Soldiers of Labor: Labor Service in Nazi Germany and New Deal America, 1933-1945 0521834163, 9780521834162

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Soldiers of Labor

Soldiers of Labor is the first systematic comparison of the labor policies of the Nazi dictatorship and New Deal America. The main subject of the book is the Reich Labor Service (Reichsarbeitsdienst), a public works project that provided work and education for young men. Here, the organizational setup, the educational dimension, and its practical work are extensively examined. Originally, the institution was an instrument in the fight against unemployment at the end of the Weimar Republic. After 1933, it became a Nazi propaganda tool that ultimately became involved in the Nazi war of extermination. This study examines the similarities and differences, mutual perceptions, and transfers between the Reich Labor Service and its New Deal equivalent, the Civilian Conservation Corps. Patel uncovers stunning similarities between the two organizations, as well as President Roosevelt’s personal irritation with the Nazi equivalent of his pet agency, the CCC. Kiran Klaus Patel is Assistant Professor of History at Humboldt University, Berlin. The German edition of this book was awarded the Prix de la Fondation Auschwitz (Brussels) and the Tiburtius Recognition Prize (Berlin).

publications of the german historical institute Edited by Christof Mauch with the assistance of David Lazar The German Historical Institute is a center for advanced study and research whose purpose is to provide a permanent basis for scholarly cooperation among historians from the Federal Republic of Germany and the United States. The Institute conducts, promotes, and supports research on both American and German political, social, economic, and cultural history; on transatlantic migration, especially in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries; and on the history of international relations, with special emphasis on the roles played by the United States and Germany. Recent books in the series Elizabeth Glaser and Hermann Wellenreuther, editors, Bridging the Atlantic: The Question of American Exceptionalism in Perspective ¨ Jurgen Heideking and James A. Henretta, editors, Republicanism and Liberalism in America and the German States, 1750–1850 Hubert Zimmermann, Money and Security: Troops, Monetary Policy, and West Germany’s Relations with the United States and Britain, 1950– 1971 ¨ Roger Chickering and Stig Forster, editors, The Shadows of Total War: Europe, East Asia, and the United States, 1919–1939 Richard J. Bessel and Dirk Schumann, editors, Life after Death: Approaches to a Cultural and Social History of Europe During the 1940s and 1950s Marc Flandreau, Carl-Ludwig Holtfrerich, and Harold James, editors, International Financial History in the Twentieth Century: System and Anarchy Andreas W. Daum, Lloyd C. Gardner, and Wilfried Mausbach, editors, The Vietnam War and the World: International and Comparative Perspectives Detlef Junker, editor, The United States and Germany in the Era of the Cold War: A Handbook, 2 volumes ¨ Roger Chickering, Stig Forster, and Bernd Greiner, editors, A World at Total War: Global Conflict and the Politics of Destruction, 1937–1945

Soldiers of Labor Labor Service in Nazi Germany and New Deal America, 1933–1945

KIRAN KLAUS PATEL ¨ Berlin Humboldt Universitat, Translated by

thomas dunlap

german historical institute Washington, D.C. and

cambridge university press ˜ Paulo Cambridge, New York, Melbourne, Madrid, Cape Town, Singapore, Sao Cambridge University Press 40 West 20th Street, New York, ny 10011-4211, usa www.cambridge.org Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9780521834162 german historical institute 1607 New Hampshire Ave., N.W., Washington, dc 20009
C Kiran Klaus Patel 2005

This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place without the written permission of Cambridge University Press. First published as “Soldaten der Arbeit” : Arbeitsdienste in Deutschland und den usa 1933–1945 by Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht in 2003 English edition first published 2005 Printed in the United States of America A catalog record for this publication is available from the British Library. Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Patel, Kiran Klaus. [Soldaten der Arbeit. English] Soldiers of labor : labor service in Nazi Germany and New Deal America, 1933–1945 / Kiran Klaus Patel ; translated by Thomas Dunlap. p. cm. – (Publications of the German Historical Institute) Includes bibliographical references and index. isbn 0-521-83416-3 (alk. paper) 1. Germany. Reichsarbeitsdienst. 2. Labor service – Germany. 3. Labor service – United States. 4. National socialism. I. Title. II. Series. hd4870.3.g3p38413 2005 331.12 042 094309043–dc22 2004054765 isbn-13 978-0-521-83416-2 hardback isbn-10 0-521-83416-3 hardback Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of urls for external or third-party Internet Web sites referred to in this publication and does not guarantee that any content on such Web sites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.

Contents

List of Charts and Illustrations Preface

page ix xi

Introduction 1

2

3

1

A Panacea for the Great Depression? Labor Service Ideas and Their Implementation Prior to 1933 1.1. Precursors to the Labor Services 1.2. The Situation of Young People in the Great Depression 1.3. The Precursor in Germany: The FAD from 1931 to 1933 and the Involvement of the NSDAP Service to the Community: The Organization of the Labor Services 2.1. False Start into the Third Reich: The Organization of the German Labor Service at the Beginning of the National Socialist Regime 2.2. From Consolidation to the War-time Deployment of the RAD 2.3. Between Ideology and Economics: The Admissions Criteria of the German Labor Service 2.4. The Organization of the Civilian Conservation Corps 2.5. Interim Conclusion “Citizens,” Volksgenossen, and Soldiers: Education in the Labor Services 3.1. The Education Concept of the German Labor Service 3.2. “School of Manhood” between Prescription and Practice 3.3. “The School of the Nation”: Political Indoctrination and Organized Recreation 3.4. Education in the Civilian Conservation Corps 3.5. Interim Conclusion

vii

22 22 32 41 64

64 94 121 151 181 190 193 216 239 261 285

viii 4

Contents In “The Grandeurs of Nature”: The Work of the Labor Services 4.1. Work Planning and Areas of Work in the German Labor Service 4.2. Glorification and Pragmatic Compromise: The Concept and Practice of Work in the German Labor Service 4.3. The Labor Service at Work: New Challenges in the Large-Scale Deployments Beginning in 1937 4.4. Work in the Civilian Conservation Corps 4.5. Interim Conclusion

292 293 318 340 365 387

Concluding Reflections Abbreviations Sources and Bibliography

395 411 415

Index

439

Charts and Illustrations

CHARTS 1 2 3 4 5

Budget funds spent for the German Labor Service for men Magnitude of job-creation measures in the German Reich 1933–1934 National income, state expenditures, and labor service budgets Daily schedule in the German Labor Service Daily schedule in the CCC

page 108 141 188 210 268

ILLUSTRATIONS 1 2 3 4

5

6 7 8 9 10 11 12

Hitler reviewing RAD workers on parade at the 1936 NSDAP party rally. RAD director Hierl stands in the foreground. The organization of the RAD. The growth of the German Labor Service through 1935. “The CCC is composed almost entirely of young men, ages 17 to 23. However, a limited number of older men are enrolled among the Veterans, Indians, and Territorials.” “There are some 150 CCC camps for colored boys. This enrollee-cook will have a good meal ready for the boys when they come in from the day’s work.” Basic layout of an RAD camp. “Returning from the Construction Site.” RAD workers on parade during an inspection. Layout of a typical CCC camp. “In all Camps fifteen minutes of ‘setting up exercises’ are given the first thing in the morning.” “A group of CCC boys plan their evening’s recreation as they change from their work clothes at the end of the day.” “Work in the mountains.”

ix

93 119 137

163

174 205 219 222 265 273 281 309

x 13 14 15 16

Charts and Illustrations RAD worker laying sewage pipe. RAD workers reinforcing an embankment. “Learning a lot about strip-cropping, terracing, and the saving of farm lands from waste.” “Working amid Nature’s grandeur.”

314 346 366 369

Preface

“It was so difficult to gain insight into the Reichsarbeitsdienst” – this line from Uwe Johnson’s Jahrestage applies also to my work. Many people and institutions helped me as I prepared this study, and it is my great pleasure to be able to thank them here. This book was originally published in German under the title “Soldaten der Arbeit”: Arbeitsdienste in Deutschland und den USA 1933–1945. The English-language edition would not have been possible without the German Historical Institute, Washington, D.C. I am very grateful to Christof Mauch, the director of the GHI, for his interest in having “Soldaten der Arbeit” translated into English and for his support. I would also like to thank the GHI’s in-house editors, David Lazar and Jonathan Skolnik, for their help in preparing the English manuscript for publication. It was a pleasure to work with Thomas Dunlap, who translated the German text into English. For weeks, hardly a day passed without an exchange of emails between Belmont, Massachusetts, and Berlin. I also owe a debt of gratitude to Frank Smith of Cambridge University Press and the two anonymous readers who reviewed the German edition of this work for the Press. Very personal thanks are due to Heinrich August Winkler. He supervised the dissertation on which this book is based with impressive knowledge and deep engagement. I am very grateful to Gisela Bock for her support and numerous helpful suggestions. From the very beginning of my work on the Reichsarbeitsdienst and the Civilian Conservation Corps, Ludolf Herbst, ¨ Jurgen Kocka, and Ger van Roon were very supportive and provided generous critical comments. Each of them spurred on my work. For their helpful comments and suggestions, I would also like to thank Peter Dudek, Philipp Gassert, Carl-Ludwig Holtfrerich, Christoph Jahr, Egbert Klautke, Hans Mommsen, Paul Nolte, Michael Schneider, Wolfgang Schivelbusch, Theda ¨ Skocpol, Siegfried Weichlein, and Patrik von zur Muhlen. My manuscript also greatly benefited from careful readings by Manuel Borutta, Paula Diehl, ¨ Stephan Fitos, Moritz Follmer, Sebastian Panwitz, Harald Wiggenhorn, and, especially, Christian Illian. I am indebted to Monika Roβteuscher for her organizational help. My student research assistants, Heike Wieters and Andres Kohla, performed many services, and I thank them. Last, but certainly not least, I would like to express my gratitude to three friends to

xi

xii

Preface

whom the book owes a great deal: Alexander Cammann, Jens Hacke, and Kai Uwe Peter. In addition to the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung (Bonn), the Graduate Colloquium “Comparative Social Studies in Historical, Sociological, and Ethnologic Perspective” (Berlin), and the German Historical Institute – all of which generously gave financial and organizational support to this project – I am indebted to the Fondation Auschwitz in Brussels for awarding the German edition of this study its Prix de la Fondation Auschwitz. Likewise, I am ¨ grateful to the Landeskonferenz der Rektoren und Prasidenten der Berliner Hochschulen, which awarded “Soldaten der Arbeit” the Tiburtius Recognition Prize. A great number of helpful staff members assisted me in the archives and libraries where I conducted the research for this book. One learned punster at the National Archives in College Park, Maryland, alluding to a famous novel by Hermann Hesse, asked if I found myself “Unterm Rad” (“beneath the wheel” or “under the weight of the Reichsarbeitsdienst [RAD]”); I am very grateful to him and his colleagues for making sure that I did not end up “Unterm Rad.” I owe special thanks to Eugene Morris, who always had an open ear for my questions; many of my thoughts about the CCC were inspired by our conversations. This book is dedicated to those who have helped me in every conceivable way: my parents, my brother Martin, and, especially, Christina and our daughter, Nina Asmita. Thanks to them, I can once again look beyond the Arbeitsdienst. Berlin, October 2004

Soldiers of Labor

Introduction

When important visitors from the world of politics, business, or culture came to Nazi Germany in the years before World War II, one stop was almost always on their itinerary: a camp of the Labor Service (Arbeitsdienst). The Fascist dictator Benito Mussolini, the Indian civil rights activist Jawaharlal Nehru, the pro-Nazi Swedish explorer Sven Hedin, a delegation of influential French businessmen, and the regent of Afghanistan – these visitors shared little beyond their interest in this institution of the Nazi state. Touring a camp was not one of the obligatory events that state guests and dignitaries were often compelled to endure, yet many visitors expressed a personal desire to see one of the remote Labor Service sites. In the end, quite a few returned with a positive impression of this Nazi institution.1 The Labor Service, little studied and largely ignored after 1945, evidently exerted a fascination on international observers that should not be underestimated. The Nazi regime placed high hopes in its Labor Service. It was to be an instrument for overcoming mass unemployment, the country’s dependence on agricultural imports, and the physical and spiritual crisis of Germany’s youth. Moreover, it was charged with creating a new work ethic, providing paramilitary training, and aiding in the construction of a new national culture (Volkskultur). Last, but not least, it was regarded as “the best means of making this National Socialist call for a Volksgemeinschaft [national community] a reality.”2 1

2

See the reports in PA/B, R 47643-47648; R 98846-98849; see also A. Schwarz, Die Reise ins Dritte Reich: britische Augenzeugen im nationalsozialistischen Deutschland (1933–1939) ¨ (Gottingen, 1993), 223–42. ¨ K. Hierl, Ausgewahlte Schriften und Reden, ed. Herbert Freiherr von Stetten-Erb, 2 vols. (Munich, 1941), vol. 2, 199–205 (1935), quote p. 201. [The idea of the Volksgemeinschaft was a crucial piece of Nazi ideology. Robert Michael and Karin Doerr, in their indispensable NaziDeutsch/Nazi German: An English Language Lexicon of the Language of the Third Reich (Westport, 2002), defined it as follows: “The mystical unity of the blood-race of the nationalGerman-Aryan community, which dominated all other beliefs, classes, parties, individual, and group interests. The central concept of National Socialist thought, it presented itself as the agent of national awakening, as a break with the shame of the World War I defeat, and as a chance to rebuild the German nation. Jews and others outside the racial community were excluded.” Since there is no ready English equivalent to this loaded ideological term, I have retained it throughout the book. Transl.]

1

2

Soldiers of Labor

In pursuit of these goals, during the period from 1933 to 1945 the Labor Service regarded itself as “applied National Socialism.”3 Initially, though, it was merely the institutional continuation of a measure taken by the Weimar Republic – the Voluntary Labor Service (Freiwilliger Arbeitsdienst, FAD). ¨ Established by the Bruning government in the middle of 1931, it was at the time the most important job program for young, unemployed men. After the National Socialists came to power, however, they tried to distance themselves as much as possible from the FAD of the Weimar democracy. Still, the two institutions shared a number of features that characterize labor services in general. One can define a labor service as a state-financed institution that collaborates to some extent with private agencies and institutions. It organizes young adults into camps for limited periods of time as it puts them to work on public works projects that are economically unprofitable. Most of the work consists of simple manual labor in the agricultural sector (e.g., soil improvement). Projects undertaken by a labor service are supposed to have a neutral effect on the labor market and not take jobs away from those who are regularly employed. Finally, participants in a labor service do not receive a contractual wage for their work, merely a token stipend in addition to full room and board. In terms of its organization and projects, a labor service thus shares essential characteristics with collective job-creation programs. But only a labor service has an explicit pedagogical and educational mission. “Education” can mean a great many things in this context: vocational training, political education, or paramilitary drill. The combination of these two elements, education and work, is, in fact, the most important feature of a labor service. Established around this dual goal of education and work, a labor service’s primary mission is to help a segment of the population that is usually hardest hit by unemployment: young adults in general, but especially young men, who are often strongly overrepresented among the jobless. A labor service offers its target group an opportunity to work, thereby counteracting the demoralizing effect of idleness. The young unemployed benefit directly from these goals related to work ethic and social pedagogy. In addition, a labor service is often credited with having a community-building function for its participants, which is further reinforced by an explicit pedagogical dimension. This last aspect had special significance in Germany, which experienced a virtual civil war in the early 1930s. The civil conflicts arose not least from the clashing ideas about social policy held by various segments of the population. A common labor service was supposed to suppress conflicts and differences by promoting a new sense of togetherness. As a result, it was not only the unemployed young people in the labor service who would benefit, but society as a whole. Thus, the mission of the organization was to allow its members to participate in society economically and socially, at least temporarily. At 3

Ibid., vol. 2, 352–9 (1934), quote p. 356.

Introduction

3

the same time, it improved their chances for future participation, thereby contributing to social stability. These were the goals the German Labor Service pursued before and after 1933 – though the notion of what integration into society meant was, of course, quite different in the Weimar FAD and the Nazi Labor Service. At the heart of this study lies the Labor Service of the Nazi regime, which initially continued to bear the name of its predecessor after the Nazis had come to power. But as early as 1933, the designation “Voluntary Labor Service” was overlaid with labels such as “German Labor Service” or “National Socialist Labor Service,” and the coexistence of various names was a sign of the service’s tangled institutional structure. Some clarity came only with a law of June 26, 1935: thereafter, the institution was known as the Reich Labor Service (Reichsarbeitsdienst, RAD).4 However, the German Labor Service before and after 1933 was not a unique phenomenon. Similar institutions were set up in many countries in the wake of the global economic crisis of 1929. More than a dozen nations were experimenting with this form of labor in the early 1930s. In Europe alone the list included Switzerland, Sweden, and Great Britain. Bulgaria had a compulsory labor service as early as 1920: with the exception of those who purchased an exemption, all young men and women had to perform several months of work dedicated to the public good.5 The German Labor Service must therefore be seen within a much larger context. In retrospect, the labor services present themselves as institutions of the interwar period that, from humble beginnings, grew in importance with the global economic crisis. At the height of the Depression, it was widely believed that this institution had considerable potential to play a crucial role in dealing with the catastrophic economic situation. On a global scale, only one labor service equaled the German institution in importance: the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) in the United States. The CCC was part of the initial flurry of initiatives that Franklin D. Roosevelt undertook in the spring of 1933 after assuming the presidency, and it developed into one of the pillars of the New Deal. This book is a comparative study of the Labor Service in Nazi Germany and the CCC in the United States. Its analysis does not stop at the deep chasm that separates the German dictatorship from the American democracy in fundamental ways. 4 5

See RGBl. 1935, I, 769–71. For an overview, see K. Epting, ed., Arbeitslager und freiwilliger Arbeitsdienst in Deutschland, ¨ Schweiz, Holland, Wales (Geneva, 1933); Arbeitsdienst in 13 Staaten. Probleme, Losungen, ¨ freiwilligen Arbeitsdienst (Zurich, 1937). For a published by Schweizerische Zentralstelle fur ¨ more detailed discussion of Sweden, for example, see N. Gotz, Ungleiche Geschwister. Die Konstruktion von nationalsozialistischer Volksgemeinschaft und schwedischem Volksheim (Baden-Baden, 2001). On the approaches taken in France, see H. Eckert, Konservative Revolution in Frankreich? Die Nonkonformisten der Jeune Droite und des Ordre Nouveau in der Krise der 30er Jahre (Munich, 2000), 74f.

4

Soldiers of Labor

Instead, it uses the labor service as an instrument to plumb anew the gulf between these two societies. The RAD and the CCC owe their preeminence to the fact that after 1933, only Germany and the United States had state-financed and largely stateorganized institutions that encompassed hundreds of thousands of citizens. At least for a time, both filled a role of outstanding importance among the multitude of measures that were enacted to combat the Great Depression. Moreover, at first glance the two institutions appear strikingly similar: in 1933, both targeted primarily young, unemployed men and had an institutional structure that drew crucial inspiration from the military. From the inception of the CCC in 1933, the minimum duration of service for volunteers in the United States was half a year, and the Nazi regime soon settled on a period of six months as well. In addition, both institutions represented instruments in the battle against youth unemployment, and both combined that goal with a pedagogical mission. Moreover, the kind of labor that was performed was essentially the same. There were, of course, differences. For example, participation in the CCC was always voluntary, while a stint in the labor service was mandatory in Germany starting in 1935. In addition, the educational aspect was accorded far greater importance in Nazi Germany than in the United States, where the CCC more closely resembled a jobs program. These similarities and differences are easy to identify and list. What this study seeks to investigate are the deeper factors that have so far remained unexplored and unknown. On the whole, there was a special closeness between the German Labor Service and the CCC, just as there was a whole series of similar initiatives in social, cultural, and economic policies in Nazi Germany and under the New Deal. These similarities constitute the larger background to this book. At its center stands the question of how the two countries responded to the cumulative crises of modernization concealed behind the phrase “worldwide economic crisis.” The Depression after 1929 was not merely a collapse of the stock market or the economic system; it also had social and political dimensions. It was not only an economic crisis, but also a structural crisis with far-reaching consequences. Initially, the economic crisis had the most profound impact in both countries. Germany and the United States were hit hardest by the Depression, as reflected in a wealth of economic data: at the worst point of the slump, 33.9 percent of the workforce in Germany and 24.9 percent of the workforce in the United States was unemployed – in no other country was the situation as grim.6 Although the economic potential for overcoming the crisis was different in the two countries, the pressure to reform and the perception of the 6

See The Great Depression and the New Deal. Legislative Acts in their Entirety (1932–1933) and Statistical Economic Data (1926–1946), ed. F. E. Hosen (London, 1992), 257–68.

Introduction

5

crisis were strikingly similar. To a certain extent, the legitimacy of capitalist democracies was fundamentally questioned on both sides of the Atlantic. Needless to say, the political responses to the crises that emerged in Germany and the United States were different. While American democracy reformed itself, the Weimar Republic foundered and gave way to the catastrophe of the Nazi regime. Still, when Hitler became chancellor on January 30, 1933, he was confronted by essentially the same task that faced Roosevelt, who was sworn in as president of the United States on March 4th of the same year: overcoming mass unemployment and the global Depression. In an attempt to achieve that goal, both nations subsequently employed what were often strikingly similar instruments of economic and social policy; on this level, the crisis led to a limited degree of convergence. The most important cause behind these similarities was the growth of state interventionism, since both societies, in the face of a catastrophic situation, no longer counted on the power of the market to heal itself. These factors make a comparative study of the two countries an especially obvious choice. Moreover, a comparison is also suggested by the fact that the United States was not simply any democracy. At the end of World War I, it had outpaced Great Britain as the world’s leading economic power. By dint of its investments and its foreign trade policy, it had become an essential economic force in most nations in the 1920s, and especially so in Germany. What is more, until 1929 it had evolved – under the slogan of “prosperity” – into the economic and regulatory model for all national economies, only to become one of the chief victims of the Depression. Finally, the eyes of the world were upon America, because many democrats in the states of Europe and on other continents saw in Roosevelt’s reform program a positive counterweight to the seductive power of the two great alternative systems, communism and fascism. “[T]he only light in the darkness was the administration of Mr. Roosevelt and the New Deal in the United States” – that was how the philosopher and historian of ideas Isaiah Berlin, looking back after World War II, remembered the times.7 By contrast, other opponents of the totalitarian extremes feared that the political programs of Hitler and Roosevelt were converging. They saw the use of modern mass media to promote politics, large-scale national programs, the rhetorical invocation of the exertions and sacrifices of World War I, and other developments as evidence that the United States was becoming more like the Nazi regime. This perception points not only to uncertainties about the criteria against which to assess the political developments but also to a certain openness and fluidity of the situation. After 1945, few observers continued to see these similarities, and interest in comparisons between the Nazi regime and the New Deal generally 7

I. Berlin, “Roosevelt through European Eyes,” Atlantic Monthly 196 (1955): 67–71, quote p. 67.

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waned. Once the full extent of the terror and annihilation Nazi Germany unleashed became known, such comparisons seemed out of place. In Western countries, they were often replaced by analyses that used the theory of totalitarianism to compare National Socialism to the Soviet Union, or the theory of fascism to compare it to fascist Italy or other states. Also implicit in these studies, however, was a comparison with democratic systems, since it was only against that background that one could understand what was specifically totalitarian or fascist. In general, the thesis of singularity itself can be articulated only through an implicit or explicit comparison – a phenomenon is unique only in relationship to something else. By contrast, studies that compared or merely juxtaposed the German and American reactions to the crisis were rare exceptions. Interest in comparative studies revived only with the growing realization that comparisons do not necessarily amount to an apology for National Socialism, and that this method, in particular, is able to uncover both shared elements and differences. Around 1970 there were a number of approaches that could have paved the way for a systematic examination. I should mention chiefly Barrington Moore’s study of the social origins of democracy and dictatorship, a 1973 collection of essays on the political and social history of the United States in the interwar period edited by Heinrich August Winkler, ¨ and Jurgen Kocka’s study of the status and attitudes of white-collar workers in Germany and the United States. John Garraty outlined a general comparison of the policies of the Nazi regime and the New Deal.8 Although these programmatic preliminary studies, which pointed to a limited degree of convergence, were widely noted in both countries, only a very small number of in-depth studies followed in their footsteps.9 8

9

See B. Moore, Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy: Lord and Peasant in the Making of the Modern World, with a new foreword by E. Friedman and J. C. Scott (Boston, 1993); H. A. Winkler, “Die Anti-New-Deal-Bewegungen: Politik und Ideologie der Opposi¨ tion gegen Prasident F. D. Roosevelt,” in H. A. Winkler, ed., Die große Krise in Amerika. ¨ Vergleichende Studien zur politischen Sozialgeschichte 1929–1939 (Gottingen, 1973), 216– 35, and especially the introduction by Winkler; J. Kocka, Angestellte zwischen Faschismus und Demokratie. Zur politischen Sozialgeschichte der Angestellten. USA 1880–1940 im inter¨ nationalen Vergleich (Gottingen, 1977); J. A. Garraty, “The New Deal, National Socialism, and the Great Depression,” American Historical Review 78 (1973): 907–44; Garraty, The Great Depression. An Inquiry into the Causes, Course, and Consequences of the Worldwide Depression of the Nineteen-Thirties, as Seen by Contemporaries and in the Light of History (Garden City, 1987). See H. Puhle, Politische Agrarbewegungen in kapitalistischen Industriegesellschaften ¨ (Gottingen, 1975); L. J. Rupp, Mobilizing Women for War. German and American Propaganda, 1939–1945 (Princeton, 1978); Garraty, Great Depression; P. Gassert, “Der New Deal in vergleichender Perspektive. Arbeitsbeschaffungsmaßnahmen in den USA und im Dritten Reich 1932–1935,” Master’s thesis, University of Heidelberg, 1990; H. Ickstadt, “Versions of Public Art: Self-Representation in the Iconography of Nazi Germany and the New Deal,” American Studies in Scandinavia 24 (1992): 1–16; L. Herbst, “Die nationalsozialistische Wirtschaftspolitik im internationalen Vergleich,” in W. Benz et al., eds., Der Nationalsozialismus. Studien zur Ideologie und Herrschaft (Frankfurt/Main, 1993), 153–76.

Introduction

7

While these pioneers of the comparative study of systems used this method primarily to probe into the conditional factors underlying dictatorships and democracies, this book revolves around a different question: against the backdrop of a crisis that was fundamentally similar in Germany and the United States and, even more importantly, was perceived in similar ways, how competent was the Third Reich in dealing with the Depression compared with the liberal reform democracy in America? This book is therefore a comparative examination, not of the causes of the Great Depression, but of the approaches toward overcoming it.10 The labor services seem particularly well suited for a comparison between the Nazi dictatorship and the New Deal. The RAD and the CCC are highly instructive institutions, since they were both situated at the crossroads of economic and social policy, of economics and ideology. Moreover, the labor services reflected to a large degree the notions of masculinity, human nature, and society that prevailed in each country. They were simultaneously instruments of mass mobilization and instruments for the self-representation of the respective political orders. Lastly, the labor services were intended to exert a socially integrative effect beyond the circle of their immediate participants. This study is thus embedded within the context of a comparison of the societies of Germany and the United States, without aspiring to be a complete and exhaustive comparison: the overall development of the two societies was the stage on which the labor services played merely a secondary part – but one that appears in all the key scenes. Moreover, the focus is largely on the National Socialist Labor Service, while the comparison to the CCC and, secondarily, to the German precursor, the FAD, is used primarily to situate and contextualize this institution. A comparison reveals more clearly than any other approach the range of action, the options, and the alternatives to the path that the Nazi institution eventually chose. Seen in this light, the developments in Germany are stripped of the self-evident inevitability that is often imputed to them. Given this thematic focus, the current study is based on the following questions. First, was the German Labor Service rocked by internal crises between 1933 and 1945, as scholars have maintained until now? Is it in fact true that it was never able to evolve beyond a “shadowy existence”?11 I look at the internal efficiency of the German Labor Service and its ability 10

11

¨ In recent years more studies have been taking this kind of approach; see most recently Gotz, Ungleiche Geschwister (Sweden and Germany); R. J. Overy, Why the Allies Won (London, 1995) with a multinational comparison; L. Bendavid-Val, Propaganda & Dreams. Photographing the 1930s in the USSR and the US (Zurich, 1999); H. Stoff, “Utopian Thinking between Producerism and Consumerism. What Distinguishes the American New Deal from the German Volksgemeinschaft?” in N. Finzsch and H. Wellenreuther, eds., Visions of the Future in Germany and America (Oxford, 2001), 445–67. The phrase “shadowy existence” (Schattendasein) used in W. Benz, “Vom freiwilligen Ar¨ Zeitgeschichte 16 (1968): 342; beitsdienst zur Arbeitsdienstpflicht,” Vierteljahreshefte fur

8

Soldiers of Labor

to assert itself outwardly in the areas in which it was active. For the first years of the Nazi regime I analyze to what extent the service made an effective contribution to overcoming the economic crisis. By contrast, for the second half of the 1930s, I discuss its relationship to rearmament and to the war preparations that were the main goals of the regime. One question concerns the effectiveness of the Labor Service and thus its accomplishments in absolute numbers. The other question concerns its efficiency, that is, the resources used or the money expended to achieve the intended goals. As we have seen, these kinds of questions can be dealt with especially well against a comparative backdrop. Second, to what extent was National Socialist labor policy original?12 Which of its elements meet the general definition of labor services, which were indebted to the Zeitgeist of the Depression years, and which were specific to the Nazi regime? The approach of juxtaposing the RAD to its predecessor organization and to the CCC is especially well suited for this kind of comparison because, although the United States, unlike Germany, retained its democratic system, there were enough similarities between these two highly industrialized, capitalist nations during the crisis of the world economy that we can speak of a valid comparative scenario. A comparison between the FAD of the Weimar period and the American CCC is also conceivable. However, since the focus of this study is the little-studied Nazi Labor Service, the question of whether the FAD of the crisis-ridden Weimar democracy showed more similarities to Roosevelt’s initiative than it did to the RAD can be explored only as a side note. At the heart of the comparison is therefore an examination of the contribution that the labor services made to overcoming the crisis and of their success in fulfilling the other tasks they were given with respect to employment and education. The potential for solving the crisis and the competency for doing so thus represent the tertium comparationis of this comparative study. The ¨ German historians Otto Busch and Peter-Christian Witt have called these two factors – potential and competency – the “trans-economic” dimension of the Depression and have described them, rightly so, as an important focus of future research: this dimension deals with the strategies that the various countries pursued in response to the Depression, strategies that were shaped by a combination of political, social, economic, and culturalperceptual factors.13 In concrete terms, this study examines how these two countries and societies used a labor service to address, on the one hand, the problems of youth unemployment and, in later years, war preparation and,

12 13

¨ und Verwirklichungsformen bis ¨ similarly in H. Kohler, Arbeitsdienst in Deutschland. Plane ¨ zur Einfuhrung der Arbeitsdienstpflicht im Jahre 1935 (Berlin, 1967). On the question of originality, see Herbst, “Wirtschaftspolitik,” 153–76. ¨ O. Busch and P. Witt, “Krise der Weltwirtschaft – Weltkrise von Wirtschaft und Politik,” in ¨ O. Busch and P. Witt, eds., Internationale Beziehungen in der Weltwirtschaftskrise (Berlin, 1994), 15–26.

Introduction

9

on the other hand, the education of the next generation in accordance with society’s guiding ideals. The study begins in 1933, the year the Voluntary Labor Service that had been set up in Germany in 1931 was “coordinated” (gleichgeschaltet) by the new Nazi leaders and the Civilian Conservation Corps was founded in the United States. For Germany, the focus will be on the years prior to the outbreak of war in 1939. When it comes to the development of the RAD after that date, neither the American labor service nor any other institution of the New Deal provides us with a meaningful object of comparison. Hence, the discussion of the German Labor Service during the war period will be limited to a few brief asides. It was at this time that National Socialism came into its own in a war of aggression driven by racial and economic motivations.14 However, the new profile of tasks that the Labor Service formulated in connection with these developments began to take shape as early as 1938. As a result, an examination focusing on the years prior to 1939 can incorporate all the essential changes the RAD underwent with regard to the war. As for the CCC, this study ends in 1942, a year that is the functional equivalent of the turning point in the German Labor Service in 1938. Shortly after the United States entered the war, the CCC was abolished; had it not been, it too would have been forced to undergo major changes. The comparative perspective adopted here also explains why this study is focused on the labor services for men. First, in Germany it was a far larger and more important institution than its counterpart for women. Second, the labor service for young women has been thoroughly studied by other scholars. Third, a comparison of female labor services would lack a functional equivalent because there was no comparable institution of national significance in the United States. Finally, it is not possible to include the German Labor Service for women systematically in the comparison, because the organization, education, and work of this institution were significantly different from both the American CCC and the German service for men. Incorporating the labor service for women would mean that three relatively independent objects would have to be compared. That is not possible within the framework of this study, nor would we learn much by juxtaposing the institution for women in Germany with the American CCC. Including the labor service for young women in Germany would thus blunt the edge of the comparison. Although the years of Nazi rule represent one of the most exhaustively studied periods in history, to date no comprehensive account of the labor service for young men between 1933 and 1945 has been published. This stands 14

See, for example, L. Herbst, Das nationalsozialistische Deutschland 1933–1945. Die Entfesselung der Gewalt: Rassismus und Krieg (Frankfurt/Main, 1996), 9; Ian Kershaw, Hitler, 1936–1945: Nemesis (London, 2000), 233.

10

Soldiers of Labor

in stark contrast to the organization’s self-perception after 1933, when its leader, Konstantin Hierl, called it a “pillar in the rebuilding of our Reich and our people.”15 Other contemporary testimonials and memoirs also reveal that the institution was an essential feature of everyday life and of the public face of the Nazi regime. The fact that it has, until now, been largely ignored by historians thus marks a significant gap in the scholarly literature. There are two primary reasons for this neglect. First, the existing source material for the Labor Service is exceedingly poor. Although the RAD was relatively benign compared to the SS and other institutions, it was among the few organizations that destroyed most of its files in 1945. The documentation that has survived is almost entirely fragmentary, both at the Reich level and for its regional branches.16 Studying the RAD therefore required the rather laborious, circuitous approach of working through the state and party organizations that collaborated with the Labor Service and through other sources. That meant consulting the files of dozens of Reich ministries, National Socialist mass organizations, associations, and regional and local bureaucracies. Given the surviving material, one focal point of this study rests on questions of state law and finances: the extant files pertaining to the Labor Service from the Reich Interior Ministry, the Reich Finance Ministry, and the Reich Audit Office are especially numerous. In contrast, it is not possible to make definitive statements about other issues, especially with respect to the practical work of the institution. However, a research trip to the United States turned out to be a stroke of good fortune, since the National Archives in College Park, Maryland, holds documents relevant to this particular Nazi organization.17 All in all, this study endeavors to be more than a rough sketch of the German Labor Service but less than a complete picture. In addition, I have drawn on published material, especially the Nazi literature on the Labor Service, and on oppositional voices such as the reports issued by the exiled Social Democratic Party (SPD). Another rich source for the early years of the regime is newspapers, some of which I scanned systematically, some of which I accessed through collections of clippings compiled by the Stahlhelm, the Arbeitswissenschaftliches Institut der Deutschen Arbeitsfront, the Reichslandbund, and several other institutions. All this material was supplemented by memoirs and a few interviews of former participants. The second reason for the absence of a monograph on the Labor Service can be summed up in a single name: Helmuth Croon. For decades, Croon, 15 16 17

¨ Hierl, Ausgewahlte Schriften und Reden, 345–9 (1933), quote p. 349. See H. Croon, “Aktenhaltung und Archivgutpflege im Reichsarbeitsdienst,” Archivar 3 (1950): cols. 175, 177. Most of the originals of the files existing on film in Record Group 242 are in German archives. However, I was able to access additional sources in the United States.

Introduction

11

who became acquainted with the RAD in his early years as an archivist, was regarded as the leading authority on its history. Beginning in the 1960s and into the early 1990s, he announced that a comprehensive work on the Labor Service was forthcoming.18 Yet, by the time he died in 1994 he had not presented that study. The poor source material and the “Croon factor” together go a long way toward explaining why historical research has turned growing attention to this topic only recently and why several studies examining partial aspects of the service are currently under way. As a result, this particular gap in the scholarly literature should soon be filled – to the extent that the sources permit.19 Until now, a few studies from the 1960s had been regarded as authorita¨ tive, although all of them focus on the period before 1933. Henning Kohler’s dissertation (published in 1967) offers a detailed history of the ideas behind the service and its organization up to 1933, along with a brief overview of subsequent developments to 1935. Around the same time and independent ¨ of Kohler, Wolfgang Benz published an article that pursued a similar inquiry for the same period. With regard to the Third Reich, both concluded that the Labor Service initially had tremendous problems getting off the ground and was never able to move beyond a marginal existence within the regime’s institutional structure. These two studies revolved chiefly around the question of the development of the Voluntary Labor Service of the Weimar Republic following the seizure of power by the National Socialists. These West German historians concluded that there was a “sharp discontinuity” between what had been a “socio-pedagogical relief measure up to January 1933” and the “permanent institution of military character” that later emerged.20 Wolfgang Schlicker, meanwhile, offered a contrary thesis. His richly documented doctoral dissertation (Potsdam, 1968) remains valuable because it was based on privileged access to the files in the Central State Archive of the GDR. Schlicker concluded that 1933, “under the conditions of the Fascist dictatorship,” saw the creation of an institution that “had been promoted by imperialist forces since the beginning of the Weimar Republic.”21 18

19

20 21

¨ See the references in Kohler, Arbeitsdienst, 9; Jahrbuch der historischen Forschung in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, Berichtjahr 1995, published by Arbeitsgemeinschaft ¨ außeruniversitarer historischer Forschungseinrichtungen in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland (Munich, 1996), 415. Croon published only a few shorter articles, notably “Arbeitslager und Arbeitsdienst,” in E. Korn et al., eds., Die Jugendbewegung. Welt und Wirkung ¨ (Dusseldorf, 1963), 221–34, and “Jugendbewegung und Arbeitsdienst,” Jahrbuch des Archivs der deutschen Jugendbewegung 5 (1973): 66–84. See the conference report by K. K. Patel and C. Illian, eds., “Vom freiwilligen Arbeitsdienst zur Arbeitsdienstpflicht. Eine Tagung zur Entwicklung des Arbeitsdienstes (1918 bis 1945) ¨ Bochum,” ZFG 49 (2001): 450–2. vom 24. bis 25. November 2000 an der Ruhr-Universitat ¨ Kohler, Arbeitsdienst, 267; Benz, “Arbeitsdienst,” 317–46. W. Schlicker, “Freiwilliger Arbeitsdienst” und Arbeitsdienstpflicht 1919–1933. Die Rolle ¨ ¨ der militarischen und faschistischen Krafte in den Arbeitsdienstbestrebungen der Weimarer Republik (Potsdam, 1968), 444; similarly E. Rasche, Die Entwicklung des Freiwilligen

12

Soldiers of Labor

Apart from a few shorter and not infrequently apologetic contributions, there was little scholarship on the Labor Service for some time. Only the small but steady stream of nonscholarly publications, often penned by former participants in the Labor Service, continued.22 By contrast, the labor service for young women, which was far less important in the Nazi regime, was thoroughly studied beginning in the 1970s.23 An important dimension was added to scholarship only with contributions that examined the Labor

22

23

Arbeitsdienstes in den Jahren der Weltwirtschaftskrise und der Kampf des Kommunistischen Jugendverbandes Deutschlands gegen den FAD 1930–1933 (Dresden, 1968); F. Petrick ¨ and E. Rasche, “Vom FAD zum RAD. Bemerkungen zum Verhaltnis von allgemeiner Arbeitspflicht, freiwilligem Arbeitsdienst und Arbeitsdienstpflicht unter den Bedingungen des staatsmonopolistischen Kapitalismus in Deutschland,” Wissenschaftliche Zeitschrift ¨ Greifswald 16 (1967): 59–70; W. Schlicker, “Arbeitsder Ernst Moritz-Arndt-Universitat dienstbestrebungen des deutschen Monopolkapitals der Weimarer Republik,” Jahrbuch der Wirtschaftsgeschichte 3 (1971): 95–122. ¨ Deutschland 1918–1945 Examples of apologetic writings are K. Hierl, Im Dienst fur ¨ (Heidelberg, 1954); W. Mallebrein, Konstantin Hierl. Schopfer und Gestalter des Reichs¨ arbeitsdienstes (Hannover, 1971); H. Klabe et al., Arbeitsdienst – Gemeinschaftsdienst. Ein Problem von Generationen (Bonn, 1973); also R. Schwenk, Geistige und materielle ¨ Grundlagen der Entstehung des Fuhrerkorps im Arbeitsdienst und seine Gleichschaltung ¨ und Neuformung nach 1933 (Dusseldorf, 1967), whose equally problematic work on the leadership corps is currently being replaced by the dissertation project of Michael Hansen. Shorter or less important publications are R. Absolon, Die Wehrmacht im Dritten Reich, 6 vols. (Boppard am Rhein, 1969–1995); T. Vogelsang, “Zur Entwicklung des Arbeits¨ Zeitgeschichte, 2 vols. (Stuttgart, 1966), 2: 142–5; dienstes,” Gutachten des Instituts fur J. Bartz and D. Mohr, “Der Weg in die Jugendzwangsarbeit. Maßnahmen gegen die Jugendarbeitslosigkeit zwischen 1925 und 1935,” in G. Lenhardt, ed., Der hilflose Sozialstaat. Jugendarbeitslosigkeit und Politik (Frankfurt/Main, 1979), 28–94; C. Olschewski, “Reichsarbeitsdienst (RAD) 1935–1945,” in D. Fricke et al., eds., Lexikon zur Parteiengeschichte. ¨ ¨ ¨ Die burgerlichen und kleinburgerlichen Parteien und Verbande in Deutschland (1789–1945) (Leipzig, 1984), 3: 614–18. See esp. D. G. Morgan, Weiblicher Arbeitsdienst in Deutschland (Mainz, 1978); S. Bajohr, “Weiblicher Arbeitsdienst im ‘Dritten Reich.’ Ein Konflikt zwischen Ideologie und ¨ ¨ Zeitgeschichte, 28 (1980): 331–57; L. Kleiber, “‘Wo ihr Okonomie,” Vierteljahreshefte fur seid, da soll die Sonne scheinen!’ Der Frauenarbeitsdienst am Ende der Weimarer Republik und im Nationalsozialismus,” in Mutterkreuz und Arbeitsbuch. Zur Geschichte der Frauen in der Weimarer Republik und im Nationalsozialismus, edited by Frauengruppe Faschismusforschung (Frankfurt/Main, 1981), 188–214; J. Stephenson, “Women’s Labor Service in Nazi Germany,” Central European History, 15 (1982): 241–65; G. Miller-Kipp, “Erziehung ¨ die weibliche Jugend (RADwJ),” in G. Miller-Kipp, ed., durch den Reichsarbeitsdienst fur ¨ Erkundungen im Halbdunkeln. Einundzwanzig Studien zur Berufserziehung und Padagogik im Nationalsozialismus, 2nd edition (Frankfurt/Main, 1995), 103–29; idem, “Schmuck und ¨ ordentlich und immer ein Lied auf den Lippen. Asthetische Formen und mentales Milieu im ¨ ¨ die weibliche Jugend (RADwJ),” in her Formative Asthetik Reichsarbeitsdienst fur im Natio¨ ¨ nalsozialismus. Intentionen, Medien und Praxisformen totalitarer asthetischer Herrschaft ¨ Madchen: ¨ und Beherrschung (Weinheim, 1993), 139–61; A. Vogel, Das Pflichtjahr fur nationalsozialistische Arbeitseinsatzpolitik im Zeichen der Kriegswirtschaft (Frankfurt/Main, 1997); S. Watzke-Otte, “Ich war ein einsatzbereites Glied in der Gemeinschaft . . .” Vorgehensweise und Wirkungsmechanismen nationalsozialistischer Erziehung am Beispiel des weiblichen Arbeitsdienstes (Frankfurt/Main, 1999).

Introduction

13

Service for men from a pedagogical perspective, although they also concen¨ trated on the FAD prior to 1933. In his 1978 dissertation, Karl Buhler saw in the Weimar version of the service a pedagogical institution that “from an anthropological and theoretical-pedagogical point of view” could become an “effective starting point for pedagogical work with young people.” For that reason he advocated a new version of the program as a tool for educating citizens.24 By contrast, Peter Dudek interpreted the FAD of the Weimar Republic as an instrument of social discipline that, as early as 1931, ushered in the development that led to the RAD with its “de-individualization and desolidarization.” At the same time, Dudek emphasized that the original plans of the labor camp movement prior to its institutionalization in the form of the FAD were different and did not suffer from these defects.25 ¨ Even before Buhler, Karl-Christoph Lingelbach had briefly addressed the pedagogical mission of the service in the years after 1933 within the context of a larger study on education under National Socialism. Lingelbach, like others after him, provided a characterization of the pedagogical conception of the RAD, though he hardly examined to what extent these ideas were put into practice.26 Only recently has there been a growing interest in the Labor Service during the period of Nazi rule. Michael Jonas analyzed the glorification of Prussia in the RAD in his doctoral dissertation of 1992. Wolfgang Seifert’s ethnographic dissertation on the cultural work of the organization was published in 1996. His interest focused on the conception of culture and its implementation outside of the ethnographic sphere, and he used the RAD as his test case.27 Like Lingelbach, Seifert analyzed primarily the theoretical side of education, giving inadequate attention to the question of whether these ideas were in fact put into practice in the camps. 24 25

26

27

¨ ¨ K. Buhler, Die padagogische Problematik des Freiwilligen Arbeitsdienstes (Aachen, 1978), 203. P. Dudek, Erziehung durch Arbeit. Arbeiterlagerbewegung und Freiwilliger Arbeitsdienst 1920–1935 (Opladen, 1988), 253; also idem, “Nationalsozialistische Jugendpolitik und Arbeitserziehung. Das Arbeitslager als Instrument sozialer Disziplinierung,” in H. Otto ¨ and H. Sunker, eds., Politische Formierung und soziale Erziehung im Nationalsozialismus (Frankfurt/Main, 1991), 141–66. K.-C. Lingelbach, Erziehung und Erziehungstheorien im nationalsozialistischen Deutsch¨ land. Ursprunge und Wandlungen der 1933–1945 in Deutschland vorherrschenden ¨ ¨ erziehungstheoretischen Stromungen; ihre politische Funktion und ihr Verhaltnis zur außerschulischen Erziehungspraxis des “Dritten Reiches” (Frankfurt/Main, 1970); 2nd rev. edition (Frankfurt/Main, 1987). M. Jonas, Zur Verherrlichung preußischer Geschichte als Element der geistigen Kriegsvorbereitung 1933–1945 in Deutschland. Organisationsspezifisch dargestellt am Erziehungssystem des Reichsarbeitsdienstes (Potsdam, 1992); M. Seifert, Kulturarbeit im Reichsarbeitsdienst. Theorie und Praxis nationalsozialistischer Kulturpflege im Kontext ¨ ¨ historisch-politischer, organisatorischer und ideologischer Einflusse (Munster, 1996).

14

Soldiers of Labor

During the past few years, the RAD has also been discussed repeatedly within the context of other issues, for example, by Dan Silverman in connection with National Socialist economic policy and by Michael Schneider as part of the history of workers and the workers’ movement between 1933 ¨ devoted a section to the Labor Service in and 1945. Finally, Norbert Gotz his comparative study of the ideology and practice of the National Socialist Volksgemeinschaft and the Swedish model of the folkhem.28 However, so far these focused and limited analyses have not furnished a clear overall picture of the institution on its three levels of organization, education, and work. The absence of such a synthesis probably also explains why the RAD is not mentioned at all or only as an aside in many surveys of Nazi Germany.29 The CCC, on the other hand, has been thoroughly researched. The scholarly study of the Corps began, like that of the Labor Service, in the early 1960s. In keeping with the liberal historiography of the time, which was sympathetic toward the New Deal, the CCC was praised as one of the best institutions of the Roosevelt administration. Historical analysis was frequently combined with a call for a revival of the program. The study that stands out is John Salmond’s brilliant survey, which offers above all a comprehensive account of the CCC’s organizational history.30 Since then, a series of unpublished dissertations, books, and articles have examined in greater depth a number of more circumscribed issues, such as the role of the army, regional aspects, or the position of ethnic minorities in the Corps.31 It is striking how little attention the CCC received in the historiography of the “New Left” in 28

29 30

31

See D. P. Silverman, Hitler’s Economy: Nazi Work Creation Programs, 1933–1936 (Cambridge, 1998), 175–99; M. Schneider, Unterm Hakenkreuz. Arbeiter und Arbeiter¨ bewegung im nationalsozialistischen Deutschland (1933–1939) (Gottingen, 1993), 308–12, ¨ Ungleiche Geschwister; most recently on the RAD itself, M. Hansen, “Arbeit 392–402; Gotz, als Erziehungsideal. Die Instrumentalisierung der Arbeit in der Lagererziehung des Reichsarbeitsdienstes,” in A. Kreutzer and A. Bohmeyer, eds., “Arbeit ist das halbe Leben” (Frankfurt/ Main, 2001), 51–75. For an exception see, e.g., M. Broszat, The Hitler State, trans. J. W. Hiden (London, 1981), 267–8. See J. Salmond, The Civilian Conservation Corps 1933–1942: A New Deal Case Study (Durham, 1967); also G. P. Rawick, “The New Deal and Youth: The Civilian Conservation Corps, the National Youth Administration, and the American Youth Congress,” Ph.D. dissertation, University of Wisconsin, 1957; J. J. Saalberg, “Roosevelt, Fechner and the CCC – A Study in Executive Leadership,” Ph.D. diss., Cornell University, 1962; J. R. Woods, “The Legend and the Legacy of F.D.R. and the CCC,” Ph.D. diss., Syracuse University, 1964; H. D. Humphreys, “The History of an Idea Whose Time Had Come: Franklin Roosevelt’s Civilian Conservation Corps,” in B. W. Daynes et al., eds., The New Deal and Public Policy (New York, 1998), 47–62; also the exhaustive review of scholarship in O. Stieglitz, 100 Percent American Boys. Disziplinierungsdiskurse und Ideologie im Civilian Conservation Corps, 1933–1942 (Stuttgart, 1999), 11–17; idem, “‘I was black and I acted as such.’ Diskurs, Erfahrung und junge African-Americans im Civilian Conservation Corps,” Werkstattgeschichte 29 (2001): 60–80. On the role of the army, see esp. J. W. Killigrew, “The Impact of the Great Depression on the Army, 1929–1936,” Ph.D. diss., Indiana University, 1960; C. W. Johnson, The Civilian

Introduction

15

the late 1960s and 1970s, which was critical of the New Deal. Scholarship has received a new stimulus in the last decade from the work of Eric Gorham and Olaf Stieglitz, who used approaches of gender history and discursive history in the sense of Michel Foucault. They have criticized the culture discipline which in their eyes characterizes the Corps, along with everything that Stieglitz called the “openly militaristic, racist, sexist, and homophobic elements of the CCC.” New incentives are now also coming from studies that are examining the CCC from the perspective of environmental history.32 Still, in spite of this long history of scholarship, even important problems of the American labor service have been barely researched, for example, the area of practical work and the relationship between the RAD and the CCC.33

32

33

Conservation Corps: The Role of the Army (Ann Arbor, 1968); M. W. Sherraden, “Military Participation in a Youth Employment Program: The Civil Conservation Corps,” Armed Forces and Society 7 (1981): 227–41; on the CCC in the various regions see, e.g., K. E. Hendrickson, “The Civilian Conservation Corps in Pennsylvania: A Case Study of a New Deal Relief Agency in Operation,” Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography 100 (1976): 66–96; M. McCarthy, “History of the CCC in Colorado,” in T. Lyons, ed., 1930 Employment 1980: Humanistic Perspectives on the Civilian Conservation Corps in Colorado, (Boulder, 1980), 1–46; L. Pinto, “The CCC in Colorado: The Enrichment of Social Life: The Gifts of a People to Themselves,” ibid., 98–133; M. Montoya, “The Roots of Economic and Ethnic Divisions in Northern New Mexico: The Case of the Civilian Conservation Corps,” Western Historical Quarterly 26 (1995): 15–34; on ethnic minorities see, e.g., A. F. Kifer, “The Negro under the New Deal,” Ph.D. diss., University of Wisconsin, 1961; D. L. Parman, “The Indian Civilian Conservation Corps,” Ph.D. diss., University of Oklahoma, 1967; C. W. Gower, “The Struggle of Blacks for Leadership in the Civilian Conservation Corps: 1933– 1942,” Journal of Negro History 61 (1976): 123–35; O. Cole, Jr., The African-American Experience in the Civilian Conservation Corps (Gainsville, 1999); on the role of education see J. G. Herlihy, “A Comparison of the Educational Purpose of Two Federal Youth Programs: The Civilian Conservation Corps and the Job Corps of the Economic Opportunity Act of 1964,” Ph.D. diss., University of Connecticut, 1966; J. A. Pandiani, “The Crime Control Corps: An Invisible New Deal Program,” British Journal of Sociology 33 (1982): 348–58; on suborganizations within the CCC, see J. C. Paige, The Civilian Conservation Corps and the National Park Service, 1933–1942. An Administrative History (Washington, 1985); A. T. Otis et al., The Forest Service and the Civilian Conservation Corps: 1933–1945 (Corvalis, 1986). See E. Gorham, “The Ambiguous Practices of the Civilian Conservation Corps,” Social History 17 (1992): 229–49, and esp. idem, National Service, Citizenship, and Political Education (Albany, 1992); Stieglitz, Percent, quote p. 228; idem, “‘Save the Soil! Save the Nation!’ – ¨ Die Verknupfung von Naturschutz und Patriotismus im Civilian Conservation Corps,” in U. Lehmkuhl and S. Schneider, eds., Umweltgeschichte – Histoire totale oder BindestrichGeschichte? (Erfurt, 2002), 59–74; C. M. Maher, Planting More Than Trees: The Civilian Conservation Corps and the Roots of the American Environmental Movement, 1929–1942 (New York, 2001); J. R. Suzik, “‘Building better Men.’ The CC Boy and the Changing Social Ideas of Manliness,” in R. Horowitz, ed., Boys and their Toys? Masculinity, Technology, and Class in America (New York, 2001), 111–38; K. K. Patel, “Neuerfindung des Westens – Aufbruch nach Osten. Naturschutz und Landschaftsgestaltung in den Vereinigten Staaten ¨ Sozialgeschichte 43 (2003). von Amerika und in Deutschland 1900–1945,” Archiv fur On the practical work of the RAD, see Silverman, Hitler’s Economy, 175–99, and a few studies that do not deal primarily with the labor service, e.g., R. Stommer, “‘Da oben

16

Soldiers of Labor

The question this comparative study raised made it necessary to consult anew the files of the Corps, which are extant nearly in their entirety. To that end I looked chiefly at the extensive records of the CCC itself in the National Archives. In addition, my analysis is based on a study of the papers of the president and his circle that are housed in the Roosevelt Library in Hyde Park, New York. Finally, this study also draws on contemporary papers, magazines, and books. For a number of reasons, this study is based on an asymmetrical, functional comparison on a national level.34 It is asymmetrical because the chief focus rests on the German service after 1933; although the CCC is also analyzed systematically, it is done against the background of questions raised by the National Socialist Labor Service. As a result, the findings for the American Corps are presented in condensed form. Several factors explain my decision to use an unbalanced approach. First, there is a need for a study of the German institution after 1933, whereas its American counterpart has been well researched: the existence of several comprehensive accounts of its creation and development makes yet another detailed study unnecessary. This suggests an approach that uses the CCC as a contrasting foil for a penetrating analysis of the German service. Second, the source material for the German institution is extremely poor, which makes its study very laborious and time-consuming. An analysis of equal depth for both services would therefore have to remain at a very superficial level. Third, there is a methodological reason behind the asymmetrical comparison. Only within this framework is it possible to inquire systematically into functional equivalents and thus to probe the meaning the organization

34

¨ versinkt einem der Alltag . . .’ Thingstatten im Dritten Reich als Demonstration der Volksgemeinschaftsideologie,” in D. Peukert and J. Reulecke, eds., Die Reihen fest geschlossen. ¨ zur Geschichte des Alltags unterm Nationalsozialismus (Wuppertal, 1981), 149–73; Beitrage R. Stommer, Die inszenierte Volksgemeinschaft. Die ‘Thing-Bewegung’ im Dritten Reich (Marburg, 1985); E. Kosthorst and B. Walter, eds., Konzentrations- und Strafgefangenen¨ lager im Dritten Reich. Beispiel Emsland, 3 vols. (Dusseldorf, 1983); for the U.S., esp. M. W. Sherraden, “The Civilian Conservation Corps: The Effectiveness of the Camps,” Ph.D. diss., University of Michigan, 1979; C. E. Savage, The New Deal Adobe: The Civilian Conservation Corps and the Reconstruction of the Mission la Pur´ısima, 1934–1942 (Santa Barbara, 1991). On the comparison and the concepts connected with it, see the essay by H. Haupt and J. Kocka, “Historischer Vergleich: Methoden, Aufgaben, Probleme,” in H. Haupt and ¨ J. Kocka, eds., Geschichte und Vergleich. Ansatze und Ergebnisse international vergleichender Geschichtsschreibung (Frankfurt/Main, 1996), 9–45; H. Kaelble, Der historische Ver¨ gleich. Eine Einfuhrung zum 19. und 20. Jahrhundert (Frankfurt/Main, 1999). T. Welskopp, ¨ “Stolpersteine auf dem Konigsweg. Methodenkritische Anmerkungen zum internationalen ¨ Sozialgeschichte 35 (1995): 339–67, is Vergleich in der Gesellschaftsgeschichte,” Archiv fur skeptical about what we can learn from an asymmetrical comparison, unlike Haupt and Kocka, “Historischer Vergleich,” 16; J. Kocka, “Asymmetrical Historical Comparison: The Case of the German Sonderweg,” History & Theory 38 (1999): 40–9.

Introduction

17

had for society as a whole. In this study I do not simply contrast two institutions; rather, I also ask which other institutions in one country fulfilled the functions taken on by the labor service in the other country. Both services oversaw multiple tasks, which made them complex institutions. To mention only a few elements: both were job-creation measures and both had to decide whether they wanted to offer military drill, vocational training, or school-like instruction. If a particular feature of the RAD is not also found in the CCC, that in no way means that this phenomenon did not exist in the United States. In many instances, it was merely located in an alternative institution and within a different framework. It would be na¨ıve to think that societies or their organizations are direct reflections of each other. Yet such an understanding lies at the basis of many institutional comparisons. They follow an essentialist assumption, one that overlooks the fact that a complete overlap of tasks tends to be the exception rather than the rule in institutions that are similarly structured and carry the same label. This study counters this crucial problem inherent in these nominalist, phenomenological studies by expanding the focus beyond the labor services and inquiring into functional equivalents in the two societies. For example, if the discussion concerns the National Socialist Labor Service within the context of direct job-creation measures, we must first take a brief look at similar initiatives in Germany to be able to assess the specific role of the service within the Nazi system. This will be followed, second, by a comparison with the CCC, which will also be situated within the institutional framework of its own society. Finally, this study is a functional comparison of institutions – an approach that is a conceptual paradox within the context of current comparative methodologies, and which must, like all theories in the humanities, prove its worth in practice. However, this kind of functional comparison of complex institutions can hardly be carried out symmetrically: given the multifarious tasks of the institutions, there would be a constant stream of elements from both the RAD and the CCC that would require a study of their functional equivalents. It is above all this third methodological reason that argues in favor of an asymmetrical approach. In addition, I will examine the way each service was perceived in the other country. The question here is not so much whether these interpretations were “correct” or “false,” but what their function was in the perceiving society. The image of the “Other” is an especially good way to understand how a society interprets its own path and what kind of self-conception it has. The labor services, like many other modern institutions, were shaped by measures that one country saw in another country. Of course, the process was often more a self-demarcation than an assimilation of elements. In methodological terms, this study thus combines a comparison with an analysis of reciprocal perceptions and with what Johannes Paulmann has recently called “intercultural transfers”: since modern societies are engaged in lively exchange relationships with their environment, they are not closed systems. Central

18

Soldiers of Labor

to this approach, according to Paulmann, is not the “transfer of culture but between cultures.” If we speak of transfer, we are thus not talking about the unmodified adoption of elements from another society. Rather, what calls for analysis are the acculturation processes in the wake of this transfer. That is why transfer is understood here as a process of assimilation and modified adoption.35 This study thus follows the paradigm of Marc Bloch, who, in a famous article in 1928, demanded that comparison and transfer must be linked, lest one overlook the transnational grandes causes in favor of pseudolocal explanations. By contrast, the Bielefeld School of social history was convinced, at least until recently, that the two approaches were incompatible.36 The fact is that in both labor services the perception of its counterpart in the other country and transfers did indeed play a certain role. The global character of the Depression and the pressures it created intensified the kind of international transfer of knowledge that we can observe in modern societies in general. Evidently, the nearly simultaneous strengthening of protectionism, nationalism, and competitive thinking that occurred worldwide as a further consequence of the crisis was not able to arrest this process of reciprocal observation and transfer. The systemic boundary between a crisis-riddled democracy and a consolidating dictatorship was not high enough to block these processes. Failure to examine these reciprocal perceptions and transfers would thus mean excluding one of the dimensions that shaped the services. Moreover, without this transnational dimension, it would hardly be possible to raise the question about the authenticity of National Socialist labor policy. But there is also a methodological reason why it is necessary to include this dimension. The basis for a comparison is the existence of two relatively independent, or at least nonidentical entities. If the similarity were too great because one service assimilated elements from the other, this study would have to be structured as the history of a transfer rather than a comparison. The importance of reciprocal perception and of transfer therefore needs to be clarified for every kind of comparison. To anticipate one of the findings: 35

36

J. Paulmann, “Internationaler Vergleich und interkultureller Transfer. Zwei Forschungs¨ ¨ ansatze zur europaischen Geschichte des 18. bis 20. Jahrhunderts,” Historische Zeitschrift 267 (1998): 649–85, quote p. 678; see also M. Middell, “Kulturtransfer und Historische ¨ Komparatistik – Thesen zu ihrem Verhaltnis,” Comparativ 10 (2000): 7–41; and, on the American side, T. Bender, ed., Rethinking American History in a Global Age (Berkeley, 2002), and K. K. Patel, “Transatlantische Perspektiven transnationaler Historiographie,” Geschichte und Gesellschaft 26 (2003): 625–47. On transnational history in general, see ¨ ¨ GeschichtsK. K. Patel, “Uberlegungen zu einer transnationalen Geschichte,” Zeitschrift fur wissenschaft 52 (2004): 626–45. M. Bloch, “Pour une histoire compar´ee des soci´et´es europ´eennes (1928),” in C. Perrin, ed., Marc Bloch. M´elanges historiques (Paris, 1963), 1: 19; for an opposing view, see Haupt and Kocka, “Historischer Vergleich,” 10, whose position is in turn challenged, e.g., by Kaelble, Vergleich, 19–21.

Introduction

19

in the case of the labor services, assimilation was not significant enough to make a transfer the central focus of this study, but too important to exclude transfers altogether.37 For this reason, perception and transfer are not discussed in separate chapters, but are incorporated at various points in the comparative analysis. On the whole, then, this study seeks to enter new methodological territory by combining a comparative study with an analysis of perceptions and transfers, and to make a contribution to the debate over the transnational expansion of historiography. This book is divided into four chapters. Chapter 1 outlines the exceedingly well-researched prehistory of labor service ideas and their implementation prior to 1933 and examines the consequences of the Depression, which shaped these institutions in crucial ways. However, no attempt is made to provide a comprehensive analysis of the causes and development of the Great Depression. Since this study is concerned with efforts to overcome the joblessness of young men, I will describe primarily the conditions in which they found themselves. The main section of the book is divided into three chapters which deal with the organization, education, and work of the labor services and their broader political and social environments. Chapter 2 analyzes the institutional side of these two organizations. On this level, as in the study generally, the focus will be on the German Labor Service. I will look at its internal ability to function, its place within the organizational and bureaucratic jungle of the Nazi regime, and its function as a stopgap for the unemployed. I will also discuss the access criteria of the institution and the role that the perception of the CCC played in the organization of the German service. The six subsections that examine these issues are divided, more or less equally, into a chronological, longitudinal section and a systematic cross-section. This is followed by a condensed institutional history of the CCC and a comparative summary. The concepts of the “new institutional history” and especially the notion of “state capacity” are important to both phenomena under study. The question here is to what extent the state possesses the resources – such as personnel, material, financial means, and know-how – to put political goals into practice once they have been defined.38 This model, originally devised for other New 37 38

See H. Kleinschmidt, “Galton’s Problem: Bemerkungen zur Theorie der transkulturell ver¨ Geschichtswissenschaft 39 (1991): 5–22. gleichenden Geschichtsforschung,” Zeitschrift fur See the anthology by P. B. Evans et al., eds., Bringing the State Back In (Cambridge, 1985), esp. the introduction by Skocpol; also K. Finegold and T. Skocpol, State and Party in America’s New Deal (Madison, 1995), 51–7; A. Brinkley, “The New Deal and the Idea of State,” in S. Fraser and G. Gerstle, eds., The Rise and Fall of the New Deal Order (Princeton, 1989), 85–121; and most recently E. Amenta, Bold Relief. Institutional Politics and the Origin of Modern American Social Policy (Princeton, 1998); for a review of the scholarship see P. Nolte, “Amerikanische Sozialgeschichte in der Erweiterung. Tendenzen, Kontroversen

20

Soldiers of Labor

Deal organizations, will be applied here to the CCC and to the German service. While the concept of state capacity directs attention merely toward the potential of the state in the use of material and immaterial resources, I use the broader concept of institutional capacity, which also takes account of nonstate actors – in the case of Germany, for example, the Nazi Party (NSDAP). Chapter 3 is devoted to education. Following Heinz-Elmar Tenorth, that term also includes – in a value-neutral way – the practice of pedagogical work for Nazi Germany.39 Beginning with the German service, I will look first at the educational goal and the vision of human nature on which it was based. This will be followed by an examination of the camp system with its ordering of time and space, which formed the link between pedagogical conception and practice. The subsections probe the goals of this education. For one, the service was supposed to toughen the young men physically and instill in them a specific idea of manhood. For another, it served as a “school of character” and a place of political indoctrination. Since this chapter also ` centers around the question of efficiency and success vis-a-vis self-defined goals, I discuss not only the normative models, but also their implementation in the camps. In connection with this, I pursue the question about possible transfers and influences from the American labor service. The survey of the CCC that follows looks at the same issues, although vocational training is examined briefly as a pedagogical task that the Corps took on, unlike the RAD. The chapter concludes with a comparison of the findings concerning the educational dimension of the two institutions. Chapter 4 looks at the actual work undertaken by the RAD and the CCC. In this area as well, the two institutions long displayed a degree of similarity that is astonishing at first glance. When it comes to the German service, I first introduce the areas of work and the planning and organization of the projects that were undertaken in collaboration with various agencies. A subsequent section on the National Socialist conception of “work” will help us to gauge the meaning the Nazis attached to these activities. This is followed by examples of various projects and ways in which the German Labor Service was deployed, once again contrasting ideas and implementation. A look at the practical efforts of the CCC using the same approach is followed by a comparative analysis of how effectively and efficiently the services deployed their labor power.

39

¨ Sozialgeschichte 36 (1996): 387– und Ergebnisse seit Mitte der 1980er Jahre,” Archiv fur 9; and K. K. Patel, “Strategien gegen die Große Depression. Neuerscheinungen zur Poli¨ Sozialgeschichte 39 tik des New Deal in den Vereinigten Staaten von Amerika,” Archiv fur (1999): 562–6. Unlike the American approach, I see resources and capacities as synonymous – resource (as well as capacity) is defined not only as the formulation of political goals, but also the possibility of implementing them. ¨ See H.-E. Tenorth, “Erziehung und Erziehungswissenschaft von 1930–1945. Uber Kontro¨ Padagogik ¨ versen ihrer Analyse,” Zeitschrift fur 35 (1989): 261–80.

Introduction

21

The three subsections in Chapters 2–4, the main part of the book, thus examine the internal and external effectiveness of the German Labor Service as a means of dealing with the economic crisis and as an instrument of war preparation. The purpose of the comparison with the CCC is to provide a keener grasp of the findings about the RAD and to situate them within a larger context. This transnational dimension also includes the analysis of reciprocal perceptions and transfers. Moreover, in all three sections I discuss the question of continuities and ruptures between the FAD prior to 1933 and the Nazi service; in addition, all three subsections contain a brief look ahead at the developments during the war. The conclusion in these chapters offers a summary review of the findings. All in all, the story of the labor services presented here aims to be more than an organizational history. It is equally intended as a contribution to the institutional and pedagogical history of Nazi Germany and New Deal America and as a comparative analysis of efforts to overcome the Great Depression.

1 A Panacea for the Great Depression? Labor Service Ideas and Their Implementation Prior to 1933

1.1. PRECURSORS TO THE LABOR SERVICES The labor service as previously defined is a child of modernity. It presupposes, along with expanded state power, a new conception of the polity that is rooted in the “individual’s immediacy to the state” – an idea that came to prevail only with the Enlightenment and the French Revolution.1 Henceforth, a person was no longer embedded within a hierarchical, corporate political order with numerous autonomous intermediate powers; instead, all (male) citizens had a direct relationship to the state. Previous differences of status were thus erased and all individuals were, ideally, treated equally. At the same time, the power of the state was given direct access to the individual. These, then, are the two fundamental sides to this relationship: the rights as well as the duties of both the state and the individual. This new bond grew even stronger in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. At one extreme, it culminated in total cradle-to-grave care; on the other extreme, it led to absolute state power to the point of the physical destruction of entire population groups. Labor services are merely one expression of this modern relationship of immediacy. More familiar to us is military conscription, which began its triumphant advance in revolutionary France. It represented the duty of every male citizen to risk his life for the community in case of war. Political participation and other rights were often promised – and sometimes even granted – as a quid pro quo.2 Unlike military conscription or compulsory schooling, the demand for a labor service can be met in different ways. First, and on a general level, there is the question of whether the service is to be voluntary or compulsory. In a voluntary labor service, a certain social group – usually young men – works together for a specified period of time on a voluntary basis on projects that serve the common good. As a rule, participants are also supposed to live together, which means that there is room for every conceivable form of 1 2

W. Reinhard, Geschichte der Staatsgewalt. Eine vergleichende Verfassungsgeschichte Europas ¨ von den Anfangen biz zur Gegenwart (Munich, 1999), 407. See the fundamental and more precisely differentiated discussion in U. Frevert, Die kasernierte ¨ Nation. Militardienst und Zivilgesellschaft in Deutschland (Munich, 2001).

