Service community

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The terms service community and operational community were, in connection with the national community, propagandistic key concepts of National Socialism . The church service community is a central concept of labor law in the churches and their charitable organizations Caritas and Diakonie in Germany.

Service community under National Socialism

Legally, the company community was codified in the law on the order of national work of January 20, 1934 and the service group in the law on the order of work in public administrations and companies of March 23, 1934 . With the construct of the service community, the leadership / allegiance principle and the elimination of independent trade union interest representation were transferred to the public administration.

Section 2 of the law of March 23, 1934 read:

“The leader of a public administration or a public enterprise decides in relation to the workers and employees employed in them as the allegiance in all matters .... The leader takes care of the well-being of the employees. They have to keep the faithfulness established in the service community and, bearing in mind their position in the public service, to be an example to all national comrades in their service. "

The importance of the service community was emphasized in the General Tariff Regulations for Followers in the Public Service (ATO) and in the tariff regulations A (for salaried employees) and B (for blue-collar workers) based on it in the preambles:

“In the public service, all workers work together for the common benefit of the people and the state. The high task assigned to them requires a service community in the sense of the National Socialist worldview, exemplary fulfillment of official duties and behavior in and outside of the service appropriate to their public position. "

Adoption of the term in the churches from 1936

From 1936, the churches and their charities, Caritas and Innere Mission, the forerunner of diakonia, referred to the service community of the 1934 law. In the tariff regulation for the institutions of health care affiliated to the German Caritas Association of July 1, 1936 and in the corresponding regulation for the institutions of health care of the Inner Mission of January 1, 1937, it says in § 1: "Management and followers form a service community in the sense of §2 of the Law on the Order of Work in Public Administrations and Companies of March 23, 1934. " From 1938 onwards, by a resolution of the DEK church chancellery, collective bargaining regulations A and B were applied to employees and workers of the Protestant churches.

Use after 1945

With the Control Council Acts No. 40 of November 30, 1946 and No. 56 of June 30, 1947, the National Socialist labor regulations were abolished. The tariff regulations in the public service based on this initially remained in force. Collective agreements should take their place. The negotiations dragged on for 14 years. It was not until April 1, 1961 that the National Socialist collective bargaining system was replaced by the Federal Employees Collective Agreement (BAT).

In the Caritas Association and the Inner Mission, guidelines for employment contracts took the place of the collective bargaining regulations after 1949 . In the guidelines for employment contracts in educational and economic welfare institutions of the German Caritas Association from 1950, it said about the service community in §1:

“Caritas is an expression of life by the Catholic Church. All employees working in it serve the common work of Christian charity. They form a service community regardless of their position under labor law. These guidelines apply to the regulation of the special relationship between employer and employee resulting from the service community. "

A corresponding formulation was adopted from 1951 by the Central Committee of the Inner Mission for the guidelines for employment contracts applicable there :

“The inner mission is an expression of life and essence of the Evangelical Church. All employees working in it serve the common work of Christian charity. They form a service community regardless of their position under labor law. "

Church service community

From the 1950s the service community in the Catholic and Protestant churches became a central concept of ecclesiastical labor law in Germany. The term itself does not have an ecclesiastical tradition of its own. Before 1933 the term was not used in a church context. The starting point is the text by Werner Kalisch: "Basic and individual questions of church service law" from 1952 in which Kalisch refers to the guidelines for employment contracts of the Inner Mission from 1950. Kalisch was an employee of the Church Law Institute of the EKD in Göttingen, which was founded after 1945 with the task of "checking the compatibility of the canon law enacted during the National Socialist period with scripture and confession ... and the individual regional churches by providing legal opinions in churches - and to advise on questions of state church law. " In his dissertation in 1940, Kalisch had taken a position in favor of the position of the German Christians in favor of the position of the German Christians in his dissertation in the internal church controversy about the performance of the "Führer's oath" by the Protestant pastor as a canonical service obligation.

Use of terms

The conceptual usage is similar in both denominations. The framework for employee representation regulations applicable to the Catholic Church states:

“The basis and starting point for church service is the mission of the church. ... As a benchmark for their work, it is given to employers and employees who, as a service community, fulfill the mission of the institution and thus participate in the mission of the church. "

The EKD's Employee Representation Act states:

“Church service is determined by the mandate to preach the gospel in word and deed. ... The shared responsibility for the service of the church and its diakonia unites department heads and employees as a service community and obliges them to work together in a spirit of trust. "

The service community is referred to in the basic order of church service adopted by the German Bishops' Conference as the "structural principle of church labor law", based on which "church employers do not conclude collective agreements with trade unions. Strikes and lockouts are also ruled out." In 2013, the EKD Synod, with reference to the "service community, which is also expressed in the design of the binding procedures for regulating working conditions", advocated the conclusion of "church-based collective agreements" with the stipulation of an "unrestricted peace obligation".

