Intermediate Organisations and the State in Imperial Germany : Focusing on the Organisations under Public Law

Abstract

In the modern German history, emphasis is used to be laid on "state intervention" and "organisations". As is well known, there arised cartels or interest groups in the early stage of industrialisation, and state with its bureaucratic apparatuses had great influence upon the course of the modern German; history. Among the various types of the intermediate organisations, organisations under public law played an eminent role, which is a notable point compared with other european nations, and there also existed, not a few theories of the Corporative State in Germany. In this paper, the relationships "state-intermediate organisation-social class" are examined with regard to the handicraft organisations under public law-Innungen and Handwerkskammern. Innungen gained a public status by the Amendment of Gewerbeordung in 1881, and Handwerks-kammern were established by the Amendment in 1897. In both cases, the apprenticeship problem, was very important. Because no sucsessful vocational training could be achieved without handicraft apprenticeship in those days, handicraft organisations were able to attain a public status as supervising; organisations for the apprenticeship. Handicraft legislations in Imperial Germany cannot be characterised as a "state-led" "protectionistic policy" so superficially as is advocated by the German Sozialgeshichte school. On the one hand, the decisive factors in handicraft legislations were not the state but the artisan movement itself and the parliament, and on the other hand, it is very dubious that the handicraft legislations could "protect" artisans, for a slow but steady growth of handicraft economy regardless of the handicraft legislationscan be found as a basic trend. The "reestablishment" of public handicraft organisations in Imperial Germany cannot surely be explained without their strong traditionsi since Middle Ages, but we must pay more attention to thechanging function of these organisations. For example, the Befahigungsnachweis, one of the strongest requirements of the traditionalist artisan movement, should be regarded not as a restraining mean but one which makes apprenticeship more effective, if the practical operations by the handicraft organisations are closely examined. In sum, the public handicraft organisations bore a character of modern pressure groups, and by the activities of these organisations, the category of statistics and economic policy, "Handwerk", is established in Germany in the 20th century.