22

1.1. Precursors to the Labor Services

23

education in the hours after the work is done. Often the state merely finances the institution. It does not carry out the measures itself but leaves them to private agents. By contrast, compulsory labor service refers to a form of labor for the common good that is not only financed but usually also organized by the state. Like the voluntary labor service, it does not extend to the entire population, but encompasses a precisely defined group for a limited period of time. However, since the service is obligatory, the goal is to include this group in its entirety. Second, the labor service must be distinguished from obligatory work (Arbeitspflicht). The latter compels all able-bodied persons in a society to engage in work that is beneficial to the community – it is thus not limited to a specific social group, but is potentially universal. Moreover, unlike labor service, obligatory work has no time limitation, lacks a pedagogical component, and is usually paid like a regular job. By contrast, remuneration for participation in a labor service is for the most part no more than a token wage.3 Historically, obligatory work was part of the demands of the workers’ movement; August Bebel called it a “basic law of the socialist society.”4 In Germany during World War I, it was enforced under different conditions ¨ in the form of the so-called Vaterlandischer Hilfsdienst (Patriotic Auxiliary Service). Beginning in 1916, every male citizen between the ages of seventeen and sixty who was not subject to military command was obligated to work in agricultural or industrial enterprises.5 The state, responding to the needs of the war economy, thus intervened significantly in labor relations to channel all resources into the war effort. In spite of the difference between labor service and obligatory work, the following discussion of the prehistory of the labor services of the 1930s, ¨ extensively researched by Henning Kohler, Peter Dudek, Wolfgang Schlicker, Wolfang Benz, and others,6 must also address the question of obligatory work at various times. The reason is that this obligation was frequently conjoined with the labor service in political programs and political practice, as a result of which these different concepts began to merge and blur. This will become clear in the chronological sketch of the labor service discussion since the time of the French Revolution and in the subsequent typological 3 4 5 6

See Seifert, Kulturarbeit, 18. A. Bebel, Die Frau und der Sozialismus (Stuttgart, 1920 [1879]), 375. RGBl. 1916, I, 1333–9; see also Seifert, Kulturarbeit, 22f. ¨ See esp. Kohler, Arbeitsdienst, 11–80; Dudek, Erziehung, 53–250; Schlicker, Freiwilliger ¨ Arbeitsdienst, 1–191; Schwenk, Grundlagen, 4–24; Benz, “Arbeitsdienst,” 317–23; Buhler, Problematik; H. Reinisch, “Arbeitserziehung in der Arbeitsmarktkrise. Das Beispiel des ¨ Berufs‘Freiwillingen Arbeitsdienstes’ Ende [sic] der Weimarer Republik,” Zeitschrift fur ¨ ¨ Deutschland.” und Wirtschaftspadagogik 81 (1985): 209–24; B. Hafeneger, “Alle Arbeit fur Arbeit, Jugendarbeit und Erziehung in der Weimarer Republik, unter dem Nationalsozialismus und in der Nachkriegszeit (Cologne, 1988), 42–140; Seifert, Kulturarbeit, 17–58.

24

A Panacea for the Great Depression?

analysis of the labor service debate in the interwar period. I will leave aside all older, premodern ideas that pointed in the direction of a labor service: in contrast to these premodern notions, which frequently arose from utopian or philosophical thinking, the implementation of labor service ideas became more realistic after the French Revolution thanks to the new relationship between the state and the individual.7 A blending of labor service and obligatory work had already begun during the French Revolution. In 1794, for example, Theresa Cabarrus called for a national mandatory service in the social sphere for all young women. To be sure, Cabarrus herself, the future Lady Tallien, was better known as a beauty and scandal-tainted mistress or wife of various revolutionary leaders than for her interest in practical work. In floating her suggestion, she was less concerned with the interests of the nation than with winning the affections of the radical Jacobin Marc-Antoine Jullien, who was pursuing a similar idea. Nonetheless, her initiative indicates that the demand for a labor service-like organization for women was not an unusual idea in revolutionary France.8 The introduction of a labor service for women was also thoroughly discussed in Germany in the age of Kaiser William II. The debate was conducted by leading representatives of the bourgeois-liberal women’s move¨ ment, among them Gertrud Baumer and Helene Lange, as well as by church groups and charitable organizations. In many of these discussions, as well, labor service and obligatory work were not separated conceptually, which is why this debate can also be seen at best as a precursor to the real labor service discussion. The most important contribution with respect to the labor service came from the social reformer Ida von Kortzfleisch. Not only did she call for an obligatory one-year training in home economics for all girls, she also tried to implement her ideas in an experimental setting through her Association for the Establishment of Rural Economic Women’s Schools (founded in 1897). To be sure, among all her endeavors it was her call for an improved vocational training for women that met the broadest reception. Still, Kortzfleisch not only laid out a comparatively thorough theoretical concept, but through her Association she also initiated an important precursor to the later efforts at setting up a labor service.9 It would take until the turn of the century before the first reasonably substantial plans for a labor service for men appeared. Institutions like the 7 8

9

Seifert, Kulturarbeit, 19. See G. Marko, Das Ende der Sanftmut: Frauen in Frankreich 1789–1795 (Munich, 1993), 335, where selections from the tract are reprinted; on Teresa Tallien (there are various spellings of her name), see F. Furet and D. Richet, The French Revolution, trans. S. Hardman (New York, 1970), 219, 325, 333, 341–2. I. v. Kortzfleisch, Der freiwillige Dienst in der Wirtschaft (Hannover, 1895); on the history ¨ of ideas pertaining to the labor service for women see in general S. Dammer, Mutterlichkeit ¨ und Frauendienstpflicht: Versuche der Vergesellschaftung ‘weiblicher Fahigkeiten’ durch eine Dienstverpflichtung (Weinheim, 1988).

1.1. Precursors to the Labor Services

25

Ateliers Nationals in revolutionary France in 1848 can be regarded as precursors in only a very limited sense, since they more closely resembled jobcreation measures. In 1896, by contrast, Theodor Herzl, in his work Der Judenstaat (The Jewish State), wrote about an army of unskilled workers who, in a quasi-military organization, would construct the future Jewish polity. While Herzl’s concisely sketched program tended once again more in the direction of obligatory work, the Austrian scholar Josef Popper in 1912 spoke out in favor of a compulsory labor service. His “food army” ¨ (Nahrarmee) would be used to secure society’s minimum subsistence level. To that end, all citizens would be required to serve several years in the service while they were young. Popper, like Herzl, saw the task of the institution as chiefly economic. The two blueprints also had in common that they did not assign the labor service an explicit pedagogical function. Rather, at the center of these concepts, which fluctuated between labor service and obligatory work, was the militarily organized output of labor, which, under different social guiding ideas, was to contribute to improving the state of the nation.10 A third concept, by contrast, was characterized by a sociopedagogical dimension. In 1910, the American philosopher William James called for a labor service–like institution. The participating men would perform work for the common good. Central to the plan was the pacifist ideal of abolishing war. The process of community formation under a national banner, which James regarded as indispensable for society and which usually took place in military confrontations, was thus to be replaced by a compensatory labor service.11 All in all, what is striking is that the intellectual precursors to a women’s service reach back farther than those for its male counterpart. The chief reason for this lies in the hope of political emancipation that was linked with nearly all proposals concerning the female sex. The aim of women was to strengthen their rights – the labor service would be to the female citizen what obligatory military service was to the male citizen. Moreover, it has become clear that intellectuals in many modern industrial nations were wrestling with the question of labor service. But it was only after 1918 that the discussion assumed real weight. World War I had demanded the utmost exertion of the combatant nations, and in an effort to mobilize all reserves, state interventionism around the world reached a previously unheard-of level. Against this background, institutions like the Patriotic Auxiliary Service in Germany had made clear the potential inherent in the various forms of service. Labor service was seen as a suitable means of improving the state of the nation, especially in countries that had suffered severely from the war. To some extent it was even regarded as a panacea. 10 11

See Th. Herzl, The Jewish State (Tel Aviv, 1956), esp. 76–82; J. Popper, Die allgemeine ¨ ¨ Nahrpflicht als Losung der sozialen Frage (Dresden, 1912), esp. 644. See W. James, The Moral Equivalent of War (New York, 1910).

26

A Panacea for the Great Depression?

The idea was particularly attractive in states where military conscription was prohibited by the terms of the Paris treaties. Here it was not least the military that was hoping to create a temporary replacement in the form of a labor service. Under these circumstances, Bulgaria, a loser in the war, established a compulsory labor service as early as 1920.12 Similarly, the labor service was the subject of intense political debates during the Weimar Republic. For that reason, the following brief overview of the well-researched prehistory of German labor service shall serve as an exemplary test case. The first social group to advocate such an organization was the veterans of World War I. Since their reintegration into the labor market and society following the demobilization of the troops had proceeded only haltingly in a Germany riven by crises and revolution, some veterans took matters into their own hands. The Free Corps of Work (Freikorps der Arbeit), in particular, which Captain Josef Aumann set up in 1919 with former members of his Reichswehr brigade, pointed in the direction of a labor service. The men were put to work chiefly on soil improvement projects, which was their contribution to making Germany economically stronger. The projects were closely connected with re-agrarianization plans and the idea of settlement. These aspects were not specific to Aumann’s Free Corps, however, but are frequently found in proposals put forward during the interwar period. Likewise, the employment of manual labor in the agricultural sector was the foundation of nearly all proposals, which were thus advocating that modern societies return to pre-industrial labor practices. At the same time, Aumann proposed to educate the men mentally and ¨ physically in a one-year service and to shape a new community in the volkisch (national-ethnic) spirit. In fact, the pedagogical dimension was the core idea: a universal labor service obligation would give rise to a national community ¨ with a volkisch cast. However, because Aumann was not able to secure the sustained financial support of the state, his Free Corps was disbanded in 1923.13 By then, the thread had already been picked up by the youth movement, ¨ the paramilitary units (Wehrverbande), and especially the anti-republican political right wing. In this way, theoretical concepts, often initially devised by outsiders, made their way into the mainstream of society. Still, none of these plans were implemented with state support. Interest in the topic declined after about 1924 with the relative stabilization of the state, the economy, and society.14 But the labor service idea would not be dormant for long. When the Great Depression hit Germany in 1929, this form of labor for the public good was once again seen as a panacea, or at least as a 12 14

¨ Kohler, Arbeitsdienst, 44. ¨ Kohler, Arbeitsdienst, 11–42.

13

Ibid., 18–20; Seifert, Kulturarbeit, 24–7.

1.1. Precursors to the Labor Services

27

suitable instrument in combating the crisis. Confronted by disastrous mass unemployment, many Germans emphasized the duty of the state to help the individual in need. But even in the face of this crisis, the idea that remained dominant in Germany was that the individual, conversely, should be obligated to perform labor: central to most conceptions was not the right of the citizen, but the right of the state. This basic tenor can be explained by Germany’s state-focused political culture and the far-reaching claim that was connected with the service. Not only was it regarded as an instrument in the struggle against the economic crisis and its social consequences, such as squalor and crime; it was also intended to prevent the threat of civil war by creating a new sense of unity among all Germans. Still, it is paradoxical that in the very different crisis after 1929, the proponents of the labor service were invoking the same solution that had been called for in the difficult years right after the war. The chief explanation is that the plans were not based on any profound analysis of the situation, but on a superficial interpretation of the causes of unemployment and a diffuse fear of modernization, expressed in this and similar demands for re-agrarianization, de-urbanization, and the achievement of self-sufficiency in agriculture.15 In the later years of the Weimar Republic, the labor service thus became an intensely debated topic. Once again, the political right was the chief proponent of such a service. But by now no political group could afford to ignore the question. Just how powerful the labor service discourse had become is reflected in the fact that several lobbies, set up expressly for this purpose, were working toward the introduction of this kind of organization with state support.16 As the individual plans and initiatives of the Weimar period have been exhaustively examined in numerous studies, there is no need to pursue them in detail here. Instead, a typology will summarize the debate that took place in many states. In principle, every concept of a labor service must decide whether participation should be voluntary or compulsory. But since it would be too crude to sort the various approaches merely according to this criterion, I will distinguish five different types. I should qualify this by noting that in many instances various threads were interwoven in a single blueprint. The various types can be found not only in the German discussion, but in a similar form in all labor service debates around the world. The only difference was the weight that the various threads carried.17 The examples provided for each type are meant to illustrate the international dimension of the discussion. 15 17

16 See Dudek, Erziehung, 87–98; Kohler, ¨ Ibid., 51–80. Arbeitsdienst, 51–70. For alternative suggestions of how to break down the various strands, see esp. Seifert, ¨ Kulturarbeit, 54–8; Dudek, Erziehung, 57–60; Buhler, Problematik, 17–39; E. Schellenberg, Der freiwillige Arbeitsdienst auf Grund der bisherigen Erfahrungen (Berlin, 1932), 29f.

28

A Panacea for the Great Depression?

A first thread was rooted in authoritarian statism. In these concepts, the state and its interests were the reference point for all considerations. Consequently, a labor service was supposed to serve a state usually conceived of in authoritarian terms. The actual work that was accomplished was considered meaningful, while education ranked lower in importance. However, statist plans often linked labor service and citizenship, and therefore only a person who had served the community in this form was to be a full citizen. In this sense, a community-forming function was imparted to the compulsory labor service that many called for. At the same time, this institution was a starting point for efforts to limit the rights of workers. The labor service was either a means to destroy liberal society’s guaranteed right to work or to prevent it from being established in the first place. Examples of the authoritarian-statist thread in the debate are Popper’s blueprint in Austria and the initiative by the State Commission for the Unemployed in Sweden.18 Many concepts were fed by a nationalistic and frequently also revanchist militarism. They were often fused with authoritarian-statist ideas, since the boundaries between these two approaches were especially fluid. Military planning could connect with a discussion that had been gaining strength since the early nineteenth century. Against the background of defeat at the hands of Napoleon’s armies, advocates of early nationalism and the exercise movement (Bewegungskultur), such as Friedrich Ludwig Jahn in Germany, had already stressed the importance of physical training for young people. Given the spread of compulsory military service to more and more states, this idea took on increasing importance in the nineteenth century. It gained additional weight against the backdrop of industrialization. A growing chorus of military experts now came to be convinced that a large number of young men were physically unable to cope with the rigors of military service. In response, they demanded that young people be trained to be physically tough at the earliest possible age. Military interests and corresponding notions of masculinity can be found in a wide variety of countries. One important impulse in this direction came from Great Britain, for example, in the figure of Sir Robert Baden-Powell and his Boy Scout movement, which was soon copied in many countries. In Germany, Kolmar Freiherr von der Goltz sought to implement the genuinely military dimension organizationally in his Bund Jung-Deutschland (Young Germany League). After 1918, many states had similar pre- and paramilitary youth organizations, which were supported to some extent by the government. Hungary created a comparatively thorough system as early as the 1920s.19 18 19

¨ On Sweden, see Schweizerische Zentralstelle, Arbeitsdienst, 98–100. See also Gotz, Ungleiche Geschwister. ¨ See H. Wichmann, Entwicklung und Stand der vormilitarischen Ausbildung in Frankreich, Italien und der Sowjetunion (Hamburg, 1938); C. Eisenberg, “English Sports” und deutsche ¨ Burger. Eine Gesellschaftsgeschichte 1800–1939 (Paderborn, 1999), 98–120, 261–91.

1.1. Precursors to the Labor Services

29

For obvious reasons, militaristic labor service concepts found many supporters primarily in countries in which conscription was prohibited after ¨ World War I. In Germany, for example, Ernst Junger, in his 1932 book Der Arbeiter (The Worker), saw in the labor service the ideal replacement for compulsory military service under the conditions of modern warfare. Other organizations, like the Stahlhelm (a nationalist, paramilitary veterans’ group), considered such an institution a temporary stopgap measure to bridge the time during which the prohibition of the draft was in place.20 Labor service–like initiatives in countries like Rumania and Poland also had a military dimension in the 1930s.21 In these blueprints, practical work played a secondary role to the military aspect. Of course, in the countries that had lost the war, these military goals could not be openly articulated, since that would have drawn protest or intervention from the victorious powers. Therefore, reference to the pedagogical effect of military service, for which the labor service was to provide a harmless replacement, was often used as a cover. ¨ A third thread was formed by volkisch nationalism. From this perspective, the labor service had the task, in the area of practical activity, of laying the foundation for a social order oriented toward premodern social relationships. The actual projects were situated in the agricultural sector, and their goal was re-agrarianization and de-urbanization: although this dimension formed the basis of nearly all labor service concepts, it ¨ was particularly strong in the volkisch proposals. In such plans, the service became a sociopolitical, pedagogical institution in which social antagonisms were to be abolished through shared labor. The new society would be based on a homogenous, harmonious nation, one from which all “foreigners” – usually defined in racial terms – were to be excluded. The labor service thereby became the instrument of a quasi-utopian social policy. Central to this concept, once again, was not the work that was accomplished, but the pedagogical task of creating a community. Unlike authoritarian statism, which openly asserted the coercive character of the labor ¨ service, volkisch nationalism frequently put itself into the paradoxical situation of appealing to the voluntary commitment of understanding, seemingly autonomous Volksgenossen (national comrades) while at the same time calling for the introduction of universal, obligatory participation. As in statist and militaristic concepts, a public law-based relationship of power was to form the foundation of the organization. It comes as little surprise that this current had many supporters in Germany. Aumann’s Free Corps of Labor, the Order of Young Germans, the Artamanen, which stood close to National 20 21

¨ See E. Junger, Der Arbeiter. Herrschaft und Gestalt (Hamburg, 1932), esp. chapter 4; on the ¨ Stahlhelm, see Kohler, Arbeitsdienst, 151–4. On the Romanian “Muncii de Folos Obstecs,” see Schweizerische Zentralstelle, Arbeitsdienst, 93–7; on the Polish “Junackie Hufce Pracy,” ibid., 81–92.

30

A Panacea for the Great Depression?

Socialism, and later the National Socialists themselves tapped into this world of ideas.22 Fourth, economic and sociopedagogical ideas existed in various countries. In the face of the global economic crisis, the call for a labor service as an aid for young unemployed workers gained momentum. The economic proposals were aimed chiefly at putting the unemployed to work as a way of offering them a livelihood pure and simple. Such concepts were found primarily in countries that had no elaborate safety net for the unemployed and, in general, few of the trappings of a welfare state. By contrast, the sociopedagogical perspective carried greater weight in states that provided basic material support to the victims of the crisis. Here, labor service was to counteract especially the psychological problems attendant upon idleness. The goal was to strengthen the work ethic and the sense of self-worth by including the unemployed at least for a time in the working world through a service devoted to the public good. At the same time, the labor services were given the task of combating the social consequences of unemployment, such as squalor, crime, and political extremism. Most of these ideas had deeper roots. They rested on the notion that integration into modern societies should occur first and foremost through work, and that the crisis made it imperative that the state intervene on behalf of the unemployed. Accordingly, those out of work should be reintegrated into society by means of a labor program. This line of argumentation also explains why the labor service occasionally merged into job-creation programs that lacked an explicit pedagogical dimension. Since the focus rested on those who were excluded from society, most of these concepts called for the principle of voluntary access – the goal had to be to solve the problem as quickly as possible and thus render the service unnecessary. These concepts were at¨ tempts at finding an economic answer to sociopolitical questions. Bruning’s ideas about the FAD went back primarily to this kind of approach, as did the ideas that formed the basis of the labor service in the United States. Within this context we should also situate the plans that arose from the practice of vocational pedagogy. Here, the central focus rested on promoting vocational training and continuing the education of young unemployed workers or all young people. The goal, therefore, was integration into the labor market. Some concepts were aimed at the interests of those affected, while others put the emphasis on the creation of disciplined, compliant workers for the capitalist economy. Between these schools also ran a line, roughly speaking, that separated voluntary from compulsory participation: it is obvious that individual measures of support should be directed only at those genuinely in need. This notion formed the basis, for example, of the Government Training Centers established by the British Ministry of Labour in the

22

¨ On the Jungdeutscher Orden and the Artamanen see, e.g., Kohler, Arbeitsdienst, 34–42.

1.1. Precursors to the Labor Services

31

1930s; a similar program existed around the same time in Japan.23 But if primacy was given to discipline, the goal was to reach as many young people as possible. This approach was taken by many employers in Germany, among them Karl Arnold and his German Institute for Technical Worker Training ¨ technische Arbeitsschulung), which had close ties to (Deutsches Institut fur heavy industry.24 In this scenario, the labor service was also supposed to become a means of restricting the general rights of workers. Finally, some ideas were based on a democratic communitarianism avant la lettre. In this context, a labor service-like institution had the task of promoting the participatory, responsible involvement of autonomous citizens in a functioning democracy. Here, too, the goal was to transcend class barriers and social divisions. However, this was to be accomplished not through a harmonizing rhetoric that merely masked the social problems, but through an argumentative engagement of the various camps that was to be as free of prejudice as possible. Here, too, common labor by young people irrespective of their social background was a basic element, though it was to serve as the starting point for a rational process of community formation. At the same time, these kinds of approaches had a high degree of selforganization, which means that, once again, it was not the economic value of the labor that was most important, but its sociopedagogical value. In pre1933 Germany, the labor camps of the Schlesische Jungmannschaft headed in this direction. Beginning in 1928, several meetings of students, farmers, and workers took place with these goals in mind at the Boberhaus. The most prominent figure in this group was James Helmuth von Moltke, who would become one of the leading figures of the resistance to Hitler. The sophisticated theoretical underpinning of the gatherings was the creation of Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy, a law professor and historian at Breslau. Democratic communitarianism was even more pronounced in his ideas than it was in later attempts at implementing them. Even if the claim of the camps – to become a meeting ground for the entire younger generation – was unrealistic in the late Weimar Republic, and even if the institutions could hardly have been expanded into a nationwide labor service, this was a remarkable experiment.25 23 24 25

On Great Britain and Japan, see Schweizerische Zentralstelle, 27–33, 56–67. ¨ On the DINTA, see Kohler, Arbeitsdienst, 132–7; Dudek, Erziehung, 83–7. ¨ See E. Rosenstock, Arbeitsdienst – Heeresdienst? (Jena, 1932); in general, Kohler, Arbeitsdienst, 178–91. See Rosenstock’s proposal of 1912, reprinted in W. Picht und E. Rosenstock, Im Kampf um die Erwachsenenbildung 1912–1926 (Leipzig, 1926), 3–9. On the similarities between Rosenstock and later communitarianism, see C. Illian, “Freiheit in konkreter Ver¨ Arbeiter, Bauern und antwortung. Der Kreisauer Kreis und die schlesischen Arbeitslager fur Studenten,” in J. Kaiser and M. Greschat, eds., Sozialer Protestantismus und Sozialstaat: Diakonie und Wohlfahrtspflege in Deutschland 1890 bis 1938 (Stuttgart, 1996), 334–8; on Rosenstock’s influence on the German resistance, see G. van Roon, Widerstand im Dritten Reich, 5th ed. (Munich, 1990; orig. 1979), 141–59.

32

A Panacea for the Great Depression?

The work camps initiated by students in the Netherlands headed in a similar direction.26 The ideas of Pierre C´er´esole of Switzerland also belong in this category. In the wake of World War I, he called for a labor service composed of young people from former enemy nations as a means to promote international understanding.27 The labor services in the various countries were thus linked to very diverse ideas. Notwithstanding the differences, a labor service was seen by many as a panacea for all kinds of ills. This is not the place to show in detail how poorly thought-out most of the proposals were, and how superficial and lacking in professional competence their analysis of the problems was; this will become clear later when we examine the National Socialist positions. In nearly every instance, however, we are dealing with “vulgar theories.”28 On the sociopsychological level they were an expression of the enormous pressure to which contemporaries were exposed: the coincidence of the accelerating transformation of all spheres of life and massive modernization crises made existing concepts for solving the crisis seem outmoded. Therefore, miracle solutions like the labor service became especially attractive. This was most apparent during the Depression, when the crisis reached its zenith. 1.2. THE SITUATION OF YOUNG PEOPLE IN THE GREAT DEPRESSION No other countries around the world were hit as hard by the international economic crisis after 1929 as were Germany and the United States. The decline in mass purchasing power and the level of unemployment – two factors central to the economic condition of a population – were especially severe in these two countries. At the respective low points, 6.1 million people in Germany and 12.8 million in the United States were not engaged in regular work, which represented 33.9 percent and 24.9 percent of the working population, respectively. To these figures we must add a high number of unrecorded jobless in both countries.29 On both sides of the Atlantic unemployment was distributed unequally among regions, age cohorts, genders, and social and professional groups. But everywhere young people of working age were among the main victims of the crisis. “Young people” refers to individuals of both sexes between 26 27

28 29

M. van der Vlerk, “Holland,” in Epting, ed., Arbeitslager, 54–9. A. Gestrich, “Geschichte der Jugendgemeinschaftsdienste. Eine Bewegung zwischen ¨ ‘Arbeitswehr’ und ‘werktatigem Pazifismus,’” in G. Guggenberger, ed., Jugend erneuert Gemeinschaft. Freiwilligendienste in Deutschland und Europa (Baden-Baden, 2000), 91f. ¨ Kohler, Arbeitsdienst, 24. For the U.S., see Hosen, ed., Great Depression, 257, 268; on Germany, see H. A.Winkler, Der Weg in die Katastrophe. Arbeiter und Arbeiterbewegung in der Weimarer Republik 1930– 1933, 2nd ed. (Berlin, 1990), 23f.; with an international survey, J. A. Garraty, Unemployment in History: Economic Thought and Public Policy (New York, 1978), 165–215.

1.2. The Situation of Young People in the Depression

33

the ages of sixteen and twenty-five, people who were in a transition from childhood to adulthood. Many became victims of the crisis in this phase of their lives: young workers were frequently hired last and fired first; on average they were unemployed longer and benefited from seasonal improvements less than other groups. For these reasons, they comprised a continually growing segment of the jobless. When the number of unemployed hit its highest level in both countries around the end of 1932 and the beginning of 1933, unemployment also peaked among the young. For instance, Germany had half a million idle young workers as early as the summer of 1931; by March 1933 the number had more than tripled. In Berlin, for example, 63 percent of all young males under the age of twenty-five were out of work. As for the United States, there are hardly any social statistics on a national level and no reasonably accurate unemployment figures. However, scholars have estimated that more than 3 million of the 12.8 million unemployed were between the ages of fifteen and twenty-four. At the same time, workers under the age of twenty were nearly twice as likely to be unemployed as older workers.30 All told, an entire generation was in danger of being lost in both societies. The chief cause for the higher-than-average rate of unemployment among young people was the social criteria governing the hiring and firing of workers. It was believed that the burden of unemployment would be less harsh for young, unmarried workers who had been with a company for only a short period than for family men or long-time workers. As a result, many workers who were just starting out never succeeded in gaining entry into the working world. If young people found a trainee position, they were frequently not hired by the company after the training was completed. Companies, many of which were themselves fighting for sheer survival, preferred to hire a new apprentice than to pay a trained worker a proper wage. Finally, inexperience in the labor market was another factor working against young people who were looking for a job.31 While the Depression in the United States hit young women harder than young men, the situation was exactly reversed in Germany. In both societies, women traditionally earned less than men for the same kind of work. In the face of the crisis, this discrimination became an advantage in Germany: to save wage costs, many employers now decided to forego the more expensive labor of men in favor of women.32 American employers had essentially the same interest. The fact that an above average number of women in the United 30

31 32

¨ Winkler, Katastrophe, 48; Kohler, Arbeitsdienst, 81; Hosen, ed., Great Depression, 250, 257; P. Stachura, “The Social and Welfare Implications of Youth Unemployment in Weimar Germany,” in P. Stachura, ed., Unemployment and the Great Depression in Weimar Germany (London, 1986), 122f. ¨ Kohler, Arbeitsdienst, 81; D. Peukert, The Weimar Republic: The Crisis of Classical Modernity, trans. R. Deveson (New York, 1987), 253. Winkler, Katastrophe, 58.

34

A Panacea for the Great Depression?

States lost their jobs in spite of this has to do with the dominant patriarchal attitude, according to which help should be given primarily to men. Of course this attitude also existed in Germany, but in the United States it was more deeply rooted in the country’s economic and political culture.33 The consequences of the high rate of unemployment were disastrous for young workers. Unlike older unemployed workers, the young had not yet had a chance to build up reserves for bad times, which made them more vulnerable to deprivation and suffering in material terms. The situation of the young was further exacerbated by the fact that the social safety nets were aimed chiefly at those unemployed who had been part of the workforce for a number of years. As a result, young people were highly dependent on their families, assuming these families had not disintegrated in the face of the crisis or had to focus their energy on taking care of younger children not yet able to work. However, it was not unusual for this extended dependency on parents to lead to conflicts. Psychologically, young unemployed workers also suffered more from their plight than older individuals, since the crisis occurred during a phase of their lives that was already marked by transitions and uncertainties. At a time when a person’s identity is usually consolidated, it was thrown into profound question. To all of this we must add the social ostracism that was directed at the unemployed. The free-market credo that everyone willing to work would be able to find a job was held against the unemployed, especially the young unemployed. At the same time, many of the victims of the crisis had internalized this worldview so deeply that they blamed themselves for their plight.34 Many of the affected responded to this crisis with apathy. They fell into a state of mental and physical stagnation, which was often exacerbated by a poor diet. Stupefaction and resignation blocked all attempts at making an effort to find work. And if a young person, after a lengthy period of idleness, did find a job again, he often had trouble living up to expectations: his discipline and work ethic had been permanently impaired. A state of personal neglect was a frequent consequence of a lack of work and the loss of a regular schedule to the rhythm of the day and week. This condition reflected not only material privation but also a declining self-respect. At the same time, it undermined the basis for social contact and interaction. Many unemployed workers became withdrawn and sought to escape social ostracism through anonymity. Some of them fell into a state of permanent lethargy, others saw suicide as the only way out.35 33

34 35

R. McElvaine, The Great Depression: America, 1929–1941 (New York, 1993), 182–4; D. M. Kennedy, Freedom from Fear: The American People in Depression and War, 1929– 1945 (New York, 1999), 164. W. E. Leuchtenburg, Franklin D. Roosevelt and the New Deal, 1932–1940 (New York, 1963), 118f. See McElvaine, Great Depression, 170–95.

1.2. The Situation of Young People in the Depression

35

On both sides of the Atlantic, many of those who refused to give up took to the road. With no permanent abode, they wandered about, spending nights in shelters or on the street. At the height of the crisis in the United States, for example, a quarter of a million young people were hopping freight trains. The lifestyle of the so-called “roving boys” more often resembled that of vagabonds and adventurers than that of migrant workers.36 In Germany, too, tens of thousands were on the move, but change of scenery brought job prospects only to very few. In addition, the number of young people who were moving toward a life of crime rose sharply in both countries as a result of the crisis. On top of petty theft prompted by hunger and despair, there was also organized crime. In large German cities, unemployed young men formed “wild cliques.” This kind of proletarian self-organization in times of crisis should not necessarily be equated with criminal behavior. Still, estimates for Berlin, for instance, put the number of young people who were criminals or on the verge of criminality at 30 percent. The aggressiveness that underlay crime also manifested itself in fights between individuals or gangs. On the whole, however, most of the offenses fell into the categories of robbery, burglary, and larceny. Between 1931 and 1932, youth crime in Germany registered a frightening increase of 11.1 percent. Cases of robbery and extortion rose even faster, by 23 percent.37 In the United States as well, the crime rate increased sharply after the beginning of the Depression. As in Germany, young men in particular were both perpetrators and victims.38 In addition, violent political radicalism, which many unemployed embraced, posed an especially dangerous threat to society. Again, it was a phenomenon that involved chiefly unemployed men. This problem was much more acute in Germany than in the United States. To be sure, in the period of the Weimar Republic, as well, there was no direct connection between unemployment and political radicalism. Still, at the end of the Weimar period, the political status quo was challenged on a massive scale by radicals on the left and the right. Both the Communist Party of Germany (KPD) and the NSDAP were able to recruit many supporters, especially among young, unemployed men. During the years of crisis, the KPD was turning increasingly into the party of the young unemployed. The NSDAP addressed the same clientele, although it was able simultaneously to attract millions of people from other social groups. The two radical parties appealed to young unemployed workers especially through their paramilitary organizations, the 36

37 38

See E. L. Uys, Riding the Rails: Teenagers on the Move During the Great Depression (New York, 1999); O. Stieglitz, “‘We may be losing this generation’: Talking about Youth and the Nation’s Future during the New Deal Era,” in N. Finzsch and H. Wellenreuther, eds., Visions of the Future in Germany and America (Oxford, 2001), 408–15. Winkler, Katastrophe, 46–50; Peukert, Weimar, 89–95. Pandiani, “Crime Control Corps,” 348–58.

36

A Panacea for the Great Depression?

¨ League of Red Front Fighters (Roter Frontkampferbund) and the SA. The consequences were obvious: between 1931 and 1932 in Germany as a whole, cases of murder increased by 6.4 percent and manslaughter by 37.5 percent; experts attributed the dramatic increases primarily to the pursuit of political conflicts by violent means.39 Although the challenge to the social and political order from right-wing or left-wing extremism was far less serious in the United States, fear of political destabilization was still widespread among the American public. The sanctions with which the state responded to political protest were correspondingly harsh. The use of force by the police continued to escalate even against peaceful demonstrators. When communist marches took place in a number of cities on March 6, 1931, for example, the police responded with tear gas, batons, and the utmost brutality.40 Up to 1933, Germany and the United States tried to respond with a series of measures to the problems spawned by the lack of work in broad segments of the population and especially among the young. In keeping with prevailing gender notions in both societies, aid was targeted primarily at unemployed men. To make matters worse, on both sides of the Atlantic, what help there was came in the form of small-scale programs: as we shall see, both governments essentially clung to the principle of laissez faire. Compared to the rest of the world, the Weimar Republic possessed many elements of a welfare state. Still, it did not offer the unemployed a tightly woven safety net; at best it secured their most basic needs.41 Moreover, the crisis forced continual cuts in benefits, with younger unemployed work` ers put at a disadvantage vis-a-vis older workers. That became evident, for example, in national unemployment insurance, which, building on certain precursor organizations, had been set up in Germany in July 1927. It stipulated that the Reich Office for Job Procurement and Unemploy¨ Arbeitsvermittlung und Arbeitslosenverment Insurance (Reichsanstalt fur sicherung, RfAVAV) would extend financial support to all able-bodied, involuntarily unemployed who were willing to work and who had been employed for several months in a job that entailed obligatory insurance payments, and who had not yet exhausted their claim to unemployment relief. However, the new version of the program in 1929, in which entitlement was based on the fact that the applicant had worked at least fifty-two weeks during the two years preceding the application, put unemployment insurance all but out of reach for unemployed youth. 39

40 41

¨ Winkler, Katastrophe, 47–9, 595–604; A. Wirsching, Vom Weltkrieg zum Burgerkrieg? Politischer Extremismus in Deutschland und Frankreich 1918–1933/39. Berlin und Paris im Vergleich (Munich, 1999), 374f. A. M. Schlesinger, The Crisis of the Old Order 1919–1933 (London, 1956), 166f. Peukert, Weimar, 129–46.

1.2. The Situation of Young People in the Depression

37

It was hardly any easier for them to benefit from crisis relief. This form of support was extended to unemployed workers who had been employed during the previous two years for at least thirteen weeks in a job with obligatory insurance payments, or who had exhausted their entitlement to unemployment insurance. Moreover, in 1929, young people under the age of twenty-one were categorically excluded from any crisis provisions. A third form of support came not from the Reich government but from municipal or rural welfare organizations and thus, in the final analysis, from local communities. In many cases, this so-called welfare support barely guaranteed the minimum subsistence level. The welfare state thus did not offer much help to the young unemployed. If the formal criteria already made it difficult for them to secure the benefit of one of the three types of aid, relief payments were low and the maximum period for which support was provided was short.42 All the other offerings of the state also provided little help. One program that was much too small at the end of the Weimar Republic was that of emergency jobs (Notstandsarbeiten). Unemployed workers who were already supported by funds from unemployment insurance and crisis relief could be organized into this form of “productive unemployment provisioning” by the RfAVAV. Emergency workers were paid according to wage scales and employed in areas such as soil improvement or road building. However, because very few funds were available for this program up to the summer of 1932, and because its implementation was slow-moving even after generous job-creating programs were approved by the Reich chancellors Papen and Schleicher, only a few tens of thousands of workers were employed in this way by 1933. The emergency jobs of local communities, which in many places turned into obligatory work for unemployed welfare recipients, also did not offer much of an alternative.43 Finally, measures aimed specifically at the unemployed youth were either not implemented or provided no real relief. For example, at the end of 1930 the government in Prussia, where no less than two-thirds of the population of Germany lived, considered adding a ninth year to the Volksschule as a way of keeping young people out of the labor market and thus out of the ranks of the unemployed. This plan was not implemented, however. To prevent a decline in the work ethic and vocational skills, the RfAVAV, in the winter of 1930–31, also set aside funds for vocational training measures. But the idea of improving the chances of employment by providing the unemployed with additional qualifications turned out not to be very helpful in the face of 42 43

Winkler, Katastrophe, 22–33; Dudek, Erziehung, 100–6. ¨ W. Ayaß, “Pflichtarbeit und Fursorgearbeit,” in Frankfurter Arbeitslosenzentrum, ed., ¨ Arbeitsdienst – wieder salonfahig? Zwang zur Arbeit in Geschichte und Sozialstaat (Frankfurt/Main, 1998), 56–79; A. Barkai, Nazi Economics: Ideology, Theory, and Policy, trans. R. Hadass-Vashitz (New Haven, 1990), 159–72.

38

A Panacea for the Great Depression?

ever-spreading unemployment. Thus, a growing number of vocational courses were soon aimed at productive work: for instance, young people were given an opportunity to produce goods for personal use in empty factories. Still, about 330,000 youngsters participated in these programs in fiscal year 1931–2. But since the courses lasted only a few weeks, the interruption of idleness was brief.44 For all of these reasons, voluntary charity from parties and organizations, churches and private individuals, companies and other institutions was vital to the survival of many unemployed, including the young. The used clothes these organizations distributed along with other goods, small cash handouts, or soup kitchens were a lifeline, especially for the poorest of the poor.45 On the whole, the rotating governments in the last years of the Weimar Republic did little to relieve the suffering of the unemployed, especially idle young men. For a long time, deflation was the prime concern driving budget policy. In an effort to compel the victorious powers of World War I to end reparations payments, the state cut back on its services in the social sphere. It was trying to prove that it was doing everything to fulfill its obligations toward the victorious states. At the same time, this policy was in line with the internationally prevailing economic doctrine, which said that the economic crisis could be overcome most readily by reducing state expenditures and, accordingly, all hopes should be placed in the power of the market to heal itself.46 Nevertheless, many unemployed had the sense that they were being abandoned in favor of abstract and possibly unattainable goals. The Voluntary Labor Service (Freiwilliger Arbeitsdienst) that was set up in 1931 was thus a ray of hope for them. Compared to Germany, the measures the American government took to relieve the suffering in its country were even more inadequate. In contrast to Germany, until 1933 the U.S. federal government hardly involved itself at all in providing support for the unemployed. Under those circumstances, programs specifically targeted toward the young were simply out of the question. Accordingly, the unemployed masses depended largely on inadequate state, local, and private welfare organizations, whose benefits and services showed considerable regional and local variations. Welfare support from county and city administrations was for the most part limited to handing out food to needy families. Rent subsidies were rarely granted, even in big cities like New York and Chicago. Moreover, even in “generous” counties, relief was far below the minimum subsistence level. For a long time, single unemployed workers were not entitled to any support. All this left many with no other option but to seek out municipal or private homeless shelters and soup kitchens. However, this sort of relief was in principle tailored to people who were unable or unwilling to work, not to millions of people facing a 44 46

¨ Kohler, Arbeitsdienst, 82–5. Peukert, Weimar, 253–5.

45

Winkler, Katastrophe, 51–3.

1.2. The Situation of Young People in the Depression

39

worldwide economic slump. Under these circumstances, some communities in the United States also “productivized” their unemployment relief by requiring the unemployed to engage in public service work. But since this form of support soon proved too costly, it never became very important.47 On the whole, then, the social system in the United States was even less prepared for the Great Depression than its German counterpart was. In fairness it must be said, however, that most communities and individual states made considerable efforts to help the unemployed. Not only did they hand out charity, they also set up smaller job-creation programs. Still, their financial means and existing options for loans were soon exhausted. As a result, the call for direct financial help from the federal government grew louder and louder – a demand that was ignored by President Hoover. To overcome the crisis, the Republican Herbert Hoover, elected president in 1928, relied for a long time on his optimism in the market’s ability to heal itself. He was following the advice of free-market economists, who were the dominant voice at the time. All he did in 1930 was to set up a committee charged with advising local authorities and organizing public appeals for charitable donations. Initially, Hoover, eager to adhere to his rigid budgetary policies, did not authorize any direct financial aid from the federal government to the unemployed. It was not until the summer of 1932 that he was forced to give up his restrictive policy in the face of the widening misery. He then approved a program by which the federal government funded job-creation measures and provided individual states with financial support for their own efforts.48 Still, until 1933 the unemployed had to rely largely on local and regional initiatives and on traditional sources of support for the needy, such as churches and private welfare organizations. The latter played a far more significant role in the United States than in Germany, and it is largely thanks to them that there was no large-scale death from starvation in the United States in the early 1930s. So, prior to 1933 there was, on the whole, no larger attempt to adjust welfare institutions to the needs created by the high level of unemployment. For that reason the New Deal, with its state interventionism, represented a significant change of course.49 Notwithstanding the similarities that thus existed between unemployed youth in Germany and the United States until 1933, one must not overlook the differences. In Germany, most young people had their most basic needs met, whereas in the United States they were exposed much more starkly to existential distress. Moreover, support was organized differently in the two societies: while in Germany the task of providing aid rested primarily on 47 48 49

P. Mattick, Arbeitslosigkeit und Arbeitslosenbewegung in den USA 1929–1935 [1936], ed. F. Hermanin and C. Pozzoli (Frankfurt/Main, 1969), 43–50; Schlesinger, Crisis, 169–76. McElvaine, Great Depression, 60–80; Kennedy, Freedom from Fear, 85–94. Patel, “Strategien,” 578f.

40

A Panacea for the Great Depression?

the shoulders of the Reich and the communities, in the United States it lay chiefly in the hands of local government and of civil society, with the federal government playing no major role. These different expressions of support corresponded in each case with the character of the respective country in which they occurred. The German government had substantially more powers and resources at its command than its American counterpart.50 These differences were also reflected in the divergent political cultures of the two states: the great importance accorded to the individual and the local level in the United States, on the one hand, and the greater focus on community and the state throughout German history, on the other.51 At the same time, the United States had far greater economic resources to master the crisis than did Germany. Still, the social distress of the unemployed youth was initially quite similar in both countries. That is why both societies considered the struggle against youth unemployment one of the most urgent tasks. Against the backdrop of this crisis and the discussions it spawned, a statesupported, national labor service was introduced in Germany in 1931; I will discuss it separately. The United States did not take this step, which is not very surprising given Hoover’s attitude. That is why I will briefly discuss the most important initiatives that preceded the Civilian Conservation Corps. Compared to Germany, the discourse about a labor service in the United States did not intensify much prior to 1933. For example, the proposal by William James for a labor service was barely discussed in the public arena. The Depression did not change this in any way. Nor did the America of the early 1930s see European labor services as a source of inspiration; they received barely any attention.52 The only precursors to the CCC were various smaller job-creation programs with no explicit pedagogical dimension. For example, a number of individual states, among them California and Washington, implemented such measures in the face of the crisis. The future president Roosevelt also came out with an initiative. In 1932, Roosevelt, the Democratic governor of New York since 1929, organized approximately 10,000 unemployed for reforestation work in a job-creation program. He, too, did not endow this program with an explicit pedagogical dimension. Moreover, the social distress of the unemployed was only one of two primary motivations behind a program that was small relative to the population of the state. Of equal importance to Roosevelt was the desire to improve the 50 51

52

Finegold and Skocpol, State and Party, esp. 31–65. On the differences in political culture and mentality, see M. Weber, The Protestant Ethic and ¨ the Spirit of Capitalism, trans. T. Parsons (New York, 1958); also M. Zollner, “Politische ¨ Kulture,” in W. P. Adams et al., eds., Landerbericht USA, 2 vols. (Bonn, 1992), 1: 259–326. K. Holland, Youth in European Labor Camps: A Report to the American Youth Commission (Washington, D.C., 1939).

1.3. Precursor in Germany: The FAD

41

state of American forests, which had suffered from centuries of destructive exploitation. As a young representative in the state of New York, he had advocated for environmental protection and more careful methods of utilizing forests. He had also experimented with such approaches on his family’s Hyde Park estate.53 The most important proposal that anticipated the CCC was also aimed at a job-creation program. In January 1933, Senator James Couzen, a liberal Republican, introduced a bill in Congress that called upon the army to house, feed, and put to work young unemployed men between the ages of seventeen and twenty-five on army bases. Because the army did not wish to take on this task, the bill had little chance of passing from the outset. Moreover, Couzen’s initiative was doomed to failure since it came at a time when the U.S. Congress was incapable of taking action. The sitting president, Herbert Hoover, had suffered a disastrous defeat in the election of November 8, 1932, and his successor, Roosevelt, would not take over the reins of government until the following March. All larger reform proposals that fell within this lame-duck period thus had very little chance of being carried out. Still, Couzen’s bill was important for the history of the CCC, because it envisaged the participation of the army. Nevertheless, in 1933 the United States had no meaningful preliminary efforts toward a labor service to fall back on, either on a conceptual or a practical level – leaving aside plans that were rather loosely related to the labor service idea, such as those from the first years after World War I about settling soldiers on homesteads.54 Germany, by contrast, had not only discussed the topic intensively by 1933 but also had experience in creating such an organization, namely the FAD. Since the FAD was the most important precursor to the National Socialist Labor Service, it deserves a closer look. Special attention will be given to the attitude of the NSDAP toward the FAD prior to 1933, as it was of central importance for the organization’s subsequent development during the years of National Socialist rule.

1.3. THE PRECURSOR IN GERMANY: THE FAD FROM 1931 TO 1933 AND THE INVOLVEMENT OF THE NSDAP Compared to the United States, Germany saw far more proposals and initiatives that both called for and laid the groundwork for a state-run labor service. Apart from Aumann’s Free Corps of Labor or the labor camps of the 53

54

Maher, Trees, 27–77; U. Sautter, “Government and Unemployment: The Use of Public Works before the New Deal,” Journal of American History 73 (1986): 59–86; B. Bellush, Franklin D. Roosevelt as Governor of New York (New York, 1955), 125–49. See, e.g., Saalberg, “Roosevelt,” 6f.

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Schlesische Jungmannschaft, one could mention a long list of similar projects that make up the prehistory of this type of state-run organization.55 With the onset of the economic crisis, it was the anti-republican right wing of the political spectrum in particular that demanded a labor service in the form of labor conscription. While all previous Reich governments had been able to rebuff these initiatives and proposals, Reich Chancellor ¨ Bruning and his cabinet found themselves compelled, in the face of the Depression, to make substantial concessions. The foundation for the FAD was laid by the Second Decree of the Reich President for Securing the Economy and Finances, issued on June 5, 1931. Already in January of that year, at a conference in the Reich Ministry of Labor, the government and the large economic organizations spoke out against compulsory labor service. However, in response to growing public pressure, an expert commission – the so-called Braun Commission – was set up to examine the question. The ¨ commission echoed Bruning’s stance in recommending against labor conscription, but it did advocate a voluntary service for the unemployed. This was a well-calibrated concession to the political right; one explanation for this was the NSDAP’s landslide victory in the election of September 1930. In that election, the Nazi party rose from parliamentary obscurity to become the second-largest party in Germany. Not least because the Nazis favored ¨ labor conscription, it now seemed unwise to Bruning to cling to his strict opposition.56 The emergency decree issued in June stipulated that an additional paragraph be inserted into the Law on Job Placement and Unemployment Insurance. In broad outlines, the new regulation captured some of the guiding ideas for the establishment, use, and legal status of the voluntary labor service that was to be created. Whereas the Reich Minister of Labor was to issue the implementation regulations, the RfAVAV was charged with providing financial support for the institution and overseeing its practical setup. Participation in the program was open only to those who were receiving proper unemployment insurance and emergency relief: this excluded the vast majority of the long-term unemployed, who received funds through welfare support or nothing at all, as well as all gainfully employed persons. The service did not establish a work relationship as defined in labor law. In formal terms there was no age limit, although the program was aimed primarily at unemployed youth. Moreover, only “supplementary projects for the common good” were deemed worthy of support. As concrete activities, the law mentioned soil improvement, small traffic projects, and the like. The nature of the projects 55

56

¨ See esp. Kohler, Arbeitsdienst; Dudek, Erziehung. See also Hartmut Heyck, “Labour Services in the Weimar Republic and Their Ideological Godparents,” Journal of Contemporary History 38 (2003): 221–36. ¨ Kohler, Arbeitsdienst, 71–80, 87–98.

1.3. Precursor in Germany: The FAD

43

was supposed to ensure that society as a whole benefited from the labor service. This was productive welfare for the unemployed, since no additional funds were approved. For those it supported, the RfAVAV now funded a labor service instead of unemployment relief. Construction work was not ¨ planned and organized by the state, but by the so-called Trager der Arbeit (work sponsors): public corporations as well as all manner of organizations and foundations qualified as sponsors. Only private-sector business was initially excluded.57 Several regulations that were passed a short time later made it clear that the sponsors of the work, who were responsible for the labor at the construction ¨ sites, were to be joined by “sponsors of the service” (Trager des Dienstes). Once again, the state did not take on this task but delegated it. “Associations and federations” were to bring groups of men together in camps.58 In this way, mass organizations and churches, clubs and parties could participate institutionally in the FAD as long as they did not misuse it for anti-state activities.59 This setup was an attempt by the government to call a labor service into being by expending the lowest possible effort. Apart from financing, it was society more than the state that sponsored the institution. The shape the institution would assume and the weight it would carry depended essentially on the social forces that would become involved and the extent of their commitment. The framework was based on confidence in a flexible market mechanism with few state prescriptions and on a decentralized organizational structure; in the final analysis, it rested on supply and demand. For in principle, the unemployed who were supported by the Reich could also choose between idleness and the FAD, since access to the program was entirely voluntary. Participants could leave at any time: they were not required to explain their decision and had no reason to fear negative repercussions. In the form it took in 1931, what made the FAD attractive to the unemployed was not its material incentives, but merely the fact that it offered them work. On the whole, one could sum up the character of the Labor Service between 1931 and 1933 in a paradox: it was a measure of state intervention with a basic liberal, free-market structure.60 The law also stipulated that participation in the service was limited to twenty weeks. As for financing, two models existed: either the RfAVAV paid the unemployed worker, during this time in the service, the amount of relief he had received previously, or two Reichsmark were paid per man per day, which was a marginal improvement over the payment under the first model.61 57 60 61

58 RABl., 180. 59 RGBl., 398. RGBl. 1931, I, 295. RABl., 180–3; L. v. Funcke, “Freiwilliger Arbeitsdienst,” Reichsarbeitsblatt, Teil II (1932): 126–9. RGBl. 1931, I, 398–402.

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Further, the move to embed the FAD within the system of unemployment ¨ relief reveals that the Bruning government advocated – among the various types of labor service outlined previously – essentially a sociopedagogical approach. The Labor Service was meant to provide targeted help for the unemployed who were already drawing government support and to combat the psychological consequences of idleness and its deleterious effects on the work ethic. Voluntary participants therefore had to be let go from the service ¨ once they found regular employment.62 If Chancellor Bruning was indeed inspired by the democratic-communitarian work camps of Moltke, Rosenstock, and others, as he claimed after the war, that inspiration was barely visible in the FAD. By contrast, various Protestant jobless initiatives of a socially conservative nature provided a model of sorts.63 In fact, the chan¨ cellor sought to restrict workers’ rights through the FAD. Bruning’s attitude toward the Labor Service thus fit into his policy of dismantling the social system, as a means, through deflation, to overcome the economic crisis.64 ¨ At the same time, by opting for a sociopedagogical approach, Bruning not only ignored the then dominant labor service ideas that were authoritarian¨ statist, revanchist-militaristic, and volkisch-nationalistic in nature; he also wanted to undermine them. However, the FAD also contained elements that reflected the interests of the nationalist right, since the projects were aimed at re-agrarianization, colonization of the East, and settlement. Under certain circumstances, volunteers who participated in settlement projects were even given loans to acquire a homestead. Although these “settlement credits” were not particularly attractive – the funding was paltry – they did establish a bridge to the nationalist camp. The government was not acting on the ¨ same nebulous, volkisch ideas as the principled opposition on the right, ¨ since Bruning saw settlement simply as a means to help the unemployed in a crisis; still, it was an opening to the nationalist opposition.65 Even though the Labor Service in 1931 was one of the few state offerings for the unemployed, it was slow to get off the ground. At the end of 1931, the organization comprised just under 7,000 individuals. The rate of growth was stronger in the months that followed, so that the service employed 97,000 volunteers by August 1932.66 A substantial boost came only with the reorganization undertaken by ¨ Bruning’s successor, Franz von Papen, on July 16, 1932. It opened the organization to all German men and women between the ages of eighteen 62 63

64 66

Ibid., 400. On the Protestant initiatives, see the findings of Illian in K. K. Patel and C. Illian, “Vom Freiwilligen Arbeitsdienst zur Arbeitsdienstpflicht. Eine Tagung zur Entwicklung des Ar¨ beitsdienstes (1918 bis 1945) vom 24. bis 25. November 2000 an der Ruhr-Universitat Bochum,” ZfG 49 (2001): 450. 65 Kohler, ¨ Winkler, Katastrophe, esp. 288–427. Arbeitsdienst, 99–113. ¨ die Funcke, “Freiwilliger Arbeitsdienst,” 128; F. Syrup, “Der freiwillige Arbeitsdienst fur ¨ mannliche deutsche Jugend,” Reichsarbeitsblatt, Teil II, 27 (1932): 382.

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and twenty-five. Although older workers were now excluded, access to the service was made easier. Shortly before this reorganization, the maximum participation time was doubled. Beginning in July 1932, time spent in the FAD was not counted against the period for which the unemployed received relief, which made the service much more attractive.67 Beyond its sociopedagogical dimension, the Labor Service now took on an economic one by offering an additional, material incentive to the unemployed. The reform proved sensible given the steady growth of the institution, as more and more unemployed accepted the service as an offer of help and wished to join. But the chief explanation for why access was made easier was the fact that unemployment continued to spread in 1932, with a strong increase especially in the number of those who were receiving communal welfare support. It had become untenable that this group of desperately needy individuals was excluded from the service.68 Papen’s decree cleared the way for a further institutionalization of the organization. Henceforth there was a Reich Commissioner for the Voluntary Labor Service. Friedrich Syrup, who, as president of the RfAVAV, had already been responsible for the FAD in that capacity, was appointed to the post. The focal points in the work of the Reich Commissioner were financial administration and the training of leaders.69 Analogous to the position ¨ of the president of the RfAVAV, the presidents of the Lander (state) labor offices and their subordinate officials were simultaneously put in charge of the FAD. This setup made sense for a variety of reasons, not least because Syrup, as president of the RfAVAV, had an interest in not allowing the Labor Service to compete with the private sector. After all, if such competition caused workers to lose their jobs, he would be responsible for them. Moreover, the reorganization showed once again the lean, thrifty, and restrained institutional framework of the organization.70 Papen’s decree of July 1932 also imparted an explicit sociopolitical dimension to the service. It stated that the FAD offered young Germans an opportunity “to perform voluntary, serious labor in a common service for the benefit of all, and at the same time to engage in physical and spiritualethical training.”71 This latter task was to be accomplished through recreational activities in the off-hours; organizing such activities was the job of the Reich Commissioner. In reality, given the vague formulation and scant resources, the commissioner had to leave this largely to the sponsors of the service, who in each instance implemented their own specific social ideas in the camps. Thus, the July decree led to few de facto changes, since in most cases the sponsors had already been using the spare time in this way. Hence, 67 68 69 71

RGBl. 1932, I, 251, 392. Ibid., 352f.; also RABl. 1932, I, 180–2; Funcke, “Freiwilliger Arbeitsdienst,” 361–5. 70 RGBl. 1932, I, 352f. ¨ RGBl. 1932, I, 392; Kohler, Arbeitsdienst, 125–9. Ibid., 352.

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what happened was not a change of course, but merely an added emphasis on an already existing dimension of the service.72 There was another way in which Papen’s decree represented a redefinition: ¨ all of Bruning’s plans to use the service even more intensively as an instrument for the accelerated dismantling of the social system were now shelved. Moreover, because Papen made participation easier, the organization grew substantially. Between the end of July and the end of September, the number of volunteers doubled to about 200,000. It peaked in November 1932 at 285,000, after which it declined to 177,000 participants by the end of January 1933. Although the Labor Service had no formal gender restrictions, it was targeted almost entirely at men. The proportion of women always remained low and rarely surpassed the 5 percent mark.73 Which groups and institutions became involved in the FAD as sponsors? During the first six months of its existence, gymnastics and sports clubs along with church and charitable (Caritas) associations with their youth organizations played a leading role. Together they sponsored about half of all work projects. These institutions, which were frequently active only on a local or regional scale and which for the most part took on narrowly defined projects like the construction of sports fields, point to the modest beginnings from which the service evolved. Another quarter of all measures were taken with public-law bodies such as local governments as the work sponsor as well as the sponsor of the service. Only the remaining quarter of work projects were sponsored by associations directly tied to ideological and political groups. Evidently the FAD initially held little attraction for these groups. Only after the Papen decree did the proportion of explicitly political sponsors increase substantially.74 Still, it was the political organizations that set the tone in the public discussion, whereas the denominational sponsors, for example, hardly participated at all in these debates. The Catholic and Protestant churches and their ancillary organizations rarely spoke out, since they supported the Labor Service in its existing form as a sociopedagogical offer of support. At the end of 1932 and the beginning of 1933, both churches organized 18,000 volunteers each – they were the largest sponsors of the service. At the same time, both churches were fundamentally opposed to compulsory labor service.75 Several associations from the political right were not much larger than the churches as participants in the service, but they were far more vocal in the debates. They all called for compulsory labor service and accepted 72 73 74 75

¨ Kohler, Arbeitsdienst, 119–24. See WIS 3 (1933): 180f.; on women in general, “Weiblicher Arbeitsdienst,” 332–9. Funcke, “Freiwilliger Arbeitsdienst,” 127, 364. ¨ Dudek, Erziehung, 196; Kohler, Arbeitsdienst, 155–9. This and all following figures on the number of volunteers organized by a sponsor are based on self-reported numbers or estimates.

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47

the FAD at most as a preliminary stage. One important right-wing sponsor was the Jungdeutscher Orden, which for many years prior to the creation of the FAD had taken an interest in labor service questions. This anti-Semitic group, with about 12,000 volunteers at the beginning of 1933, was one of the larger participants.76 Even more important was the Stahlhelm. This conservative paramilitary organization also saw the FAD as merely the precursor to a future compulsory labor service. Unlike the Jungdeutscher Orden, however, it demanded ¨ such a service less for volkisch reasons and more because it wanted to put an obligatory service to military use. At the end of 1932, the Stahlhelm organized 20,000 participants in its camps, not an inconsiderable number.77 By comparison, the National Socialists, another large sponsor, organized only a little over 10,000 volunteers at that time.78 Since the attitude of the NDSAP toward the FAD up to 1933 was complicated and changeable and is of particular importance for the period after the Machtergreifung, the Nazi seizure of power, I will discuss it separately later. The position of the workers’ movement was also complicated. Its social democratic wing initially assumed a skeptical stance toward the labor service. Everyone agreed that any form of compulsory service should be rejected. The left wing of the SPD was opposed to the FAD on principle. It saw the service, much as it did compulsory labor service and obligatory work, as a measure aimed at dismantling the social system, militarizing society, and introducing wage slavery. This criticism was not entirely unjustified, especially ¨ in the face of Bruning’s plans. In contrast, a portion of the intelligentsia on the party’s right wing took a different position. Confronted by the Great Depression, they made the pragmatic suggestion to accept the FAD in the interest of the unemployed and to become actively involved in shaping it. With the crisis growing worse by the day, this position met with an increasingly positive reception, even if the top echelons of the SPD and of the closely allied General Federation of German Trade Unions (Allgemeiner Deutscher Gewerkschaftsbund, ADGB) continued to maintain a wait-and-see position or to oppose the FAD. Initially it was the lower levels of ancillary organizations like the Workers’ Sports Clubs or the Reichsbanner that became active in the FAD as sponsors. In July 1932, the federal board of the ADGB picked up these initiatives. Together with other organizations of the democratic left, it set up the Reich Association for Social Service (Reichsarbeitsgemeinschaft Sozialer Dienst) as a sponsor for the Labor Service. The leadership of the SPD did not issue an official declaration on the FAD, which was more confusing than helpful for its subordinate organizations and members. On the whole, the FAD thus reflected the growing distance between the SPD and the ADGB as well as the 76 77

J. Hille, Mahraun. Der Pionier des Arbeitsdienstes (Leipzig, 1933). 78 Dudek, Erziehung, 196. ¨ Kohler, Arbeitsdienst, 151–5.

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unions’ move to the right, trends that characterized the end of the Weimar Republic in general. Still, the Reich Association for Social Service developed into a considerable force within the FAD. According to estimates, it was stronger than the Stahlhelm in terms of numbers at the end of 1932 and the beginning of 1933, organizing about 20,000 volunteers.79 By contrast, all the other political groups that sustained the Weimar Republic along with the moderate workers’ movement did not participate in the FAD in any meaningful way: just as they were powerless to influence the fate of the Weimar Republic in the final months, they exerted no influence on the Labor Service. The only large-scale social force that did not participate in the FAD was the Communists (KPD). Like the left wing of the SPD, they regarded the Labor Service as an instrument for capitalist exploitation and the militarization of the workers. But unlike the leftist Social Democrats, the KPD and its subordinate organizations were not content to engage in a battle of words.80 They tried to infiltrate and sabotage existing camps, and to incite protest and rebellion among discontented volunteers. The Communists had some success, although they were not able to threaten the institution in any fundamental way or exert any meaningful influence on its development.81 It was thus a broad spectrum of political groupings that participated in the FAD. The ideological groups primarily addressed their own members, though they also tried to recruit other unemployed into their camps and their political program. The Labor Service thus became a staging ground in the political battle for power at the end of the Weimar Republic. In this struggle, the Republic did not make use of the options it had to exclude its enemies from the institution – even though the FAD regulations themselves contained relevant stipulations. Instead, participating groups who were hostile to the Republic were given the opportunity within the framework of the FAD to organize, train, and indoctrinate their supporters with financial support from the state. The Weimar Republic, struggling for its very survival, thus supported its enemies. From the middle of 1932, the FAD was one of the few effective measures taken by the Reich to relieve social misery. Job-creation programs had not yet made much of an impact, and other initiatives to combat the economic crisis had had little success. Given its special role, it is not surprising that the Labor Service became the point of departure for another relief program. The Emergency Organization for German Youth (Notwerk der deutschen Jugend), created by Chancellor Schleicher at the end of 1932, was a stopgap measure for the unemployed, especially for those leaving the FAD who 79 80 81

¨ Kohler, Arbeitsdienst, 163–77; Winkler, Katastrophe, 315f., 461–71. Dudek, Erziehung, 225–31. ¨ BA/B, R 58/577, esp. Police president of Konigsberg to the state police office (Landespolizeiamt), November 12, 1932.

1.3. Precursor in Germany: The FAD

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had not found regular employment upon completing their service. The fact that the Notwerk picked up where the FAD left off exemplifies the special place the service now occupied among the measures to combat the crisis.82 At the same time, the FAD became the object of ambitious plans, farreaching speculation, and rival visions. It was now frequently seen as a sociopolitical instrument for creating a Volksgemeinschaft – a term used in the Weimar Republic by the most diverse political groups and interpreted ¨ in different ways, sometimes in volkisch-racist terms, sometimes in religious terms, sometimes in democratic terms. In particular, the demands by the political right for the introduction of an obligatory labor service began to carry greater weight. But it was not only the fundamental political opposition from the right that attached ever more sweeping ideas to the Labor Service in the second half of 1932; the government itself did much the same. Building on the experiences and ideas of students, the notion that this group should be targeted for inclusion in the FAD gained prominence in 1932. At the end of August, Chancellor Papen spoke out in favor of a “work year” (Werkjahr), an idea intended chiefly to combat the crisis of overcrowding at the universities. However, he was not able to get his idea implemented. At the end of 1932 and the beginning of 1933, Schleicher’s cabinet eventually decided to create a similar program for students on a voluntary basis.83 These developments point to the dimension of the training of young people, a goal the FAD was now frequently intended to serve. In October 1932, for example, Schleicher, at the time still Reich Minister of Defense, proposed to Chancellor Papen a reorganization of military training that included the FAD. According to his plan, the labor service was to be integrated into measures aimed at premilitary training, with the creation of a militia as its final goal. To that end, the FAD was to work with the Reich Curatory for ¨ Jugendertuchtigung) ¨ Youth Training (Reichskuratorium fur that had been set up in September 1932. The Reich Curatory was based on long-range planning by the Reich Ministry of Defense and functioned as an umbrella organization for the promotion of military drills for youth. The FAD was now given the task of acting as a transmission agent: its leaders were to be trained in short courses by the Reich Curatory to function as multipliers, after which they could carry their knowledge into the Labor Service and pass it along to hundreds of thousands of young men within the framework of recreational activities. Thus, within a short period of time, a preliminary stage for a militia army could be put in place, at little cost and fairly inconspicuously.84 82 83 84

¨ Kohler, Arbeitsdienst, 210–12; Barkai, Nazi Economics, 159–72. ¨ See Kohler, Arbeitsdienst, 229–37, and Chapter 2 of this book. AdR, vol. 2, No. 173, 794–801.

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A Panacea for the Great Depression?

On the one hand, this plan, circumventing the Versailles Treaty, was supposed to increase the military readiness of the population; the revanchist and paramilitary program was not necessarily aimed at a future offensive war, but it was intended to return to a strengthened Germany the great power status it had lost in 1918. On the other hand, Schleicher was hoping to neutralize the political paramilitary organizations in this way. By integrating them into a state-organized program of youth training, they were to be depoliticized. This initiative thus fit into Schleicher’s strategy of consolidating the state across class lines and on a conservative-authoritarian basis.85 To be sure, only the preliminary stages of these plans could be implemented before power was handed over to the National Socialists. But it became clear very quickly that the hope of de-radicalizing the paramilitary organizations and party armies had been utterly na¨ıve. The training courses actually offered the paramilitary groups a chance to enhance their fighting power. At the same time, this initiative highlights the revanchist and militaristic dimension that was given to the Labor Service in the final months of the Weimar Republic. The last larger change to the FAD prior to Hitler’s coming to power was the consolidation of the sponsors into an umbrella organization in early January 1933. Yet the ideological and political differences of the various organizations were by no means bridged in the Reich Working Group of Sponsor As¨ ¨ sociations (Reichsarbeitsgemeinschaft der Diensttragerverb ande). Still, this further institutionalization of the FAD did create a solid basis for the service. At the same time, there was no change to the core principles of the FAD, such as the decentralized structure or the inclusion of a multitude of selfgoverning bodies according to the principle of supply and demand. All large sponsors became part of the Reich Working Group, with the exception of the National Socialists, who joined merely as observers. Nevertheless, Syrup’s ¨ deputy, Kalin, was hoping to tame the NSDAP via this umbrella organization and to prevent the political abuse of the FAD. That this hope was illusory would become clear after the takeover of power, though it also points in a fundamental way to the attitude of the National Socialists toward the labor service in the Weimar Republic. Because that attitude was so important for the period after 1933, I will examine it in more detail.86 The National Socialist position on the FAD is closely associated with the Konstantin Hierl. Hierl was born in 1875 in Parsberg in Upper Palatinate, son of a district court judge. Given his bourgeois background, his subsequent above-average military career was not a predetermined path. After 85

86

On the horizontal strategy, that is, the attempt to bring about political cooperation of ¨ the most diverse political groups, from sections of the NSDAP to the unions, see Kohler, Arbeitsdienst, 213–28. Ibid., 238–42.

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graduating from Gymnasium in 1893, Hierl became a corporal in the Bavarian army. Thanks to his outstanding performance, he was sent to the war college and later the staff college. Beginning in 1903, he served as a first lieutenant with the Bavarian General Staff. His transfer to the Great Prussian General Staff four years later marked another high point in an exceptional career. From 1911 to 1914, he taught military history at the staff college in Munich, a field in which he had gained the attention of the top brass with an essay as early as 1902. Hierl served in World War I as a major; among his assignments was that of chief of the general staff of the First Bavarian Reserve Corps. Still in 1918 he was transferred to the troops as a battalion commander, which was probably a punitive measure for private reasons. That Hierl set up his own Free Corps after Germany’s defeat was consistent with his career path to that point. In April 1919, he reclaimed Augsburg from the Spartacists. In political terms, Hierl, with his extreme nationalism and anti-Semitism, belonged ¨ to the volkisch right wing. However, at this time he had not yet chosen any particular party. Hierl managed to secure a position in the Reichswehr, where he worked as a liaison officer to the Reich government. In 1922, he was promoted to the rank of colonel and assigned to the Reich Ministry of Defense. At this time Hierl discovered the topic with which his name became chiefly associated later on: the Labor Service.87 He outlined his ideas in a 1923 memorandum to his superior, the Chief of the Army Command, Lieutenant-General Hans von Seeckt. The starting point of Hierl’s memorandum was the damage that the prohibition against military service in the Versailles Treaty had caused: young people in the city and the country were being “exposed to every kind of bad influence.” To counter this, one had to support the already existing efforts toward a replacement for compulsory military service by “introducing a legal, general obligatory labor service for a period of one year for all able-bodied, (for now) male Germans, to be served between the ages of 17 and 20.” The values the service was supposed to instill, according to Hierl, were “a sense of responsibility, performance of one’s duty, independent work, and collaboration” in small groups, which Hierl understood as “a model of the future German state.” “Strict military discipline and subordination” would secure the cohesion of the work camps, though they were to resemble “educational institutions,” not “prisons and internment camps.” The final goals lay in overcoming class barriers, Marxism, and parliamentarism. Moreover, the camps would provide “physical and moral training 87

¨ BA/B, R 3901/384; Kohler, Arbeitsdienst, 243f.; and the two hagiographies by Mallebrein, Konstantin Hierl, 13–37, and H. H. Freiherr von Grote und H. Erb, Konstantin Hierl. Der Mann und sein Werk (Berlin, 1934), 7–42; also K. Hierl, “Die Bedeutung des kriegs¨ geschichtlichen Studiums der Napoleonischen Epoche,” Militar-Wochenblatt – Beilage (1902): 193–213.

