The ‘New Morocco’ Settlement between Trier and Euren, Germany: Drawing Boundaries and Constructing Deviance, 1925–1933

Abstract

The Weimar Republic not only saw a breakthrough in the building of social housing, but also a continuing housing crisis, which became one of the most pressing social problems after the First World War. Above all, there was a lack of inexpensive small dwellings that poorer people, who were particularly affected by the housing crisis, could afford. The working poor and casual labourers, the unemployed and those receiv- ing welfare benefits, the chronically ill, families with many children and single mothers profited only to a limited degree from the promise of ‘new buildings’ (Neues Bauen) for the ‘modern man’ (Neuer Mensch).¹ Those who lived in these airy, healthy new buildings were predomi- nantly members of the so-called social middle classes. It was not until these groups moved into their Eigenheim (own homes), likewise state subsidized, in the 1970s that these products of social hygiene from the interwar period — now no longer ‘good addresses’ — became available to the ‘new poor’.²