Jakob Kaiser, The Forgotten Christian Democrat

John writes:

In the wake of the current global economic recession, observers have written many articles praising the durability of the German social market economy. While the Anglo-Saxon model of capitalism is increasingly dominated by asset bubbles and the speculation-prone finance, insurance, and real estate industries, Germany continues to be a major exporter of manufactured goods, having maintained its industrial base and highly-skilled workforce. Of course, the German economy is not perfect. It is arguable that Germany’s neo-mercantilist economy has benefited from the profligacy of the debtor nations that are usually compared unfavorably to the frugal Germans and that an extreme emphasis on exports requires this unhealthy and imbalanced system to continue.

However, from an American perspective, the German model does have many attractive features. Germany does not suffer from the enormous bubbles that have plagued the American economy and German citizens have done a better job avoiding the pitfalls of personal debt. Of course, unlike the United States, where labor unions have been decimated by deliberate government policies favoring outsourcing, lax immigration control, and now, naked attempts to strip public sector workers of collective bargaining rights in states like Wisconsin and Ohio, Germany has made unions and works councils an important part of a collaborative system between workers, employers, and the State.

Also, unlike in the United States, where vocational training has been languishing as a result of the extreme emphasis placed on higher education, Germany has retained a strong system of vocational education that benefits those who choose not to go to university. While Germany is certainly not a worker’s paradise, German workers are clearly more powerful than their overworked, stressed out, debt-burdened counterparts in America and elsewhere, and they owe much of their power to a man who embodied pro-labor Christian Democracy, the forgotten Christian Democrat, Jakob Kaiser.

Jakob Kaiser was born on February 08, 1888 in the Lower Franconian town of Hammelburg, one of ten children in his large Roman Catholic family. The son of a bookbinder, young Jakob also pursued a career in bookbinding following his early schooling. Kaiser’s work as a journeyman bookbinder eventually brought him into the world of labor activism, starting with the Catholic journeyman’s movement founded by Blessed Adolph Kolping. After serving in the Imperial military during World War I, Kaiser rejoined the Christian labor movement and spent much of the interwar period calling for cooperation between Catholics and Protestants through the transformation of the Catholic Centre Party into a general, non-denominational Christian party. Kaiser was elected to the Reichstag as a member of the Centre Party in 1933.

Kaiser’s career in politics and labor union activism would be changed forever with the rise of Adolf Hitler’s Nazi Party to power in 1933. The Nazi government abolished all independent labor unions other than the Nazi German Labor Front. This caused Kaiser and many other union leaders to join the anti-Nazi resistance. In 1938, Kaiser was jailed for treason for several months and on his release he joined the conspiracy to assassinate Hitler, making contacts with such figures as the famous Claus von Stauffenberg. When the 1944 plot to kill Hitler and overthrow the Nazi regime failed, Kaiser was forced to go into hiding.

Following the end of the Second World War, Kaiser rejoined the labor movement and became one of the founders of the Berlin branch of the Christlich-Demokratische Union (Christian Democratic Union or CDU). Kaiser served as head of the CDU in Berlin and the entire Soviet occupation zone from 1945 to 1947. Kaiser’s vision for the CDU was inspired by the contemporary British Labour Party, which served as a model of non-Marxist socialism. Indeed, Kaiser forthrightly called his program “Christian Socialism“ and included measures for public ownership of key industries, extensive social insurance, and a greater role for labor in the form of works councils and cooperatives. Kaiser’s program for a more wholesale reorganization of a united Germany governed by Christian social principles met with opposition from the more liberal Konrad Adenauer, who supported a more capitalist, market-oriented economy.

Eventually, Kaiser’s strong criticism of repressive Soviet policies in the Soviet occupation zone would result in his ouster as leader of the East German CDU by the Soviets, forcing Kaiser to head West. While West German politics was now increasingly dominated by Adenauer, Kaiser continued to have a great deal of influence in left-wing and trade union circles. At the 1947 Ahlen conference, Kaiser was even able to get his plan to nationalize key industries and other left-wing economic ideas put into the official West CDU programme, although not all of Kaiser’s reforms were actually adopted.

While Kaiser continued to butt heads with Adenauer over economics, it was the issue of German reunification and Cold War foreign policy where the two would perhaps have their greatest differences. While Adenauer was committed to the Atlantic Alliance and a much closer relationship with the United States, even at the cost of a divided Germany, the more nationalistic Kaiser continued to champion the cause of a unified Germany independent of the two superpowers and acting as a peaceful “bridge” between East and West. Kaiser’s dedication to the cause of German unification would eventually see his elevation to the office of Minster of All-German Affairs, which he held from 1949 to 1957 when ill-health forced his resignation. Jakob Kaiser passed away on May 07, 1961, having become a symbol of German unity and Christian social justice.

While Konrad Adenauer is perhaps justly considered the father of modern Germany and its astonishingly successful economic revival in the post-war era, Jakob Kaiser is often dismissed as a dreamer or forgotten altogether. However, Kaiser’s influence was crucial in securing many of the more populist aspects of the German social market economy, including extensive rights and powers for labor unions in economic coordination and decision making and a robust social insurance system. Furthermore, Kaiser’s vision of a unified Germany and principled opposition to Soviet oppression in the East made him a great German patriot. Perhaps most importantly, Kaiser’s championing of a Christian socialism based not upon Marxism but upon the Gospel of Christ can certainly provide inspiration to future generations of Christians who see in materialism and the economic degradation of humanity a critical threat to the sacredness of the human person.