotiated local assistance with a chapter of the League of German Accident, Invalid, Widow, and Orphan Pension Recipients. Relief administrators in southern cities like Munich and Nuremberg, too, had regular dealings with local pensioner associations.

32. SBAK, R89/11426, Heupts, Robert, “Für eine Reform der Unfallgesetzgebung,” Volkszeitung, 28 April 1919.Google Scholar

33. BAK, R89/11426, Robert Heupts to Reichsversicherungsamt (hereafter RVA), 30 August 1920; Robert Heupts to RAM, 15 May 1921. The Civil Pension Recipients Association of Bochum remained a vigilant and active force in social service politics right up until the occupation of the Ruhr in January 1923, consistently calling for the complete reform of social insurance and routinely petitioning insurance providers and the federal government on behalf of disabled individuals who were dissatisfied with their pension awards. For specifics, see BAK, R89/11426

34. A police report from 1920 states that the organization was founded in 1918, but I have been unable to find any evidence to confirm this. What is more likely the case, as it was reported by the Central Association itself, local pensioner groups began meeting directly after the war to discuss the possibility of forming a national organization. These talks, however, did not develop any further until 1920.

35. Membership fees were initially set at one mark a month or two marks for those with the means to pay it. The organization was broken down into a hierarchy of geographical administrative units, starting with its central headquarters in Frankfurt am Main, followed by administrations at the regional (Gauen), district (Kreisen), and community (Ortsgruppen) levels.

36. Geheimes Staatsarchiv Kulturbesitz Merseburg (hereafter GStAKM), Rep. 191, no. 4032, Satzungen des Zentralverbandes der Invaliden und Witwen Deutschlands, beschlossen auf der Reichskonferenz in Essen am 24.-26. Juli 1920.

37. GStAKM, Rep. 191, no. 4032, Hauptvorstand, Zentralverband der Invaliden und Witwen Deutschlands, Rundschreiben an die Ortsgruppen-Vorstände, August 1920.

38. GStAKM, Rep. 191, no. 4032, Deutsche Invaliden-Zeitung: Organ des Zentralverbandes der Invaliden und Witwen Deutschlands, November 1920.

39. GStAKM, 120 BB, VIII 8, no. 1, vol. 1, Reichskanzler an sämtliche Bundesregierungen in Preussen, die Herren Minister für Handel und Gewerbe und für Landwirtschaft, Domänen und Forsten, und den Herrn Statthalter in Elsass-Lothringen, 28 December 1917.

40. GStAKM, 120 BB, VIII 8, no. 1, vol. 1, Staatssekretär des Reichsarbeitsamtes an sämtliche Regierungen, 26 November 1918.

41. Reulecke, Jürgen, “Auswirkungen der Inflation auf die städtischen Finanzen,” in Feldman, , ed., Nachwirkungen, 97–116;Google ScholarRanft, Norbert, “Erwerbslosenfürsorge, Ruhrkampf und Kommunen: Die Trendwende in der Sozialpolitik im Jahre 1923,” in Feldman, , et al. , eds, Anpassung, 163–201;Google ScholarLangewiesche, Dieter, “‘Staat’ und ‘Kommune’: Zum Wandel der Staatsaufgaben in Deutschland im 19. Jahrhundert”, Historische Zeitschrift 248 (1989): 621–35.CrossRefGoogle Scholar Municipalities assumed major responsibilities for administering, among other things, Kriegswohlfahrtspflege, compulsory measures of the war economy, and demobilization regulations.

42. Among other things, disabled groups requested that local government officials provide additional allowances for pensioners, add invalid representatives to welfare boards, double the pocket money given to poorhouse residents, create a separate department for the disabled in municipal labor exchanges, and subsidize clothes and shoes, and in the winter, potatoes, bread, milk, and fuel. BAP, RAM, no. 4532, Invalidenbund “Invalidenheil,” Ortsgruppe Reichenbach to Stadtrat of Reichenbach, 1 April 1920; Zentralverband der Arbeitsinvaliden Deutschlands, Gau Sachsen, Ortsgruppe Gross-Dresden to Stadtverordneten-Kollegium, 24 April 1920; Zentralverband der Arbeitsinvaliden Deutschlands, Gauleitung Sachsen to (Stadtrat Bautzen), 13 July 1920; GStAKM, Rep. 191, no. 4032, Zentralverband der Invaliden und Witwen Deutschlands, Entwurf einer Eingabe für Ortsgruppen to städtische Behörden, c. August-November 1920.

