The Impact of War on Welfare State Development in Germany

Abstract

The world wars were important ‘pacemakers’ of welfare state development in Germany—first and foremost via special wartime or post-war benefit regimes. Veterans’ pensions and reinsertion after World War I and compensation of various war victims after World War II massively increased social spending for decades. Whenever war did have a significant impact on the core welfare state programmes (i.e. the big social insurance schemes), it was through indirect and long-term rather than direct, short-term dynamics. Labour mobilization via the involvement of trade unions and the significant expansion of wartime social assistance and social services during World War I, for example, paved the way for the expansion of the welfare state in the Weimar Republic (such as unemployment insurance in 1927). Social policy during World War II targeted benefits towards soldiers’ families and ethnic German victims, but it was far from the ‘dictatorship of favours’ Götz Aly describes.

The Role of War in Deep Transitions: Exploring Mechanisms, Imprints and Rules in Sociotechnical Systems

“…The TEP framework does refer to the importance of the world wars in influencing far-reaching institutional changes such as the welfare state and the empowerment of trade unions, the mass mobilisation of science, and international institutions (6). In this regard, discussions of world wars in the TEP chime with historical accounts elsewhere highlighting the transformational impact of world wars in influencing widespread institutional change (7)(8)(9)(10)(11)(12)(13)(14)(15)(16)(17)(18). However, although accounts of the fourth surge identify important developments in the domains of energy, food and transport (see table 1) including new technologies, industries, and infrastructures, there is limited attention regarding how transitions in these areas came about and connect with the wider paradigmatic shifts identified in TEP accounts, and particularly how they were affected by war.…”