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for the tasks of the defender of the fatherland,” and, finally, develop “natural leaders.”88 The memorandum contained essential ideas that would later influence the National Socialist labor service program: in terms of organization the service was modeled after the military, in terms of content it was aimed at instilling discipline and civic duties. Moreover, Hierl advocated a stateorganized, universal compulsory service, which was to be achieved through a coup d’´etat by a “national dictator.” In his mind, this kind of service was an almost utopian project: the social crisis, which Hierl attributed to the disappearance of compulsory military service, was to be overcome in one stroke through participation in a labor service. However, this early blueprint by a professional officer left essential questions open; for example, in what areas would the service be active? One thing was clear, though: it was to be ¨ an instrument of volkisch social policy more than one of economic policy. Hierl’s monocausal analysis of the problem corresponded to his onedimensional search for a solution – and both were disconnected from reality. If one compares his plan with numerous similar proposals from the first years of the Weimar Republic, it becomes clear that it was in no way original. Still, Hierl probably did not simply copy others; rather, he put forth one of several proposals that arose relatively independently.89 Despite the points that were left unclear, Hierl had outlined the general direction he believed the compulsory labor service should take. His plan was ¨ of the volkisch-nationalistic type, but with statist and militaristic ideas added to the mix. The military dimension becomes clearer in the light of a tract Hierl had written earlier. There he had emphasized the importance of education for a future militia: a pedagogical program was indispensable to achieve a “strict manly discipline” in spite of the “sharply curtailed time of service.” Although Hierl did not elaborate on this notion in this memorandum, which was an important contribution to the debate over total war, it makes sense that this task would fall precisely to the labor service he proposed.90 In later writings, he explained that total war required the total mobilization of the economy, and once again it was only natural that he would think of the labor service as the instrument of such a policy.91 Hierl wrote his memorandum on the labor service with a clear goal in mind. It was addressed to Seeckt, in whom he saw the national dictator who would implement the program. In view of the special powers that Seeckt had been granted after the attempted Hitler putsch in November 1923, this was not unthinkable – except that Seeckt could not generate any enthusiasm 88 89 90 91

Reprinted in Hierl, Dienst, 180f., quotes 180f.; in manuscript form in IfZ, MA 734, Hierl Memorandum 1923. ¨ ¨ Kohler, Arbeitsdienst, 30–3; Seifert, Kulturarbeit, 62–4. Kohler, however, sees the ideological framework already present in the memorandum, and Seifert shares that view. K. Hierl, Der Weltkrieg in Umrissen, 4 parts (Charlottenburg, 1922–6), 95. Hierl, Schriften, vol. 1, 152f. (1929).

1.3. Precursor in Germany: The FAD

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for the task Hierl would have him take on. Hierl’s plan disappeared into a drawer, ignored. In addition to other disagreements, this was one reason why Hierl left the Reichswehr on September 30, 1924.92 His subsequent path did not lead Hierl directly to Hitler. Instead, having returned to Munich from Berlin, the fifty-year-old former officer joined ¨ ¨ the right-wing Deutschvolkischer Offiziersbund (German-Volkisch Officers’ League). There he met not only the National Socialist Gregor Strasser, but also someone who would be even more important to him for the moment: ¨ the former General Erich Ludendorff. When Ludendorff founded a volkischmystical organization in 1925, the Tannenberg-Bund, Hierl became its leader in southern Germany. However, he left that group again in November 1927 after some disagreements with Ludendorff’s second wife, Mathilde. Hierl was leaving a sinking ship, since the Tannenberg-Bund was degenerating steadily into a bizarre sect.93 A few months prior to his departure, Hierl had already initiated contact with Hitler.94 But the exchange of letters in 1927 was not the first link between the colonel and the private first class of World War I. Hierl himself maintained that he had corresponded with Hitler as early as 1920. He also claimed that he had attended the NSDAP’s first mass rally on February 24, 1920, and that the only reason he had not joined the party was because he was barred from doing so as an officer on active duty. These pieces of information should not necessarily be accepted as fact.95 We can note, however, that Hierl and Hitler were aware of each other from the beginning of the Weimar Republic, and that Hierl, by virtue of his standing as a distinguished World ¨ War I officer, a writer, and a politician of the volkisch camp, was not an unknown figure, at least in Munich. Hierl’s military writings at this time made him into one of the leading theorists of total war.96 At the same time, he had contact with Strasser and other important National Socialists. In 1918 and 1929, he gave lectures on military policy at the Wehrpolitische Vereinigung, the Defense Policy League ¨ founded by Rohm, and at these events he found in Hitler an attentive listener and eager participant in the discussions. In addition, Hierl was writing for the ¨ Volkischer Beobachter, the official paper of the NSDAP, as early as 1928.97 In the end it was Gregor Strasser who persuaded him to join the party. Hierl himself circulated the story that Hitler had called his becoming a member of 92 94 95 96

97

93 Ibid., 19–22, 53–8. Hierl, Dienst, 17–21. BA/BDC, PK, Hierl, Constantin [sic]; HRSA, Bd. II/1, no. 120, 298. Reprinted in Hierl, Schriften, vol. 1, 197 (1939); Hierl’s explanation is also challenged by Grote and Erb, Konstantin Hierl, 39–41. Hierl, Schriften, vol. 1, 141–76 (1929), 177–94 (1930); on this see L. Herbst, Der Totale Krieg und die Ordnung der Wirtschaft: Die Kriegswirtschaft im Spannungsfeld von Politik, Ideologie und Propaganda 1939–1945 (Stuttgart, 1982), 66. HRSA, vol. III/1, no. 67, p. 354; ibid., vol. III/1, no. 79, p. 385; vol. III/2, no. 102, p. 47; vol. II A, p. 139, note 12; TBJG, part 1, vol. 1, p. 406 (August 4, 1929); ibid., pp. 537f. (April 28, 1930).

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¨ the party on April 20, 1929, the Fuhrer’s fortieth birthday, his best birthday ¨ present.98 Thanks to his standing within Bavaria’s volkisch right wing, the new member was in fact an important gain for the party. There is little, however, to support the often-heard thesis that Hierl joined the party as early as 1927.99 Within the party, Hierl was given the task of developing and heading the Organizational Division II, which was primarily engaged in drawing up blueprints for the time after the Machtergreifung on questions pertaining to agriculture, military organization, and the labor service. Hierl did in fact spend his time pondering these issues.100 In 1930, he became a member of the Reichstag. More importantly, though, that same year he approached Hitler with the same question he had addressed to Seeckt seven years earlier. Once again Hierl came out in favor of a state-organized, universal compulsory labor service. As he saw it, the service should be justified not merely as a way of combating the problem of unemployment, but as a supplement to compulsory schooling and military service. At the same time, it was to strengthen the position of the state within society. Hierl now provided sharper contours to a few points he had barely elaborated in his memorandum. Thus, the service was to promote the “shifting of our population out of the cities and into the countryside,” since the present state of affairs brought with it disadvantages “in terms of race, the hygiene of the Volk, society, and cultural policy.” Within the framework of these goals, the labor service should engage in earthmoving work. The second sphere of tasks lay for Hierl in securing the basic food supply, which is why the organization should be used for soil improvement projects, so-called meliorations, and flood protection.101 On the whole, what he had in mind then were tasks that conformed to Nazi ideology: de-urbanization, re-agrarianization, and anti-Semitism were part ¨ of the ideological stock of the volkisch right wing, and National Socialism drew from it. This ideological conglomeration saw itself as the product of the lessons learned in World War I. The shortages in agricultural products, which had so dramatically exacerbated Germany’s situation at the time, were not to happen again; the program was called economic self-sufficiency, and 98 99

100

101

Hierl, Dienst, 62–7; also Schriften, vol. 1, 198 (1939). See most recently the contrary evidence in HRSA, e.g., vol. III/1, no. 120, p. 298, note 1. It is contradicted especially by the fact that Hierl declared prior to 1945 that he had joined the party in 1929. On questions of defense policy, see Hierl, Schriften, vol. 1, 122–31 (1929), 132–40 (1929), 177–94 (1930), 266–77 (1931), 141–76 (1929); HRSA, vol. IV/1, no. 30, p. 124; on the future structure of the state, see BA/B, NS 22/1069, Reich Organization Leadership NSDAP to Hierl, July 27, 1929; ibid., Hierl to Hitler, June 28, 1929; HRSA, vol. III/2, no. 86, pp. 408f., and Hierl, Schriften, vol. 1, 248–50 (1931), 281–7 (1932); ibid., vol. 1, 251–7 (1932), 288–91 (1932); HRSA, vol. III/3, no. 22, pp. 115–20. Hierl, Schriften, vol. 2, 14–16 (1930), quotes p. 15.

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the instrument of its realization was, in Hierl’s eyes, the labor service. At this time Hierl departed from the party’s dogma only by making the state, and not the Volk, the point of reference, but he would abandon his statism in short order.102 Hierl was able to win Hitler’s support for his plans – he had found his “national dictator.” Until that time the labor service had not played any substantial role within the NSDAP. A compulsory labor service appeared neither in the party program of 1920 nor in Hitler’s Mein Kampf. To be sure, in the mid-1920s, the party’s Reichstag group had advocated such a service and had proposed laws to that effect. A compulsory labor service appeared also in the Boxheim Documents, a collection of measures drafted by Werner Best and intended to take effect once the National Socialists came to power. Moreover, hints in that direction can be found also in the writings of the party ideologue Alfred Rosenberg. Compared to Hierl’s plans, however, all of these approaches had been superficial. Their primary purpose was political propaganda, and they were a normal element in the profile of a party on the extreme right wing.103 Still, a compulsory labor service was an element that could be added to the structure of National Socialist ideas. As a goal of the service, Hierl had outlined the overcoming of class barriers, and in Mein Kampf one could find an idea that provided a place where Hierl’s notion ¨ could connect. Hitler had written that the coming volkisch state would have to ensure that manual labor would once again be more highly esteemed, if necessary “by education extending over centuries.” Furthermore, the fact that Hitler regarded only labor targeted at the community as meaningful could be readily melded with Hierl’s ideas regarding a compulsory labor service.104 But there was another idea of Hitler’s with which Hierl’s concept was hardly compatible. In his unpublished “Second Book,” the future dictator argued that while the existence of a people was directly dependent on its agricultural productivity, soil improvement as a means of increasing production was not enough to secure self-sufficiency. Instead, there was only one way: “bloodshed” (Bluteinsatz), that is, war to expand “living space.”105 Hitler had already propounded this notion in even more radical terms in 102 103

104 105

¨ Kohler, Arbeitsdienst, 32f. ¨ On Best, see U. Herbert, Best: Biographische Studien uber Radikalismus, Weltanschauung und Vernunft, 1903–1989, 2nd ed. (Bonn, 1996), 112–19; also Stenographische Berichte und Anlagen zu den Stenographischen Berichten der Verhandlungen des Reichstags, vol. 384, 322A (Feb. 4, 1925); vol. 389, 5743A (Feb. 19, 1926); vol. 391, 7932 (Nov. 6, 1926); vol. 424, 1046f. (Feb. 5, 1929); Drucksachen der Stenographischen Berichte, vol. 406, no. 1840 (Feb. 9, 1926); vol. 410, no. 2618 (Nov. 5, 1926); vol. 432, no. 4681 (Nov. 6, 1928). Hitler, Mein Kampf, trans. R. Mannheim (Boston, 1943), 432–5, quote p. 433; on Mein Kampf see I. Kershaw, Hitler: 1889–1936. Hubris (London, 1998), 240–50. Hitler’s Secret Book, introd. by Telford Taylor, trans. Salvator Attanasio (New York, 1962), 13–24, 95–9, quote p. 15; for a different interpretation, see Seifert, Kulturarbeit, 59–61.

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Mein Kampf.106 That was why he was unlikely to take much interest in the practical work of a labor service. In fact, the most intense disagreements during the Nazi regime would occur in these areas in which Hitler’s and Hierl’s ideas diverged most dramatically. In intellectual terms, the basic conflict had thus already been planted in the 1920s in these divergent conceptions. By contrast, the ideology of the labor service fit well into a different context of Hitler’s thinking. In the “Second Book,” the future dictator declared that power was comprised not only of arms. Instead, it was the “will to selfpreservation” that was crucial.107 That will could be strengthened chiefly by the organization of the military. Since the Reich was barred from imposing compulsory military service, the idea of a compulsory labor service was bound to make sense to Hitler. On the whole, then, Hierl’s plan fit substantially, though not completely, into Hitler’s ideology.108 Hierl’s ideas could not be implemented at the time, since they were premised on the National Socialists attaining power. For the time being, everything remained in the planning stages. As early as 1931, that is, several months before the FAD was set up, Hitler decided that a commission should engage in a close, internal party examination of the issue.109 But it was not until November that Hierl established a section concerned with compulsory labor service. Thereafter he tried his best to restrict the ability of other party organizations to become active on this question independently of him.110 Hierl tapped Paul Schulz to head the section. The man he chose was known as “Feme Schulz”: Schulz, who had been an officer of the Black Reichswehr in 1922–3, had been sentenced to death in 1927 for the murder of a suspected traitor within the organization; his sentence was subsequently commuted to a prison term, and in 1930 he was pardoned. That same year he joined the NSDAP and soon rose to become one of Gregor Strasser’s closest confi¨ dants.111 As SA Chief Rohm described it, the new section had four tasks: to select suitable leaders and deputies for the labor service, which could only be set up once the party “takes over the government”; to train these leaders; to undertake practical experiments with camps within the framework of the FAD; and, finally, to disseminate the idea of a compulsory labor service. ¨ Rohm also noted that the “majority” of the leadership personnel was to be “drawn from the SA and the SS.” In so doing he not only supported the proposed labor service, but at the same time also tried to influence it.112

106 107 109 110 111 112

Hitler, Mein Kampf, 130–5; Kershaw, Nemesis, 188. 108 Herbst, Krieg, 76. Hitler’s Secret Book, 25. BA/BDC, O 262, Circular letter, Wagener, March 12, 1931. Ibid., Hierl to Feder and others, March 14, 1931; BA/B, NS 22/921, Heinrichsen to Hierl, November 23, 1931. See ibid., Reich Leadership of the NSDAP to all District (Gau) leaders, November 2, 1931; HRSA, vol. IV/2, no. 53, p. 167, note 4. ¨ BA/B, R 1501/26123, Circular letter, Rohm, December 31, 1931.

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¨ In June 1932, Hitler named Hierl the “Commissioner of the Fuhrer of the NSDAP for the Labor Service.” At the same time, Hierl relinquished his command of Organizational Section II. He had not been able to implement any larger organizational projects reforming the party structure during his tenure as section chief. According to Hitler, Hierl was relieved of his post at his own request – it is more likely, though, that the reshuffling was due to Hierl’s lack of success.113 In the area of the Labor Service, as well, Hierl limited himself essentially to strategic planning. But there was a dissenting group within the party. Schulz, Strasser, and others argued that the party should not wait any longer and should become involved in the FAD at once. As Schulz saw it, the labor service was to be two things: a welfare institution to look after needy party comrades, and a gathering place for a part of their army in the struggle against the Republic.114 In typological terms, this approach was also situated ¨ within the world of volkisch nationalism, though it placed greater emphasis than Hierl did on the paramilitary and economic dimensions. The few pragmatists who advocated this position were thus ready to make concessions ` vis-a-vis the ideal of the state-run, universal compulsory labor service. Hierl, the former officer of the general staff, disagreed, clinging to his categorical “all-or-nothing” stance.115 In a widely noted talk on May 23, 1932, at the former Prussian Herrenhaus (Upper Chamber), he brought together for the first time all the essential ideas of his concept. The Reich Labor Service that Hierl proposed was not to be a mere instrument of providing for the unemployed, like the FAD, but had to be bound to the ideological program that Hierl had developed during the previous years.116 In line with Hierl’s ideas, after 1930 the NSDAP drew up blueprints and detailed plans for the period after the party’s assumption of power. Helmut Stellrecht, for example, who had found his way into the labor service section of the party in the fall of 1931 through Schulz, made a name for himself with his book Der Deutsche Arbeitsdienst. Aufgaben, Organisation und Aufbau (The German Labor Service: Tasks, Organization, and Structure), completed at the end of 1932. His mania for planning went so far that he devised a food plan reckoned down to grams and pennies, and regulated even the number of kerchiefs and drinking cups.117 What strikes us as bizarre reveals the seriousness with which Hierl pursued his plan and the extent to which the National Socialists based their concept of the labor service on military

113 114 115 116 117

HRSA, vol. V/1, no. 85, p. 157. BA/B, NS 22/921, esp. Schulz to G. Strasser, November 21, 1931. Hierl, Schriften, vol. 2, 29–49 (1931–2). K. Hierl, Sinn und Gestaltung der Arbeitsdienstpflicht (Munich, 1932). See, e.g., BA/B, NS 22/921, 1, Circular letter from the section for compulsory labor service (Arbeitsdienstpflicht), January 21, 1932; H. Stellrecht, Der deutsche Arbeitsdienst. Aufgaben, Organisation, Aufbau, 5th ed. (Berlin, 1933).

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organization. In spite of producing a blueprint for the files, Stellrecht was a “Schulz man” more interested in practical participation in the FAD. As a result of Hierl’s influence, however, the NSDAP, compared to other groups, held back when it came to practical work in the FAD. Officially it did not act as a sponsor of the service. It only made clandestine use of a few cover organizations. But even the most important of these, the Association for the Retraining of Voluntary Workers (Verein zur Umschulung ¨ freiwilliger Arbeitskrafte, VzU), established by Schulz in Berlin in October 1931, led merely a shadowy existence. A few weeks later, the first National Socialist leadership training course was held in Tzschetzschnow on the Oder River. Some of the most important labor service leaders of the Nazi regime participated, including Will Decker, Hermann Kretzschmann, and Martin Eisenbeck. The first work camp was set up in January 1932 in Hammerstein – initially in cooperation with the Stahlhelm.118 That it was later hailed as the “founding site of the National Socialist Labor Service” therefore does not quite correspond to the facts.119 In 1932, the NSDAP also had the opportunity to become actively involved in the FAD on the state level along the lines of Hierl’s ideas. After a National Socialist state government had formed in Anhalt in May, the local party established a labor service that was not only supported but also organized by the state, although it comprised only 215 men. They were trained as ¨ leaders and deputy leaders in Schloß Groß-Kuhnau under the supervision of Otto Lancelle, a former major in World War I and recipient of the Pour le m´erite medal.120 In public statements, the National Socialists always denied that they were merely training followers, but that was indeed the case.121 Moreover, a book published in 1935 detailed that prior to 1933, “labor volunteers” in “scruffy old clothes” distinguished themselves as thugs for the NSDAP in meeting-hall brawls and other political clashes. The State Ministry in Anhalt even gave each leader a handgun – the Labor Service became a small, armed, regional party detachment in the civil war–like conflicts at the end of the Weimar Republic.122 Peter Dudek was therefore right to describe the labor service in Anhalt as the “pilot project for the later Reich Labor Service.”123 118 119

120

121 122

G. Hase, Der Werdegang des Arbeitsdienstes. Von der Erwerblosenhilfe zum Reichsarbeitsdienst, 2nd ed. (Leipzig, 1941), 38. J. Tsay, Der Reichsarbeitsdienst. Geschichte, Aufgabe, Organisation und Verwaltung ¨ die weibliche Jugend des deutschen Arbeitsdienstes einschließlich des Arbeitsdienstes fur ¨ (Wurzburg, 1940), 24; this notion also made its way into the scholarly literature after 1945; see most recently Seifert, Kulturarbeit, 67. BA/B, R 72/311, esp. Stahlhelm state office Anhalt to the federal office Berlin, June 30, 1932; Anhaltisches Staatsministerium: Der Anhaltische staatliche Arbeitsdienst 1932/33 (Dessau, 1935), 7–26. VB 11.8.1932; BA/B, R 72/311, Bock to federal office, June 28, 1932. 123 Dudek, Erziehung, 70. Anhaltisches Staatsministerium, 10.

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But state-run labor services were also set up in other German states where prior to 1933 the National Socialists participated in or made up the government. The projects in Saxony, Mecklenburg-Schwerin, and Thuringia were less successful compared to Anhalt, or they never made it into the implementation phase; in Oldenburg, similar to Anhalt, the NSDAP set up a small, brutal troop of thugs within the framework of the FAD.124 An internal party notice in February 1932, which contained essential points that would be articulated in Hierl’s talk that May, spoke of 85,000 leaders who would make up the core personnel in a compulsory labor service; applications could already be submitted at that time.125 In actuality, the party trained only a few hundred leaders prior to 1933. It also did not attempt to place large numbers of its supporters in the FAD.126 Given Hierl’s restraint at the time, the Stahlhelm’s concern that in the FAD it would be pushed “against the wall by the Nazis, following the pattern of other events,” was unfounded.127 However, Hierl, who – according to the Stahlhelm leader Duesterberg – acted “with the usual Hitlerian impudence,”128 was not able to maintain his rigid stance for long. For a variety of reasons, the National Socialists’ position began to change in the second half of 1932. For one, the FAD grew enormously, which meant that self-exclusion hurt the National Socialists above all. Given the mass unemployment in the country, many young men – including followers of Hitler – eagerly joined the FAD. Given the number of sponsors and the fact that the NSDAP did not play an active role, young National Socialists had to enroll in camps run by organizations with a different political ideology. Hierl saw in this – and rightly so – a danger that these men could be lured away from their own ideas. In late summer, Hierl therefore initiated a long overdue change in course. In October he called upon the Party District Officials (Gaubearbeiter) for the Labor Service “to establish the Voluntary Labor Service on such a broad basis that party comrades who wish to join the Voluntary Labor Service can find a place in an organization under National Socialist leadership.” Moreover, National Socialists who were already in the FAD under the leadership of other participating organizations should form “camp cells” that would capture the camps for the National Socialists.129 124

125 126 127 128 129

Schlicker, Freiwilliger Arbeitsdienst, 405–16; on Oldenburg, see L. Stokes, “Das olden¨ burgische Konzentrationslager in Eutin, Neukirchen und Nuchel 1933,” in W. Benz and B. Distel, eds., Terror ohne System. Die ersten Konzentrationslager im Nationalsozialismus 1933–1945 (Berlin, 2001), 190. ¨ den Arbeitsdienst (publ.), Information sheet for BA/B, R 72/321, Vorbereitungstelle fur applicants for the German Labor Service, February 28, 1932. BA/BDC, O 262, NSDAP Gaufachbearbeiter to all local groups, April 28, 1932. BA/B, R 72/320, State leadership Bavaria to federal office, December 3, 1931. ¨ T. Duesterberg, Der Stahlhelm und Hitler (Wolfenbuttel, 1949), 43. BA/BDC, O 262, Hierl to Gaubearbeiter for the Labor Service, October 5, 1932.

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A second reason for the Nazi party’s change of course was its disadvantageous position. Reich Commissioner Syrup was setting up leadership camps and planned to make participation in them a qualifying condition for the FAD’s leadership personnel. Unlike other organizations, the NSDAP provided very few men for the training courses, which put the party in danger of being pushed out of the FAD entirely.130 Third, the forces in the party who wanted involvement in the FAD became increasingly stronger, and Hierl’s course of training leaders for the future was a potentially explosive one. For now these leaders had no prospects, and it would remain that way until the NSDAP took power, or the party was willing to participate in the FAD.131 Beginning in late summer 1932, the NSDAP became more actively involved in the FAD. At the same time, Stellrecht brought together the various National Socialists’ labor service initiatives, which had previously coexisted without coordination and even competed with each other, under one roof in the Reich League of German Labor Service Associations (Reichsverband Deutscher Arbeitsdienstvereine). In addition, the party sought greater contact with other organizations and with the state agencies involved in the FAD. Yet its commitment came too late for the party to be among the more important sponsors by January 1933 – in the “militant Gau” (Kampfgau) of Halle-Merseburg, for example, it organized merely 317 volunteers at the beginning of 1933, and the “pilot project” in Anhalt also comprised only a few hundred men. Thus, the weekly Der Stahlhelm was able to report at the end of February 1933 that the association of war veterans organized twice as many volunteers in the Labor Service as the NSDAP.132 It is likely that sections of the SA, whose base was to a significant extent unemployed young men, also advocated the pragmatic course. The coordi¨ nation between Hierl and Rohm, for which this decision could have provided a good foundation, was not very successful in practice. In the final analy¨ sis, Rohm saw a separate party labor service as a competitor.133 Substantive disagreements were joined by reservations of a personal nature. Hierl had ¨ been put off by the SA’s “rowdiness” even prior to 1929, and when Rohm’s homosexuality was openly discussed in 1932, he had recommended to Hitler ¨ that Rohm be removed from the SA leadership.134 Still, in spite of these tensions a compromise was found as late as January 1933. Hierl had overall responsibility for the Labor Service, though the SA units were to be kept together in the labor service under the supervision of their own leaders. In the 130 131 132 133 134

BA/B, NS 22/921, Stellrecht draft. The text is dated to October 1936, but is from 1932. On the Stellrecht initiative see IfZ, Zs 1906, Stellrecht draft, 1966. Anhaltisches Staatsministerium 1935, 11; STH, February 26, 1933. Benz, “Arbeitsdienst,” 331. Hierl, Dienst, 63, 133f.; P. Longerich, Die braunen Bataillone. Geschichte der SA (Munich, 1989), 148.

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other National Socialist camps as well, SA leaders should be given preference, all other qualifications being equal.135 Apart from the debate over the correct strategy on the road toward a labor service, we see here a second ¨ dimension of conflict within the party: the struggle between Hierl and Rohm over power within the Labor Service. With the change of course in the summer of 1932, Hierl switched to the pragmatic line. Still, in the eyes of many he continued to stand for the program of “all or nothing.” We can see this from an assessment by the Stahlhelm in August 1932: “The views of first lieutenant Schulz from the Reich leadership of the NSDAP regarding the F.A.D. overlap with the intentions of the Stahlhelm. From this side, as from the side of the top leadership of the Nazis in general, Hierl is regarded as the obstacle to an understanding with the Stahlhelm.”136 In fact, the pragmatists in the NSDAP and the Stahlhelm had much in common in the summer of 1932. The latter also saw a compulsory labor service as the final goal, it understood the military potential of such a service, and it regarded such a service as an instrument for class harmony and authoritarian education. The Stahlhelm thus also advocated a concept that com¨ bined volkisch-nationalistic, authoritarian-statist, and revanchist-militaristic elements; it was only to this last dimension that the paramilitary group accorded somewhat more weight than did the Nazis. While the final goals were much like Hierl’s, the Stahlhelm proved to be as flexible as the pragmatists in the NSDAP: “For the Stahlhelm, the final goal is a compulsory labor service, a voluntary labor service the best path.”137 The rapprochement between flexible National Socialists and the Stahlhelm was not merely an effort to isolate Hierl, it was a veritable rebellion. In June 1932, Heinrich Mahnken, the head of the Stahlhelm’s Federal Office for Labor Service, had already stated that his own organization should under no circumstances allow itself to be associated with “Hierl’s completely impossible project.” According to Mahnken, there was opposition to Hierl also within the NSDAP, and the names he mentioned were once again Schulz and Strasser. This was a plot against Hierl, since Mahnken had already come to an understanding with both men regarding the further development and expansion of the service. He believed that Strasser and Schulz had nearly prevailed over Hierl, the sole remaining problem in his eyes being “the fact that it was so difficult to take the labor service assignment away from Hierl because no other section of the party would have him.”138 135 136 137 138

¨ BA/BDC, O 262, Rohm, Agreement on cooperation between the Organization for Labor Service and the SA, January 12, 1933. BA/B, R 72/311, Report on the meeting of the members of the federal office for the labor service with the federal office [of the Stahlhelm], August 5, 1932. Ibid.; see also BA/B, R 72/312, Mahnken to Wagner, June 2, 1932. BA/B, R 72/312, Mahnken to lieutenant colonel [Duesterberg], June 21, 1932.

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Against the backdrop of this power struggle, it is surprising that Hierl survived the summer of 1932 politically. Given the broad latitude that the FAD offered participating organizations, his dogmatic position hurt the party. It missed the opportunity to provide for unemployed supporters, to win new followers through a participating organization of its own, and to give the young men political and paramilitary training while at the same time developing competent leaders. Unlike Hierl with his dogmatism, Strasser, Schulz, Stellrecht and others had a sense for what was doable. But on June 9, while the intrigue was still in full swing, Schulz was removed from the Labor Service section. That same day, Hierl relinquished his post as head of Organizational Section II and focused henceforth completely on the Labor Service – an indication, already, of his victory. Our sources do not reveal the reasons why Hierl, in spite of everything, managed to hold on. It was undoubtedly important that he switched over to the pragmatic course in the nick of time. Another reason takes us into the sphere of justifiable speculation. Hierl’s stance opened a gap between him and some of his earlier friends in the party, especially Gregor Strasser. The second half of 1932 saw a crisis erupt in the relationship between Hitler and Strasser, one that corresponded in a larger sense to the disagreement over the labor service. While Hitler was uncompromisingly demanding the office of the chancellor, the more pragmatic Strasser was willing, at the end of 1932, to cooperate with the moderate forces of the political right. As in the case of the labor service, it was not a question of final goals but of the best way to attain them; in each case we are dealing with a dispute between dogmatics and pragmatists. When Strasser stepped down from all his party offices on December 8, 1932, it spelled victory for Hitler and his course.139 By keeping Hierl, he was perhaps sticking with a man who advocated a similarly uncompromising line. More important still than the substantive questions was the fact that Hierl stood by Hitler during this party crisis.140 In any case, as a result of Hitler’s victory, Hierl got rid of his erstwhile opponents. Once the dust had settled, Strasser became inconsequential, and Schulz left not only the labor service but, in December 1932, the NSDAP as well. According to Goebbels, next to Strasser, Schulz was the target of the “displeasure and outrage of the entire ¨ party leadership.”141 Strasser was killed during the Rohm purge in 1934, and Schulz barely escaped the same fate; we are no longer able to clarify Hierl’s role in all of this.142 Hierl’s victory in the internal party power struggle was made clear by Hitler on January 2, 1933, when he affirmed that the “handling of all matters of the 139 140 141 142

On the conflict between Hitler and Strasser, see Winkler, Katastrophe, 816f. See, e.g., HRSA, vol. V/1, no. 166, 299, note 2. UuF, vol. 8, no. 1919, 707f., quote p. 707f. See HRSA, vol. IV/2, no. 53, 167, note 4; Longerich, Bataillone, 218; UuF, vol. 10, no. 2379, 179–81.

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labor service for the party” was the exclusive preserve of “my Commissioner for the Labor Service” – by which he meant none other than Hierl.143 With Hierl in charge of the labor service for the NSDAP on the eve of the party’s takeover of power, the real problems were just about to begin, since the National Socialists were now forced to work with the Stahlhelm. Only now would the decision be made what the service would look like in the Third Reich. 143

HRSA, vol V/2, no. 111, 315f.

2 Service to the Community The Organization of the Labor Services In 1933, both the National Socialist regime and the New Deal saw a labor service as a partial answer to the worldwide economic crisis. The Nazis therefore did not dissolve the FAD, which had been established in 1931, but rebuilt it according to their own ideas. The development was more dramatic in the United States, where with breathtaking speed the newly elected president created the Civilian Conservation Corps as one of his first measures. Although both institutions had a pedagogical mission, they were also intended to provide productive unemployment relief and thus shared essential characteristics with job-creation programs. As I will show in greater detail, in each case the service was part of a package of similar organizations devoted to combating mass unemployment. In what follows I will examine first the organizational development of the German Labor Service, with the analysis centering on the question of its workability and its place in the institutional structure of Nazi Germany. In addition, this chapter addresses the question of the services’ success as jobcreation measures. Finally, I will discuss the way in which Germany and the United States perceived each other and their respective labor services and, in turn, the influence of perception on the services. Three subsections that offer a longitudinal, chronological perspective are followed by a systematic cross-section that is again divided into three subsections. Here, I discuss the institutional structure before examining the access criteria of the German Labor Service, first in normative terms and then with respect to the practical repercussions. A condensed review of the organizational history of the CCC poses the same sequence of questions. A concluding comparative section summarizes the findings. 2.1. FALSE START INTO THE THIRD REICH: THE ORGANIZATION OF THE GERMAN LABOR SERVICE AT THE BEGINNING OF THE NATIONAL SOCIALIST REGIME 2.1.1. The Break with the Weimar Republic: The Gleichschaltung Phase Many years after the fact, Hierl wrote that he had heard about the Nazi Machtergreifung on January 30, 1933, on the radio.1 In his declaration of 1

Hierl, Dienst, 74; for a summary account of the organization’s history see K. K. Patel, “Der ¨ ¨ Manner ¨ ¨ des ‘Dritten Reiches,’” in Burokratien. Arbeitsdienst fur im Machtgefuge Initiative

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principles two days later, Hitler stated, among other things: “A compulsory labor service is one of the basic pillars of our program,” which even prompted the French ambassador in Berlin, Andr´e Franc¸ois-Poncet, to call this “la seule indication positive” of Hitler’s speech.2 Still, for Hierl the Third Reich began with a disappointment. At the meeting of ministers on February 2, 1933, Stahlhelm founder Franz Seldte, whom Hitler had appointed to the cabinet the previous day as Reich Labor Minister, announced that he wished to replace Syrup as the Reich Commissioner for the FAD.3 The reason was that the Labor Service was considered quite important. With the Reich Ministry of the Interior and the Prussian Ministry of the Interior having been handed over ¨ to the National Socialists Frick and Goring, respectively, the Stahlhelm was given control over an institution that was to be expanded into a paramilitary unit. The quasi-military use of the service was discussed at an interministerial meeting chaired by Seldte at the end of February 1933. The Reich Labor Minister declared that the organization would have to be “brought into an organic relationship with the other measures aimed at the military preparedness of the nation,” the final goal being the creation of a militia.4 Evidently this was one point on which Hitler and his conservative coalition partners agreed. There was no consensus, however, on the question of who should run the service. Following the meeting of February 2, Seldte’s appointment should have been merely a formality. On February 4, the Office of the Reich President accordingly sent Hindenburg’s signed appointment letter for Seldte to Hitler for his countersignature. What happened next was a constitutional “curiosity.”5 According to the Weimar Constitution, which was still in force, the chancellor’s countersignature was little more than a formal act, since the authority to appoint Reich officials lay with the Reich President. Hitler, however, delayed Seldte’s appointment by withholding his signature. As would become evident in the following weeks, Hitler used this veto, which had no basis in the constitution, as a bargaining chip in his negotiations with the Stahlhelm. A further delay was caused by the fact that Seldte and Reich Economics Minister Hugenberg disagreed for some time about the precise boundaries of their respective spheres of authority.6 And there was another reason why the question of power was still not resolved even after the decision had been

2

3 4 5

¨ zur Geschichte des Nationalsozialismus, vol. 17, ed. W. Gruner and und Effizienz. Beitrage A. Nolzen (Berlin, 2001), 51–79. UuF, vol. 9, no. 1970, 15–17, quote p. 16; Documents Diplomatiques Franc¸ais 1932–1939, publ. by the Commission de publication des documents relatifs aux origins de la guerre 1939– 45, 1re S´erie (1932–5), vol. 1.2 (Paris, 1967), no. 250, 432–8, quote p. 432. AdR, Part I, No. 9, p. 32. BA/B, R 3905/15, Minutes of the meeting on February 21, 1933. ¨ Kohler, Arbeitsdienst, 252.

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made regarding who should fill the post of Reich Commissioner. Since Seldte simultaneously held the office of Reich Labor Minister, the crucial question was who would actually run the service under him. The Stahlhelm promoted as its candidate Heinrich Mahnken, a secondary school teacher (Studienrat) from Hagen, leader of the Stahlhelm’s Landesverband (regional group) West March, and most recently head of the Stahlhelm’s Federal Office for the Labor Service – the top labor service man in its own ranks.7 The NSDAP, however, did not wish to hand over the service to its conservative coalition partner. Hitler’s candidate for the position under Seldte, Konstantin Hierl, was not a compromise offer. In this conflict, the questions concerning the concept of the service, on the one hand, and the issue of power, on the other, were inextricably intertwined, and they provide important insights into the debate over the Labor Service, the state of the coalition, and decision-making mechanisms in the first weeks of Nazi rule. Seldte and especially Mahnken did everything in their power to keep Hierl away from the Labor Service. In early February 1933, Seldte believed that he could fob Hierl off with the post of a ministerial director in one of the departments of his ministry, one that had nothing to do with the Labor Service.8 But the founder of the Stahlhelm was soon forced to realize that he had underestimated the National Socialists, as Hitler now played his bargaining chip. At the beginning of March, Mahnken was forced to note that a decision still had not been made.9 On substantive matters he and Hierl were as far apart as ever, since Hierl was calling for the introduction of a universal compulsory labor service by the winter of that year and laying claim to the post of state secretary under Reich Commissioner Seldte.10 In a written response, Mahnken called Hierl’s proposal “objectively infeasible,” and he pleaded once again for continuing the gradual steps toward a general service. As he saw it, a “Stahlhelm expert” had to fill the post of state secretary – and, of course, he had himself in mind.11 Mahnken marshaled his forces accordingly. On March 4, he met vice chancellor Franz von Papen to convince him that Hierl’s ideas were “untenable.” Stahlhelm leader Duesterberg had already tried to exert his influence in a similar direction. As a result, Mahnken, at least by his own estimation, won over the vice chancellor as an ally against Hierl.12 Moreover, Mahnken intended to undermine his opponent with official statements by the Reich Finance

6 8 9 10 11 12

7 Duesterberg, Stahlhelm, 43. AdR, Part I, No. 9, p. 32. AdR, Part I, No. 80, p. 278, note 10. ¨ BA/B, R 72/311, Mahnken to Landesverbande (state associations), March 2, 1933. AdR, Part I, No. 38, p. 140. BA/B, R 2/4538, Mahnken’s response to Hierl’s diktat, no date [beginning of March 1933]. BA/B, R 53/78, Duesterberg to Papen, March 2, 1933.

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Minister and by the previous Reich Commissioner for the FAD, Syrup.13 But Hierl also had a few cards up his sleeve. For one, Reich Defense Minister Blomberg thought that Hierl’s labor service plans were unobjectionable. Hierl’s ace, however, was that he still enjoyed Hitler’s undiminished confidence. The conflicts remained unresolved. The agitated atmosphere was even reflected publicly: the two parties clashed relentlessly in the daily press, a circumstance that exemplifies the relative openness of the situation and the fact that the regime had not yet established complete control over the media.14 On March 14, a decision was made in favor of the Stahlhelm. Hitler finally put his signature to Seldte’s appointment letter and at long last made him Reich Commissioner.15 The resolution, arrived at after yet another round of clashes, provided that Seldte would appoint Mahnken as the authorized deputy of the Reich Commissioner.16 As such, he continued for several weeks as the de facto head of the service, having been involved in its leadership since February. But Hierl, too, was integrated into the decisions – at least the evidence from those weeks shows nothing to the contrary.17 None of this, however, amounted to a final decision in terms of personnel. The weeks that followed saw several decrees concerning the structure of the Labor Service leadership, though none of them were implemented. Initially, the same fate befell the solution decided upon by the Reich cabinet on March 31. It called for Hierl to become state secretary of the Labor Service under Reich Commissioner Seldte. Mahnken and Georg Stratenwerth, who had already been working with the Reich Commissioner as an expert consultant since the beginning of the year, were to back him up as ministerial ¨ councilors (Ministerialrate). In this model, the National Socialist Hierl was bracketed by the Stahlhelm from the top and the bottom.18 Hierl did not actually assume his post until May 4, 1933. When he did, one of his first acts was to restructure the control of the service into a new leadership under the name of “Reich Administration” (Reichsleitung).19 Stratenwerth and Mahnken, meanwhile, left the Labor Service at around 13 14

15 16 17 18 19

¨ BA/B, R 72/313, Mahnken to national leader (Bundesfuhrer) of the Stahlhelm, March 5, 1933. See, e.g., VB, February 26–7, 1933. Remarkably restrained coverage by the official organ of the Stahlhelm, Der Stahlhelm; however, combative articles appeared elsewhere, e.g., BT, March 9, 1933. BA/B, R 43 II/516, esp. Meissner to Hitler, February 4, 1933. ¨ H. Mahnken, “Der kunftige Aufbau des Arbeitsdienstes,” Der Arbeitsdienst 3 (1933): 71; see also the clashes that same day in BA/B, R 43 II/516. ¨ See, for example, BA/B, R 2301/5645, e.g., Reich Commissioner of the FAD to Lander employment offices, April 1, 1933. AdR, Part I, No. 80, p. 278. BA/B, R 1501/25674, Reich Labor Ministry to the Reich ministers, April 27, 1933, and attachments; BA/B, R 3901/384, Appointment letter, May 4, 1933.

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the same time.20 We do not know what tasks Mahnken assumed after this. According to Duesterberg’s memoirs, he was later arrested by the Gestapo and barely escaped with his life – we cannot rule out the possibility that his position on the Labor Service was the reason for his run-in with the Gestapo and that Hierl was behind it.21 Hierl was thus able to resolve the personnel battles entirely in his favor, with Hitler’s confidence in the former career officer the decisive factor in determining the outcome of this power struggle. However, since the spheres of authority between Seldte and Hierl were not clearly demarcated even after Hierl’s appointment, further conflicts were inevitable. Hierl’s victory was crucially influenced by decisions made in the Reich cabinet. While the battle between the National Socialists and the Stahlhelm was raging, a cabinet meeting on April 4, 1933, dealt with the Labor Service. Hitler’s elaboration at this meeting would be of fundamental importance for the subsequent development of the service. He began by joining Krosigk and Reich Defense Minister Blomberg in arguing that “the beginning of the Labor Service must be set up as simply as possible.” Hitler decided that the proposed plan, which called for 375 million Reichsmark for 300,000 participants, had to be “very significantly reduced.” But when Reich Economics Minister Hugenberg called for orienting compulsory labor service toward the interests of business, and for making use of compulsory participation “to a limited extent in the beginning and later to an increasing extent,” Hitler rejected these ideas: The chancellor emphasized, in contrast, that one should not see the compulsory Labor Service primarily from an economic point of view. Rather, he saw in it chiefly an instrument that was superbly suited for the education of the national community . . . It should be the honor-bound duty of every German to undertake this service. From this crucible the German community will emerge.22

¨ The Fuhrer placed primary emphasis on the Volksgemeinschaft, which would be the product of the intensive contact between the various classes and social strata. Hitler believed, even more than Hierl did, that the economic significance of the service lay less in the actual work it would accomplish and more in the work ethic it instilled in its participants. His conception, which ¨ afforded primacy to education, was thus of the volkisch-nationalistic type, although he did give it an economic underpinning. But he did not accord the service any importance in terms of military policy; given the Stahlhelm’s fears of a National Socialist militia, it would have been imprudent to do so, in any case. That does not mean, however, that the National Socialists had in fact given up all their plans in this direction. 20 21

E. Lotter, “Der schwierige Weg zum Reichsarbeitsdienst – vom FAD-Gesetz 1931 bis zum Reichsparteitag 1934,” unpublished manuscript, 1997, 22. 22 AdR, Part I, No. 85, 286–9, quote pp. 288f. Duesterberg, Stahlhelm, 67.

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On May 1, Hitler repeated to the entire nation what he had said at the cabinet meeting. In his nationally broadcast Tempelhof speech, which was connected with the smashing of the unions, he promoted the service once again by voicing his pedagogical concerns.23 The final decision had now been ¨ made in favor of Hierl, who embodied the volkisch-pedagogical concept and who, a mere three days later, and probably against the background of these events, was elevated to the rank of state secretary. By contrast, the Stahlhelm was identified with a militaristic concept. Immediately following Hierl’s ap¨ pointment, the Volkische Beobachter printed a lengthy interview with the new state secretary.24 Here and in the weeks to follow, Hierl elaborated the plans for a labor service in greater detail. Hitler had spoken in vague terms on the Tempelhof field when he had said that the regime, “for the first time this year,” would “implement this great ethical idea that we connect with the Labor Service.”25 In turning Hitler’s statement into a clear plea for a compulsory Labor Service, Hierl was interpreting it to suit his own interests. Rather than actually invoking Hitler directly (which he couldn’t have done), Hierl ¨ used the supposed “will of the Fuhrer” as his argument.26 By October 1, as Hierl envisaged it, the FAD was to be rebuilt into a state labor service on a voluntary basis. Beginning in January 1934, 350,000 men should be in the labor service. Because of financial constraints, that number, as Hierl himself conceded, represented only half of the first obligatory age group. However, given that the length of service was six months, it would still be possible to make it compulsory for all male youths. His pronouncements, however, did not match the state of preliminary preparations on the cabinet level. Although the question of a compulsory labor service had already been discussed at the cabinet meeting on April 4, it had been set aside at the time in the face of the uncertainties concerning its financing.27 The Reich Ministry of Finance criticized the ambitious plans in even stronger terms than Hitler did. In fact, Hierl was asking for about 10 percent of the entire Reich budget and thus barely less than was available for the Reichswehr.28 The legal backing for the organization was equally contested. It took almost a month after Hierl, acting on his own, had informed the public about the detailed schedule for the introduction of a universal compulsory service 23 24 25 26

27 28

HSP, vol. I, 311–16 (1933). VB, May 5, 1933. HSP, vol. I, 315. ¨ On the “will of the Fuhrer” see P. Longerich, Propagandisten im Krieg: Die Presseabteilung ¨ des Auswartigen Amtes unter Ribbentrop (Munich, 1987), esp. 332–7; similarly Kershaw, Hitler: 1889–1936, esp. 527–31. AdR, Part I, No. 85, p. 289. BA/B, R 3905/210/1, esp. Note Reich Commissioner for work procurement, May 29, 1933; on the comparative figures see, e.g., StJB 1935, 423. The fact that additional, hidden expenses must be added to the military budget is less important for this question.

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before the Reich Labor Ministry sent out a relevant draft bill on June 2, 1933.29 But Krosigk raised a basic objection the very next day. Given the diplomatic difficulties that could arise from the introduction of a universal compulsory service, he argued that the development toward such an institution should be advanced inconspicuously. Because of this objection, the Reich Chancellery initially decided that the draft was not ready for submission to the cabinet; in the end it was discussed at the cabinet meeting on June 8, but no decision was made.30 It thus became increasingly clear that ¨ Hierl’s interpretation of the “will of the Fuhrer” was highly contested, and that a compulsory labor service was confronting massive resistance within the Nazi power elite. Still, the primary reason why a compulsory labor service was not introduced in 1933 was diplomatic. At the disarmament conference in Geneva, delegates were debating the size of the armed troops that the more important states would be allowed to maintain. The goal of the conference was international disarmament: to that end, the first step would be to define each country’s troop strength. Disagreements were triggered not least by organizations that could be counted as part of this troop strength because of their military character. In the debate over Germany’s army, the discussion also revolved around the Labor Service. France, in particular, was pursuing a tough line, arguing that no compulsory labor service should be introduced because such an institution would increase Germany’s armed forces.31 Germany was thus aware of the opposition arrayed against the planned compulsory labor service. Changes had already been made to the draft bill in June to give the service a more civilian face, and in Geneva, as well, Germany was emphasizing its supposedly peaceful intentions.32 The discussion in Geneva culminated in an exchange of views on June 10, 1933, and a decision two days later. The hard line of the French prevailed when Yugoslavia and the United States joined it: as a result, any kind of compulsory labor service was forbidden.33 This prohibition on June 12 had profound consequences for the German plans. This decision, though soon overshadowed by Germany’s withdrawal from the disarmament conference and the League of Nations on October 14, 1933, and largely and unjustifiably ignored by scholarship, put an end for the time being to plans for a compulsory labor service.

29 30 31 32 33

BA/B, R 3905/210/1, Reich Administration of the Labor Service to the state secretary of the Reich Chancellery and others, June 2, 1933. AdR, Part I, No. 155, pp. 545–7. Ibid., No. 157, pp. 554–9; also BA/B, R 43 I/534, 535, 536. BA/B, R 2301/5645, Protocol of negotiations, May 31, 1933; AdR, Part I, No. 157, 554–9; UuF, vol. 10, no. 2323, 36–8. BA/B, R 43 II//516, Nadolny to the Foreign Ministry, June 10, 1933; Hase, Werdegang, 9.

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As late as May 1932, Hierl had briskly declared that “no treaty obligation of any kind” prevented Germany from introducing a compulsory labor service.34 But after Geneva, Hitler chose not to risk any diplomatic complications over the Labor Service. At the cabinet meeting on June 16, he decided to postpone its introduction to April 1934, at the earliest.35 Hierl’s plan thus fell victim to the “effort to secure the domestic takeover of power in 1933/34.”36 To be sure, the introduction of a compulsory labor service was itself one element of the consolidation of power. But the relationship between domestic and foreign policy was dynamic, with mutual interdependencies: a particular course in foreign policy, born of domestic political priorities, could reverberate back upon domestic policy and block it. At the same time, it became clear that while Hierl in principle had Hitler on his side, his calculation of ¨ using the “will of the Fuhrer” had not worked out. The intervention by outside countries had a number of consequences for the Labor Service itself. First, it reinforced the pedagogical goal while downplaying its military purpose. Since 1930, Hierl’s thinking had been tending ¨ in an authoritarian-pedagogical and volkisch direction, and Hitler, too, defined the institution primarily through these goals. By contrast, the Stahlhelm stood more for the military concept, even if both alliance partners had pursued the expansion of the service into a paramilitary organization with equal vigor. Beginning in February 1933, the Labor Service, in cooperation with the Reich Curatory for Youth Training, had been conducting paramilitary exercises, including shooting practice.37 Hitler now suspended these activities out of diplomatic considerations. After the Geneva prohibition, it proved a fortunate circumstance for the regime that Hierl and his model had prevailed in the power struggle, for both were able to respond with some flexibility to the changed circumstances. Henceforth, the service also appeared in slightly altered form in public. The journal Deutscher Arbeitsdienst, for example, presented a seemingly civilian face in the succinct headline “Labor Service – Peace Service.”38 Moreover, a decree of August 3, which was also publicly disseminated, prohibited all weapons in the Labor Service camps.39 In the face of British inquiries and 34 35 36 37

38 39

Hierl, Sinn, 19. BA/B, R 2301/5638, Reich Commissioner of the FAD to the district administrations, July 21, 1933. ¨ K. D. Bracher, “Das Anfangsstadium der Hitlerschen Außenpolitik,” Vierteljahrshefte fur Zeitgeschichte 5 (1957): 74. BA/B, R 2391/5645, Reich Commissioner of the FAD to the district administrations, April 19, ¨ ¨ 1933; AdP, Part 1, No. 10050; J. Hurter, “‘Es herrschen Sitten und Gebrauche, genauso wie im ¨ 30-jahrigen Krieg.’ Das erste Jahr des deutsch-sowjetischen Krieges in Dokumenten des Gen¨ Zeitgeschichte 48 (2000): 340; D. Woodman, erals Gotthard Heinrici,” Vierteljahrshefte fur ¨ ¨ ¨ ed., Hitler treibt zum Krieg: Dokumentarische Enthullungen uber Hitlers Geheimrustungen (Paris, 1934), 250–78. Dt. AD 3 (1933), 263f.; see also VB, June 14, 1933. Published, e.g., in Dt. AD 3 (1933): 568.

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the demands for control mechanisms, these regulations were, from the perspective of the regime, not only sensible but also necessary.40 But that does not mean that the service did in fact become a civilian institution. Rather, it took on a different task within the context of war preparations, a fact scholarship until now has not made sufficiently clear. Henceforth, it was to create the economic and ideological preconditions for a military conflict: economic, in that the labor it undertook would serve to make Germany agriculturally self-sufficient; ideological, in that, as an instrument of socialization, it embodied military values and prepared the male population for war both physically and mentally. Both aspects will be examined in detail in the chapters on pedagogy and labor. All told, it was only at this point that the decision was made that the Labor Service would give priority ¨ to the volkisch-nationalistic educational concept and would not become primarily a paramilitary instrument of revanchism. Nevertheless, some camps – at least in the months immediately following the Geneva prohibition – continued to have military traits, although these were concealed from the public through strict control of the media.41 At the same time, the clear hierarchies and other military-like institutional characteristics remained in place. Foreign Minister Neurath, who had demanded that elements reminiscent of the military be abolished to protect the regime diplomatically, encountered an unmovable obstacle in Hierl, who continued to bank on preparations for the service’s military tasks.42 In abstract terms, the issue henceforth was no longer the possibility of waging war, but creating the conditions for that eventuality. Since Hitler knew that it would be several years before he could risk a war, the result was a paradoxical situation: the intervention of the victorious powers of the First World War was justified and led to a change in course. That change, however, was better suited than the previous labor service concept to meeting the needs of the regime at the time. After all, what Nazi Germany needed between 1933 and 1939 was not soldiers, but men who were working to prepare for war and who were at the same time being physically conditioned for military conflict. Beginning in the summer of 1933, the Labor Service made an even more important contribution to these goals than it had before. Moreover, the veto of the victorious powers consigned the service to an evolutionary path that ran counter to Hierl’s original intention. Even after Hitler’s change of course, he initially hoped that the repercussions for the service would be slight and, most of all, that his financial demands would be 40 41

42

For example, BA/B, R 43 I/534; British embassy to Hitler, December 20, 1933. See, e.g., the directive from the Reich Ministry of the Interior to the press not to publish such reports; IfZ, MA 260, Reich Ministry of the Interior to Reich Ministry for Public Enlightenment and Propaganda and others, August 7, 1933. BA/B, R 2/4519, esp. Foreign Ministry to Reich Labor Ministry, June 10, 1933.

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met. Hierl, however, was not successful on that front.43 Still, he was flexible enough that from then on he made the most of the pedagogical card that was inherent in his concept. Nevertheless, four and a half months after the Nazi seizure of power, the “New Germany” had suffered its first domestic setback on the issue of the Labor Service, since Hierl had been preparing the public for weeks for the introduction of a compulsory labor service. There were three primary reasons why the public forgave the regime this failure. First, the Labor Service was not at the top of the new regime’s agenda. Second, National Socialism did in fact achieve real and apparent victories in those areas in which it wanted to be measured, above all in the fight against unemployment. Third, Hierl and the Labor Service presented the public with a particular interpretation of their defeat. For one, they depicted themselves as innocent victims of French intrigues. The previously openly discussed plans to use the Labor Service to build up a militia were no longer mentioned. Instead, officials pointed only to the pedagogical and supposedly peaceful intent of the service.44 Furthermore, the German regime argued that others were doing much the same, noting that the United States was taking a road prohibited to Germany. Many German papers were explaining that a labor service was being set up on the other side of the Atlantic, and that it was even “very closely linked with the army.” According to these articles, the American service, the CCC, was much more militaristic than its German counterpart, and the Geneva prohibition was therefore addressed to the wrong party.45 The parallels between all these newspaper articles suggest that they were written at the instruction of the Propaganda Ministry.46 Although the National Socialist view of the American service was tendentious, it revolved around a core of truth. In Geneva, Roosevelt had indeed put himself in the precarious position of voting against the German compulsory labor service for reasons of disarmament, while at the same time setting up a labor service back home in close association with the military. As we shall see, however, that did not mean that the American service pursued specifically military goals – something the German press failed to mention, of course. Moreover, it also tried to conceal the fact that the United States, unlike Germany, neither had nor wished to have a compulsory labor service. All in all, though, reference to the American institution did not lead the media to openly reproach the United States; instead, it directed its accusations at France. One article in the Berliner Tageblatt noted that France, in pursuing its line, had hardly “made any friends” in the United States, since the American president was pursuing the establishment 43 44 45 46

BA/B, R 2301/5638, Note Lange, June 30, 1933. VB, June 14, 1933; see also DT 156a, July 6, 1933; BBZ, June 13, 1933. Dt. AD 3 (1933), 263f., quote p. 264. No such regulation is documented in the Nazi regime’s directives to the press, although they have not been preserved in their entirety.

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of a labor service “with such vigor.”47 The reason the United States was not attacked directly, even though it had also voted for the prohibition of compulsory service in Geneva, had to do with the positive image of America in Germany at the time. In general, the Nazi regime highlighted the similarities between its policies and those of the American government, a move in which the Nazi sense of mission was thereby paired with an effort to prove the correctness of its own policies.48 The decidedly propagandistic function of the reporting is evident from the fact that the German opinion-making elites had a different view of the CCC from the one they articulated publicly. In internal reports, for example those of the German military attach´e in Washington, we find a much more nuanced picture of the CCC.49 These kinds of interpretations, however, did not make it into the public arena. Thus, it becomes quite clear what the intent was behind the image of the CCC that was disseminated in Germany: in the final analysis, it was above all meant to legitimize the German service. In spite of the problems created by the veto in Geneva and by the clashes over personnel appointments and conceptual disagreements, the “coordination” of the service had already been proceeding on several levels. At the end of March 1933, the existing district commissioners of the FAD, a post to which the presidents of the state employment offices had been appointed during the Weimar Republic, were replaced. However, not only were the old officials ousted, the authority they exercised was changed. Instead of a district commissioner and his deputy, there would now be a district leader and a district commissioner, with the former responsible for leading the Labor Service units and the latter in charge of the administration. The successors to the previous district commissioners were drawn from the Reichswehr, but especially from the Stahlhelm and the NSDAP, with personnel discussions an important point of contention between the two allies. Initially, Mahnken was quite satisfied with the outcome of the negotiations. As far as we can reconstruct it, of the thirteen district leader posts, three went to generals of the Reichswehr, the remaining ten were divided equally between the Stahlhelm and the NSDAP. The fact that the districts of East Prussia, Silesia, and Middle Germany, which were important to border security, would be headed by generals reveals once more how closely the Labor Service was interwoven with military considerations. Among the administrative jobs, the Stahlhelm even had a clear majority.50 47 48

49 50

BT, June 18, 1933. K. K. Patel, “Amerika als Argument. Die Wahrnehmungen des New Deal am Anfang des ‘Dritten Reiches,’” Amerikastudien 45 (2000): 349–72; Ph. Gassert, Amerika im Dritten Reich. Propaganda und Volksmeinung 1933–1945 (Stuttgart, 1997), 183–246. BA/B, R 2/4522, Boetticher to Reich Ministry of War, February 6, 1934. ¨ BA/B, R 72/313, esp. Mahnken to Landesverbande, March 25, 1933.

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In addition, the service was now partially disconnected from the RfAVAV. The labor offices, which had been in charge of selecting the young men, continued to be under the authority of the district commissioners in this regard. This meant, however, that they were now serving two masters – the president of the RfAVAV and the Reich Commissioner.51 That situation did not change until December 1933, when separate registration offices were established to recruit volunteers for the service. Shortly before the Geneva conference prohibited compulsory labor services, the Reich administration of the Labor Service undertook yet another reform. The thirteen districts, based on the state labor offices,52 were transformed into 30 Labor Districts (Arbeitsgaue) by September 1, 1933. In keeping with the new organization, the posts of “Labor District Leaders” had to be filled. If one compares the men who were appointed effective October 15 with the district leaders and district commissioners of March 1933, the changes that had taken place are readily apparent. It is not possible to trace these changes in every detail, since the surviving lists contain some inaccuracies. Although the number of posts more than doubled, among the district leaders not one of the three Reichswehr generals was retained, only one of the Stahlhelm leaders, but all of the National Socialists. And the National Socialists strengthened their position even more among the deputy labor district leaders.53 Substantial changes occurred in yet another area before the power struggle came to an end. The National Socialists and the Stahlhelm agreed that the number of organizations serving as sponsors of the service and their authority should be limited in favor of a more streamlined structure. As a result, the process of “coordinating” the Labor Service was set in motion. To be sure, the Stahlhelm did not stand for the violence with which the National Socialists initiated and carried out the process of “coordination.” Moreover, it would have most likely retained participating organizations of a similar political bent. Still, it too did not tolerate camps run by the political left. Overall there were various forms of “coordination.” Violent actions against camps run by others increased in frequency after March 1933. The SA auxiliary police (SA-Hilfspolizei) in particular carried out many of these actions, while in numerous other cases it was the driving force behind them. Social Democratic installations were not the sole target of this campaign; Protestant organizations also suffered, for instance.54 Still, the result of such 51 52 53

54

Ibid., esp. Mahnken to district leaders and commissioners, March 31, 1933; BA/B, R 2301/5645. Bavaria was divided in early summer 1933, which meant that for a brief period there were 14 districts. On the district administrations see BA/B, R 72/313, Listing, no date, fol. 101f.; largely identical is the list in Dt. AD 3 (1933), 152. On the Labor District leaders see BA/B, R 2301//5638, esp. Reich Commissioner of the FAD to Labor District leaders, October 5, 1933. BA/F, MFB 1/WF-10/22628, Report by Captain Geist, May 12, 1933.

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attacks was not necessarily that a participating organization suspended its activities entirely or at a particular location. The situation was very different when camps were occupied. At the end of April, for example, Cardinal Faulhaber complained to Hitler that several camps of the Catholic Reich Charity had been “occupied by the NSDAP.”55 Shortly before that, the chairman of the Conference of Bishops in Fulda, Archbishop Adolf Bertram, had already approached Seldte. He, too, had explained that the NSDAP had by now taken control of all camps in Bavaria, but none so far in Westphalia.56 However, it was not only the SA that occupied camps; the SS did the same. In Anhalt, for example, the National Socialist Labor Service sponsor got involved: twenty-five young men from ¨ the leadership school in Groß-Kuhnau, accompanied by their section leader Lancelle, the mayor, and the police commissioner, took action against a camp of the Reichsbanner, a predominantly social democratic paramilitary organization, in Coswig. They expelled the leaders and the camp was thereafter run by the Nazi organization.57 Participation by representatives of the local authorities shows another variation of occupation. The upshot of all these actions was that while the targeted organization that had been participating in the FAD as a sponsor of the service continued in institutional terms, it was hampered in carrying out its practical work or prevented from doing so entirely. In addition, there was also “voluntary” affiliation. In April 1933, for example, General Faupel integrated his Reich League for Labor Service into the Stahlhelm to pre-empt its coordination at the hands of the Nazis.58 Annexation was thus the countermove to the violent actions carried out by the National Socialists. In these instances, an independent operator dissolved its organization – in return, the camps were sometimes able to continue running virtually unchanged. “Voluntary” affiliations to the National Socialist carrier also took place. ¨ Another type of coordination was temporary toleration: the Tubingen League for Labor Service and Work Year, for example, reached an agreement with the National Socialist VzU that it would be allowed to continue its work until the introduction of the compulsory service in the fall.59 The elimination ¨ of the volkisch German-National Association of Clerks (Deutschnationaler Handlungsgehilfenverband, DHV) as a sponsoring organization unfolded in a similar way.60 From a National Socialist perspective, a number of factors 55 56 57 58 59 60

BA/B, R 43 II/516, Cardinal Faulhaber to Hitler, April 27, 1933. BA/B, R 43 II/954, esp. Bertram to Seldte, April 15, 1933. VZ, June 6, 1933; State Ministry of Anhalt 1935, 39f. ¨ Arbeitsdienst) to LanBA/B, R 72/329, Federal Office for Labor Service (Bundesstelle fur ¨ desverbande, April 13, 1933. Dt. AD 3 (1933), 325. BA/B, NS 5 VI/3319, esp. German-National Association of Clerks, Department for Labor Service to district offices for the Labor Service, April 4, 1933.

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¨ argued in favor of such a temporizing solution. The DHV and the Tubingen League were motivated in their involvement in the Labor Service by goals similar to the NSDAP. Moreover, their camps already had qualified leaders, while the NSDAP had a shortage of trained personnel. In addition to camp occupations and “voluntary” annexation, there was “self-coordination.” The Free Unions, for example, tried to survive as an independent sponsor. At the end of March 1933, its operators informed the Reich Commissioner that all of its member organizations that were part of the Social Democratic labor movement, with the exception of the ADGB and the Allgemeine Freie Angestelltenbund, had left. The changed organization was hoping to be able to carry on its work in this new form.61 The Free Unions had thus embarked on a new path. It should be noted, though, that its distance from the SPD and especially from the orthodox Marxist segments of the workers’ movement had been growing since the end of the Weimar Republic. Now the unions were offering their services to the new rulers. Although one could accuse them of opportunism, they did represent a fundamentally different conception than the right-wing organizations. They advocated the notion that relatively independent interest groups should be able to become involved in politics – and in the Labor Service. The attempt to save their institutional existence failed: on May 1/2, 1933, the unions were broken up, and their Labor Service sponsor had to suspend its work around the same time.62 The coordination of the sponsors of the Labor Service thus occurred in a variety of different ways, all of which followed roughly the patterns of occupation, “voluntary” annexation, or “self-coordination.” On the whole, the process by which sponsor organizations other than those of the National Socialists were eliminated was chaotic and followed a dynamic of its own. It was not until April 28 that the Reich Commissioner brought order to the process: he decreed that henceforth only measures by the Stahlhelm and the National Socialist Reich League of German Labor Service Associations (RDA) would be recognized. Already existing projects would be taken over by one of these two organizations.63 In this way at least a semblance of the rule of law was restored. At the same time, the process of coordination intensified the conflict between the Stahlhelm and the National Socialists. The two sides now had hundreds of new camps under their control and were fortified for the next round in their confrontation. When Seldte announced to all leaders in the middle of May that National Socialists and Stahlhelm members stood “shoulder to 61 62 63

BA/B, NS 5 VI/3315, Reichsarbeitsgemeinschaft Sozialer Dienst (Reich Working Group Social Service) to Reich Commissioner for the FAD, March 30, 1933. ¨ See in general Kohler, Arbeitsdienst, 163–77. BA/B, R 2301/5645, Reich Commissioner of the FAD to district leaders and district commissioners, April 28, 1933.

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shoulder in comradeship” in the Reich leadership of the service,64 it was an indication that the situation was not so positive everywhere. At the local level, National Socialists had briefly occupied Stahlhelm camps as early as March, though they were soon forced to hand them back.65 However, the Nazis did not stop at a policy of delicate, symbolic pinpricks. Only two days after Hitler and Seldte had signed an agreement on June 21, which provided for the integration of the Stahlhelm into the NSDAP as an organization equal in status to the SA and the SS,66 the alarms sounded for the Reich Commissioner. There had been “actions against Stahlhelm camps throughout the Reich,” actions for which the National Socialists were responsible. Seldte’s order that same evening prohibiting these actions was not heeded everywhere.67 In Polch, for example, the situation escalated in mid-July. After the SA had occupied a Stahlhelm camp, one of the leaders of the ex-servicemen’s organization wanted to recapture it with a 600-man unit armed with carbines and a heavy machine gun – and could be dissuaded only after lengthy negotiations.68 The events demonstrate the degree to which control of the Labor Service had slipped from the hands of the Reich Commissioner.69 Beyond direct actions, Hierl also pursued the systematic elimination of the Stahlhelm on another level. At the end of June and the beginning of July, he sent a list detailing the “political composition of the Stahlhelm camps” to Hitler, Reich Interior Minister Frick, and others. The document circulated horror stories from various regions. The paramilitary organization, it said, had grown enormously as a Labor Service sponsor “in order to be able to make corresponding claims to leadership,” and to that end it had “filled its camps indiscriminately with Marxists and members of the Center Party.” It was therefore imperative to combat the anti–National Socialist mood that had sprung up in many places. According to Hierl, his intervention grew out of “the initiative of lower offices and took place on orders from or with the consent of the local National Socialist governmental agencies.” Hierl therefore argued that the Labor Service should be removed from the labor ministry altogether and placed under the authority of the Reich Interior Minister.70 It is not unlikely that anti–National Socialist ideas were in fact circulating in some camps: for a while the number of volunteers organized by the 64 65 66 67 68 69 70

BA/B, R 2301/5638, Reich Administration of the Labor Service to all officials and offices of the Labor Service, May 15, 1933. ¨ Pfalzische Presse, March 30, 1933; ibid., March 31, 1933. UuF, vol. 9, no. 2071, 227f.; ibid., no. 2072, 228. For a summary see BA/B, R 72/324, Reich Labor Ministry/Reich Commissioner of the FAD to district administrations, June 29, 1933. BA/B, R 36/1922, Director B. of the Agricultural School Polch to the mayor of Polch, February 16, 1934. Polch is located in the Eifel region. BA/B, R 72/324, Seldte to district administrations, June 30, 1933. BA/B, R 1501/5102, esp. Hierl to Hitler, July 2, 1933, and BA/B, NS 10/30.

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Stahlhelm rose substantially in 1933, the percentage of these volunteers who were members of the ex-servicemen’s organization dropped from 41 percent in November 1932 to 26 percent by May 1933.71 Still, the reports about the misconduct of the conservative partner Hitler received appear to have been exaggerated, and Hierl turned them into an instrument in his effort to coordinate the Stahlhelm’s Labor Service organization.72 In the end, Hierl’s policy was successful. The endpoint of coordination came with a decree from the Reich Commissioner on July 21, 1933, which declared that henceforth the National Socialist RDA would continue as the sole Labor Service sponsor.73 The coordination process had created the form the RDA would retain until the fall of 1935. It was subdivided into thirty registered, independent organizations, with the regional chairmen being simultaneously the regime’s labor district leaders. In an analogous setup, Hierl ¨ was, at the party level, a representative of the Fuhrer and at the same time State Secretary. The RDA took on the task of organizing the groups as intermediate entities between the district and the department, which made the Labor Service as a whole a hybrid creature in terms of state law. In February 1934, the RDA was renamed the National Socialist Labor Service (Nationalsozialistischer Arbeitsdienst, NSAD), which made the coordination readily apparent in its name.74 Hierl’s intensified offensive against the Stahlhelm was the result of the confrontations between the ex-servicemen’s organization and the NSDAP. The conflict was heightened by the temporary end to a compulsory labor service. Had such a service been established, the various sponsors would have soon ceased their work in any case. The postponement made it all the more urgent for the National Socialists to quickly eliminate all remaining sponsoring organizations. Moreover, during those weeks Hitler was ridding himself of the Stahlhelm in general. However, if some of Hierl’s statements that have come down to us are accurate, the ex-servicemen’s organization did not give up without a fight. When it became clear that the Labor Service would most likely fall to the NSDAP, the Stahlhelm supported the continued existence of other sponsors, for example religious organizations, in order to retain some allies against Hierl.75 This policy, however, proved unsuccessful. All in all, the coordination of all service sponsors other than that of the NSDAP ran along various tracks until August 1933. In the beginning, violent action triggered a dynamic of its own and brought, among other things, 71 72 73 74 75

BA/B, R 72/330, Universal census of Der Stahlhelm, November 15, 1932; ibid., List of closed FAD camps of Der Stahlhelm, May 1, 1933. ¨ See also Goring’s supportive action in NARA/CP, RG 22, T-580, esp. Prussian Interior Minister to offices of the state police, July 19, 1933. BA/B, R 2301/5638, Reich Commissioner of the FAD to district administrations, July 21, 1933. H. Schmeidler, “Der ‘Arbeitsdienst’ von heute,” Juristische Wochenschrift 64 (1935): 1325. BA/B, R 1501/5102, Hierl to Hitler, July 2, 1933.

