Christian Democratic Workers and the Forging of German Democracy, 1920–1980

Patch, William L.

doi:10.1017/9781108539753

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“…It had about 5,000 salaried functionaries altogether, and careful inquiries by the social committees indicated that the number supporting Catholic social theory declined from more than 700 in January 1955 to a mere 280 in 1962 and no more than 145 in 1975. 86 The proportion of Catholic members of the DGB remained similar to their proportion of the total population, and in the Bundestag election of 1976 (when the SPD was in general far more popular than it had been in the 1950s), 28.4 percent of DGB members still voted for the CDU/CSU, compared with 57.8 percent for the SPD, and 8 percent for the FDP. 87 Catholic members of the DGB were reduced to a largely passive role, however, and the assertions by clerics in the 1950s that social democrats dominated the "unified" labor unions became a self-fulfilling prophecy.…”

Section: Sunday Labor After 1961mentioning

confidence: 89%

“…Among the veterans of the old Christian trade unions, Blank had long been the most loyal to Adenauer, and he too sought to reemphasize the Christian identity of the CDU. 62 News of Blank's plans leaked to the press in August, and business lobbyists warned that a ban on Sunday steel production would reduce output by 10 percent and eliminate many thousands of jobs. One business journal editorialized that the special status of Sunday on the calendar was not "an essential part of the substance of interdenominational Christianity" but rather a "remnant of the social policy ideas of the patriarchs of Judaism."…”

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confidence: 99%

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Defending the “Peace of Sunday”: The Debate over Sunday Labor in the West German Steel Industry after the Second World War

Patch¹

2021

Cent Eur Hist

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Working hours were largely unregulated in nineteenth-century Germany, but a powerful alliance emerged in the 1890s between the Christian churches and the socialist labor movement to prohibit most industrial labor on Sunday, including most production of steel. In the 1950s steel management persuaded organized labor that it would be advantageous to produce steel continuously throughout the week, the prevalent system in other countries. The Evangelical Church retreated in this debate, but the Catholic Church waged a fierce and partly successful campaign from 1952 to 1961 to defend the old prohibition. Until the 1980s organized labor continued to cooperate with both major churches to keep Sunday industrial labor quite rare. Their influence declined suddenly after national reunification in 1990, however, and many Germans have come to prize individual freedom above the old principle, honored by Christians and the unchurched alike, that most people should have the same day of rest.

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Section: Sunday Labor After 1961mentioning

confidence: 89%

mentioning

confidence: 99%