This paper shows how the urban governance in Germany changed in the period around the building of Weimar Republic using a case study on the unemployment relief in Hamburg. In Germany, the Reich begun to deal with the unemployment problem on the basis of the wartime welfare in 1915. Its administration was, however, in the hands of such urban organizations as municipalities and private charities, and the roll of the Reich was limited to offer them subsidies. This framework was basically taken over by the unemployment relief introduced by the Reich in 1918 that served as the core system in this field until the introduction of the unemployment insurance by the Reich in 1927. The aim of the present paper is to examine the relationships in this framework between the Reich and the urban organizations, between the official and private sectors in the city, and between the unemployment relief and the public welfare in the municipality.