Voluntariness as state building. How vaccination programs changed German society and vice versa—1870s to 2020s

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ABSTRACT Vaccination is always political. That is why I explore voluntary and compulsory vaccination programs in German history from the nineteenth century to the present: Fundamental changes in German politics and society throughout this period provide the opportunity to gain a better understanding of voluntariness itself and of how it has unfolded in the relationship between bodies and social orders. From the introduction of compulsory vaccination in 1874 until today, the associated debate and politics oscillated between the demand for obedience to a paternalistic state and the self-image of a liberal society. Against this backdrop, it is surprising that the first German democracy, the Weimar Republic, rejected voluntary vaccination, whereas National Socialist Germany was very much in favor of it. After World War II, West Germany adopted a principle of flanked voluntariness, interpreting the success of voluntary vaccination programs as ‘plebiscite by syringe’. East Germany, in contrast, initially operated through compulsion, but later introduced practices of ‘covert voluntariness’ to calm protest of East-Germans and the lack of resources. Finally, my article juxtaposes the liberal ideal type of the ‘preventive self’, which gained momentum from the 1970s onward, with the most recent debate on the return of mandatory vaccination programs, particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic. In short, the history of vaccination reveals the ambivalences and dynamics of voluntariness. Voluntariness thus became a test of social cohesion and the population’s sense of responsibility.