Origins of the German welfare state: Social policy in Germany to 1945

Abstract

This book provides a historical survey of the development of social protection in Germany up to 1945. It is based on the realization that the modern, complex “system” of social protection is an “evolved” one and can be best understood by knowing how it came into being. It has layers of historical growth and is a far cry from the kind of rigor one expects of “systems” in the scientific or philosophical sense. But in the professional discourse of social theory and social law it may well be referred to as a “system,” and this can be useful to the historian if he is asked to specify the past phenomena he is searching for and in which he expects to find a bridge to the present.