Die großen Kirchen und das politische System der Bundesrepublik Deutschland

Wewer, Göttrik

doi:10.1007/978-3-322-83836-0_2

Cited by 3 publications

(1 citation statement)

References 8 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Both Catholic and Protestant lobbyists recognized, however, that the precondition for exerting influence was cooperation between them; any position championed by only one confession had little chance of swaying the government. 88 Chancellor Helmut Kohl learned about the enduring influence of organized religion in 1987, when his CDU-led government finally introduced the comprehensive federal law to regulate Sunday labor promised by Adenauer in 1960. Kohl's Work Hours Bill expanded the grounds for exemptions from the ban on Sunday labor significantly, but it was soon withdrawn in the face of sharp criticism by the German Labor Federation and the Catholic and Evangelical Churches.…”

Section: Sunday Labor After 1961mentioning

confidence: 99%

Defending the “Peace of Sunday”: The Debate over Sunday Labor in the West German Steel Industry after the Second World War

Patch¹

2021

Cent Eur Hist

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Working hours were largely unregulated in nineteenth-century Germany, but a powerful alliance emerged in the 1890s between the Christian churches and the socialist labor movement to prohibit most industrial labor on Sunday, including most production of steel. In the 1950s steel management persuaded organized labor that it would be advantageous to produce steel continuously throughout the week, the prevalent system in other countries. The Evangelical Church retreated in this debate, but the Catholic Church waged a fierce and partly successful campaign from 1952 to 1961 to defend the old prohibition. Until the 1980s organized labor continued to cooperate with both major churches to keep Sunday industrial labor quite rare. Their influence declined suddenly after national reunification in 1990, however, and many Germans have come to prize individual freedom above the old principle, honored by Christians and the unchurched alike, that most people should have the same day of rest.

show abstract

Section: Sunday Labor After 1961mentioning

confidence: 99%