The Economics and Politics of Welfare in the Third Reich

23 Pages·1978·1.836 MB·English

by  Thomas E. J. de Witt

The Economics and Politics of Welfare
in the Third Reich
THOMAS E.J, DE WITT
t" I 1HE function and importance ofwelfare in the industrial state is
I
usually inversely proportional to the degree of commitment to
progressive social reform The greater the concern of govern¬
*
ment with solving the problems of economic dislocation and endemic
poverty, the less the need for welfare as an economic equalizer Con
¬
*
versely, an unwillingness to redress the socioeconomic consequences of
industrialization by allocating an increasing share of the national in¬
come to social services forces a heavy dependence on relief and related
financial support systems, if only to avoid the political repercussions of
poverty. Welfare policies therefore deserve closer attention as useful
barometers of national priorities An analysis of the economic and po
¬
*
litical implications of Nazi welfare will not shake the consensus that
labor was low on cbe regime s list of priorities, but it will shed light on
its handling of the sensitive issue of labor relations within a command
economy For a state attempting to achieve a political basis for an ex
¬
*
pansionist foreign policy, the implications of welfare posed a particular
problem:how to reap the political benefits of progressive social services
which could justify the necessary labor regimentation without a
heavy commitment of public revenues; that is,how to shift thefinancial
burden of an embattled welfare system not easily dismantled during the
economic crisis of the thirties
*
In reconciling conflicting objectives, the spokesmen for a new Nazi
welfare system experienced a fatesimilar to other social reformers Like
*
National Socialist ideology generally, welfare ideas were rooted in a
utopian reaction to modernity and consequently were as divorced from
.
reality asracial theory Initial implementation ofwelfarereformsshowed
signsof more resolve and consistency than wascharacteristic of the Nazi
system as a whole, but economic and political priorities soon under¬
-
mined any rational approach. Voluntarism, one of the new themes un
256
Thomas £. J. de Witt
257
derlying reforms, gave way by 1936 to propaganda and force when
programs confronted social antagonisms and class divisions. The devel
¬
opment ofsystematic plans, first delayed by the demands for immediate
political benefits from popular welfare gimmicks, was abandoned in
favor of ad hoc responses to more urgent and conflicting economic
policies.
Initially, the need to restore public solvency after the Depression lim
¬
.
ited the regime s flexibility in the area of social policy Subsequent ef
¬
forts to mobilize the masses for future war and to rearm Germany led
to inconsistencies between social theory and practice, though these
stemmed less from an indifference to labor and social distress than from
.
an interplay of bureaucratic, political, and economic forces As a move
¬
ment claiming to embrace all classes, National Socialism had to eschew
measures which might alienate segments of society and thereby jeopar
¬
dize the goal of social rapprochement so essential for the mobilization
.
of the Volk1 Timothy W Mason’s recent study2 strikingly illustrates
the importance of labor in the regime’s political calculations; from an
economicstandpoint, it circumscribed efforts to militarize the economy
alongautarchic lines since such a policy presupposed a selflessness on the
.
part of workers not yet won over to the new order Investments in
heavy industry at the expense of consumer manufacturing required
somecontrol over the level ofdisposableconsumer income if politically
.
untenable inflation was to be kept under control And yet this had to be
balanced with worker demands for a higher standard of living com
¬
.
with longer hours and harder work In reality the regime
mensurate
.
pursued both and neither policies in an effort to square the circle Un¬
derstandably, the efficacy of welfare reforms was undermined by these
contradictions. However, in the characteristic patchwork of economic
and social programs which emerged, welfare was to play an integral
though distorted role: it was not only to eliminate economic hardships
an impossible task within a command economy but also to deal
with the most glaring inconsistencies resulting from a guns and butter
economy,3 without draining public revenues earmarked for military
David Schoenbaum, Hitler's Social Revolution: Class and Status in Nazi Germany
1,
1933-1939 (New York, 1966) p 239.
