Between Status and Contract?

This contribution deals with unfree labour in Germany from the early modern age until the beginning of the 20th century. It presents the main conclusions of a book published in 2013 on this subject in German. Unfree labour is not identified in the first place with slavery or any other labour relationship based on status. Instead, this study aims at an analysis of freedom and coercion in contractual labour relationships. It will be argued that in Germany contractual labour relationships before 1800 were embedded in a legal system that strongly restricted contractual autonomy and aimed at the suppression of free labour markets. The scope of this legislation was to guarantee efficient labour performance, which was not only perceived as being in the personal interest of an employer, but as a fundamental element of the common good. After 1800 the system changed to more incentive-based legislation that established freedom of contract for labour relations. Nevertheless, coercion in order to perform the contractual duties of a work contract remained important for many groups of workers, especially farmhands and industrial workers. The last criminal sanctions for breaches of labour contracts were only abolished in the revolution of 1919. This development shows the difficulties German law had in extending the principles of private law to workers. When a system of free labour was fully established, the issue of unemployment and economic problems, especially in the Weimar Republic, required a new system of protective rules. The history of free market based labour contracts in Germany was therefore very short, with state intervention shi ing from control and coercion to social assistance