IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/h/pal/palchp/978-1-349-18355-5_2.html
   My bibliography  Save this book chapter

The Extent and Causes of Unemployment in the Weimar Republic

In: Unemployment and the Great Depression in Weimar Germany

Author

Listed:
  • Dietmar Petzina

Abstract

The history of the Weimar Republic, especially the history of its social and economic development, is frequently interpreted as being merely the prehistory of National Socialism. With reference above all to inflation, high unemployment and the Great Depression, the 13 years of the first German Republic are seen as a succession of disasters inseparably linked to Hitler’s advent to power. Mass unemployment, in particular, is blamed for the triumph of political radicalism over democratic stability. Although the problem of unemployment was not peculiar to Germany, in no other country was such an explosive combination of social collapse and political instability produced, which was to influence the course of history in such a fateful way. Questions regarding the extent and causes of unemployment, therefore, need to be posed for reasons extending beyond mere historical interest — particularly in view of the experiences of the early 1980s. If history has anything to teach us here, it would be that democracies require a social consensus and job opportunities for everyone if they are to survive on a long-term basis.

Suggested Citation

  • Dietmar Petzina, 1986. "The Extent and Causes of Unemployment in the Weimar Republic," Palgrave Macmillan Books, in: Peter D. Stachura (ed.), Unemployment and the Great Depression in Weimar Germany, chapter 2, pages 29-48, Palgrave Macmillan.
    • Handle: RePEc:pal:palchp:978-1-349-18355-5_2
    DOI: 10.1007/978-1-349-18355-5_2
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    To our knowledge, this item is not available for download. To find whether it is available, there are three options:
    1. Check below whether another version of this item is available online.
    2. Check on the provider's web page whether it is in fact available.
    3. Perform a search for a similarly titled item that would be available.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:pal:palchp:978-1-349-18355-5_2. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.palgrave.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.