The Extrajudicial Legal Aid of the Catholic Church and the Free Trade Unions
The organisations which first paid attention to this situation were those who were closely connected to religious organisations or political parties: the People’s Association of the Catholic Church (Volksverein fur das katholische Deutschland) and the Free Trade Unions (Freie Gewerkschaften).
They were closely related with the German Centre Party (Deutsche Zentrumspartei) and the German Social Democratic Party (Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands, SPD), respectively. Both the Catholic Church and the Social Democrats experienced repression in the Bismarck Era. During and after this time, their respective political parties sought to become a mass party. So, obtaining the support of the growing working class was crucial for them. The first public centres for legal advice and information were founded through the initiatives of two politicians of these parties, who were members of the Imperial Diet (Reichstag).The first was Gerhard Stotzel (Centre Party),[366] who in 1889 proposed to establish support centres for workers regarding legal advice. He requested that offices be set up in industrial regions in which legal advice for workers, craftsmen, and so on, would be provided and legal docuÂments for them would be prepared. Stotzel’s proposal was adopted at the social committee of the Catholics’ meeting in Bochum. Based on this resolution, in 1890, the Catholic People’s Association founded a public legal advice centre for workers and craftsmen, called Volksburo (The People’s Office) in Essen.[367] Indeed, some occupational associations had already been providing similar legal services. However, their services were related to their respective occupations and limited to their members. The People’s Office in Essen is, therefore, considered to be the first public legal aid centre in Germany.[368]
In the following years, additional People’s Offices were founded in large or industrial cities, especially in Rhineland, Westphalia, and Southern Germany.
People’s Offices, however, provided legal support free of charge only to their members—who, at least in their first years, paid membership fees. Although the People’s Offices did not select clients according to their social classes or religious denomination, they charged a small legal fee to non-members.[369]An important activity of the People’s Offices was providing legal advice and information regarding labour law and social insurance. Furthermore, they represented workers when their applications for social insurance had been rejected at any instance. In order to represent workers in front of the Reich Insurance Agency (Reichsversicherungsamt) in Berlin, the People’s Offices established their central representation in Berlin. Other legal aid institutions also had similar representation in Berlin.[370]
In addition Protestant organisations set up public legal advice centres. However, the scale of their activities was much smaller than that of the Catholic People’s Offices.[371]
On the Social Democratic side, the Imperial Diet Member Karl Grillenberger[372] advocated for legal aid for workers. In 1891, he published an article in a social-democratic newspaper, Frankische Post in Nuremberg. In this article, he pointed out the dramatically increasing need for legal advice regarding the new legislation on social insurance and labour protecÂtions, which was dealt with by the individual efforts of editors of labour journals, members of trade unions, and the SPD. Grillenberger appealed to the trade unions to recognise legal advice for workers as part of their role and to establish institutions of legal advice for workers, including non-members of trade unions. In his view, this would act as an incentive for recruiting members to the trade unions.[373] His appeal was accepted among trade unions. In 1894, a public legal advice centre, the “Workers’ Secretariat” (Arbeitersekretariat), was founded by unionised workers in Nuremberg.[374] In the following years, Free Trade Unions in other large and industrial cities followed Nuremberg’s example and set up their own Workers’ Secretariats.
Workers’ Secretariats employed counsellors—so-called workers’ secreÂtaries—exclusively from among workers, and their positions were adverÂtised publicly. They were not qualified legal experts, but workers. The workers’ secretaries were expected not only to provide legal advice but also to carry out agitations and to research labour movements, including statistics. This position was, therefore, important for a career in the Free Trade Unions and the Social Democratic Party. For example, the first President of the Weimar Republic, Friedrich Ebert, had been a workers’ secretary in Bremen.[375]
The Workers’ Secretariats were financed by the contributions of workÂers organised in Free Trade Unions, but provided free legal advice for visiÂtors regardless of their membership in a union, occupation, sex, religion, and so on. In fact, early on, the proportion of workers among the clients was only a slight majority (54.2% and organised workers 46.8% in 1901). However, their share increased to 95.2% (organised workers 74.3%) by the outbreak of World War I.[376] The Workers’ Secretariats were strongly charÂacterised as legal aid institutions for workers, especially organised workers. They were financed by workers, and the legal counsellors were selected among workers.[377] At the same time, however, the proportion of women remained low, around 15-17%.[378]
Alongside the Free Trade Unions, some other trade unions also proÂvided legal advice, such as the Hirsch-Dunckerschen Gewerkvereine, which pursued social reform through cooperation between labourers and employers, and was associated with the German Democratic Party (Deutsche Demokratische Partei). The Polish trade union in Ruhr (Polnische Berufsvereinigung) is another example.[379]