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incidents of “self-coordination” and “voluntary” annexation in their wake. Next came legal steps, which legitimized after the fact what had been done and expanded upon it. These were supplemented again by violent actions and led in turn to new legal regulations. Moreover, “coordination” meant not only the elimination of the existing service sponsors, but also the exclusion of any potential participation by third parties in the Labor Service. For example, the regime rejected the demand by the churches that they be allowed to continue providing religious and sociopedagogical care to young people.76 In this phase of “revolution from below,”77 violence was employed by the National Socialists and especially by the SA, with many actions prior to June planned and carried out at the local level. Hierl was not the strategist who centrally planned and implemented the elimination of the other sponsor organizations. In many cases, it was the SA that created new situations largely on its own initiative. Only the moves against the Stahlhelm in June represented a systematic action throughout the Reich, one that ensured the dominance of the National Socialists in the Labor Service. This time, it was the work of the Reich Administration in Berlin.78 Hierl thus succeeded, at a crucial moment, in gaining control of this process with its own inherent dynamic. That does not mean that he was pursuing a goal different from those who engaged in the “unauthorized” camp occupations – since his ideas overlapped with those of the SA on this question, Hierl could remain in the background initially. There was not much he would have been able to do in any case until May 1933, because the struggle over the top leadership of the service dragged on until then. The coordination of the Labor Service sponsors thus unfolded in a very similar way to coordination in general, a process that refers to the institutionalization of the National Socialist dictatorship at all levels of social and political life. Needless to say, what happened in the Labor Service was less ¨ complex than the elimination of the Lander and municipalities, for example, and accordingly there were fewer intermediate stages and fewer forces at work.79 But in this case as well, it did not proceed according to a precisely thought-out schedule. Here, too, terror and new legal regulations played a role, and opponents in the Labor Service were fought in the same order as those elsewhere. Given its lean organizational structure, it was comparatively easy to coordinate the Labor Service. In the process, the clearly laid-out 76 77 78

79

BA/B, R 43 II/516, esp. Deutsches Evangelisches Kirchenbundamt to Hitler, April 27, 1933. M. Broszat, The Hitler State: The Foundation and Development of the Internal Structure of the Third Reich, trans. J. W. Hiden (New York, 1981), 204. After the war, Stellrecht claimed that it was Hierl, not he, who had planned and supervised the actions. We cannot verify this on the basis of the surviving documents, but it is of secondary importance for the conflict between the NSDAP and the Stahlhelm; see IfZ, Zs 1906, Stellrecht draft, 1966, 51f. On the role of the SA, see Longerich, Bataillone, 166–72; in general, also Broszat, Hitler State, 424f.

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institutional and personnel framework of the FAD of the Weimar Republic was replaced by a National Socialist one. The legal foundations of the FAD were in part taken over, in part repealed by acts of force. The institutional structure was largely rebuilt, since a small, decentralized administration with a small staff was replaced by a bureaucratic centralism oriented along principles of military organization. Overall, then, the coordination of the Labor Service fit smoothly into the social and political life at the beginning of National Socialist rule. 2.1.2. From the “Revolutionary Period” of the Labor Service to the Reich Party Rally in 1934 After months of uncertainty, high-flying expectations, as well as disenchantment, the Labor Service was still unable to sail in calmer waters. One problem, which had already emerged during the negotiations over the Labor Service law, now took on greater weight: financing. Shortly after the original budget proposal asking for 375 million Reichsmark had been turned down by Hitler’s veto on April 4, 1933, Hierl submitted a draft budget for 240 million. But massive opposition to this budget as well came from the Reich Finance Minister and the Reich Savings Commissioner.80 While the two sides were still quarreling about the budget, Hitler postponed the introduction of compulsory labor service on June 16. In response, Hierl had to work up a new proposal, one that made do with 200 million.81 This set off a confusing round of intrigues between Hierl, the Reich Finance Ministry, and the Reich Labor Ministry, with Hierl complaining to Hitler that “a certain ministerial bureaucracy in the Reich Finance Ministry and the Reich Labor Ministry, which is inwardly still committed to the old system, has been working hand in hand” to delay and obstruct the budget. The Gordian knot that had been created on this issue of financing became thicker still when it was linked with another question. Even after Hierl had at long last been appointed state secretary in May, the discussion about the place of the Labor Service under state law did not cease. Hierl now demanded that the Labor Service be separated entirely from the other departments in the Reich Ministry of Labor. The opposing stance taken by Seldte and Krosigk, grounded in power politics and finance policy, envisaged placing the service under the authority of the Reich Labor Minister as a subordinated agency, or at most as a higher Reich office.82 The problems with financing and the position of the service under state law obstructed each other, and even the repeated intervention by Hitler did 80 81 82

BA/B, R 2/4538, esp. Reich Commissioner of the FAD to Poerschke [Reich Finance Ministry], April 13, 1933. Ibid., Reich Finance Ministry to Reich Labor Ministry, June 26, 1933. BA/B, R 43 II/516, esp. Hierl to Hitler, August 26, 1933; BA/B, R 2301/5658, Report on the ministerial meeting on June 14, 1933 at the Reich Finance Ministry.

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not change that situation. For the dictator, instead of cutting the Gordian knot, merely ordered that the various parties should come to an agreement.83 It was only at the cabinet meeting on September 26, 1933, that he decided to place Hierl directly under Seldte, although the Labor Service itself was to be completely separated from the other areas in which the Ministry of Labor was active.84 Hierl had prevailed once again. However, Hitler did not accede to his request that the Labor Service be more deeply involved in the new jobcreation program, the Reinhardt program, and that a new measure of this kind be instituted from which only the Labor Service would benefit. Overall, when it came to financing the Labor Service, Germany chose the conventional path and decided against productive credit creation, for example.85 Instead, the regime set up the institution chiefly with regular Reich funds via a taxfinanced budget. In other areas, such as the job-creation measures for socalled emergency workers (Notstandsarbeiter), the situation was different. If one were to adopt a Keynesian economic model, in which credit financing has higher secondary stimulus effects for an economy, the Reich did not avail itself of this opportunity when it came to the Labor Service. Consequently, the method used to finance Hierl’s organization made no contribution to overcoming the economic crisis.86 Since Seldte realized in the fall of 1933 that he had once and for all lost the battle for the Labor Service, he proposed in October that the service be removed entirely from his ministry and placed directly under Hitler.87 With ¨ Krosigk, Reich Interior Minister Frick, and Reich Justice Minister Gurtner opposing the idea, the regulation that had been put in place in September remained unchanged. This meant that the issue had now been settled – apart from another brief sally by Seldte, who tried to turn the wheel back to the decree of July 16, 1932.88 While the personnel problem had thus been settled, the financing problem was still waiting for a solution. A proper budget for the service was not passed at all in 1933. The clashes were a continuation of the struggle that had taken place in the early part of the summer between the Stahlhelm and the NSDAP over who was to lead the service. Seldte repeatedly employed delaying tactics, thus artificially prolonging the discussion over the place of the service in the organization of the Third Reich. Moreover, the clashes revealed Hierl’s considerable demands in terms of financing. It was inevitable that his requests 83 85 86 87 88

84 AdR, Part I, No. 240, pp. 1933f. BA/B, R 43 II/516; BA/B, R 2/4538. BA/B, R 43 II/516, Hierl to Hitler, September 12, 1933; Dt. AD 3 (1933), 603. AdR, Part I, No. 144, pp. 400–3; K. Schiller, Arbeitsbeschaffung und Finanzordnung in Deutschland (Berlin, 1936), 154. BA/B, R 43 II/516, Seldte to Hitler, October 19, 1933; AdR, Part I, No. 248, pp. 957f. BA/B, R 2/4538, Reich Ministry of the Interior to Reich Labor Ministry, November 27, 1933; BA/B, R 43 II/516, Reich Justice Ministry to Reich Labor Ministry, December 21, 1933; BA/B, R 2301/5638, Reich Labor Ministry to Reich Commissioner of the FAD, December 20, 1933.

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would run into opposition from the financial experts. The objections from Krosigk and others were not arbitrary. The Reich Finance Ministry and the Audit Office were merely displaying a necessary caution toward Hierl’s plans, which could have easily plunged the Reich into incalculable expenditures. Conversely, the gap between expectations, on the one hand, and the meager stream of funding, on the other, was steering Hierl’s organization into a veritable crisis. For example, the findings from a poll in the thirteen Labor Service districts about how well the Labor Service had succeeded for graduates of the Gymnasium (the highest secondary school) during the summer term of 1933 were devastating. Reports from Eastern Prussia noted that the leaders were behaving like “slave overseers.” The criticism culminated in the “impression that at least 50% of the leaders have prior convictions or are failures in life.” Overall, the verdict of the survey was highly critical.89 But it was not only the leadership corps that came under fire. A memorandum written at the Bavarian Ministry of State, for example, noted the following: “Unfortunately it must be stated that at no time since the Labor Service came into being have there been as many complaints as were heard especially during the last few months . . . However, a good deal can be attributed to fundamentally dubious directives from the Reich leadership or is the result of an unfortunate personnel policy, which appoints to leading positions individuals who, though otherwise hard-working and honorable men, are barely up to the special demands of the Labor Service.” The report went on to say that this was especially true for former officers, who often thought of themselves as superiors and not as comrades, and to whom military drill was more important than a good work output and education.90 Even the 1934 dissertation written by the Labor Service leader Paul Seipp, which was based on interviews with Labor Service volunteers, had to admit many shortcomings at the level of the camps.91 There were three primary reasons behind the serious personnel problems. First, the unclear financial situation placed a special burden on the leadership corps. Hierl addressed a letter about this to Hitler as early as August 1933, noting that “the best have already withdrawn from the Labor Service and others will follow . . . The Labor Service is beginning to bog down and peter out.”92 While Hierl was dramatizing the situation to make his concerns more compelling, his statement did contain a core of truth. Pay in the Labor Service was bad and career prospects were uncertain. Especially after the state takeover within the framework of a compulsory labor service had been 89 90 91 92

BA/B, R 1501/5102, Reich Ministry of the Interior, protocol of negotiations, September 21, 1933; for an apologetic position on this see Schwenk, Grundlagen, 55. BA/B, R 36/1915, Memorandum of the Bavarian State Ministry of Economics, undated [beginning of 1934]. P. Seipp, Formung und Auslese im Reichsarbeitsdienst. Das Ergebnis des Diensthalbjahres 1934, 2nd ed. (Berlin, 1938; orig. 1935), 75–85. AdR, Part I, No. 205, p. 721.

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postponed in the summer of 1933, Hierl’s organization could not be regarded as an attractive employer. Second, the problems were the result of the personnel policy. Many previous leaders were forced to leave as a consequence of the coordination of the participating sponsors by the summer of 1933. A requirement for future participation was membership in the NSDAP or the Stahlhelm, or at least a “national attitude.” Whereas in 1933 Hierl had still included members of other right-wing organizations and groups in that category,93 by 1934 the tone was very different: officially, only an individual “who had personally experienced sacred National Socialism as the greatest event of his life since birth” could become a Labor Service leader.94 The problem was exacerbated by the large number of leaders that were required, a situation that the already cited memorandum from Bavaria regarded as “a kind of hyperorganization”: for although the number of volunteers had hardly changed since the Nazis had assumed power, the bureaucratic apparatus had grown markedly. The labor district associations were using no less than 20 percent of their funding to pay for their administrative apparatus, including salaries for leaders.95 It was thus not the token wage for the young volunteers that was responsible for the high costs of the service: the men received merely 25 Pfennig per day, which added up to about 20 million Reichsmark annually – about 10 percent of the total budget.96 Third, the organizational shortcomings were joined by excessively high demands that were structural in nature. The job of a Labor Service leader was highly varied, since it demanded technical know-how, administrative competence, knowledge of state policy, sensitivity in dealing with young people, and a readiness to essentially give up a personal life. Although it is not possible at this time to make precise sociological statements about the background of Labor Service leaders,97 there was already a certain consensus among contemporaries, and not least within the Nazi elite, that many Labor Service leaders, because of their military background, were a long way from meeting this demanding skill profile.98 In 1934 it was hardly possible to speak of the kind of first-rate “leadership corps cast in a single mold and spirit” that Hierl was demanding.99 The 93 94 95 96 97 98 99

BA/B, R 2301/5638, Reich Administration of the Labor Service to district leaders and district commissioners, May 17, 1933. ¨ C. W. Loeffelholz v. Colberg, “Vom Fuhrertum im Arbeitsdienst,” NSM 5 (1934): 994. BA/B, R 36/1915, Memorandum of the Bavarian State Ministry of Economics, undated [beginning of 1934]. Friedrich Scheins, Die volkswirtschaftliche Bedeutung der Arbeitsdienstpflicht (Cologne, 1935), 27. See on this the dissertation currently being written by Michael Hansen. See, e.g., IfZ, ED 110, Note Darr´e, 1945–8, 365; Bayr. HStA, StK/6753, Mayor of Lindau, Siebert, to the Bavarian Minister President Siebert, November 16, 1933. Hierl, Schriften, vol. 2, 105–8 (1933), quote p. 105.

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aftereffects of the problems that occurred in the first years would be felt for a long time. The ones who bore the brunt of the shortcomings were ¨ the “labor men” (Arbeitsmanner), as the volunteers were now frequently called.100 Many of them regarded conditions in the camps as intolerable. The reports on Germany put out by the exiled SPD in the fall of 1934, for example, noted that while the young men maintained strict discipline on duty, “complaining and radical talk” went on in the barracks. Morale was considered to be very poor. In one camp, for instance, in which the camp leader and the cook were “drunks,” “slaps in the face are a means of instruction for recalcitrant Labor Service participants.”101 However, the shortcomings and abuses in the months following the takeover of power were apparent not only in the treatment of the labor men, but also in administrative questions. In mid-December 1933, Hierl informed his labor district leaders that inspections of the economic conditions within the labor districts had “uncovered a frightening degree of theft, corruption, careless squandering of official funds, and personal gain.” The task at hand was the “ruthless elimination” of “tainted individuals” irrespective of their party membership.102 Thereafter, the number of dismissals and resignations surged to the point where “a regular processing of the cases was hardly possible any longer.”103 Thus, in 1934 up to 80 percent of leaders were replaced in some of the districts, a situation that imposed yet another burden on the organization of the service.104 These displaced leaders included many National Socialists who had joined the Labor Service only a year earlier, but who by now had shown themselves to be unfit.105 In Silesia alone, for example, nearly 2,000 members of the leadership corps were dismissed, although this move was also blamed on the straitened finances of the service.106 Because the leaders were not up to the tasks demanded of them, this job did not enjoy great esteem among the population. Those interested in pursuing a career in the Nazi state chose some other organization, like the SS or the Wehrmacht, over the Labor Service.107

100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107

See Chapter 4, Section 4.2.1 of this book. Deutschland-Berichte der Sozialdemokratischen Partei Deutschlands (Sopade) 1934–1940, ed. K. Behnken, 7 vols. (Frankfurt/Main, 1980), vol. 1 (1934), 644, 421. BA/B, R 2301/5658, Hierl to Labor District leaders and others, December 13, 1933. BA/B, R 2301/5645, Reich Administration of the Labor Service to Labor District leaders and others, January 9, 1934. Seipp, Formung, 67. Bayr. HStA, REpp/497, Bavarian State Ministry of the Interior to Epp, July 19, 1924. GStA, Rep. 84a/354, Loeffelholz to the Prussian Ministry of Justice, June 25, 1934; Deutschland-Berichte, vol. 1 (1934), 222. ¨ See, e.g., the memoirs of R. v. Weizsacker, Vier Zeiten. Erinnerungen (Berlin, 1997), 73; E. Eppler, Als Wahrheit verordnet wurde. Briefe an meine Enkelin, 3rd ed. (Frankfurt/Main, ¨ 1995), 139; IfZ, Ms 696, Note J. Boeck, 1949; M. Cranz, Ich, ein Deutscher . . . (Dulmen, 1987), 179.

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The various problems were also summarized in a letter sent by the state parliament of Saxony to Heinrich Lammers, State Secretary in the Reich Chancery. It declared that the conditions in the Labor Service were “disastrous.” The population was turning away from the Labor Service, the labor men were leaving “in droves.” According to this source, the responsibility for the dire situation lay chiefly with the Reich leadership. In writing this letter, the state parliament of Saxony was not simply trying to call attention to the problems; it also included the recommendation that Hitler should listen to Stellrecht, “who, after all, has been the soul of the entire Labor Service from the beginning.”108 That Stellrecht was expected to speak out against Hierl points to another conflict. In the preceding weeks, a clash that carried on older lines of conflict had arisen between the two protagonists of the National Socialist Labor Service movement. Stellrecht argued against the introduction of a compulsory labor service any time soon and in favor of an evolutionary path. The end of 1934 thus saw the third round of a conflict Hierl had previously fought out with Strasser and Schulz, on the one hand, and with the Stahlhelm, on the other – which was not surprising, considering that Stellrecht had originally been one of Strasser’s supporters. Moreover, as Stellrecht recalled after the war, he and Hierl had different ideas about the importance that should be accorded to premilitary drilling. Hierl put it front and center with a view toward the parade that the Labor Service was planning to put on at the party rally in 1934.109 Even before the state parliament of Saxony had written to Hitler, the conflict had intensified when Stellrecht, in an interview in the Berlin paper Angriff in September 1933, was described as the “true founder of the Voluntary Labor Service” and the “father of the idea of the Labor Service.”110 Hitler did in fact have a meeting with Stellrecht. However, the dictator was not swayed by him and continued to back Hierl.111 Hierl began his counteroffensive on October 3 by issuing an order to all subordinate officials that they should go through the proper channels if they had any complaints in order to prevent criticism from leaking to the outside.112 He asked the Reich Chancellery and several ministries to pass possible complaints on to him. Moreover, in November Hierl once again impressed upon the Labor Service leaders what their duties were.113 In addition, he got rid of Stellrecht by making him Labor Service leader for District 24 (Middle Rhine). Realizing 108

109 111 112 113

BA/B, R 43 II/516, Landtag of the Free State of Saxony to Lammers, October 4, 1933; similarly: AdP, Part 1, No. 10181; ibid., No. 20434; Bayr. HStA, StK/6753, Note of the Bavarian State Chancellery, January 17, 1935. 110 AN, September 15, 1933. Benz, “Arbeitsdienst,” 340, note 90. BA/B, R 43 II/516, Lammers to Haase, October 24, 1933. Ibid., Reich Administration of the Labor Service to Labor District leadership and others, October 3, 1933; see also, for example, AdP, Part 1, No. 20299. BA/B, R 2/4519, Reich Labor Leader to Labor District leadership, November 28, 1933.

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that he would not be able to prevail against Hierl, the dissenter left the organization and joined Schirach’s Hitler Youth (Hitler-Jugend, HJ).114 But the conflict was not over yet. At the end of January 1934, the Reich Administration of the Labor Service noted that for “some time, which is coincident with Dr. Stellrecht’s entry into the Reich leadership of the Hitler Youth, the evidently systematic attempt” was being undertaken from within that organization to publicly advocate that the Labor Service be joined to the HJ. At the same time, we are told, the youth organization was trying to infiltrate the Labor Service.115 But the claims put forth by the HJ were linked not only with the name of Stellrecht. As early as September 1933, in Junges Deutschland, the official organ of Schirach’s organization, Griffion Stierling had declared that the development was moving to the point “where the Hitler Youth will be given some recognizable, active role in the Labor Service.”116 That same September, Schirach opened another front when he placed the responsibility for setting up and running the women’s Labor Service into the ¨ hands of the League of German Girls (Bund Deutscher Madel, BDM), which fell within his authority. That area was part of Hierl’s tasks, although he had neglected the women’s section of the service.117 And Stellrecht attacked Hierl from yet another side. At the beginning of 1934, he published a book in which he attacked Hierl personally: it was impossible, he declared, to “show loyalty to a leader devoid of ideas.”118 In response, Hierl, on short notice, invited all the Labor Service district leaders and the most important members of the Reich leadership to a meeting at the Wartburg on February 14, 1934. The result of the meeting was an affirmation of loyalty by the assembled participants, which meant that Stellrecht was isolated within the organization.119 In March 1934, Schirach called off his attack. Hierl had been able to prevail in the clashes, which had lasted for about half a year.120 Once again, the decisive factor was that the “Reich Labor Leader,” as Hierl had been calling himself since November 1933,121 continued to enjoy Hitler’s confidence.

114 115 116 117 118 119 120

121

BA/B, R 43 II/516, Stellrecht to Hierl, October 31, 1933; UuF, vol. 11, 135–8. BA/BDC, O 262, Reich Administration of the Labor Service to Labor District leaders, January 30, 1934. G. D. Stierling, “Die Jugend und der Arbeitsdienst,” Das Junge Deutschland 27 (1933): 240–3, quote p. 242f. Morgan, Weiblicher Arbeitsdienst, 113–16; on the complicated institutional structure of the female Labor Service see Miller-Kipp, “Erziehung,” 106f. Stellrecht, Arbeitsdienst, 17; see also BA/ B, NS 26/39. F. Edel, “Wartburg-Geist im Arbeitsdienst,” Dt. AD 4 (1934b), 218–26; Hierl, Dienst, 80. BA/B, R 2301/5645, Reich Leadership of the Labor Service to Labor District leadership, March 1, 1934. Since most of the files of the HJ were destroyed, it is impossible to measure how dangerous these attacks were to the Labor Service. BA/B, R2301/5638, Reich Leadership of the Labor Service to Labor District leadership and others, November 15, 1933.

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In terms of the personnel policy of the Labor Service, the year 1933 thus constituted a deep rupture with the FAD of the Weimar period. Most of the leadership personnel that had been trained before 1933, and with it the practical knowledge acquired since 1931, had left the Labor Service in one form or another by the spring of 1934. While this brain drain was in part the result of a lack of incentives for the leadership corps, the primary explanation for this discontinuity lies in the policy of radical coordination. Hierl preferred to assign important posts to old associates and “deserving” party comrades. The problems and disfunctionalities this policy created were especially apparent at the level of the camps. In this area, Hierl chose not to build on the Weimar experiences and made very little use of the institutional resources of the period prior to 1933. Therein lies the primary reason for the crisis the service experienced in the first months of the regime. Yet Hierl and the Reich leadership were not solely responsible for the catastrophic situation of the Labor Service at the turn of 1933–34. The dismal situation was also the result of the resistance Hierl encountered from the conservative allies of the Nazi party. And so the Labor Service began the Third Reich on the whole with a failed start. That the Labor Service had also been unable as yet to capture the hearts of the German people is reflected in the donations it received in 1933: exactly six Reichsmark.122 Before the Labor Service could consolidate, two other crises had to be overcome. The first concerned a question that had already played an important role in 1933 in creating the desolate state the organization was in: the budget. By the middle of 1934, the budget for 1933 had still not been approved, which also delayed work on a budget proposal for the year that was already under way.123 Krosigk turned down Hierl’s request for the princely sum of 260 million.124 A short time later, the Reich Finance Minister offered merely 110 million.125 Subsequently he reduced his offer to 108 million, which is why Hierl approached Hitler at the beginning of May 1934. The Reich Labor Leader complained that with such a budget he would have to reduce the current level of the service from 230,000 to 120,000 men and would have to let up to 10,000 leaders go. He went on to note that this would invariably lead to the “disintegration of the organization.”126 A meeting between the Labor Service and the Reich Finance Ministry failed to resolve the matter. Both sides did agree, however, that the Reich Labor Leader should make another presentation to Hitler about the needs of the service. Every indication we have is that Hierl did not speak with the dictator. But at the end 122 123 124 125 126

BA/B, R 2301/5646, Reich Leadership of the Labor Service, Declaration of income and expenditures for 1933, October 30, 1934. BA/B, R 2/4539, Hierl to Seldte, February 16, 1934; BA/B, R 2301/5658, Reich Commissioner of the FAD to Reich Labor Ministry, March 17, 1934, and attachment. BA/B, R 2/4539, Reich Finance Ministry to Hierl, February 24, 1934. AdR, Part I, No. 304, pp. 1136–42. Ibid., No. 342, pp. 1257f.

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of May, Hitler’s state secretary, Hans Heinrich Lammers, intervened on behalf of the Labor Service, as a result of which 180 million Reichsmark was approved. However, this outcome of the negotiations was not good enough for the Reich Labor Leader, who was now asking for 203 million. Finally, in December 1934 Krosigk set aside 195 million for the service, and Hierl had to accept this sum.127 As we can see, Seldte and Krosigk still had their reservations about the service. In the end it was Hitler’s intervention that was decisive in helping to push through its demands. Against the background of these uncertainties it was still not possible to put the service on a stable footing. But with a budget of 195 million Reichsmark, Hierl had ended up with a considerable sum of money after protracted and tough negotiations. A fundamental challenge to Hierl’s service came from another side. Looking back in 1935, the Reich Labor Leader noted that the idea had been floated in the spring of 1934 to assign the Labor Service to “the former chief ¨ of staff Rohm by way of compensation.”128 The fact that the service was ¨ up for discussion as “compensation” for Rohm directs our attention to a central conflict in the early phase of the regime. After the Machtergreifung, ¨ it was unclear what the future role of the SA should be. Rohm, as chief of the SA, wanted to transform his organization into a militia army to which even the Reichswehr would be subordinated. Naturally, the Reichswehr rejected these hegemonic claims, and this forced Hitler to choose one of the two rival camps. For a variety of reasons, it made more sense for the dictator to prefer the military to the SA. The Labor Service entered into the discussions over the tasks that should be assigned to the SA by way of consolation. In all likelihood, this particular conflict, and not only the problems mentioned earlier, was an important reason why Hierl secured the loyalty of the most influential labor leaders in early 1934.129 But even more important for Hierl was that the inner circle of the party around Hitler decided against compen¨ sating Rohm and in favor of another solution: in a bloody purge on June 30, ¨ 1934, the power of the SA was broken and Rohm was murdered – along with other individuals Hitler wanted to rid himself of. Hierl’s Labor Service had survived another fundamental crisis.130 In fact, Hierl’s organization even played a special role in the action against ¨ Rohm and the SA. Hitler visited the Labor Service the day before the planned purge was to be carried out. Still, when the dictator came to inspect the district school at Schloß Buddenburg and a Labor Service camp on 127

128 129

BA/B, R 2301/5648, Reich Finance Ministry to Reich Labor Ministry, May 18,19934; BA/B, R 2/4539, esp. Hierl to Reich Finance Ministry, June 7,1934; AdR, Part I, No. 356, p. 1304; BA/B, R 2301/5638, Result of the negotiations over the budget draft, December 3–19, 1934. BA/B, R 1501/5622, Protocol of the 7th Meeting of Labor District Leaders, March 7–9, 1935. 130 Longerich, Bataillone, 183–219. Hierl, Dienst, 80.

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June 29, 1934, Hierl saw it as a test. There is every indication that he passed ¨ it: “deeply moved,” Hitler heaped praise on Hierl.131 After that the Fuhrer ended his tour of inspection prematurely and traveled to Bad Godesberg, ¨ where he planned the final details of the strike against Rohm. Hierl followed Hitler to this spa city on the Rhine, where the dictator let him in on his ¨ plans. The Reich Labor Leader was in complete agreement with his Fuhrer ¨ that it was imperative to put an end to the “unruly activities” by Rohm and the SA.132 All in all, June 29 had far-reaching consequences for the Labor ¨ Service. The murder of Rohm on July 1 eliminated a dangerous rival, with whom Hierl had had an antagonistic relationship since at least 1932. Moreover, Hitler informed the Reich Labor Leader on the evening of June 29 that he intended to make him Reich Commissioner in place of Seldte.133 And so on July 3, 1934, the aged Reich President Hindenburg signed the document Hierl had been anticipating for so long: the letter of appointment as Reich Commissioner.134 All the same, one must not invest too much significance in the fact that ¨ Hitler visited the Labor Service on the eve of the “Rohm putsch.” When it came to carrying out the terror action, the dictator relied not on the men with the spade but on the SS, which received support from the Reichswehr. The visit to the Labor Service was merely a clever maneuver on Hitler’s part to divert attention from the imminent action. In the struggle against the SA, the Reich Labor Leader and his organization did not represent a power base but merely a pawn. Moreover, the fate of the service had already been decided prior to July 1934 in Hierl’s favor, which meant that Hitler’s visit was less a test than a symbolic affirmation of the status quo within the Labor Service. For the other great conflict, over the budget, had already been settled in Hierl’s favor by the time Hitler came to Buddenburg. The appointment as Reich Commissioner brought another victory for Hierl. The Labor Service was removed from the Reich Labor Ministry and placed under the authority of the Reich Interior Minister, Wilhelm Frick.135 Except for a brief clash over a biography of Hierl, in which Seldte believed he had been inadequately represented,136 the conflicts with Seldte were now over. All in all, the reason the Labor Service was able to prevail in the power struggles with the old elites, the Hitler Youth and the SA, was not because it was in charge of the contested field thanks to clearly drawn lines of authority, 131 132 134

135 136

Dt. AD 4 (1934), 916–22, quote p. 918. All the articles in this issue of the magazine referred to this action, though Hitler’s opponents were not identified in detail. 133 Dt. AD 4 (1934), 922; Hierl, Dienst, 80f., 133. Hierl, Dienst, 133. BA/B, R 43 II/516, Certificate of Appointment for Hierl, July 3, 1934; for a different view see G. Sack, Die Entwicklung des freiwilligen Arbeitsdienstes in der nationalen Revolution (Bayreuth, 1934), 26. RGBl. 1934, I, 518f.; also AdR, Part II, No. 33, p. 136. Grote and Erb, Hierl, esp. 61; on this BA/B, R 43 II/516, esp. Erb to Lammers, July 20, 1934.

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but because it had held its own in the battle of the institutions over resources and authority. And the critical factor in that contest was not so much its institutional weight or its alliances with other Nazi organizations, but Hierl’s ¨ backing from Hitler. Although the Fuhrer for the most part took no interest in the details of the conflict and, at least sometimes, Hierl could use his ¨ interpretation of the “Fuhrer’s intention” as an argument, in the end it was Hitler’s own words that tipped the balance in the power struggles time and again. Not only was Hierl a party member like Frick, his personal relationship with Frick was better than it was with Seldte. Moreover, the Labor Service was a minor “compensation” for Frick, whose ministry had been forced to relinquish important areas especially with the establishment of the Ministry of Propaganda under Goebbels. Still, the Labor Service did not make up for the authority the Reich Interior Minister had lost. Unlike Seldte, Frick hardly got involved in the service in a substantive way. That does not mean, however, that Frick endorsed Hierl’s extravagant demands unconditionally; all in all, their relationship was friendly in a professional way.137 Thus, by the time Hitler visited the Labor Service, the fundamental decisions that allowed its consolidation in the second half of 1934 had been made. That stabilization was preceded by steps that expanded and solidified the organization’s autonomy. The service was increasingly disconnected from the RfAVAV. Beginning in December 1933, it was no longer the employment offices that were responsible for signing up volunteers, but separate registration offices set up for that very purpose. Effective April 1, 1934, the male Labor Service was completely disconnected from the RfAVAV, which meant above all that the RfAVAV no longer had to pay subsidies to the Labor Service.138 An important and clear indication of the relative consolidation of the service was the appearance and diffusion of its own symbolism. In late summer of 1933, a “uniform” was agreed upon after the question had been shelved back in April in view of the uncertain budgetary situation. However, because of the poor state of the budget, the uniforms could be procured only over time.139 In the fall of 1933, the Labor Service’s symbol was introduced: a spade surrounded by two stalks of grain. The tool and the stalks pointed to the nature of the work in the service and at the same time to its results. They also referred to a saying by Frederick II, which the Labor Service had chosen as its motto: “He who makes two stalks grow where previously there 137 138 139

BA/B, R 1501/5621, Reichenau to Reich Finance Ministry, October 24, 1934; ibid., Pfundtner to Frick, October 27, 1934. BA/B, R 3903/220, Section I B to Referat III 3, April 10, 1933; BA/B, R 2301/5658, Reich Administration of the Labor Service to Labor District leadership, March 21, 1934. BA/B, R 2301/5688, Reich Administration of the Labor Service to district leadership and Reich League of German Labor Service Associations, July 25, 1933.

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was only one, has done more for his people than a general who wins a great battle.”140 Against the background of the decisions made in Geneva, this was a clever propagandistic reference to the supposedly peaceful goals of the service. The canon of symbols included songs and other cultural expressions, which the Labor Service increasingly elaborated. The appearance of the service at the Reich party rally in September 1934 was also of great symbolic significance. Hierl’s organization, which had not attended the previous year’s rally in Nuremberg, participated in the mass spectacle with 52,000 men. In fact, the divisions of the Labor Service were especially highlighted in the choreography, as the “earth-brown columns” with their shining, shouldered spades marched onto the parade grounds in front of Hitler on the morning of September 6 ahead of all other organizations. Their performance won over Hitler and the onlookers. Richard Darr´e gave the most incisive account of the scene in his postwar memoirs. While Hitler had initially still made “joking comments about Hierl,” the dictator’s mood changed completely when, “at a stroke, the presented spades glistened in the sun. A moment of consternation in Hitler, then a radiant beam crosses his face: he greets ‘his’ Labor Service: on the evening of the same day Hierl is a great man, the loyal, dear old Hierl.”141 The American journalist William Shirer, to whom the spectacle did not appeal personally, noted a similar effect on the assembled spectators.142 And the demand for a compulsory labor service that Hierl again raised did not fall on deaf ears. In Hierl’s own estimation, the performance of the service in the fall of 1934 played a crucial role in bringing about its implementation a year later.143 The unjustifiable costs for the service’s participation at the mass spectacle in Nuremberg had paid ¨ off. As the Volkischer Beobachter noted, the Labor Service had “captured a place in the sun.”144 In addition to the external effect from this first appearance at a party rally, the service’s participation also helped to consolidate the organization internally. Nearly a quarter of all labor men were gathered in Nuremberg from all over the Reich. They were taken out of the daily routines of the camp, went on a longer trip (for some it was the first trip ever), and were cheered by a ¨ vast audience in front of the Fuhrer. More so even than for the volunteers, 140 141

142 143

144

¨ A. Kruger, Aufgabe und Sinn des Arbeitsdienstes (Berlin, 1935b), 24. IfZ, ED 110, Note Darr´e, 1945–8, 367; similarly A. Rosenberg, Großdeutschland. Traum ¨ ¨ und Tragodie. Rosenbergs Kritik am Hitlerismus, ed. H. Hartle, 2nd ed. (Munich, 1970), 223. W. Shirer, Berlin Diary: The Journal of a Foreign Correspondent 1934–1941 (New York, 1941), 20. See, e.g., BBZ, September 9, 1934; BA/B, R 1501/5103, Metzner to Hierl, September 14, 1934; BA/B, R 1501/5622, Protocol of the 8th Meetings of Labor District Leaders, June 28–9, 1935. VB, May 9, 1934.

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illustration 1. Hitler reviewing RAD workers on parade at the 1936 NSDAP ¨ party rally. RAD director Hierl stands in the foreground. Source: Spaten und Ahre: Das Handbuch der deutschen Jugend im Reichsarbeitsdienst (Heidelberg, 1938).

this experience, coming after long months of crisis, must have been a ray of hope for the Labor Service leaders. In fact, in the regime’s calculations, it even seemed to some that Hierl’s organization could become a counterweight to or replacement for the decapitated but still influential SA;145 in the end, however, that position would fall to the SS. Two minor negative repercussions also flowed from the appearance in Nuremberg. French and British reporters took note of the soldierly character of the service and published articles to that effect in their home countries.146 However, international criticism posed no real problem for the service, since the former Entente states did not use it as an occasion for intervention. For Germany, this was a signal that its room for maneuver in foreign policy had grown. The party rally triggered another quarrel within the top leadership echelons of the service. For a number of reasons, Otto Lancelle, who was by now running the organization’s Reich School in Potsdam, felt slighted by 145 146

See, e.g., Deutschland-Berichte, vol. 1 (1934), 420. See the German response in BBZ, September 7, 1934.

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Hierl in the fall of 1934. He was especially offended that Hierl had not entrusted him with the job of organizing the parade in Nuremberg. In response, this former officer incited the teaching department of the Reich School to a revolt on September 13. It was aimed less against Hierl than against Will Decker.147 Decker, much younger than Lancelle, had only recently become the latter’s boss and was increasingly emerging as the second-in-command behind Hierl.148 After Lancelle’s plans for a protest march against the Reich leadership of the service in Berlin had been uncovered, he was removed from the Labor Service, and with him Hierl lost another one of his closest collaborators. Lancelle later joined the Reichswehr and was killed in action in the East in 1941. Lancelle’s petty revolt did not produce any profound shake-up in the service.149 In response to the rebellion, however, Hierl did separate the Reich School from the teaching department, which would make it more difficult in the future to create the basis for insurrection.150 But neither criticism from abroad nor the Lancelle episode could prevent the external and internal consolidation of the Labor Service in the second half of 1934.

2.2. FROM RELATIVE CONSOLIDATION TO THE WAR-TIME DEPLOYMENT OF THE RAD 2.2.1. A “Shadowy Existence” within the Power Structure of the Regime? 1935–1945 Parallel to the external stabilization in the summer of 1934, the service also consolidated internally. Of particular importance in this regard was a change in the Reich Pay Law of March 1935. It placed the regular leaders of the service on an equal footing with civil servants and soldiers of the Wehrmacht, a move that created an entirely new group of government employees. Above all, it provided them with financial security, where previously many of them had performed their service as volunteers, with only their expenses reimbursed. At the same time, this change accelerated the transformation of the organization into a state institution, since the leaders previously hired by the Labor Service now became state employees of the Reich.151 Only now was membership in Hierl’s organization an attractive option for high-level leaders. 147 148 149 150 151

BA/B, R 1501/5102, Hierl to Frick, September 18, 1934, and numerous attachments. On Decker’s increasing authority see, e.g., BA/B, R 2301/5654, Reich Administration of the Labor Service to Labor District leadership, March 1, 1934. BA/B, R 43 II/4061; BA/F, MSg 2/1512. BA/B, R 2301/5654, Reich Labor Leader to Reich School and others, October 24, 1934. RGBl. 1935, I, 461–3; L. H. Ernst, Der Reichsarbeitsdienst in seiner Ausrichtung auf die Wehrmacht (Schriesheim, 1941), 13.

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The establishment of an independent administrative organization was possible only because things became relatively quiet around the Labor Service – the absence of external and internal crises played a crucial role in the process of stabilization. From a legal perspective, what arose was a peculiar institution, which a contemporary law dissertation called a “monstrosity,” a term that was not far off the mark.152 This allusion to Samuel Pufendorf’s famous characterization of the Reich of 1648 pointed to the problem of describing the Labor Service in legal terms. Its hybrid position between various legal forms and between state and party was often explained as the result of the way it came into being and with the comment that it was in any case only an “interim solution” on the road to a state-run compulsory Labor Service.153 In the eyes of ardent National Socialists, its unusual legal status even demonstrated, “more so than almost any other phenomenon, the gradual merging of party and state.”154 And so professional discussions in legal circles stylized this accidental product of the hasty coordination of the participating organizations, the veto by the Entente powers, and financial constraints, into the special symbol of the regime. Although the case of the Labor Service was an especially complex one, it was not unique in the legal history of National Socialism. The character of the Hitler Youth, for example, was also ambiguous, since it too fluctuated between state and party.155 The service as Hierl envisioned it was consolidated further when the labor men and the leaders were made subject to special official authority vested in the service at the end of 1934. However, neither this authority nor the service’s penal code of January 1935 fulfilled Hierl’s original wish for a separate labor service penal law and special labor service courts.156 Still, control over those in the service took another step forward in 1934. That was also the thrust of the oath to Hitler that the leadership corps took in February 1934 – the Labor Service became the second organization, after the SS, to swear such a personal oath of loyalty.157 Efforts to improve the public reputation of the service should be seen as the third dimension alongside the consolidation of the Labor Service internally and externally with regard to the regime’s power elite. The public was won over to the Labor Service when Leni Riefenstahl’s Triumph of the Will appeared in German movie theaters in March 1935. This film on the party 152

153 154 155 156

¨ P. Hußmann, Der deutsche Arbeitsdienst. Eine staatsrechtliche Untersuchung uber Idee und Gestalt des deutschen Arbeitsdienstes und seine Stellung in der Gesamtstruktur (Berlin, 1935), 63. Ibid., 55. M. Sattelmair, Die Rechtsstellung des Deutschen Arbeitsdienstes in entwicklungsgeschichtlicher Darstellung (Augsburg, 1937), 23. ¨ A. Klonne, Jugend im Dritten Reich. Die Hitler-Jugend und ihre Gegner. Dokumente und ¨ Analysen (Dusseldorf, 1982). 157 Lotter, “Reichsarbeitsdienst,” 40f. RGBl. 1934, I, 1235; ibid., 1935, I, 5–7, 12.

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rally in September 1934 devoted extended sections to the “soldiers of labor.” The marching labor men dissolved into the unity of the various state and party organizations. At the same time, the choreography of the rally highlighted the Labor Service. The footage shows the precision during the parade of young men and their spades; as a former member of the chief of staff, Hierl could be proud of the parading skills on display. Above all, the first time Hitler speaks in Riefenstahl’s work is at the presentation of the Labor Service – at which point we are already forty minutes into the film, during which time the suspense for this moment has been slowly building through the use of skillful cinematic devices. For an enthralled audience, the dictator’s salutation, “Heil, men of labor,” and his subsequent speech must have come as a real release. This particular scene employs dramatic elements found nowhere else in the film. Only here do we see a chanting chorus that 158 ¨ symbolizes the loyalty of the labor men to their Fuhrer. All in all, this propaganda film had special importance for the Labor Service. It was part of a veritable media campaign by the regime. Beginning in the spring of 1935, ¨ the daily papers of the Reich, chief among them the Volkischer Beobachter, published a striking number of articles that had one single task: to prepare the population for the introduction of compulsory labor service.159 Given the importance of plebiscites in the National Socialist dictatorship, this preparatory propaganda was important in countering the unpopularity of plans for compulsory labor service. In fact, for Hierl’s organization, preparations for a universal compulsory labor service overshadowed all other events during the first months of 1935. As early as February, an initial draft law from the Reich Interior Ministry was discussed. It provided for the state takeover of the entire “Reich Labor Service” (Reichsarbeitsdienst, RAD), the institution’s new name. Compulsory service was to be introduced for all Germans of both genders. This meant that all young men would pass through Hierl’s organization prior to their military service. However, the Interior Ministry criticized the fact that the draft did not draw a sufficient distinction between men and women. Since there was no intention of actually subjecting women to compulsory service, changes were made to the next version of the bill. It called for universal service for men and women but suspended it for the latter group. According to the justification offered in the draft law, the somewhat awkward formulation made sense for two reasons: first, to express the “totality of the labor service idea,” and second, to underscore the nonmilitary character of the institution to foreign observers.160 158

159 160

M. Loiperdinger, Rituale der Mobilmachung. Der Parteitagsfilm “Triumph des Willens” von Leni Riefenstahl (Opladen, 1987), esp. 61–90; D. B. Hinton, The Films of Leni Riefenstahl, 2nd ed. (London, 1991), 25–62. Among the flood of articles in the VB see, e.g., April 11, 1935; July 31, 1935. BA/B, R 1501/5621, Stamm to Pfundtner, February 23, 1935, and attachments.

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This altered structure was the most important innovation in the subsequent draft, which was sent to the Reich Chancellery and the Reich ministers on March 21. This version, like the previous one in February, again called for a one-year service period. The starting point for the rationale behind the length of the service was that only 60 percent of young men would be fit to serve. It would therefore be possible to continue the service at its present size and with the same budget. According to this plan, a compulsory labor service would entail no additional costs. Moreover, the draft calculated that increased economic productivity alone would cover the overall costs by 1942, at the latest, after which time the service would even generate a surplus. To this one had to add the savings in public relief since jobs would be freed up for older unemployed workers if their younger counterparts had to perform obligatory service.161 When the draft was discussed on March 26, 1935, Hierl’s proposal suffered further revision. The Reich Agriculture Ministry and the Reich Labor Ministry demanded special regulations in order to exempt entire occupational groups from compulsory service. Hierl rejected these demands by pointing to the all-encompassing pedagogical nature of his institution. Others, meanwhile, found the service to be too exclusive. The Reich Defense Ministry and the Reich Education Ministry criticized that the fitness criteria were too narrowly drawn. And there were, once again, financial reservations.162 Hierl’s defeat became even more apparent when several ministers, whose department chiefs had announced at the meeting that their departments would submit formal statements on the bill, expressed their opinions. On March 28, Reich Economic Minister Schacht declared that the time for the legal introduction of a compulsory service had not yet arrived. Above all, he feared a shortage of skilled workers if they had to perform labor service in addition to their military service. Schacht therefore proposed “that the discussion of the draft law in the cabinet be put off for the time being.”163 Reich Labor Minister Seldte said much the same. Against this backdrop, Hitler decided on March 28 that the question would not be discussed in the cabinet the following day, as Hierl had intended, but would have to wait until the passage of the Defense Law (Wehrgesetz).164 The Reich Administration of the Labor Service thus sent another revised draft to the members of the cabinet on May 13. In keeping with a decision by Hitler, it stipulated that the service would continue under the authority of the Reich Interior Minister. This version of the bill postulated a period of 161 162

163 164

Ibid., Frick to all Reich Ministries, March 21, 1935, and attachments. Reconstructed from the various minutes in BA/B, R 43 II/517, Wienstein note, March 27, 1935; BA/B, R 3101/10338, Krause note, no date [March 1935]; BA/B, R 4901/342, Heinrich note, Reich Ministry for Science, Education, and National Training, March 26, 1935. BA/B, R 43 II/517, Schacht to Frick and others, March 28, 1935. Ibid., Seldte to Frick and others, March 28, 1935; ibid., Note Reich Chancellery, March 28, 1935.

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service that was only six months, thus meeting a demand that Krosigk had put forth more than a year earlier.165 While the explanation of the new draft stated that this was “insufficient in view of the pedagogical purpose and the productive work output,” it was the “lesser evil” when balanced against the loss of universal compulsory service. Lastly, the draft stipulated that only individuals who were “completely unfit” would be exempted from labor conscription – a number substantially smaller then Hierl’s initial estimate of 40 percent.166 This compromise offer also drew massive criticism. Seldte continued to demand the possibility of exemptions.167 The Reich Economic Ministry and the Reich Finance Ministry likewise maintained that Hierl’s demands still went too far.168 Faced with these objections, this version of the bill also failed to pass in May. Still, criticism could do no more than postpone passage of the law. On June 26, the Reich cabinet finally considered the May draft. In the discussion, Krosigk once again spoke out against the huge unforeseeable costs, but his opposition fell on deaf ears. Instead, the cabinet passed the draft without any further substantial changes.169 Hierl later wrote that June 26, 1935, was the “proudest day” of his life.170 The RAD law entailed a state takeover of the entire organization. There was finally a legal basis that replaced the decree of July 1932. With minor changes, that decree was still in force, and it had repeatedly become the fulcrum for demands to limit the Labor Service in size and reach. Moreover, the new legal foundation made it possible to exert even more comprehensive control over the lives of participants, for example by requiring them to obtain official permission before getting married.171 The wording of the law put the pedagogical concerns front and center, as is evident in paragraph 1, section 3: “The Reich Labor Service is to educate the German youth in the spirit of National Socialism into a Volksgemeinschaft and to a true idea of work, especially an appropriate respect for manual labor.”172 But as the negotiations over the law revealed, economic interests had a major hand in shaping the law. Hierl’s draft had been watered down further with each subsequent version. The RAD law provided a number of possible exemptions 165 166 167 168 169 170 171 172

BA/B, R 2/4539, Reich Finance Ministry to Hitler, March 16, 1934. BA/B, R 1501/5621, Frick to State Secretary of the Reich Chancellery and others, with attachments, May 13, 1935. BA/B, R 4901/342, esp. Reich Labor Ministry to Reich Ministry of the Interior, May 18, 1935. BA/B, R 3101/10338, Note Krause, no date [May/June 1935]; BA/B, R 2/4533, Note Reich Finance Ministry, May 18, 1935. BA/B, R 43 II/517, Excerpt from the minutes of the meeting of June 26, 1935; RGBl. 1935, I, 769–71. Hierl, Dienst, 88. E. Tschaksch, “Reichsarbeitsdienstrecht 1938,” Reichsverwaltungsblatt 60 (1939): 76. RGBl. 1935, I, 769–71, quote p. 769.

2.2. From Consolidation to RAD War-time Deployment

99

for men who were fit to serve. Therefore, Hierl should in fact have had little reason to celebrate on June 26, 1935. Moreover, he had already won a little noticed but substantial victory a month earlier: compulsory labor service had in fact been instituted on May 21, 1935. Paragraph 8 of the Defense Law issued on that day stipulated that the “fulfillment of the compulsory labor service is . . . a prerequisite for active military service.”173 Although no details were provided, the Defense Law thus met the demand Hierl had been pushing for so long. Still, publicly the RAD Law, which was strongly reminiscent of the Defense Law in its structure and principles, was hailed as an important breakthrough. Theodor Maunz, a legal theorist and a postwar commentator on the Grundgesetz of the Federal Republic, said the bill had the character of a ¨ “basic law.”174 Alfred Kruger of the Reich leadership of the RAD articulated it more precisely: “By this law a National Socialist idea that took shape has been nationalized (verstaatlicht) in its entirety. Whereas until now state institutions have been pervaded by National Socialism, and this great process of penetration continues, the Labor Service represents the first purely National ¨ Socialist institution that has been absorbed as a whole into our state.” Kruger went on to claim that the law was born “from the life stream of the German ¨ Volk, from the awakening of the German blood.”175 However, the volkisch language can hardly conceal the fact that the service had been introduced at the request of the regime and at a time of its choosing. Moreover, the RAD law and the reintroduction of universal military service demonstrated the regime’s new confidence in foreign policy. Clearly, its elite no longer feared intervention by the victorious powers of World War I.176 Over the next few years, the service continued to develop rather quietly. One can see this, for example, from the reports issued by the SPD in exile: at times they paid hardly any attention to the service, unlike the numerous reports in 1934, which documented its crisis-riddled development.177 Moreover, budget negotiations no longer involved the very existence and survival of the service. There are two other reasons why my organizational history of the service in the second half of the 1930s is shorter. First, the sources for this period are noticeably poorer than they are for the first years after the takeover of power. Second, many of the institution’s problems shifted from organization into the areas of its practical activities, pedagogy, and work, which will be described in subsequent chapters. That the institution 173 174 175 176

177

Ibid., 609–14, quote p. 610. ¨ T. Maunz, “Der Reichsarbeitsdienst,” Deutsche Verwaltungsblatter 83 (1935): 355; see also his student Sattelmair, Rechtsstellung, 36f. ¨ A. Kruger, “Ein Jahr Reichsarbeitsdienst,” Deutsches Recht 6 (1936): 260–4, quote p. 260. BA/B, R 1501/5621, esp. Stamm to Pfundtner, February 23, 1935, and attachments; BA/B, R 1501/5102, Hierl to Metzner, Reich Ministry of the Interior, May 28, 1935, and attachment. Deutschland-Berichte, vols. 2–7 (1935–40).

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was visibly consolidating was noted by Joseph Goebbels, for example, who certified to Hierl that his organization was making “a good impression.”178 Evidently the initial difficulties were fading from memory. Overall, the Labor Service was put on an increasingly legal footing in the second half of 1934. This process, which characterizes the legal history of the Nazi regime as a whole, stands only at first glance in contradiction to the illegal nature of the regime. Every National Socialist institution tried to secure in law the position it had won in the regime’s early phase. In the case of the Labor Service, this process is apparent, for instance, in that only a single decree directly relating to the male Labor Service was published in the Reichsgesetzblatt of 1933, whereas beginning in 1935, each yearly volume of this register contained more than a dozen laws, ordinances, decrees, and the like.179 The Labor Service thus serves as one example of the thoroughgoing bureaucratization of the Nazi regime. What role did the German perception of the CCC play during this period? The German media repeatedly discussed the American labor service even after the veto of the victorious powers of Versailles. Some reports were simply an account of developments in the United States, devoid of any explicit commentary.180 Some articles in papers that had been part of the liberal media during the Weimar Republic have such positive undertones that one can read them as an indirect critique of National Socialism.181 Most articles in the summer of 1933 related the American service to its German counterpart in the sense described above: the reference to the CCC was used to demonstrate the allegedly innocuous nature of the National Socialist institution. However, this discursive strategy had served its purpose after only a few months: its defensive character made sense only in the early months of the regime, when the “New Germany” used these reports to protect itself against diplomatic repercussions. By contrast, two other patterns of argumentation shaped the German reaction to the CCC as early as the summer of 1933. First, German writers now claimed that the German service was superior to its American counterpart. For example, one article in the magazine Deutschlands Erneuerung, which ¨ had been part of the volkisch anti-Semitic right before 1933, began by paying tribute to the CCC. But after comparing it to the RAD, it concluded: “As in all other areas, the American voluntary labor service also lacks the visible, large-scale integration into a great, widely drawn framework of the kind of ¨ enormous, volkisch, national and socialist work of reconstruction we are 178 179 180 181

TBJG, part 1, vol. 3, 27 (January 29, 1936). RGBl. 1933–40; for a listing see Absolon, Wehrmacht, vol. 4, 122–8. See, e.g., VB, August 17, 1933; BBZ, July 21, 1934; FZ, December 5, 1937; GER, Decem¨ ber 7, 1937; Militar-Wochenblatt 119 (1934): 97f. FZ, September 3, 1934; FZ, August 15, 1937. These articles must not be given too much weight, since the FZ, the BT, and other papers also published reports that were entirely in line with the National Socialist interpretation.

2.2. From Consolidation to RAD War-time Deployment 101 experiencing in the Third Reich.”182 What this and similar articles found lacking in the American labor service was chiefly a pedagogical dimension focused on the Volksgemeinschaft.183 Instead, a racist factor was often invoked as the final explanation for the alleged deficits of the CCC and of the New Deal in general. One article, for example, emphasized that the “German ratio of blood” in the United States was between 20 percent and 25 percent. One had to wait and see whether this would be sufficient to establish, via institutions such as the CCC, the kind of “new feeling of community” that was emerging in Germany.184 If a writer did ascribe some kind of positive, community-creating function to the Corps, it was often done with the added comment that this was an “un-American” institution. On the whole, then, the growing self-confidence of the Nazi regime was becoming apparent. As it was now on firmer footing, the regime no longer pulled its punches in its reporting on the United States, though it continued to use it to celebrate its own policies. A second argument appeared in the reports, even during the war: the claim was made that the German service had served as the model for the CCC and many other similar institutions around the world. For example, ¨ Herman Muller-Brandenburg, who ran the Section for Foreign Matters and Information in the Reich office of the service, wrote as late as 1941: “All the labor services that have been established in the course of the last seven years . . . have been more or less influenced in some manner by the German Reich Labor Service, indeed, they have taken their cues from it” – by which ¨ Muller-Brandenburg was referring primarily to the CCC.185 In general, the year 1937 marked a transition in the Nazi picture of the United States from an ambivalent to an openly hostile one. An important trigger in the change of course was Roosevelt’s “quarantine speech” in October 1937, in which the American president called upon peace-loving nations to join together in opposing all enemies of peace.186 Nevertheless, in the following years – and even after the outbreak of war – the German media repeatedly published positive reports on the American labor service.187 This subsegment of the reporting on the United States thus formed an exception to the official, critical stance, and the reason for this lay chiefly in the at¨ titude of Muller-Brandenburg, the chief of the office for foreign matters in the RAD. 182 183 184 185 186 187

¨ ¨ Steimle, “Krisenbekampfung bei uns und in anderen Landern,” Deutschlands Erneuerung 21 (1937): 100–3, quote p. 103. ¨ H. Horhager, “Arbeitsdienst im Dollarland,” Die Bewegung, July 20, 1937; similarly, for example, Hamburger Fremdenblatt, December 3, 1937. Arbeitsmann, August 7, 1937. ¨ H. Muller-Brandenburg, Gedanken um den Reichsarbeitsdienst (Leipzig, 1941b), 5; see also BT, March 10, 1937; Arbeitsmann, July 2, 1937; FZ, September 18, 1937. Gassert, Amerika im Dritten Reich, 247f. ¨ See, e.g., Muller-Brandenburg, Gedanken, 5.

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Still, in the final analysis, the three argumentative strategies that can be found in the German media with respect to the CCC between 1933 and well into the war all served a single end: to legitimize the German Labor Service internationally and at home. The Nazi power elite hardly paid any attention to the CCC, and there are no documented learning processes and transfers from the American organization to the RAD or other German institutions. Accordingly, the Corps played no major role in the reports from the German embassy in Washington to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs or in similar sources. We have no record of statements of any real depth by Hierl, and Hitler himself appears to have taken no interest in the CCC.188 ¨ Only Muller-Brandenburg, who was in charge of foreign matters, exchanged information with CCC officials.189 The fairly stable development of the Labor Service, as well as its place within the power structure of the Reich, are reflected in three honors bestowed on Hierl over the next few years. In May 1936, the retired colonel was granted the title of Major General, which had no great practical relevance. Moreover, Hierl, for whom this amounted to a promotion by one rank, was not very happy about it. He noted jealously that the former major ¨ Huhnlein, the head of the National Socialist Motor Corps, had been promoted by several ranks at once. He told Frick that “I am being overlooked 190 ¨ and forgotten by the Fuhrer.” But the dictator did not forget him for long: at the next Reich party rally he made Hierl a Reichsleiter of the NSDAP.191 This in turn shows that the service had by no means left the realm of the party. Finally, on January 30, 1937, Hitler himself reorganized the authority of the Reich labor leader in the Reich Ministry of the Interior. Hierl was now put in charge of all matters pertaining to the RAD within the ministry, and he himself was placed directly under Frick.192 Hitler chose this symbolic date deliberately as a way of pushing ahead with making the service autonomous four years after the takeover of power. However, this move meant that the ¨ Fuhrer once again decided against Hierl’s real wish, which was to make the RAD into a top Reich agency with himself as minister.193 The growth in 188 189

190 191 192 193

See only the brief mention in BA/B, R 2501/6685, Report Goerdeler, December 12, 1937; and occasionally in BA/B, R 901/47185–47188, 47178/5; nothing of substance in PA/B. ¨ See in general PA/B, R 98850; on the CCC, see, e.g., M. Muller, ed., Youth Rebuilds. With the Volunteers of the American CCC and the English Work Camps (Leipzig, 1935), and the dissertation by F. H. Scheibe, The Civilian Conservation Corps. Wesen und Gestalt des ¨ Arbeitsdienstes in den Vereinigten Staaten von Amerika (Wurzburg, 1939); Scheibe later became secretary-general of the DAAD. BA/B, R 1501/5102, Hierl to Frick, May 21, 1936. BA/BDC, PK, Hierl, Constantin [sic], NSDAP Reich leadership, decree, September 10, 1936. RGBl. 1937, I, 95f.; Croon, “Aktenhaltung und Archivgutpflege,” 154. BA/B, R 43 II/518, esp. Reich Ministry of the Interior to State Secretary of the Reich Chancellery, October 22, 1936.

2.2. From Consolidation to RAD War-time Deployment 103 importance that the Labor Service experienced in spite of this was chiefly the result of its expansion in size – which will be discussed in greater detail. The consolidation of the service and its important place in the Third Reich in these years was also reflected in the international interest that the RAD now attracted. Many high-ranking state visitors who came to Nazi Germany in this period asked to see the Labor Service.194 However, unlike in 1933, these visitors were not out to inspect whether or not the Labor Service was a concealed rearmament measure. Rather, it would seem that the ideology of the Volksgemeinschaft, which Hierl’s organization used to promote itself, had an effect also on these foreign observers; many regarded the service as the embodiment of the “positive” side of National Socialism. Some states (e.g., Ecuador) requested that the government send RAD leaders to help set up similar institutions in their own countries.195 The brief glimpses that were afforded to high-ranking guests in selected camps did not allow them to make a meaningful judgment about the daily life of the labor men. Instead, the visitors were shown only the best side of the institution, which thus became an important vehicle for promoting the Nazi regime abroad. Until now, scholarship has entirely overlooked one project discussed by the regime in 1936–7. On December 4, 1936, a draft decree was handed to ¨ Hess, the Deputy of the Fuhrer, and to the Reich ministers. It required young men unfit for military service to perform a kind of alternative service in the National Auxiliary Service (Nationaler Hilfsdienst). The new organization would become a “branch of the Reich Labor Service.” These young men would be employed for a year and a half “in enterprises that were vital for the preservation and flourishing of the nation [Volk], especially in agriculture.” The details of the proposal make clear that this was more a question of power than ideology for the Reich labor leader. Workers in the National Auxiliary Service would be placed with private-sector businesses in accordance with their working conditions, and these enterprises would be required to pay for them: this was state-organized loan labor. Although the men would be jointly housed and the plan included an educational dimension, given the long work days that aspect was far less pronounced than in the RAD. Following a startup period, according to the draft proposal, between 90,000 and 100,000 men would be incorporated into this new organization from 1938 to 1941.196 Hierl had two goals in mind with this project. First, it was a strategy of forward defense. In 1936, the Labor Service was for the first time called upon to perform large-scale tasks as part of the harvest, tasks that could hardly be reconciled with its pedagogical mission; I will examine them in greater detail 194 195 196

See the reports in PA/B, R 47643–47648, R 98846–98849. PA/B, R 47647, esp. Foreign Ministry to the legation of Ecuador, January 16, 1937. BA/B, R 2/4532, Reich Ministry of the Interior to Heß and others, December 4, 1936, and attachments.

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in Chapter 4. In setting up the National Auxiliary Service, the Reich labor leader was thus intent on creating a new organization that could be used instead of the RAD to provide labor support at times of heightened need in the agricultural sector. When it came to this institution, he was willing to make concessions to the ideological program, provided the Labor Service itself would in return be able to pursue its pedagogical mission with greater vigor. Second, the Reich Labor Leader was eager to expand his authority. Hierl conceived of the new institution as his entrance ticket into another sphere of activity. As he noted in a conversation with Chief of Staff Ludwig Beck in early January 1937, in case of war it was to become “an auxiliary organization for the general labor deployment.”197 As such it would have fulfilled the same function as the Patriotic Auxiliary Service in the First World War, to which its name also referred. As a supplement to the compulsory Labor Service, the National Auxiliary Service was to introduce a general duty to serve. Not only was the Reich Labor Leader intent on organizing the clearly defined group of men unfit for military service through this project, he also wanted to assign other individuals to specific jobs within the framework of the labor deployment. It was inevitable that these far-reaching plans would encounter opposition, especially since the authority to organize the economy in case of war had already been assigned to Hjalmar Schacht, who was president of the Reichsbank and Reich Economics Minister.198 But there was also support for the project, for example from the Reich Ministry of Education.199 In the end, Hierl’s proposal was turned down exactly a month later at another cabinet meeting.200 Hierl’s plan for general labor conscription in case of war, which was not targeted only at specific groups but extended to individuals, led to the ¨ so-called Decree on Labor Requirements (Kraftebedarfsverordnung) in the ¨ summer of 1938. Under Goring’s supervision, individuals could be compelled to take a specific job or training position for a specified period of time; by floating his proposal, Hierl had thus intruded not only onto ¨ ¨ has argued that 1938 Schacht’s but also Goring’s territory. Norbert Gotz witnessed the transition to the third and last stage of compulsory service of one kind or another under National Socialism. A period of voluntary services (one of which was the FAD) between 1933 and 1935 was followed, beginning in 1935, by a phase of universal compulsory services, which included military and labor service. This was followed in 1938 by individual 197 198 199

200

Ibid., Blomberg to Reich Ministry of the Interior and others, January 9, 1937. See ibid. BA/B, R 4901/342, esp. Reich Ministry for Science, Education, and National Training to the Reich Ministry of the Interior, January 8, 1937; BA/B, R 2/4532, Attachment 2 to Reich Ministry of the Interior to Heß, December 4, 1936. Ibid., esp. Note Reich Finance Ministry, June 26, 1937.

2.2. From Consolidation to RAD War-time Deployment 105 compulsory labor, the organization of which Hierl had intended to take over. He can be regarded as the pioneer of this third stage, even though he ¨ lost the power struggle and this program was implemented under Goring’s oversight.201 Perhaps even more important are the lines of continuity between Hierl’s proposal and the obligatory auxiliary war service (Kriegshilfspflicht) that was introduced in the summer of 1941, which represented an expanded obligation for young women in the Labor Service. As in Hierl’s plans of 1936–7, young adults were kept in the RAD beyond their actual term of service, with the pedagogical program taking a back seat to a stronger economic focus in the phase following the original term of service in the RAD.202 While his project for men had failed in 1938, Hierl was successful a few years later when it came to young women. Moreover, against the background of these plans for auxiliary services, the crisis in which the Labor Service became enmeshed in the second half of 1937 appears in a new light. At that time, the Wehrmacht demanded that the RAD, as the construction unit of the Luftwaffe, be turned into its fourth branch ¨ alongside the army, the navy, and the air force. Goring advocated a different model, though it would have also meant the end of Hierl’s service. The RAD was to relinquish its pedagogical mission, focus entirely on productive work, and transform itself into a cheap army of state labor.203 Although we know little about the precise demands that were raised and the interests behind them, Hierl’s reaction is well documented. At the party rally in 1937, he sharply criticized all efforts to dilute the existing concept of the service. His critique culminated in this statement: “And just as a faithful farm watch dog would rather die than allow anyone to break into the farm entrusted to his protection, I place myself before these inviolable ideological foundations of a National Socialist Labor Service.”204 Thanks to Hitler, Hierl was able to fend off the attacks: the service remained formally independent, and for the time being, with some minor curtailments, it pursued its work and pedagogical mission in its accustomed form. In general, the Reich Labor Leader made heavy use of the party rallies in Nuremberg to push through his own interests. That is reflected not only in Hierl’s defensive speech just quoted, but also in the care and considerable efforts he expended preparing the RAD’s participation every year. The striking success he had won with the parade of his men in 1934 caused Hierl to develop an obsession about the rallies. In 1938, for example, he had units that were urgently needed at construction sites spend their time marching and 201 202 203 204

¨ N. Gotz, Gemeinschaft aus dem Gleichgewicht: Die Ausweitung von Dienstpflichten im Nationalsozialismus (Berlin, 1997), 5–23. AdP, Part 1, No. 15087; Seifert, Kulturarbeit, 103f. Mallebrein, Hierl, 7–10, 80; BA/B, ZSg 145, Eisenbeck notes, no date [after 1945]. Hierl, Schriften, vol. 2, 383–93 (1937), quote p. 393.

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parading.205 At the same time, though, the appearances of the Labor Service at these mass spectacles were always closely watched. Hitler, for one, was especially satisfied with the RAD’s presentations: in 1938 he even remarked that the Labor Service, unlike other Nazi organizations, had already attained its final form.206 Even more revealing are the diaries of Joseph Goebbels. Reacting to its parade in 1937, the Minister of Propaganda called the service a “wonderful organization.” All in all, the Labor Service was measured less against its accomplishments in the areas of work and education as against its important role at the Nuremberg spectacles. In that sense Hierl’s priorities were, in the final analysis, quite rational.207 During this phase Hierl was able to win a partial success with respect to the Labor Service for young women, which allowed him to consolidate his position within the institutional structure of the Reich. Formally, the women’s service had been under the authority of the Reich Labor Leader since 1933, although it was largely disconnected from the service for young men. Moreover, initially Hierl paid little attention to the women’s service. Beginning in January 1934, it was directly run by Gertrud Scholtz-Klink, who, soon after, was to become head of the Nazi Women’s League and began to call herself “Reich Women’s Leader” in November 1934. Yet this imposing title did not alter the fact that the Labor Service for women remained a small organization: between 1933 and 1937 it comprised no more than about 10,000 persons at any one time, which means it was even further removed from the goal of universal compulsory service (which applied also to women according to the RAD law of 1935) than its male counterpart. In September 1937, Hierl was able to prevail upon Hitler to expand the service for Germany’s female youth to 25,000 participants and to begin systematic preparations for a universal compulsory service for women. Although Hierl was not able to implement this comprehensive plan by 1945, the expansion of the women’s service in the fall of 1937 did amount to a small increase in his power.208 In addition, the Labor Service for the male youth expanded in tandem with the growth of the Reich. In 1935, it was extended to the Saarland. But even before this time, young men from that region, which had been separated from 205

206

207

208

NARA/CP, RG 242, T 81/110, Report about the 9th sections and group leader meeting, ¨ July 13, 1938; Y. Karow, Deutsches Opfer. Kultische Selbstausloschung auf den Reichsparteitagen der NSDAP (Berlin, 1997), esp. 223–36. ¨ H. Thamer, “Faszination und Manipulation. Die Nurnberger Reichsparteitage der NSDAP,” in U. Schultz, ed., Das Fest. Eine Kulturgeschichte von der Antike bis zur Gegenwart (Munich, 1988), 356. TBJG, part 1, vol. 3, 259 (September 9, 1937); see also ibid., 263 (September 12, 1937); ibid., vol. 2, 513 (September 13, 1935); ibid., vol. 6, 77 (September 8, 1938); ibid., 80 (August 10, 1938). Miller-Kipp, “Erziehung,” 103–29; Watzke-Otte, Glied; Morgan, Weiblicher Arbeitsdienst.

2.2. From Consolidation to RAD War-time Deployment 107 the Reich in the Versailles Treaty and was under the mandate of the League of Nations until the plebiscite of 1935, had been in German labor camps. There the carefully selected volunteers were given training that would “keep them together as seasoned groups of comrades back in the Saar, in anticipation of the final struggle over reintegration in 1935.”209 These men were in fact used in the “final struggle.” Although there is no direct evidence that the acts of terror that occurred were the work of the Labor Service men, it is at least a strong likelihood that they were involved.210 If they were, it would mean that the labor men took on tasks similar to those of the Labor Service in Anhalt prior to 1933. Following the outcome of the plebiscite on January 13, 1935, a triumph for Hitler that returned the Saarland to Germany, the region was given its own camps and was integrated into the organization of the service.211 Even more important was the expansion of the service after the Anschluss (annexation) of Austria in March 1938. The Reich Labor Service was introduced there on October 1, 1938. Austria, too, had a colorful prehistory of various organizations. Volunteer groups had been forming there since 1932, and that same year the NSDAP in Vienna set up a section for Labor Service. Following the outlawing of the party in the spring of 1933, the National Socialist service sections assumed special importance, since they formed the party’s illegal substitute organization under a cover name. In early 1934, they too had to be dissolved, and thereafter the work was largely confined to training leaders in the Reich. In the wake of the Anschluss of 1938, the RAD eventually set up four districts with well over 100 sections in the “Ostmark” (the name given to Austria after its annexation).212 Two additional districts and nearly 100 sections were added after the incorporation of the Sudeten region. Although the Wehrmacht had occupied that region as early as October 1938, a compulsory labor service was not introduced until October 1, 1939. The primary reason for the delay was that little had been done 209

210

211 212

O. Hammelsbeck, “Arbeitsdienst der Saardeutschen im Reich,” Dt. AD 3 (1933): 296f.; see also the French criticism of such statements in Le Matin, April 13, 1934; Echo de Paris, April 13, 1934; on the subsequent embroilment see Bayr. HStA, StK/6138, Foreign Ministry ¨ to Hitler’s Plenipotentiary for the Saar, September 10, 1934, and attachments; H. Muller¨ ¨ Brandenburg, “Wieder franzosische Entstellungen uber den deutschen Arbeitsdienst,” VB, April 25, 1934. No indications in G. Paul, “Deutsche Mutter – heim zu Dir!” Warum es mißlang, Hitler an ¨ der Saar zu schlagen. Der Saarkampf 1933–1935 (Cologne, 1984), and P. v. zur Muhlen, “Schlagt Hitler an der Saar!” Abstimmungskampf, Emigration und Widerstand im Saargebiet 1933–1935 (Bonn, 1979). However, both authors agree with this assumption, which they were kind enough to share in personal correspondence. BA/B, R 3101/10338, Plenipotentiary for the Saar to Reich Ministry of the Interior, February 13, 1935. ¨ See esp. RGBl. 1938, I, 400, 631–4, 1578; R. Leitner, “Der RAD in Osterreich,” JB-RAD 4 (1939): 20–5; see also the file BA/B, R 2301/5639.

