From the start, Germany’s welfare state served as a model, particularly in continental Europe, and substantially influenced social policy development. The issue at the heart of Bismarck’s social reforms was the Arbeiterfrage.1 The institutional response was mandatory as well as occupationally fragmented insurance that aimed at the preservation of a worker’s status. The patterns of early welfare state-building in the 1880s shaped the trajectory of Germany’s twentieth-century welfare state in its scope and size. Despite several general political turnarounds in the twentieth century, the welfare state survived upheavals by and large unscathed.