Abstract
The principal strategic objective of the General German Trade Union Federation (ADGB), which united the so-called ‘free’ trade unions during the Weimar Republic, was to institutionalise participation with both government and management in creating a national economy which would ensure the German working class an existence commensurate with human dignity. This was the aim, despite the ADGB’s historic links with the Social Democratic Party (SPD); indeed, in the ADGB’s formularies it actually took precedence over socialism. The ADGB guidelines for the future efficacy of the trade union movement (adopted in June 1919) only affirmed that ‘socialism’ was a higher form of social order than capitalism. The implication was that trade unions were not primarily constituted to work towards socialism as a political goal, although they certainly prepared the ground for the achievement of socialism. Rather, the trade union priority was to protect the work force; and this function would even be necessary within a socialist state.1
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