43. The town of Offenbach am Main, for instance, instituted a 5 pfennig streetcar ticket for those determined to be at least 50 percent disabled, gave away wood to needy pensioners, and awarded 5,000 marks to the local chapter of the Central Association of German Invalids and Widows for building an office. The city of Essen gave its pensioners a one-time allowance from its welfare treasury. In Munich, officials transferred the care of disabled pensioners from poor relief to war welfare administration, while in Hamburg, a special law was passed that automatically adjusted civil invalid pensions to match increases in unemployment support. The city of Nuremberg went further than most in segregating pensioner relief from standard welfare programs by creating a separate department in the local welfare office—referred to as “Middle Class Assistance” (Mittelstandshilfe)—solely for those residents needing aid outside of poor relief. With 75 percent of its workload taken up by the disabled and invalid, Middle Class Assistance provided those it supported with a one-time allowance and money toward rehabilitation (approximately 150–300 marks). BAP, RAM, no. 9132, Bl. 5–9, Deutscher Verein für öffentliche und private Fürsorge. Fachausschuss für städtisches Fürsorgewesen to Ministerialrat DrKarstedt, 19 October 1920; GStAKM, 120 BB, VIII 8, no. 1, vol. 2, Deutscher Verein für Armenpflege und Wohltätigkeit, Sitzung des Hauptausschusses, 28 October 1920.

44. BAP, RAM, no. 4532, Mayors of cities of Reichenbach, Mylau, and Netzschkau to Reichsministerium der Finanzen, 11 May 1920; Magistrat der Stadt Bernburg to Staatsrat für Anhalt, 19 June 1920.

45. BAP, RAM, no. 4533, Bl. 36–37, Franz Josef Kohl to Reichstag, 6 July 1920.

46. BAP, RAM, no. 4535, Verband der deutschen landwirtschaftlichen Berufsgenossenschaften to RAM, 9 June 1921; Verband der Deutschen Berufsgenossenschaften to RAM, 11 June 1921.

47. Figures come from Craig, Gordon A., Germany, 1866–1945 (New York, 1978), 450.Google Scholar

48. BAP, RAM, no. 4534, Vorstand, Vereinigung der deutschen Bauernvereine to RAM, 10 August 1921.

49. “Pensions for all social pensioners must be set so that they are left with the possibility of enjoying a humane and dignified life. If this were done according to one's salary and the kind of practical, productive work one did, then the difference between civil servant pensions and social pensions would not be so irresponsibly great. We must try to ensure in cases of invalidism that there is a certain evenhandedness at work, whether it's a laborer, white-collar worker, or state or municipal civil servant.” BAP, RAM, no. 4547, Bl. 251–54, “Mehr Hilfe den Sozialrentnern!” Der Ratgeber für soziale Praxis: Zeitschrift für Invaliden, Unfallbeschädigte und deren Hinterbliebenen 1 (1 08 1921).Google Scholar

50. BAP, RAM, no. 9132, Bl. 56, “Protestversammlung der Arbeiter-Invaliden,” Hamburger Echo 415 (6 09 1921).Google Scholar

51. BAP, RAM, no. 4547, Bl. 20–27, RAM, Brauns to Reichskanzler, Reichsminister der Finanzen Wirth, 15 September 1921.

52. BAP, RAM, no. 4547, Bl. 79–81, Reichsfinanzminister Wirth to Reichsarbeitsminister Brauns, 29 September 1921.

53. GStAKM, Rep. 151, IC, no. 12019, Reichsarbeitsminister Brauns to Staatssekretär in der Reichskanzlei, 8 October 1921. The sums were 2,500 marks for invalids, 2,000 marks for widows, and 1,000 marks for orphans.

54. GStAKM, Rep. 151, IC, no. 12019, Preussischer Minister für Volkswohlfahrt to Ministerpräsidenten, 22 October 1921.

55. GStAKM, Rep. 151, IC, no. 12019, Vorstand, Deutscher Städtetag to Reichsrat and Reichswirtschaftsrat, 31 October 1921.

56. GStAKM, Rep. 151, IC, no. 12019, Vorläufiger Reichswirtschaftsrat, “Antrag zu dem Entwurf eines Gesetzes über Notstandsmassnahmen zur Unterstützung von Empfängern von Renten aus der Invalidenversicherung,” 2 November 1921; GStAKM, 120 BB, VIII 8, no. 1, vol. 2, Verband der deutschen landwirtschaftlichen Berufsgenossenschaften to Staatsminister Dr. von Trott zu Solz, Mitglied des Reichsrats, 15 November 1921; Verband der deutschen landwirtschaftlichen Berufsgenossenschaften to Reichsarbeitsminister, 29 November 1921; BAP, RAM, no. 9132, Bl. 62–64, Zentralverband der Invaliden und Witwen Deutschlands to Sozialpolitischen Ausschuß des Reichstags, c. 26 November 1921.

57. GStAKM, Rep. 191, IC, no. 12019, signed “Viele tausend Invaliden und Altersrentner” to (Prussian) Finanzministerium, 5 January 1922. See also the scores of letters from individual accident pensioners over the course of 1922 in BAP, RAM, no. 4536.

