Sozialverband Deutschland

[2] It was co-founded and initially headed by the Social Democratic politician and editor of Vorwärts Erich Kuttner, himself a disabled veteran who had suffered serious wounds at Verdun.

[5] The association was politically neutral, but in its early years many of its members and leaders were left-wing,[6] and it advocated for changes in social policy, for example being instrumental in the institution of a requirement that for every hundred employees, an employer must give a job at the same salary to a handicapped veteran.

[2] It was refounded in 1946,[1][6] as the Reichsbund der Körperbeschädigten, Sozialrentner und Hinterbliebenen (Imperial Association of the Disabled, Welfare Recipients, Widowed and Orphaned).

[14] In addition to its work for the handicapped, the Sozialverband Deutschland currently advocates for the institution of a minimum wage and for guaranteed insurance to assist retirees,[1] and has argued against a European Union policy of raising retirement ages.

[15][16] In 2006 they brought a test lawsuit to try to help unemployed people in their late fifties and early sixties who had been misled about a change in the law and wound up receiving less government assistance than they had expected.