Nazi Conspiracy & Aggression 5. DESTRUCTION OF THE FREE TRADE UNIONS AND
A. They destroyed the independent organization of German
labor.
(1) Before the Nazis took control, organized labor held a
well established and influential position in Germany. Most
of the trade unions of Germany were joined together in two
large congresses or federations, the Free Trade Unions
(Freie Gewerk schaften) and Christian Trade Unions
(Christlichen Gewerk-
[Page 253]
schaften). Unions outside these two large groupings
contained only 15 per cent of the total union
membership. The Free Trade Unions were a congress of two
federations of affiliated unions: (1) the General German
Trade Union Federation (Allgemeinen Deutschen
Gewerkschaftsbund, or the "ADGB") with 28 affiliated unions
of industrial workers; (2) the General Independent Employees
Federation (Allgemeinen Freien Angestelltenbund, or the
"AFA") with 13 affiliated unions of white collar workers.
(92-PS)
The membership of the Free Trade Unions, the affiliated
organizations of the Christian Trade Unions, and all other
unions at the end of 1931 (the last year for which the
official government yearbook gives statistics) was as
follows (2411-PS):
Union Group Number of members Percentage of Total
-----------------------------------------------------------
Free Trade Unions 4,569,876 65.9%
Christian Trade Unions 1,283,272 18.5%
Other Unions 1,081,371 15.6%
Total 6,934,519 100.0%
Under the Weimar Constitution, workers were "called upon to
take part on equal terms" with employers in regulating
conditions of employment. "It was provided that
organizations on both -sides and agreements between them
shall be recognized." Factory Representative Councils
(otherwise.known as Workmens or Factory Works Councils) had
the right, in conjunction with employers' representatives,
to take an official part in the initiation and
administration of social and economic legislation. (2050-PS)
(2) The Nazi conspirators conceived that the free trade
unions were incompatible with their objectives.
Hitler stated in Mein Kampf:
"It (the trade union) created the economic weapon which
the international world Jew uses for the ruination of
the economic basis of free, independent states, for the
annihilation of their national industry and of their
national commerce, and thereby for the enslavement of
free people in the service of the above-the-state-
standing, world finance Jewry (ueberstaatlichen
Weltfinanz-Judentums)." (404-PS)
In announcing to Germany the seizure of the Free Trade
Unions, Dr. Robert Ley, speaking as chairman of the Nazi
Committee for the Protection of German Labor, stated:
[Page 254]
"You may say, what else do you want, you have the
absolute power, but we do not have the whole people, we
do not have you workers 100 percent, and it is you whom
we want; we will not let you be until you stand with us
in complete, genuine acknowledgement." (614-PS; see
also 2224-PS and 2283-PS.)
(3) Soon after coming to power the Nazi conspirators took
drastic action to convert the Factory Representative
Councils into Nazi controlled organizations. The Nazi conspirators
eliminated the independence of the Factory Representative Councils by
giving the Governors of the Laender authority to cancel the
membership of labor representatives in the councils; by
abrogating the right of the councils to oppose the dismissal
of a worker when he was "suspected of
an unfriendly attitude toward the state" (1770-PS); and
finally by limiting membership in all Factory Representative
Councils to Nazis (2336-PS). (After 7 April 1933, the Governors
of the Laender were appointed by the Reich President "upon
the proposal of the Reich Chancellor," Hitler, 2005-PS) .
(4) Soon after coming to power the Nazi conspirators
proceeded to destroy the independent unions. In mid-April
1933, Hitler directed Dr. Robert Ley, then staff director of
the PO (Political Organization) of the NSDAP, to take over
the trade unions. (2283-PS)
Ley issued an NSDAP circular directive on 21 April 1933
detailing a "coordination action" (Gleichschaltunsaktion) to
be taken on 2 May 1933 against the General German Trade
Union Federation (ADGB) and the General Independent
Employees Federation (AFA), the so-called "Free Trade
Unions" (392-PS). This directive created a special "Action
Committee" to direct the entire action and declared that the
supporters of the action were to be drawn from the National
Socialist Factory Cells Organization or NSBO
(Nationalsozialistiche Betriebszellen-organisation), the
NSDAP political leaders (Politische Leiter) in the
factories; it named NSDAP commissars for the administration
of the larger ADGB unions to be seized in the action; it
made the Gau leaders (Gauleiter) of the NSDAP responsible
for the disciplined execution of the action in their
respective areas and authorized them to nominate additional
commissars to administer the unions subjected to the action. The directive ordered that SA and SS were to be used in occupying union offices and the
[Page 255]
Bank of Workers, Employees and Officials, Inc., and for
taking into protective custody the higher union leaders.