58. BAP, RAM, no. 9132, Bl. 72, Zentralverband der Invaliden und Witwen Deutschlands to RAM, 20 February 1922.

59. GStAKM, Rep. 191, IC, no. 12019, Reichsstädtebund to Preussischen Finanzministerium, 10 April 1922.

60. BAP, RAM, no. 4549, Bl. 478–79, Reichsminister der Finanzen Hermes to Reichsarbeitsminister Brauns, 16 March 1922.

61. BAP, RAM, no. 4549, Bl. 130, Vorsitzender, Sächsische Invalidenrentner-Vereinigung (Chemnitz) to Reichstag, 1 June 1922.

62. BAP, RAM, no. 4549, Bl. 137, Steuerfreie Sächsische Invaliden-Vereinigung Gross-Dresden und Umgegend to Reichsregierung, c. June 1922.

63. BAP, RAM, no. 4549, Bl. 132, Sächsische Invalidenrentner-Vereinigung (Chemnitz) to RAM, 24 August 1922.

64. BAP, RAM, no. 9132, Bl. 78, J. Lüneburg, Zentralverband der Invaliden und Witwen Deutschlands to Reichsverband der Deutschen Industrie, 9 August 1922.

65. BAP, RAM, Nr. 4548, Bl. 120, Verband der Arbeitsinvaliden (Düsseldorf) to RAM, 10 July 1922; Nr. 4549, Bl. 121, Zentralverband der Invaliden und Witwen Deutschlands to Reichsernährungsminister, 20 November 1922; no. 4550, Bl. 311, Arbeiter-Sekretariat Rosenheim and Zentralverband der Invaliden und Witwen Deutschlands, Ortsgruppe Kolbermoor to Reichstag, 5 March 1923.

66. BAP, RAM, no. 9132, Bl. 75–6, “Unser erster Verbandstag,” Deutsche Invalidenzeitung 7 (July 1922).

67. BAP, RAM, no. 9132, Bl. 95–7, Niederschrift über die Verhandlungen betr. Ankauf von Schuhwaren seitens des Zentralverbandes der Invaliden und Witwen Deutschlands in Berlin, 5 December 1922.

68. BAP, RAM, no. 4533, Bl. 164–65, Zentralverband der Invaliden und Witwen Deutschlands, Gau Sachsen to RAM, 28 November 1922.

69. BAP, RAM, no. 4550, Bl. 312. Zentralverband der Invaliden und Witwen Deutschlands, Gau Sachsen to Reichstag, 19 March 1923.

70. GStAKM, Rep. 191, IC, no. 12019, Bericht über Besprechung im Ministerium für Volkswohlfahrt am 27. April 1922. It was all to no avail; by the end of the year, Prussia too was contributing to the effort.

71. BAP, RAM, no. 4536/1, Verband der deutschen landwirtschaftlichen Berufsgenossenschaften to RAM, 8 September 1922; Verband der deutschen Berufsgenossenschaften to RAM, 20 September 1922; GStAKM, 120 BB, VIII 8, no. 1, vol. 2, Entschliessung des 33. ordentlichen Berufsgenossenschaftstages des Verbandes der Deutschen Berufsgenossenschaften in Bonn am 13./14. September 1922. For 1923, see BAP, RAM, nos. 4537, 4537/1, 4538.

72. GStAKM, Rep. 191, IC, no. 12019, Verband der Deutschen Landkreise to Reichstag and Fraktionen des Reichstags, 6 February 1923; BAP, RAM, no. 4549, Bl. 389, RAM

73. BAP, RAM, no. 4550, Bl. 239, Reichsminister für Ernährung und Landwirtschaft to RAM, 19 June 1923.

74. BAP, RAM, no. 4550, Bl. 98, Deutscher Verein für öffentliche und private Fürsorge to RAM, 21 April 1923.

75. BAP, RAM, no. 4550, Bl. 475–77, Vorstand, Deutscher Städtetag to RAM, 25 June 1923. Such a system, the board insisted, would not require centralizing administration. On the contrary, municipalities could be assigned the task of administering welfare at the local level, while it would be left up to the national level to agree on general standards and aims.

76. GStAKM, 120 BB, VIII 8, no. 1, vol. 2, Reichsarbeitsminister Brauns to Regierungen der Länder, 3 July 1923.

77. BAP, RAM, no. 4552, Bl. no. 4552, Bl. 218–19, RAM to Sozialministerien der Länder, 29 August 1923; no. 4550, Bl. 547–48, RAM to Reichsminister der Finanzen, 3 September 1923; no. 4552, Bl. 282, Bürgermeister, Rat der Stadt Leipzig (Fürsorgeamt) to Sächsisches Arbeitsministerium, 29 September 1923.

78. BAP, RAM, no. 4550, Bl. 686, Vorsitzender, Sächsische Invalidenrentnervereinigung Chemnitz to Reichstag, 11 October 1923.

79. BAP, RAM, no. 4551, Bl. 14, Hessisches Ministerium für Arbeit und Wirtschaft to RAM, 25 October 1923.

80. BAP, RAM, no. 4590, Bl. 23–24, RAM to Reichsminister der Finanzen, 10 December 1923.

81. Feldman, Great Disorder, 858.