ABSTRACT
In the context of the currency reform, the British and American military governments in June 1949 transferred the matter of social insurance reform into German hands. This brought the bipartite Economic Council, i.e. the German legislative body in the American and British sectors of occupation, into play. The Christian Democrat Union (CDU), the leading party in government – in coalition with the liberal Free Democrats (FDP) and the conservative German Party (DP) – had nailed the defence of the traditional German social insurance system to its mast. While the British social security system was fundamentally reformed between 1945 and 1948 on the basis of the Beveridge Plan, the German social security system was equally on the verge of a break in continuity and of a new beginning. The Beveridge Plan and the British reforms based on it received very careful attention in Germany.