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Service to the Community chart 1. Budget funds spent for the German Labor Service for men (in million RM) Year

Ongoing funding

One-time funding

Total

1933 1934 1935 1936 1937 1938 1939 1940 1941 1942 1943 1944

approx. 180 195 184 206 270 389 303 248 276 324 424 417

– – 13 42 64 170 54 32 29 58 24 39

180 195 197 248 334 559 357 280 305 382 448 456

there to lay the groundwork, compared to Austria.213 Beginning in April 1939, labor conscription applied to the Memel lands, and from August 1939 also to the “ethnic Germans” (Volksdeutsche) in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia.214 Other areas would be added during the war. As a result, the number of those subject to compulsory service rose noticeably. The prerequisite for this was a loosening of the restrictive financial policies that had been in place with regard to the service since 1933–4, and against which Hierl had been locked in constant struggle. In fact, in the years following 1935 the male Labor Service was provided with increasingly better funding (see Chart 1).215 In April 1938, Hierl used the added importance that accrued to the service through the expansion into Austria as an occasion to request that the Reich office be elevated into a top-level agency. In addition, negotiations took place in 1938–9 over a revision of the RAD law of 1935, which was supposed to consolidate all the changes that had occurred since then. Although this revised law did not contain any substantive innovations, it was not actually passed until September 9, 1939.216 The Second World War brought certain changes for the Labor Service. Here I will take a brief look at the specific organizational consequences of the war; later chapters offer a concise discussion of the effects in the areas of education and work. 213 214 215 216

BA/B, R 2301/5639, Reich Labor Leader to Labor District leaders and others, November 3, 1938. Absolon, Wehrmacht, 4: 108. BA/B, R 2 Anh./23, esp. Schmidt-Schwarzenberg, Reich Labor Service, Fiscal year 1944; for a different view see Jonas, Verherrlichung, 185. RGBl. 1939, I, 1747–50; on the discussion over the proposed law see BA/B, R 2/4533.

2.2. From Consolidation to RAD War-time Deployment 109 Organizationally, the use of the institution after 1939 initially followed in a direct line of continuity with its deployment on the construction of the West Wall, Germany’s system of fortifications on the western border of the Reich in 1938: in September 1939, the RAD once again formed construction battalions from many sectors, which were placed under the authority of the Wehrmacht. Although the Labor Service men continued to be part of the RAD on the basis of a law passed on September 9, 1939, they were performing quasi-military service behind the front line.217 This subordination to the Wehrmacht simply repeated an arrangement that had been tried out in the construction of the West Wall, which means that in organizational terms 1938 represented a more profound turning point than the outbreak of the war. These inroads into the independence of the service were intensified by another measure: at the beginning of the Polish campaign, approximately 60 percent of the core personnel was withdrawn from the RAD and called up for military service.218 In turn, the lack of leaders resulting from this drain of manpower was grist for the mill of those demanding that the service be ¨ disbanded, at least for the duration of the war. As in 1937–8, Goring proved once again to be Hierl’s most dangerous adversary.219 In spite of all these inroads, it was thus an important partial victory for the Reich labor leader that he was able to secure at least the organization’s institutional survival. A brief period of consolidation took place following the end of the Polish campaign, when the subordination to the Wehrmacht ended and the RAD returned to being an independent organization.220 Clarification concerning the organizational future of the service was provided a short while later in the decree of December 20, 1939, which stipulated that the service was to continue in existence during the war. Even if this guaranteed the institutional survival of the RAD and its independence for the time being, the decree aligned the institutional structure and the tasks of the service entirely with the needs of the Wehrmacht.221 In the months prior to the campaign against France, hardly any concrete consequences flowed from this development. The RAD was able to focus on its internal problems and on reorganizing the administration of its equipment. In February 1940, when the hiring freeze put in place at the beginning of the war was lifted, it could begin to replenish its leadership. This was all the more urgent since the compulsory labor service went into effect in 217 218 219 220

221

On the war deployment see also Seifert, Kulturarbeit, 87–92; Jonas, Verherrlichung, 164–73; on the West Wall see also Chapter 4, Section 4.3.2. BA/F, MSg 2/144, Walther Kumpf draft, [ca. 1954]; F. H. Scheibe, Aufgabe und Aufbau des Reichsarbeitsdienstes, 3rd ed. (Leipzig, 1942; orig. 1937), 27f. See, e.g., also AdP, Part 1, No. 17899. BA/B, R 2301/5639, Reich Labor Leader to Labor District leaders, December 8, 1939. That applied also to the sections deployed at the West Wall; see IfZ, MA 568, Army High Command to Army Group Commands, February 10, 1940. RGBl. 1939, I, 2465f., and the negotiations in BA/B, R 43 II/520.

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the “incorporated eastern territories” in January 1940, in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia in October 1940, and in Lorraine, Alsace, and Luxembourg in October 1941.222 With the outbreak of war in the West, construction battalions subordinated to the Wehrmacht were once again formed, and the RAD followed the army and the air force into France. When Germany attacked the Soviet Union, the number of sections was substantially reduced and the manner of their deployment was aligned even more strongly with the interests of the military. By October 1941, only 184 of the 929 sections that had been part of the Labor Service were still engaged in peaceful work. This casts serious doubt on Hierl’s claim after the war that the RAD turned “into an improvised war institution” only during the last two years of the war.223 The leadership personnel that were freed up by reduction of the RAD’s size – in 1939, Hierl’s organization still had no fewer than 1,700 sections – was once again directed into the Wehrmacht.224 As the military situation grew more serious, demands that the remaining leaders be directly incorporated into the fighting troops became increasingly urgent – toward the end of the war there was even occasional unrest among the civilian population, which would have preferred to see the “young leaders” of the RAD “who were fit for frontline service” in the Wehrmacht.225 On the whole, the Labor Service was increasingly transformed into a subordinate construction and fighting unit of the Wehrmacht; it lost the identity it had developed since 1931 and 1933. In the face of the demands of war, it also proved impossible to sustain a uniform period of service: some sections deployed in the East served much longer than the intended six months, a few as long as 12 to 18 months. On the whole, though, the trend ran toward a shortening of the service period. In 1943, for example, it was stipulated that the period would be six months for 100,000 men and only three months for all others. At the end of 1944, those subject to compulsory service were putting in only two to three months of labor.226 The decline of the organization from what it had been in the prewar period was not changed in any way by a rise in Hierl’s personal position. When Himmler replaced Frick as Reich Interior Minister, the RAD was made a top-level Reich agency effective August 20, 1943. Hierl was now a Reich minister and held cabinet rank, which, given the fact that the cabinet had 222

223 224 225 226

On the reorganization see Klausch, “Reichsarbeitsdienst,” 11f.; on the expansion see RGBl. 1940, I, 248f.; 1364–9, 1544; BA/B, R 43 II/502, Bormann to Lammers, October 21, 1941. Hierl, Dienst, 111. BA/B, R 1501/5626, Note Reich Finance Ministry to Reich Ministry of the Interior, October 21, 1941. BA/B, R 55/601, Schaffer to Goebbels, October 31, 1944, and attached report. BA/B, R 3101/1090, Reich Economics Ministry to Reich Governors and others, January 7, 1943; Jonas, Verherrlichung, 171.

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long since become irrelevant, did not constitute much of a success.227 It merely demonstrated that Hitler had forgiven Hierl for his involvement in a food profiteering scheme that had been uncovered not long before.228 To the very end, Hierl used his new title of minister to try to preserve a remnant of independence for the RAD.229 Still, he was unable to prevent the service from being reduced to an appendage of the Wehrmacht. The awarding of the highest decoration of the regime, the Golden Cross of the German Order, on the occasion of Hierl’s seventieth birthday at the end of February 1945 did nothing to change the “shadowy existence” of the RAD.230 Even the labor services that were established under Hierl’s auspices in some of the occupied and dependent territories following the model of the German service – by 1942, the RAD had set up satellite organizations in Norway, the Netherlands, Flanders, Wallonia, Romania, Croatia, and Slovakia – did not provide the Reich labor leader with enough clout in his clashes with the Wehrmacht and other rivals.231 The situation was much the same with the women’s Labor Service: although it was expanded during the war, it was not aligned with Hierl’s pedagogical ideas but with the interests of the armament industry and the Wehrmacht.232 While the Reich was collapsing into chaos and rubble, the nearly seventyyear-old Reich labor leader withdrew increasingly from the RAD. In the early summer of 1944, he moved to Austria with Hitler’s permission, and thereafter the labor chiefs and district leaders assumed the day-to-day operation of the organization.233 The list of possible successors Hierl compiled revealed once again his deep-seated anti-Semitism: one reason he dismissed Will Decker, his long-time right-hand man, as a candidate for the job was because his “wife had been married once before, though in her youth and only briefly, to a Jew,” and had brought into the marriage to Decker a son “whose racial background does not seem entirely clear.” His preference for a successor was his deputy Hermann Wagner.234 In the meantime, Hierl occupied himself with questions about the future. His plans for the RAD in a coming age of peace under German supremacy 227 228

229 230 231

232 233 234

RGBl. 1943, I, 495; AdP, Part 1, No. 17140; Hierl, Dienst, 108. TBJG, part 2, vol. 7, 572 (March 17, 1943); ibid., vol. 9, 328f. (August 21, 1943); similar new charges in AdP, Part 1, No. 17367; on Hitler’s basic confidence in Hierl see, e.g., Hitlers ¨ ¨ Tischgesprache im Fuhrerhauptquartier 1941–1942, ed. Percy Ernst Schramm (Stuttgart, 1963), 314. See, e.g., BA/F, MFB 1/WF-01/1647, Hierl to Winter, April 28, 1945. Mallebrein, Hierl, 108. IfZ, MA 331, Berger to Himmler, November 21, 1942; in addition, for a while there existed an unauthorized competing product in the Ukraine; see IfZ, MA 303, Chief of the SS Administration to the Reich Leader of the SS, September 26, 1943; on the Labor Service in ¨ Slovakia, see also T. Tonsmeyer, Das Deutsche Reich und die Slowakei. Politischer Alltag zwischen Kooperation und Eigensinn (Paderborn, 2003). Miller-Kipp, “Erziehung,” 109–13. NARA/CP, RG 238, M 1919, film 27, Hierl interrogation, February 19, 1947. BA/BDC, O 237, Hierl list, May 24, 1944.

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included a Labor Service academy, new large-scale projects in the conquered territories, and new uniforms. When the Allies’ tanks had already crossed the borders of the Reich, Hierl found time to draft a constitution for the period following the “final victory.”235 In an almost eerie fashion he was thus imitating Hitler, who after 1944 also spent a lot of time discussing all kinds of topics.236 In Hierl’s case, however, the planning was not entirely absurd. His plans for the period after the “final victory” constituted the important legitimization of the existence of the service. Without the prospect of returning at some future time to what it had been in the prewar period, the RAD would have had no reason at all to continue in existence. In the fall of 1944, the Labor Service lost a long-time ally: Heinrich Himmler. During the war his SS men frequently went to the RAD to find new recruits for the Waffen SS, and in other areas, as well, the two organizations had previously worked together closely.237 But in the spring of 1945, Himmler was thinking of incorporating the RAD into the SS.238 In the chaos of the last months of the war this did not happen. At the same time, it was Hitler’s protective hand that prevented the dissolution of the RAD or its takeover by another organization. In May 1945, the RAD was demobilized as part of the Wehrmacht, and on May 20, the Allied Control Council issued Law 34, abolishing the organization.239 Hierl was taken prisoner by the Americans during the final days of the war and appeared at the Nuremberg trials only as a witness. The questions put to him concerned for the most part other important figures in the government and the party; they were innocuous with respect to the RAD.240 A German denazification tribunal later sentenced him to five years in a labor camp, but the aged Hierl, now over seventy years old, was excused from serving the sentence at the urging of the Bishop Theophil Wurm. He died in modest circumstances in 1955, having spent his final years trying to justify his actions and to defend the RAD.241 Based on what I have presented so far, is Wolfgang Benz’s thesis that the Labor Service lived a “shadowy existence” between 1933 and 1945 accurate?242 This generalizing assumption needs to be refined, in two respects: first, it is 235 237 238 239 240 241

242

236 Kershaw, Hitler 1936–1945, 638. Ibid., Hierl note, November 1, 1944. For example, IfZ, MA 325, Himmler to Hierl, December 8, 1941. BA/F, MFB 1/SF-01/28837, Herff note, September 19, 1944. BA/F, MFB 1/WF-01/1930, Demobilization of the Reich Labor Service, May 11, 1945; Jonas, Verherrlichung, 172. NARA/CP, RG 238, M 1919, Film 27, Hierl interrogation, February 2, 1947. See esp. K. Hierl, Gedanken hinter Stacheldraht. Eine Lebensschau (Heidelberg, 1953a); Hierl, “Idee und Gestaltung eines Jugendarbeitsdienstes,” Nation Europa 3 (1953b): 35–41; ¨ Deutschland 1918–1945; Nation Europa 5 (1955): 62–4; Mallebrein, Hierl, Im Dienst fur Hierl, 110–16. Benz, “Arbeitsdienst,” 342, 345.

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necessary to distinguish various phases in this period; second, an assessment must be based not only on the institutional importance of the service within the power structure of the regime, but also on the effect it had on its participants. When it comes to the influence of the RAD within the regime’s institutional structure, Benz’s verdict is only partially correct. Hierl’s organization in no way led a marginal existence after the takeover of power – after all, the Reich labor leader had about 200,000 men in his ranks. Moreover, Hierl was able to emerge victorious in tough clashes and to fend off all takeover attempts and rival claims. To be sure, he was not part of the regime’s power elite, and the organization did not live up to the goals it had set for itself – had it done so, it would have evolved into one of the regime’s most important institutions. And yet, backed by Hitler’s basic confidence in him, Hierl was able to rebuild the Labor Service in line with his ideas through initiatives of his own. As was the case in many other organizations, the changes were initially accomplished chiefly through force, terror, and other measures that violated the existing legal arrangements. This process, along with the external challenges, convulsed the service, and in the eighteen months following the takeover of power it stumbled from one crisis to the next. It nonetheless continued to exist. Between the middle of 1934 and the middle of 1937, it appeared that the service was able to consolidate externally and internally. The results of the early power struggles were now legally secured after the fact: laws supported what had been achieved through action and violence. Yet the stabilization was only relative, since Hierl’s initiatives to expand and solidify his position failed. This becomes apparent from the introduction of a compulsory labor service in 1935: it turned out not to be a profound turning point. The administrative apparatus and the spheres of authority hardly changed, and the number of men subject to service remained initially nearly the same. The date has significance only from a legal perspective. To describe 1935 as a turning point in spite of these reservations, as all previous accounts of the service have done, does not do justice to the organizational history of the institution. The RAD law merely constituted one stage – though admittedly the most important one – in the process of legally securing the internal and external power situation that had developed in the wake of the “coordination” of 1933–4. Moreover, Hierl’s other large-scale initiative, the introduction of the National Auxiliary Service, also came to nothing. To be sure, these failures must not conceal the fact that the Labor Service was able to continue developing fairly unhindered during this phase, and that it had a certain power to prevail in the various debates. The RAD attained the high point of its relative consolidation in the Nazi regime at the beginning of 1937. While it was still not part of the top echelon of the regime, Hierl had been able to fight for and defend the organization’s independence in tough clashes with his adversaries.

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After this time, attacks against the service increased, and it gradually became less important. I will show this in greater detail in my analysis of the spheres in which it was active. From the time it was placed under the authority of the Wehrmacht, at the latest, the RAD did lead the “shadowy existence” that Benz believes characterized the entire twelve years of the Nazi regime. At the same time, it would be wrong to measure the service only with respect to its importance in relationship to other institutions. In the beginning, it organized no fewer than 200,000 young people every year: by 1940, more than 2.75 million young men had passed through the service.243 If this chapter on the organizational history of the service has emphasized the institutional ruptures, breaks, and difficulties, this should not cause us to overlook its normality and everyday life. For that reason, what remains to be examined is whether the service was also unsuccessful in the fields of work and education. However, that analysis will be preceded, as part of the organizational history, by a discussion of the structure of the Labor Service and the requirements for participation. 2.2.2. The Structure of the Labor Service for Male Youth In spite of all the problems we have reviewed, the organizational development of the service proceeded for a long time fairly unimpeded. The process that began in the spring of 1933 was characterized by three features: a standardization of the administration; the gradual takeover of the organization by the state; and, parallel to that takeover, a bureaucratization and hierarchicization of the service. For that reason, I will give a systematic overview of the various organizational levels of the Labor Service that evolved after 1933. Ever since the Weimar Republic, the Reich Commissioner for the FAD stood at the head of the organization. As early as the spring of 1933, even before the personnel battles between the Stahlhelm and the NSDAP had been fought, the “Reich Administration of the Labor Service” was set up within the Reich Labor Ministry. Here, members of the RfAVAV, the Reich Labor Ministry, the Organizational Section II of the NSDAP, and the National Socialist labor service sponsor worked side by side.244 Implementing Hierl’s plan to restructure the service from an institution that was supported by the state into a pure state-run organization required a substantial enlargement of the bureaucratic apparatus, which meant that additional experts had to be brought in. Some were initially loaned from other administrative departments and then in many cases taken over entirely, as was the case with Oberregierungsrat Kurt Stamm from the Reich Interior Ministry. Other personnel were drawn from some of the other organizations involved in the Labor Service, especially 243

Hase, Werdegang, 100.

244

See also Seifert, Kulturarbeit, 119–41.

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the Stahlhelm; Hierl’s adjutant, Herbert Erb, for example, came from the ex-servicemen’s organization. The varied background of the most important Labor Service leaders was invoked after 1945 by apologists for the organization to argue that it had been far removed from Nazi ideology. That conclusion, however, is false, ¨ since the critical positions were held by adherents to volkisch ideology who did not necessarily come from the NSDAP. Rather, apart from the dualism between Hitler’s party and the Stahlhelm, the makeup of the personnel reveals something else: namely, the need for the organization to fall back on personnel from outside the party to substantially enlarge the administration within a short period of time. During its rocky first year and a half, when its financing was still not secure, the Labor Service experienced considerable turnover in its core personnel as many qualified workers left the organization soon after joining it.245 The professional and political backgrounds were similarly diverse among the core personnel on the lower levels. The first eighteen months, a period driven by crisis when the Labor Service had no secure financing, saw considerable turnover in the core personnel, and many qualified workers soon left the organization again.246 The tasks of the Reich Administration consisted of administering, supervising, and coordinating the service, especially with regard to organization, labor deployment, training, and education. The structure of the Reich Administration changed repeatedly. For example, the original inspectorates were soon given up in favor of bureaus that were in turn divided into various sections. Still, most bureau chiefs were called inspectors, and at the outbreak ¨ of war they held the rank of labor leader generals (Generalarbeitsfuhrer). One of the most important bureaus was the Office of Education and Training under the fanatical National Socialist Will Decker, who was soon put in charge of the system of education, including the training of leaders. Decker, who also taught a course on “labor service” at the University of Berlin as a lecturer beginning in 1935 and from 1937 as a honorary professor, was for a long time the key figure directly below Hierl. The Reich Administration was initially housed within the Reich Labor Ministry; at the beginning of 1936, it moved into a newly erected, stately building in Berlin-Grunewald.247 In addition to the Reich Administration, the Reich Labor Leader was directly in charge of the labor district leaders, the heads of the schools, and the female district leaders for the women’s Labor Service. At the outbreak of war, the structure of the schools was as follows: at the top was the Reich School, which Lancelle headed until the fall of 1934. All leaders from group leader on up had to attend this school for a certain period, and this was 245 246 247

BA/B, R 2/4563, esp. Reich Finance Ministry to Reich Labor Ministry, June 21, 1933. See, e.g., AdR, Part I, No. 356, 1304. Arbeitertum 4 (1934): 9f.; Erb and Grote, Hierl, 160.

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also where special courses were held. The five district schools trained the section leaders, while the five Feldmeister schools were intended for midlevel leaders. There were also three administrative schools and nineteen squad leader schools for leadership candidates. All in all, then, a sizeable training apparatus was involved.248 The labor districts (Arbeitsgaue) were the larger of the midlevel administrative units within the overall structure, and they were nearly identical with the thirty military districts (Wehrgaue) of the Reichswehr.249 The districts were part of the hinge between the camps and the Reich Administration, a hinge that offered the possibility of regulating life in the camps through a short chain of command. Expansion and restructuring transformed the original thirty units into thirty-six labor districts on the eve of the Second World War.250 The numbering of these districts was already an expression of revanchist thinking. Numbers II and III were only assigned after the attack on Poland, namely to two districts that encompassed precisely the territory in the eastern part of the Reich that had been lost in the Versailles Treaty. A special case was District XXXI: originally established for the large-scale project of cultivating the Ems region, it was later renamed “District W” and put in charge of the construction of the West Wall. Each labor district was headed by a labor district leader, who in 1939 held the rank of a labor leader general or colonel. He was responsible for the smooth operation of the service and the training of the leaders in his section. Analogous to the Reich Labor Leader, he was supported in this task by the labor district administration. The protocols of the Meetings of Labor District Leaders reveal how little authority these leaders had: noting that there must not be any “district particularism,” Hierl repeatedly circumscribed their maneuvering room.251 The administrative level below the districts was composed of the labor service groups (Arbeitsdienstgruppen). These were the smaller regional units and formed the second part of the hinge between the Reich Administration and the camp units. While each district was usually subdivided into somewhere between four and eight groups, the size of the groups could vary between five and fourteen labor service sections (Arbeitsdienstabteilungen), depending on the number and size of the labor projects. In 1935 there were 182 groups; shortly before the outbreak of war that number had risen to around 250, each of which was headed by a group leader (Grup¨ ¨ penfuhrer) with the rank of a labor leader (Arbeitsfuhrer) or chief labor 248 249

250 251

Tsay, Reichsarbeitsdienst, 104. BA/B, R 2301/5658, Report on the ministerial meeting on June 14, 1933 in the Reich Finance Ministry; BA/F, MFB 1/WF-10/22628, Reichenau to District leader of the Bavarian East March, July 24, 1934. ¨ ¨ See the list in Gonner, Spaten und Ahre, 166; Absolon, Wehrmacht, 5: 40f. BA/B, R 1501/8365, Protocol of the 9th meeting of Labor District leaders, October 18–19, 1935.

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¨ leader (Oberarbeitsfuhrer). Once again, he had the help of a separate staff. The group level, too, was part of the line of communication from the Reich Administration to the camps and was charged with organizing the labor planning on a regional basis. In addition, the group leader was responsible for the personnel administration. From the registration office he requested the necessary laborers for the various camps. In the larger labor districts, beginning in 1938, several group administrations were occasionally combined ¨ under a division leader (Abschnittsfuhrer), who supported his labor district leader especially in the area of personnel matters.252 The basic units of the service, however, were the labor service sections (Arbeitsdienstabteilungen), frequently headed by a Oberstfeldmeister. The target size of the sections varied repeatedly, though for the most part one ¨ section was composed of 3–4 platoons (Zuge), each of which was in turn divided into 3 squads (Trupps) of 15 men each, headed by a squad leader. That came to a total of between 156 and 214 men, inclusive of the leaders, to which were added a cook and a mechanic, who were hired through regular work contracts. Beginning in the fall of 1933, all sections were standardized to a size of 216 men. This was called “full section” (Vollabteilung or V-Abteilung). Ideally, each section had its own camp. In October 1933, there were 1,070 sections; in January 1934, 1,158; in 1935 no fewer than 1,260; and in 1939 – primarily as a result of an expansion of those subject to labor conscription beginning in 1937 – as many as 1,625.253 A reorganization in July 1935 replaced the full section with the standard section (Einheitsabteilung), which comprised 150–61 men. From the spring of 1937 until well into the war, most sections once again numbered 216 men; in addition, there was also the second section type with 156 members.254 The section leader was responsible for all questions relating to the camp. Because of the diversity of tasks this entailed, his job, like that of the platoon and squad leaders, was rightly considered to be demanding. It called for technical knowledge to supervise the work, administrative skills, athletic ability for the physical training, and, not least, leadership qualities.255 Of course, even at the camp level there was a small administrative staff that supported the Oberstfeldmeister. The platoon leaders supervised the work projects, the squad leaders worked directly at the sites to set an example. The twelve foremen of each section took over the tasks of overseers. They were needed under the squad leader to direct the work on site. 252 253

254

255

Tsay, Reichsarbeitsdienst, 97–9. BA/B, R 2301/5645, esp. Reich Administration of the Labor Service to Labor District leadership, October 26, 1933; BA/B, R 2/4532, Schroeder note, August 28, 1933; Hierl, Schriften, 2: 364 (1935). BA/B, R 2301/5662, Reich Labor Leader to Labor District leadership and others, April 2, ¨ seine Fuhrer, ¨ 1935; F. Schinnerer, Unser Arbeitsgau 28 (Franken). Ein Handbuch fur ¨ Arbeitsmanner und Freunde (Nuremberg, 1935), 53. ¨ ¨ Gonner, Spaten und Ahre, 168–70.

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Beginning in 1933, the structure of the Labor Service was organized strictly ¨ in line with the “Fuhrer principle.” Many responsibilities that had been located further down the chain of command in the FAD of the Weimar era, had been exercised by other state institutions, or had been entirely in private hands were now drawn into the sphere of the state organization. As far as the organization of the service is concerned, 1933 marked a profound turning point: the beginning of its restructuring from a state-supported into a staterun institution set in motion an enormous process of bureaucratization. By comparison, the introduction of compulsory labor service in 1935 entailed few changes. The existing positions of the NSAD, especially in the group administrations and the sections, were now taken over by the state. One reason for the high degree of continuity in the administrative structure after 1935 was the fact that, beginning in 1933, the service was being organizationally prepared for the state’s compulsory labor service. Another reason, however, was that Hierl’s plans in 1935 to substantially enlarge the service were not implemented. Still, the end result was an enormous bureaucratic apparatus whose work demanded a large personnel and was therefore cost intensive. At the lowest level, the section, 20 of 216 men were leaders and administrators (Amtswalter). Added to them were the cook and the mechanic, which brought the fixed personnel to 10 percent, plus the leader candidates assigned to the sections. The percentage of leaders was higher still for the organization as a whole: in 1936, for example, it came in at 14 percent.256 The main reason this bloated, top-heavy organization was not bigger still was opposition from the Reich Finance Ministry and the Audit Office to Hierl’s exorbitant plans. If one includes the women’s Labor Service, the organizational chart in 1939 was set up as depicted in Illustration 2. In terms of structure, the organization could be expanded at will. That the subordinate levels had only limited maneuvering room was in keeping with the institution’s totalitarian pretension. An exception from the clearly structured chain of command existed only in the right of complaint. The Reich Labor Leader, the inspectors of the Reich Administration, and the labor district leaders could listen to requests and complaints directly during camp inspections. With this arrangement, Hierl, a former Bavarian officer, was reactivating the Bavarian royal decree of 1824 in slightly altered form.257 Far from challenging the principle of hierarchy, however, this exception imparted a paternalistic gloss to it. The guiding model for the organization of the service was unmistakably the military: the units of squad, platoon, section, group, and districts had their counterparts in the military in squad, platoon, company, regiment, and

256 257

BA/B, R 2301/5672, Reich Finance Ministry to the president of the RfAVAV, December 1, 1936. In the sections with three platoons, the ratio stood at 11 percent. Absolon, Wehrmacht, 4: 104.

36 Labor Regions [Arbeitsgaue]

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Reich Administration of the Labor Service [Reichsleitung]

244 Labor Service Groups 1,625 Labor Service Sections

Schools: 1 Reich School 3 District [Bezirk] Schools 5 Feldmeister Schools 19 Squad Leaders’ Schools

Alternative Service Offices: 40 Main Registration Offices 317 Registration Offices

23 Districts [Bezirke]

80 Camp Groups 1 Procurement Office 1 Equipment Office 5 Clothing Offices

Labor Service for Young Men

Schools: 1 Reich School 8 District [Bezirk] Schools 5 Camp Scools

830 Camps Labor Service for Young Women

Structure of the Reich Labor Service ¨ illustration 2. The organization of the RAD. Source: Spaten und Ahre: Das Handbuch der deutschen Jugend im Reichsarbeitsdienst (Heidelberg, 1938), 172.

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division, even if a closer look shows that the structure of the Labor Service was somewhat less flexible. That was in keeping with the lesser demands placed on the Labor Service, since decisions did not have to be made as quickly and their consequences were less grave than was the case for military units in time of war. The organization was not an exact copy of the army, but an adaptation reflecting its special needs.258 There were a number of reasons why the Labor Service took its cues from military paradigms, and not, for example, from the paradigms of a civilian administration or a corporation. First, the organization was rooted in the military socialization of the former general staff officer Hierl and his closest collaborators. Their disposition – understood as a complex of patterns of thought and conduct – had been shaped by this background and by its idealization.259 Second, the hierarchical, centralized organization was in line with National Socialist ideology and especially with the paramilitary plans that had been linked to the service since the Weimar period. The setup of the RAD thus had little in common with the lean and flexible organizational structures of the FAD of the Weimar years. In the FAD, the fact that district commissioners were also the presidents of the state labor offices, the nongovernmental organization of the sponsors, and an institutional structure guided by free-market principles had distributed the responsibility for the service onto many shoulders and many levels. In this area, as well, the discontinuities overshadow the continuities after 1933. If one adds to this the profound rupture in personnel policy that occurred that same year, the conclusion is that Hierl barely made use of the institutional resources – meaning personnel, know-how, material, but also “soft” factors like wellestablished administrative procedures – from the period prior to 1933. The National Socialist Labor Service built merely on the preliminary work of the Nazi party organization that was part of the FAD, although it had played an ever smaller part in the overall organization of the service during the Weimar period. All in all, as a result of the experiences with the FAD, many institutional resources were available in Germany, but the National Socialists did not make use of them. It would be too simplistic to attribute all the problems that shook the institution to the core in the first months following the takeover of power to this break with its predecessor. Still, Hierl’s refusal to accept a smoother transition from the structures of the Weimar period to his own goals was the primary reason for the initial difficulties. Another question that arises concerns the origins of the organizational system of the National Socialist Labor Service. Even if the Reich Administration 258 259

For a different view see Hußmann, Arbeitsdienst, 63. On Pierre Bourdieu’s concept of “habitus” and its transferability to history, see S. Reichardt, ¨ Historiker? Eine kultursoziologisches Angebot an die Sozialgeschichte,” in “Bourdieu fur ¨ T. Mergel and T. Welskopp, eds., Geschichte zwischen Kultur und Gesellschaft: Beitrage zur Theoriedebatte (Munich, 1997), 73–5.

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later tried to make everyone forget this fact, the system was based entirely on Stellrecht’s blueprint from the end of 1932.260 Moreover, most of the regulations governing access can be traced back all the way to Hierl’s early conceptions. The next chapter will examine this question of inclusion in and exclusion from Labor Service, a question that is significant for the history of the organization. 2.3. BETWEEN IDEOLOGY AND ECONOMICS: THE ADMISSIONS CRITERIA OF THE GERMAN LABOR SERVICE 2.3.1. The Labor Service as an Instrument of Inclusion and Exclusion What characterizes a labor service, as it does any organization, is not least the question of who may participate under what conditions and who is excluded. If we compare the Weimar Labor Service with its National Socialist counterpart, it is the discontinuities that predominate in this area, as I will show, first, in the case of those who were entitled and later required to participate. Essential changes relating to the circle of those qualified to participate had been made as early as 1932. While the FAD in its original version had addressed itself almost exclusively to recipients of unemployment and emergency benefits from the Reich insurance, the circle of participants was considerably enlarged by the decree of July 16, 1932. Henceforth, the unemployed who were drawing support from municipal funds were also eligible, and a month later the service was “expanded to all young Germans below the age of twenty-five, regardless of their level of vocational and professional training, social position, or Weltanschauung.” The upper age limit was now the only restriction. Although there was no lower age limit, the institution addressed itself chiefly to those who had already reached their eighteenth birthday.261 In practice, the Labor Service also remained primarily an emergency institution aimed at alleviating the desperate circumstances of young unemployed men after the middle of 1932. These men were all but forced into the arms of the FAD by the economic situation and the lack of alternative social services. Recipients of relief had the added incentive that time spent in the labor service was not counted against the eligibility period for unemployment benefits. Another economic instrument that the organization used to promote itself was the “homestead voucher” (Siedlungsgutschrift): volunteers could be credited with larger sums for the purchase of a homestead (Siedlerstelle).262 The Reich government tried to use this program to 260 261 262

Stellrecht, Der Deutsche Arbeitsdienst, 75–92. RABl. 1932, I, 180–2, quote p. 181; ibid., 352f.; in general, Winkler, Katastrophe, 338–52. RGBl. 1931, I, 295.

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counter urbanization and the agricultural labor shortage. The Labor Service thus became an instrument of labor market policy. On the whole, however, the FAD of the Weimar Republic employed only economic incentives and practical pressures. There were no additional criteria of inclusion or exclusion. That is why, for example, the gender of applicants was technically irrelevant, though in actuality fewer than 5 percent of participants were women.263 Moreover, the state did not pay attention to the political attitudes of the volunteers or participating organizations, which meant that each sponsor organization could set its own admissions criteria. The diversity of participating groups and thus of inclusion criteria fell victim to the process of coordination in the spring of 1933. In other respects, however, there were continuities. After 1933 and until the disappearance of mass unemployment in 1935–6, economic incentives and pressures remained important reasons why young men joined the Labor Service. There was a clear discontinuity between the Weimar Republic and the Nazi period with regard to another method of bringing workers into the organization: labor conscription. Although compulsory service had been repeatedly considered prior to 1933, the various presidential cabinets had always decided against it. For the National Socialists, however, universal labor service was part of their program. After its introduction had been blocked in 1933 by the intervention of the victorious powers of Versailles, Germany established compulsory service for specific groups as a preliminary step. The first group was university students and Gymnasium graduates who were planning to attend university. Plans to draw these two groups more strongly into the FAD had already existed during the Weimar period, for two reasons. First, students were especially supportive of a labor service. Ideas about university reform, the opening of the university to the world of work, and the deployment of the service as a field of social experimentation played a role in this attitude. Second, on a practical level, the universities were overcrowded and there were problems finding adequate jobs for graduates.264 The wideranging discussion about remedial measures gave rise to the idea that the tense situation could be diffused through a labor service in two ways: first, it would provide direct relief for the universities; second, it would offer the opportunity to acquaint the next generation with alternatives to a university education and professions requiring university degrees. The discussions at the end of the Weimar Republic had just begun to take off when, in August 1932, Chancellor Papen came out in favor of a compulsory service called the “student work year” (studentisches Werkjahr). This plan had the backing of the Deutsche Studentenwerk, the umbrella organization for social work by students; some of its important posts had 263 264

BA/B, R 72/325, Reich Administration of the Labor Service, Statistics, October 12, 1933. K. Gaebel, “Zur Berufslage der Abiturienten,” Reichsarbeitsblatt (1932), Part II, 392–6; ¨ M. Gruttner, Studenten im Dritten Reich (Paderborn, 1995), 22–31, 489.

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been infiltrated by members of the National Socialist League of German Students (NSDStB). Under Papen’s successor, Kurt von Schleicher, a “work half-year” (Werkhalbjahr) on a voluntary basis was set up for Gymnasium graduates for the period between the middle of April and the end of September 1933 within the framework of the Labor Service.265 The work half-year was implemented in the summer of 1933, after the takeover of power by the National Socialists, and since it coincided with the temporary halt to universal compulsory service, the project was accorded special importance. It became the paradigm for the regime’s temporary solution, which saw compulsory service by individual groups as a compromise between the expectations it had raised and the precarious diplomatic state of affairs. On June 16, 1933, the government announced the compulsory labor service for students in their first through fourth semesters.266 At least ten weeks of labor service in the summer became the requirement for continuing one’s university studies in the winter semester 1934–5. This regulation was expanded in February 1934, when the government decreed compulsory service for all male and female Gymnasium graduates who were planning to attend university, and soon after the German Student Corps (Deutsche Studentenschaft) extended the term of service for those planning to enroll for the summer semester 1934 to half a year.267 Apart from the Labor Service itself, a driving force behind this development that should not be underestimated was the Nazi-dominated German Student League. The tasks of the organization changed in tandem with the broadening of its compulsory character. In public statements, overcrowding in the universities disappeared entirely as an argument for compulsory service. Still, the regime used the service – as did the employment offices and other institutions – to dissuade potential students from embarking on a university education.268 At the same time, this attempt to regulate the labor market created other obligations for the regime. For example, in November 1933, Reich Interior Minister Frick, speaking of those who had responded to these efforts at persuasion, noted that it was now incumbent upon the government “to give preferential consideration to the work-graduates when it comes to applications for jobs in the public sector.”269 In this way the attempt to influence young people’s choice of a profession entailed further measures in labor market policy. 265 266 267 268 269

¨ Kohler, Arbeitsdienst, 229–37. See, e.g., BA/B, R 2301/5718, Reich Administration of the Labor Service to district administrations, June 27, 1933; Seipp, Formung, 22. BA/B, R 2/4522, esp. Note Reich Ministry of the Interior, February 24, 1934; BA/B, R 1501/5621, Prussian Minister for Science to rectors and others, April 24, 1934. BA/B, R 2301/5645, Reich Administration of the Labor Service to Labor District leadership and others, January 22, 1934. BA/B, R 43 II/516, Reich Ministry of the Interior to the highest Reich agencies and others, ¨ November 10, 1933; see also Berichte Neu Beginnen: Berichte uber die Lage in Deutschland, ¨ 1933–1936, ed. B. Stover (Bonn, 1996), 246.

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Controlling future careers was also the impulse behind the so-called Pflichtenheft (“duty booklet”) that the Labor Service handed out to the graduates after their term of service, but which it could also withhold as punishment for misconduct. This booklet was the requirement for admission to university. Once the compulsory service for students had been replaced by universal service, a system of grades offered the possibility of exerting control.270 Analogously to the duty booklet, the “labor pass” (Arbeitspaß) was introduced for all labor men in 1934. This laid the necessary groundwork for influencing job placements by grading all members of the service.271 The public knew that admission to university was tied to good behavior in the service. But the stick was joined by a carrot: beginning in 1933, the Reich Student Organization (Reichsstudentenwerk), which, in conjunction with the local student organizations, was responsible for awarding scholarships, made them dependent on successful labor service. Conformist behavior during this period became one crucial criterion alongside a person’s evaluation by the school, the HJ, and the university.272 All in all, the example of the treatment of students shows the multifunctionality of the criteria of inclusion. These criteria combined the task – related to labor market policy – of countering the overcrowding crisis in the universities by redirecting young people into nonacademic professions, with the political duties of selection, supervision, and indoctrination. The Labor Service did not acquire these tasks until 1933. In addition, it was, as it had been in the Weimar Republic, an emergency institution in response to mass unemployment. The tasks that the Labor Service undertook for students were similar to those it had assumed for the other groups that became subject to compulsory service prior to 1935. Two important institutions that took this step in August 1934 were the German Labor Front (Deutsche Arbeitsfront, DAF) and the party organization of the NSDAP. As with the students, labor service became an additional filter in selecting the next generation.273 Compulsory service was introduced for another, larger group in the summer of 1934, when the District Halle-Merseburg instituted a one-year labor service for everyone born after December 31, 1912.274 But the papers proudly announced compulsory service for even small and tiny groups, which led, for example, to the 270 271 272 273 274

BA/B, R 2/4522, Reich Ministry of the Interior, implementation regulations, February 23, 1934; BA/B, R 4901/890, Heinrich note, August 31, 1935. ¨ Coburger National-Zeitung, June 27, 1934; Frankisches Volk, July 3, 1934. The labor pass should not be confused with the labor book. See, e.g., Seipp, Formung. BA/B, R 1501/5102, Agreement between the Reich Labor Leader and Chief of Staff of the Party Organization and the German Labor Front, August 8, 1934. VB, June 27, 1934; DT, June 26, 1934.

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¨ farcical announcement in the Volkische Beobachter that labor conscription was in place for dentist trainees.275 Thus, between the summer of 1933 and the summer of 1935 the regime worked to lay the groundwork for universal compulsory labor service. In so doing, it undermined the veto of the Versailles powers. Which groups were affected by the regulations was often a matter of chance. However, the large groups all had in common that their members were part of Germany’s future state and party elite. The regime also sought to exert special influence on these same groups through other institutions, such as the National Socialist elite schools and the HJ. Hjalmar Schacht, shortly after taking on the post of Reich Economics Minister in addition to his position as president of the Reichsbank, became involved in this process with the decree he issued on August 10, 1934. It stipulated that henceforth the president of the RfAVAV, Syrup, would be in charge of organizing the redistribution and exchange of workers. Shortly thereafter, Syrup ordered that workers and employees under the age of twenty-five who had not participated in the Labor Service or the Landhilfe (Rural Aid) for at least twelve months should be dismissed from their jobs in consultation with the respective labor offices, sent to Hierl’s organization, and replaced by older workers. Each labor office was authorized to prohibit the hiring of new workers under the age of twenty-five; exceptions were made only for married workers, apprentices, and a few other groups.276 On the basis of this order, 130,000 jobs were newly filled between October 1934 and October 1935, with many of the younger workers sent to the Labor Service to make way for older workers.277 With the involvement of the state, labor conscription reached a new level. It was no longer merely the unemployed, and in addition the future political, administrative, and academic elite, who were brought into the labor service through de facto or formal compulsion. Now the broad social stratum between these two groups – such as young industrial workers, farmers, or artisans – was also within reach of compulsory service. Even prior to these changes, a small number from these occupations had been sent into the Labor Service without a legal basis, as we learn in the Germany Reports issued by the exiled SPD and in similar sources.278 Against this background, it is understandable why, as early as the middle of 1934, the reports of the

275 276 277

278

VB, October 11, 1934. BA/B, R 2301/5648, Hierl to Seldte, April 23, 1934; RGBl. 1934, I, 768; ibid. 1934, I, 565. D. P. Silverman, “National Socialist Economics: The Wirtschaftswunder Reconsidered,” in B. Eichengreen and T. Hatton, eds., Interwar Unemployment in International Perspective (Dordrecht, 1988), 200. See Deutschland-Berichte, vol. 1 (1934), 126f., 221–4, 640f.; Berichte Neu Beginnen, 210.

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Socialist group Neu Beginnen counted the Labor Service among the “seven plagues of the Third Reich.”279 The Reich Labor Service Law of June 26, 1935 replaced all previous arrangements and instituted universal, equal compulsory service for “all young Germans of both genders.”280 Whether and to what extent Hierl’s organization lived up to this requirement will be examined later. The function and tasks that the service had for those participating in it changed only in part after 1935. While it lost its importance as a job-creation measure in the face of the economic recovery, it continued to be an instrument for directing the choice of professions. It was the declared goal of the service to direct as many labor men as possible into agricultural professions, and this goal was not altered by the abolition of the homestead credit at the beginning of 1934.281 As was the case prior to the introduction of compulsory labor service, the institution also had a pedagogical mission and served the goal of political indoctrination. Moreover, after 1935 the procedures initially developed to control and select students were extended to all labor men. On the whole, then, the criteria of access continued to serve three goals after 1935: the Labor Service was an instrument of labor market policy, a mechanism of socialization, and an organ of political control for the Nazi regime. By contrast, the admission of foreigners for a few days or weeks had merely a propaganda function: allowing non-Germans a glimpse was intended to persuade international public opinion of the institution’s peaceful character. The goal was thus to create the greatest possible propaganda effect at little cost.282 The increasingly rigid policy of inclusion for larger and larger groups was also reflected on another level. During the Weimar Republic, the initial legal principle was the absolutely voluntary nature of the service. Once men or women had joined the service, they were allowed to leave at any time without negative repercussions.283 That changed with the “work half-year,” which arose in part from the need to make the labor performance amenable to better planning: when work graduates (Werkabiturienten) joined, they were required to serve the entire six-month term.284 From a systemic point of view, absolute voluntariness had thus been curtailed in the final days of the Weimar Republic. After 1933, this new obligation was extended to all men, reinforced by an oath, and further consolidated by the service penal 279 280 281 282 283 284

Berichte Neu Beginnen, 208. The others were: Landhilfe (Rural Aid), unemployment, compulsory meetings, KdF, forced labor, terror. RBGl. 1935, I, 769; see also BA/B, R 36/1929, German Association of Communities to the mayor of Friedland, September 10, 1935. RGBl. 1934, I, 172. See PA/B, R 47648, esp. List, Reich Labor Service to the Foreign Ministry, January 26, 1940, and in general, ibid., R 98849. RABl. 1931, I, 180; Reich Ministry of the Interior/Reich Commissioner of the FAD, Voluntary signup for the work half-year 1933, January 28, 1933, e.g., in BA/B, R 3903/72. Funcke, Der deutsche Arbeitsdienst, 5.

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code issued in early 1935 and by the RAD Law.285 At the same time, the regime did not assume any obligations by instituting a compulsory labor service, legally reflected in the fact that participation in the service was not actionable. Even after 1933, the Labor Service did not establish a free-market, contractual employment relationship in accordance with labor law, but a direct relationship of dependence.286 In the first few months following the Nazi takeover of power, the service had few formal instruments to take action against young men who wished to leave. For example, it was unable to stop the great exodus between 1933 and the end of 1934. But inside the camps, Hierl’s organization reacted with the utmost harshness to anyone who ran afoul of the leadership’s ideas of order. That is apparent from simple disciplinary problems: it was not a unique occurrence, for instance, that tardiness of two minutes was punished with eight days’ detention or two Sunday watches. Protests against an inadequate food supply, for example, were often dismissed, even if they were justified. In at least a few cases, the instigators of trouble were deported to concentration camps; supporters of such actions were transferred to other labor camps.287 These drastic steps were taken even though genuine political resistance was rare, as the files of the Reich Central Security Office (Reichsicherheitshauptamt) reveal. While the Labor Service before 1933 had been a frequent target of communist attempts at subversion, after 1934 the number of incidents settled at a low level. For the more than 1,000 camps throughout the Reich, the number of incidents per month could be counted on the fingers of one hand.288 On the rare occasion when there was a politically motivated expression of protest, the regime struck back with draconian severity. In these instances, the Labor Service worked hand in hand with the Gestapo.289 For example, one man who was accused of disseminating communist propaganda in a camp was punished with a prison term of four years.290 By comparison, the six weeks of incarceration to which another man was sentenced for singing The International was almost mild.291 These stiff punishments and the extensive possibilities of control and supervision offered by camp life must have been the primary reasons why explicit expressions of dissent were 285 286 287 288

289 290 291

BA/B, R 72/330, Certificate of commitment, undated. ¨ H. C. G. Brauer, Der Arbeitsdienst in seiner historischen Entwicklung und gegenwartigen rechtlichen Gestalt (Hamburg, 1935), 109. See these and other examples in Deutschland-Berichte, vol. 1 (1934), 421f., 640–2; ibid., vol. 5 (1938), 479–87, 846f.; see also Berichte Neu Beginnen, 209f. BA/B, R58/687, Proof of subversive Communist activities from April 1, 1934 to September 20, 1934; see also the files BA/B, R 58/577; R 58/716; BA/B, R 58/3012; BA/B, R 58/3048; and a selection of the documents published as Meldungen (1984–5). BA/B, R 58/716, News bulletin, May 31, 1934. Ibid., esp. State Police Office Stade to Secret State Police Office, January 5, 1937. Ibid., State Police Office Oppeln to Secret State Police Office, February 19, 1937.

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rare – any form of protest or nonconformist behavior was simply too dangerous. Accordingly, in 1935 the Communist Youth League of Germany was forced to acknowledge with some self-criticism that while it had “organized actions for better food, clothing, etc. in a large number of labor camps,” the substantive connection “to our principled battle against fascism” had frequently been shortchanged.292 Resistance within the Labor Service was thus almost never active subversion or sabotage. As far as we can tell from the sources, resistance came in most cases from simple labor men, most of whom had a working-class background that was largely communist or socialist in orientation and frequently urban.293 Given the increasingly perfected system of registration and punishment, it was nearly impossible to avoid the Labor Service altogether after 1935. Even before that, it had become more and more difficult to do so. In the fall of 1934, when compulsory service for broad social groups took effect, a strikingly large number of young men tried to dodge the service by getting married. Another way out was to join the Reichswehr.294 Those who refused to participate after 1935 as well as their families faced harsh penalties. The regime prosecuted cases of “labor service evasion” beyond Germany’s borders.295 All attempts to avoid labor service or to protest against conditions in the camps drew accusations of deviance, “dissipation,” “anti-social behavior,” or, in general, an “anti-communitarian” (gemeinschaftsfremde) attitude. Even if such actions had no political motivation and were genuinely directed at real problems in a camp, they could result in incarceration in a concentration camp or, in extreme cases, death.296 The term of service after 1933 was usually six months, but there were exceptions. For example, the special labor service for students in the summer of 1934 was limited to only ten weeks, and it was possible to extend the ¨ regular term as an “extended service laborer” (Langerdienender) or as a foreman.297 Yet both before and after the introduction of compulsory service, the majority of young men did a six-month stint in the Labor Service, which corresponded more or less to the normal term for the Weimar FAD. Hierl was thus not able to realize his original demands: neither the two years he had envisaged initially, nor the twelve-month term planned for in the spring 292 293 294

295 296 297

BA/B, R 58/704, Copy Reich Main Security Administration, July 18, 1935; on the communist organization see M. Schneider, Unterm Hakenkreuz, 800. As an example, see the various profiles in BA/B, R 58/687, 716. BA/B, NS 25/85, Reich Administration NSDAP, Confidential report extracts, first shipment 1935; Deutschland-Berichte, vol. 1 (1924), 640; on men who signed up for the Wehrmacht see Berichte Neu Beginnen, 299 (1935), 345. PA/B, R 47721. On the consequences of exclusion from the NS community see D. Peukert, Inside Nazi Germany. Conformity, Opposition, and Racism in Everyday Life (New Haven, 1987). See Dt. AD 4 (1934), 37.

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of 1935 could be implemented over opposition from circles representing economic and military policy. Beginning in 1935, the length of service was ¨ regulated by a “Fuhrer decree,” an arrangement that also offered a simple mechanism for reducing the term further.298 A central reason for the short period of service was the military draft that was introduced in the spring of 1935. The same young men had to do their military service following their stint in the RAD. If Hierl had had his way, those subject to labor service would have been removed from economic life for a period of up to four years; given the emerging labor shortage, Hierl’s plans could not be pushed through. Clearer still, though not surprising, were the discontinuities between the Weimar Republic and Nazi Germany when it came to the groups of people who were excluded from the Labor Service. The potential consequences of exclusion could be far-reaching for those affected. In the face of the joblessness and poverty that marked the day-to-day existence of young people in the early days of the regime, exclusion meant the loss of a form of state support that could be of existential importance. Although the benefit of direct aid dropped out of the equation as the economy recovered and full employment returned, graduates without a duty booklet were barred from university study, and without the labor pass access to military service and some professions was generally blocked. In the early years, labor offices were supposed to give preferential placement to those who had performed labor service; moreover, it was easier for former labor men to participate in other job-creation measures. In general, the designation of excluded groups was a sign of the growing discrimination and the destruction of the rule of law under Nazi rule. With regard to the negative repercussions, economic discrimination was paramount in the first few years after 1933. In the second half of the 1930s, however, exclusion was primarily part of a policy of stigmatization and separation, which, in addition to practical considerations, also had Social Darwinian, political, and racist motives. The government side of the Labor Service in the Weimar Republic had not pursued a systematic policy of exclusion. But even after the coordination of the organization, no catalogue of the ineligible was immediately established. While such a catalogue was in fact systematically drawn up for the 1933 law in preparation for compulsory labor service, when that initiative failed, the normative revision of the admissions criteria was also postponed.299 Only the Reich Labor Service Law of 1935 brought binding regulations that applied both to the core personnel and to those obligated to serve and to volunteers of both genders. A number of groups were excluded: first, individuals who 298 299

RGBl. 1935, I, 772; on Hierl’s original plans see Hierl, 1941, Schriften, vol. 2, 17–28. BA/B, R 3905/210/1, Reich Administration of the Labor Service to the State Secretary of the Reich Chancellery and others, June 2, 1933, and the attached draft of the law.

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had committed serious crimes, such as subversive activities, and in general anyone who had served jail time. But even before these rules were put in place, the Reich Administration had decided such cases on an individual basis.300 The Labor Service was thus eager to set itself clearly apart by not being an institution for “community aliens” (Gemeinschaftsfremde).301 The fear of confusion was most clearly expressed in a decree of November 1934 that reserved the labels “labor service” and “labor camp” for the exclusive use of Hierl’s organization. For that reason it is remarkable that the term “labor camp” is today generally understood to refer to camps for forced and foreign laborers in World War II.302 The second large group that was kept out of the Labor Service were the “unfit.” This regulation had in part practical reasons related to the organization and effectiveness of labor. Publications of the Labor Service suggest that the handicapped were generally not permitted to participate. But while the mentally handicapped were in fact not drafted, assuming our sources are credible, the situation was different with the physically handicapped. Some of them who had received handicraft training did service in the workshops of the camps. In 1937, when this form of integration could already look back on several years of discussion and practical experience, the authorities even contemplated expanding it. Such an expansion was being demanded by the ¨ Volksgesundheit) Reich Committee for National Health (Reichsausschuß fur and other organizations that worked with the physically handicapped.303 But this move to broaden participation for this group met with vehement opposition from Hierl.304 In the end, the Labor Service was willing to make certain concessions. On the whole, however, it clung to the National Socialist ideal of physical nonimpairment as part of the ideal of masculinity and race. This also shaped its public self-presentation, even though demands to the contrary were voiced in Germany and even within the NSDAP. Even more controversial was the issue of how to deal with those of limited fitness and how high the ratio of the unfit should be set. This question assumed central importance when universal compulsory labor service was instituted in 1935, since the number of those fit to serve would have a crucial influence on the budget and on the total number of future labor men. As late as the end of 1932, the Labor Service itself had put the ratio of the unfit 300 301 302 303

304

BA/B, R 36/1939, Reich Administration of the Labor Service to the German Association of Communities, March 9, 1934. ¨ Der Sachsische Gemeindetag 1 (1934), cols. 23–9. RGBl. 1934, I, 1200; H. Kammer and E. Bartsch, Nationalsozialismus. Begriffe aus der Zeit der Gewaltherrschaft 1933–1945 (Reinbek, 1992), 17. BA/B, R 36/1748, esp. Reich Committee for the Health of the Nation to the German Association of Communities, June 29, 1937; H. Hoske, “Arbeitsdienst,” Gesundheit und Erziehung ¨ 47 (1934a): 257f.; H. Hoske, “Sonderlager im Arbeitsdienst als bevolkerungspolitische Notwendigkeit,” Gesundheit und Erziehung 47 (1934b): 257f. BA/B, R 36/1748, Minutes of the meetings of officials, November 12, 1937.

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at 20 percent of male youth.305 In 1935, Hierl took a much more restrictive line. Now only those fit for military service were to be admitted into the Labor Service, which estimates put at only 60–65 percent of all young men. Apart from a Social Darwinist view of humankind, there were two practical reasons for these strict criteria. First, in conjunction with the observation that the age groups that would become subject to compulsory service in the following years were especially small, it was possible to argue that these restrictions made it possible to draft all those fit for the Labor Service. Thus, the implementation of compulsory labor service could be cost-neutral, an important argument given the opposition to the plan. Second, the Reich Administration invoked the strenuous nature of the work to justify the strict criteria.306 However, the imposition of tough admission requirements was opposed by the Reich Education Ministry and the Wehrmacht, as well as by parts of the Reich Interior Ministry and some doctors. Their arguments were more consonant with the pedagogical pretensions of the service than Hierl’s stance, since they did justice to the demand to encompass as many Volksgenossen as possible and not make the necessity of the work itself the central consideration. Hierl lost out on this question, as well, and the RAD Law stipulated that only “completely unfit” persons would be exempted from the universal compulsory service. Those of “conditional” or “limited” fitness and those unfit for military service, meanwhile, were incorporated into the Labor Service.307 Accordingly, the percentage of those drafted into the RAD was significantly higher than those drafted into the Wehrmacht and hovered between 80 percent and 90 percent of all men.308 The Reich Labor Leader had not been able to push through his initial, exclusive demands, and he was forced to orient access to the service more strongly toward its pedagogical mission than its goal of productive accomplishments. While the groups mentioned previously were in principle excluded from the Labor Service, there was also an alternative service. It was set up for secondary school graduates planning to attend university who were considered “completely” unfit or were supposed to be reexamined. The “Student Compensatory Service” (Studentischer Ausgleichsdienst), a project of the German Student Corps and the Reich Ministry of Education, was established in 1934 305 306 307 308

BA/B, R 2301/5638, Reich Commissioner of the FAD to Bach, September 3, 1934, and attachment. BA/B, R 1501/5621, Frick to all Reich Ministries, March 21, 1935, Reich Labor Service Law, Justification, 4. RGBl. 1935, I, 770. BA/B, R 4901/342, esp. Heinrich to Reich Ministry for Science, Education, and National Training, no date [March 1935]; on the position of the Reich Ministry of the Interior: BA/B, R 1501/621, Stamm note, February 21, 1935. On physicians see, e.g., Hoske, “Sonderlager,” ¨ ¨ ¨ 273–81; H. Busing, “Der Gesundheitszustand der mannlichen Anwarter zum Freiwilligen Arbeitsdienst,” Gesundheit und Erziehung 47 (1934): 266–73.

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and was compulsory at least since 1935. By February 1936, the government had succeeded in finding between 2,000 and 2,500 jobs for unfit graduates in rural enterprises, the DAF, and other establishments. The compensatory service was discontinued in the fall of 1936, since Hierl refused to recognize it, but it returned in 1938. By that time, however, its substance had changed markedly, since the young men now performed tasks within the context of war preparations. As with all other students, the compensatory service was intended as a test for scholarships and access to university as such.309 The difficulty this service had gaining recognition from Hierl makes clear that it was a comparatively insignificant institution, and it was unjust to boot. Only unfit graduates and students had to join the compensatory service, while all others who were unfit were exempt. A similar exceptional regulation for a smaller group was the exemption from the compulsory student labor service for students of Catholic theology that was put in place in 1933. For some time, there was a discussion over whether or not those affected would be required to perform compensatory service. As a result of the Concordat in the same year, these students were for the time being exempted from any kind of service. However, after passage of the RAD Law, Catholic students of theology were also required to perform compulsory labor service.310 As a third large group alongside offenders and the unfit, the RAD Law in principle excluded people of “non-Aryan” descent as well as those married to “non-Aryans.” This measure, aimed chiefly against German Jews, was one of the core elements of the National Socialist Labor Service ideology. However, given the pronouncements by the National Socialists and the practice in other organizations, the exclusion of Jews from the Labor Service came as little surprise. What is astonishing is the fact that, on the level of state law, there was for a long time no legal basis in the Labor Service for the exclusion of Jews – that was legally established only by the RAD Law.311 Yet this problem in theory was irrelevant in practice: through the National Socialist labor service organization, which was the only one accepting volunteers from the summer of 1933, Jews were in fact shut out. There were repeated discussions about the interpretation of the regulations, that is, how many generations back the proof of Aryan descent had to extend. This shows once again the ambiguous position of the service between state and party. In the end, the regulation for civil servants was applied, not the party’s stricter criteria.312 309 310

311

BA/B, R 4901/890, esp. German Student Organization to the Reich Ministry for Science, Education, and National Training, March 25, 1935; Die Bewegung No. 18, May 4, 1938. AdR, Part I, No. 276, p. 1050; BA/B, R 2/4522, Note Reich Ministry of the Interior, February 24, 1934; BA/B, R 4901/871, Reich Ministry for Science, Education, and National Training to the Reich Ministry of the Interior, January 7, 1935; BA/B, R 4901/890; on the new regulation PA/B, R 47719; later also AdP, Part 1, No. 14860; ibid., No. 25387. 312 BA/B, R 1501/5621, Stamm note, February 21, 1935. RGBl. 1935, I, 770.

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Along with the negative repercussions that exclusion from the Labor Service entailed for affected groups, there was a special added dimension for Jews. The required proof of Aryan ancestry was part of the finely spun network that sought to define and identify persons who were Jews in the eyes of the National Socialists. As Raul Hilberg noted in his classic study of the extermination of European Jewry, at the beginning of persecution and destruction stood definition.313 In fact, it happened that inquiries by the Labor Service turned previously inconspicuous Germans into stigmatized Jews.314 For the simple reason that the Labor Service was part of this system, one cannot describe it, as apologists did after 1945, as an apolitical institution that stood aloof from racism and terror.315 With respect to offenders, the “unfit,” and Jews, the RAD Law provided a standardization that conformed to the ideological claims of the service. However, there were also other groups that were clandestinely excluded from the Labor Service, at least for a period of time. “Members of the Polish, Danish, and Walloon minorities” performed no labor service from 1935, at the latest, because there had been “problems” that were not described in greater detail. This collective sanctioning, which the same national minorities had already suffered before 1918, placed them into the group of foreigners, at least for some time.316 Individuals who had been subject to compulsory sterilization were also secretly and collectively kept out of the service, a move that points once more to the Social Darwinism of the service.317 Finally, there is documentary evidence that the Sinti and Roma were excluded during World War II for racist reasons.318 All told, four groups were thus categorically denied access to the Labor Service. With the exclusion of the first three groups, Hierl’s organization was living up to its ideological program: the fact that no “felons” were admitted into the Labor Service and that the same applied to enemies of the state and those excluded from the NSDAP reveals how political the definition of the criteria of access was. Although the exclusion of the “unfit” was done partly for practical reasons, keeping this group out was also an ideologically motivated decision. Although Hierl was eager to expand his sphere of influence in other matters, Social Darwinist reasons impelled him to be restrictive on this issue. Yet the exclusion of the “unfit” was 313 314 315 316 317 318

R. Hilberg, The Destruction of the European Jews, 3 vols. (New York, 1985), 1: 63–80; in general also W. Sofsky, The Order of Terror, trans. W. Templer (Princeton, 1997), 18–19. See, e.g., the case of the Oberfeldmeister G.: BA/B, R 77/2. ¨ See, e.g., Klabe, Arbeitsdienst, 8–13; Hierl, Dienst, 69–113. BA/B, R 1501/5622, Protocol of the 7th Meeting of Labor District leaders, March 7–9, 1935; PA/B, R 47643, esp. Siedler note, October 10, 1935. BA/B, R 1501/5622, Protocol of the 7th Meeting of Labor District leaders, March 7–9, 1935. BA/B, R 36/1939, Reich Ministry of the Interior to German Association of Communities, March 8, 1943.

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done rather quietly. By contrast, excluding the Jews was a core element of the National Socialist labor service ideology. While the Jews stood at the bottom of the hierarchy of undesirables, the exclusion of national minorities and those who had been subject to compulsory sterilization reveals, finally, that the extreme nationalism and racism had an inherent dynamic of their own and a tendency to become increasingly radical. There were thus practical, Social Darwinist, political, and racist reasons behind the exclusion of certain groups. Conversely, these criteria of exclusion became an element of inclusion: those admitted were defined as the privileged, the “select.” Systems theory points to another dimension of exclusion,319 as those affected by it were deprived of the right to defend themselves against this discriminatory act. That becomes clear from the protest against exclusion from Jewish interest groups like the Reich Association of Jewish Veterans ¨ (Reichsbund judischer Frontsoldaten) as late as 1933–4.320 In the second half of the 1930s, this kind of protest was no longer possible, nor did it have any prospect of being successful. Here, too, the exclusion policy of the Labor Service was in line with that of the regime in general, since Jews were not only discriminated against, but also silenced before falling victim to persecution and annihilation. While the groups excluded from the Labor Service were by and large identical with those that were generally kept out of the Volksgemeinschaft, the criteria of access to the service cannot be reduced to such a simple formula. On the whole, these criteria had a variety of functions, ranging from economic policy and the intent to provide the needy with a livelihood, to efforts at influencing the choice of professions and vocations, all the way to the political tasks of ideological indoctrination, discipline, and “selection.” The latter tasks, in particular, point to the utopian dimension of the institution, which saw itself as the cradle of the Volksgemeinschaft. Its racist foundation became especially clear in World War II, when the RAD, beginning in 1942, became involved in Germanification in the context of “ethnic conversion” (Umvolkung) and ethnic cleansing. Hitler decreed that, beginning on April 1, 1942, young men from the Baltic states “who met the racial, physical, character, and mental requirements” could be accepted into the Labor Service on a voluntary basis. This same regulation also applied for a time in other regions.321

319

320 321

¨ Soziologie 8 (1998): R. Stichweh, “Zur Theorie politischer Inklusion,” Berliner Journal fur ¨ 539–40; N. Luhmann, “Inklusion und Exklusion,” in his Soziologische Aufklarung, vol. 6 (Opladen, 1995), 237–64. AdR, Part I, No. 89, p. 289; ibid., No. 355, pp. 1302–3. BA/B, R 43 II/520, esp. Reich Minister for occupied Eastern regions to Lohse, January 8, 1942; USHMM, RG 18002 M, Reel 3, esp. Reich Commissioner for the East Land to the Reich Commissioner in Riga, November 16, 1942, and attachment.

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That this soon became the primary task of the Labor Service is revealed by the number of those affected by the regulation. Between August 1942 and August 1944, approximately 118,000 labor men from Alsace, Lorraine, Luxembourg, Untersteier (today part of Slovenia), Upper Krain, and the occupied eastern territories passed through the RAD in 228 sections. At least 20–25 percent of them knew no or very little German. Western and Eastern Europeans were given German citizenship on a revocable basis, which made it possible “to eliminate bad elements early.”322 The RAD thus became an instrument of Germanification on a large scale. In cooperation with the SS, it played a direct role in National Socialist race policy. In addition, the Labor Service continually increased the pressure toward broader inclusion: unconditional voluntary participation under the Weimar Republic was followed by a limited legal voluntary participation, by compulsory service for specific groups, and, finally, by the demand for universal inclusion. As for the policy of exclusion, the introduction of the Reich Labor Service Law was a turning point primarily because it enshrined the prevailing practice in law. With respect to inclusion, 1935 had only minor significance, since it was but a small step from compulsory service for individual groups and the regulation on exchanging jobs to universal compulsory service. The real turning point for access criteria – and even more so for exclusion criteria – occurred in 1933. Consistent with these developments, the government expanded the possible punishments for transgressions against the regulations. Two other characteristics of inclusion, in addition to its multifunctionality and increasingly obligatory nature, became evident: first, the segment of the German population designated as positive could be defined – other than through citizenship and religious affiliation – only “negatively,” that is, in opposition to those who were excluded. There could be no other definition of Volksgenosse. Second, the dialectical potential of inclusion became obvious. At least in their legal enactment and conception, “selection” (Auslese) and “elimination” (Ausmerze) were closely related: in cases of misconduct, a Volksgenosse could very quickly turn into a “community alien” (Gemeinschaftsfremder). The ideology on which this policy was based knew only two categories – friend and foe. In this regard, the Labor Service responded to the need – fundamentally modern but inappropriate to modernity – to create order by means of unambivalent dichotomies.323 The extent to which the objectives of the service with respect to inclusion and exclusion shaped its practice is a question to which I will now turn. 322

323

Reichsarbeitsdienst 1944, 64–7. This list was intended only for internal usage and is documented in BA/B, RD 20/63. The “Volksliste 3” comprised the “ethnic Germans” (Volksdeutsche) to whom German citizenship was granted only after a selection by the SS on the basis of race policy by the SS and subject to revocation. Z. Bauman, Modernity and Ambivalence (Cambridge, 1991), 1–17.

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2.3.2. “Soldiers of Labor”: The Consequences of the Rules of Access While I have so far discussed the objectives of inclusion and exclusion, it is time to examine the extent to which the Labor Service, in articulating them, did justice to the tasks of creating jobs, guiding the labor market, and controlling the selection process. I will leave aside political instruction, indoctrination, discipline, and education in general, which also belong in this context, because of their complexity; these elements are discussed in subsequent chapters. When it comes to the importance of the Labor Service for the remaining questions of job-creation, labor market, and selection, one must distinguish two phases. The first is the years from 1933 to 1935, since it was only in this period that Hierl’s organization was a tool in the fight against mass unemployment. For these years one must determine quantitatively whether the service, by its size, was able to help a meaningful number of young unemployed workers. Even after the takeover of power, the service initially remained a means of productive emergency aid. All public pronouncements notwithstanding, Hitler assessed the usefulness of the institution not merely from an ideological perspective; instead, confronted with a global economic crisis, his goal was to reduce unemployment.324 In qualitative terms, one must also examine whether the selection of young men was determined by political factors, labor market policy, or other criteria. In the second phase, from the introduction of compulsory labor service to the outbreak of war, unemployment turned into a labor shortage.325 What therefore needs to be answered in quantitative terms for this period is whether the institution lived up to its claim of implementing compulsory service for all young men. Qualitatively the question for this period also revolves around the criteria that established a possible preferential treatment or exclusion. Finally, one needs to analyze for both periods whether the Labor Service, through its access criteria, lived up to its claim to be an instrument of “selection” and “elimination” according to the criteria of the National Socialist ideas of a Volksgemeinschaft. The quantitative development of the service was relatively uniform after 1931 and during the first phase of the Nazi regime. The number of those performing labor service showed steady and clear rates of growth from the establishment of the FAD in the summer of 1931 to July 1932, at which time it peaked at around 97,000 volunteers. When access was expanded by the decree of July 1932, the number doubled within two months. Growth slowed down in the following months, with the number of men declining 324 325

BA/B, R 2/4538, Note Reich Finance Ministry, August 31, 1933; for a contrary view, see Silverman, Hitler’s Economy, 178. In this case the introduction of compulsory labor service coincided roughly with the end of the job-creation measures.

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300000 250000 200000 150000 100000 50000

Au g-3 1 No v-3 1 Fe b-3 2 M ay -32 Au g-3 2 No v-3 2 Fe b-3 3 M ay -33 Au g-3 3 No v-3 3 Fe b-3 4 M ay -34 Au g-3 4 No v-3 4 Fe b-3 5 M ay -35 Au g-3 5 No v-3 5

0

illustration 3. The growth of the German Labor Service through 1935. Sources: L. von Funcke, “Freiwilliger Arbeitsdienst,” 128, 362f.; Statistisches Jahrbuch des Deutschen Reiches 1933, 307; ibid., 1934, 302; ibid., 1935, 311; Wirtschaft und Statistik 16 (1936), 135.

for the first time in December. On the eve of the takeover of power, there were just under 200,000 men in the ranks of the FAD. From that level, the trend was initially up again during the next few months. When the introduction of universal service had to be indefinitely postponed, the number dropped once more. It stabilized at a level of about 220,000 in 1934, and eventually, prior to the introduction of compulsory service, settled at around 200,000 men (see Illustration 3).326 Incidentally, the Labor Service for young women comprised only around ten thousand “labor maids” during the same period. To assess the importance of the service as a job-creation project, one must look at the number of young unemployed men who were able-bodied and willing to work.327 However, nearly all contemporary as well as modern publications employ a less important yardstick: the total number of unemployed. Compared to that number, the service encompassed between 2.9 percent and 8 percent of the unemployed in the period from 1933 to 1934, with a high at the end of that period – an unimpressive number not much higher than it had been in the last months of the Weimar Republic.328 The more significant comparative entity is the number of unemployed males between the ages of eighteen and twenty-five, since the Labor Service was almost exclusively geared toward them. It is, unfortunately, exceedingly 326 327 328

The chart was compiled using data from Funcke, “Freiwilliger Arbeitsdienst,” 128, 362f.; StJB 1933, 307; StJB 1934, 302; StJB 1935, 311; WIS 16 (1936): 135. These are the conventional criteria used in counting the number of unemployed. P. Humann, Die wirtschaftliche Seite des Arbeitsdienstes (Hamburg, 1934), 13; on the comparative figures for 1932, see StJB 1933, 206.

