Workbook
The work book was a government-issued document that an employer was required to present when hired. The aim was to control the occupational mobility of employees and to make it dependent on the commitment from their previous employer. This should make it impossible for employees to take advantage of wage differences between companies or branches by means of a change of company. The workbook was thus a means of fundamentally restricting freedom of occupation , and after 1935 also an instrument of economic mobilization in preparation for the four-year plan .
In some countries, such as Slovenia , the work book is still in use and required by law for every employee . In the GDR , the document was partially kept until 1967.
history
Already in the trade regulations of the North German Confederation , keeping a work book was mandatory for young factory workers, without which employment was not allowed. This regulation was extended to all young industrial workers, including journeyman craftsmen, through an amendment to the trade regulations for the German Reich in 1883. However, repeated attempts to introduce workbooks for adult workers also failed.
Only in the time of National Socialism were workbooks gradually made mandatory for all adult employees from 1935 onwards.
Law of 1935
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On February 26, 1935, a "law on the introduction of a work book" ( RGBl. I, p. 311) was passed, which read as follows:
The Reich Government has passed the following law, which is hereby promulgated:
§ 1 (1) In order to ensure the appropriate distribution of the workforce in the German economy, a work book is introduced. (2) The Reich Minister of Labor determines the group of persons for whom work books are introduced, the time of introduction and the details of the design of the work books.
Section 2 Workers and employees for whom work books are to be issued in accordance with Section 1 may only be employed from the point in time determined by the Reich Labor Minister if they are in possession of a properly issued work book.
§ 3 (1) The work books are issued by the employment offices. (2) Other bodies are prohibited from issuing work books or similar IDs on which employment as a worker or salaried employee or preferential treatment should be made dependent, unless special statutory provisions permit exceptions.
Section 4 (1) Anyone who, contrary to the provisions of Section 2, employs a worker or is employed as a worker or employee is punished with a fine of up to one hundred and fifty Reichsmarks or with imprisonment. (2) Anyone who deliberately issues work books or similar IDs contrary to the provisions of Section 3 will be punished with imprisonment and a fine or one of these penalties.
Section 5 The Reich Labor Minister is authorized to issue statutory ordinances and general administrative provisions for the implementation and amendment of this law. In it, he can order that and to what extent the penalties threatened in § 4 apply in the event of violations of the provisions he has issued.
§ 6 This law comes into force on April 1, 1935. Implementation and supplementary provisions can be issued before they come into force.
implementation
Leaflet for workbook ,
instructions
Outside
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The compulsory workbook was first introduced in 1935 for industrial shortage occupations such as miners and metalworkers, but was then quickly extended to other occupational groups. In 1938 around 22,500,000 work books had been issued by the employment offices. The workbook was a numbered, thin booklet in DIN A 6 format with 32 pages. The first three digits of the work book number (e.g. 335 for the Heidelberg employment office , Sinsheim branch ) indicated one of the 345 employment offices authorized to issue them. Parallel to the work book, an index card was kept under the same number at the issuing employment office.
The work book and the card index enabled the state to control the "planned distribution of the workforce over the long term". “Distortions in the labor market” should be intercepted without having to make wage policy concessions. Hermann Göring declared in November 1938 in the Reich Defense Council :
“The distribution of people is the most important and most difficult [...] problem. Because of the great shortage of manpower, a method must be used that no longer draws on the full, but simplifies it and saves people. The human being is an irreplaceable fuel. "
Goering therefore planned to record all German men and women between the ages of 14 and 70 in a people's card index in preparation for war . The workbook file should serve as the basis.
See also
Web links
- Law on the introduction of a work book of February 26, 1935 (RGBl. I, p. 311)
Individual evidence
- ↑ See collection of sources on the history of German social policy 1867 to 1914 , Section I: From the time when the Reich was founded to the Imperial Social Message (1867-1881) , Volume 4: Workers' Law , edited by Wolfgang Ayaß , Karl Heinz Nickel and Heidi Winter, Darmstadt 1997 , Pp. 347, 358, 380, 383f., 423, 488-492, 502f., 520, 522f., 533, 535-537, 539f., 543, 552f., 557, 561, 564-567, 584, 592-595, 598f., 601, 627f., 632, 634, 644-647, 660f., 668f., 686ff cf. Collection of sources on the history of German social policy from 1867 to 1914 , III. Department: Development and differentiation of social policy since the beginning of the New Course (1890-1904) , Volume 4, Workers' Law , edited by Wilfried Rudloff, Darmstadt 2011, pp. 7–22, 34, 42, 184, 209, 260, 273, 304 f., 400, 440, 467, 495, 570.
- ↑ Götz Aly, Karl Heinz Roth: The complete collection. 2nd edition Frankfurt / M. 2005, ISBN 3-596-14767-0 , p. 55
- ↑ Götz Aly, Karl Heinz Roth: The complete collection. P. 55
- ↑ quoted from Götz Aly, Karl Heinz Roth: The complete collection. P. 55