B. The Nazi conspirators introduced the Leadership Principle into industrial relations. In January 1934, a decree introduced the Leadership Principle (Fuehrerprinzip) into industrial relations, the entrepreneur becoming the leader and the workers becoming his followers. (1861-PS)

C. The Nazi conspirators supplanted independent unions by an affiliated Party organization, the German Labor Front (DAF).

(1) They created the German Labor Front. On the day the Nazis seized the Free Trade Unions, 2 May 1933, they publicly announced that a "united front of German workers" with Hitler as honorary patron would be formed at a Workers Congress on 10 May 1933. (2224-PS)

Ley was appointed "Leader of the German Labor Front"

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(Deutsche Arbeitsfront, or "DAF") on 10 May 1933 (1940-PS). The German Labor Front succeeded to the confiscated property of the suppressed trade union. It was an affiliated organization of the NSDAP, subject to the Leadership Principle; Ley was concurrently Reich Organization Leader (Reichsorganisationsleiter) and leader of the German Labor Front (1814-PS). The National Socialist Factory Cells Organization of NSBO contained the political leaders (Politische Leiter) of the NSDAP in the German Labor Front and those political leaders were given first preference in the filling of jobs in the DAF (2271-PS). The German Labor Front became the largest of the Partys organizations. At the outbreak of the war it had 23 million individual members and about 10 million corporative members who were members of organizations affiliated with it. (2275-PS)

(2) They utilized the German Labor Front as an instrument to impose their ideology on the masses, to frustrate potential resistance, and to insure effective control of the productive labor capacity of Germany. The DAF was charged with the ideological orientation of the broad masses of Germans working in the factories. Its leaders were charged with weeding out potential opponents to National Socialism from the ranks of the DAF and from employment in industry. In its surveillance functions, the German Labor Front relied on Gestapo reports and on its own intelligence service (2336- PS). The German Labor Front took over the leadership of the German Cooperatives with the view to their subsequent liquidation (2270-PS). The Nazi conspirators established Factory Troops (Werkscharen) within the Strength Through Joy branch of the German Labor Front as an "ideological shock squad (Weltanschaulicher Stosstrupp) within the factory" (1817-PS). These shock squads were formed only of voluntary members ready "to fight" for Nazi conceptions. Among their objects were the speeding up of the labor effort and forging of a "single-willed community" (1818-PS). The SA was charged with the promotion and building up of Factory Troops by all means. When a factory worker joined the Factory Troops, he automatically became an SA candidate. Factory Troops were given a special uniform and their physical training took place within SA cadre units. (2230-PS)

During the war, the German Labor Front was made responsible for the care of foreign labor employed within the Reich (1913-PS). Barely two years after the suppression of the independent unions and creation of the German Labor Front, the Nazi conspirators decreed compulsory labor service (Reichsar-

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beitsdienst) under which young men and women between 18 and 25 years of age were conscripted for labor service under the administration of the Reich Minister of Interior, Frick. (1389-PS)

After war had been declared, the Nazi conspirators openly admitted the objectives of the Nazis' control over labor. A publication of the Scientific Institute of the German Labor Front declared that it had been difficult to make the German people understand continuous renunciations in social conditions because all the nation's strength had been channeled into armaments (Wehrhaftigkeit) for "the anticipated clash with an envious surrounding world" (2276- PS). Addressing workers five days after the launching of war on Poland, Ley admitted that the Nazis had mobilized all the resources and energies of Germany for seven years "so as to be equipped for the supreme effort of battle" and that the First World War had not been lost because of cowardice of German soldiers, "but because dissension and discord tore the people asunder" (1939-PS). Ley's confidence in the Nazis' effective control over the productive labor capacity of Germany in peace or war was declared as early as 1936 to the Nurnberg Party Congress:

"The idea of the Factory Troops is making good progress in the plants, and I am able to report to you, my Fuehrer, that security and peace in the factories has been guaranteed, not only in normal times, but also in times of the most serious crisis. Disturbances such as the munitions strikes of the traitors Ebert and confederates, are out of the question. National Socialism has conquered the factories. Factory Troops are the National Socialist shock troops within the factory, and their motto is: THE FUEHRER IS ALWAYS RIGHT." (228-PS)

The original plaintext version of part one or part two of this file is available via ftp.

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