[The development of legal premises in the rehabilitation of the physically handicapped from Bismarck to today--a brief overview].

The legal bases for rehabilitation and integration of the physically disabled have developed from public welfare provisions, the beginnings of disability care having been part of public poor relief schemes. Ensueing developments range from cripple care programmes to today's efforts to establish a uniform social code, which is expected to benefit the individual disabled person by bringing about a marked simplification of the current legal and administrative situation. The extension of the scope of rehabilitative efforts, which since Bismarck's time had comprised nursing and institutional care in cases of physical and mental ailings within the framework of poor relief, had initially occurred outside Prussia by including education and vocational training for disabled people (the beginnings of "rehabilitation"). A more comprehensive approach to disability care in the sense of extended assistance was embodied in the Prussian cripple welfare act of 1920. The Federal Social Assistance Act of 1962, in the final analysis, had developed from this tradition. This 1962 act not only established a duty to provide public welfare but also gave those concerned a legal title to this kind of assistance.