Postwar German workers expected their factory to provide social belonging, not just wages

Evidence

We are faced in our factories today with young people from a generation uniquely marked by the experiences and demands of the war and the post-war period. We are faced with refugees from the eastern provinces who have often lost not only their homeland and their property but also their chosen profession. In every way, we are faced with people who are no longer certain of having a definite place in society and who therefore expect their factory to give them not merely bread and work, but also a way of belonging to the community … — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 2082

Categorization

• SHARE: Worth sending to someone studying postwar German social history or the sociology of work — a crisp primary-source statement of how displacement and war trauma reframed the factory’s social function.
• XREF: connects to: German workers ranked pay, security, and recognition above workplace relations and safety — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 2067; Postwar workers demanded meaning and agency in production.; Postwar workers rejected labor as a commodity and demanded democratic control of production — Clara E. Mattei, Escape from Capitalism: An Intervention, 185 (+1 more)

Broader Connections

• Postwar workers demanded meaning and agency in production. #expands (0.85)
• Postwar workers rejected labor as a commodity and demanded democratic control of production #expands (0.78) — Clara E. Mattei, Escape from Capitalism, 185