Neither singular nor alternative: Narratives of modernity and welfare in Germany, 1870-1945

Welfare and modernity have become central concepts in the historiography of modern Germany. However, this development has important theoretical consequences because the normative connection between modernity, liberalism and emancipation, which long defined our understanding of welfare and Enlightenment, has been called into question by those works that have most advanced our understanding of modern German history. Most recent studies of welfare have emphasized the modernity of imperial Germany, while at the same time suggesting that Progressive social reform also had an illiberal, repressive dimension that became an important line of continuity from the Wilhelmine era to the social and racial policies of the Nazis. In addition, the recent interpretation of Nazi Germany as a 'racial state' has emphasized that progressive social programmes to enhance the welfare of the racially valuable segments of the population and negative programmes to marginalize the racially inferior represent two facets of a coherent, modern, yet distinctly illiberal conception of welfare. The article examines how the burgeoning literature on welfare and social reform has dealt with this ambiguous relation between welfare and modernity, and addresses the theoretical and moral questions involved in the characterization of Nazi Germany as a 'welfare' state.