The political establishment in Germany succeeded in maintaining the status quo through a policy of moderate reform . How far do you agree with this assessment 1900-1914?
History Essay.. Roman..
The political establishment in Germany succeeded in maintaining the status quo through a policy of moderate reform . “How far do you agree with this assessment 1900-1914?”
The political establishment of Germany succeeded in maintaining status quo mainly through a policy of moderate reform however other factors such as the fact that the Kaiser had control over the military played a significant role in maintaining status quo.
Status quo was maintained through various means of moderate reform. This included the 1899 old age and invalidity act which increased pensions and introduced compulsory insurance. Another example is the 1903 Sickness insurance Act giving greater help to workers as it gave them over 26 weeks off work for illness. Furthermore the 1908 Factory act restricted work anyone under the age of 13 and introduced a 6 hour day for anyone aged between 13 and 14 and a 10 hour day for 15 year olds. These reforms appealed to the workers and were a form of appeasement, to make sure that they did not demand too many other reforms. These reforms not only appealed to the working classes but also towards hostile parties, especially the Socialists, (SPD) thus providing a middle ground since they decide it would be in their interest to cooperate with the government and so were considerably more willing to accept the status quo. To back this up the conservative fractions had control over the civil service meaning there was little room to introduce and major reforms thus suggesting that the government wished to maintain status quo. Another example of the fact that status quo was maintained was that the SPD became more nationalistic judging by the fact that they voted for a bill in 1913 to increase the sixe of the army by 136,000 essentially increasing the Kaisers power since he had control of the army.