> *
-
Arbeiterklasse und Volksgemeinschajt: Dokumente urtd Materialien zur deutschen Arbei
2,
terpolitik Jpjtf (Opladen ).
-ipjj? 1975
*
3, Masonargues convincingly that the German economy wasneither a war economy
in peacetime nor a “ peace economy in wartime for the period from 1937 to 1941, but
an attempt to pursue both policies simultaneously with limited success. Ibid,, p. 118.
258 Welfare in the Third Reich
spending; according to Nazi calculations, this in turn would translate
illto greater stability and political support.
* * *
It was readily apparent to Nazi leaders that continuing the Weimar
policy of increasing state involvement in the social sector would ham
¬
string the new Reich's finances. Hitler inherited a progressive but costly
welfare system that was collapsing under the financial obligations im
¬
posed by the Depression The economic implications of a welfare state
*
were already apparent in local and national budgets before 1929: new
family services, institutional care, and the residual obligations stemming
from the Great War saw welfare expenditures climb from 7.7 percent
of all government costs in 1913 14 to 164 percent in 1925-26, With
the influx of millions of unemployed on the welfare rolls by - ,
1930 31
this figure reached a staggering 221 percent, without, however, ade
¬
*
.
quately meetingsocial need 4 Hardestbit werelocalgovernmentswhich
since had been made responsible for welfare financing without the
1924
customary tax compensations from federal ministries, so that many
communities were facing bankruptcy by 1931.5
While Nazi criticism of bureaucratic mismanagement and extrava
¬
gance was not entirely unjustified, the collapse of the nascent social
security system was largely due to soaring unemployment, which de
¬
pleted the new unemployment insurancefund erected in and threw
1927
millions of Germanson the mercy of poor relief,6 With unemployment
reaching 6.1 million in 1932, Chancellor Briining's government was
forced to enact emergency decrees to reduce insurance benefits and
.
length of coverage As a result, the jobless constituted 67.5 percent of
4. Forbudget statistics, see theappendix, tables 37and 3® in MabelNewcomer, Central
and Local Finance in Germany and England (New York, 1937), pp 358-59
* »
5. For municipal finances, see Otto Ziebill, Geschichte des Deutschen Stadtetages (Stutt
¬
gart, 1955), pp- 146-47, 240, 244; and Karl E, Spiewok, Der Aujbau des Woklfahrtswcsen
im nationalsozialistischen Stoat (Berlin, n.d.), 2: 39-40. Local welfare expenditures rose
from 16.1 percent of the total budget in prewar years to 35,0 percent in 1930-31; on a
per capita basis, total welfare expenditures by public agencies spiraled from 2042 marks
in 1927-28 to 42,0 marks in 1932, and these figures exclude the additional subsidies of
voluntary charities. See Newcomer, op. cit;and StatistischesJahrbuch {1931), pp.418-22;
(1932J,pp. 412-17; (1937),pp. 557-58:totalexpendituresforpublicagencies were1463.0
million marks in 1927/28, 1724,1 million in 1928/29, 1867.0 million in 1929/30, 2204.6
million in 1930/31, 2534-5 million in 1931/32, and 2992.4 million in 1932/33.
