Imperial embassy
Imperial Embassy , also Emperor's Embassy or Imperial Social Message , refers to the message of Wilhelm I , read by Chancellor Otto Fürst von Bismarck at the opening of the 5th German Reichstag on November 17, 1881 in the Royal Palace of Berlin , which continued German social legislation after a first accident insurance proposal in the Reichstag had failed.
Content and meaning
The content of the Imperial Embassy was mainly the program for the establishment of insurance against accident, illness and the risks of old age for the working population, especially industrial workers .
The imperial embassy was presumably issued with the aim of counteracting the increasing political threat to internal peace from the growing protests of the workers, who were threatened by exploitation and poverty due to the rapidly advancing technical and economic development ( see: social legislation , socialist laws ). According to Jürgen Osterhammel , it was "one of the goals of the Chancellor [...] to weaken the autonomously administered auxiliary funds of the labor movement ."
In addition to the branches of social insurance , the imperial embassy also introduced the principle of self-administration , which is still in force with the social insurance carriers today.
"We Wilhelm, by the grace of God the German Emperor, King of Prussia, etc., announce and hereby add to know:
[...] As early as February of this year, We expressed our conviction that the healing of social damage is not exclusively in the Ways of repression of social democratic excesses, but equally to those of positive promotion of the welfare of the workers. We consider it our imperial duty to re-recommend this task to the Reichstag, and we would look back with all the greater satisfaction on all the successes with which God has visibly blessed our government, if we could one day become conscious to take with them, to leave the fatherland new and lasting guarantees of its inner peace, and to those in need of greater security and productivity of the assistance to which they are entitled. In our efforts aimed at this, we are certain of the approval of all allied governments and trust in the support of the Reichstag regardless of party positions.
With this in mind, the draft law submitted by the allied governments in the previous session on the insurance of workers against industrial accidents, taking into account the negotiations that took place in the Reichstag, will first be revised in order to prepare for a new consultation. In addition, he will be accompanied by a template which aims to organize the commercial health insurance system evenly. But even those who become unable to work due to old age or disability have a justified claim to the community as a whole to a higher degree of state welfare than they have hitherto been able to receive.
Finding the right ways and means for this care is a difficult, but also one of the highest tasks of any community that is based on the moral foundations of Christian popular life. Closer connection to the real forces of this popular life and the bringing together of the latter in the form of corporate cooperatives under state protection and support will, as we hope, make possible the solution of tasks to which state authority alone would not be equal to the same extent . Nevertheless, even in this way, the goal cannot be achieved without investing considerable resources. [...] "
monument
In 1896 was in memory of the Imperial Embassy from the German student reference agency on Kyffhäuserdenkmal in Bad Frankenhausen the embassy memorial stone erected.
See also
Web links
supporting documents
- ↑ For the origin, the complete wording and the public acceptance cf. Collection of sources on the history of German social policy from 1867 to 1914 . II. Department. From the Imperial Social Message to the February decrees of Wilhelm II. (1881-1890), Volume 1: Basic questions of social policy, edited by Wolfgang Ayaß , Florian Tennstedt and Heidi Winter, Darmstadt 2003, No. 1–20 and No. 22.
- ↑ Jürgen Osterhammel: The transformation of the world. A story of the 19th century. Munich 2009, p. 893
- ↑ quoted from: Stenographic reports on the negotiations of the Reichstag. 5th legislative period. I. Session 1881/82, Berlin 1882, p. 1f.