Communal Unemployment Insurance in Wilhelminian Germany: A Case Study of the Greater Berlin Administration Union

In Wilhelminian Germany, unemployment insurance was introduced at the end of the nineteenth century at the communal level, but not at the national level. The main system of communal unemployment insurance was the Genter system, under which municipalities paid subsidies to trade unions that provided their out-of-work members with unemployment benefits. The system suffered from two problems: the exclusion of non-organized labourers, who comprised the majority of the working class, and the increase in the influence of the Social Democratic Party. This occurred because the Genter system provided financial support for the Free Trade Union under the influence of the Party. Despite these problems, however, the introduction of the Genter system was considered in many municipalities, such as Schöneberg and Charlottenburg in the Greater Berlin administration union. The municipality of Schöneberg successfully established a system based on the Genter system that aimed to include non-organized labourers. A similar system was proposed in Charlottenburg, but was rejected by the city council. The objective of this article is to provide a comparative analysis of both municipalities and to show the historical context of the Genter system with a focus on ‘the social task of municipalities’, a topic of interest in political philosophy at that time.