6. Friedrich Syrup, Der Arbeitseitisatz und die Arbeitshsenhilfe in Deutschland (Berlin,
1936), p. 144
*
Thomas E ) de Witt
259
,
*
-
all welfare recipients by December 1932; the number of long term wel¬
-
fare cases had almost tripled since March 1928 7
Thus the Nazis could point to the growing distortion of the whole
system as more and more money was spent on immediate relief for
Germans who really wanted work, not welfare To avoid insolvency,
*
funds allocated for preventivecate such as family assistance, youth care,
free school lunches, and rural holidays (areas of particular later concern
to racially conscious Nazis) were being transferred by authorities to
poor relief* But municipal insolvency seemed to worry Nazi leaders
less than the new practice of providing Reich subsidies to beleaguered
communities: in they had shared in a RtichswohIfahrtshilfe of
1931 150
million marks; in 1932 it had been increased to 672 million, and more
was budgeted for 9
1933,
Under these circumstances, the new regime hastily devised a welfare
policy designed to capitalize on the general disenchantment with pre
¬
vailing conditions by shifting the financial responsibilities away from
the Reich and public authorities preferably industry and the social
to
conscience of the individual Given paramount economic and political
*
considerations, no concrete plan to deal with the root causes of poverty
and inequality ever emerged, nor was a coherent philosophy of wel
¬
fare formulated from this ad hoc response to the crisis
*
-
Some basic attitudes and objectives did, however, soon crystallize
Welfare in the form of obligatory state assistance was wasteful and un¬
necessary; state handouts were the product of misguided liberalism and
Marxist socialism, which in the guise of a democratic republic had un
¬
dermined individual, familial, and community responsibilities toward
7. The number ofpermanent welfarecases hadgrown from 1,683,345 in March 1928
-
(2 7 percent of the population) to 4,602,671 (7.38 percent) by theend of 1932. Cf Vier
*
teljahrahefte zur Statistik da Deutschen Reiches 45, no 4 (1936): Bo. Additional millions
*
received occasional assistance as the average income of the working family declined by
-
one third See Gerhard Bry, Wages in Germany 1871 1945 (Princeton, i960), pp, 8, 16,
25; Jurgen Kuozynskl, Germany'. Economic and Labour Conditions under Fascism (New
York, 1945),pp. 108-13;andRichardGrunberger, The 12-Year Reidt (New York, 1971),
-
p 204
*
-
8 Friedrich Syrup and Otto Neuloh, Hundert Jahre Staatliche Soziaipolitik 1839-1939
(Stuttgart, 1957) PP 384-86; Oskar Weigert, The Development of Unemployment
» *
-
Relief in Germany, International Labour Review 27, no 2 (Aug. 1933) 1&1-8S; and
*
Gertrud Baumer, Familienpolitik (Berlin, 1933), pp. 18-68.
-
9 Spiewok, op. cit., 2: 42 44.
*
10. For a fuller discussion of Naii welfare theory, see the unpublished Ph.D, diss.
-
(University of Virginia),"The Nazi Party and Social Welfare, 1919 1939," by Thomas
E J. de Witt (University Microfilms, Ann Arbor, 1972), pp. 113-28,
*
z6o Welfare in the Third Reich
die poor. By making relief the concern of every German citizen, the
-
Nazi regime hoped to foster self help, create a feeling of commitment
,
,
and involvement in the Volk and thereby overcome the divisiveness of
.
the class struggle This shifting the focus of welfare from the
meant
-
needsand rights of theindividual to the well being of thelarger society,
It was the Volk s duty to help the indigent, not for charitable reasons or
philanthropic flim-flam asHitler called it,11 but becauseevery sick or
impoverished member of the organic community affected the health of
the whole body and thus detracted from the nation s economic vitality
and military potential 12 Ultimately welfare would become obsolete,
,
since the Nazis interpreted poverty as primarily a racial problem which
could besolved through preventive health care and economic assistance
for the raciallyvaluable and politically reliable citizen,therefore pre
¬
cluding welfare dependency 13
,
But before the welfare system could be restructured to differentiate
between hardened welfare cases {die racially unfit) and potentially pro
¬
ductive members of society, the regime had to tackle the immediate
cause of widespread poverty The major programs public works jobs
*
and Winter Relief were relatively effective in reducing the welfare
rolls, thougheconomic and propaganda objectives hampered thedevel
¬
opment of a rational relief system to optimize the distribution of scarce
resources In fact, job creation schemes paying almost poverty wages
*
.
tended to aggravate pressures on the welfare system in some cases
When, by 1937, unemployment gave way to labor shortages, the op¬
portunity for comprehensive welfare reforms was not grasped Relief
*
was now harnessed to an autarchic economic policy; the regime was
.
