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This open access library edition is supported by Knowledge Unlatched. Not for resale. Optimizing the German Workforce This open access library edition is supported by Knowledge Unlatched. Not for resale. Monographs in German History Volume 1 Volume 16 Osthandel and Ostpolitik: German Foreign Trade Sex,Th ugs and Rock ‘N’ Roll. Teenage Rebels in Policies in Eastern Europe from Bismarck to Adenauer Cold-War East Germany Mark Spaulding Mark Fenemore Volume 2 Volume 17 A Question of Priorities: Democratic Reform and Cultures of Abortion in Weimar Germany Economic Recovery in Postwar Germany Cornelie Usborne Rebecca Boehling Volume 18 Volume 3 Selling the Economic Miracle: Economic Reconstruction From Recovery to Catastrophe: Municipal Stabilization and Politics In West Germany, 1949–1957 and Political Crisis in Weimar Germany Mark E. Spicka Ben Lieberman Volume 19 Volume 4 Between Tradition and Modernity: Aby Warburg and Nazism in Central Germany: Th e Brownshirts in Art in Hamburg’s Public Realm 1896-1918 ‘Red’ Saxony Mark A. Russell Christian W. Szejnmann Volume 20 Volume 5 A Single Communal Faith? Th e German Right from Citizens and Aliens: Foreigners and the Law in Conservatism to National Socialism Britain and the German States, 1789–1870 Th omas Rohrämer Andreas Fahrmeir Volume 21 Volume 6 Environmental Organizations in Modern Germany: Poems in Steel: National Socialism and the Politics of Hardy Survivors in the Twentieth Century and Beyond Inventing from Weimar to Bonn William T. Markham Kees Gispen Volume 22 Volume 7 Crime Stories: Criminalistic Fantasy and the Culture of “Aryanisation” in Hamburg Crisis in Weimar Germany Frank Bajohr Todd Herzog Volume 8 Volume 23 Th e Politics of Education: Teachers and School Reform Liberal Imperialism in Germany: Expansionism and in Weimar Germany Nationalism, 1848–1884 Marjorie Lamberti Matthew P. Fitzpatrick Volume 9 Volume 24 Th e Ambivalent Alliance: Konrad Adenauer, the Bringing Culture to the Masses: Control, Compromise CDU/CSU, and the West, 1949–1966 and Participation in the GDR Ronald J. Granieri Esther von Richthofen Volume 10 Volume 25 Th e Price of Exclusion: Ethnicity, National Identity, Banned in Berlin: Literary Censorship in Imperial and the Decline of German Liberalism, 1898–1933 Germany, 1871–1918 E. Kurlander Gary D. Stark Volume 11 Volume 26 Recasting West German Elites: Higher Civil Servants, After the ‘Socialist Spring’: Collectivisation and Business Leaders, and Physicians in Hesse between Economic Transformation in the GDR Nazism and Democracy, 1945–1955 George Last Michael R. Hayse Volume 27 Volume 12 Learning Democracy: Education Reform in West Th e Creation of the Modern German Army: General Germany, 1945–1965 Walther Reinhardt and the Weimar Republic, Brian M. Puaca 1914–1930 Volume 28 William Mulligan Weimar Radicals: Nazis and Communists between Volume 13 Authenticity and Performance Th e Crisis of the German Left: Th e PDS, Stalinism Timothy S. Brown and the Global Economy Volume 29 Peter Th ompson Th e Political Economy of Germany under Chancellors Volume 14 Kohl and Schröder: Decline of the German Model? “Conservative Revolutionaries”: Protestant and Jeremy Leaman Catholic Churches in Germany After Radical Political Change in the 1990s Volume 30 Th e Surplus Woman: Unmarried in Imperial Germany, Barbara Th ériault 1871–1918 Volume 15 Catherine L. Dollard Modernizing Bavaria: Th e Politics of Franz Josef Strauss and the CSU, 1949–1969 Volume 31 Optimizing the German Workforce: Labor Mark Milosch Administration from Bismarck to the Economic Miracle David Meskill This open access library edition is supported by Knowledge Unlatched. Not for resale. OPTIMIZING THE GERMAN WORKFORCE Labor Administration from Bismarck to the Economic Miracle David Meskill Berghahn Books New York • Oxford This open access library edition is supported by Knowledge Unlatched. Not for resale. Published in 2010 by Berghahn Books www.berghahnbooks.com ©2010, 2018 David Meskill Open access ebook edition published in 2018 All rights reserved. Except for the quotation of short passages for the purposes of criticism and review, no part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system now known or to be invented, without written permission of the publisher. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Meskill, David. Optimizing the German workforce : labor administration from Bismarck to the economic miracle / David Meskill. — 1st ed. p. cm. — (Monographs in German history ; 31) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-1-84545-631-3 (hardback : alk. paper) -- ISBN 978-1-78533-664-5 (open access ebook) 1. Employees—Training of—Germany. 