ABSTRACT
Towns in Kaiserreich Germany was avant-garde theatres in matters of social and labour policy. Forced to confront the combined effects of population mobility and industrialization that were generating rapid urbanization, they have been identified as the true pillars of Germany's economic and social transformation' at the turn of the twentieth century. The principle of self-administration which had been legally codified in township charters by the various German states during the early nineteenth century, gave municipalities a substantial degree of autonomy in fiscal matters as well as in public policy. According to Max Weber's analysis, in the response of the township administrations to social challenges, bureaucratic specialization combined with the professionalization of their employees. In the matter of employment policy, the towns were like experimental laboratories for the Reich. As the first significant public policies to combat unemployment, municipal initiatives were characterized by their heterogeneity.
