The Social and Welfare Implications of Youth Unemployment in Weimar Germany,1929–1933

Before the onset of the Depression at the end of the 1920s, periods of economic crisis during the earlier history of the Weimar Republic had clearly identified the younger generation as particularly vulnerable to the threat and reality of large-scale unemployment. This situation stood in stark contrast to the years of the First World War when, in the absence of adult manpower, working youth had enjoyed full employment and relatively high wage levels. During the phase of demobilisation immediately following the end of the war younger, especially unskilled, workers in industry, and to a lesser extent, in commerce and transport, became conspicuous early casualties of dismissal, short-term working and shrinking career opportunities.1 Apprenticeships, which traditionally were taken up by a large majority of German youths, were at that time in comparatively short supply, allowing employers to pick and choose more or less as they wanted from the avalanche of job applications confronting them. The labour market in 1919–21 was so competitive that parents often sent in to prospective employers supplementary statements lending support to sons’ and daughters’ applications for an opening.2