2. Labor market—Germany. I. Title. HF5549.5.T7M4675 2010 331.120420943—dc22 2009025422 British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN: 978-1-84545-631-3 hardback ISBN: 978-1-78533-664-5 open access ebook An electronic version of this book is freely available thanks to the support of libraries working with Knowledge Unlatched. KU is a collaborative initiative designed to make high quality books Open Access for the public good. More information about the initiative and links to the Open Access version can be found at knowledgeunlatched.org This work is published subject to a Creative Commons Attribution Noncommercial No Derivatives 4.0 International license. The terms of the license can be found at https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/. For uses beyond those covered in the license contact Berghahn Books. To John and Johanna Meskill, loving parents, exemplary scholars This open access library edition is supported by Knowledge Unlatched. Not for resale. This open access library edition is supported by Knowledge Unlatched. Not for resale. CONTENTS Abbreviations viii Acknowledgements ix Introduction 1 1 “Organizing” the Labor Market in the Dynamic Kaiserreich 9 2 Promoting a Skilled Workforce 42 3 Toward Totalerfassung: Creating the National Labor Administration 67 4 Toward the German Skills Machine: Establishing Vocational Counseling and Training 108 5 Th e Nazi Consolidation of the Human Economies 141 6 Th e Labor Administration in the Economic Miracle 183 Conclusion: Th e Age of Organization 225 Bibliography 232 Index 258 This open access library edition is supported by Knowledge Unlatched. Not for resale. LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS ADGB Allgemeiner Deutscher Gewerkschaftsbund (All-German Trade Unions Congress, also Free Trade Union) ANG Arbeitsnachweisgesetz (Labor Exchange Law) BDA Bundesvereinigung deutscher Arbeitgeberverbände (Federation of German Industries) BDI Bundesverband der deutschen Industrie (Association of German Industry) CVDI Centralverband deutscher Industrieller (Central Association of German Industrialists) DAF Deutsche Arbeitsfront (German Labor Front) DATSCH Deutscher Ausschuss für technisches Schulwesen (German Committee for Technical Schooling) DHV Deutschnationaler Handlungsgehilfen-Verband (German National Union of Commercial Employees) DINTA Deutsches Institut für technische Arbeitsschulung (German Institute for Technical Labor Training) DNVP Deutschnationale Volkspartei (German National People’s Party) DGB Deutscher Gewerkschaftsbund (German Trade Unions Congress, also Free Trade Union) KPD Kommunistische Partei Deutschlands (German Communist Party) LAA Landesarbeitsamt (State Labor Offi ce) LGA Landesgewerbeamt (Prussian State Industrial Offi ce) RKW Reichskuratorium für Wirtschaftlichkeit (National Productivity Board) SPD Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands (Social Democratic Party of Germany) USPD Unabhängige Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands (Independent Social Democratic Party of Germany) VDI Verein deutscher Ingenieure (Association of German Engineers) VDMA Vereinigung deutscher Maschinenbau-Anstalten (Association of German Machine-Builders) ZAG Zentralarbeitsgemeinschaft (Central Working Association) This open access library edition is supported by Knowledge Unlatched. Not for resale. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Th e genesis of this book followed no straight or clear path. Th e question I started with became transformed in the process of research and writing until, in the end, it was no longer apparent, or only faintly so, in the book that emerged. Inspired by Ernest Gellner’s stimulating meditations in Plough, Sword, and Book on the growth of knowledge, I had wondered about the impact on society of the ap- plication of social sciences, such as psychology. Th is interest led me eventually to the German Labor Administration’s large psychological service. Soon the Labor Administration itself and its long-standing attempt to gain complete control of the labor market fascinated me even more. Researching their roots revealed the importance of a second labor force project, the German government’s and indus- try’s program to train German workers. My initial question about the growth of knowledge had led me, then, back to Gellner’s other two themes: power and the economy. During such a convoluted—and long—gestation, numerous teachers, col- leagues, and friends have been invaluable guides and interlocutors. Th ey helped both to spark my original interest and to rework it into something more specifi c and, I hope, more signifi cant. Just as important, they provided the encourage- ment and motivation to continue with a project that at many times threatened to overwhelm its author. It is a pleasure to thank them here.