- 'Strength Through Joy' In The Third Reich
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- Nation & Europe, 58. year, Magazine11/12, November/December
2008, Page 78. Publisher Nation Europa Verlag GmbH, Po. Box 2554, D-96414
Coburg, Germany
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- 'Kraft durch Freude'
- (Strength through Joy in the Third Reich)
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- Dr Fritz Stenzel
- December, 2008
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- Tourism and cultural "events" for a broad public
are common place nowadays. In the first third of the 20th century these
things were not so. Workers and low-paid employees did not have the
means for a lengthy holiday nor the finances for frequent visits to concerts,
or least of all, an ocean-cruise. People were fully occupied to secure
their daily existence. First World War 1, then mass un-employment and
economic distress left little room for such diversions outside their narrow
circle. There certainly was no such thing as a "leisure-industry".
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- All this changed dramatically some 75 years ago: on the
25th of November 1933 the Organisation "Kraft durch Freude"
(KdF) was called into existence in Berlin. Its purpose was to give less
endowed Germans the means of the enjoyment of leisure time and cultural
edification, which had only been the prerogative of their financial betters
till then. This led toward a new moral outlook about work, a better quality
of life and to overcome the class barriers. At the same time the amount
of holidays were doubled.
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- The beginning of Mass Tourism.
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- "Kraft durch Freude," under the auspices of
of the German Workers Front (DAF), was divided into several departments,
whereby the one for travel, hiking and holidays rose to become the greatest
German tour organiser. Forty-three Million KdF- Tours were sold in 1939,
mainly day tours. Among the 7 Million holiday trips were 690,000 Ocean
cruises to Norway, Madeira and Italy. The prices were something that sound
nowadays fabulous to our ears: A seven day tour through the Thuringian
Forest complete with accommodation and all meals supplied cost 25 RM
(Reichs Mark). Less than 60 RM was the cost of a cruise to Norway for
one week. For 150 RM (the average monthly income of a working man) would
see you skippering around the Mediterranean for 12 days-fully fed and
cared for, as only rich people had known it hitherto
- ?
- "Spiegel" Historian Heinz Höhne speaks
of the "beginning of mass tourism, as had never been experienced
in the history of the world". It was for the KdF- traveler a "fantastic
adventure". Traveling had been most uncommon for workers: A questionnaire
handed out to 42,000 employees of the Berlin Siemens factory in winter
1933/34 found that about 68% had never traveled anywhere. Even the "bargain
trips" offered by the Unions, among which were five journeys abroad
at the cost of 350 RM, were well above the financial reach of the average
worker. Höhne calls it the staircase- joke of history, that it was
exactly the anti-democratic movement that had basically introduced the
idea of democracy and equality in the tourist industry.
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- New and modern Cruise Ships were built especially for
the purpose of the KdF tours. One was named "Robert Ley", after
the leader of the German Workers Front. While another, the "Wilhelm
Gustloff," commenced service in 1937, came to terrible fame at
- the end of the war through the torpedoes of a Soviet
Submarine. The ship had takenthousands of refugees from East Prussia to
their death. The "white fleet of peace", as it was called, found
its untimely conclusion with the end of the Third Reich.
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- Infrastructure from Nothing.
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- The KdF- Sea resort Prora, on the island of Rügen,
was built in 1936, the imposing 20,000 bed Hotel establishment could
not be completed because of the start of the war, but had already in its
planning stage stirred up an international sensation. The Prora Modell
received the Grand Prix at the World Exhibition in Paris in 1937. Nowadays
the oft times ridiculed "NS Gigantomania", was in those days
admired abroad as an attempt to create an infrastructure from nothing
for the benefit of large scale tourism. For the Olympic Games in Berlin
in 1936 a "KdF-City" was built specifically to accommodate the
many visitors who had come to see the Games.
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- The most well-known architects took part in these projects.
In regards to the less spectacular KdF activities, yet reaching the broadest
public were factory concerts, singing lessons, entertainment evenings,
chess championships, Gymnastics- and swimming courses. Another endeavour
of activity was adult education. Even the still common "competition
for the most beautiful town" was initiated by the KdF. The department
"Beauty of work" cared for the establishment of factory accommodation,
canteens, green belts and sports fields. What had been promised by the
Marxist parties for decades, but never eventuated, actually came into
being with "Kraft durch Freude" and secured the affection of
even those who were skeptical or refusing of the regime hitherto. The
historian Götz Aly coined a phrase only recently, as the feel-good
dictatorship."
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- The KdF becomes VW.
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- A special pilot-project was the KdF vehicle, for the
production of which the "City of the KdF -car near Fallersleben"
was founded in 1938 (after the war the town was re-named "Wolfsburg"
at the behest of the British). The carwould be affordable for everyone
at the purchase price of 990 RM. The potential buyer bought stamps week
after week to the value of 5 RM each, for which he received delivery of
the car, called also the "Volkswagen" (VW) after about 4 years.
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- The German defeat of course put an end to that plan.
In August 1945 the Soviet Military regime dissolved the "Bank of
the German workers", where the savings for the cars had been deposited.
Other sections of ownership of the German Workers Front went to the once
more established Union movement. As late as 1961, the VW -Company, of
their own free will, gave a discount payment of 600 Mark to these depositors
for the purchase of a new vehicle, (While 100 DM compensation received
those, who had deposited, but no longer wanted the VW car or could not
afford it)
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- In any case, the KdF-car became one of the most successful
car models in the world, on which the efforts to "de-Nazify"
all things German in a way had been deflected. "The Volkswagen
Factory is an example of the problem of historical continuation between
the Third Reich and the BDR (Bundes Republic), says the Historian Prof.
Dr. Hans Mommsen. In other words: in every VW rides a piece of KdF tradition
on the roads of this world of late with unique claim to be not just
a vehicle among many, but to be "The Car."
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- Even for the Communists, Kraft durch Freude" was
an example, but one, which quality they could never attain to. The National
Socialist's Regime's minister for culture and the KdF department manager,
Horst Dressler-Andress, who was also a high functionary in Goebbel's
Ministry of Propaganda had a successful political career in the DDR as
the founder and committee member of the (Block) Party of National Democrats.
But the leftist-socialist holiday and leisure planning efforts were too
forced and primitive to continue at the high KdF Standard. It stayed,
as it were, like in the car manufacture, at the quality level of the Trabant
car. Traveling was almost only permitted into "Socialist Brother-
countries", where the danger of flight was low. KdF tourists usually
did not abscond abroad, as they were obviously content with the state
of the prevailing domestic situation.
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- Reflections in the later BDR
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- Professor Götz Aly sees in the "National Socialism"
of the Third Reich certain refections shining through in the later BDR."
That of course is not only revealed in the most eye-catching way in the
beetle outline of the KdF-car, but also most of the progressive social
political ideas introduced in 1933 were not touched despite "anti-fascist"
indignation after the war. What began 75 years ago with "Kraft durch
Freude", continued in the existing social conditions of the present
day Market economy. But its origins and continuation is these days only
discussed unwillingly. But do taboos serve historical enlightenment?
Aly: "Whoever does not want to speak of the great advantages gained
by millions of common Germans , should keep quiet altogether about National
Socialism
- and the Holocaust".
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- Randulf Johan Hansen¨
- www.thenewsturmer.com
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