Editing Weimar Republic (section)

===Social policy under Weimar===
A wide range of progressive social reforms were carried out during and after the revolutionary period. The Executive Council of the Workers' and Soldiers' Councils – a coalition that included Majority Social Democrats, Independent Social Democrats, workers and soldiers – introduced the eight-hour work day, reinstated demobilized workers, released political prisoners, abolished press censorship, increased workers' old-age, sick and unemployment benefits, and gave labor the unrestricted right to organize into unions.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Toland |first=John |title=Adolf Hitler |publisher=Ballantine |year=1976 |isbn=0-345-25899-1 |location=New York |pages=101}}</ref> It was made harder for estates to sack workers and prevent them from leaving when they wanted to. Under the Provisional Act for Agricultural Labour of 23 November 1918, the normal period of notice for management and most resident laborer was set at six weeks. In addition, a supplementary directive of December 1918 specified that female and child workers were entitled to a fifteen-minute break if they worked between four and six hours, thirty minutes for workdays lasting six to eight hours, and one hour for longer days.<ref>{{cite web |first1=Marc |last1=Linder |first2=Ingrid |last2=Nygaard |date=1 January 1998 |title=Rest in the Rest of the World |url=https://ir.uiowa.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=&httpsredir=1&article=1091&context=law_pubs |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200623030326/https://ir.uiowa.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=&httpsredir=1&article=1091&context=law_pubs |archive-date=23 June 2020 |access-date=22 June 2020 |website=Iowa Research Online |publisher=College of Law Publications, [[University of Iowa]] |page=117 |type=PDF}}</ref> A decree on 23 December 1918 established committees (composed of workers' representatives "in their relation to the employer") to safeguard the rights of workers. The right to bargain collectively was also established, while it was made obligatory "to elect workers' committees on estates and establish conciliation committees". A decree on 3 February 1919 removed the right of employers to acquire exemption for domestic servants and agricultural workers.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Wunderlich |first=Frieda |title=Farm Labor in Germany, 1810–1945 |publisher=Princeton University Press |year=1961 |isbn=978-0-691-04126-1 |location=Princeton, NJ |pages=126}}</ref> In 1919, legislation provided for a maximum working 48-hour workweek, restrictions on night work, a half-holiday on Saturday, and a break of thirty-six hours of continuous rest during the week.<ref>{{cite book |url=https://archive.org/stream/labourundernazir033210mbp/labourundernazir033210mbp_djvu.txt |title=Full text of "Labour Under Nazi Rule" |publisher=Oxford At The Clarendon Press.}}</ref>

With the decree of 3 February 1919, the Ebert government reintroduced the original structure of the health insurance boards according to an 1883 law, with one-third employers and two-thirds workers.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Companje |first1=Karel-Peter |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=64U_dlAI6g0C&q=Germany+compulsory+health+insurance+february+1919&pg=PA126 |title=Two Centuries of Solidarity |last2=Veraghtert |first2=Karel |last3=Widdershoven |first3=Brigitte |year=2009 |publisher=Amsterdam University Press |isbn=978-90-5260-344-5}}</ref> As of 28 June 1919, health insurance committees were elected by the workers themselves.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Constantine |first1=Simon |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=BCYCYfHdBFQC&q=germany+law+1918+unfair+dismissal&pg=PA58 |title=Social Relations in the Estate Villages of Mecklenburg c. 1880–1924 |year=2007 |publisher=Ashgate Publishing |isbn=978-0-7546-5503-9}}</ref> That same year, health insurance was extended to wives and daughters without their own income, people only partially capable of gainful employment, people employed in private cooperatives, and people employed in public cooperatives.<ref name="Bärnighausen-2002">{{cite journal |last1=Bärnighausen |first1=Till |last2=Sauerborn |first2=Rainer |title=One hundred and eighteen years of the German health insurance system: are there any lessons for middle- and low-income countries? |journal=Social Science & Medicine |volume=54 |issue=10 |year=2002 |doi=10.1016/s0277-9536(01)00137-x |pmid=12061488 |pages=1559–1587 |url=http://www.ministerial-leadership.org/sites/default/files/resources_and_tools/10%20german%20health%20insu.pdf |access-date=30 June 2014 |archive-date=15 May 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200515153622/http://www.ministerial-leadership.org/sites/default/files/resources_and_tools/10 |url-status=dead}}</ref>

The Provisional Order of January 1919 concerning agricultural labor conditions fixed 2,900 hours as a maximum per year, distributed as eight, ten, and eleven hours per day in four month periods.<ref>Industrial and Labour Information, Volume 20, International Labour Office, 1926</ref> A code of January 1919 bestowed on land laborer the same legal rights that industrial workers enjoyed, while a bill ratified the same year obligated the states to set up agricultural settlement associations which "were endowed with the priority right of purchase of farms beyond a specified size".<ref>Modern Germany: society, economy and politics in the twentieth century by Volker R. Berghahn</ref> In October 1919, a law was enacted that provided various kinds of financial support in relation to pregnancy, childbirth, confinement compensation, and maternity care.<ref>{{Cite book |title=Reciprocity and Redistribution Work and Welfare Reconsidered |publisher=Plus-Pisa University Press |year=2007 |isbn=978-8-884-92465-0 |editor-last=Hagemann |editor-first=Gro |location=Pisa, Italy |pages=94–95}}</ref> That same year, free legal representation to the poor was introduced.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Yuthayotin |first=Sutatip |title=Access to Justice in Transnational B2C E-Commerce. A  Multidimensional Analysis of Consumer Protection Mechanisms |publisher=Springer International Publishing |year=2014 |isbn=978-3-319-11131-5 |location=New York |page=41}}</ref>