spared the futile experiment with racial welfare The use of force to
change the system standard Nazi operating procedure where theory
.
defied reality had to await the final military victory
* ¥ ¥
it. Mein Kampf (Boston, 1943) pp. 29 30
> *
12. Cf. Werner Rehcr, Social Welfare in Germany (Berlin, 193&); Hans Doeruer, Das
Fdrsorge-ABC (Leipzig, 1941)1 atid Erich Hilgeufeldt, Aufgaben der nationalsozialistiuhen
Wohlfahrtspjiege (Munich, 1937), passim,
13. Cf. Hilgeufeldt, Vom WesennationalsozialistisdherVolkspflcge, an unpublished
typed ms, in the Himmler Files, Library ofCongress, container 400, presumably sent to
Himmler for comment. This policy of service first to the state was consistent with the
general attitude toward labor. Special vacation and recreation programs wereoffered in
order to strengthen and revitalize mind and body for greater efforts on behalf of the
Reich, See T, W. Mason, Labour in the Third Reich, 1933-1939/* Past and Present 33
(Apr, 1966): 122.
Thomas E.J de Witt 261
*
Jobs were clearly a priority in , but while public works projects,
1933
marriage loans to lure women out of the job market, the Reich Labor
Service for youths, and ultimately rearmament produced full employ
¬
-
ment by 1936 37, millions still depended 011 assistance during the in¬
terim Without a general wage policy to raise the minimum wage,
* ,
many of those now employed especially by the state found their pay
inadequate to meet the higher food and fuel bills during the winter
months, nor were meager salaries sufficient to payfor new work clothes,
boots, and the like. As a result it was politically impossible for the new
regime to enact any immediate changes in the Rekhswohlfahrtshilfe to
embattled public welfare authorities; in fact, more funds were urgently
,
required before the critical election of March 5, 1933, which Hider
hoped would give his party the necessary majority to rule without par
¬
.
liamentary interference A suggestion by Interior Minister Frick for a
special coal distribution of five hundredweight per household having
an unemployed father (representing a savings of eight to ten marks)
was rejected by thecabinet as toocostly;instead a proposal wasaccepted
to distribute specific agricultural goods, collected from farmers in lieu
of taxes, in the key distressed areasofBerlin,Thuringia, Saxony, Upper
.
Silesia, and the Ruhr 14
-
After pressure from various sources, Hitler finally announced his job
creation program onJune the Lawfor the Reduction of Unemploy
1 ¬
ment15 whichsuggested the general policy toward public spending in
.
thesocialsphere Part ofthe money for public works and marriageloans
was to come from a new voluntary Donation for the Promotion of
National Labor, to be funded by private industry. Social critics were
temporarily silenced by an additional subsidy of eighty million marks
to welfare agencies to improve their services, and the first steps were
taken toward a reorganization of health insurance by reducing pro
¬
cessing fees for medical certificates (KrankenscheingebiihTen) from fifty
pfennigs to twenty-five which represented a significant saving for the
poor Almost three million marks were earmarked for those on vet¬
*
erans* pensions; the SA, injured party veterans,and dependents of fallen
14., Frick, however, also argued that it would benecessary to achieve substantial sav¬
ings in unemployment relief after the election. Minutes of the ministerial meeting of
Mar 2, 193 i n the Bundesarchiv Koblenz (hereafter BA}, R43IL folder 561.
* *
15. BA, Rij, folders 9 and 16, One example ofpressure wasa letter ofprotest sent to
Hitler by theGeneral Association ofChristian Trade Unions dated Feb complaining
. 15,
*
about the misuse of unemployment insurance funds for poor relief See BA, R43K,
folder 561.
