Workhouse

The workhouse provided one of the essential characteristics of poor political efforts of the 17th and 18th centuries is: where people affected by poverty should be included and thus removed from the public. Not infrequently, therefore, were neglected orphans to the occupants, sometimes mentally handicapped. At the same time we took advantage of the work force these people, they had to face by the manufactory production, which was the main income of the absolutist state, among others, are available. The conversion itinerant beggars in economically usable subjects should be achieved by methods of labor education. The utilitarianism of the emerging industrial age then put the workhouse in the 19th century under the motto " Who does not work shall not eat ", so under capitalism a sign factory discipline to help enforce socially.

Generally

The first European workhouse was established in 1555 in London. A little later followed houses in the Netherlands ( Amsterdam). The first German -ups can be found in Bremen ( 1609), Lübeck ( 1613 ) and Hamburg ( 1620). Striking feature is the focus on the urban space. Most start-ups in the German-speaking area are due to local initiative in the cities, which shows that the workhouse is not solely a product of the absolutist state.

What is striking is next to the spread in Protestant areas. Following the Protestant theory of the sociologist Max Weber, then hung it with a new understanding of working together, which was marked by Martin Luther, but especially by John Calvin: Through the Reformation piety was to be done within which work, on the one hand a believer serving should, on the other hand thus accumulated wealth was regarded as a sign of divine favor rests.

Another with the Reformation was standing in connection factor that offered by the leaving open of monasteries rooms that could be used elsewhere. However, this trend was not confined to Protestant areas. Also in the Catholic sphere, many workhouses were in former monasteries.

Despite official distinctions between workhouses, penitentiaries or other possible names ( manufactory house, plant house, house of correction ) designation was not necessarily an indication of the actual " design ", which was hidden behind a facility. Even houses in which the recording was supposedly voluntary, could have inmates who were detained by police raids and without that they had wanted to, there. For example, was the Military Workhouse Munich - its conception after a voluntary residence - opened on New Year's Day 1780 with a raid on Munich beggar.

Quantitatively, the workhouses did not play a major role. Presumably, they recorded no appreciable part of the poverty population. Nevertheless, they had indirectly disciplinary effectiveness, since they obviously constitute a deterrent to the town regiment or of the absolutist state.

Since the workhouses were intended primarily as a poor policy measure and to care for the poor, almost all outsiders who had produced the early modern period gathered in them, beggars, prostitutes, former soldiers, craftsmen without employment, offenders or orphans. The only common element was their working potential. A separation of the groups by gender or age was given only in some houses.

The houses were generally headed by an inspector, who was responsible for economic affairs. A work - or disciplinarian led the supervision of the inmates. In addition, fellows and other staff have been busy. Almost always included a priest or preacher to the staff. The houses rarely wore himself but is subsidized, in addition to the production revenue of the state and the proceeds from lottery winnings, collections and sovereign or municipal donations. In this way, they became competitors to craft what was seen by the guilds very critical.

Workhouse in German criminal law

Empire

Long before the 19th century was the assumption that poverty is at least partly self-inflicted, the basis of criminal discipline of admission to the workhouse. The criminal law must therefore be regarded as a counterpart to the relevant statutory provisions and efforts of poor relief (see here especially the Elberfeld System).

With the founding of the German Empire poverty states such as vagrancy, begging and homelessness as well as behaviors such as "play, drink and idleness " or " work-shy " were criminalized across at the national level. Legal basis was the § 361 of the Criminal Code of 1871, who finished this behavior referred to as " asocial " in addition to the penalty of imprisonment korrektionellen Nachhaft in the workhouse. The compulsion to work in the workhouses was supplemented by the poor political forced to work. This means that the support of the poor was linked to the obligation to use their labor according to their abilities. The non-fulfillment of the obligation to work led to the admission to the workhouse. The basis for this procedure, the law on the support of residence (UWG ) of 1870. Such " support residence " was not only the sharing of responsibilities, but also the control of the care recipient. He was acquired by two years of residence, marriage or descent and entitled to a little support from the local poor association.

The Justice of the Empire made ​​ample use of the possibility to sanction poverty through training in workhouses. According to an estimate by Wolfgang Ayass this concerned at any time about 10 % of all homeless people who were convicted in connection to the days or weeks in prison for " vagrancy " frequently, especially when repeated, " for improvement " to the workhouse stays. In absolute terms, is an example of the 1888 singled out with 13,512 male and 2,680 female convicts.

Weimar Republic, National Socialism and the Federal Republic until 1968

In the Weimar Republic was in literal survival of the relevant laws, the introduction of criminalized poor in the workhouses sharply, the occupancy dropped to 50% coverage; the house rules were relaxed.

That should change with the power of the National Socialists in 1933 abruptly. The law was applied sharper than ever before. In September 1933, tens of thousands homeless were arrested and sent to labor houses in a raid.

On November 24, 1933, the measures of protection and improvement was introduced into the Criminal Code by the "Law against dangerous habitual criminals and on measures of assurance and improvement ." In addition to the still permissible accommodations in a psychiatric hospital, a detoxification facility or in preventive detention also includes accommodation in a workhouse ( § 42d) was provided.

In a workhouse could be trained, who was convicted of " begging, vagrancy, Gewerbsunzucht, work shyness or drink or gambling and idleness " (so-called "anti-social "). According to § 42d of the Criminal Code was limited accommodation on first conviction to a maximum of two years while reiterating its condemnation of up to four years. From 1934 to tighten enabled the detention indefinitely. The workhouse should serve to "stop to work and get used to a lawful and orderly life ."

An already successful stay in one house could serve as a basis for admission as a social menace in a concentration camp by the competent Gestapo office. This is, for example, often as part of the " work-shy done action Reich."

After the Second World War, the detention in a workhouse in the American occupation zone was temporarily abolished, but introduced in all former Western zones after the founding of the Federal Republic again. Under the rules of the Criminal Code because begging, vagrancy and Gewerbsunzucht convicted criminals could now continue to be admitted to the workhouse. The deadlines for the primary and the other accommodations were as 1933-1945. Also, the objective of the work house, namely to adjust to a lawful and orderly life and stop to work, was detained. Until the abolition of the workhouse as a measure by the Great penal reform in 1969 a total of 8,000 more people were admitted.

GDR

For ideological reasons, as a cause of homelessness, " work-shy " and " asocial " exclusively personal fault of the person concerned assumed that the supposedly advanced socialist society could have no share in it. Alcoholism, lack of employment, etc., were regarded as offenses against the " working people " and changing legal basis even after the criminal law reform of 1968, which explicitly defined " antisocial behavior " as a criminal offense, sanctioned. Reforms ensured this by no means an easing of sanctions. Rather, for example, the innovation of 1979 extended the concept of " asocial " definitely out of the go out a threat to public order and created a rubber section to act against unpopular groups such as punks. Frequent social control was the prosecution of such dissident behavior. Consequence for the individual was instructed in workhouses with military drill and rigid rules, aimed at a re-education in the sense of the official image of man. A specially designed for disturbed youths and in the tradition of the work house facility of the GDR was also that of the Youth Court.

Historical representation

The Meyers Lexikon, 4th edition from 1888-1890, commented on the term as follows ( abbreviated):