The order of seizure was carried out as planned and ordered.
On 2 May the official NSDAP press service reported that the
NSBO had "eliminated the old leadership" of Free Trade
Unions and taken over their leadership. (2224-PS)
On 3 May 1933 the NSDAP press service announced that the
Central League of Christian Trade Unions (Gesamtverband der
Chrilichen Gewerkschaften) and several smaller unions "have
unconditionally subordinated themselves to the leadership of
Adolf Hitler" (2225-PS). The next day the NSDAP press stated
that the German Nationalist Clerks League (DHV) had also
"recognized the leadership of the NSDAP in German trade
union affairs *******after a detailed conversation" between
Dr. Ley and the leader of the DHV (2226-PS). In late June
1933, as a final measure against the Christian Trade Unions,
Ley directed that all their offices were to be occupied by
National Socialists. (392-PS)
The duress practiced by the Nazi conspirators in their
assumption of absolute control over the unions is shown by a
proclamation of Muchow, leader of the organizational office
of the German Labor Front, in late June 1933. By this Party
proclamation, all associations of workers not yet
"concentrated" in the German Labor Front had to report
within eight days. Thereafter they were to be notified of
the branch of the German Labor Front which "they will have
to join". (2228-PS)
(5) The Nazi Conspirators eliminated the right of collective
bargaining generally. During the same months in which the
unions were abolished, a decree eliminated collective
bargaining on conditions of employment and substituted
regulation by "trustees of labor" (Treuhaender der Arbeit)
appointed by Hitler. (405-PS)
(6) The Nazi conspirators confiscated all union funds! and
property. The NSDAP circular ordering the seizure of the
Free Trade Unions on 2 May 1933 directed that the SA and SS
were to be used to occupy the branches and paying offices of
the Bank for Workers, Employees and
Officials and appointed a Nazi commissar Mueller, for the
bank's subsequent direction. The stock of this bank was held
entirely by the General German Trade Union Association and
its affiliated member unions. The NSDAP circular also
directed that all union funds were to be blocked until
reopened under the authority and control of NSDAP-appointed
[Page 256]
commissars (392-PS; 2895-PS). The Fuehrers basic order on
the German Labor Front of the NSDAP in October 1934 declared
that all the property of the trade unions and their
dependent organizations constituted (bildet) property of the
German Labor Front (2271-PS). Referring to the seizure of
the property of the unions in a speech at the 1937 Party
Congress, Ley mockingly declared that he would have to be
convicted if the former trade union leaders were ever to
demand the return of their property. (1678-PS)
(7) The Nazi conspirators persecuted union leaders. The
NSDAP order on the seizure of the "Free Trade Unions"
directed that the chairman of the unions were to be taken
into "protective custody". Lesser leaders could be arrested
with the permission of the appropriate Gau leader of
the NSDAP (392-PS). In late June 1933 the German Labor Front
published a "List of Outlaws" who were to be denied
employment in the factories. The List named union leaders
who had been active in combatting National Socialism and who
allegedly continued to carry on their resistance
secretly. (2336-PS)
The Nazi conspirators subjected union leaders to
maltreatement ranging from assaults to murder. Among the
offenses committed against union leaders are the following:
assault and battery; degrading work and work beyond their
physical capacity; incarceration in concentration camps;
solitary confinement; denial of adequate food; surveillance;
arrest and maltreatment of members of their families;
murder. (2330-PS; 2331-PS; 2335-PS; 2334-PS; 2929-PS; 2277-
PS; 2332-PS; and 2333-PS)
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Volume
I Chapter VII
Means Used by the Nazi Conspiractors in Gaining Control of the German State
(Part 27 of 55)
ACQUISITION OF CONTROL OVER THE
PRODUCTIVE LABOR CAPACITY