26a Welfare in the Third Reich
- -
comrades were remembered in the Adolf Hitler Spettde to which the
chancellor donated his salary As an overture to the working people,an
*
endowment was created for the care of survivors of workers killed on
.
the job: Stiftung fur die Opfer det Arbeit 15 The popularity of many of
these measures induced several self-seeking Gauleiters to set up their
own Stiftungen for the indigent in order to curry public favor and get
their hands on largely unaccountable funds, which would later provide
leverage in the Darwinian bureaucratic struggle within the party 17
*
These programs were presented as examples of Nazi socialism in ac
¬
tion but their intention of shifting the financial burden was unmistak
¬
able the discerning observer who also questioned the inefficient
to
proliferation of relief programs To emphasize the voluntary character
* -
of welfare, Hitler endorsed the small Berlin based NationaUozialistische
.
Volkswoklfahrt e F (N S People s Welfare Organization or NSV) as
,
* *
the party’s official voice on welfare on March 3, 1933 18 Financed by
*
voluntary donations and dues, the NSV soon constituted a direct
challenge existing public and private welfare agencies With a mem
to
¬
*
bership ofalmost twelve million in1939and an activeforceofa million,
it soon reached into most German homes, preaching the gospel of com¬
munity service and exercising a subtle form of totalitarian control Its
*
administrative structure became the vehicle for the grandiose relief ef¬
-
fort announced on September13, 1933, by Propaganda Minister Goeb
bels The humble, voluntary Winterhilfe (Winter Relief) of the last two
*
Weimar winters was to become the basis ofa new Nazi welfare policy
*
Gemeinnute vor Eigennutz (common weal before private gain) was
,
the guiding ideal of the Winterhilfswerk des deutschen Volkes popularly
called WHW, which was to symbolize an evolving German social rap¬
prochement 19 Public welfare would continue to provide the basic relief
*
pegged at about 65 percent oflast salary, while WHW would meet the
additional winter expenses in an affirmation of the regime’s concern for
. - .
16 NatiMtahozidUstische Partei Korrespandettz (hereafter NSK) no 362 (Apr 4, 1933):
t *
5 National Archives, Washington (cited as NA), microfilm T-71, roll 142, frames
*
658167-91; BA Rj6, folder 1019,Jahresberickt Stiftutigfur die Opfer Mr Arbeit, 34
. * *
- -
17 The most popular foundations were the Eiich Koch Stiftung in East Prussia the
*
- - - - -
Josef Burckel Stiftuugin theSaar Palatinate,andtheSauckcl Marschlcr Stiftung inThu
¬
.
ringia Cf Peter Hiittenbergei, Die Gauleiter (Stuttgart, 1969), pp 126-31
* * *
lS, On the NSV, seede Witt, *The Nari Party and Social Welfare/1 pp 145. 83. Cf
also Partd-Statistik (Berlin, 1935), at 24-42, 120-33, and 3 *4 15 22-23, 48*-51 58-61 *
. * * *
19 On WHW, see de Witt, The Struggle againstHunger and ColdT: Nazi Winter
Relief, 1933-39/* Canadian Journal of History 12, no 3 (Feb.1978): 361-Sl
* *
Thomas E J de Witt 263
.
,
the poor. Each year, from October to March, the nation braced itself
for an onslaught of collections, whose intensity and peculiar combina
¬
tion of gimmickry, sham humanism, and sincere social consciousness
. -
remain unequaled in modem fund drives There were the one dish
meals [Eintopfessen) where all Germans were expected to show their
empathy for the less fortunate and to donate the savings from a regular
meal to the WHW; there were the street collections on all conceivable
occasions by the various state and party agencies, as well as food and
clothing drives by the SS and SA; shoppers were asked to give at the
cash register; on special holidays the nation s elitecould be seen waving
.
red tins on the main streets of the capital Least imaginative but most
lucrative were exactions from industry and door-to door collections,
later superseded by automatic monthly deductionsfromworkers* wages
.
according to official voluntary guidelines based on income levels
When early enthusiasm gave way to indifference or even hostility as
WHW became institutionalized, gende reminders turned to threats of
reprisals against those who failed to appreciate the nonfinancial, peda
¬
.
