Social And Cultural Developments Flashcards
Social welfare reforms
1924
Public Assistance system
Provided to help the poor was modernised
1925
State accident insurance system
Helped those injured at work
1927
National unemployment insurance system
Provide benefits for the unemployed
About the social welfare reforms
Very expensive
1926 state supporting 800,000 war veterans 360,000 war widows and 900,000 orphans
This was in addition to old age pensions and unemployment benefits
Benefits were delayed
Those in need of help felt like they were being humiliated and insulted. Undermining their support for the Weimar Republic
Position of women in the ‘golden age’
The ‘new women’
Women’s equality of voting rights
Access in education
Equal opportunities in civil service
Equal right of pay
War brought many women into paid employment as many men died from the war
Myth of the new women
Employment
Myth
- constitution gave women greater equality in employment right s
- 36% of German workforce became women
- 100,000 women teachers and 3000 women doctors
Reality
- many occupation required women to give up they’re job when they married
- women paid much less than men doing equal work
Myth of new women
Sexual freedom
Myth
- birth control became more widely available
- divorce rates increased
- rise in number of abortions , 1 million a year by 1930
The reality
- abortion was a criminal offence
- decline of birth rate attacked by politicians as ‘birth strike’
- catholic and Protestant churches vigorously opposed to birth control , divorce and abortion
Myth of new women
Politics and public life
Myth
- women gained equal voting rights
- 41 women elected to Reichstag
- women active in local government at state and city level
Young people
Two sub groups
Education
Youth groups
Education before Weimar
Very few private schools
State schools very much divided along class and religious line
What reforms wanted to be made in Education
Provide a comprehensive non sectarian education that would be free to all pupils
Introduction if elementary schools
Didn’t succeed in aim of removing influence of the churches from schools catholic and Protestant both fought for their religion to be taught in schools
Three major youth groups
Wandervogal
Church youth groups
Political youth groups
The Jews and three main sub groups
Politics and the press
Industry and professions
Extent of assimilation and anti-semitism
Politics and the Press in Jews
Had Jewish leaders in DDP, SPD, KPD
Industry and professions with the Jews
Wish banking families owned 50% of private banks
Banks owned by Jews made up about 18% of the banking decor
Owners half the firms involved in cloth trade
Extent of assimilation and anti semitism
Late 1920’s assimilation far advanced
Germans reluctant to stop identifying them as aliens
Huge surge of hostility against Jewish financiers during hyperinflation they were blamed for it
Developments of art and culture include
Nightclubs
Cabarets nudity featured a lot
American jazz played
Older population hated the influence of USA on the German traditions and attacked the Weimar for relaxing censorship
Art
Expressionism was very popular
Music
Expressionism with German classical composers
Literature
Expressionism
Film
Cinema for developing modern techniques which would later be used as a propaganda technique for the Nazis
