ABSTRACT
The basis of the German welfare state was the tripartite social insurance system (health, accident and pension insurance) introduced in the 1880s under Chancellor Bismarck. The introduction of a welfare state from above responded to the problems of social fragmentation and social conflicts in the German Industrial Revolution. German history was marked by a series of dramatic shocks, such as the World Wars and especially the Nazi regime. One of the most important continuities was the bureaucracy, which was not affected by the regime changes. Senior civil servants, such as the secretaries of state, often began their careers in the empire or the Weimar Republic and served throughout the Third Reich or until the founding of the Federal Republic of Germany. Thus, the framework of social legislation remained unchanged in some respects even during the Nazi era. Other backgrounds to the continuity were the similarity of infrastructural requirements, the dominance of certain interest groups and the specifically German model of corporatism. In many respects, Germany corresponded to the model of a path-dependent welfare state. Even in the communist German Democratic Republic, remarkable remnants of the old social legislation remained in force.