gogical purposes of WHW to raise the level of Volk consciousness 20 In
the words of one Bavarian official: “ Every German who has the good
fortune to be working or possesses a modest income must give gener
¬
. . .
ously or he will be considered an egotist and enemy of the fa
¬
therland ” 21
,
Regardless of the level of commitment to social reform, the results
were impressive, particularly in comparison to the 100 and 90 million
.
marks collected during the two Weimar campaigns Official WHW
totals comprised of cash donations, the value of goods and services, and
thesavingsderived from cheaper bulk purchases were million marks
350
in / and reached 553.6 million in die expanded Reich of1938/
1933 34 39
(wartime exactions make any comparisons meaningless). More impres¬
sive is thefact that these totals represented between 0.57and0.76 percent
of prewar national income (reaching 1.42 percent in 1942). This was
clearly an effective way of holding down disposable income without
20. Therearenumerousreportedcasesofintimidation, jobtermination, detention,and
public indignationagainsttightfistedGermans; seethereportsoftheexiledSocialDemo¬
cratic Party Deutschtand Berichte dvr Sozuddemokratisefen Partei Dtutsehlands (SOPADE)
, ,
which tended, however, to be negativeabout all Nazi measures: 2, no, 12 (Dec. 1935):
A40-41; +5 no. 1 (Jan. 1937): A\6, A6i-6 r A73, Cft also The Times (London), Dec. 18,
1934, p. 13, and Franz Heyen, Natwnalsozialismus im Alltag (Boppaid am Rhein, 1967),
-
pp. 193 95-
21. NA, T-8i, roll 181, frame 331181c.
264 Welfare in the Third Reich
relying openly on unpopular taxes.22 During the war these deductions
were even likened to war bonds a form of investment in the Reich's
war effort. More important to the indigent, however, was that these
figures represented much-needed fuel and clothing, estimated at an av
¬
erage of between and marks per family per winter: the av
40 100 ¬
erage increased as the number of needy declined Since rates determin
¬
*
ing need were based on take home pay minus rent utilities, and debts
* *
the reliefwasfairly generousgiven that theaverage monthly take-home
pay for workers fluctuated between and marks during the pre
107 135 ¬
war years.23
To the regime it meant considerable budgetary savings: the amount
of Reickswohlfakrtshilfe aside by the last Weimar for
set government
1933 was spent, but thereafter the aid decreased at a rate much faster
than declining unemployment. The law of March 23, 1934, altered die
basis of such grants by restricting them to communities with more than
5 percent of the population officially unemployed this was later raised
-
to 7.5 and finally 10 percent, and excluded those on part time work or
those registered with the labor exchanges With unemployment all
not
*
but solved by 1936-37, only 16,$ million marks were spent in fiscal
year 1936 (in contrast to 700 5 million in 1933) 34 Naturally this meant
* *
32. Totals for the winter 1934/3J were 360,5 million marks, 37a million in 1935/36,
.
408.3 million in 1936/37, and 417-2 million in 1937/38 Donations equaled 2.88 percent
of theaverageworker'sannualincomein 1933/34 dipped to1.99 percent by 1937/38as
*
wages rose along with the number of employed, and then soared to 2.66 percent in
.
1938/39 peaking at4.68percentin1941/42 Sourcesforthestatistics:StdtistisehesJahrhuch
*
dts deut-sefan Reiches (1934), PP* 525 261 (1935), pp. 511-12; (1936)» pp* 533-J4; (*937),
pp.569 70; (1938), pp. 596 97;HooverInstitution, NSDAPHauptarchrv,mil14,folder
261, Aufkommen und Verurettdung der Mitel im WHWt pp, 5-8 (hereafter Hauptarchiv),
. . . .
23 C W Gufilebaud The Social Policy of Nazi Germany (Cambridge, 1941), p 99,
*
places th-erelieffigurebetween 30and 40 marks per winter whileJosefF.Zimmermaim,
. * . .
