I agree with you that Bismarck's Germany led the way among Western countries in developing what we now think of as the "welfare state." It's interesting to understand why this happened. An increasingly industrializing 19th-century Germany faced labour supply concerns, not the least of which was the allure of emigration, mainly to the burgeoning United States. Industrialists worked with the ultra-conservative Prussian, Bismarck, to devise policies to counteract the loss of industrial labour. When reading or listening to the predictable complaints expressed by right-wingers about costly "socialist" schemes, I often wonder if they understand that the welfare state actually emerged to serve the interests of capitalism.