The Frankfurt based Bundesarbeitsgemeinschaft der Sozialhilfeiniziativen (BAG-SHIe.) is a federal umbrella of welfare claimants' organisations, providing advice, training, briefings, lobbying and advocacy. It is currently campaigning to exempt child benefit from welfare means testing. Here Erika Biehn and Jens SchrÖter discuss what ten years of reunification have done for Germany's poor.
Although reunification in 1990 changed a lot for the Germans, one thing did not change. Society is still made up of rich and poor. The poor moreover make up a substantial group: 9.1 per cent of the German population lived below the poverty line of 50 per cent of average incomes in 1998. The rich are also a large group: 950,000 private housholds dispose of a net income of more than 1 million marks, according to the analyst W. Rugemer. The trade unions observed in 1998 that 10 per cent of German households controlled 50 per cent of total capital wealth, while 14 per cent of the population had no savings whatever.
On the historic date of Nov. 9th 1989 ( the date of the fall of the Berlin Wall) a German welfare association published the first national report on poverty (dealing only with the west). It was the outcome of two years of research. .
The shocking result was expressed in its title: ". what we have to be ashamed of in a rich country."" This report identified approximately 10 % of all west Germans as belonging to the poor.
East Germany's citizens appeared to be better off. According to socialist doctrine, poverty did not exist. It therefore followed that there were no poor people either. The income gap was not as wide as it was in the west. Incomes were much more evenly distributed, but of course on a much lower level, which obviously had major implications for purchasing power. Nevertheless this state had poor people, too, for example large numbers of elderly people, living on a minimum pension and with almost no access to social services.
Germany was no exception to this scenario. ... Overall, German unemployment was 978,000 in 1924. ... Socially, the German people were forced into lives poverty as trillionaires. ... Nothing was going right for the German people. ... He made good on his promises to save the German people from the depression and to restore Germany to its glory days. ...
" (Stephen Gardiner) Another factor to the beginning of Germany industrializing was when the British imported British workers and machines that taught Germans of the English ways. ... By the late 1800's when Germany was finally unified imperil Germany became an industrial and military giant. Germany's impact was major. ... Germany was second only to Britain among the European powers at the time. ... It nearly removed all the poverty in Germany due to the broad availability of employment. ...
This solved Germany's problem for a while however when the Wall Street Crash occurred, Germany was in for a surprise. ... The USA immediately called upon all outstanding loans to be payed, democracy was failing for Germany and unemployment and poverty were strictly rising. ... People were forced to rations of food supplies as a great number of society was poverty-stricken and ill. ... Germany and it's people had had enough. ... The power of the Great Depression left many people in poverty, disdain and anguish. ...
From our discussion in calss, I learned a lot about poverty, why it exsisted, and why it still thrives today. Dating all the way back to the mid-1700s, there has been proof of much poverty exsisting in our world. ... Many events contributed to the poverty of the 19th century and loss of jobs. ... Beginning in 1939 as a European conflict between Germany and an Anglo-French coalitoin, it widened to include most of the nations in the world. ... And we remember the we all have the power to help with the poverty in this world today. ...
Why did parliamentary government decline in Germany 1930-33? ... On June 28th 1919 the German Government signed the Treaty of Versailles, admitting Germany's defeat in World War One. ... At the end of 1922 Germany had made no payments. ... The German Government now began to look really bad and unorganised to the German people. ... Germany was very badly affected by the depression and since 1929, unemployment had been on the rise, but by January 1933 the unemployment figure in Germany had risen to 6,100,000 people, existing businesses were doing very badly and homelessness and poverty ha...
How Strong Was Weimar Germany By The Beginning Of 1924? ... Making the new German republic very much like the former enemies of the First World war would make it a lot easier for the allies to relate and sympathise with Germany. ... This should have given a great boost to public opinion of Weimar Germany. ... The fact that most Germans suffered greatly due to hyperinflation caused much dissolution with the entire system of Weimar Germany within the German people. ... Many Germans believed that Germany could have won the war but were stopped by the politicians, as they were told by the ...
Consequently the money invested and leant to Germany was needed back. This as Stresemann admitted made Germany's "economic position" like "dancing on a volcano.... In addition to destroying Germany's production levels, the Wall Street Crash also meant many Germans were cast into deep poverty and misery. ... Not until February 1932 did deliberation for a 'Preparatory Commission' begin in Germany. ... Secondly, the Constructive Plan which Germany showed little interest in. ...
What exactly is poverty? ... What needs to be accomplished in order to get those stricken in poverty to move from below the poverty line to well above it? ... Analysis of the The German Ideology by Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, more specifically the section Ruling Class and Ruling Ideas, allow one to formulate some possible answers to these questions. ... The section Ruling Class and Ruling Ideas of The German Ideology can lead one to understand why such a mindset is so prevalent. ... None of these members lived in poverty. ...
The loss of the war caused extreme poverty, which in turn let disease run rampant. ... The French had come to collect their reparations, even amid widespread German poverty and squalor. ... The Nazis had a policy of "Germany first-. Their catchphrase was, "Germany, awake!... Poverty became commonplace again, and homelessness became a far greater problem. ...