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difficult to get a quantitative grip on this group. Most statistical data on the unemployed is not differentiated by age groups, or not sufficiently so. In addition, there were a large number of statistically unreported people without work. The Labor Service also changed its access criteria over the years, which means that one must employ a different standard of comparison for the various phases. Finally, the statistical data itself is not unconditionally trustworthy.329 For all these reasons, the following comparison can only be an approximation. Still, it provides a general sense of the relevance of the Labor Service as a job-creation project. At the beginning of our period, in March 1933, the Reich Administration of the Labor Service estimated the number of young unemployed men at 1.6 million. This would mean that the Labor Service would have provided work for 13 percent of the target group.330 If we revise that number down slightly, since a few thousand persons who were not unemployed were already performing labor service, the service is still likely to have encompassed around 10 percent of the relevant age groups. As a job creation measure it was therefore of moderate, though not profound, significance. As a result of the massive reduction in unemployment during the next few months, the relative percentage of the unemployed organized in the Labor Service rose continuously. By June 1933 it had already reached 30 percent. Exactly one year later there were 220,000 young men in the Labor Service, and only 279,000 of those entitled to participate were still without work: the ratio had shot up to 4:5.331 There is another qualifying consideration in addition to the statistical problems just indicated: because labor conscription was imposed on an everexpanding circle of groups, those in Hierl’s organization were not only the unemployed. In June 1933, for example, the jobless accounted for just under 70 percent of all participants, and for 80 percent in April 1934.332 The primary reason a direct ratio cannot be established is that in July 1933 the Nazi regime no longer included the labor service men and others employed 329

330

331 332

See BA/B, R 2301/5648, Hierl to Seldte, April 23, 1934; in agreement, Humann, Wirts¨ chaftliche Seite, 13; in general H. Abel, Die Gestalt der mannlichen arbeitslosen Jugend. ¨ ¨ Eine jugendkundliche Untersuchung uber Grundlagen und Grenzen sozialpadagogischer Betreuung der arbeitslosen Jugend (Cologne, 1935), 7–15. Moreover, in some statistical data it is unclear whether women or the leadership personnel are included. Another fundamental problem is to which group one should assign the leadership personnel: many, though not all, would have also been unemployed without the labor service. In addition, one should theoretically add the unemployed males under the age of eighteen, since they were in principle also entitled to join until 1935. On the question to what extent the statistics were manipulated, see Silverman, “National Socialist Economics,” 204–15. BA/B, R 3903/216, Target number of labor service volunteers (Arbeitsdienstwillige), no date [March 29, 1933]. Dudek, Erziehung, 184, rightly points out that the importance of the service as a job-creation measure varied strongly from region to region. StJB 1934, 311, 321. BA/B, R 2301/5658, Note Lange, June 30, 1933; Humann, Wirtschaftliche Seite, 14.

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in job-creation programs in its unemployment statistics. Hence, the total number of labor service men and of participants in similar programs should more likely be added to the number of unemployed rather than subtracted.333 Still, the Labor Service encompassed an increasingly large percentage of the remaining jobless, which meant that one could predict as early as the spring of 1934 that the situation would eventually change into a phase of labor shortage. Against this background, the introduction of compulsory labor service appears in a new light. Had labor conscription not been instituted in 1935, it would have been necessary to disband the institution soon after, for it was no longer needed as a productive form of emergency support. The introduction of compulsory service for specific groups was thus a temporary expedient to keep the number of labor men more or less constant despite the decline in unemployment and despite the fact that Hierl’s crisis-ridden organization was not attractive. The Reich Administration of the service expressed a corresponding crisis awareness toward the Reich Audit Office as early as the end of 1933.334 For that reason, Hierl organized a recruitment campaign in early summer 1934 to attract the jobless – an initiative that had little success.335 Unemployed SA men were also virtually forced into the service.336 Something similar happened in Bremen and other cities to the unemployed on government support.337 That unemployment had in some areas already given way to a labor shortage by the beginning of 1935 is revealed in a circular from the president of the Bavarian state employment office, who expressed his concern – and this was before the introduction of universal service – that he would be unable to fill some jobs because young people were being drafted into Hierl’s organization.338 The Labor Service of the Weimar days would have scaled itself back in 1934, since its size was determined by the free-market criterion of demand by the unemployed. In the Third Reich, this was prevented by state intervention in the form of labor conscription imposed on specific groups. The relative significance of Hierl’s organization as a stopgap for the jobless emerges also from a comparison with similar initiatives. The Labor Service 333 334 335 336 337 338

Silverman, Hitler’s Economy, esp. 207f., also on the general difficulties defining the members of this organization in relationship to unemployment. BA/B, R 2301/5646, Reich Administration of the Labor Service to Audit Office of the German Reich, November 20, 1933. Silverman, Hitler’s Economy, 194. BA/B, NS 23/371, SA Leader of Group Hansa to Brigade 12 and others, August 20, 1934. ¨ LAAFr/688. StA Mu, ¨ LAAFr/692, President of the Land Employment Office to local employment offices, StA Mu, January 4, 1935.

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is comparable to other direct job-creation programs, that is, with other state-funded institutions aimed at putting the unemployed to work. Indirect job-creation measures – such as tax relief – that also contributed to overcoming the economic crisis must be excluded here on methodological grounds.339 Among the panoply of direct job-creation measures, the so-called emergency workers (Notstandsarbeiter) constituted the most important group. They were financed with part of the funds from the two job-creation programs set up in 1932 and the first Reinhardt plan in 1933. Similar to the Labor Service, the work consisted chiefly of soil improvement and infrastructure projects. Most of the recruits were older, frequently married, unemployed men one did not wish to separate from their families, while Hierl’s organization was aimed at younger and more flexible workers. From at least 1934, the emergency work projects were a complementary program to the Labor Service.340 Smaller initiatives were added in the first years of the regime. In March 1933, for instance, the agricultural aid program (Landhilfe) was set up for young people between the ages of sixteen and twenty-one; like the emergency work and the Labor Service, the program, as its name suggests, was employed chiefly in the agricultural sector. This organization, as well, supplemented the Labor Service more than it competed with it, since it was addressed primarily to young people who were not old enough for the latter. There were also programs by individual states, for example the so-called Landjahr (“land year”) in Prussia and elsewhere for fourteen-year-olds who were graduating from the Volksschule, as well as communal and other projects. The latter, however, are not included in the present study.341 Among the national measures directed exclusively or primarily at men – separate but usually smaller programs were instituted for women – the Labor 339 340

341

On the distinction between these two forms of job creation, see Schiller, Arbeitsbeschaffung, 1–5. On the disputes see, e.g., BA/B, R 3903/220, Reich Administration of the Labor Service to the president of the RfAVAV, February 28, 1934; H. Marcon, Arbeitsbeschaffungspoli¨ die Beschaftigungspolitik ¨ tik der Regierungen Papen und Schleicher. Grundsteinlegung fur im Dritten Reich (Bern, 1974), 395–400; V. Herrmann, Vom Arbeitsmarkt zum Arbeitsein¨ Arbeitsvermittlung und Arbeitslosenversicherung satz. Zur Geschichte der Reichsanstalt fur 1929 bis 1939 (Frankfurt/Main, 1993), 52–6. To be sure, the comparative analysis could also incorporate initiatives that were not orga¨ nized on a Reich level, especially the communally supported Fursorgearbeiter (relief workers). However, the absence of informative and reasonably complete statistics would be even more problematic. Moreover, it is methodologically dubious to regard the relief workers and the additional employment by the Reich postal service and the Reich railroad as job-creation measures. On the various projects, their status, and in general, see Gassert, ¨ New Deal, 24–37; J. Stelzner, Arbeitsbeschaffung und Wiederaufrustung 1933–1936. Na¨ ¨ tionalsozialistische Beschaftigungspolitk und Aufbau der Wehr- und Rustungswirtschaft ¨ (Tubingen, 1976), 76–114.

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chart 2. Magnitude of job-creation measures in the German Reich 1933–1934 (end-of-month figures, in thousands)

1933 January March June September December 1934 January March June September December

Emergency workers

Rural helpers

Labor service for men

Total

23 88 115 232 277

– – 123 165 160

175 214 252 234 232

198 302 490 631 669

416 631 387 256 400

156 161 229 225 233

225 240 229 225 233

797 1,032 845 706 866

Service was thus in quantitative terms not the first among equals. While that role fell to the emergency workers financed by the RfAVAV, from January 1933 to December 1934, Hierl’s organization did encompass between 23 percent (January 1933) and 88 percent (March 1934) of all the unemployed who were put to work with Reich funds – 42 percent on average. Its relevance was greater still for its immediate target group, men between eighteen and twenty-five. Although the figure cannot be calculated precisely, it is likely to have been well over 50 percent. (Chart 2 shows the breakdown of jobcreation measures during this period.342 ) The relatively high importance attached to the Labor Service in the instrumentarium of National Socialist job-creation measures was not so much the result of the regime’s priorities, but represented above all the legacy of the Weimar Republic. When the National Socialists assumed power, the service was the most important pillar of the Reich in the battle against the economic crisis. Of course this statement must not obscure the fact that in absolute quantitative terms the result of that battle was less spectacular. Moreover, in 1933 the Labor Service was reduced rather than enlarged from what it had been in the Weimar Republic. The National Socialist elite thus did not see it, especially after the veto of the victorious powers in Geneva, as the most important job-creation program. Instead, it expanded the emergency work projects as the main pillar of its fight against joblessness. That made sense, since the Labor Service, by virtue of its pedagogical pretensions, was a comparatively expensive form of crisis relief. Added to this were the 342

StJB 1935, 309–11; Silverman, “National Socialist Economics,” 213.

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organizational problems discussed earlier, which prevented the Labor Service from becoming, after the takeover of power, the rapidly expandable measure that the regime needed. At the same time, one must not overestimate the significance of all the direct job-creation measures. As Dan Silverman has shown, they were too small and, especially, too late to constitute the central reason behind Germany’s rapid economic recovery after 1933.343 Still, one can conclude that with the rapid decline in unemployment, the Labor Service was able to incorporate a growing portion of the remaining victims of the economic crisis: the more the unemployment rates declined, the greater the relative importance of the service as a measure providing productive relief. However, young unemployed workers, the target group of the service, were especially quick to find work again. One could therefore foresee that Hierl’s organization, much sooner than all other job-creation programs, would face a time when it would no longer be needed. In the phase before the introduction of labor conscription, most labor men shared a second characteristic in addition to joblessness: a similar political attitude. Already in the FAD of the Weimar Republic, the sponsoring organizations with their varied political programs had attracted primarily sympathizers and members of their own group or party. In November 1932, for instance, no fewer than 41 percent of the volunteers in Stahlhelm camps were also members of that organization.344 The goal, methods, and results were not much different from the National Socialists’.345 This did not change after the sponsors had been “coordinated” (gleichgeschaltet). Sixty percent of the core sections that were to be formed in 1933 as a transition to the compulsory labor service were to be made up of members of the NSDAP or the Stahlhelm.346 The service generally obtained information about its future members from the police registration 347 ¨ offices (Meldebehorden). A loyal core was to stabilize the service along National Socialist lines, while at the same time taking care of the movement’s supporters.348 The fact that Hierl’s organization, between 1933 and 1935, was targeted at young men supportive of the system was further reinforced by compulsory service for specific groups. The majority of those affected by labor conscription, such as the leadership candidates of the party, young civil servants, and students, belonged to groups that formed the foundation of the regime or at least were loyal to it. For them, the Labor Service did not have the existential importance it had for many 343 344 345 346 347 348

See Silverman, Hitler’s Economy, 219–46. BA/B, R 72/330, Universal Census of Der Stahlhelm, November 15, 1932. BA/BDC, O 262, Hierl to the District officials for the Labor Service, October 5, 1932. BA/B, R 2301/5662, Reich Commissioner for the FAD to district leaders, April 29, 1933. NARA/CP, RG 242, e.g., A 3345-DSA080, Information about Otto H., April 6, 1935. BA/B, R 72/329, District Mecklenburg-Strelitz to state office (Landesamt), April 21, 1933.

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unemployed because of their material deprivation. Instead, they helped to shape the sections politically along Nazi lines.349 However, for some of them, Hierl’s organization most likely also had the task of dampening high-flying expectations of sweeping political change and hopes for rapid career advancement. By contrast, the professional and vocational profile of the labor men in the period prior to the introduction of compulsory service does not display any surprising features. As I have already mentioned, they were for the most part unemployed men of diverse social backgrounds. Added to them were the groups that were integrated into the organization through labor conscription, chief among them students. A few months prior to the introduction of compulsory service, in the spring of 1935, for example, they accounted for 7 percent of the labor men – which means they were overrepresented by a factor of about five.350 By contrast, agricultural vocations were underrepresented, primarily because unemployment was comparatively low in the agricultural sector.351 On the whole, the volunteers were selected chiefly according to political criteria, while the exercise of controlling influence on the labor market remained a secondary concern until 1935, even though it was a consideration for students from the time the Nazis took power. After 1935 the service no longer had the task of functioning as a relief organization, since the surplus of workers had already turned into a labor shortage in many sectors. Rather, the question that arises is whether or not the service carried out its announced intent of implementing universal labor conscription for young men. The size of the first cohort drafted in October 1935 was 182,000 men. But in June of that year, the number of labor men had still stood at 212,000 – paradoxically, the supposedly universal, uniform labor conscription caused the service to shrink in size to 86 percent of what it had been.352 If we also subtract those who were serving for longer periods, we are left with 140,000 slots for conscripts in the first cohort and with 160,000 slots for the second round. Compared to the plans published in 1933 that called for 350,000 “soldiers of labor,” but especially compared to the original project, which had set the figure at 550,000 slots for the first year of conscription, with the number rising thereafter to more than a million, the size of the service was almost laughable.353 349 350 351 352 353

Bayr. HStA, MK/11109, German Student Organization (Deutsche Studentenschaft), Office for Labor Service, to district leaders and others, January 15, 1934. ¨ StJB 1935, 12; Gruttner, Studenten im Dritten Reich, 488. BA/B, R 2301/5648, Hierl to Seldte, April 23, 1934; BA/B, R 3101/10416, Note by the Reich Economics Ministry, January 30, 1935. RGBl. 1935, I, 772; WIS 16 (1936), 135; BA/B, R 2301/5718, Preliminary directive for the examination of the 1915 cohort. BA/B, R 1501/5621, Reich Labor Service Law (draft), fol. 253; ibid., fol. 202; Dt. AD 3 (1933), 198; Stellrecht, Arbeitsdienst, 150.

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The chief reason for the shrinkage lay in the resistance from other bureaucracies. It was not until 1936 that the number of young men, which Hitler himself determined, was recalculated: including the core personnel, the service was to comprise (at the beginning of October of each target year) 230,000 labor men in 1937, 275,000 in 1938, and eventually 300,000 in 1939.354 However, these normative targets were achieved ahead of schedule, not least because of the expansion of the territory of the Reich. Thus, not counting the leaders, the Labor Service already numbered 232,000 men by the summer of 1938, 309,000 by the summer of 1939, and 323,000 by the following winter; including the core personnel, the last figure added up to 340,000 people.355 Actually, given the expansion of the Reich, which brought with it an immense growth in the number of labor conscripts, the budget for 1939 had granted the service an increase to 400,000 men plus 50,000 leaders. But in the face of bottlenecks and shortages in agriculture, Hierl was forced to let go about 65,000 men.356 Very few reliable statistics are available for the war period. On the whole, however, the number of young men declined during the following years from the high in 1939, a result of numerous exemptions and exceptional regulations, and the drafting of some of the leaders into military service. In April 1945, for example, the size of the organization was set at 200,000 conscripts.357 The figure one needs to compare to the labor men is the number of young men between eighteen and twenty-five who were subject to labor conscription, not counting the groups that were excluded or exempted from the outset in 1935. This figure, too, can be calculated only as an approximation. What is possible and sensible is a comparison of the number of labor men with the age cohort of men turning nineteen in the relevant year, because that is the point at which men were usually conscripted. Because the birth rate was low during the First World War, the 1915 cohort, which made up the first group subject to conscription in the fall of 1935, comprised merely 468,000 young men.358 Since the Labor Service with its half-year service period was able to process twice its capacity per year, that number must be set against the 300,000 labor men in 1935–6, which amounts to a call-up quotient of 64 percent. This means that 36 percent of the age group would have had to be Jews, felons, or unfit individuals for the service to draw in at least all young men who were subject to conscription. In actuality, though, the ratio of the excluded likely did not much exceed the 354 355 356 357 358

RGBl. 1935, I, 769; ibid. 1936, I, 747. BA/B, R 2301/5661, Reich Labor Leader to Reich Finance Ministry, February 28, 1939. BA/B, R 2/4545, Reich Finance Ministry to Reich Labor Leader, August 7, 1939. Seifert, Kulturarbeit, 89. StJB 1935, 12; BA/B, R 2301/5638, Reich Commissioner of the FAD to Bach, September 3, 1934.

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20 percent mark.359 On the whole, then, the RAD did not even succeed in conscripting all the men of the age group who were subject to compulsory service.360 Completely beyond the horizon was the publicly proclaimed intent of making up the recruitment gaps and having all young men up to the age of twenty-five perform retroactive labor service, except for those who had already served in Hierl’s organization before the introduction of universal conscription. There was little change in the subsequent years. Only in 1936 and 1937, when the especially small cohorts of the war years 1916 and 1917 became subject to conscription (each comprising fewer than 400,000 men), was the RAD able to absorb at least most of the new conscripts.361 Beginning in 1938, when hundreds of thousands of young men were added with the extension of labor conscription to Austria, and even more so after 1939, comprehensive conscription became an ever more distant goal in spite of the expansion of the organization. That also explains why the Reich Administration of the RAD almost never published the number of labor men in its ranks after 1935: this was one way to conceal the yawning gap between its pretensions and reality. One way in which the gap was created was through the exemption of entire groups of young men for a variety of reasons. In addition, there was the possibility of temporarily postponing conscription for some groups. Although a deferral was technically different from an exemption, given the fact that the service was unable to accommodate all young men, it was often tantamount to an exemption.362 One can distinguish six forms of exemption and deferral. First, groups that had already performed some other form of service were exempted. It made perfect sense that young people were not subject to the new labor conscription if they had already performed labor service prior to October 1935 or had been consciously excluded. But there were already exemption regulations for men who had served in very different organizations – for example, those who, prior to the introduction of the RAD Law, had spent at least three months in the Wehrmacht or a state police force. Second, certain age cohorts were entirely excluded from compulsory service. In November 1935, Reich War Minister Blomberg and Reich Interior Minister Frick decreed that military conscripts born in 1913 would “no longer be drafted into the Reich Labor Service”; similar regulations were issued the following year for the cohorts of 1912 to 1914. In 1935, the Reich 359 360

361 362

The proportion of the unfit was probably around 18 percent; see Dt. AD 5 (1935), 1460. WIS 15 (1935), 147–50; on convicted criminals see StJB 63 (1934), 544–6; also P. Wagner, Volksgemeinschaft ohne Verbrecher. Konzeption und Praxis der Kriminalpolizei in der Zeit der Weimarer Republik und des Nationalsozialismus (Hamburg, 1996), 26–40. StJB 1935, 12; for an opposing view, Seifert, Kulturarbeit, 114. RGBl. 1935, I, 770.

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Interior Minister, in agreement with the Reich War Minister, was given the general authority to grant exemptions during a transition period.363 That the length of this period was interpreted generously is revealed by the fact that the Interior Ministry was still invoking it as late as January 1937.364 Third, certain vocational groups were deferred or exempted. The Reich Economics Minister and the Reich Labor Minister had been demanding this option since 1933 and had been able to implement it in spite of the compulsory service requirement for students.365 For example, students at teachers colleges were exempted since the beginning of 1935 because of an imminent shortage of teachers.366 From October 1935, young men could be excused for “special domestic, economic, or vocational reasons.”367 This proviso was applied to apprentices, for example, and many agricultural workers before the war.368 Similar in nature were the exceptions granted since 1937 on orders from Rudolf Heß to “party comrades active in leadership positions” – this contrasts with the early phase of Nazi rule, when the party elite was explicitly drafted into the Labor Service to provide ideological stability; evidently that no longer seemed necessary.369 The exception regulations peaked during World War II, with long lists of professional and vocational groups – chiefly from companies in the armaments industry and transportation – who were excused from the Labor Service for an indefinite period.370 Fourth, in addition to these examples of exemptions for vocational groups, a deferral on account of “excess numbers” was possible beginning in October 1935.371 This formula, the vaguest of all, was not linked to a specific social or vocational profile. Whereas all the cases discussed so far involved young men who were freed from labor conscription through extended deferrals or exemptions, there was, fifth, the possibility of shortening the period of service. For example, men who wished to enter the Wehrmacht as an officer cadet senior grade (Fahnenjunker) in the spring of 1936 were required to serve only three months in the Labor Service.372

363 364 365 366 367 369

370

371 372

Ibid. 1935, I, 1215, 1361, 772. BA/B, R 1501/5626, Reich Ministry of the Interior to Reich Labor Leader, January 26, 1937. For example, BA/B, R 2301/5648, Hierl to Seldte, April 23, 1934. BA/B, R 4901/890, Reich Ministry for Science, Education, and National Training to Prussian Teacher Colleges and others, February 7, 1935. 368 See Deutsche Jugend-Hilfe 29 (1937): 6. RGBl. 1935, I, 1216. BA/B, NS 6/230, Heß directive, July 4, 1938; similar to the nonconscription of 20,000 Hitler Youth leaders in 1944; see NARA/CP. RG 242, T 81/110, Reich Labor Leader to various sections of the Labor Service, January 5, 1944. See, e.g., BA/B, R 3901/282, Armed Forces High Command, Implementation of examination of the birth-year 1925, July 21, 1942; BA/B, R 3101/1090, Reich Economics Ministry to Reich Governors and others, July 31, 1942; PA/B, R 47651 with various lists. RGBl. 1935, I, 1216. PA/B, R 47643, Army High Command to Group Commands, August 10, 1936.

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Sixth, and finally, among the labor men there were those who performed no labor service even though they were nominally part of Hierl’s organization. Beginning in June 1935, individual conscripts who had already begun their period of service could be furloughed for up to three weeks. The reason behind this regulation was the dire situation in agriculture, which I will discuss in greater detail in the chapter on harvest work. What might appear in retrospect as an orderly and coherent system of exemptions and deferrals was in reality a chaotic process that reflected the power struggles between the affected departments and the Labor Service. It is not possible to reconstruct these struggles fully or to determine their quantitative impact. But that is not important to the question I am examining here: on the whole we can see that the drafting of young men into the service was not comprehensive. The main criteria for exemptions and deferrals from universal service consistently point in the same directions: the justification for the special regulations was almost always based on labor market policy considerations, and, in later years, on military priorities. Needless to say, the practice of exemptions, deferrals, shortened service terms, and furloughs ran counter to the program of universal conscription. Hierl was compelled to accommodate the interests of the economy on many points. However, if one looks at the problem not from the vantage point of the pretensions of the service, but from the vantage point of economic interests, the perspective shifts: in the face of the maximum demand to dissolve the service entirely, the fact that the Labor Service was able to enroll nearly three million men for a time between 1933 and 1940 represents a partial victory for Hierl that should not be underestimated. Also, the RAD was not the only loser in the struggle for the scarce resource of German youth after 1935. Other Nazi institutions were also compelled to scale back their ambitions significantly. For example, during the war the Hitler Youth was forced to make substantial concessions with respect to the universal compulsory youth service ( Jugenddienstpflicht) that had been introduced in 1936. In this case, the RAD profited, since some of these youngsters flowed into its ranks.373 What emerged was therefore an increasingly complex jumble. A system of makeshift measures was used to satisfy chiefly the needs of the war economy and the pursuit of war. The Labor Service occasionally emerged the winner in these struggles, which can be explained not least by the military importance it had after 1939. For the most part, though, the Labor Service, like nearly all organizations combining expansive ideological pretensions with a call for universal service, stood on the losing side. Yet any explanation for why the compulsory nature of the service was riddled with loopholes that is based merely on the labor shortage in the second half of the 1930s and the need for soldiers during the war is insufficient. The regime’s policy of curtailing labor service conscription in favor of 373

Broszat, Hitler State, 268–70.

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economic or military rationalism emerges in all its clarity only if one raises the hypothetical question about alternatives. The leaders of Nazi Germany often enough followed a different, utterly irrational logic grounded in its ideology – the prime example is the murder of the Jews. Thus, it would also have been theoretically possible in the case of the RAD to accord ideology primacy over economic and military considerations. The regime, however, did not choose that path. From this perspective, the year 1935 as a whole does not emerge as a profound turning point – even though all scholarly works on the Labor Service under National Socialism regard it as such. Instead, the difference between the conditional voluntariness between 1933 and 1935 and the limited compulsoriness after 1935 was minor in practice. The RAD Law made the decision whether or not to join the labor service entirely independent of the wishes of those concerned and placed it in the hands of the state and labor market policy. Whereas labor market policy between 1933 and 1934 had been pursued through compulsory inclusion, after 1935 it was implemented through state-regulated exclusion. All in all, though, after the Gleichschaltung in 1933, the development of the Labor Service proceeded at a steady pace. In this process, the RAD Law was merely one link in the chain of decisions that regulated participation in the service. This statute is significant only in terms of state law. The Labor Service thus reflects a phenomenon that was typical of the German dictatorship: it not only restricted rights on a massive scale, but at the same time also created new judicial regulatory systems. But the regime felt as little bound by these new norms as it had by the old, and it violated them whenever it felt the need to do so. Finally, there is the question as to what extent the Labor Service between 1933 and 1939 functioned, first, as an effective instrument in guiding the choice of professions and vocations, and, second, as a device of “selection” in keeping with the ideology of the Volksgemeinschaft. The Labor Service pursued the goal of vocational guidance primarily for two groups. For one, its aim was to dissuade Gymnasium graduates from attending university. Hierl’s organization assessed its success rate in this regard ¨ as fairly high.374 But as Michael Gruttner has shown, the significant decline in the student population at the beginning of the regime was brought about not by vocational guidance on the part of the Labor Service or other institutions, but primarily by structural factors, such as the lowered job prospects as a result of overcrowding in academic professions.375 Equally unsuccessful were all political attempts to halt the long-term rural exodus and decline of 374 375

See Bayr. HStA, MK/15038, President of the Land Employment Office of Bavaria to the president of the RfAVAV, September 4, 1933. ¨ See Gruttner, Studenten im Dritten Reich, 472–83.

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the agricultural sector: neither the Labor Service nor other efforts at vocational engineering on the part of the regime were able to remedy the shortage of agricultural labor.376 “Selection” in the sense of a political evaluation was pursued by the service above all in the case of students and the next generation of party leaders, as they were the only ones whose labor service time was regarded, in the pretensions of Hierl’s organization, as a test. Although the other labor men were also given evaluations of their conduct in the labor pass, this had no significant repercussions in the private sector.377 If one is to believe the regime’s declarations, this was different for the next generation of party cadres and especially for students.378 These declarations, along with the duty booklet evaluation system after 1933 and the grading system after 1935, seem to suggest that any question about the effectiveness of the control mechanism is unnecessary and superfluous. However, to the extent that the sources permit a conclusion, the evaluation system did not function at all. For example, among all the Gymnasium graduates of the 1937 cohort, the Labor Service rated merely twenty-two as “unworthy of a university education”; in the summer semester of 1938 it gave that rating to only three graduates. Compared to the number of male students who entered their first semester, these figures represent a fraction of a percent – which, needless to say, does not adequately reflect the nonconformism that existed in this segment of society. In one of the few cases in which a student was excluded, clumsiness, deviant behavior, and political nonconformism came together.379 In view of the low yardstick that was applied, the Labor Service did not implement its potential as an instrument of “selection”; rather, the service booklet was used at most to increase the pressure of conformity. Analogously, the Labor Service, for a variety of reasons and public pronouncements notwithstanding, played no major role in the awarding of scholarships.380 The primary reason reality lagged behind the service’s own expectations was once again the incompetence of the lower-level leadership personnel, which had been accused, since 1933, of being unfit to evaluate the students.381 Other reasons will emerge in the analysis of the pedagogical effort and the actual work of the service. Hierl, who recognized the problem, therefore refused in 1935 to have his leaders make the sole determination of a student’s “university worthiness.” Henceforth, the RAD merely

376 378 379 380 381

377 See Dt. AD 5 (1935), 719f. See Chapter 4, Section 4.3.1 of this book. See, e.g., BBZ, June 17, 1933. ¨ See BA/B, NS 38/31, on this case also NARA/CP, RG 242, T 81/247; in general, Gruttner, Studenten im Dritten Reich, 236f. ¨ See Gruttner, Studenten im Dritten Reich, 140–9. See BA/B, R 1501/5102, Record of negotiations, work half-year, September 21, 1933; ¨ Gruttner, Studenten im Dritten Reich, 229–31.

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compiled a nonbinding evaluation of graduates for the Reich Ministry of Education.382 In a different respect, however, the service was influential: since it conscripted a relevant portion of young – initially unemployed – males and subjected them to a strictly regulated camp life, the organization, through its access criteria, made a substantial contribution to the reduction of politically deviant action and criminal behavior. For although National Socialism had employed terror and destabilization in the period before the Machtergreifung, its preferences shifted fundamentally after 1933. Once in power, the National Socialists, like any other government, were deeply interested in reducing the manifestations of crisis, to which they themselves had belonged. Crime statistics reveal that social aggression rose sharply after 1929, and it was especially young, unemployed men who proved to be particularly susceptible, or at least were clearly overrepresented among those prosecuted for crimes.383 After the Nazi takeover of power, by contrast, the number of charges that were brought for offenses against property and other crimes showed a noticeable drop.384 Of course the decline cannot be attributed only to the Labor Service. However, along with other similar organizations, it targeted the very segment of the population that was considered especially prone to criminal behavior with a combination of two methods: first, these young men were given work, and, second, the degree of social control increased substantially through the compulsory integration into the labor service. On the whole, it is apparent that the Labor Service had varying degrees of success in accomplishing the functions assigned to it: job-creation, providing for the needy, vocational guidance, and political control. Both in the final months of the Weimar Republic and at the beginning of Nazi rule, it was an important instrument for providing relief for the unemployed – before and after 1933 not least for the supporters of the Nazi party. Although at the beginning of 1933 it was able to encompass only a small percentage of all those qualified to participate, and an exceedingly small portion of the unemployed, in quantitative terms it was by far the most important jobcreation measure of the Reich when the Nazis assumed power. As we have seen, Germany was ill-prepared for the economic crisis and had few and insufficient means of social policy to cushion its effects. It was not long before Hierl’s organization had to relinquish its status as the most important initiative to the emergency workers program. Yet the development of the government’s ability to respond to the crisis was at least as much the result of the preliminary work done in the final months of the Weimar Republic as 382 383 384

See BA/B, R 4901/890, Reich Labor Leader to German Student Alliance (Deutsche Studentenschaft), December 3, 1935. See Winkler, Katastrophe, 45–50. See Wagner, Volksgemeinschaft ohne Verbrecher, 214–19.

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it was the accomplishment of the Nazi regime itself. As early as 1934, as the organization began to lose its function of providing productive crisis relief with the decline of mass unemployment, various groups had to be subjected to labor conscription. The service also influenced the labor market through the compulsory inclusion of specific groups prior to 1935, especially of the future elite. By contrast, the principle of universal labor conscription that was proclaimed in 1935 remained an empty formula. Instead, the obligatory inclusion of certain segments of the male youth was replaced in 1935 with a targeted exclusion of other segments, and the regime did not commit itself to its selfproclaimed pretensions. Henceforth, the German Labor Service ran counter to the promise of equality, articulated in the formula of the Volksgemeinschaft, through a system of differentiation based on an economic and military rationale. 2.4. THE ORGANIZATION OF THE CIVILIAN CONSERVATION CORPS Like the National Industrial Recovery Act and the Agricultural Adjustment Act, the Civilian Conservation Corps was part of the hectic early phase of the New Deal and one of the measures that Roosevelt launched in the first one hundred days after assuming the presidency on March 4, 1933. Unlike the German Labor Service, the Corps could not draw on any meaningful precursor organizations, a fact that substantially shaped the history of its creation. No other program of the first one hundred days is as closely linked with Roosevelt’s name as the CCC, since it was largely the product of his initiative and ideas. At the same time, it can be understood only against the backdrop of the dramatic worsening of the economic crisis in the United States, as the number of unemployed rose to over 13 million.385 Roosevelt, who had already come out with measures to help the jobless during his term as governor of New York, now fully embraced the path of state interventionism. Only ten days after his inauguration, he set up a committee whose members were drawn from the Department of Agriculture, the Department of the Interior, and the War Department, and charged it with designing a job-creation program.386 This circle of departments, expanded a short while later by the addition of the Labor Department, subsequently assumed key roles in the construction and administration of the relief program. The intent behind Roosevelt’s initiative was both to combat mass unemployment and to set up an institution devoted to protecting the environment and improving the country’s agricultural resources. The latter was an 385

Hosen, ed., Great Depression, 257, 268.

386

FRC, esp. No. 129.

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expression of his personal interest in the state of the forests, but it also reflected the influence of the conservation movement since the 1890s.387 However, it was not part of the president’s original conception that the program would be aimed at young men and contain an educational program; these aspects emerged only during interdepartmental discussions and deliberations in Congress during the formative phase of the CCC. A variety of influences thus turned a job-creation measure into a labor service, one that most resembles the economic-pedagogical model in the typology of labor services outlined previously.388 On the basis of the preliminary work of the interdepartmental committee, Roosevelt presented his bill to Congress on March 21, and in the following days it was discussed in the various subcommittees. The bill granted Roosevelt broad, unspecified powers. It was a blanket mandate for the creation of a labor service without an institutional counterweight to the comprehensive authority of the president – except for the budgetary power of the Congress. Still, in the face of the worsening crisis, most members of Congress voted for it. Serious reservations were voiced by the organized labor movement, however, whose objections were of two kinds. To begin with, William Green, the president of the American Federation of Labor, was afraid that the pay of only one dollar per day for the CCC boys would promote a reduction in wages and generally undermine the rights of workers. His second concern was more ideological and expressed in a powerful indictment of the proposal: “It smacks, as I see it, of fascism, of Hitlerism, of a form of sovietism.”389 Green’s fears were not very specific. However, they were symptomatic of a segment of the American public, which, against the backdrop of Hitler’s assumption of power less than two months before and in view of the enormous authority that was being bestowed on Roosevelt given the dire situation in the country, was afraid the United States might choose a path similar to that of the Soviet Union or Germany and Italy. This was also the focus of criticism by some conservative congressmen of the enormous concentration of power in the hands of the president. Moreover, the participation of the army stirred fears that would shadow the Corps throughout its lifetime. Left-liberal magazines like The Nation and New Republic argued that the organizational integration of the military into the CCC could become the starting point of a fascist-style transformation of

387

388 389

See The Public Papers and Addresses of Franklin D. Roosevelt, ed. S. I. Rosenmann, 13 vols. (New York, 1938–50), vol. 2 (1933), 160–8; on the conservation movement see Maher, Planting More than Trees, 27–77. FRC, esp. No. 134. Joint Hearings Before the Committee on Education and Labor, United States Senate, Seventy-Third Congress (Washington, 1933), 46; on the draft law, ibid., 1; overall also Salmond, Corps, 9–19.

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society. The same position was taken by left-wing parties like the American socialists and communists. This was not only a general and abstract fear that the United States was moving closer to totalitarian models. The Nazi Labor Service fostered concrete concerns about the future of the Corps.390 When it came to the German Labor Service, critics denounced above all its military drill and paramilitary training. Like no other institution in the world, it became a warning example against which the CCC was measured time and again. Roosevelt made every effort to allay such fears in the period leading up to the creation of the CCC. Beginning in 1933, the administration constantly reiterated the differences between the American institution and its German counterpart. That also explains why the paramilitary training the army repeatedly demanded was for a long time forbidden by the president himself. For example, in January 1934 Assistant Secretary of War Harry Woodring publicly praised the military potential of the CCC units, which he called “economic storm troops.” His comments caused a public outcry.391 At a time when the notion of paramilitary “storm troops” invariably reminded Americans of the German Labor Service and even more so of the SA, the White House quickly distanced itself from these remarks and Woodring was forced to make a public apology.392 Thereafter, similar statements, usually by high-ranking officers, were either ignored or disavowed by the White House and the CCC.393 And so the American public kept a watchful eye on the Corps; any hint of military drill was criticized and, if necessary, stopped by the leadership of the CCC. One of the constitutive elements of the Civilian Conservation Corps in the early years of its existence was therefore the emphasis on its civilian character, announced by its very name. At the same time, ever since the formative phase of the CCC, the Nazi Labor Service was a point of reference that gave an important imprint to the American institution. In public discussions in the United States, in contrast to Germany, the labor service in the other country was thus not invoked to legitimize one’s own service and presented as a similar and essentially positive institution. Rather, 390

391 392 393

For example, R. G. Swing, “Take the Army Out of the CCC,” The Nation 141 (1935): 459f.; S. Grafton, “The Army Runs Amuck,” The Nation 140 (1935): 733f.; A. A. McKay, “Advice to the C.C.C.,” New Republic, May 8, 1935, 369; in general, Salmond, Corps, 114f.; Winkler, Anti-New-Deal-Bewegungen, 216–35. H. H. Woodring, “The American Army Stands Ready,” Liberty, January 6, 1934, 7–12, quote p. 11. See, e.g., World Tomorrow 17 (1934); NYT, February 8, 1934; Daily News, December 15, 1934. For example, NARA/HP, OF 268, Box 2, McKinney to Early, March 7, 1934; a similar statement by General Moseley; ibid., Box 4, Moseley to Early, September 15, 1936; on this: NYT, September 13, 1936; overall also R. W. Dubay, “The Civilian Conservation Corps. A Study of Opposition, 1933–1935,” Southern Quarterly 6 (1968): 341–58.

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the RAD became the polar opposite from which the CCC sought to distance itself as much as possible. Although this issue would shape the subsequent history of the Corps, Roosevelt and the departments involved were able to calm the concerns in March 1933. As a result, the law was passed on March 31, a mere two and a half weeks after the president had assembled the interdepartmental committee. The law formed the basis for the establishment of the Emergency Conservation Work (ECW), which was called Civilian Conservation Corps from the very outset, even though that did not become its official name until 1937. According to the law, the institution was aimed at “citizens of the United States who are unemployed.” They were to be put to work on projects in forestry and other areas. Beyond that, the text of the law was vague and left essential aspects to the president’s discretion. The law did not even explicitly settle the question of whether the service was to be voluntary or compulsory for all jobless.394 Roosevelt, however, was clearly against a compulsory service, which is why participation in the CCC always remained voluntary. In addition, the decision that the Corps should address itself primarily to young, unemployed men between the ages of eighteen and twenty-five was also made after the bill had been approved by Congress. Moreover, the president set the goal of selecting 250,000 idle workers by July 1, 1933, housing them in camps, and putting them to work on constructive works projects. That posed an enormous challenge, since the CCC was starting virtually from scratch. The problem was exacerbated by the fact that the federal government in the United States, compared to the German Reich government, had few human and financial resources at its disposal. The tremendous achievement in mobilization was possible only because the Corps made use of existing institutional resources.395 For that reason, the interdepartmental committee assembled in March assured the task of setting up the CCC by dividing the various roles. The Labor Department, for example, was responsible for recruiting the enrollees as well as for issues of wages and financing. It drew on the local relief agencies, which were similar to the German employment offices – among other things, the agencies had the task of verifying the need of applicants. The Departments of Agriculture and the Interior, along with the technical services under their authority – especially the Forest Service of the Department of Agriculture – were responsible for planning the work and running the job sites. The main burden fell to the War Department, since the officers of the regular armed forces and of the reserves ran the camps in which the young men were housed. Thus, the CCC had virtually no leadership corps of its own, but assembled its personnel from the participating federal bureaucracies. 394 395

ECW 1934a, 13f., quote p. 13; in general, Salmond, Corps, 16–25. See also F. Perkins, Roosevelt’s wie ich ihn kannte (Berlin, 1949).

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The Army also constructed conditioning camps that the young men had to pass through in preparation for the actual labor camps. In addition, it was responsible for all transportation. Originally the Forest Service was supposed to take over that task, but it was soon clear that it was not up to the enormous challenge. In the “lean” government of the early New Deal, the military was the only institution on a national level with the institutional resources and the capacity – that is to say, the personnel and the knowhow, the administrative structures and the materiel – to take on the job of organizing and running the camps. The fact that Roosevelt’s favorite agency was largely run by the military thus had organizational reasons. At the same time, the military would exert crucial influence on the form the camps would take. With the tasks divided between the four departments, the CCC was able to organize approximately 250,000 idle workers into 1,330 camps by the target date.396 At the beginning of April 1933, Roosevelt appointed the union leader Robert Fechner from Tennessee as director of the ECW. This decision was the most skillful in a series of moves by which the president succeeded in calming the fears of organized labor about a fascist transformation of society and declining wages. A short time later, the president was able to win over Green, the staunchest opponent of the Corps, when he took him along on a tour of inspection of the first camps. Henceforth, there was no further principled opposition by the unions to the CCC; in fact, when the Corps was dissolved in 1942 they pleaded for its continued existence.397 Prior to this appointment, Fechner had been vice president of the American Federation of Labor headed by Green, and a leading member of the International Association of Machinists. With his background in the American labor movement, he was very different from the “typical” New Deal intellectuals like Adolf Berle, Felix Frankfurter, or Harry Hopkins.398 Though he worked very hard, he had no vision of the goals the Corps should be pursuing beyond that of being a pure work-creation measure. Moreover, he was only too eager to follow the president or his advisors, and for a long time he was not able to articulate his own stance and defend it against opposition. What is more, Fechner did not become the director of a larger agency in charge of administering the Corps. Instead, he coordinated the departments involved in the CCC and represented the organization to the public. He was supported in these tasks, apart from a small staff, by an Advisory Council made up of members of the various departments. Technically the council 396 397 398

NARA/HP, LHP, Box 69, Department of War, Memo for Fechner, June 30, 1933. Other departments were also involved in the CCC to a lesser extent, see Salmond, Corps, 26–45. NARA/HP, OF 268, Box 2, Memo FDR, August 3, 1933; ibid., Box 11, Congress of Industrial Organizations to Hopkins, August 27, 1942. All three were part of Roosevelt’s council of advisors, the brain trust. Berle was for a time Assistant Secretary of State, Frankfurter was a Supreme Court judge, and Hopkins was Minister of Trade.

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had merely an advisory role, but given Fechner’s weak personality and the dominant position of the army within the Corps, Fechner assumed merely the role of a mediator. Yet if the director of the CCC had been someone less patient and less willing to compromise, he would surely have failed, given the de facto distribution of power within the “organizational freak”399 that was the Corps. His pliable character was therefore an essential precondition for the low level of frictions and the success of the Corps in the first years. Apart from a small and soon forgotten scandal in the summer of 1933, when Fechner purchased overpriced toiletries for the enrollees, he was able to avoid serious mistakes in administering this complex organization.400 On most issues, Fechner took the side of the army, as for example in the discussions in the summer of 1933 over whether “Roosevelt’s Tree Army,” as the organization was also called,401 should be given an explicitly educational aspect. In this question, which I will discuss in greater detail later, the director of the CCC supported the army, which opposed a pedagogical program. However, since Roosevelt insisted, it was eventually organized under the supervision of the army – Fechner evidently had no interest in arrogating to himself the authority for this new task, since it would have meant a clash with the military. At the same time, one can see that Roosevelt personally intervened on numerous occasions on issues concerning his favorite agency. It is most glaring in his decision to personally review the location of each camp. Needless to say, this decision, which reveals Roosevelt’s inability to delegate, had to be reversed soon after.402 Until 1935, the Corps was financed with funds approved by Congress for that purpose. Thereafter the Corps was integrated for about a year into the newly established Works Progress Administration (WPA) run by Harry Hopkins. But even after 1935, Fechner reported directly to the president. The WPA was a gigantic work-creation program with a budget of $4.8 billion, which was at the time the largest single item ever earmarked for a political program.403 The cooperation with Hopkins led to friction, especially since he and Fechner had already clashed the previous year over questions of how to deploy the Corps. Still, Fechner’s problems with Hopkins or with the Secretary of the Interior, Harold Ickes, remained far less significant than ¨ Hierl’s defensive battles against the claims of Goring and other members of the Nazi power elite. The Corps was an expensive form of work relief, since the annual expenditure for each enrollee was about $1,100, compared to around $850 in the pure job-creation program WPA, and only $400–$700 in the National 399 400 401 402

Woods, “F.D.R. and the CCC,” 104. See the brilliant portrait of Fechner in Salmond, Corps, 27–9, 71–87; an earlier account in Saalberg, “Roosevelt.” E.g., J. Mitchell, “Roosevelt’s Tree Army,” New Republic (1935), 64–6, quote p. 64. 403 Leuchtenberg, Roosevelt and the New Deal, 124–30. See Salmond, Corps, 38–50.

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Youth Administration (NYA). The latter was a CCC-related measure to provide further education and training to the unemployed.404 The high costs are explained in part by the fact that the Corps was more than a pure jobcreation measure, since it also offered the young men an educational program. In addition, volunteers received not only a token wage, as was the case in Germany, but real pay of $30 a month. While this was a starvation wage, it was more than workers were earning in many sectors. However, enrollees were required to allot $25 to their dependents or families, which left them with only a little pocket money.405 The reason behind this regulation was that this relief program saw itself not only as providing direct aid to volunteers, but using them as a lever to support needy families. While the volunteers themselves were being put to work in the remote forests of North America, the Corps indirectly lent a helping hand throughout the country to Americans of every gender and age. Thanks to the multiplier principle, many millions benefited directly from the CCC. At the same time, this social welfare conception, very different from its German counterpart, was an important reason for the popularity of the Corps. Only its high costs provided a point of attack for critics of the agency.406 For many years, however, there was widespread support for the CCC, and it became the most popular of the New Deal programs. Its smooth operation and the large number of beneficiaries were essential but not the only reasons for its success. The Corps also became an important political instrument. Politicians of all parties and at every level had a vital interest in the CCC: every idle worker accepted into the Corps took pressure off their respective social services budgets. Local politicians and congressmen also influenced the distribution of top leadership positions within the agency. Moreover, the camps, like military bases, were important factors in the local economy. Most politicians therefore took a positive view of the Corps simply out of self-interest. This is apparent, on the one hand, in many requests received by Roosevelt and the director of the Corps to approve a camp in a specific electoral district, and, on the other hand, in protests against the closure of camps. Although political nepotism and patronage did occur, and Roosevelt occasionally directed Fechner to support a Democrat with an additional camp for reasons of electoral tactics, this never rose to the level where it would have discredited the Corps in the eyes of the public. After all, camps were also assigned to Republican strongholds.407 404 405 406 407

House Committee on Labor, Hearings Before the Committee on Labor, 75th Congress, 1937, 32–4; Sherraden, “Civilian Conservation Corps,” 8. In the agricultural sector, the average income in 1933 was $232, in other sectors over $1,000; see Great Depression, 258, 280. See Hearings 1937, 32–4; C. P. Harper, The Administration of the Civilian Conservation Corps (Clarksburg, 1939), 34. An example of Roosevelt exerting influence in NARA/HP, OF 268, Box 5, FDR to Fechner, July 7, 1938; also the demands and requests, ibid., Box 9, 10.

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Good public relations was another reason for the success of the program. Fechner’s small office was continually sending out articles – written, for example, by simple volunteers – praising the accomplishments of the Corps. The semi-official organ of the CCC, the paper Happy Days, was full of them; revealingly enough, the paper was published by Melvin Ryder, one of the organizers of Stars and Stripes, the front-line paper for American forces in the First World War. In addition, Fechner’s press section was able to communicate the positive picture of the Corps to a broad public.408 Yet these media campaigns alone do not explain why the American press was nearly unanimous in its enthusiasm for the CCC, and why even archconservative papers like the Chicago Tribune, which otherwise had not one positive thing to say about the New Deal, praised the Corps.409 It was simply all too obvious that the victims of the crisis needed help, and that the Corps was doing a good job providing it. Finally, other factors that should not be overlooked were the memory of the country’s agrarian past, and the myth of the frontier, to which the CCC appealed. These various elements, which I shall discuss later, won over Americans of the most diverse political backgrounds to Fechner’s organization. The popularity of the Corps was reflected not only in the fact that the 1936 Republican presidential candidate, Alfred M. Landon, spoke out in favor of the CCC. It is also clear from the demands to make the CCC a permanent institution. In March 1933, Roosevelt had approved the Corps for a period of only six months, after which time the authorization was repeatedly extended.410 But this process led to uncertainties in planning, which reduced the institution’s effectiveness. When the CCC came up for another extension in the spring of 1937, there were growing efforts to make it permanent. The president had already supported such a step in his New Year’s address, and in the end the approval appeared to be a formality. Surprisingly enough, the bill was voted down by the House of Representatives, and the CCC Law in the summer of 1937 extended the institution merely by three years. The chief objection to the bill was that a permanent Corps would be tantamount to a surrender in the face of mass unemployment: the labor service would be built on the notion that it was a permanent necessity and that the crisis could not be overcome. In reality, though, this argument was a pretext. The chief explanation for the rejection by Congress was its resistance to Roosevelt’s plans for reforming the Supreme Court. At this very time the president was seeking to restructure the highest court of the land, and critics accused him of trying to shift the balance of power in favor of the executive branch. Against this backdrop, 408 409 410

For example, see NARA/HP, PPF 440, Early to Melvin Ryder, May 19, 1933; see also Maher, Planting More than Trees, 244–62. See, for example, CT, March 27, 1933; Boston Evening Transcript, January 3, 1935. See NARA/CP, RG 35/2, Advisory Council, August 24, 1933.

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the rejection of the CCC initiative in the summer of 1937 was intended to put the president in his place.411 All subsequent attempts to place the Corps on a permanent footing were half-hearted and doomed to failure.412 Tensions within the organization began to increase in 1937–8; their absence for so long had been an important reason behind the success of the CCC. No longer content with his position as a mere mediator, Fechner set out to expand his position of power within the Corps. In the middle of 1937, for example, he picked a fight with the army over the period of service of officers in the CCC. By this time, nearly all officers in the camps were reservists, while the command staff of the regular army had returned to its normal duties. Fechner opposed the army’s idea of using reserve officers in the camps on a rotating basis for short periods, which the military saw as an opportunity to provide the largest possible number of officers with valuable experience. In the end, the two sides agreed to exchange half of the officers in question. Two years later, the reserve officers were given the status of civilian employees under army supervision, which resolved the leadership question for the time being. In 1937, however, the army interpreted Fechner’s stance as interference in an internal matter.413 A few months later, at the beginning of 1938, the War Department therefore forced the question of power within the CCC. In its opinion, the cooperating agencies were not subordinated to the director but at the very least equal in rank. A conference chaired by James Roosevelt, the president’s son, was called to settle the lines of authority. After lengthy negotiations, FDR was forced to deal with the matter himself, and he decided that the director stood above the cooperating agencies.414 Following this confirmation of his position, Fechner in 1939 embarked upon the largest centralization plan in the history of the Corps. His plan envisaged that all machinery would henceforth be repaired at central workshops and not, as was then the case, in a decentralized fashion by the technical services and the army. Once again, this called forth opposition from the military; Fechner, however, was able to prevail on this issue shortly before his death on the last day of 1939. All in all, Fechner was operating within the parameters of his authority in these conflicts, but in doing so he did strain his relationship with the cooperating agencies. The director of the CCC was concerned less with effective administration and more with personal affirmation and a confirmation of his position. While his initiatives did increase the efficiency of the Corps, 411 412 413

414

See Public Papers, vol. 6 (1937), 144–6; Hearings 1937, and esp. Salmond, Corps, 145–61. See esp. the bill of 1939; printed in House Committee on Labor, Hearings Before the Committee on Labor, 76th Congress, 1939, 1. Saalberg, “Roosevelt,” 142–5; A. Lanier, “The Military, the Civilian Conservation Corps, and the Preparation for World War II,” in T. Lyons, ed., 1930 Employment 1980: Humanistic Perspectives on the Civilian Conservation Corps in Colorado (Boulder, 1980): 175–80. NARA/HP, OF 268, Box 5, esp. Department of War to J. Roosevelt, March 21, 1938; NARA/HP, JRP, Box 11, esp. Rowe to FDR, August 13, 1938.

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they were detrimental to morale, and in the end thus also to the institution’s effectiveness.415 More important than these clashes was the establishment in 1939 of the Federal Security Agency (FSA). This organization, headed by Paul McNutt, was part of an administrative reform that restructured various federal agencies. Like the NYA and a few other institutions, the CCC was assigned to the FSA under McNutt. Fechner protested against this move, as he wished to remain directly answerable to the president, and he even tendered his resignation over it. In the end, though, the president was able to convince Fechner, seriously ill by now, to remain in his position.416 Other problems arose. The desertion rate rose sharply at the end of the 1930s, and cases of unrest within the camps multiplied. Moreover, smaller scandals and incidents of corruption brought the Corps repeatedly into the headlines. After Fechner’s death, his right-hand man, James McEntee, took over. McEntee’s tenure began in early 1940 with a positive signal: despite Roosevelt’s intention of shrinking the Corps in the interest of savings, Congress approved sufficient funds to continue the agency at its existing size. The election year 1940 thus saw a repeat of what had taken place in similar form in 1936, when Roosevelt had intended to cut back the number of sections; that initiative had also failed in Congress. Evidently the congressmen were not interested in spoiling the mood among the population by closing camps, especially during an election season. Trouble spots persisted, however. The desertion rate remained high, and friction between the director and the cooperating agencies were not abating. Finally, an essentially positive development turned into a problem for the Corps: as the war economy swung into high gear, the number of unemployed dropped dramatically and with it the number of potential enrollees for the Corps.417 As in Germany a few years earlier, the uptrend in employment would challenge the very reason for the existence of the CCC. In the middle of 1941, public opinion swung against the Corps. Given the shortage of labor that was already becoming apparent in some industries, the CCC in its current form had to appear superfluous and downright counterproductive. The Indianapolis Star, for example, polemicized that the “CCC beneficiaries are paid to enjoy a vacation at the taxpayers’ expense,” while other young men were preparing for a possible war; for that reason, the paper argued, the agency should be disbanded immediately.418 The ideas that were expressed in the United States – much like in Germany – to give the Corps a different mission, for example as an educational institution, were 415 416 417 418

Salmond, Corps, 171–80. NARA/HP, OF 268, Box 5, esp. Fechner to FDR, May 22, 1939; NARA/CP, RG 35/2, Advisory Council, May 26, 1939. Salmond, Corps, 200–2. Star, June 18, 1941; for another example see the Citizen Patriot, July 5, 1941.

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not able to win support in America in this situation. For a time, the plans to merge the Corps with the NYA into a new agency seemed to have the best prospect of success. With Roosevelt’s approval, Lyndon B. Johnson submitted such a bill to Congress on December 10, 1941. But on Christmas Eve 1941, a committee established by the Congress to evaluate the reasons for the existence of all federal agencies recommended that the Corps be shut down. The archconservative senator Kenneth McKellar from Tennessee, in particular, made the abolition of the CCC his mission. Roosevelt, however, did not admit defeat. He emphasized the value of the agency to war preparations. As a result, the projects of the service within the framework of the “Victory Program” were focused more strongly on military needs. Still, for the first time a majority of the population now came out in favor of abolishing the Corps. In the meantime, McKellar did everything he could to discredit the CCC in the House Subcommittee that was deliberating about its future. When Roosevelt presented his budget for the CCC to Congress in the summer of 1942, the House of Representatives voted it down with a thin majority. The death knell of the Corps sounded when the Senate followed suit on June 30, 1942.419 The public response to the narrow outcome confirmed the course events were taking. Many papers explicitly praised the accomplishments of the CCC while at the same time emphasizing that its good services were no longer needed.420 The Civilian Conservation Corps, the most popular institution of the New Deal, had been rendered superfluous by the war economy. Since the federal government under Roosevelt and the Congress, responding to public pressure, decided against assigning the Corps a new task, for example in the area of education, the sensible step was to disband the agency. The organization of the CCC reflected the hastiness of the spring 1933 mobilization. At the head of the agency stood the director of the Corps with a staff of forty to fifty people (including all office help) and the influential Advisory Council.421 The chief administrative work, however, was done in the departments involved in the CCC and in their subordinate agencies. The distribution of tasks and the regional organization of the CCC were guided by the structures of the institutions involved with the Corps. But the administrative districts of the Labor Department, for example, which was in charge of selecting the enrollees, were not coterminous with those of the army, which was in charge of running the camps. Needless to say, it would have been an enormous undertaking to adjust the territorial division for the various agencies, an undertaking not justified by the benefits it would 419 420 421

Salmond, Corps, 210–17. For example, Pawtucket Times, June 6, 1942; Charleston Post, June 15, 1942; Boston Herald, July 3, 1942. Harper, Administration, 31.

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yield. One alternative would have been to set up a separate administrative structure for the Corps, but given its quick mobilization in 1933 and the unresolved question of how long it would be needed, that would not have made much sense. The specific form that was chosen was therefore entirely appropriate, and it was an expression of a pragmatic attitude in organizational matters. It is striking, however, that in spite of the incidences of overlap and distortions resulting from its complex organizational structure, the CCC did not suffer from chaotic conditions involving turf battles and rivalries. The most important regional subdivisions were the nine corps areas of the army, each of which encompassed several states and was headed by a general. The status of the generals once again reveals the decentralized organization of the Corps: corps area commanders could decide unresolved issues without first seeking the advice of the War Department. Below the corps areas were the districts, most of which corresponded to individual states, and whose headquarters was located on an army base. The primary task of these administrative units, which were usually made up of four people, was to interpret and pass on communication from the corps area headquarters to the camps. The smallest independent units were the companies, which generally had their own camp and were made up of two hundred men and their leaders. Responsibility for a company was vested in an officer, who usually held the rank of captain or first lieutenant in the army, navy, marine corps, or the reserves. He was supported by one or more lower-ranking officers, including a military doctor. The camp commander had overall responsibility for the young men, with the exception of their working hours, when they were supervised by personnel from the technical services. In addition, minor administrative tasks were entrusted to select enrollees, which means that between twenty and thirty of them in each company stood above the others in responsibility, status, and pay.422 The entire setup of the Corps within the framework of the U.S. Army thus corresponded to the organizational structure of the military. But in contrast to the case of the German Labor Service, the explanation for this lies not in the institution’s quasi-military mission or in the militaristic mindset of its leadership personnel. Rather, the driving force in the case of the CCC was the urgent need in 1933 to construct a functioning administrative structure in the shortest possible time. And that was why the army followed its own organizational model. A comparison with the CCC shows that the number of administrative personnel in the German Labor Service was quite large: while the ratio of leaders in Germany exceeded 14 percent, in the United States it was only 10 percent. In particular, the ratio of higher administrative personnel, which inflated the 422

C. M. Putnam, “The CCC Experience,” Military Review 53 (1973): 52; Salmond, Corps, 84–7.

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illustration 4. “The CCC is composed almost entirely of young men, ages 17 to 23. However, a limited number of older men are enrolled among the Veterans, Indians, and Territorials.” Source: The CCC at Work: A Story of 2,500,000 Young Men (Washington, D.C., 1941), 5.

RAD and led to high personnel costs, was noticeably lower in the CCC.423 On the whole, the organizational setup of the Corps reflected the policy of establishing a decentralized, flexible, and purely state-run organization by drawing on existing institutional resources at minimal cost. For the Civilian Conservation Corps, like the RAD, the question arises which groups were qualified to participate under what conditions, and which groups were excluded. Beginning in 1933, those permitted to enroll were unemployed, able-bodied, unmarried U.S. citizens between the ages of eighteen and twenty-five who came from needy families. Because the agency was set up so precipitously, the ECW law of March 1933 still lacked some of the regulations, but they were supplied later by ordinances issued in April 423

ECW 1934b, 10.

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1933.424 Yet the Corps also repeatedly admitted youngsters who were only sixteen or even as young as fifteen.425 That ran counter to official policy and shows that the relief agencies in charge of recruitment did not always follow the rules passed down from Washington. In September 1935, the age restrictions were expanded from seventeen to twenty-eight years of age, and beginning in 1938, the maximum age was set at twenty-three.426 All in all, the task of the CCC, as that of the German Labor Service, was to offer support targeted specifically at young unemployed men, a group especially hard hit by the Great Depression. The American public by and large did not object to age limits, and there were no serious calls for age restrictions to be lifted. Participation in the Corps was tied to U.S. citizenship. Moreover, the young men were supposed to have dependent relatives to whom monthly allotments of $25 could be sent. Finally, the junior enrollees, as they were called, had to be single, widowed, or divorced, a requirement that was intended to avoid social hardships in view of the fact that participants lived in camps.427 However, unlike the German Labor Service, the CCC also addressed itself to groups other than young men. As early as May 1933, Roosevelt backed the suggestion to also admit 25,000 veterans into the Corps.428 Not only was the age restriction suspended for veterans, they could also be married. They were chiefly soldiers from World War I whose reintegration into American society had remained problematic, not least because of the psychological and physical injuries many of them had suffered on the battlefield. The global economic crisis posed an additional threat to their livelihoods. Unlike the unorganized and less political response from young people, the veterans had called attention to their dire situation at the end of 1932 with protest marches. In desperation, this “bonus army,” as contemporaries referred to it, demanded the immediate payout of pensions that were not supposed to come due until 1945. But the federal government reacted harshly: the regular army used tear gas and bayonets to keep the protesters at bay.429 This points to a second criterion that was used to select the volunteers: not only were participants especially needy, they also belonged to groups that posed a potential threat. At the height of the Depression, in late 1932 and early 1933, large segments of the American population feared a growing radicalization. Roosevelt, for example, called unemployment “the greatest menace to our social order.”430 In the eyes of many contemporaries, it was 424 425 426 427 428 429 430

Salmond, Corps, 13, 30f.; Gorham, Service, 83–90; the selection was carried out by the recruitment offices run by the individual states. For example, NARA/CP, RG 35/2, Advisory Council, September 8, 1936. ECW 1936, 23; CCC 1938, 68. For a lone voice opposing age restrictions see NYT, October 15, 1934. NARA/HP, OF 268, Box 1, Executive Order FDR, May 24, 1933. F. Folsom, Impatient Armies of the Poor. The Story of the Collective Action of the Unemployed 1808–1942 (Niwot, 1991), 310–22. Public Papers, vol. 3 (1934), 413–22, quote p. 420.

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especially young males and veterans who were at risk of falling into crime and political extremism – hence they were dangerous. The CCC was therefore established precisely for these two groups.431 This motivation is most clearly expressed in a conversation that the Secretary of the Interior, Harold Ickes, recorded in his diary in March 1933: the influential senators Burton K. Wheeler and Elbert D. Thomas, we are told, had agreed that the United States was heading toward a political crisis unless the economic situation turned around. Thomas had also proposed that the CCC camps could be used “as concentration camps for men marching against the Government, unless the situation improved rapidly.”432 This view cannot be attributed to the political elite across the board in 1933, and the same is true of the declared hope that the volunteers could provide a formidable strike force for the government in case of a crisis.433 But given the dire situation, whose political resolution contemporaries could not foresee anytime soon, these were not isolated opinions. Although the fears of political and social unrest, of the onset of civil war–like conditions, proved unfounded, they did shape the perceptions and conduct of the actors. By contrast, far less of a threat emanated from the third group: Native Americans, who were also suffering severely from the crisis. That the public had far fewer fears about a radicalization of this group also explains why most Native Americans were allowed to continue living with their families. As in the case of the veterans, this segment of the CCC, which comprised around 10,000 individuals in August 1933, had no age restrictions.434 Organizationally it constituted a special case, since it was administered by the Bureau of Indian Affairs, which was itself part of the Department of the Interior. Some of the other departments involved in the CCC had no contact with Native Americans. This measure was closely linked to other relief projects for this minority. That conditions in this segment of the Corps were very different from the “normal” labor service is also reflected in the fact that women were admitted to a limited extent into the Indian CCC, as this program was also called.435 Another special group that fell under the oversight of a single department (the Department of Agriculture) included the approximately 2,000 volunteers in Puerto Rico, Hawaii, the Virgin Islands, and Alaska.436 Finally, pragmatic reasons led to the admission of a fourth group. Inherent in the very setup of the CCC was the problem that a camp could be established in a community with enrollees from outside, while local unemployed 431 432

433 434 435 436

Pandiani, “Crime,” 348–58. H. Ickes, The Secret Diary of Harold L. Ickes, 3 vols. (New York, 1954), vol. 1, 20–1 (entry dated March 13, 1933), quote p. 21. Roosevelt explicitly objected to the description of the camps as “concentration camps”; see Public Papers, vol. 2 (1933), 95. Woodring, “The American Army Stands Ready,” 7–12. ECW 1934b, 1. MLR 49 (1939), 94f.; in general Parman, “Indian Civilian Conservation Corps.” ECW 1936, 1; Harper, Administration, 33.

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workers were left out. To remedy this situation, and to ensure that the enrollees would undertake worthwhile projects, the Corps, beginning in 1933, admitted locally recruited foremen, who were paid union rates and were referred to as Local Experienced Men (LEM).437 The foremen, 25,000 of whom were initially hired in 1933, were recruited over and above the reg¨ ular quota. This group of men was similar to the overseers (Vormanner) in the German service.438 In 1933, young males accounted for around 86 percent of all volunteers, veterans for 9 percent, and Native Americans for just under 5 percent. In subsequent years the absolute numbers changed, but these ratios remained essentially the same.439 All four groups had in common that they were suffering severely from the economic crisis, especially the mass unemployment. But they were not a complete catalogue of the chief victims of the crisis – that would have also included older workers and Mexican Americans, for example.440 Rather, for each of these four groups there was an additional argument that explains their admission into the Corps. In the case of young men and veterans it was the not unreasonable fear that they were most likely to pose a political threat or slide into a life of crime. The Native Americans consisted of a group that articulated its interests at the crucial moment in 1933 and was therefore included. Finally, in the case of the LEM, in addition to the consideration of work efficiency, there was the pragmatic argument that this move could minimize possible resistance by communities surrounding the camps. Unlike the RAD, the CCC did not use its access criteria to guide vocational choices or to pursue an active labor market policy, let alone engage in political selection; instead, it remained primarily a relief program intended to ensure social and political stability in addition to creating jobs. In May 1935 there was a change in an important access criterion for junior enrollees. Since 1933, the volunteers admitted into the Corps had been primarily young men dependent on social welfare. However, in order to fill the quotas, a small percentage of young men who did not meet this criterion had also been enrolled. At the instigation of Fechner’s rival Hopkins, the official regulation was now strictly enforced, and Hopkins also succeeded in getting all other employees of the Corps taken off public relief rolls. Since this regulation was not compatible with previous administrative practice and was difficult to implement organizationally given the regional distribution of the unemployed, it threw the CCC into a crisis. Administrators briefly considered raising the age limit to thirty-five in order to retain the criterion of social welfare. In the end, however, one had to return to the looser regulation of the early years.441 437 439 441

438 ECW 1935, 2. Stieglitz, Percent, 97. Each unit usually had eight LEM. 440 Kennedy, Freedom from Fear, 164. ECW 1934b, 20. NARA/HP, OF, Box 3, esp. FDR to Fechner, May 14, 1935; overall, Salmond, Corps, 59–63.

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About two years later, the CCC Law of 1937 opened the Corps to a wider circle. Henceforth, unemployed young men in need of work in general could be enrolled.442 In actuality, though, there was little change, since the relief agencies responsible for recruitment were interested primarily in enrolling aid recipients who otherwise would have been the responsibility of local communities.443 Still, all this added greater weight in the United States to the question of whether the Corps should abandon the criterion of social need altogether and open its doors to all young Americans. As in Germany, proponents of such a move emphasized the possible pedagogical effect. This issue was repeatedly discussed, as for example during the attempt in 1937 to put the CCC on a permanent footing.444 Access was completely disconnected from need at the beginning of 1940, though the Corps continued to recruit primarily the unemployed.445 The CCC thus took the step that had already been taken in Germany with the decree of July 1932. The most important impulse toward using the new access criteria for pedagogical goals is closely linked with the name of Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy, whom I have already mentioned. Rosenstock, who, in Germany in 1932 had come out with a proposal for a labor service that pointed in the direction of communitarianism,446 had been living in the United States as a refugee since 1933. As a professor at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire, he surrounded himself with a circle of students from the college and from Harvard University, where he had previously taught, and inspired them to launch an initiative within the framework of the CCC. On the assumption that the American labor service would need its own professional leadership corps over the medium term, these students opened an experimental labor service camp near Mount Sharon in Vermont in 1940, in cooperation with the Department of Agriculture. The education that the young idealists had in mind was not guided by the primacy of discipline, as was the case in the CCC, but placed the development of autonomous citizens at the center. Roosevelt initially took a positive view of the experiment, while Fechner’s successor, McEntee, rejected it.447 But the students were not only concerned 442 443

444 446 447

CCC 1938, 77–9. American Youth Commission, publ., The Civilian Conservation Corps. Recommendations of the American Youth Commission of the American Council on Education (Washington, D.C., n.d. [1940]), 6. 445 Ibid., 201. Salmond, Corps, 149. E. Rosenstock, Arbeitsdienst – Heeresdienst? See the numerous sources in NARA/HP, OF 268, Box 6, esp. FDR to W. Alexander, September 4, 1940; ibid., Box 11; NARA/HP, ROP, Box 9, esp. Landis to Rowe, November 12, 1940, and appendix; see E. Rosenstock-Huessy, Dienst auf dem Planeten. Kurzweil und Langeweile im Dritten Jahrtausend (Stuttgart, 1965), 44–52; Rosenstock-Huessy, Ja und Nein. Autobiographische Fragmente aus Anlaß des 80. Geburtstages des Autors im Auftrag ¨ der seinen Namen tragenden Gesellschaft herausgegeben von Georg Muller (Heidelberg,

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about a different pedagogical content and professional training for leaders; they also wanted to open the Corps to all young Americans in practice, not just in theory.448 That is why students and the unemployed worked side by side in the experimental camp. As with segments of the German student body before 1933, the goal was a social mixing and an appreciation for manual labor. Others connected with the experiment had even more far-reaching ideas, which would have committed the labor service fully to the communitarian type, and they were able to gain a hearing in important places. For instance, after a conversation with two of the students involved, First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt was so taken with the idea that she came out openly in favor of universal compulsory labor service for men and women.449 At the same time, the experimental camp became a target of public opinion. The chief charge against the experiment was Rosenstock’s German background. The furious assault in the press left no room for the distinction that he was a refugee from the regime and not a pioneer of the Nazi labor service. But even a congressional subcommittee appointed for that very purpose was the scene of harsh criticism of the camp at Mount Sharon, “on the ground that it smacked of Germany’s work camps.”450 Thus, sentiment shifted in favor of McEntee, who at the end of February 1941 placed the experimental camp under the authority of the Department of War. Even before that, Roosevelt had changed his opinion. The camp never recovered from these blows and was dissolved by the end of the year.451 The attempt to place the Corps on a new, permanent foundation with different content and access criteria had thus failed. An extremely narrow picture of the German labor service movement served as a crucial argument in the process. This is all the more interesting in that the policy of creating a maximum distance to the RAD had already been broken on other issues, as I will show in the chapter on education. Apart from the Sharon experiment, in the context of which the idea of a complete opening of the Corps and the notion of a compulsory labor service were discussed by the president and his wife, voices calling for a general compulsory service were few. Most proposals in this direction were rooted in authoritarian ideas that were similar to the German plans before and after 1933, and they were advanced by officers who frequently also advocated a

448 449 450

451

1968), 133–8; on Rosenstock, see B. Faulenbach, “Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy,” in H.-U. ¨ Wehler, ed., Deutsche Historiker, vol. 9 (Gottingen, 1982), 102–26. J. J. Preiss, Camp William James (Norwich, 1978), 10f.; also the moderate reform proposal by the American Youth Commission 1940. Printed in Preiss, Camp William James, 186. Boston Herald, February 6, 1941; see the public criticism in the following papers, for example: NYT, February 9, 1941; Boston Herald, February 12, 1941; Arkansas Democrat, February 13, 1941. Overall Preiss, Camp William James; Roosevelt’s position in NARA/HP, OF 268, Box 6, Bureau of Budget to FDR, February 15, 1941.

