The welfare benefits provided in the Weimar Republic were a direct result of the consequences of the First World War. The provision for war victims, the poor, widows and orphans as well as a steadily growing army of unemployed beneficiaries formed a heavy burden for the first German democracy. Many social hardships were alleviated by church institutions.
08.12.2021
In Focus - Welfare
In the "In Focus" section, we present special highlights from archives that are represented in Archivportal-D. These selected archival items provide insight into the holdings and offer research suggestions for a possible search in Archivportal-D or in the thematic portal "Weimar Republic". This month we are pleased to present a contribution by Florian Brückner (University of Stuttgart) from the regional online collection LEO-BW. In the information on further research options below, we refer to our object gallery on the main page of online collection, where we present further sources on this complex of topics.
The Caritas Association for Berlin, founded at the beginning of the 20th century, complains about the precarious living conditions and reports on its activities in the 1920/1921 business year. It is their "main task to carry the Caritas idea into wider circles of the people".
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Bundesarchiv, BArch R 1501
These included, for example, the Inner Mission of the Protestant Church. The Inner Mission was formed in the 19th century as a reaction to pauperisation, i.e. the mass impoverishment that affected the proletarian classes in the course of industrialisation in Germany. Protestant church members saw the problem of the social misery caused by industrialisation and social upheaval above all in the loss of Christian values. To solve the problem, Christian morals had to be raised and an environment needed to be created in which people could find their way back to God through love and charity. Therefore, it was not just about improving precarious living conditions, but also about the Christian conversion of the missionaries in the age of secularisation.
Such an environment was created by the founding of social welfare institutions, emergency homes for abandoned youths, and educational institutions for teachers of schools for the poor. The diakonia houses in particular included care for the poor and sick, infant schools as well as institutions for boys and girls in need of help (so-called Jünglingsvereine, Herbergen zur Heimat, Marthastifte). Support programmes for the resocialisation of released prison inmates were just as much a part of the Inner Mission's field of activity as the founding of so-called women's shelters and workers' colonies for the homeless and unemployed. The organisation and administration of these houses was the responsibility of the city missions.
The Evangelical City Mission Heidelberg sends a letter to the district with a request for support for the construction of a homeless shelter. Attached to the letter are plans and drawings.
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Landesarchiv Baden-Württemberg, Abt. Generallandesarchiv Karlsruhe, 321 Nr. 341.
The Badische Landesverein für Innere Mission is still one of the largest social corporations in Baden. Founded in 1849 in the Grand Duchy of Baden, its central tasks to this day include the care and support of pensioners, support for the educational opportunities of underprivileged children and young people. Furthermore, the integration of people with mental and physical disabilities or mental illnesses into society. As in many other charitable institutions, such as the Badischer Frauenverein, the Grand Duchesses were among the most important supporters of this association.
Excerpt from a letter from Theodor Koch (Inner Mission), to Grand Duchess Luise von Baden. Koch complains about the lack of support in the population and points to the 70th anniversary of the association.
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Landesarchiv Baden-Württemberg, Abt. Generallandesarchiv Karlsruhe, FA N 2754, 3.
The text is taken from the regional online collection LEO-BW of the Baden-Württemberg State Archive. We thank them providing the text.
Links to the sources in the online collection
Letter from Theodor Koch to Grand Duchess Luise; Work of the national association for internal mission;
Annual celebration of the national association; Publication of a short chronicle of the work; Hiring new missionaries
Research options
If you are interested in further sources on Welfare in the Deutsches Reich, use the A-Z Index to select Kirchliche Sozialarbeit and Freie Wohlfahrtspflege and combine this thematic keyword with Geografikum Deutsches Reich.
In the object gallery on the bottom of the main page of the online collection you can find more sources related to the keywords Kirchliche Sozialarbeit and Freie Wohlfahrtspflege.
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