Alexis de Tocqueville’s Democracy in America casts a long shadow on discussions of the role of charitable giving, associations, and civil society in a democracy. While the nineteenth century Frenchmen compared American civic engagement favorably to the state-organized French society, a much shorter trip to the neighboring German states would have likewise revealed active associations and charitable organizations. Perhaps we can forgive Tocqueville for his circumscribed geographic focus but we should not be so blinkered.

Some of the oldest European charitable foundations were formed on German territory, stretching back to the Middle Ages.

Germany has a centuries-long tradition of charitable engagement.  Some of the oldest European charitable foundations were formed on German territory, stretching back to the Middle Ages. The number and capacity of foundations as well as trusts and other broad-based philanthropic institutions increased tremendously in the nineteenth century fueled by industrialization and both the wealth and social problems it generated. While philanthropic engagement played an important role in attacking these social ills, by the early twentieth century the role of the state was also significant and remained so throughout the twentieth century.  Health insurance, pensions and other welfare programs started in the nineteenth century were greatly expanded after the First World War. The hyper-inflation of 1922–1923 wiped out the endowments of many German foundations so that they could do much less after WWI. Moreover, the Great Depression of the late 1920s and early 1930s led to the collapse of numerous companies and impoverished at least a sizeable section of the bourgeoisie. United States-based foundations such as Rockefeller and Carnegie stepped into the void to aid organizations supporting democracy and international exchange but only with limited success.

After the Nazi seizure of power in January 1933, the rulers of the Third Reich deprived Jewish philanthropists of their property and gentile bourgeois donors of their autonomy. The new German Communal Order (Deutsche Gemeindeordnung) of 1935, in particular, allowed city councils to disband foundations that the Nazis defined as contrary to the principles of the racial state. Civic organizations were “coordinated” (Gleichschaltung) by the Nazis who sought to eliminate any freedom of organization in the name of creating one community (Volksgemeinschaft). Whereas before the Nazis, Germans had numerous associations often split along class lines, these were joined into one group led by Nazi leaders of the Third Reich. This “coordination” even extended to philanthropic giving as the National Socialists emphasized social action as a means to create a national community. Even organizations with an external focus, like the Gustavus Adolphus Foundation, lost their independence.

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Gregory R. Witkowski is the Associate Professor of Philanthropic Studies at the Indiana University Lilly Family School of Philanthropy