A series of progressive tax reforms were introduced under the auspices of Matthias Erzberger, including increases in taxes on capital<ref>{{cite book |last1=Parsson |first1=Jens O. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=p5x5Cu4zuaoC&q=erzberger+tax+reforms&pg=PA39 |title=Dying of Money |publisher=Dog Ear Publishing, LLC |year=2011 |isbn=978-1-4575-0266-8 |location=Indianapolis, Indiana |page=39}}</ref> and an increase in the highest income tax rate from 4% to 60%.<ref>{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=-hHIAAAAQBAJ&q=erzberger+inheritance+tax+1919&pg=PA132 |title=Decoding Modern Consumer Societies |last2= |first2= |date= |publisher=Palgrave Macmillan |year=2012 |isbn=978-1-137-01300-2 |editor-last=Berghoff |editor-first=Hartmut |location=London, New York |page=132 |editor-last2=Spiekermann |editor-first2=Uwe}}</ref> Under a governmental decree of 3 February 1919, the German government met the demand of the veterans' associations that all aid for the disabled and their dependents be taken over by the central government<ref>''American Journal of Care for Cripples'', Volume 8, Douglas C. McMurtrie, 1919</ref> (thus assuming responsibility for this assistance) and extended into peacetime the nationwide network of state and district welfare bureaus that had been set up during the war to coordinate social services for war widows and orphans.<ref>{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=JMpmnE0ZFpQC&q=germany+decree+of+February+8+1919+veterans&pg=PA92 |title=Welfare, Modernity, and the Weimar State, 1919–1933 |isbn=0-691-05793-1 |last1=Hong |first1=Young-Sun |year=1998|publisher=Princeton University Press }}</ref>

The Youth Welfare Act of 1922 obliged all municipalities and states to set up youth offices in charge of child protection, and also codified a right to education for all children,<ref>{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=_pPBJWaRqKoC&q=Weimar+Republic+youth+welfare+act+1922&pg=PA77 |title=The Provision of Public Services in Europe |isbn=978-1-84980-722-7 |last1=Wollmann |first1=Hellmut |last2=Marcou |first2=Gérard |year=2010|publisher=Edward Elgar }}</ref> while laws were passed to regulate rents and increase protection for tenants in 1922 and 1923.<ref>{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=GaWtd5zJfB8C&q=weimar+republic+tenant+protection+1923&pg=PA8 |title=Growth to Limits: Germany, United Kingdom, Ireland, Italy |isbn=978-3-11-011131-6 |last1=Flora |first1=Peter |year=1986 |publisher=Walter de Gruyter |access-date=21 October 2020 |archive-date=2 February 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230202034410/https://books.google.com/books?id=GaWtd5zJfB8C&q=weimar+republic+tenant+protection+1923&pg=PA8 |url-status=live }}</ref> Health insurance coverage was extended to other categories of the population during the existence of the Weimar Republic, including seamen, people employed in the educational and social welfare sectors, and all primary dependents.<ref name="Bärnighausen-2002" /> Various improvements were also made in unemployment benefits, although in June 1920 the maximum amount of unemployment benefit that a family of four could receive in Berlin, 90 marks, was well below the minimum cost of subsistence of 304 marks.<ref>{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=zH-I31gx7MMC&q=germany+winter+grant+unemployed+1919&pg=PA232 |title=The Great Disorder: Politics, Economics, and Society in the German Inflation, 1914–1924 |first=Gerald D. |last=Feldman |publisher=Oxford University Press |date=1997 |isbn=978-0-19-988019-5 |access-date=21 October 2020 |archive-date=2 February 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230202034411/https://books.google.com/books?id=zH-I31gx7MMC&q=germany+winter+grant+unemployed+1919&pg=PA232 |url-status=live }}</ref>

In 1923, unemployment relief was consolidated into a regular programme of assistance following economic problems that year. In 1924, a modern public assistance programme was introduced, and in 1925 the accident insurance programme was reformed, allowing diseases that were linked to certain kinds of work to become insurable risks.<ref name="ReferenceA">AQA History: The Development of Germany, 1871–1925 by Sally Waller</ref> Other amendments to accident insurance in 1925 also introduced rehabilitation benefits, together with benefits for the dependent children of permanently disabled workers whose earning capacity had fallen by at least 50%.<ref>Social Security Policies in Industrial Countries A Comparative Analysis By Margaret S. Gordon, 1988, P.136</ref> In addition, paid maternity leave<ref>{{Cite book |last=Cornelissen |first=Christoph |title=Europe in the Long Twentieth Century. A Transnational History |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=2024 |isbn=978-0-192-69923-7 |location=Oxford |page=112}}</ref> and a national unemployment insurance programme were both introduced in 1927.<ref name="ReferenceA"/> Housing construction was also greatly accelerated during the Weimar period, with over 2 million new homes constructed between 1924 and 1931 and a further 195,000 modernized.{{sfn|Henig|2002|p=[https://books.google.com/books?id=1k-EAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA48 48]}}

The Weimar years witnessed a major rise in overall public spending, which grew to an annual average of 13.7 billion Marks (in 1913 prices) from 1919 to 1929, compared with 6.8 billion Marks from 1909 to 1913. Government expenditure as a proportion of GNP also rose; standing at 25% in 1925, 30.6% in 1929, and 36.6% in 1932. According to one study, "This expansion was first and foremost a consequence of "social interventionism," the chief manifestation of which, apart from house building and job creation measures during the crisis of 1925–26, was the extension of social insurance."<ref>A Brief History of the German Trade Unions by Michael Schneider, Translated by Barrie Selman, Verlag J.H.W. Dietz Nachf. GmbH, English Translation 1991, P.165</ref>

[[File:Bundesarchiv Bild 183-T0706-501, berlin, Armenspeisung.jpg|thumb|Troops of the German Army feeding the poor in Berlin, 1931|left]]