Youth and the Welfare State in Weimar Germany

This is a detailed and scholarly study of social policy in Weimar Germany. The Weimar Republic gave German youth new social rights and a pledge of generous educational and welfare provision. Public social and welfare policies would, it was hoped, banish the spectre of delinquent and rebellious youth, and ensure that the future citizens, workers, and mothers of Germany's new democracy would be well-adjusted, efficient, and healthy. But how far could the would-be architects of modern technocratic welfare realize their vision in the midst of the economic and political instability of the Great Depression? How did young people respond to policies supposedly in their best interests, but which contained an unmistakable dimension of supervision and control? Elizabeth Harvey examines a wide range of policies implemented by central and local government, including vocational training, labour market policies, reformatory schooling, and the juvenile justice system. Her lucid and scholarly analysis provides new insights into the troubled development of the Weimar welfare state and the crisis into which it was plunged by the Depression. Her book also adds important evidence to the debate over continuities in social policy between Weimar Germany and the Third Reich.