The Dresden city council under National Socialism. Municipal welfare policy between 1933 and 1945

Drawing from extensive archival traditions of governmental and especially municipal origin, the official activities of the Dresden Department of Welfare are to be analysed for the period between 1933 and 1945. The aim of this study is to investigate the hitherto woefully neglected role of the Dresden city council during the Nazi dictatorship in the context of current research. Many municipalities have already had the extent of their administrations’ participation in the criminal practices of the Nazi regime scrutinised. Such a scholarly study of the former ‘Gau capital’ of Saxony has been lacking to date. This research will not only afford insights into the practices of the local administration, but also allow checking and, if need be, adjustment of empirically developed claims about Nazi social policy as a field of research. The innovative character of this study lies in academically linking the analysis of municipal history with higher-order key questions on National Socialism.