Youth and the welfare state in Weimar Germany

The Weimar Republic gave German youth new social rights and a pledge of generous educational and welfare provision. Public social and welfare policies would, it was hoped, banish the spectre of delinquent and rebellious youth, and ensure that the future citizens, workers, and mothers of Germany's new democracy would be well-adjusted, efficient, and healthy. Elizabeth Harvey examines a wide range of policies implemented by central and local government, and assesses the responses to them. Her analysis provides new insights into the troubled development of the Weimar welfare state and the crisis into which it was plunged by the Great Depression, and makes an important contribution to the debate over continuities between Weimar Germany and the Third Reich.