Abstract
In the Weimar Republic two different views of white-collar workers gained currency: the lower-class theory and the middle-class theory. The lower-class theory was advanced by socialist intellectuals and politicians and by the Afa-Bund, (Allgemeinerfreier Angestelltenbund) while the middle-class view enjoyed great popularity among white-collar associations not connected to the Afa-Bund—principally the GdA (Gewerkschaftsbund der Angestellten) and the DHV, (Deutsch-mationaler Handlungegehilfen-Verbond) whose combined membership far exceeded that of the former. The middle-class view also found spokesmen among politicians in all political parties from the Democrats to the National Socialists. The most radical formulations did not originate with the members or functionaries of the associations, but with ideologists, whose center of work was neither the factory, the office, nor the shop, but the realm of political rhetoric. They wrote or spoke with passion, interpreting a reality they seldom knew through their own experience. What did Rudolf Borchardt, the poet, really know of the life of white-collar workers, or Ernst Jünger of the worries of laborers? What concrete observations lay at the bottom of Hans Freyer’s fantasies about the “Volk”?
Reprinted from Hans Speier, German White Collar Workers and the Rise of Hitler (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1985).
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Notes
Thus, the DHV pointed out in its polemics against Vela, the association of executive employees: “It is sensible for salaried employees who advance to executive positions to remain in the associations which they joined at the beginning of their professional careers.” (Rechenschaftsbericht (Hamburg, 1928), p, 269). J. Silbermann, a functionary of the VwA, did not classify the “other managers” of the census, including the directors, as “independents” but as salaried employees. (Die Angestellten als Stand (Berlin, 1932), p. 20).
P. Bröcker, Die Arbeitnehmerbewegung (Hamburg, 1919), p. 98; M. Rössiger, Der Angestellte von 1930 (Berlin, 1928), p. 15.
Cf. F. Croner, “Der Begriff der Angestellten in der neueren Rechtssprechung,” (Ass, vol. 60, (1928), p. 188. The concept of the salaried employees according to the 1911 insurance law for salaried employees does not coincide with that of the 1929 law on shop councils; cf. E. Lederer and J. Marschak, “Der neue Mittelstand,” (Tubingen, 1926), pp. 120–41, note 2.
DHV. ed. Die Gehaltslage der Kaufmannsgehilfen, (Hamburg, 1931), p. 9.
Concerning the DHV view of technical employees, cf. also O. Thiel, Die Sozialpolitik der Kaufmannsgehilfen, (Hamburg, 1926) p. 4. “The GdA organizes not only male and female salaried employees of every kind but also certain groups of higher workers, male and female, whom we cannot recognize as salaried employees.” Technical employees reversed the bias: “Unfortunately, it is often forgotten that the production of goods precedes their distribution.” Butab, ed., Der Techniker im Tarifvertrag, p. 8.
W. D. von Witzleben, “Der Tarifvertrag für die Angestellten der Berliner Metallindustrie,” (Berlin, 1926), p. 27.
I. Silbermann, Die Angestellten als Stand, (Berlin, 1932), p. 5.
Departing from its usual stress on professional consciousness, the DHV reproached the bank clerks—i.e., white-collar workers with a truly pronounced professional pride—that their attitude was outdated: “The old social isolation of the bank clerks from the majority of other commercial clerks has favored this attitude. But this attitude is especially misplaced in banking, because there the enormous number of dismissals during the past years, which has forced tens of thousands of bank clerks into other enterprises, has clearly demonstrated that they can prevail only as members of the big family of commercial clerks,” Rechenschaftsbericht des DHV für 1928, (Hamburg), p. 88.
W. Sombart, “Beruf,” Hwb der Soziologie, in A. Vier Kandt (ed.), p. 31.
H. Schäfer, “Die leitenden Angestellten: Ein neuer sozialer Typus,” Bergwerks Zeitung, 11 November 1928.
The following information on the number of job applications submitted by unemployed executives taken from Rechenschaftsbericht der Vela 1929, (Hamburg), pp. 246–47, may complement the picture: 1–50 applications were submitted by 186 unemployed executives; 50–100 by 111; 100–200 by 87; 200–300 by 43; 300–600 by 44; 600–1000 by 9; and 1000–1500 by 13. Twenty-one persons said they had sent “hundreds” or “innumerable” applications. In 12 cases no reply was received; in 117 cases less than 10 percent of the written applications were answered, in 89 cases 10–20 percent, in 56 cases 20–30 percent. The remainder received replies more frequently.
A. Zimmermann, Der Deutschnationale Handlungsgehilfen-Verband, (Hamburg, n.d), p. 95.
According to the report of the factory inspector; cf. the statistic in GdH (ed.), Die kommende Angestelltengeneration, (Berlin, 1933), pp. 11–18.
Der GdA-Führer, 1931, p. 120. Cf. also J. Jahn, “Das Sozialbewusstsein der Angestellten,” (Der Kaufmann in Wirtschaft und Recht, 1930), pp. 246–47.
F. Croner, “Die Angestellten seit der Währungsstabilisierung” (Ass vol. 60 (1928), pp, 103–46. For a recent, much more detailed Marxist analysis of white-collar workers, cf. U. Kadritzke, Angestellte: Die geduldigen Arbeiter (Frankfurt, 1975). The book combines a praiseworthy presentation of copious data with the demand that the reader translate the author’s views, which are hidden in a doctrinaire jargon, into intelligible German. They defy translation into English. For example, Kadritzke writes about insurance for salaried employees: “Die spezifische, durchaus schon taktisch konzipierte ‘Borniertheit’ der Bourgeoisie konstituiert in der Gründung einer besonderen, die rechtliche Exklusivstellung ergänzenden Angestelltenversicherung ein Moment der ‘Angestelltenmentalität,’ das, obgleich seine objektive gesellschaftliche Basis schon zu schwinden beginnt, die Formen der folgenden Klassenauseinandersetzungen doch folgenreich bestimmen kann” (p. 226).
C. Dreyfuss in Beruf und Ideologie der Angestellten (Munich, 1933), recognized this fact, which constitutes the methodological merit of his book. Dreyfuss endeavored to prove in detail that the entrepreneurs created ever anew the illusion of prestige through the carefully calculated creation of an artificial hierarchy in the firm. Although this explanation does not suffice to explain the phenomenon of social esteem, it is more productive than the Marxian assumption of “false consciousness.”
Cf. J. Jahn, Das Sozialbewusstsein der Angestellten (Der Kaufman in Wirtschaft Recht, 1930).
C. Nörpel, “Grenzen des Arbeitsrechts” Der Arbeit, vol. 8 (1932). Cf. also in the same journal the discussion following this article.
Afa-Bund, ed., Protokoll des 4. Afa-Gewerkschaftskongresses, (Berlin, 1931), p. 151.
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© 1973 Yale University Press
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Speier, H. (1973). Middle-Class Notions and Lower-Class Theory. In: Vidich, A.J. (eds) The New Middle Classes. Main Trends of the Modern World. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-23771-5_4
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