-
Die NS Volkswohljahrf und das Winterhitfswerk des deutschen Volkes (Ph D dis Wurz¬
*
burg, 1938), p.147, claims that a family of three received about100 marks; Hilgenfeldt,
head of the NSV, estimated the amount at about 15 to 20 percent of a family'sincome.
24, In 1934, only 218,6 million marks wereallocated to the Reichswohl/ahrishilfe, a de¬
crease of 69 percent compared with a decline in unemployment of only 39 percent, in
1935 aid to-talled 72,9 million marks while unemployment still averaged 2.1 million
. . .
nearly one third of the record when Reich aid was tenfold Sec Spiewok, op rit,
1933
.
p. 41; Mason Arbeiterklasse, p. 47; Syrup, Arbeitseinsate, pp 144- 48; Gustav Stolper,
*
Karl Hauser, and Kurt Borchardt, The German Economy 1876 to the Present (New York,
. .
1967), p 133; Vierteljahrcshefte star Statistik des Deutschen Reiches 45, no 4 (1936):83; and
-
a letter of the president of the Reichsanstalt fur Arbeitslosenvermittlung und Aibeitslo
senversicherung to the Rekhshauptkasse, Apr. 19, 1937, in BA, Ra, folder 11242,
Thomas E.J. de Witt 263
less public expenditurefor welfare,25since communities were in no po
¬
sition to make up the difference, though WHW operations added an
-
additional million annually In effect, family and youth services, in
300 ¬
stitutional care, and corrections those areas whose neglect the Nazis
had originally criticized remained underfinancedsince thelevel ofneed
.
less directly affected by employment fluctuations
was
It is therefore no wonder that regional and local welfare bureaus con
¬
tinued to report financial difficulties and a severe strain on service facil¬
ities The deficit of 1.3 million marks in 1936-37 resulted in part from
*
relief to workers in the public works sector where wages were kept
.
artificially low The number of welfare recipients on continuous cash
.
relief instead ofoccasionalassistance remained high For political and
humanitarian reasons, eligibility wasextended to groupsof unemployed
not classified as Wohlfahrtsenverbslose (welfare unemployed); some of
.
these were clearly underpaid laborers 26
Public welfare was clearly unequal to the task; relief rates had not
.
kept pace with the rising cost of living Despite attempts to control
wages and prices, food costs were up almost 10 percent by 1936 The
*
averagecost of living was up about 9 percent over the same three years
.
(and this was higher than officials would admit) 27 Workers in the pro
¬
duction andindustrialsector receivedcompensating wage increases rang
¬
ing from 10 to 24 percent, but those in the consumer goods sector ex¬
perienced only minor adjustments from under 6 percent to minus
1
percent; nor could the latter take advantage of the longer hours and in¬
dustrial bonuses paid to those in the armaments industries where skilled
workers were scarce by 1937.28 On the average, wages had risen only
6 percent, well short of the inflation rate, and public relief rates had
,1
been raised by less than percent except for Sozialrentner (those on in
1 ¬
valid and employee pensions who had traditionally received assistance
-
as compensation for pension losses stemming from the postwar infla
25. Some 2 8 billion marks were spent in 1933, but only 1.8 billion in 1936; this
*
compares unfavorably with the 1 9 billion spent during far mote prosperous 1929 Sec
* *
Detlef Zollner &ffentlickc Soziallristungen und wirtschaftlkhe Entwicklurtg (Berlin, 1963),
*
p 18; and StatistischesJahrbudt (1937) P- 55 whichusesfiguresfor thefiscal year Apr. 1
* * *
to Mar. 31, and gives only 1.7 billion marks for 1936.
26. There were 1.78 million permanent welfare cases registered in 1929, 467 million
*
in 1933 and still 2.48 million in 1936. See StatistischesJahrbuch (1937), p 55*5
» < *
27 Ct. Mason, Arbeiterklasse, pp, 62 64.
*
28. Ibid., pp. 61 and 65.