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militarization of the Corps. Because these proposals were so close to the RAD, they were doomed from the start.452 In this case, as well, the image of the German Labor Service in America was an important factor shaping the Corps. Against this backdrop, access for those who qualified remained voluntary from 1933 to 1942. As in Germany, however, the freedom of many was narrowly constrained by their economic situation, and they were driven into the labor service by economic desperation – a situation that casts a different light on the voluntary nature of the Corps. Voluntary participation in the CCC was also restricted by the fact that when young people enrolled in the Corps, they had to agree to remain for the duration of their official term of service, usually six months. At the same time, there was an option to reenroll in the CCC after the end of a labor term; the maximum period was initially one year, later it was doubled.453 Unlike the German service of 1933, the Corps thus did not try to help the largest number of the needy, but was specifically aimed at helping a small number of the unemployed for a longer period of time. The statistics of the CCC do not indicate the percentage of reenrollments overall. We do know, however, that while it was below 3 percent at the end of the first recruitment period in the fall of 1933, six months later it had risen to nearly 30 percent.454 Moreover, volunteers did not regard the agreement to remain within the CCC for the duration of the term of service as binding. From the very beginning, there were large numbers of desertions and dishonorable discharges. Enrollees were usually honorably discharged at the end of their term, or earlier if they had managed to find work. Dishonorable discharges were imposed in cases of desertion and for serious transgressions against camp discipline, whose cause was often homesickness or an inability to handle the rigors of the work and the strict discipline of the camp leadership.455 The desertion rate explains why in the summer of 1933 approximately 275,000 enrollees were admitted in order to maintain a quota of 250,000. To be sure, the CCC, much like the German service, tried to convey to its members that a dishonorable discharge could have negative consequences: those expelled from the Corps in this way supposedly could not join the civil service, and in general this kind of entry in one’s record was a disgrace.456 But the threat was apparently not much of a deterrent. Many enrollees who had found work did not go to the trouble of requesting an honorable discharge but

452 453 454 455 456

See, e.g., NYT, September 13, 1936; NYT, September 15, 1936, and the debate over the next few days in the letters to the editor; LoC, GMP, Box 13, Moseley papers [ca. 1936–44]. MLR 52 (1941), 1406; Salmond, Corps, 54. MLR 39 (1934), 308; MLR 40 (1935), 47. On desertion, including a detailed analysis of its causes, see Stieglitz, Percent, 124–34; Salmond, Corps, 181–6. Stieglitz, Percent, 124.

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simply deserted – the CCC and American society did not create effective mechanisms of punishment comparable to those that existed in Germany after 1935. There were, however, a number of groups that were systematically excluded. In what follows, I will focus on the regulations for the junior enrollees, who made up more than 80 percent of the participants in the Corps. First, women were not allowed to enroll, except in the Indian CCC. Gender was one of the chief criteria for membership in the Corps, reflecting an understanding of gender roles in which women should be pushed out of the labor market, at least for the duration of the economic crisis. By contrast, young men were confirmed in their role as providers, not least through the $25 they were usually required to send to their families. Yet this conception of gender, which reinforced the discrimination between men and women, was not a general characteristic of the New Deal. Other initiatives, such as the NYA, were targeted equally at men and women. In this light, the CCC appears as an institution with a conservative social policy. However, the exclusion of women reflected role models held not only by the CCC leadership, but by American society in general. In 1933, the president’s circle was quite aware of this unequal treatment, which is why First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt publicly raised the possibility of a CCC for women. But her proposal was barely discussed in the press and found no influential lobby to back it. The small number of experimental camps for unemployed women, set up in 1933 primarily with funds from individual states and without substantial federal help, were all disbanded in 1937. Thus, the CCC was not joined by a “she-she-she.” All in all, the exclusion of women was based on a consensus in American society, while the active promotion of equality in other institutions of the New Deal points to greater emancipatory concerns.457 Second, compared to the German Labor Service, the Corps had relatively high fitness standards. The explanation for this lies partly in the fact that the pedagogical intent was subordinated to rigorous work. Since demand for admission into the CCC exceeded the available slots, it made sense to accept only the fittest. By contrast, the postulate of universal compulsory service forced a logic of lower fitness standards on Germany, at least after 1935. The suggestion in the United States to admit the unfit also and use the 457

See NYT, May 24, 1933. It is clear from NARA/HP, OF 268, Box 2, Early to E. Roosevelt, August 15, 1933, that Eleanor Roosevelt’s public support for such camps can be traced back to the president’s advisor Early. Voices calling for such camps were rare, for example, C. R. Aydelott, “Facts Concerning Enrollees, Advisers, and the Educational Program in the CCC Camps of Missouri,” Ph.D. diss., University of Missouri, 1936, 95f. The Women’s Division of the Democratic Party did not take up the cause; see NARA/HP, DP, Box 5; on the few experimental camps see S. Ware, Beyond Suffrage: Women in the New Deal (Cambridge, Mass., 1981), 110–15.

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Corps specifically to toughen them up was ignored.458 Against this backdrop it comes as no surprise that Fechner decided as early as 1933 to exclude the mentally handicapped on principle; much the same happened to men with psychological problems.459 One reason the Corps could retain its exclusive fitness criteria was that it did not have immediate military goals. At this time the United States did not even have the draft, which would have been a compelling argument for training those who, while they had the potential to meet the standards, had been too weakened by the social consequences of the economic crisis. Third, an exclusion clause existed for young men who had previously gotten into trouble with the law. In general, those on parole or probation were not admitted into the CCC, even though various institutions, including the Justice Department, repeatedly demanded it.460 Instead, similar to the German Labor Service, Fechner emphasized the difference between the CCC boys and convicted wrongdoers. In contrast to the RAD, the underlying motivation was not propaganda that stylized participation into “honor service,” though the fear that the Corps might acquire a dubious reputation certainly did play a role. Still, a variety of sources reveal that the relief agencies frequently violated this rule.461 Not only was this grist for the mill of those calling for opening the Corps to probationers, it also shows once again the limited possibilities on the part of the CCC leadership to enforce its own regulations within the decentralized structure of the Corps. Another ineligible group consisted of enrollees who, during a previous stint in the CCC, had been dismissed before completing their term or who had been told, at the expiration of their service period, that they were barred from reenrolling because of poor conduct.462 The Corps thus explicitly did not see itself as an agency for the reintegration of young people who had run into trouble with the law, but only as a measure aimed at preventing criminal behavior. While these groups were excluded through a fixed body of regulations, there was one large segment of the population for whom access was made difficult through unwritten laws:African Americans. That was the case even though the text of the ECW Law of 1933, on the initiative of the African American Congressman Oscar De Priest, had purposely included the passage 458 459 460

461

462

LoC, GMP, Box 13, Moseley Papers [ca. 1936–44]. NARA/CP, RG 35/2, Advisory Council, September 15, 1933; also, Stieglitz, Percent, 134f. NARA/HP, OF 268, Box 2, FDR to Fechner, October 13, 1933; NARA/CP, RG 35/2, Advisory Council, e.g., May 10, 1935, September 8, 1936, July 21, 1937; NARA/CP, RG 407, Box 54, Taylor to Ulio, October 4, 1935; ibid., Ulio to McEntee, October 8, 1940. See N. C. Brown, The Civilian Conservation Corps Program in the United States (Washington, D.C., 1934a), 4; NARA/CP, RG 35/2, Advisory Council, September 8, 1936; Harper, Administration, 93. Harper, Administration, 34.

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that “no discrimination shall be made on account of race, color, or creed.”463 Despite this assurance, African Americans were discriminated against and segregated within the CCC. No other ethnic or religious group – such as Hispanics or Jews – experienced comparable unequal treatment.464 The Great Depression was especially hard on African Americans. While they made up about 10 percent of the population of the United States, they accounted for 20 percent of the unemployed. The reason behind this, as scholarship on the CCC since the 1960s has shown, was conscious discrimination in the selection of applicants in many parts of the country. Local relief agencies, especially in the Southern states, frequently turned down African Americans on principle. Even the efforts of Frank Persons in the Department of Labor, who was in charge of matters relating to the selection of recruits, made little difference initially. As justification for the unequal treatment, he was often told that needy whites had to be given priority. It was a small success when in response to his urging, African Americans in Mississippi, where they accounted for more than 50 percent of the population, made up 1.7 percent of the workers in the Corps. But even outside the South there were problems. In California, for example, African Americans, although they constituted a small portion of the state’s population, were clearly underrepresented within the CCC. The fact that the Corps worked largely through existing agencies and was forced, by virtue of its decentralized structure, to delegate authority far down the chain, came back to haunt it.465 At the same time, on a methodological level, this development points out how important cooperation with local and regional institutions was to the success of the New Deal, and that a comprehensive picture of its initiatives also requires an examination of how the rules and guidelines passed down from Washington were assimilated at the lower levels. African Americans were also inadequately represented among the leadership of the camps, because the army had a low opinion of the abilities of its black officers. Not until 1936 did Roosevelt yield to pressure from African American organizations and stipulate that some camps should be led by “Negro officers.” However, placing a “white camp” under “black” oversight 463 464

465

Printed in ECW 1934a, 13. For example, see Montoya, “Roots,” 15–34, who describes that Mexican Americans were largely integrated and treated like everyone else; see also the recollections of B. Valdez in T. Lyons, ed., 1930 Employment 1980: Humanistic Perspectives on the Civilian Conservation Corps in Colorado (Boulder, 1980), 183. Of course, there were frictions in individual camps that sometimes ran along ethnic or religious lines; however, these need to be distinguished from the systematic discrimination I am examining here. See esp. Salmond, Corps, 88–101; J. A. Salmond, “The Civilian Conservation Corps and the Negro,” Journal of American History 52 (1965): 75–88; Kifer, “Negro,” and Cole, Experience, who emphasize more strongly the achievements of the African Americans in the CCC.

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was entirely out of the question. As late as 1940 there were only two camps whose leadership was completely in the hands of African Americans.466 By contrast, in the autonomous suborganization for Native Americans, whites held less than 40 percent of the leadership positions by the end of 1933.467 Finally, African Americans were discriminated against through racial segregation. In many corps areas – not only in the southern states – African Americans were housed in separate camps. These sections were specially identified with a “C” (for “colored”) that was added to their number.468 Mixed sections were found only in areas where there were not enough African Americans to form a “black” unit. Racial segregation was thus not limited to the South. Oral history sources show that African American volunteers were often subjected to humiliating treatment outside the southern states: in mixed camps in California, for example, they had to take their meals separately.469 Segregation was supposed to prevent racial conflicts, which the Corps assumed would be inevitable. Racial segregation created problems for the CCC. While surrounding communities usually welcomed a company as an important element in the local economy, “black” sections for the most part did not receive that kind of reception. Such racist resentment was not limited to the South. Time and again there was local unrest following incidents attributed to these enrollees. “White” communities were especially concerned about the safety of their women, whereas in actuality the number of disciplinary problems in the “black” sections was below average.470 Fechner, himself a Southerner, was excessively sensitive to the fears of the communities, and in general he did little to actively combat discrimination or simply to live up to the declared policy of the Corps. In fact, in 1934 he even made sure that racial segregation, which had weakened somewhat, was strictly enforced again. He therefore bears the chief responsibility for the darkest chapter in the history of the CCC.471 His successor, McEntee, was no improvement in this regard. Both men were supported in their stance by the attitude of the War Department and the army, which were only too willing to yield to opposition from communities. 466

467 469 470

471

C. W. Gower, “Conservatism, Censorship, and Controversy in the CCC, 1930s,” Journalism Quarterly 52 (1975): 123–5; Salmond, Corps, 95; on California see O. Cole, Jr., “Black Youth in the Program of the Civilian Conservation Corps for California, 1933–1942,” Ph.D. diss., University of North Carolina, 1987, 28–30. 468 Cole, “Black Youth,” 38. Parman, “Indian Civilian Conservation Corps,” 45. Ibid., 45–8. See, e.g., NARA/CP, RG 35/2, Memorandum, September 19, 1938; overall, Salmond, Corps, 91–5; “black” communities were of course receptive to these enrollees; see Cole, “Black Youth,” 120. Salmond, Corps, 95f.; on Fechner’s stance see also NARA/CP, RG 35/2, Advisory Council, September 15, 1933; on McEntee, ibid., November 29, 1938.

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illustration 5. “There are some 150 CCC camps for colored boys. This enrolleecook will have a good meal ready for the boys when they come in from the day’s work.” Source: The CCC at Work: A Story of 2,500,000 Young Men (Washington, D.C., 1941), 5.

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The discrimination against the young men in the camps – in the form of segregated dormitories and meals, for example – was their doing. Given the already pervasive racism in the U.S. Army, it is revealing that the 4th Corps Area, which had the highest ratio of African Americans in the general population in the country, was assigned to Major General George Van Horn Moseley, a declared anti-Semite and racist.472 But some of the responsibility for the situation also lies with President Roosevelt, who was aware of the discrimination. Although no problem was too small for his personal involvement when it came to the CCC, he was noticeably silent on this issue.473 On the whole, though, discrimination against African Americans cannot be explained by looking only at the CCC itself. Racism had deep roots in American society; the principle of segregation was generally accepted and discrimination was a pervasive practice. The shortcoming of the CCC lay in the fact that it perpetuated the existing social inequality. In that regard, it was different from some of the other institutions of the New Deal that actively pursued equality for African Americans; and here the National Youth Administration stands out once again among institutions that were similar to the CCC. At the same time, it must be said that an active policy of equality would have drawn massive protests from the population – and the Corps did everything to avoid that. It was only when the war economy began to take off and many whites found regular jobs that access for African Americans was made easier in September 1941. In the end they made up 10 percent of the enrollees for the period 1933–42: measured against their social need, that amounted to an underrepresentation of around 50 percent.474 At the same time, the Corps did everything it could to conceal the discrimination from the public.475 In certain respects the CCC thus continued the existing inequalities, though without actively promoting them, let alone articulating them programmatically, as was the case in Germany. To assess the consequences of the regulations governing access, it is imperative to differentiate the two goals connected to them: the admission of 472

473 474 475

On Moseley, see Kifer, “Negro,” 57–9 and Joseph W. Bendersky, “Racial Sentinels: Bio¨ logical Anti-Semitism in the U.S. Army Officer Corps, 1890–1950,” Militargeschichtliche Zeitschrift 62 (2003): 331–53, esp. 344–6. His anti-Semitism manifested itself in the demand that all (Jewish) refugees from Europe be sterilized; see Evening Star, May 14, 1938; LoC, GMP, Box 11, Box 13. However, the open murderous anti-Semitism noted by Rawick, “New Deal,” 39, cannot be found in the indicated sources. See NARA/HP, OF 268, Box 3, FDR to Early, May 8, 1935; ibid., Box 4, FDR to Fechner, March 13, 1937. Salmond, “Negro,” 86, 209. See, e.g., American Youth Commission 1940, 18f., or the flat-out propaganda in HD, December 4, 1937.

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potentially destabilizing groups and the effectiveness of the organization in creating jobs.476 Given the poor state of the extant sources, I can offer only approximate answers as to whether the Corps made a contribution to employment policy. The focal point is the junior enrollees, who were most like the labor service men in Germany, and for whom there were more binding demarcations than for other groups. Much like the RAD, the size of the CCC fluctuated as a result of both deliberate measures and desertions. The latter reflect the declining significance of the CCC as a relief measure. In 1933, the number of dishonorable discharges, including for desertion, was just under 11 percent; desertions accounted for 7 percent of all discharges. By April 1937, dishonorable discharges had risen to 19 percent, and a year later the figure among the junior enrollees reached an alarming 25 percent. After a decline in the following year it rose again in 1940 and was once more well over 20 percent by 1941.477 Overall, the desertion rate for the more than two million enrollees who passed through the Corps by 1940 stood at 20 percent.478 It thus forms a clear contrast to the popularity of the CCC among the opinion leaders and the population as a whole. What changed the size of the Corps even more than desertions was the political direction from the president. In response to a disastrous drought in the Midwest, the CCC was expanded for the first time in the middle of 1934. The background was less a rise in unemployment as the additional need for manpower to combat the destructive effects of the drought. The total size of the Corps was now raised from 100,000 to 350,000 men.479 This deployment enhanced the standing of the Corps and inspired the president to significantly expand the organization once more. In mid-January 1935, Roosevelt accepted a plan presented by the Advisory Council calling for the expansion of the CCC to the considerable size of 600,000 men, and Congress approved it in April. The maximum age was raised to twentyeight, and initially there was no reason to think that the required quota was beyond reach. But a problem arose a short time later when Hopkins forced Fechner to accept only young men who were on the public relief rolls. To reach the target number, Fechner asked Roosevelt to relax the qualification requirements, but the president refused. In the end, under the strict criteria, the CCC was able to recruit only 506,000 men – a peak level that was reached at the end of August 1935. It thus turned out that Roosevelt’s expansion plan was not feasible under the criteria on which he insisted.480 476 477 478 479 480

The two additional goals of the Corps, education and work, are discussed in Chapters 3 and 4. See ECW 1934b, 23, 26; NARA/CP, RG 35/2, Advisory Council, April 20, 1937, February 10, 1939; CCC 1941, 66f. American Youth Commission 1940, 9. ECW 1934a, 2; ECW 1934b, 22; ECW 1935, 3; Salmond, Corps, 55f. NARA/CP, RG 35/2, Advisory Council, April 11, 1935, June 18, 1935, June 25, 1935.

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The erratic and unpredictable behavior of the American president led to even more arbitrary decisions. In April 1935, he expressed to Fechner his idea that the peak level of 600,000 men should be maintained only for a short while, after which the Corps would be reduced to 450,000. In September, he took the plan further and now called for a reduction to 300,000 volunteers by July 1936. Behind this plan stood the tactical idea of presenting a balanced budget in the election year, and the president was evidently willing to make virtually any sacrifice to do so. Protests from the American public and concerted opposition from Congress thwarted Roosevelt’s intention.481 The contraction was halted for the time being at a level of around 350,000, though the Corps continued to shrink slowly to around 300,000 enrollees by the summer of 1937.482 In the fall of 1937, Roosevelt was even more convinced than before of the necessity to balance the budget despite rising unemployment. The director of the CCC had to announce at the beginning of March 1938 that, beginning in July, the agency would comprise only 250,000 men. When the economy deteriorated further in the first half of 1938 and the number of unemployed crossed the nine million mark in May (in August 1937 it had stood below five million), Roosevelt made another about-face. Even before the reduction announced in March could be implemented, the target size was fixed once again at 300,000. Until the beginning of 1941, the Corps was consistently slightly below that level.483 Thanks to the war economy that was gathering steam, the need for CCC slots declined dramatically in the first half of 1941. As a result, by July of that year only about 190,000 men remained in the Corps. The increasing availability of jobs meant that fewer and fewer enrollees spent shorter and shorter periods of time in the CCC. An absolute low was reached in June 1942 when the strength of the Corps stood at 60,000 men. All in all, nearly three million men passed through the CCC between 1933 and 1942.484 The quantitative development shows that the agency was no longer needed, at least from the perspective of work creation, and it therefore made sense, from that same perspective, to disband it. Even if one does not adopt a Keynesian perspective, which calls for increased government spending for programs like the labor service in times of rising unemployment, it is difficult to make sense of Roosevelt’s course between 1935 and 1937. His irresponsible vacillation deprived the Corps of any certainty in planning and thus reduced its effectiveness: projects that had 481 482 483

484

ECW 1935, 4; ECW 1936, 22; NARA/CP, RG 35/2, Advisory Council, September 9, 1935, September 29, 1935, December 5, 1935. ECW 1937, 18. Average for fiscal year 1938 (ended June 1938): 265,000; 1939: 275,000; 1940: 269,000; 1941 (to June 1941): 258,000. See CCC 1938, 88; CCC 1939, 115; CCC 1940, 76; CCC 1941, 67; Salmond, Corps, 170f. CCC 1942, 2; Salmond, Corps, 221.

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been begun were abandoned, enrollees and administrative personnel had to be hired and then let go again at breakneck speed. While the president deserves the primary credit for the establishment of the Corps, his leadership style in the later years became a serious problem for the agency. However, thanks to opposition from Congress and the American public, Roosevelt’s risky plans were toned down considerably. As a result, the number of volunteers remained fairly constant at around 300,000 between the middle of 1934 and the beginning of 1941, leaving aside the peak level of 500,000 enrollees that was reached in the middle of 1935. To assess the significance of the Corps as a job-creation measure, it is necessary to compare its size with the number of those qualified to enroll. Given the available sources, an exact determination is even less possible than in the case of Germany. On the one hand, the enrollment criteria varied over the years, for example with regard to the age cutoff or the requirement that volunteers come from families dependent on welfare. That is why a different yardstick would apply virtually every year. On the other hand, no satisfactory statistics on the social situation of young people in the 1930s exist. In general, the United States collected very little statistical data on a national level during this period. For example, reliable unemployment data did not even exist.485 That also explains why scholarship has so far consistently steered clear of the question concerning the quantitative relevance of the Corps. At a rough estimate, of the nearly one hundred thirty million Americans, almost three million young men passed through the CCC between 1933 and 1942.486 It is not possible to make a direct connection between the enrollees and those who were receiving public welfare, since there are no statistics broken down by age for the latter group.487 Moreover, more important is the comparison with all unemployed, able-bodied men under the age of twenty-five, as this would allow an assessment of the effectiveness of the CCC as a job-creation program for the age-defined target group that was also addressed by the RAD. Of the thirteen million unemployed in 1933, about 2.75 million were males between the ages of fifteen and twenty-four.488 At that time the Corps comprised 250,000 men, around 9 percent of the affected group. The following year saw a slight decline in unemployment and an expansion of the Corps to over 300,000 slots for junior enrollees, which meant that the number of those from the target group encompassed by the CCC rose to over 10 percent. We know that the number of those in this age bracket who were dependent on public relief was already below 600,000 in 1935, because the Corps was unable to fill that quota: in the summer of 485 486 487 488

See, e.g., U.S. Department of Commerce 1936, 3–6; Mattick, Arbeitslosigkeit, 15–19. See CCC 1942, 2; on the total population of the United States see Department of Commerce 1939, 17. L. V. Chandler, America’s Greatest Depression 1929–1941 (New York, 1970), 195. Estimate based on Great Depression, 257, 250; Rawick, “New Deal,” 18–29.

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1935, only around 500,000 unemployed met these more restrictive criteria, and the Corps had room for all of them. The most reliable figures are available for 1937, thanks to the census of that year: of the 5.8 million unemployed men, 1.2 million were between the ages of fifteen and twenty-four – thus most were in principle qualified to enroll in the CCC.489 Since the Corps comprised around 300,000 men at the time, it had space for no less than one-quarter of the target group. All national work programs combined, in addition to the CCC chiefly the WPA and the NYA, reached 1.6 million men of every age at that time. Approximately 410,000 places were available for the cohort of the fifteen- to twenty-four-year-olds. Since the CCC accounted for nearly three-quarters of them, it constituted at the time the most important work-creation measure for unemployed men below the age of twenty-five.490 The recession from the fall of 1937 to the middle of 1938 caused a dramatic short-term rise in the unemployment numbers, as a result of which the ratio of those provided for fell below 20 percent once again. However, three years later, in response to the declining unemployment rate, the Corps was substantially reduced in size: at this point, the CCC and other New Deal measures were absorbing virtually all unemployed young people. Still, in absolute numbers the Corps was not an especially large relief program among the initiatives of the federal government. As I did for the German service, I will compare the CCC to similar federal initiatives while leaving aside regional and local programs for methodological reasons. In addition to the CCC, which encompassed around 300,000 men on average, the job-creation measures of the New Deal rested on three other pillars: first, the NYA (set up in 1936), whose size was subject to strong fluctuations, though on average it reached 500,000 persons; second, the Civil Works Administration and its successor, the WPA, which employed more than two million people on average; third, all the other programs financed by the federal government, which created work for another 300,000 individuals. The access criteria of the various agencies differed, which means that they were only in part addressed to the same target group. It can be said that, among the job-creation measures of the New Deal, the CCC assumed an important though not central place – the latter belonged entirely to the WPA.491 Although the available data do not permit a precise determination, the Corps was a relevant entity in the battle against youth unemployment between 1933 and 1941, employing for a time nearly 10 percent – though in some phases 489

490 491

These were only the able-bodied unemployed willing to work. One source of imprecision in the figures is the fact that the year-groups are not listed individually in the statistics. As a result, the data set also includes unemployed age fifteen who were not qualified to enroll. Calculated on the basis of J. D. Biggers, Census of Partial Unemployment, Unemployment, and Occupations: 1937, vol. I (Washington, D.C., 1938), xiv–xvi. Chandler, America’s Greatest Depression, 195–208.

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more than 20 percent – of the target group. Moreover, within the framework of relief measures for this age group, the CCC was the primary initiative, since it united, in the only year for which precise figures are available, threequarters of those in the target group who were being supported by the federal job-creation programs. With regard to its function of defusing the potential for social conflict, the size of the Corps was adequate. A political threat emanated primarily from the veterans who had marched on Washington at the end of 1932. The CCC addressed this protesting group directly, with each member of the “bonus Army” offered enrollment in the Corps in the spring of 1933. The Corps, needless to say, was not targeted in equal measure at all veterans; many of them had long since been integrated into society and the working world. The CCC was supposed to offer help only to the problem cases that became visible by their protest. It is thus more than a coincidence that there were 25,000 places in the Corps for veterans, while according to policy reports about 22,000 veterans had caused unrest in Washington in the summer of 1932. Additional offers went out to this group in May and September 1934, when smaller crowds had gathered again in the capital.492 In this way the government succeeded in drawing off the critical potential for unrest via the Corps. The junior enrollees did not pose a political threat, especially since they were barely organized. Rather, the potential for social destabilization emanating from this group was that of dissipation and crime. If one follows the theory that criminal behavior occurs with greater frequency among young, poor men, or at least is prosecuted at a greater rate, the Corps – like the German service – chose the right admission criteria, since it accepted primarily junior enrollees. The possibility for criminal behavior was constrained by subjecting these young men to the disciplinary supervision of camp life at remote locations. John Pandiani was able to show, accordingly, that the youth crime rate, which had been on the rise since the mid 1920s, reversed course in 1933, and he points to the CCC as the chief cause.493 Of course, it is impossible to determine precisely the Corp’s contribution to the reduction in the crime rate, but contemporaries already credited it with having such an effect.494 For that reason the expansion of the agency was repeatedly justified with reference to its preventive character. In addition to draining off the potential for political radicalization, the CCC thus contributed to the stability of American society by reducing the youth crime rate. To conclude: measured against its enrollment criteria, the range of tasks the Corps was supposed to fulfill was noticeably smaller than in the German 492 493 494

Folsom, Impatient Armies, 310–22; Salmond, Corps, 36. Pandiani, “Crime,” 348–58. See NYT, October 2, 1936; also Des Moines Register, March 26, 1936; Evening Star, September 4, 1938.

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Labor Service. The CCC lived up to both of its tasks, whereby its chief contribution lay in stabilizing society, with the support for young unemployed men via a job-creation program ranking second in importance. 2.5. INTERIM CONCLUSION At first glance, the setup of the two labor services was remarkably similar after 1933. The main reason was that their organizational structures were in each case modeled after the military. The result was a similar arrangement with one basic unit, two intermediary administrative levels, and one leadership level. This setup corresponded to the breakdown of the army into company, regiment, and division. Moreover, the fact that the two services had a nuclear unit that was almost identical in size – 180 men plus leaders in Germany, 200 enrollees in the United States – reveals just how similar the military structures were in the two countries. However, the parallels apply to only part of the organizational structure. In Germany, the service was entirely organized on a military model. In the United States, in contrast, the military paradigm was merely the most important among several, guiding the way the camps and in general the sphere of the U.S. Army’s authority were structured. Other parts of the Corps, such as the recruitment undertaken by the Labor Department, followed very different models. Still, in both institutions the military structure provided the basic underpinning. In Germany the explanation lies partly with the paramilitary ideas that had been linked with the service since the days of Weimar. Another, equally important, factor was the habits of mind and the disposition of at least the top leaders of the Nazi Labor Service: given their background and personal experiences, they thought primarily in military categories. In addition, this development of the Labor Service was embedded within a larger process that saw the militarization of labor relations. In the United States, by contrast, the reason the military model was used is that the Corps was mobilized by the army. But that is not the only reason for the many similarities in the organizational structure of the two services: another driving idea in each instance was that of gaining a high level of supervisory access to young men through a paradigm of military order. Here the background was fear of social instability in a consolidating dictatorship, in the case of Germany, and in a crisis-ridden democracy, in the case of the United States: irrespective of the political system, the government reached for the same remedy. In Germany, the result was thus a hierarchical, centralized organizational structure that left little independent responsibility and leeway to the subordinate levels. It could be expanded at will and was accordingly enlarged in the wake of the expansion of the Reich. The operation of the Labor Service was staff intensive, also in direct contrast with the CCC. It was thus both expensive and inefficient, and it was repeatedly criticized for these shortcomings.

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The Corps, by contrast, chose a decentralized organization based on several pillars, with the higher intermediary officials, such as the corps area commanders, exercising comparatively broad authority. The lean administration worked in a relatively smooth and efficient manner. However, the setup of the Corps meant that directives handed down by the leadership were sometimes implemented inadequately or not at all. The explanation for some of the shortcomings of the Corps lies not least in this administrative structure. Still, the bureaucratic machinery ran far more smoothly in the CCC than in the RAD. The two services differed not only in the degree of their internal efficiency, but also with respect to the place they assumed within the respective networks of national institutions. The German service, which did not consolidate until the second half of 1934 because of its many initial problems, remained part of the second tier of institutions within the system of the Nazi regime. In the final analysis, Hierl’s ambitious plans were undone by the opposition they aroused. Still, the RAD did not sink into a “shadowy existence.” In 1933 it was the largest job-creation program in the Reich, and for that very reason it was initially hotly contested by the National Socialists and their conservative allies. Hundreds of thousands of young men passed through the institution after 1933 as well. The reductions that were made from Hierl’s maximum demands, chiefly for reasons of economic priority, became especially apparent in 1935. While universal, equal compulsory labor service for men was announced at that time, it was not implemented. Instead, the system of restricted voluntariness, implemented since 1933 through the work conscription of ever larger subgroups, was replaced by a limited form of compulsory participation, since many young men were exempted from the Labor Service on economic and military grounds. The year 1935, which previous scholarship has singled out as a turning point in the history of the Nazi Labor Service, thus loses its preeminent role – instead, the rupture represented by the Gleichschaltung in 1933–4 stands out all the more starkly. The RAD came under even more pressure from the middle of 1937 in the wake of the intensifying war preparations. Finally, during the war the service was organizationally reduced to a “shadow existence.” After 1942 its only importance was as an institution of Germanification for Western and Eastern Europeans from the perspective of race policy. In the subsequent chapters on education and work in the Labor Service, I will demonstrate in more detail that 1935 and 1939 were not – as previous scholarship would have it – turning points in the history of the institution. But the RAD as a whole was a problem child not only from an institutional perspective. It did not succeed in winning broad consent within the population with its program of universal compulsory service. It was only ` vis-a-vis other countries that it evolved into an advertisement for the regime during the second half of the 1930s. The CCC, by contrast, was the most popular agency of the New Deal – and thus, contrary to what one could

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read in the Nazi press, held in much higher regard than was the case with the RAD in Germany.495 Despite starting from far more unfavorable conditions, the Corps functioned from the outset without major complications. Its place within the institutional web of the New Deal was not challenged until the end of the 1930s, which can be explained not only by the personal protection from President Roosevelt, but also by good cooperation with other agencies. A monocausal explanation for the divergent paths the two services took in their organizational histories with respect to internal efficiency and the place they occupied within the political system would be reductionist. Still, we can isolate a primary backdrop: the different ways in which the existing institutional resources were used in setting up the institution. In Germany these resources were available, both within the government and the private sector, thanks to the precursor organization of the FAD, but the National Socialists chose to make virtually no use of them. At enormous expense, they erected a new institution, one that had little continuity with the labor service prior to 1933 when it came to administrative structures or personnel. By contrast, in the United States there were few resources on which the CCC could draw, but those that existed were put to optimal use. The institutional resources were thus the primary factor determining the success or failure of the services. What mattered was not the magnitude of the potential for resolving the crisis, but the degree to which that potential was actually used. Moreover, the different economic trends in the two countries were another reason why the Corps was able to avoid for a long time the existential crises that afflicted the German service. The Corps benefited from the persistence of the Depression in the United States. Like the RAD, the CCC came under enormous pressure to justify itself when mass unemployment in the United Stated began to decline dramatically in the early 1940s, and the agency lost its original mission as a job-creation measure. In response there arose in the United States a discussion that had taken place in a similar form in Germany as early as 1934–5 as a result of the divergent economic trend in that country, and that was to haunt the RAD thereafter. But similar challenges sparked different responses: while the Nazi regime placed the service under the primacy of education and thus imparted to it a new justification, that dimension always played a subordinate role in the CCC – none of the demands in the United States that were aimed in this direction had any success. It was therefore perfectly consistent that the American service was disbanded in 1942, once it had ceased to fulfill its task as a relief organization. In addition, the U.S. service had no one like Hierl, who, for his own sake, fought to preserve the system of the labor service with all means at his disposal. Another explanation for the dysfunctional nature of the RAD compared to the CCC lies in the breadth of its ambitions. Hierl’s expansive goals, which 495

See, e.g., Hamburger Fremdenblatt, December 3, 1937.

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over the years plunged him into numerous conflicts with other organizations within the Nazi organizational jungle, bore the same potential for crisis as the excessive structural strain that characterized his institution. For, as the access criteria of the German service reveal, it was to fulfill a multitude of partially conflicting goals: it was to be simultaneously a job-creation measure, a means of guiding the labor market, a tool of political selection, an instrument for instilling discipline, and a way of providing for the party’s supporters. Moreover, the related paramilitary task made the service, especially in the beginning stages of the regime, a contested institution, triggering rivalries between the Nazis and the Stahlhelm, and later between Hierl and ¨ Rohm. The backdrop here was the fact that the regular military lacked a monopoly on arms, combined with the political intent of rearming Germany at the greatest possible speed and with all available means: these were background conditions that had already shaped the Labor Service at the end of the Weimar Republic, though in a moderate form. The ambitions of the Corps, by contrast, were always more modest, and this spared the agency many problems and defeats. It was not least Fechner himself who opposed all attempts to turn the CCC into something more than an instrument of productive crisis relief. The difference can thus be explained in part by the leadership style with which the two services were run. To be sure, neither Hierl nor Fechner was a typical representative of the functional elites produced by Nazi Germany or the New Deal. The consensus-oriented, solid, but small-minded labor unionist from the South had little in common with the intellectual brilliance of the Harvard graduates so typical of the New Deal, just as the irascible old staff officer had little in common with the cool, radical intelligence of the academic elite as embodied in Werner Best, for example. It was Hierl’s style to keep raising more and more demands in an undiplomatic way, no matter how unrealistic they were. Although he usually had Hitler’s backing, he was not able to move out of the regime’s second tier. Fechner held a similar place in the CCC. However, with the help of the enormous protection afforded by President Roosevelt, he used it to lead the service successfully to a narrowly circumscribed but attainable goal. Other reasons that explain the dysfunctionality of the German Labor Service internally and its weak position externally, as well as the smooth internal operation of the CCC and the absence of external challenges, will emerge in the analysis of the educational and practical work of the two organizations. Both institutions were also shaped by the way they were perceived in the other country. That is especially true for the American labor service. The negative example of the RAD, which hung over the CCC like a black cloud throughout its existence, for a long time prevented any sober public discussion of certain questions: opening the service to wider social participation, militarization, the possibility of compulsory labor service, or merely greater

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emphasis on education were always under suspicion of being fascist. In this way, the RAD became a crucial factor that shaped the CCC. Although one occasionally heard the thesis in the United States in the 1930s that the Corps had been inspired by the FAD of the Weimar days,496 it is hardly possible to find parallels between the highly flexible, largely nongovernmental organization in Germany and the organization in the United States, which had a division of labor but was largely a governmental agency. The fact is that the mobilization phase of the Corps had been characterized primarily by American experiences and the specific needs in the spring of 1933. Important for the organization of the Corps was not the emulation of anything that existed in Germany, but dissociation from everything that had to do with that country after 1933. To what extent that also holds true for the fields of education and practical work will be the topic of the following chapters. The perception of the American service played a different role in Germany. In its public pronouncement, the regime always used a carefully controlled and constructed image of America and the CCC to justify its own policy, either by invoking alleged and real similarities, the model nature of the German service for the United States, or, finally, the superiority of its own institution. While the RAD was in this regard a taboo topic in the United States, the CCC was seized upon in Germany as a source of legitimacy for the regime’s own labor service. With respect to access criteria, both services had in common that they represented large mechanisms of inclusion.497 They offered precisely defined groups of unemployed workers an opportunity to participate in society through work; at the same time, the large majority of the population did not qualify for admission. In this regard the qualification requirements in both countries were initially similar, since the German service also enrolled primarily young, idle men, although the criteria of need had been dropped as early as 1932. By comparison, the particular form in which the two services provided relief to their respective target groups is of secondary importance. While the German regime supported the largest possible number of young men for a brief period, the CCC, with its policy of reenrollment, opted for medium-term help for a correspondingly smaller group. Moreover, there are a number of reasons why the labor services addressed themselves primarily to young men. Cultural factors, such as the importance of notions of youth and masculinity, will be discussed later. Another goal on both sides of the Atlantic was to encompass the social group that was believed to pose an especially grave threat of social destabilization. The background 496

497

See, e.g., F. Hill, The School in the Camps: The Educational Program of the Civilian Conservation Corps (New York, 1935), 82. In every case it was only a broad, unsubstantiated assertion. For a comparison of Nazi Germany and the New Deal on this question, see Stoff, “Utopian Thinking.”

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to this similar perception of crisis was a factor that was connected with the prevailing circumstances and obscured the actual differences in the social conditions and real dangers between Boston and Berlin, between Wyoming ¨ and Wurttemberg in favor of similar fears. As a result, both services opted for a camp system run in an authoritarian fashion, a system that created the possibility of exerting control. If the United States had witnessed in 1933–4 a political radicalization and general destabilization of society instead of the first signs of improvement in the situation, it is very likely that the CCC would have exercised its disciplinary potential to a much greater extent – at least there were influential circles within the American power elite who were advocating just that. Also common to both organizations was the fact that they did not have the self-confidence to attempt to reintegrate deviant groups into society through the service. Instead, they pursued a policy of maximum dissociation from “criminals” and “asocial elements.” This form of relief was open only to victims of the crisis who had not run afoul of the law. Needless to say, the shared characteristics must not obscure the essential differences. Discrimination against African Americans notwithstanding, ac¨ cess criteria in the United States were not defined fundamentally in volkischracist terms. While ethnic criteria did play a role, they were neither part of the agency’s official position nor openly articulated or radically implemented. At the same time, in Germany the chiefly anti-Semitic racism was embedded within a social policy that led to war and annihilation. By contrast, racism in the United States, which was also directed chiefly against one group, namely African Americans, was predominantly discriminatory in nature. In addition, the German service, as we have seen, had a whole series of additional tasks with which the Corps did not burden itself. Lastly, the two institutions assumed different positions in their respective societies. In this regard the Nazi service mirrored the policy of the regime in general, while the CCC, within the framework of the New Deal, was among the more conservative, less emancipatory institutions, alongside which there was also a more positive countermovement that was based, not least, on the commitment of Eleanor Roosevelt. Conflicts occurred in both services over the question of size and thus, in the final analysis, over financing. These problems were not related only to specific causes, but also to the fact that certain policy prescriptions lacked legitimacy at the time. The 1930s were characterized by a precarious transitional state. Confronted with the crisis, many economists, political economists, and politicians struggled to arrive at the notion that the state had to intervene with an anticyclical economic policy, that it was perhaps even responsible for guiding the economy on a global level, and that job-creation measures financed by debt were sensible instruments in combating the desolate state of affairs in view of their direct and indirect employment effects. However, the

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additional funds this required within a framework of deficit spending was incompatible with the principle of a balanced budget, and such expenditures had no generally accepted legitimacy in economic theory at the time. That would only begin to change slowly in the second half of the 1930s with the reception of John Maynard Keynes’s The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money and other writings. By contrast, the liberal economic model of a restrictive fiscal policy had many supporters around the world.498 Against this background, the similarities between Roosevelt’s vacillating policy motivated by fiscal concerns and Krosigk’s objections to Hierl’s demands become clear. They reflect the uncertainties of the times, which were also evident in other areas of economic policy and in other countries. In this regard Ludolf Herbst’s conclusion that the embrace of deficit spending in Germany occurred in a “groping, uncertain, and in many cases inconsistent manner” is also true of the United States. Although both countries opted for an expansionary policy of credit after 1933, they did not adopt this unorthodox strategy wholeheartedly.499 The two labor services were hardly paid for with these kinds of additional funds; instead, governments on both sides of the Atlantic used funds from the tax-financed budget. If one adopts the Keynesian model, under which deficit spending is the panacea in times of economic crisis, both labor services chose not to go down that path. All in all, one must not overestimate the importance of job creation in the United States, even though the CCC, measured against the federal budget (small in its own right), represented a not inconsiderable expenditure. The costs for the German Labor Service were noticeably smaller relative to the budget and insignificant relative to national income, even though the Nazi regime was in the short run far more successful than the United States in overcoming the economic crisis.500 (See Chart 3.)501 It is clear even without a Keynesian interpretation that both services were constrained by fiscal policy restrictions. Measured against the absolute unemployment figures, for a long time both institutions were able to provide work for under 10 percent of those shut out of economic life. If we use a more revealing comparative figure, the number of young men who were in principle qualified to participate, the ratio of those who served in the United States stood at around 9 percent in 1933 and 25 percent in 1937; in Germany, it stood at 10 percent in March 1933 and three months later it had risen to 30 percent. With respect to their target groups, both institutions thus offered 498 499 500 501

See J. M. Keynes, The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money (London, 1936); Barkai, Nazi Economics, 71–172. Herbst, “Wirtschaftspolitik,” 155. See Silverman, Economy, 231–46; Herbst, “Wirtschaftspolitik,” 155f. On the German Labor Service for men see BA/B, R2 Anh./23; on the CCC see ECW 1934b, 11; ECW 1935, 7; ECW 1936, 3; ECW 1937, 6.

188

Service to the Community chart 3. National income, state expenditures, and labor service budgets Germany (in billion Reichsmark)

Year

National Income (NI)

State Expenditures (SE)

1933 1934 1935 1936

42.6 49.0 55.3 62.1

8.4 10.7 13.9 17.4

Labor Service (LS) ca. 0.18 0.20 0.20 0.25

% LS/NI

%LS/SE

0.4 0.4 0.4 0.4

2.1 1.9 1.4 1.4

0.7 1.1 0.9 0.6

6.5 8.3 7.5 4.7

US (in billion dollars) 1933 1934 1935 1936

40.2 49.0 57.1 64.9

4.6 6.7 6.5 8.5

0.30 0.56 0.49 0.40

relief to a meaningful but not overwhelming number of idle workers. That would change dramatically in Germany in the course of 1934 and in the United States in 1941. In both instances, however, it was not the result of an expansion of the organization but a decline in unemployment for reasons that were not directly related to the labor services. To that extent neither of the services was – either in size or manner of financing – the decisive means in the battle against the crisis. But the two services appear in a more positive light when measured with a different yardstick. If we compare them to all job-creation measures on a national level, the German service accounted on average for 42 percent of all those put to work in this manner between 1933 and 1934; the CCC, which was the first social policy measure in the New Deal, encompassed 10 percent.502 Both the German and the American labor services thus assumed an important place within the context of all national measures in the battle against the Great Depression. That they were still fairly small in absolute numbers points once again to the fact that the two countries could not draw on a developed welfare state structure on a national level in 1933, though Germany was farther along that path than the United States. That is apparent not only from the size of the German service, but also from the obligatory state unemployment insurance that was introduced throughout the Reich as early as 1927. The first steps toward this kind of insurance in the United States did not appear until 1935, and the measures by individual 502

These findings may be surprising, since the absolute size of the services was very similar, while population figures in the United States and in Germany (and thus also the number of young men) were significantly different. The explanation lies in the fact that the number of idle workers was lower in the United States than in the Reich.

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states, which also arose in large measure thanks to the New Deal, did not offer much help either to the victims of the crisis. That both the RAD and the CCC were soon relegated to a secondary place within the panoply of direct job-creation measures had similar reasons. First, the narrow access criteria and especially the age and gender requirements limited the reach of the services, since most idle workers did not qualify. Second, in both countries this kind of relief was expensive, the primary reason being the additional, educational dimension of the services. There were also specific reasons: the fact that Hierl subordinated the service entirely to the goal of education in 1933 meant that it was not very suitable as a productive form of crisis relief. Added to this were rivalries with other Nazi organizations and structural problems. In the United States, the CCC was rooted more in conservation ideas than in concerns to help young people or create jobs. The Corps only developed these latter functions during the phase of its creation in 1933. All this explains why the labor services in both countries were only secondary organizations in the battle against mass unemployment down to the time when that problem was overcome. What role, then, did the two services play in the overall effort to combat the economic crisis? Given their size, both drew in enough young, unemployed men to take the edge off mass unemployment and its concomitant social and political effects, without being able to resolve the problem in any fundamental way. Their contribution must be seen as lying equally in the symbolic realm: they demonstrated that the political leadership recognized the problem and was clearly trying to solve it. When unemployment had been overcome in both countries, in each case for reasons not directly related to the labor services, the two governments responded differently: in the United States, the now superfluous Corps was disbanded, while in Germany the educational tasks that the Labor Service had previously undertaken to some extent were moved front and center. It is to these tasks that I shall now turn.

3 “Citizens,” Volksgenossen, and Soldiers Education in the Labor Services

Both the German and the American labor services had a pedagogical mission. The first head of the educational program in the CCC, Clarence S. Marsh, characterized the Corps as a “folk school movement” that was evolving from the needs and interests of the volunteers themselves.1 In the RAD, the pedagogical dimension constituted the primary mission of the institution. This section will begin with an examination of the Labor Service of the Nazi dictatorship, followed by a brief discussion of the CCC and a concluding comparative synthesis. According to Ernst Krieck, the preeminent educator in Nazi Germany, there were three facets to education: first, it should provide instruction in technical skills and knowledge as well as specialized education for a particular profession – that is to say, vocational and professional training; second, it should exert a shaping influence on a person’s emotional outlook, character, and will; third, it should encompass Weltanschauung, by which Krieck also meant education in the narrower sense, and thus, school education and academic knowledge.2 The Nazi elite was driven by the totalitarian intention of imparting new content to all three areas of education, thereby permeating the mental world, the lifestyle, and the character of the Germans with National Socialist ideology.3 At the same time, however, the regime had problems thoroughly reshaping society in its image. The classic educational institutions of family, school, and church continued to exist, and only schools were exposed to the influence of the NSDAP on a large scale. The new ruling elite therefore opted to exert its influence primarily on Germany’s youth, which was to become the vanguard of the Volksgemeinschaft. This decision grew out of the 1 2 3

Happy Days, November 24, 1934. E. Krieck, Erziehung im nationalsozialistischen Staat (Berlin, 1935; 2nd ed., 1938), 11. See, e.g., R. Benze, Nationalpolitische Erziehung im Dritten Reich (Berlin, 1936), 14–16; on the question of continuity between the Weimar Republic and National Socialism, which has been thoroughly studied and is of minor interest here, see D. Langewiesche and H.-E. Tenorth, ¨ der Bildungsgeschichte von 1918–1945,” in “Bildung, Formierung, Destruktion. Grundzuge their Handbuch der deutschen Bildungsgeschichte, vol. 5: 1918–45 (Munich, 1989), 1–24; on ¨ pedagogical thinking between 1918 and 1945, see H.-E. Tenorth, “Padagogisches Denken,” ibid., 111–53.

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191

pragmatic realization that youth embodied the future and represented the most malleable segment of the population. Since the classic educational institutions did not allow themselves to be instantly and completely transformed in 1933 into instruments serving the interests of National Socialism, in the beginning it was chiefly other organizations – like the Hitler Youth, the SA, or the National Socialist Motor Corps – that were supposed to influence the population and especially the youth. The Labor Service also fell into this category. All institutions with a pedagogical mission outside the schools can be collectively regarded as “National Socialist formations”: institutions that were affiliated with the NSDAP and were either sponsored by the party or closely linked to it in some other way.4 In Krieck’s eyes they were especially well suited to realizing the Volksgemeinschaft in an exemplary fashion and on a small scale. For that reason, the Labor Service, like certain other institutions, was given a new orientation following the seizure of power by the Nazis. Hierl’s agency, which only now joined the circle of National Socialist organizations, made its pedagogical program its primary mission, while its function with regard to labor market policy and its other tasks were relegated to a place of secondary importance, at least in public pronouncements. Organizations like the Hitler Youth and the SA transformed their functions in a similar way.5 Moreover, the various institutions were not conceived of in isolation; rather, their pedagogical effects were intended to be complementary and mutually reinforcing. In 1935, for example, Hitler elaborated: What was once a two-year temporary schooling for the nation [i.e., military conscription] which was afterward lost in the course of life and in the political doings of the parties – that is now being placed in good hands and held in trust for the German Volk. Only then will the cycle of our Volk’s education be complete. The boys – they will become members of the Jungvolk, and the Pimpfs will join the Hitler Youth, and the young men of the Hitler Youth will then report for duty in the SA, the SS, and the other associations; and the SA men and the SS men will one day report for duty at the Labor Service and from there proceed to the Army; and the soldier of the Volk will return once more to the organization of the Movement, of the Party, to the SA and the SS, and never again shall our Volk degenerate as it once regrettably did!6

In 1938, the dictator concluded a speech that was similar in content with these revealing words: “And they will not be free any more, for the rest of their lives.”7 The embrace of the next generation was thus to be total. At the same time, it becomes apparent that it was not only Nazi organizations that had this kind of pedagogical mission. The more the Nazis succeeded in reshaping 4 5 6

Lingelbach, Erziehung, 103–5. ¨ Deutschland,” 164–70. Ibid., 104–6; Hafeneger, “Alle Arbeit fur 7 UuF, vol. 11, no. 2502, 138f., quote 139. HSP, vol. 2, 702.

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classic institutions of education and socialization in line with their ideas, the more the latter were incorporated into the all-encompassing educational mission. Still, the Nazi formations outside of the schools remained the real experimental field for the regime’s pedagogical efforts. The Labor Service assumed a special place within the system of Nazi educational formations, because it alone could lay claim to total pedagogical access to young people for a longer period of time: during their time in the Hitler Youth, for example, children were also exposed to other sources of pedagogical influence, primarily school and their families, and the same was true for all other Nazi formations. Therefore, Hierl had himself celebrated as the “Scharnhorst of the Labor Service” – just as the Prussian reformer had been the father of military conscription, the Reich Labor Leader now regarded himself as the creator of labor conscription.8 As far as its ambitions were concerned, the Labor Service was thus the most important of the new, specifically Nazi institutions. I will examine later to what extent it lived up to its ambitions. In what follows I will first analyze the educational goal of the Labor Service and its premises. Since education enjoyed the highest priority among the tasks of the institution, and since the organizational structure of the Labor Service was oriented toward its pedagogical mission, I will then take a closer look at the system of Labor Service camps. It was the hinge between educational goals and educational practice.9 Two subsequent sections will examine the two dimensions of the pedagogical goal: shaping male bodies, on the one hand, and molding the character and especially the political outlook of the labor men, on the other. By contrast, the question of continuity with the educational ideas behind the FAD prior to 1933 will play only a subordinate role: in the Weimar era, educational content depended entirely on the particular sponsoring organizations. Given the very different pedagogic aims, for example, of the Social Democratic and National Socialist camps, there is clearly no typical camp pedagogy of the Weimar era that can be compared to practice under the Nazis. Thus the question of continuity beyond 1933 concerns primarily the way in which the camps were set up, though this was closely connected to the educational ideas.10 8

9

10

¨ ¨ See, e.g., W. Consilius, Personlichkeitswert und Leistungswille des Arbeitsdienstfuhrers. Ein ¨ Kampf- und Erfolgsnachweis nach Reden des Reichsarbeitsfuhrers Constantin Hierl, 5th ed. (Stuttgart, 1941; orig. 1937), 162; H. vom Wannsee, “Konstantin Hierl,” Deutsche HandelsWarte 22 (1934): 561–70; also Schneider, Unterm Hakenkreuz, 395f. On the question of effect, see the essential theses of H.-E. Tenorth, which are also applicable ¨ to the labor service: “Grenzen der Indoktrination,” in Ambivalenz der Padagogik. Zur Bil¨ dungsgeschichte der Aufklarung und des 20. Jahrhunderts, ed. P. Drewek et al. (Weinheim, 1995), 335–50. For a different view see Dudek, Erziehung, esp. 232–45, who does not give sufficient attention to the differences in the practice of the various labor service carriers.

3.1. The Education Concept of the German Labor Service 193 3.1. THE EDUCATION CONCEPT OF THE GERMAN LABOR SERVICE 3.1.1. The “Legacy of the Camaraderie of the Trenches”: Educational Goals Of fundamental importance for the pedagogical thinking and practice of the Third Reich and thus of the Labor Service were a few core statements on educational policy that Hitler had already made in Mein Kampf. Like National Socialism itself, the Labor Service did not present a coherent educational theory; instead, what we are dealing with is a conglomeration of ideas grouped around a few central notions.11 According to Hitler, the primary task of the state was “increasing the racially most valuable nucleus of the people and its fertility.” “Racial hygiene” was one way to achieve this. Another was education, whose primary goal was “the breeding of absolutely healthy bodies.” The state’s secondary task was the training of mental and emotional abilities, especially the “development of character.” The lowest priority was attached to the third task: academic schooling. In this way, Hitler turned the traditional scale upside down, replacing the primacy of intellectual education with physical training.12 Thus, the quality of the next generation was to be enhanced in two ways: physically, through the “necessary steeling for later life”; mentally, by instilling “the racial sense and racial feeling into the instinct and the intellect, the heart and brain of the youth.” Within this context, the goal was also to convey a specific ideal of manhood. Formal knowledge and a general education thus played a secondary role; only specialized training in preparation for a vocation or profession was to be thorough. Hitler regarded this as important to the economy and the state, not least for the “great revolution” that found expression in his muddled visions of an imminent, decisive battle between the “Aryans” and the “eternal Jew.”13 Education was thus for Hitler not least an instrument for securing and expanding power, which also explains why his focus was entirely on shaping the male segment of the population.14 As was already suggested in Hitler’s statements, National Socialism, with its racial ideology, had a tendency to take a skeptical view of education. Krieck articulated these reservations much more clearly than Hitler: “Race is an inescapable framework of positive possibilities within a specific range. To be sure, nothing that is racially foreign can be implanted into a human 11 12

13

See J. Ehrhardt, Erziehungsdenken und Erziehungspraxis des Nationalsozialismus (Berlin, 1968). Hitler, Mein Kampf, quotes pp. 405, 408, 414; see also 237, 253; see also more recently ¨ A. Kruger, “Breeding, Bearing and Preparing the Aryan Body: Creating Supermen the Nazi Way,” in Shaping the Superman: Fascist Body as Political Icon, ed. J. A. Mangan (London, 1999), 42–68. 14 Lingelbach, Erziehung, 28–31. Mein Kampf, quotes pp. 409, 427.

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being through education. But education creates a selection among the existing talents, and it brings what has been positively selected to fruition, while other possibilities are suppressed.”15 This passage and others like it emphasized the importance of innate talents and aptitudes with respect to the potential of education and thus took a rather deterministic stance.16 All in all, the foundation of the educational concept of the Labor Service therefore was a combination of education and exclusion: only the “racially” positive segment of the population should be educated, while all “inferiors” should be “selected out.” But as I have already shown, the Labor Service hardly lived up to its second task in practice. Although the concept of race in general had a strong cultural imprint in National Socialism, within the framework of the Labor Service it was used in a biological and thus deterministic fashion. Hierl himself drew the boundaries within which education could be effective very narrowly, on account of the alleged power of race.17 Education was thus seen – in part also because of these racial premises – as a protracted process aimed at reinforcing certain aptitudes while suppressing others and at imparting values. With these arguments, Hierl justified the idea that all young Germans of both genders, but especially young men, should pass through his institution. The educational motivation was also the primary reason why the Reich Labor Leader demanded the longest possible term of service: two years if feasible, one year at a minimum. Against this backdrop unfolded the conception of humankind that formed the foundation of the Labor Service and other Nazi educational institutions. The goal of the service was to create the “new National Socialist man,” whom Hierl defined as follows: “This type of working man forged by us is the product of a fusion of three basic elements: soldiering, farming, laboring.”18 This description was not referring to the concrete vocations, but to essential basic attitudes that Nazi ideology distilled from them. It is also important that the Reich Labor Leader was speaking of a “type” shaped by his organization: the goal was not to develop and promote individual abilities and social skills. It was not the young person himself who was the central concern. Rather, pedagogy was oriented toward the interests of the regime, the goal of which was de-individualization, that is, the suppression of individual characteristics.19 That, in turn, was true of all Nazi formations. The Labor Service claimed, however, that it was addressing the needs and 15 17 18 19

16 Lingelbach, Erziehung, 192. Krieck, Erziehung, 15. For example, Hierl, Schriften, vol. 2, 263–75 (1937). Ibid., 199–205 (1935), quote p. 202. W. Keim, Erziehung unter der Nazi-Diktatur, 2 vols. Vol. 2: Kriegsvorbereitung und Holocaust (Darmstadt, 1997), 56; on the notion of “type” see also Meyers Lexikon, vol. 3, 1067–70.

3.1. The Education Concept of the German Labor Service 195 demands of young people.20 Of course nothing was further from the truth: on this and other questions, National Socialism de facto arrogated to itself the monopoly of interpreting the will of the people. Elsewhere, Hierl elaborated what was understood by “soldier,” “farmer,” and “worker” from a National Socialist perspective: “To be a ‘soldier’ means: to commit oneself to one’s task with one’s entire person, if need be to the point of self-sacrifice, to serve tasks not for the sake of money but for honor, to be tough against oneself and others if duty demands. When we think of a soldier we think of the concepts of honor and a sense of duty, discipline, and camaraderie.”21 This was the most important element for the Labor Service. The idea of the soldier exemplifies that the Labor Service, analogously to military conscription, was to be service to a higher goal. In addition, the Reich Labor Leader associated with soldiering values such as discipline and subordination, which are described as “manly discipline” (Manneszucht) in this passage and point to a specific ideal of manhood, as well as notions of obedience and sacrifice. At the same time, the element of “soldiering” could readily relate to war and preparations for it. The “farmer” embodied the goal “of connecting blood and soil, thereby creating a firm foundation for the existence of our people, a foundation that will weather all the storms of the times.” Especially for urban youth, the focus on farming had the function of “leading them to a connectedness to the soil and thus to love of fatherland” – whereby the Reich Labor Leader always emphasized that it was important, conversely, to educate farmers about National Socialism and to bring them into contact with other segments of the population in order to foster understanding between city and country.22 Finally, in a lecture in 1931, Hierl used the word “worker” as synonymous with the “duty-conscious citizen,” a phrase that once again emphasized the element of service.23 At the same time, it suggested that the performance of labor service was the prerequisite for being a citizen of the Volksgemeinschaft. Hierl was thereby imparting a different meaning to the notion of “citizen” from the one it had in its liberal definition. Once again, the issue was not the promotion of economic, political, and social participation. The term “worker” (Arbeiter), the chief label with which the service adorned itself, indicated the activity of the service, the manual labor that all young men had to perform irrespective of their background. In the final analysis, the concept “worker” stood for the vanquishing of all class 20 21 22 23

See, e.g., BT, March 26, 1933. Hierl, Schriften, vol. 2, 163f. (1934), quote p. 163f.; see H. Erb und H. H. Freiherr Grote, Konstantin Hierl. Der Mann und sein Werk, 2nd ed. (Munich, 1939), 176. Hierl, Schriften, vol. 2, 188–90 (1934), quote p. 188f. Ibid., 17–28 (1931), quote p. 20.

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barriers and for an anti-materialist valuation of work. This transfiguration also led to the glorification of labor service as “honorary service” (Ehrendienst). The pedagogical goal of a bond with nature, subsumed under the term “farming,” was thus joined by the “bond to the Volk.” Creating that bond was the highest task of the Labor Service: it was in this way that Hierl’s organization would provide young people a living demonstration of Volksgemeinschaft.24 This community-forming process focused on the Volksgemeinschaft was illustrated with reference to a historical model: the experience of front-line soldiers in World War I. Hierl elaborated on this theme in a speech in 1935: “The Labor Service has assumed the legacy of the camaraderie of the trenches in the war. The common labor at the work sites, the shared life in the camps tear down the old barriers of class and prevent class arrogance and class hatred from arising.”25 The idealized picture of camaraderie in World War I thus functioned as a metaphor for the educational process in the Labor Service. And as I will show further on, it eventually even provided the guidelines for action. After 1933, Hierl’s organization initially tried, under nonwar conditions, to revive the experience of the class and social strata-transcending national solidarity that had allegedly emerged between 1914 and 1918. This is another indication that the educational mission of this and similar Nazi formations was to subordinate the individual to a group. What the language of the Labor Service described in the metaphor of the “fusion” of the elements of worker, soldier, and farmer was aimed at shaping the consciousness of the laboring men in three ways: first, work experience was to be interpreted as an honorable activity and the worth of a person was to be judged by his performance. However, that performance was a product only of the ideal value of his labor, not of the nature of the activity. Second, the metaphor transfigured the experience of camaraderie that allegedly occurred during the common service and embodied the “revolutionary step” from the “I” to the “we” – an idea that was common on the political left, and ¨ even more so on the right, and which Ernst Junger, for example, had already spoken of in connection with the labor service prior to 1933.26 Third, there was the experience of nature that Hierl’s organization sought to impart, and ¨ that was synonymous with a volkisch ideology hostile to urban life. Taken together, the young men were to be collectively shaped through an experience of community, work, and nature. In the process, the soldierly element was invoked more frequently than the other two dimensions of the ideal labor man. It points to the chief educational mission of the Labor Service: disciplining young men – with discipline understood in the Weberian sense as “probability that by virtue of habituation a command will receive prompt and automatic obedience in stereotyped form, on the part of a given group 24 26

25 Ibid., 200–5 (1935), quote p. 201. Ibid., 161 (1934). ¨ See ibid., vol. 2 (1933), 95; also Junger, Der Arbeiter.

3.1. The Education Concept of the German Labor Service 197 of persons.” The labor men were taught to be members of a productive community and to subordinate themselves to it.27 In this model, the means for creating community was the shared experience: a “guided experiential setup” was at the heart of the pedagogical methodology.28 This setup was situated in camp life, which completely enveloped the young men for the duration of their service and cut them off from their previous lives. The camp replaced the former social environment of the young men almost entirely. Through the shared living arrangements and experiences, which offered significantly greater possibilities of shaping the young men than did the school setting, for example, the service exerted its influence above all on the level of the emotions, basic beliefs, and attitudes. As the following discussion will demonstrate repeatedly, it thus had for the individual an identity-creating task on the personal level. In addition, the labor men were to be brought together into a “community” and form a collective identity; this aspect will be discussed again further on. Hierl defined three pedagogical influences that were decisive in realizing the “new man” through the experience of camp life. The most important factor was the effect exerted by the other labor men. The “influence of comrades” could support or obstruct the educational process, Hierl believed, but it had to be taken very seriously in either case. This external education was joined, as the second pedagogical component, by “self-education”: guided by experience and observation, this element depended chiefly on the will of the labor man to use the educational offerings. From these two factors, the Reich Labor Leader deduced the basic principle that the most important prerequisite for the education of a group was to gain the group’s inner commitment to the educational ideal. For if that happened, the young men would exert a corresponding influence on themselves and each other. Special responsibility therefore rested with the third pedagogical force, the educator from the ranks of the Labor Service leaders. It was his task to create the framework in this educational choreography, and he had to be thoroughly convinced of the educational ideal himself. In addition, he had to be able to convey the ideal in a credible fashion, and here the motto was, as Hierl put it: “Example is the most effective means of education.”29 Considering the great importance that was accorded in this model to the Labor Service leader ¨ under the paradigm of the “Fuhrer principle,” the striking carelessness with which Hierl’s organization selected its leadership corps is remarkable. Other Nazi entities proved more willing to experiment in the area of leadership – the Hitler Youth, for example, tried to have the young led by their peers.30 27 28 29 30

Max Weber, Economy and Society: An Outline of Interpretative Sociology, ed. Guenther Roth and Claus Wittich, trans. E. Fischoff et al., 2 vols. (Berkeley, 1978), vol. 1, 53. Dudek, “Jugendpolitik,” 154; Ehrhardt, Erziehungsdenken, 8–96. Hierl, Schriften, vol. 2, 263–75 (1937), quotes pp. 264, 266; see also Benze, Erziehung, 14. See Lingelbach, Erziehung, 106–21.

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Hierl, however, was not open to such experiments, not least because of a habit of mind that had been shaped by the military. That was one reason for the wide gap between ideological pretensions and actual practice in the camps when it came to the pedagogical fitness of the leadership corps. What was thus understood by the “new man” in the educational goal of the Labor Service was a training of character and indoctrination under the banner of Volksgemeinschaft. As we have already seen, however, Krieck had listed two other dimensions that could be part of education, namely vocational training and the imparting of education in the narrower, academic sense. Yet these two aspects did not play a major role in the German Labor Service. Hierl’s organization did not prepare its participants for a vocational or professional career, and when it came to the actual work, the young men learned only as much as they needed to know. Nor was there any vocational education outside of work hours. Only the tasks of fortifying or reestablishing the work ethic were part of the Labor Service. That constituted an urgent problem in the initial years of the regime, since many young men, as a result of long-term unemployment, had become unaccustomed to a structured life and were suffering from the psychological effects of idleness. The Labor Service countered this problem in sociopedagogical terms by educating its charges to work through work. In so doing, it responded to both the situation of the unemployed and the interests of the economy, since motivated workers would be available if and when the economy recovered. However, this work ethic pedagogy fell within the sphere of character education, not within the sphere of vocational training. If vocational education was thus not the mission of Hierl’s organization, neither was the imparting of knowledge. To be sure, the young men had classes in politics, which taught them the basics of history, politics, and geography. But as I will show further on, these classes were aimed less at the acquisition of knowledge and more at an affective, ideological molding. Yet political indoctrination – or more generally, “character training” – was not the only pedagogical concern of the Labor Service. Physical fitness was a second, equally important goal. This Nazi institution thus adhered precisely to the educational guidelines that Hitler had laid down in Mein Kampf: the primary task was to train body and soul, while formal knowledge was secondary.31 Previous historical scholarship reconstructed the pedagogical concept of the service primarily from statements by the leadership of the organization. Hierl’s Labor Service itself did not articulate an elaborate educational theory, nor did it make a systematic and explicit connection to the writings produced in the field of pedagogy. As a result, its educational concept remained 31

For a different view see Seifert, Kulturarbeit, 179, who, like the previous literature on the labor service, does not take physical fitness seriously enough, focusing instead only on character training.

3.1. The Education Concept of the German Labor Service 199 comparatively vague and left essential questions unanswered. For example, the Labor Service nowhere explained why the analogy between the activities of the RAD and those of the “community of the trenches” was permissible, or what exactly these different experiences had in common. It was also unclear whether the act of bringing different social strata together generally served to dismantle prejudices, or whether it might not have precisely the opposite effect of mutually reinforcing them. References to educators in the Labor Service literature, which the educational concept of the organization could have used as building blocks, remained superficial. While Will Decker and others did occasionally invoke Ernst Krieck, Alfred Baeumler, or Krieck’s ¨ student Philipp Hordt, these kinds of connections were pursued systematically by eager doctoral students rather than the top echelons of the Labor Service. These academic exercises represented for the most part a retroactive conceptual examination and legitimization of the practice in the RAD rather than any kind of genuine influence on the part of professional pedagogy.32 The Labor Service explicitly affirmed that what it did was far removed from theory; Decker, for instance, declared: “Thus the educational methods in the Reich Labor Service are not the constructions of a theoretical pedagogy, but the products of experience.”33 But before I take a closer look at the practical implementation of the two educational goals of the service, the shaping of body and character within the setting of the group, I will examine the connection between pedagogical ideas and practice in the educational process: the organization of the Labor Service, in particular its camps. This organization was structured to provide optimal conditions for pedagogical practice. 3.1.2. The Camp as the Place of Education: The Ordering of Time and Space Although the labor camps were also geared toward the nature of the work projects, on the whole they played a central role especially within the educational concept of the National Socialist Labor Service. That is already revealed by the energy with which the regime pursued the coordination of this level of the organization after it came to power. The reorganization undertaken by the regime can be broken down into two dimensions: the ordering of time and the ordering of space. In analyzing these two dimensions, I will be using concepts from Michel Foucault, Erving Goffman, and others, 32

33

See the dissertation by Kallsperger, a student of Krieck, who conceded as much: National¨ die weibliche Jugend (Leipzig, 1939), 6; sozialistische Erziehung im Reichsarbeitsdienst fur also Seipp, Formung. In an introduction to this volume, Will Decker noted that the achievements of the Labor Service in terms of educational policy had been “substantiated” though ¨ not shaped by Seipp’s scientific study, which took its orientation from Krieck and Hordt (p. 1); for a contrary view see Seifert, Kulturarbeit, 169–85. W. Decker, “Methoden der Erziehung im Reichsarbeitsdienst,” IZE No. 6 (1937): 280.