Theological legitimacy

With regard to the state of opinion on the ecclesiastical service community in academic theology, Hirschfeld came to the conclusion in 1999: "The service community as a legal term sees itself ... doubly questioned: on the one hand by a consensus that has not yet been achieved on its conceptual content, on the other hand by not redeemed claim to theological legitimacy . " In 2014, Kreß stated that "the term 'service community lacks both a solid theological tradition of interpretation and exposition and a coherent, consistent theory formation." Martin Hein, Bishop of the Evangelical Church of Kurhessen-Waldeck and Franz-Josef Overbeck, Bishop of the Diocese of Essen, admitted in 2012 that the concept of the church service community is not based on any independent church-theological tradition and has a "burdened origin".

literature

  • Frank Bajohr, Michael Wildt: Volksgemeinschaft. New research on the society of National Socialism. Frankfurt am Main 2009.
  • Hermann Lührs: The future of labor law commissions - working relationships in the churches and their charitable organizations Diakonie and Caritas between continuity, change and upheaval. 2010, ISBN 978-3-8329-5183-2 .
  • Wolfgang Maaser : The concept and the idea of ​​the service community between 1934 and 1952. In: Johannes Eurich , Wolfgang Maaser: Diakonie in der Sozialökonomie. Studies on the consequences of the new welfare policy. Evangelical Publishing House, Leipzig 2013.
  • Katharina Kleine Vennekate: Service community and ecclesiastical labor law in the Protestant Church in Germany 1945 to 1980 (= Protestant impulses for society and the church. Volume 12). 2015, ISBN 978-3-643-12843-0 .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ http://www.bpb.de/izpb/137211/volksgemeinschaft?p=all
  2. ^ Matthias Frese: National Socialist Confidants: On Company Policy in the “Third Reich” Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung , 1992
  3. ↑ Wolfgang Spohn: On the “Works Constitution” in National Socialist Germany Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung , 1984
  4. ^ Reichsgesetzblatt, year 1934, part I, p. 220ff
  5. ^ Adolph, A. / Kleinschmidt, G .: The new tariff regulation for employees in the public service. Berlin: Industrieverlag Spaeth & Linde (1938)
  6. ↑ References from Lührs, Hermann (2007): Kirchliche Dienstgemeinschaft. Genesis and content of a controversial term. Article in: Church and Law, Edition 2.2007: Berliner Wissenschafts-Verlag, p. 227ff
  7. ^ Walter Nachmann: 100 years of ÖTV. The story of a union and its predecessor organizations. Published by the Public Services, Transport and Traffic Union. Frankfurt / M. (1996)
  8. ↑ See Lührs 2007 p. 232f
  9. ↑ Lührs 2007
  10. ^ Journal of Protestant Church Law , Volume 2, 1952/1953
  11. ↑ Archive link ( Memento from June 24, 2016 in the Internet Archive )
  12. ^ The public law position of the Protestant pastor from general land law to the present . Hall 1940
  13. ^ Maaser, Wolfgang: The concept and the idea of ​​the service community between 1934 and 1952. In: Diakonie in der Sozialökonomie. Evangelical Publishing House, Leipzig 2013
  14. ↑ Framework for an employee representation regulation - MAVO i. d. F. the resolution of the general assembly of the Association of Dioceses of Germany (2010) download: www.caritas.de
  15. ^ Preamble Employee Representation Act of the Evangelical Church in Germany i. d. F. 2013 download: www.kirchenrecht-ekd.de
  16. ↑ Basic order of the church service in the context of church employment relationships in the version of the resolution of the plenary assembly of the Association of Dioceses of Germany of April 27, 2015. Art. 7 para. 2
  17. ↑ Church law on the principles for regulating the employment relationships of employees in the Evangelical Church in Germany and its diakonia (Labor Law Regulation Principles Act - ARGG-EKD) of November 13, 2013
  18. ↑ Hirschfeld, Matthias: The service community in labor law of the Protestant church: on the legitimacy problem of a legal term. Frankfurt / M .: In: Law of Labor and Social Security, Volume 11 (1999) p. 70.
  19. ↑ Kreß, Hartmut: The special position of the churches in labor law - socially and ethically justifiable? Nomos-Verlag 2014 p. 52
  20. ↑ Hein, Martin (2012): “Dienstgemeinschaft”: Theological approaches to a concept of labor law. Lecture at the Federal Social Court of Kassel on June 11, 2012. Internet access www.ekkw.de/media_ekkw on July 5, 2012; Overbeck, Franz-Josef (2012): The service community and the Catholic profile of church institutions. In: Essen discussions on the topic of state and church 46: Aschendorff Verlag.