• Search Research Projects
  • Search Researchers
  • How to Use
  1. Back to previous page

Industrial Rationalization and Workers' Culture in Weimar Germany

Research Project

Project/Area Number 03610202
Research Category

Grant-in-Aid for General Scientific Research (C)

Allocation TypeSingle-year Grants
Research Field History of Europe and America
Research InstitutionKagoshima University

Principal Investigator

SOHMA Yasuo  Kagoshima University, Faculty of Law and Letters Associate Professor, 法文学部, 助教授 (90206673)

Project Period (FY) 1991 – 1992
Project Status Completed (Fiscal Year 1992)
Budget Amount *help
¥1,800,000 (Direct Cost: ¥1,800,000)
Fiscal Year 1992: ¥700,000 (Direct Cost: ¥700,000)
Fiscal Year 1991: ¥1,100,000 (Direct Cost: ¥1,100,000)
KeywordsWeimar Republic / Industrial Rationalization / General Federation of German Trade Unions (ADGB) / Ford System / Workers' Culture / Mass Culture / Residential Estate (Siedlung) / Workers' Youth / 労働組合 / 労働運動文化 / タルノフ,フリッツ / ナフタリ,フリッツ / 経済民主主義論 / フォ-ド・システム / 世界恐慌
Research Abstract

This study deals first with the industrial rationalization and the workers and the trade unions, secondly with the transformation of the workers' milieu and the workers' culture and mass culture in Weimar Germany.
(1) The industrial rationalization in the stabilization era changed the traditional labor in the workplace, in the Ruhr coal mines through the mechanization in the pit and the restructuring of the labor organization, and in the electro-technical and machine industry through the introduction of the mass production of the Ford system. It demolished the traditional skills and the structure of solidarity of the workers. The General Federation of German Trade Unions (ADGB) took a positive attitude toward the rationalization to raise the living standard and replaced the socialist theory of mass poverty with the theory of mass purchasing power. But the democracy in the workplace and the transformation of the workers' culture were neglected in the ADGB' theory of economic democracy.
(2) In regard to the workers' milieu in the 1920' s, the investigator concentrates on the transformation of the workers' quarters and workers' culture, and on the workers' youth and the mass culture. In the metropolis Berlin, the redevelopment began in the center, the large residential estates (Siedlungen) were built in the suburbs, while the traditional workers' quarters were transformed thereby. On the other hand, in the Ruhr district the social transformations came through in the miners' colonies, but the integrated milieu of the workers' culture and the life-environments was considerably preserved, and the solidarity of miners in the colonies was rather strengthened. In the middle of these social transformations, the workers' youth lived an unstable life and had the different consciousness from their parents' generation in the Great Depression. It was they that embodied the dilemma of the labor movement culture between the workers' culture and the mass culture.

Report

(3 results)
  • 1992 Annual Research Report   Final Research Report Summary
  • 1991 Annual Research Report

URL: 

Published: 1991-04-01   Modified: 2016-04-21  

Information User Guide FAQ News Terms of Use Attribution of KAKENHI

Powered by NII kakenhi