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without, however, adopting their premises and theses. In the process, the camps of the Labor Service will be measured against an ideal type of the “total camp.” Such a camp is the living and working environment of a large number of individuals of similar status, who are separated from the rest of society for a longer period of time and who lived a self-contained, regimented life. The ordering of time and space in the camps permits absolute access to the individuals, controlling and disciplining them without educating them to self-responsibility and independence.34 One could also use this ideal type as a yardstick against which to measure other forms of barracked life, such as military camps, boarding schools, or prisons. For our purposes, it is equally illuminating as a comparative measure for assessing the changes in the arrangements of the camps from the Weimar Republic to the Third Reich, and for carrying out a comparative examination of the RAD and CCC. Spatially, the change from the Weimar-era FAD was reflected, first of all, in the form of the camp. The Labor Service at the end of the Weimar Republic had a great variety of types of camps. Essentially, sponsors could choose among three kinds of camps when setting up a section: the open, the halfopen, and the closed type. In the first type, volunteers interacted with a sponsor group only during working hours; the rest of the time they were free. In the intermediate type, the service also provided food and recreational activities, which increased the time during which enrollees were integrated into the institution by a few hours a day. In the third type, the sponsor looked after the volunteers around the clock. However, at the end of 1932, the majority of the camps were of the open type.35 34

35

See Michel Foucault, Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison, trans. A. Sheridan (New York, 1979), whose ahistorical and generalizing reflections on the character of modernity cannot be put to direct use for historical scholarship. See also Sofsky, The Order of Terror, who has at least a tendency toward ahistorical typologizing and is also writing about concentration camps. Something similar holds for Z. Bauman, “Das Jahrhundert der Lager?” in M. Dabag and K. Platt, eds., Genozid und Moderne. Strukturen kollektiver Gewalt im 20. Jahrhundert (Opladen, 1998), 81–99; see also U. Herbert, “Das ‘Jahrhundert der Lager.’ Ursachen, Erscheinungsformen, Auswirkungen,” in R. Reif-Spirek and B. Ritscher, ¨ eds., Speziallager in der SBZ. Gedenkstatten mit “doppelter Vergangenheit” (Berlin, 1999), 11–27; D. Krause-Vilmar, “Das Lager als Lebensform des Nationalsozialismus. Anmerkun¨ gen und Fragen,” Padagogische Rundschau 38 (1984): 29–38; E. Goffman, Asylums: Essays on the Social Situation of Mental Patients and Other Inmates (Chicago, 1970); and most ¨ ¨ recently A. Ludtke, “Lager – Lagerleben – Uberleben?” Sowi 29 (2000): 139–43. In formulating the type of the “total camp” I have drawn especially on Goffman’s model of the “total institution” (see Goffman, Asylums, Introduction), though Goffman’s concept has only limited applicability, since it deals with the inmates and the personnel of such institutions and hardly at all with their institutional imprinting; on the Nazi camp see also Ehrhardt, Erziehungsdenken, 126–38; on what follows see in general K. K. Patel, “Lager und Camp. Lagerordnung und Erziehung im nationalsozialistischen Arbeitsdienst und im ‘Civilian Con¨ historische Bildungsforschung servation Corps’ des New Deal 1933–1939/42,” Jahrbuch fur 6 (2000b): 93–116. Seifert, Kulturarbeit, 39f.

3.1. The Education Concept of the German Labor Service 201 The danger that the funds provided by the state would be misused or at least inefficiently used was especially acute in the financially less well-funded and organizationally less elaborate open camps. And, in fact, the provisions for the volunteers were often poor and the planning was inadequate. For these reasons, chiefly economic in nature, Reich Commissioner Syrup, in November 1932, intended to substantially reduce this type of camp for the coming year. Their number was to drop from about 80 percent to a third of all the camps.36 The problems created by converting camps frequently affected small and medium-sized communities as sponsors, since they were the ones implementing many of the open measures. Some turned to the German Gemeindetag (Association of Communities), their umbrella organization, which in turn brought the problems to the attention of the Reich Commissioner.37 Their resistance, however, bore no fruit, and after the takeover of power by the Nazis it died down completely. The only type of camp that could exist in the minds of the Nazis and the Stahlhelm was the closed camp. Both organizations had already implemented this idea in practice prior to 1933 with their own sections – the FAD was thus in general an “experimental” field where, in addition to other models, the foundations for the National Socialist conception of the camp had already been acquired.38 Behind this approach stood the educational goal, which in its totality could be realized only under the conditions of the closed camp. To that extent the closing of the open camps, which the Reich Administration of the Labor Service undertook as one of the most important measures of the campaign of Gleichschaltung in 1933, was not driven by economic reasons or pragmatic, work-related concerns, as had been the case with Syrup. Still, in so doing the administration was merely radically accelerating a course that Syrup had already embarked upon at the end of 1932. On the basis of a decree of April 18, 1933, all camps that were not of the closed type were disbanded or restructured. The change was swift: by the end of 1933, 98.8 percent of the volunteers were in closed camps, with only 0.8 percent in open and 0.4 percent in semi-open camps.39 Along with the elimination of other sponsors, this was the most far-reaching change for the Labor Service in the wake of the transfer of power to the Nazis. The reorganization of the camps was the necessary condition for the implementation of the educational concept. In this area, then, the Nazi Labor Service did

36

37 38 39

See RABl. 1932, I, 272f.; BA/B, R 2301/5638, Reich Administration of the Labor Service to Reich Chancellery and others, November 25, 1933; for a different estimate, one that is too ¨ low, see Kohler, Arbeitsdienst, 143. BA/B, R 36/1942, esp. German Association of Cities to members of the Welfare Committee, December 13, 1932. See Dudek, “Jugendpolitik,” 152. RABl. 1933, I, 110f.; BA/B, R 72/325, Reich Administration of the Labor Service, Statistics 1933, October 12, 1933.

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not follow the precursors of the Weimar period but rejected the available institutional resources. The Reich Administration of the Labor Service pushed through another kind of standardization in the months that followed. The pre-1933 FAD had camps of very different sizes. Even more so than the various camp types, this diversity in size was due to economic needs and requirements, that is, to the size of a particular work project, on the one hand, and the capacities of a sponsor, on the other. Already at the end of the Weimar period, the NSDAP decided on a formation of 216 men, including leaders, as the standard size of a section.40 In 1933, the Reich Administration set this size as the so-called full section (Vollabteilung or ‘V-Abteilung’) – all labor men were to be grouped into such sections. Ideally each full section was to have its own camp, and this idea was retained when the size of the sections was reorganized in subsequent years. Again, pedagogical interests were decisive for this reorganization: in terms of labor economics, the changes were frequently hard to reconcile with the oftentimes small projects that were already under way.41 Moreover, the reorganization strained financial resources. But over and against these considerations stood the regime’s priority in setting up a uniform, tightly run, military-like organization that was suited to the educational mission. Compared with the state of affairs at the end of the Weimar Republic, when there were approximately 4,000 camps, the labor men were now to be housed in camps of equal size numbering only between 1,100 and 1,200. An intermediate state had been reached by late summer 1933, when the number of camps had been reduced to 3,400.42 The radical reduction in the number of camps in 1933–4 should therefore be seen as a much greater accomplishment of the Labor Service than the slow increase in number thereafter. In 1935 there were 1,260 camps; when war broke out in 1939 that figure stood at around 1,700, primarily as a result of the expansion of the number of young men subject to labor conscription after 1937.43 A third major change concerned the type of building used in the camps. The sponsors of the Labor Service in the Weimar Republic had frequently used existing, permanent structures – for example, old factories and army barracks, empty schools and castles. A different type of accommodation, previously only one of many different kinds, established itself as the prevailing type after 1933: the standardized wooden barracks. In the second half of the 1930s, the Labor Service often relinquished other buildings or used them for the female Labor Service, though the latter was also housed increasingly in 40 41 42 43

Stellrecht, Arbeitsdienst, 83. BA/B, R 36/1915, Bavarian Municipal Congress to German Association of Communities, April 12, 1934, and enclosed memorandum. BA/B, R 2/4532, Schroeder note, August 28, 1933. Hierl, Schriften, vol. 2, 364 (1935); Seifert, Kulturarbeit, 120.

3.1. The Education Concept of the German Labor Service 203 barracks. Some of the more substantial buildings also functioned as schools for Labor Service leaders: the best known was the Reich School housed in Commun I, an annex of the Neue Palais in Potsdam.44 The barracks proved to be practical for a number of reasons. First, they were relatively inexpensive. The costs for such a camp were about half of what it would have taken to renovate existing, solid structures to Labor Service specifications.45 Second, if properly constructed, the wooden buildings could be dismantled once a work project was finished and reassembled in a different location – they were mobile. All the permanent camps had the disadvantage that they had to be abandoned when a project was completed. That was true not only for masonry houses, but also for the permanent wooden accommodations that were built in the early period. Third, the standardized wooden building was flexible, since it was constructed on the building block system: as many individual units as needed could be combined in response to local requirements. Fourth, the barracks could be set up and taken down by the labor men themselves, which further reduced costs. Given all these advantages, it made sense that after 1933 the Labor Service preferred mobile wooden buildings to all permanent structures. In the following years, the Reich Administration of the Labor Service created a series of precisely defined models that were increasingly perfected and massproduced.46 A normal camp in 1934 was made up of three troop barracks, each with four squad rooms, one mess barracks, and one administrative barracks. These buildings had the same external shape and dimensions. Smaller, but equally standardized, were the latrine barracks and the bicycle shack. In some regions the camps also had an exercise hall, where roll call, physical training, and the like were held during inclement weather.47 The Labor Service extolled its accommodations for their simplicity and utility.48 This was also done because initially there had been voices within Hierl’s organization itself that had not approved of these “excessive streamlined and utilitarian structures.”49 In response, the Labor Service leader Wilhelm Schlaghecke, who published several pieces on the design of 44

45 46

47 48 49

See O. Lancelle, “Die Reichsschule des Deutschen Arbeitsdienstes und ihre Aufgaben,” Dt. AD 4 (1934), 176f. The structure of the schools changed between 1933 and 1939; see ¨ “Reichsarbeitsdienstlager,” in W. Nerdinger, also Dt. AD 4 (1934), 189–99; also C. Holz, ed., Bauen im Nationalsozialismus. Bayern 1933–1945 (Munich, 1993), 191. Ibid., 184. BA/B, R 2301/5691, Reich Administration of the Labor Service to Labor District administration and others, December 15, 1933; see Seifert, Kulturarbeit, 239–41 on an accommodation that was offered as early as 1932, which the Planning Commission of the Service probably merely adapted and developed further. See Schinnerer, Arbeitsgau, 54. W. Schlaghecke, “Die landschaftsgerechte Erstellung der Unterkunft im Reichsarbeitsdienst,” JB-RAD 3 (1938): 72–5. W. Schlaghecke, Holzhaus im Landschaftsraum. Reichsarbeitsdienst in Tirol (Innsbruck, 1939), 13.

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the camps in the second half of the 1930s, praised the buildings in these words: “As hard as it was for us initially to take a liking to the wooden houses, we just as quickly came to appreciate them.”50 This rhetoric could not hide the fact that the barracks camps reflected primitive living conditions. At the same time, though, they were in line with the educational mission of the Labor Service, since the simplicity of the living arrangements was interpreted as a self-denying readiness to serve the Volksgemeinschaft.51 The standardization of camp form, personnel size, and building type was joined by a fourth change from the Weimar FAD: the arrangement of the barracks was now also standardized. Until about 1937, the barracks were for the most part grouped around a rectangular or square parade ground, framing it entirely or forming a horseshoe shape. The individual buildings were oriented along visual axes. As a result of this severe layout, the camps could be easily monitored. They resembled military garrisons and could be expanded as needed, as was done for larger projects. Fifth, during the period of Nazi rule, the sections were located even more frequently in rural areas.52 Prior to 1933, many camps had been placed in large cities or on their outskirts. In November 1934, Hierl and the president of the Office for Job Procurement and Unemployment Insurance (Reichsanstalt ¨ Arbeitsvermittlung und Arbeitslosenversicherung, RfAVAV) reached an fur agreement that “work projects in proximity to larger cities or industrial districts would be carried out as emergency work,” whereas the Labor Service was to be used in rural areas.53 Initially this was a statement of intent subject to financing arrangements. Negotiations about funding were still going on in January 1935. In the spring of 1935, the Labor Service did in fact vacate camps near urban centers, though that process was still not finished by June of the same year.54 For that reason, and because of quarrels with the municipalities that will be discussed later, the barracks camp was not firmly established until 1935–6, although the guidelines had been in place since 1933. This shift was thus not only Hierl’s doing, and it was not grounded simply in the ideology of the Labor Service, though it did accord with that ideology. The trend was further reinforced when the service began to focus more heavily on larger-scale projects beginning in 1936.55 The intervention by the 50 52 53 54 55

51 Dudek, Erziehung, 234. Schlaghecke, “Erstellung,” 73. H. Petersen, Die Erziehung der deutschen Jungmannschaft im Reichsarbeitsdienst (Berlin, 1938), 63–6. BA/B, R 3903/221, President of the RfAVAV to Reich Labor Ministry/Reich Finance Ministry, November 20, 1934. Ibid., esp. President of the RfAVAV to Hierl, January 8, 1935; BA/B, R 1501/5622, Stamm to Reich Ministry of the Interior, March 11, 1935. BA/B, R 3903/220, Reich Administration of the Labor Service and president of the RfAVAV, February 28, 1934 and appendix; BA/B, R 1501/5622, Protocol of the 7th Meeting of Labor District Leaders, March 7–9, 1935.

3.1. The Education Concept of the German Labor Service 205

¨ illustration 6. Basic layout of an RAD camp. Source: Spaten und Ahre: Das Handbuch der deutschen Jugend im Reichsarbeitsdienst (Heidelberg, 1938), 213.

Reich Office shows that the changes in the Labor Service from the institution it had been under the Weimar Republic were not entirely of its own making. Once the political line had been laid down, other interest groups joined in. As the involvement of the Reich Office demonstrates, outside intervention could accelerate a process that the Labor Service had set in motion. The standardization and central planning of camp form, section size, and building type made the camp personnel uniform, mobile, and transparent. Through the ordering of space and its subdivision into various segments, the labor men were subjected to comprehensive control and discipline. This is especially apparent in the careful structuring of the camp space, which made it very difficult for residents to loiter about unobserved, to disappear, or to come together in uncontrolled gatherings. The “partitioning” of space56 defined specific social and functional zones, for example, separating the living area of the leaders from that of the laborers and differentiating a separate 56

Foucault, Discipline and Punish, 143.

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sphere for training. The architecture shaped the social space. Thus the Labor Service consolidated its hold over its members, which was the precondition for implementing its educational ideas. Moreover, the high degree of control was an instrument of the pedagogical program. The possibilities of social manipulation were enhanced by the selection of remote sites for the barracks camps, which cut the young men off from their normal social environment. As a result, the spheres of creativity and the possibilities of the labor men to temporarily withdraw were curtailed, as was any kind of personal impulse. One Labor Service leader described it this way: “In the Labor Service there is no private sphere . . . The field camp regulations and the compactness of the camps demand the whole person, challenge him utterly and completely, place him continuously into the baptism of fire of action and proving oneself.”57 The attempt to make camp residents completely transparent was not changed fundamentally by some contrary tendencies in the second half of the 1930s. At that time, the Labor Service began to situate the barracks more loosely across a site. In addition, the “wooden houses” were now frequently decorated more lavishly inside and out, and the camp boundaries were less martial. Still, the findings of Wolfgang Seifert’s ethnological dissertation, which examined the question of camp arrangements, reveal that the camps were still set up in such a way as to allow comprehensive control of the labor men.58 Camp organization below the levels of the section and the barracks also served the purpose of exerting influence over the residents. The troops, as the smallest units of fourteen to sixteen men each, created the kind of relationship of tension between familiarity and mutual control that suited the goals of the Labor Service. The young men worked, ate, and slept together and performed all service duties as a group. Under the banner of the much-invoked “camaraderie,” this arrangement was supposed to create a sense of togetherness.59 At the same time, the group was too large to allow a level of familiarity that could have served as the basis for opposition to the service to develop in the few short months the men were together. Through the structure of the troop and the system of collective penalties and praise, the control exerted by the service itself was reinforced by the control exercised by members of the group over one another. That was especially true if – as was usually the case – there were committed National Socialists among the men who were given privileges for informing on others.60 Disciplining thus by no means always required the presence of a superior. All in all, the troop was the real nucleus of the Labor Service. It was not individuals but collective actors that 57 58 59 60

¨ A. Kruger, “Arbeit und Gemeinschaft. Zur Entwicklung der Arbeitsdienstidee,” Deutschlands Erneuerung 21 (1937): 99. Seifert, Kulturarbeit, 238–69. ¨ A. Gaupp, Vorarbeiten zu einer Padagogik der Kameradschaft (Frankfurt/Oder, 1936). See Deutschland-Berichte 5 (1938): 846.

3.1. The Education Concept of the German Labor Service 207 became the crucial social units. On the one hand, all this was part of the ideology of Volksgemeinschaft and “camaraderie” and thus of education. On the other hand, the disciplining effect was cushioned by these positively charged concepts. In the words of the Labor Service leader Paul Seipp, only organizations like the Wehrmacht or the Labor Service were able “to educate from ‘I’ to ‘we.’”61 Getting to know each other was supposed to increase respect among the young men; in this way, the Labor Service was to become the cradle of the Volksgemeinschaft. Judging from its pretensions, the camp, especially, was the vehicle for implementing the social-utopian ideas of National Socialism. In addition to collective disciplining, there was a second way in which the structure of the camps corresponded to the educational program. It accustomed camp inmates to military life, which could be seen as one of various possible expressions of disciplining. This dimension was expressed both in the streamlined, barracks-like organization as well as in the clear hierarchies, evident for example in the separation of the barracks of leaders and labor men. The military focus is also apparent in the way in which the external boundaries of the camps were constructed. Architectural devices such as entrance gates and fences, hedges and walls, sentry boxes and guard houses made a clear separation between “inside” and “outside.”62 In contrast to real military camps, these demarcations for the most part offered no protection against encroachments. Rather, the fortifications were primarily symbolic in nature. The labor camp thus employed the symbolic language of military barracks without being militaristic in all aspects. As a third educational dimension, the labor camp was supposed to convey the “experience of nature.”63 The choice of remote locations, intended to have an effect on the city youth in particular, is something the Labor Service adopted from the pre-1933 Youth Movement. Hierl described the goal of “rootedness in the German soil” as follows: “After all, one of our goals in the Reich Labor Service is to open the eyes of our youth to the beauty of nature.”64 Not only the location of the barracks far from the cities, but also their thin wooden walls and large windows, which barely protected the residents from cold, rain, and wind, created an immediate connection with the landscape surrounding the camps: thus “nature and the wooden house were to blend harmoniously.”65 The reminiscences of a labor man from Baden show that there was a downside to this direct contact with the environment: “And in the winter, when the wind was blowing, even the clothes inside would flutter.”66 61 62 63 64 65

Seipp, Formung, 43. See, e.g., Schinnerer, Arbeitsgau, 57–208; also, Seifert, Kulturarbeit, 266f. H. Riecke, “Gehalt und Gestalt des Arbeitslagers,” Deutsches Volkstum 4 (1936): 353–9. Hierl, Schriften, vol. 2, 394–410 (1938), quote p. 400. 66 Interview Heinemann. Schlaghecke, Holzhaus, 9.

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Moreover, there was a tension between this invocation of the bond to Heimat and the fact that the young men were torn from their native regions and transplanted into barracks camps.67 But the Labor Service always tried to mask such ideological inconsistencies. In the final analysis, what was concealed behind this nature bond was the National Socialist blood-and-soil ideology with its racism. The “guided organization of experience” as part of Nazi camp pedagogy is especially clear in the staging of the connection to nature, which is evident both in the geographic location of many camps as well as in the official photographs.68 The spatial order of the camps – through the all-encompassing, disciplining hold of the service over camp residents (cushioned and legitimated by the ideology of the Volksgemeinschaft), the practice of military forms of behavior as a preparation for war, and the invocation of nature as an expression ¨ of volkisch-racist thinking – reflected some of the core elements of Nazi educational ideas and labor service ideology. The camp represented three things to education as a whole: the prerequisite, instrument, and mirror of its ambitions and program. Of course there were always units that did not meet the standard size, sections that were housed in old, spatially complex castles, and new camps in ugly settings. Moreover, not all the educational content could be expressed in the design and organization of the camps. But if it proved impossible to make the total control of the individual a reality, that was the result of practical problems and not of the educational concept.69 Also, the camps of the Labor Service did not lead an isolated existence in the Third Reich. Many other Nazi organizations used the same type of housing arrangement to remove Volksgenossen from their accustomed environment for a specific period of time. There were many similarities between the various camp types, which were mostly targeted at young people. At the same time, the Labor Service provided important impulses to other camp systems. Its standardized barracks, in particular, became a “successful model” – they were also used, for example, in the Hitler Youth, the military, and in ¨ was right when industry. But that is not the only reason why Christoph Holz he called the RAD barracks the “most adaptable building type of the Third Reich.” The “wooden houses” were in fact employed not only in camps for Volksgenossen: concentration and death camps were also equipped with barracks of the RAD type.70 Yet parallels in the utilization of space existed even before the barracks type prevailed. In the beginning, factories, castles, monasteries, and similar sites housed places of terror, just as they housed the Labor Service; in the early phase of the regime, some of these structures were used sequentially 67 69 70

68 Dudek, “Jugendpolitik,” 154. Schneider, Hakenkreuz, 400. See Petersen, Erziehung, 55–66. ¨ “Reichsarbeitsdienstlager,” 191; similarly Seifert, Kulturarbeit, 256f. C. Holz,

3.1. The Education Concept of the German Labor Service 209 and even simultaneously as Labor Service camp and concentration camp.71 That the spatial structure of the RAD camps differed little from concentration camps – with the exception of the perimeter – is also revealed by the fact that many RAD camps were turned completely into forced labor camps during World War II.72 That the goal of discipline and control was paramount in the spatial arrangement of all these camps – and especially so in the barracks camps – also points to the structural kinship of the camp systems for Volksgenossen and for Gemeinschaftsfremden (“community aliens”) under National Socialism. By comparison, other educational concerns were secondary. At the same time, one can see just how modern the type of structure and layout used by the Labor Service was. It could be employed in a modular and neutral manner in the most diverse contexts, whether to “select” those who were supposedly racially valuable, or to terrorize and “eradicate” enemies. The ordering of space was joined by an ordering of time. It, too, was part of the educational concept of the German Labor Service. A number of schedules have survived from various years of Nazi rule, and they are largely identical. The timetable shown in Chart 4,73 reproduced here in abbreviated form, comes from Labor District XXVIII (Franconia) and applies to the summer half-year of 1935. The largest single block of time in the daily routine was taken up by the work itself, whose primary function, according to Labor Service propaganda, was education. Yet it is striking how little time the labor men actually spent at the work site: a maximum of eight hours, including the time to reach the site and a half-hour break. But in the conception of the closed camp, it went without saying that the rest of the time was not at the disposal of the camp residents. As various service schedules reveal, the nonworking hours were also largely planned. It is evident that the daily routine left the labor men with little time at their own disposal. The approximately thirteen hours of duty between wake-up and the beginning of free time after supper on five workdays and Saturday (a number we arrive at by subtracting one hour bed rest in the afternoon) add up to a total of seventy-six hours for the 71 72 73

See Stokes, “Konzentrationslager,” 203; additional examples in the same anthology, e.g., p. 113. M. Weinmann, ed., Das Nationalsozialistische Lagersystem (CCP), 3rd ed. (Frankfurt/Main, 1990), LXIII. The following is taken from Schinnerer, Arbeitsgau, 255–66; also reprinted in somewhat greater detail than here in Seifert, Kulturarbeit, 145–7; similar plans can be found, e.g., in ¨ Schonert, “Der Weg des Deutschen Arbeitsdienstes im Arbeitsgau XXI Niederrhein,” Dt. AD 4 (1934), 951–5, here 952; Hierl, Schriften, vol. 2, 245–8 (1936). There was no duty schedule that was mandatory throughout the Reich. Compared to the schedule presented here, in the winter half-year the service began an hour later, the work time was an hour shorter, and there were a number of other, minor differences.

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“Citizens,” Volksgenossen, and Soldiers chart 4. Daily Schedule in the German Labor Service

Early Duty (2 hours) 5:00 a.m. Reveille by bugle or horn signal on orders from the commander of the guard, who also runs up the camp flag 5:00–5:05 Get up, dress, and assemble for morning exercise 5:05–5:20 Morning exercise, march into the camp 5:20–6:00 Make up the beds and clean the quarters, wash, get dressed 6:00–6:20 Assemble for breakfast, breakfast, clean-up from 6:20 Consultation with the doctor 6:20–6:35 Morning instructions with giving out of the motto of the day; theme of the lesson depends on the theme of the motto 6:35–6:45 Bathroom break 6:45–7:00 Morning roll call in work clothes and with equipment Work (7 hours) 7:00

7:00–14:00

14:00

Bugle or horn signal to end roll call; departure for work. Section leader has men march past him with “eyes right,” immediately afterwards the column sings the 1st morning song. Work at the job site, including arrival and departure and a half-hour break. End of work indicated by bugle or horn signal. March back with singing of marching songs. March into the camp, after the approach of the men has been announced through a bugle or horn signal. March past the section leader with “eyes right.”

Lunch and lunch break (2 hours) 14:00–16:00 Scheduling of time left to section leader, but at least 55 minutes of bed rest The following guidelines apply: 14:00–14:20 Wash up, get dressed, assemble for lunch 14:20–14:50 Lunch 14:50–15:45 Bed rest, at the same time section report 15:45 Wake-up signal 15:45–16:00 Get up, dress, make up beds, clean boots, get ready for conditioning Afternoon duty (3 hours) The precise schedule between 16:00 and 18:25 is set by the section leader. However, weather permitting, 1 1/4 hours are to be used daily for conditioning, i.e., each week two afternoons for actual conditioning, three afternoons for formation exercises ¨ (Ordnungsubungen). The following guideline applies: 16:00–17:15 Form up in ranks and march to conditioning or formation exercises 17:15–18:25 Duty at the discretion of the section leader, i.e., all kinds of roll calls, cleaning and mending hour, bathing etc. 18:25–19:00 Afternoon lessons: twice a week as service lessons, three times a week as political instruction

3.1. The Education Concept of the German Labor Service 211 Dinner and recreation (3 hours) 19:00–19:15 Break and assembly for dinner from 19:15 Dinner and leisure time. After dinner, camp residents, if they are not on a pass, may stay in the camp and spend the leisure hours as they see fit (recreational activities through interest groups under the supervision of the special leader for recreation programming). Twice a week all camp residents spend the leisure hours together under the direction of the section leader. 22:00 Taps through bugle or horn signal, lowering of the camp flag. On Wednesdays, taps at 22:30. Night rest (7 hours) 22:00–5:00 Complete night rest throughout the camp A different duty schedule applies on weekends: Saturday 5:00–14:20 See weekdays 14:20–15:00 Lunch, handing out of cold supper 15:00–17:00 Duty at the section leader’s discretion 17:00–24:00 Free time. Camp residents may leave the camp if they wish to do so. 24:00 Taps through bugle or horn signal, lowering of camp flag Sunday 0:00–7:30 7:30 23:00

Complete night rest throughout the camp Reveille Taps through bugle or horn signal, lowering of the camp flag

Participation at breakfast (8:15–9:00) and lunch (12:00–13:00) is voluntary. Anyone who so desires may leave camp on Sunday between 4 in the morning and 23:00.

week.74 But even during the few remaining hours, there were very few opportunities for labor men to escape the scheduled life. Moreover, leisure time after supper was also structured by a detailed program. According to one duty schedule, “leisure time” was officially observed or planned for on four of ten weekday evenings in a two-week span. Activities included singing and handicrafts, for example. When all was said and done, most evenings during the week were spoken for; the schedules made no allowance for any possibility of leaving the camp during working hours. The young men could dispose freely of their time only for half of Saturday and all of Sunday. But since they were usually placed in sections at some distance from where they lived, weekend visits home were hardly possible.75 In addition, there was scant vacation time, and it could be taken away as punishment. Finally, given the remote locations of the camps, options were very limited even on free 74 75

Hierl, Schriften, vol. 2, 246 (1936). BA/B, R 2301/5653, Protocol of the 10th Meeting of Labor District leaders, February 8–9, 1936; Schinnerer, Arbeitsgau, 51.

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evenings. There was hardly an alternative to the closest village pub, and even there the Labor Service ensured its presence. A decree of 1936 authorized the camps’ patrols to inspect public taverns – even against the will of the owners – to supervise the “conduct of the members of the Reich Labor Service and prevent any behavior in public harmful to the reputation of the Reich Labor Service.”76 Moreover, the relevant district administration could prohibit the patronage of specific taverns.77 In addition, the Labor Service strove to systematically shield the labor men from outside influences. Churches, in particular, were blocked from access to the camps. Prior to 1933, both the Protestant and the Catholic Churches had not only organized their own camps, but had also taken on pastoral duties in the camps of other organizations. After the political Gleichschaltung of the service, the two main churches asked the chancellor and the Labor Service as early as the spring of 1933 that they be allowed to continue this work.78 Hierl, however, decided to take a tough stance: “National Socialism is a Weltanschauung and thus an experience of God [Gottesanschauung]. The churches must not exert any influence on the education in the Labor Service.”79 In principle, the young men were merely permitted to attend church on Sundays in the surrounding communities, but the Labor Service resisted even this regulation for a long time. In 1935, finally, the Reich Labor Leader clarified that it was not right to prohibit church attendance in principle or to confiscate prayer books – up to that date, such actions had obviously taken place. However, as a basic policy, camp residents were not allowed to discuss religious issues during the instruction periods, and the Labor Service did everything it could to minimize the influence of church and faith.80 Furthermore, the duty schedules show that the leaders, as well, had little time for themselves. They had responsibility but few possibilities to shape their own time. Apart from regular duty, they had to participate in morning exercise as well as in many shared meals, physical conditioning, lessons, and recreation programs – exceptions were made only for married leaders.81 Thus, the Labor Service had an educational mission not only toward the labor men but also toward the leaders, as reflected in the elaborate, hierarchical training system for leaders. According to Hierl, the section leader merely decided how the seventy-six hours of duty time were to be distributed throughout the week, and he had to arrange the duty such that the work 76 77 78 79 80 81

RGBl. 1936, I, 405. See, e.g., Bayr. HStA, REpp/497, Leader of Labor District XXX, District command no. 386, October 28, 1936. BA/B, R 43 II/516. BA/R, R 1501/5622, Stamm to Reich Ministry of the Interior, March 11, 1935. See ibid., Protocol of the 7th Meeting of Labor District leaders, March 7–9, 1935; BA/B, R 1501/8365, Protocol of the 9th Meeting of Labor District leaders, October 18–19, 1935. See Schinnerer, Arbeitsgau, 260.

3.1. The Education Concept of the German Labor Service 213 quota could be accomplished even in inclement weather. All other questions were resolved by higher ups and usually by Hierl himself.82 When the Reich Labor Leader declared in February 1936 that in general “the leaders should be educated . . . but not stripped of all authority,” he was contradicting his own regulations, but it did not cause him to change them.83 All attempts by Labor Service leaders to push for more flexible duty times were defeated by Hierl.84 All in all, the daily routine of camp residents was tightly structured. Compared to the schedule I have presented here, considerable changes were made beginning in 1936 with the harvest deployments and especially in the wake of the intensifying war preparations after 1938 – changes I will discuss in the chapter on the work of the service. There is another caveat that must be mentioned. In 1936, Hierl was forced to acknowledge that while duty schedules existed, it was not always possible to implement them.85 Especially in 1933, as a result of the organizational problems of the service, the scheduled time was shorter and the program less elaborate.86 Moreover, emergency deployments – disaster relief, for example – repeatedly upset the regular order of things. Thus, the duty schedules provide primarily an insight into the educational model. To what extent this model corresponded to the actual organization of time is something I will discuss later. Still, the Labor Service standardized the daily routine and reduced to a minimum the options that were available to the young men to shape their own time. It provided its members no educational offerings or incentives to form an individual consciousness as a result of engaging alternative points of view – the time schedule alone was too rigid to allow for that. Moreover, this would have gone against the disciplinary pedagogical intent that formed the basis of the service. Given the daily routine and the constant group participation, it was not possible for members to process the impressions of camp life individually.87 Instead, their actions were directed into static, planned, and predictable tracks. There were set rhythms, recurring cycles, and many compulsory activities. Schedules were standardized and planned down to the smallest detail, they were synchronized and coordinated.88 The prescriptions were further intensified by a self-imposed time 82 83 84 85 86 87 88

Hierl, Schriften, vol. 2, 245–7 (1936). BA/B, R 2301/5653, Protocol of the 10th Meeting of Labor District leaders, February 8–9, 1936. BA/B, R 1501/8365, Protocol of the 9th Meeting of Labor District leaders, October 18–19, 1935. Hierl, Schriften, vol. 2, 250 (1936). BA/B, R 2301/5654, Reich Administration of the Labor Service to district administrations, May 31, 1933. See Lingelbach, Erziehung, 130–46; Dudek, Erziehung, 236–8. See in general Sofsky, Order of Terror; Foucault, Discipline and Punish; Herbert, “Jahrhundert der Lager,” 11–27.

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pressure, which is apparent from the planning of the daily routine as well as in public statements by the service. According to Hierl, “no quarter hour must be ‘frittered away,’”89 which has led Seifert to make the observation that there existed a self-generated “time hysteria.”90 All in all, when it came to time management, Hierl’s organization did everything it could to control the life of the labor men – just as it did with the planning of space. The meals shared by the men and the leaders, the essentially identical work for all “soldiers of labor,” and other structural characteristics gave the service an egalitarian appearance without questioning the hierarchical system. To this we must add the fact that the service borrowed from the military, as it had in the organization of space. This borrowing is evident in the content of the paramilitary training. But the temporal order of the military also served as a model. Some elements from the daily routines of modern armies were adopted directly – for example roll calls, flag parades, or sentry duty. But here, too, some structural elements of the military were copied directly, while others were modified. One example would be the songs created specifically for the Labor Service.91 Finally, Nazi ideas about nature and Heimat were also incorporated into the shaping of the daily routine. Paul Seipp, for example, emphasized that “the experience of body and nature” should be given greater and greater consideration “as a pedagogical factor” in the Labor Service.92 And in fact, the work itself was almost exclusively outdoors, the physical conditioning was frequently done outside, the afternoon instruction was occasionally outdoors, as were the recreational activities, depending on the theme. It was thus no rarity that the men were out in the open for more than ten hours a day. The bond with nature was closely related to the physical training; it served to toughen the men, but it also reflected the agrarian romanticism of Nazi ideology. Hikes on the weekend, swimming in free time, and other such activities complemented the program. In this way the Labor Service, in spite of the emphasis on duty, toughness, the sense of sacrifice, and “masculinity,” created an image of itself that was reminiscent of life in a picturesque pastoral landscape. In reality, though, the camp was clearly distinct from its environment, with clear boundaries between “inside” and “outside.” That sense was conveyed not only by fences and watchtowers, but also by the way in which the service structured time. Moreover, the tightly circumscribed appearance of the service outside its camps, which was aimed at creating an impression on the outside world and involved, not least, singing in an effort to win over the population, shows how impermeable the boundaries 89 91 92

90 Seifert, Kulturarbeit, 143. Hierl, Schriften, vol. 2, 245 (1936). See, e.g., J. Schaufuß, Das Lied im Arbeitsdienst. Eine Sammlung deutschen Liedes mit Hausrecht in den Lagern des Arbeitsdienstes (Berlin, 1933). Seipp, Formung, 41.

3.1. The Education Concept of the German Labor Service 215 were, how much the Labor Service was supposed to be an “advertisement” for the regime. When Labor Service propaganda claimed that the camps fit almost organically into the landscape and that a normal exchange with the surrounding population was supposed to take place, that was mere propaganda fiction.93 On the whole, the Labor Service camps did not fit into the social and communication structures of their environment, but remained separate entities.94 All in all, a study of the spatial and temporal dimensions of the camp order arrives at the same conclusion: the ordering of time and space allowed an absolute hold over individuals, creating the conditions for controlling and disciplining them. The service sought to gain a total hold over the labor men, to accustom them to a military life, and to convey a specific understanding of nature. The effects of the ordering of space and time complemented and reinforced each other. Thus, the camp represented the hinge between educational ideas and practice, and the German Labor Service thereby approximated – at least conceptually – the model of the “total camp.” By contrast, the relationship between the camp structure and the economic mission that the service pursued in addition to education was more ambivalent. To be sure, qualities such as mobility, transparency, and project planning could be used to increase economic effectiveness. In the end, though, the order of the camp was focused more toward education: otherwise, the work hours would have been longer and the size of the camp would not have been independent of the volume of work that was available. Moreover, the process of coordinating various camp types and forms, which was very expensive and reduced the effectiveness of the service, would have been pursued at a slower pace. Still, in principle it was possible to orient the temporal and spatial order toward economic criteria. This happened to some extent after 1937 when work took precedence over education, a development that also had consequences for the camp system. During World War II, especially, for many sections “work” meant military action – and with that, the educational orientation of the camp order came to an end. While there is some relationship between the spatial structure of the RAD camps and that of concentration camps, and important similarities exist alongside what are for the most part differences, the basic pattern of the temporal order in the two camp systems was very different. To mention only the most salient distinction: it was characteristic of the Labor Service that various forms of duty followed in sequence over the course of the day, and that the routine was thoroughly planned and obligatory. The opposite was the case in the concentration camps: what prevailed here most of the time was an oppressive monotony, punctuated only by the occasional eruption 93 94

¨ See, e.g., Schlaghecke, “Erstellung,” 72–5; W. Korber, Volkstumsarbeit im Reichsarbeitsdienst (Berlin, 1943), 33f. Seifert, Kulturarbeit, 238.

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of special terror. The daily routines had no obligatory structure, precisely because that would have reduced the “absolute” power the guards exercised over the inmates. This cursory comparison of the two related camp systems of terror and education makes clear the context in which the camps of the Labor Service were situated. On the basis of the structural proximity of the camp systems, Michael Schneider has rightly emphasized the “double-faced nature” of the camps of the RAD; within Hierl’s organization itself, they stood at the intersection between the educational concept and the pedagogical practice.95 Thus, the camps of the Labor Service became the “forcing houses for changing persons; each is a natural experiment on what can be done to the self.”96

3.2. “SCHOOL OF MANHOOD” BETWEEN PRESCRIPTION AND PRACTICE 3.2.1. The Primacy of Discipline: The Fields of Physical Education For Hitler, the “breeding of perfectly healthy bodies” was the most important task that education could in fact undertake. This mission accounted for one of the two goals of the Labor Service. But the Weimar FAD had already looked at the question of the effect of the service on the bodies of young men, and physical training had been one of the chief reasons why the service had been set up in 1931. The Great Depression had resulted in many Germans being poorly fed or undernourished, a situation that especially affected children and the young. The Weimar FAD had therefore been seen as one way of preventing serious symptoms of deficiency and to alleviate acute hunger: during their months of service, young men would be given sufficient food. Moreover, it was hoped that the physical labor, hygienic conditions, and the balance provided by sports would improve the physical condition of the volunteers.97 Thus, even prior to 1933, the Labor Service had had the task of strengthening young men physically and countering the effects of dietary deficiencies. After the takeover of power by the Nazis, a veritable cult was put in place surrounding the bodies of the labor men. The Nazi Labor Service praised the food the young men in its ranks were given, with propaganda publications frequently reprinting the meal plans to illustrate this. According to one publication, this is what the meals consisted of on an ordinary work day: coffee, bread, butter, and jam for the first breakfast, the same for the second breakfast at the work site, with liverwurst instead of jam; for lunch, barley soup followed by beef and potatoes. For supper the young men were served 95 97

96 Goffman, Asylums, 12. Schneider, Unterm Hakenkreuz, 400. BA/B, R 3904/14, Gayl to Reich Chancellery, November 24, 1932.

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herring with coffee, bread, and butter.98 The lunch and supper menus were constantly varied. And so the service itself described the diet as balanced, varied, and generously proportioned. On the whole, then, this demonstrated the welfare and humanitarian mission of the service: along with the political claims on the labor men, the RAD was supposed to combat hunger and the symptoms of nutritional deficiency. At the same time, this was an essential component in promoting participation in the Labor Service. Hierl’s organization regularly released surveys indicating precisely (in kilograms and grams) how much weight the labor men had gained during their time of service. These figures continued to be published even after the economic crisis in Germany had been overcome and the nutritional problem had been resolved for most Germans. As late as 1937, for example, the Arbeitsmann proudly reported that 83.4 percent of the young men put on weight during their service, 6.8 percent maintained their weight, and only 9.8 percent lost weight.99 These reports and statistics were intended to illustrate the success of the organization. In reality, the diet was less healthful than the published sources wanted their readers to believe. That was not changed by the fact that many camps maintained vegetable gardens for their own use and even raised pigs.100 At a meeting of leaders in 1936, Hierl declared that the provisions for the Labor Service leaders had posed a “difficult problem” for years. For those who spent longer periods of time in the service, the diet was “too monotonous”; above all, it lacked vegetables, as a result of which “damage to health had already been noted in some cases.” He therefore gave the leaders permission to take an occasional meal in local inns – even though it went against the National Socialist promise of equality, according to which the men and the leaders were to eat their meals together. But since this regulation applied to only a privileged few, and since many camps were in remote locations and no inn was within reach, this did not solve the problem of the unbalanced diet.101 A small publication from 1938, addressed to the leadership corps, explained that the leaders received “special provisions” because of the vitamin deficiency produced by the regular diet over the long term. The labor men, the pamphlet went on, “show understanding” for this extra ration, but “it would still be wrong to eat it in front of the men.”102 The dietary problems were addressed even more directly in the Deutschland Berichte of the exiled SPD and in other sources. Numerous reports from 1934, and occasionally even later, complained about the inadequate and poor diet. Of one 98 99 101 102

¨ Schonert, “Arbeitsdienst,” 954; see also, e.g., J. v. Puttkamer, Deutschlands Arbeitsdienst, mit 79 Bilddokumenten (Oldenburg, 1933). 100 Schinnerer, Arbeitsgau, 54f. Arbeitsmann, July 3, 1937. BA/B, R 2301/5653, Protocol of the 10th Meeting of Labor District leaders, February 8–9, 1936. ¨ ¨ K. Maßmann, Der Fuhrer im Reichsarbeitsdienst als Personlichkeit und Erzieher im Dritten Reich (Leipzig, 1938).

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camp in Saxony it was said, for example: “Badly prepared cabbage and old, virtually rotten potatoes are almost the daily lunch.”103 Judging from this evidence, the diet was thus by no means as ideal as the Labor Service presented it to the population. If one takes a closer look at the surviving meal plans, it is apparent that they contain few vegetables and virtually no fruit – hence a vitamin deficiency was likely. At the same time, however, given the misery to which many young people were exposed in the Great Depression, one must not exaggerate the shortcomings; for many labor men the food was an improvement over what their parents had to offer or what they themselves could afford. Still, the Labor Service did not live up to the claims it made in public. But it was not only humanitarian concerns that drove the Labor Service to shape the bodies of the young men. Before examining some of these other motives, I will look at the various activities that endeavored to achieve this goal. First, the work itself strengthened the men. Since it was heavy manual labor, it goes without saying that it represented a form of physical training; moreover, the fact that the young men worked outdoors was also seen as healthful and invigorating. Yet the Labor Service was not so na¨ıve as to impute an unqualified positive effect to this kind of activity in “hardening” ¨ bodies. With assistance from Karl Schopke, a work theoretician and pioneer of the Labor Service movement, Hierl’s organization developed its own work training for the kind of labor that had to be performed. The goal was to accomplish “the best possible job performance with the least physical exertion.”104 The young men were taught how to use a spade and other implements; leaders were instructed to correct faulty posture. In addition, compensatory training was developed to counteract the one-sided physical strain. Thus, the work itself was one area that conditioned the body.105 The teaching of optimal motions for performing the work and the compensatory training occurred not only at the job site itself. They were also part of the “physical education” undertaken by the Labor Service. It was broken down into three segments: gymnastics, which supposedly went back to “Turnvater Jahn”; calisthenics; and sports, by which was meant, unlike today, only competitive sports.106 Physical education as a whole took up a significant portion of the workday for the young men. According to the duty schedule, every morning began with fifteen minutes of setting-up exercises; in the schedule reprinted in Chart 4, two afternoons a week (an hour and fifteen minutes each time) were also devoted to physical education in 1935. 103 104 105 106

See, e.g., Deutschland-Berichte, vol. 1 (1934), 222; ibid., vol. 1, 643; also, vol. 5 (1938), 847. ¨ ¨ ¨ Gonner, Spaten und Ahre, 226; K. Schopke, Arbeitsidee und Arbeitskunde im deutschen Arbeitsdienst (Hamburg, 1934). ¨ ¨ See Gonner, Spaten und Ahre, 225–9; on the work itself see chapter 4. On the real place of Jahn within the gymnastics movement see, e.g., G. L. Mosse, The Image of Man: The Creation of Modern Masculinity (Oxford, 1996), 43–5.

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¨ illustration 7. “Returning from the Construction Site.” Source: Spaten und Ahre: Das Handbuch der deutschen Jugend im Reichsarbeitsdienst (Heidelberg, 1938), Figure 50.

In 1938, four hours a week were set aside for this activity in the first three months of service, thereafter three hours.107 Physical education in the Labor Service was highly varied. The “basic exercises” promoted strength, endurance, speed, and agility. There were swinging exercises to loosen cramped muscles, and strength training with equipment such as medicine balls to reinforce the fitness level that was achieved. Floor gymnastics and track and field disciplines were supposed to turn the youngsters into “real men” – a task that boxing was also supposed to accomplish. Running was done as team races and individual races, and then there was swimming and skiing. Physical education also encompassed a whole host of games, with special attention devoted to “war games” (Kampfspiele). According to the RAD literature, these games demanded the complete effort of every individual and team and were highly effective in creating a sense of togetherness and community; the sort of games the service had in mind ¨ were tug-of-war and Volkerball (dodgeball with two teams).108 Games in the countryside taught the young men scouting and camouflage, but also attack and defense, with simulated battles fought without weapons. Moreover, 107 108

Petersen, Erziehung, 84–9. NARA/CP, RG 242, T 81/109, Dienstplan Leibeserziehung, April–July 1938.

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certain other considerations applied to these games: “The intensity of the effort and the nature of the game create, similar to the work itself, criteria of evaluation and assessment for the individual member. A man is evaluated and assessed from two perspectives: whether he puts out the utmost effort and how he conducts himself; additionally, however, also by his performance.”109 Other areas of physical education were the already mentioned work training and care of the body, for example through sunbathing or massage.110 The educational games connected with the training were aimed not only at the bodies of the labor men, but also at their character. Strength, endurance, speed, and agility were to be joined by qualities such as decisiveness and courage, toughness, a sense of sacrifice, camaraderie, and a fighting spirit. That is why war games were of such outstanding importance. The most general goal of the physical training was thus to turn the young men into “National Socialist fighters.”111 The Nazi Labor Service sought to raise the overall level and thus the average performance of its members, but not to achieve outstanding individual accomplishments: that explains the obligatory participation in sports and the team games; finally, that is why the “muscleman” was met with as much disapproval as the “couch potato.”112 A third element of conditioning alongside work and physical education was the formation exercises. Although less varied than the physical training, they consumed even more time. According to the detailed duty plan of 1935 reproduced in Chart 4, the young men were trained in this area three afternoons a week, an hour and fifteen minutes each time; an official publication in 1938 even spoke of four to six hours a week. Here the young men learned to drill with and without spades. The Labor Service was thus copying the exercises of the military, replacing the gun with the spade. This was not the regular work spade, but a special parading spade that the young men had to present. In one-on-one instructions, in squads, in platoons, or even as a section, the labor men were trained to carry out commands while standing or moving. Officially these formation exercises had two goals. First, the sections were to be prepared “to make an orderly appearance in public.”113 This external effect was particularly important to the former general staff officer Hierl; especially in anticipation of the Nuremberg party rallies, he turned his organization into a drill and parading unit. The extant protocols of the meetings of labor district leaders reveal the fervor with which he discussed this topic. As early as 1932, Hans Sur´en – a central figure in 109 110 112

113

Petersen, Erziehung, 88; see also H. Sur´en, Volkserziehung im Dritten Reich. Manneszucht und Charakterbildung (Stuttgart, 1934). 111 Petersen, Erziehung, 85. ¨ ¨ Gonner, Spaten und Ahre, 231–3. ¨ den ArS. Henze, “Die Leibeserziehung im Arbeitsdienst,” in B. Graefe, ed., Leitfaden fur beitsdienst (Berlin, 1934), 198–218. See also G. Kraftmeier, Die wirtschaftliche Bedeutung einer Deutschen Arbeitsdienstpflicht (Greifswald, 1934), 42. Petersen, Erziehung, 81.

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¨ the volkisch nudist culture of the 1920s and a specialist in physical exercise, later inspector for physical education in the Labor Service – had developed separate formation exercises for the Nazi FAD camp in Hammerstein; according to Stellrecht, it was these exercises that really began to draw Hierl’s interest in the Labor Service.114 For example, as Reich Labor Leader, Hierl placed great stock in proper marching. However, he prohibited the drill step and ordered that the Labor Service use the “steady cadence.” After his order had been disregarded, in the middle of 1934 he threatened the responsible leaders with immediate dismissal if they violated the directive. The reason, according to Hierl, was that the term of service was too short to learn the drill step properly. The service would simply turn itself into a laughing-stock if it used the step in public.115 It was possible that using the step would produce the opposite of the desired effect of impressing the outside world; on the whole, however, the service was able to avoid that. In addition to the effect on the outside world, the formation exercises were ¨ intended to discipline the labor men under the guiding idea of the “Fuhrer principle” and to teach them unconditional obedience. The Reich Labor Leader explained that the formation exercises were not an end in themselves, but “means for teaching discipline,” that is, “unconditional subordination of one’s own will to the laws of a community and the commands of its leaders.” In practical terms, he went on, discipline could be enforced especially through “drill-like exercises.” In the “immediate, painstakingly exact execution of a given order,” the “I” is completely extinguished and melded with the “oneness of the unit.”116 The ideal was to implement the directive in the best possible way without objecting and expressing one’s own opinion. Since the smallest mistake upset the entire unit, the whole group should repeat the exercise if a single member failed. The resulting pressure exerted by the young men on each other would strengthen the “spirit of the corps.” This shows the great importance that the service attached to the mutual disciplining among the men themselves, and some memoirs recount how outsiders or those who deviated were harassed by their comrades.117 However, the young men were not merely supposed to learn to obey blindly, but to do so enthusiastically. The political lessons should therefore explain to them why the exercises were important. More so than with the other tasks of physical conditioning, the goal here was to practice order and discipline, less so resolve and personal responsibility.118 At the same time,

114 115 116 117 118

IfZ, Zs 1906, Ausarbeitung Stellrecht, 1966; Sur´en, Volkserziehung, 76–8. BA/B, R 2301/5653, Reich Administration of the Labor Service to Labor District leaders, March 7, 1934. Hierl, Schriften, vol. 2, 193–7 (1935), quote p. 193. See J. Seyppel, “Vom Reichsarbeitsdienst und vom Prinzip Arbeit. Reminiszenzen,” Gewerkschaftliche Monatshefte 46 (1995): 679f. Wilhelm Kollenrott, “Arbeitsdienst 1934,” Deutsches Volkstum (1935): 193–200.

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illustration 8. RAD workers on parade during an inspection. Source: Spaten ¨ und Ahre: Das Handbuch der deutschen Jugend im Reichsarbeitsdienst (Heidelberg, 1938), Figure 60.

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the formation exercises were seen as a counterbalance to the strain of the work. Especially in the first two years following the takeover of power by the Nazis, it was constantly emphasized that the exercises had nothing to do with “soldiering games.” This indicates the boundaries within which physical education took place: in the summer of 1933, following the intervention by the World War I victors, Hierl prohibited exercises that were directly military in nature. While military sports had played a more or less important role in the FAD prior to 1933, depending on the participating organization, it was now dropped from the training program. The young men no longer received weapons training within the framework of the Labor Service; for a few years even carrying weapons was forbidden. In December 1933, the Reich Labor Leader also prohibited “field sports,” i.e. lessons about tactical situations, the effect of weapons, and the like. Only scout training was still permitted.119 But the Labor Service also taught skills that were important in military conflicts, for example orienteering, map reading, and tracking. Moreover, there were also the previously mentioned military games in the field, which simulated battle without weapons.120 However, the Labor Service emphasized to domestic and international public opinion that the exercises were harmless.121 The prohibitions against real military exercises in the Labor Service were not rescinded until 1938 – but since the change was directly related to a shift in the work tasks of the Labor Service, I will discuss this in the chapter on the work itself. During the initial years of the regime, by contrast, the intervention by the victorious powers had some effect on determining the content of physical education. As numerous reports from the camps of the service make clear, the formation exercises frequently took up more time than was provided for in the official schedules. For example, the Deutschland Berichte of the exiled SPD quoted a labor man as follows: “Labor service is nothing other than a military replacement. Most of the time is spent drilling.” That was especially true for sections that were practicing for the party rallies in Nuremberg; but reports from other camps also noted that the formation exercises accounted for a significantly larger block of time in the daily schedule than they were supposed to.122 In addition to work, physical education, and formation exercises, certain kinds of recreational activities also trained the physical abilities of the young men. Handicrafts and shop work called for manual dexterity and sometimes 119 120 121 122

BA/B, R 2301/5653, Reich Administration of the Labor Service to Labor District administration and others, December 18, 1933. E. F. Berendt and H. Kretzschmann, Feierabendgestaltung im Reichsarbeitsdienst, 3rd ed. (Leipzig, 1936), 159, 170. Henze, “Leibeserziehung,” 196. Deutschland-Berichte, vol. 1 (1934), 423; see also ibid., vol. 5 (1938), 480, for example.

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also physical strength; theater performances, for example, promoted selfconfidence. I shall return to these activities later. What we can note now, however, is that the recreation program reinforced the effects that were systematically attained by the other areas of physical conditioning. Shaping the bodies of the labor man through these four areas of service clearly had not only the goal of eliminating hunger and symptoms of nutritional deficiency in the face of the Great Depression. In the Third Reich, another reason asserted itself over any humanitarian motivation: Hierl’s organization, like other Nazi institutions, had the task of toughening young men for a future war. Another factor in the early period of the regime may have been that the Labor Service was unable to pursue regular work assignments because of financial problems, and that drilling was the cheapest form of activity.123 But to argue that this was the real reason behind the drill would be to downplay its importance. The fact is that Hierl’s organization was to make up for the absence of compulsory military service, at least until its reintroduction in 1935. After 1935, the newly established labor conscription served as preparation for military service, which was thus relieved of some of its responsibilities in the area of physical conditioning. There was a longer history behind this idea of preparatory physical conditioning: as noted, Friedrich Ludwig Jahn and his contemporaries had already discussed the need for additional physical strengthening as preparation for military service during the Napoleonic wars; beginning in the 1880s, these ideas were elaborated by Kolmar von der Goltz and others. Since the days of Weimar, these kinds of considerations were linked to the Labor Service not only by National Socialists and the Stahlhelm, but also by the Reichswehr and the Reich government. In that respect, Hierl’s organization after 1933 merely expanded upon a dimension that already existed. The rather tedious formation exercises differed in practice and in underlying educational intent but little from those of the military, which served as their model. Such exercises had long existed in European armies, especially since the eighteenth century. The discipline attained through them was intended to turn the military units into well-functioning infantry formations. This kind of training made sense, given the complicated sequence of actions required by the weapons technology at the time.124 Beginning in World War I, at the latest, changes in firearms technology and warfare strongly relativized the direct military usefulness of drill. Troops were now no longer led into the field in closed formations. Still, all armies continued to have a limited form of formation exercises.125 Hierl, too, was aware that they had lost their actual 123 124 125

Ibid., vol. 1 (1934), 223. See Foucault, Discipline and Punish, 135–69; Weber also made the connection between the art of war and discipline; see Weber, Economy and Society, 2: 1150–6. ¨ C. Jahr, Gewohnliche Soldaten. Desertion und Deserteure im deutschen und britischen Heer ¨ 1914–1918 (Gottingen, 1998), 333f.

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combat importance. In fact, after 1933 he used this to back up his argument that these exercises entailed no warlike intentions.126 But the sources of the Labor Service reveal that the drill had goals that were of great importance to waging war: especially the willing, absolute subordination of the individual and the unquestioning and unconditional following of orders, or, more generally, the creation of discipline. Yet it was not only the physical education that worked in this direction; other elements of the service did so, as well. Subordination and discipline were already conveyed to a high degree by the spatial and temporal structure of the camp. In addition, these qualities were often impressed upon the young men when they signed up, and even more so when they arrived at a camp: many Labor Service sections followed in the footsteps of the imperial army in exposing recruits to special forms of harassment during their initial time in the service. In some units, when uniforms were handed out, a ritual that was often transformed into a demeaning spectacle, the so-called Kammerbulle (“store basher”) merely looked the young men over. Then he would hand them a uniform without a word. Many times the clothes did not fit the men, and were not supposed to, which meant that the recruits made a laughingstock of themselves trying to put them on. If they refused to do so, they were yelled at; on the least pretext, they were ordered to run a few laps around the barracks half naked. Only after this ritual were they allowed to exchange the clothes with each other. This practice was by no means the worst initiation rite with which the fresh recruits were greeted in the camps.127 The labor men thus learned in the very first days to subordinate themselves unconditionally. These elements were reinforced by the Labor Service’s own creations, like the infamous “stool construction” (Schemelbau). In the evening, the young men had to take off their clothes and arrange them on their stool according to a precisely defined scheme. As was often the case with proper bed-making, the least bit of real or alleged deviation or disorder provided a pretext for harassment by the leader, especially in the form of the so-called Budenzauber, which referred to unscheduled cleaning and scrubbing of the barracks as a form of punishment.128 Discipline was thus not limited to physical education, but took place in all aspects of the daily schedule; it was, in fact, the signature element of the Labor Service. The approximation to the ideal type of the “total institution” took place not only in the order of the camp, but also in this area of education. The shaping of the body created what Foucault called 126 127 128

See, e.g., Sur´en, Volkserziehung, 7. Printed in H. R. Wagner, “Arbeitsdienst ist Ehrendienst. Die Geschichte des Reichsarbeitsdienstes,” unpublished manuscript, private archive of P. Dudek, Kassel, 1994, 216–36. See, e.g., K. D. Bracher (a conversation with W. Link), “Von der Alten Geschichte zur Politikwissenschaft,” NPL 42 (1997): 259; W. Paul, “Erinnerungen an den Chiemsee,” FAZ, August 17, 1968; Wagner, “Arbeitsdienst,” 253–66.

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“docile bodies”: drill and practice served the goal of a disciplined reshaping of the individual; the treatment that was carefully worked out down to the finest nuance strengthened the young men, but at the same time also made them docile.129 Yet physical education and drill were not intended merely to practice ¨ obedience toward a “Fuhrer.” Physical training, especially, was also supposed to strengthen virtues such as self-control, courage, and a sense of sacrifice, embedded in a concept of achievement. Thus, the service imparted the ability – important in conditions of modern warfare – to carry out orders independently and with a sense of personal responsibility. That requires not only the capacity of obedience, but also the ability to develop initiatives within the framework of fixed norms.130 By shaping the young men in this way, the Labor Service prepared them for military service and a future war of aggression. None of this is derived invariably from the nature of the exercises themselves – other societies have trained and do train their young men in similar ways; even the humiliating rites of initiation and subordination are quite common.131 Instead, the intentions connected with the physical training emerge, first, from the general war preparations that the regime is known to have begun in 1933. Second, they can be inferred from the explanations that the Labor Service itself used to justify the exercises and which open a window onto the underlying intentions. At the beginning of 1934, Sur´en, with an openness that is astonishing considering the diplomatic situation at the time, explained that the “military fitness” necessary for war referred above all to a “readiness of body and character.” Strengthening that readiness was the task of the Labor Service. The importance of “military fitness” is exemplified by his summary conclusion: “If we see to it that our Volk will once again be strong, bonded with nature, tough, and simple, and can move superbly well in the field, we need not fear the future.”132 Yet this kind of shaping of the male youth was not only in the interest of the regime and its warlike goals. Industry and business also wanted docile employees. That was the chief reason why segments of industry had become involved in the Labor Service since the days of Weimar. Under its director Karl Arnold, the already mentioned German In¨ technische stitute for Technical Vocational Training (Deutsches Institut fur Arbeitsschulung [DINTA]), founded in 1925 by leading representatives of 129

130 131 132

Foucault, Discipline and Punish, esp. 135–41; on such initiation rites see also Goffman, Asylums, 18ff.; that the RAD was perceived in this way by the labor men is revealed by ¨ C. Hausmann, “Heranwachsen im ‘Dritten Reich.’ Moglichkeiten und Besonderheiten jugendlicher Sozialisation im Spiegel autobiographischer Zeugnisse,” Geschichte in Wissenschaft und Unterricht 41 (1990): 607–18. ¨ Jahr, Gewohnliche Soldaten, 32f. ¨ ¨ T. Kuhne, “Zwischen Mannerbund und Volksgemeinschaft: Hitlers Soldaten und der ¨ Sozialgeschichte 38 (1998): 165–89. Mythos der Kameradschaft,” Archiv fur Sur´en, Volkserziehung, 29, 137.

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Rhenish-Westphalian heavy industry, set up its own camps within the framework of the FAD.133 In addition to defusing potential political radicalism from the perspective of industry, this initiative, and others like it, had the goal of strengthening and disciplining the volunteers; Marxist scholarship before 1989 rightly called attention to this.134 After the Nazi takeover of power, DINTA was also pushed out of the Labor Service: the state and the party now took on the tasks which previously had been partly in the hands of the private sector; Arnhold henceforth organized the vocational training of the DAF.135 However, this third goal alongside immediate help for the victims of the economic crisis and war preparations soon waned in importance, like the first of these. Once mass unemployment had been overcome, the interests of the private sector were reversed: now it would have been more important to put the young men to work directly in factories and businesses than having to turn them over to Hierl’s organization for several months. Nevertheless, employers had to admit that the Labor Service reduced the potential for protest on the part of young workers. For example, Fritz Todt, the General Inspector of the German Road System, believed that former labor men were much more willing and ready to put in the effort than other workers.136 According to labor section leader (Oberstfeldmeister) Hellmut Petersen, “educational intention and reality” were in harmony in the Labor Service.137 However, as I have already demonstrated, pronounced discrepancies existed in all areas of the service between the publicly disseminated image and pretensions, on the one hand, and the practice in the camps, on the other – and physical education and formation exercises were no exception to this rule. First it must be noted that the drilling with spades struck many observers as ridiculous: professional soldiers regarded it as a degrading spectacle that trivialized military formation exercises and failed to do justice to the spade as an implement of labor. The former general staff officer Hierl, however, was completely convinced of the value of these exercises. Given the effect that the appearance of over fifty thousand labor men with gleaming spades had had 133

134

135 136 137

Especially the Stahlhelm had close contacts to Arnold; see BA/B, R 72/313, STH, Landesverband Westmark, Basic Agreement, November 5, 1932; BA/B, R 72/311, esp. Mahnken to federal office Magdeburg, July 4, 1932. See esp. Schlicker, “Arbeitsdienstbestrebungen,” 102–22; Petrick/Rasche, “Vom FAD zum RAD,” 59–70; more recently, M. Nolan, Visions of Modernity. American Business and the Modernization of Germany (New York, 1994), 185–92; A. Zukas, “Lazy, Apathetic, and Dangerous: The Social Construction of Unemployed Workers in Germany during the Weimar Republic,” Contemporary European History 10 (2001): 24–49. J. Campbell, Joy in Work, German Work: The National Debate, 1800–1945 (Princeton, 1989), 325. On Todt’s view see G. Morsch, Arbeit und Brot. Studien zur Lage, Stimmung, Einstellung und Verhalten der deutschen Arbeiterschaft 1933–1936/7 (Frankfurt, 1993), 452. Petersen, Erziehung, 13.

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on Hitler, its seems quite possible that Hierl placed such value on the drills not so much because of their pedagogical importance, but because they had helped him to raise his stature in Hitler’s eyes in 1934. This would mean that the exercises were less a pedagogical instrument than a propaganda weapon ¨ of the Labor Service in the struggle for the Fuhrer’s favor. This thesis is substantiated by the fact that in the months leading up to the party rallies, Hierl had the sections that were scheduled to travel to Nuremberg engage in very intensive drilling while neglecting education and practical work to a striking degree. In an autobiographically colored history of the RAD, Horst Wagner, for example, compiled various reminiscences in which the formation exercises in fact constituted the most important part of the daily schedule. However, Wagner generalized his own and similar accounts and claimed that this had been the general practice in the Labor Service between 1933 and 1945; Stellrecht’s criticism of the service a` la Hierl had a similar thrust.138 Yet this interpretation is contradicted by other memoirs. Some sections did not even meet the required hours officially set aside for the formation exercises.139 Given the more than one thousand camps in which the men were housed, given the varying working conditions during summer and winter, and the changing political and economic background conditions, the picture we get is not uniform. Evidently there was a certain degree of arbitrary decision making at the lower leadership levels. Even ¨ if this ran counter to the strict hierarchies and the Fuhrer principle, many questions relating to the daily life of the camps were apparently decided by lower level leaders on their own authority: for example, the rigor with which the formation exercises were carried out, and whether punitive drilling was used even though it was prohibited officially.140 These deviations, however, do not point to unconstrained spaces whose existence was intended by Hierl. If young men escaped the total grip of the Labor Service and its chief vehicle, the camps, it was the result of their own initiative: feigned work at the job sites, simulated illnesses, and other strategies repeatedly subverted the claim of the Labor Service that it was creating the total camp experience.141 Still, many memoirs – whether from men who approved of the service or were critical of it – make clear that the Labor Service on the whole fulfilled its mission of preparing young men for military service and war. It accustomed them to drill and thereby taught them subordination, it strengthened their physical constitution and imparted skills they could fall back on later in 138 139 140 141

Wagner, “Arbeitsdienst,” 3f.; IfZ, Zs, 1906, Stellrecht draft. ¨ See, e.g., the interviews with Augstein and Bohler. Wagner, “Arbeitsdienst,” esp. 10–28; H. v. Ditfurth, Innenansichten eines Artgenossen. ¨ Meine Bilanz (Dusseldorf, 1989). See, e.g., Cranz, Ich, ein Deutscher, 185–7.

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life. While the formation exercises prepared the men for the “discipline” of military service, some aspects of physical education taught knowledge that could determine life and death in a war. One labor man recalled that the field training in particular had served him well in World War II: “There was much I could use for my later deployment in the war. Learning how to camouflage myself and dig in saved my life on more than one occasion later in World War II.”142 The Labor Service also appears to have attained the goal of improving the physical condition of the young men overall: the combination of physical labor, formation exercises, and physical education had a strengthening effect. Hierl himself repeatedly pointed out the poor physical condition of the young men when they entered his service and used it to justify the existence and necessity of his agency. This self-legitimization on the basis of the alleged shortcomings of the youth was of essential importance for the service, since the HJ, other party organizations, and after 1935 especially the Wehrmacht increasingly made it their mission, as well, to “toughen up” all of Germany’s male youth. It is against this backdrop that one must set the fact, for example, that Hierl in early 1936 sent to Hitler and other top leaders of the regime a report about the first half-year age cohort of 1915. According to the report, the young men who made up the first compulsory age group of the service in the fall of 1935 differed regionally in their nutritional state and strength, although they were on the whole satisfactory in both respects. By contrast, the thorough conditioning of the bodies left much to be desired, especially among the young farm boys, who made up an important portion of the cohort: “A large part of the labor men have already worked themselves crooked.” This internal report thus spoke openly about the physical effects that agricultural labor frequently had – and this stood in blatant contradiction to the strongly idealized, romanticized picture of country life that the Labor Service disseminated to the public.143 A detailed, regional study about the cohort came to the same conclusion. It explained, much like Hierl, that in view of the condition of the young people, physical education in the Labor Service was an indispensable task; again and again these arguments were combined with the demand that the term of service be expanded.144 Needless to say, the service did not present this gloomy picture to the population; Hierl used this strategy in the discussions within the power elite of the regime, and not only in 1935, but also in later years to justify the educational mission of his organization. For example, in a 1938 142 143 144

Augstein interview; similarly, Schreiber interview; see also Hausmann, “Heranwachsen,” 613. BA/B, R 1501/5102, Reich Labor Leader, Experiences with the first half-year cohort 1915, January 8, 1936. See Petersen, Erziehung, 21f.

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report to Himmler, he explicitly noted that the HJ had no discernible effect on the physical condition of young people.145 If these sources must be used with caution, given the need of the Labor Service to justify itself, the same applies to Hierl’s reports that the young men were in better physical shape at the conclusion of their term of service. The Labor Service repeatedly advanced but rarely substantiated this claim. For example, the above-mentioned regional study, which had meticulously assessed the physical condition of the men when they entered the service, stated – without offering any evidence – that the young men were on average in better physical shape at the end of their term of service.146 The usual strategy of the Labor Service was to simply assert the improvements and occasionally furnish pictures of strapping young men. The statistics about weight gain served the same purpose: though of course they did not reveal whether the additional pounds represented an improvement in physical constitution or a deterioration. By contrast, the findings for the Labor District XXI (Rhineland), which recorded a strengthening effect, were based on a serious medical report.147 And for one section in the Labor District Franconia, a physician presented a respectable-looking study which also demonstrated that the Labor Service period had had a positive effect on the physical development of the young men.148 Finally, in his 1935 dissertation, Paul Seipp let individual labor men speak for themselves; the sources Seipp selected confirmed qualitatively the quantifying statements of the medical statistics.149 On the whole, given the nature of the service, one can assume that the young men did in fact leave Hierl’s organization in stronger physical condition. However, in view of the short service period, the success – measured against the organization’s self-proclaimed goals – is not likely to have been overwhelming. Moreover, it is not possible to isolate the effect of the service, since it was, and was supposed to be, only one link in a whole chain of similar institutions. What we can say is this: given that the diet, while not ideal, was steady; that camp life was largely determined by physical labor, sports, and drills; and that the organization had some awareness of the harm that could be caused by unbalanced stresses and strains, it is likely that the average physical condition of the labor men improved. If we consider that the “toughening” of bodies was one of the central tasks of the service, and thus also one of its most important justifications, and that it was neither alone in this mission nor able to demonstrate a clear success in this area, the mere fact that the organization survived beyond 1935 was a visible success for Hierl. 145 146 147 148

BA/F, MFB 1/SF-01/16218, Hierl to Himmler, February 10, 1938, and appendix. Petersen, Erziehung, 95. BA/F, MFB 1/WF-10/22628, Expert opinion on fitness in Labor District XXI, September 25, 1934. 149 Seipp, Formung, 39f. Schinnerer, Arbeitsgau, 25f.

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3.2.2. The Educational Ideal of “Manhood” It would be too narrow to reduce the physical and character training merely to the short- and medium-term, instrumental implementation of goals such as the physical conditioning and disciplining of the men for work and war. The claim to be reshaping the young men also extended to the definition of gender. During the months of service that the men spent in the remote camps, the Labor Service wanted to instill in them a specific, stable male self-identity. In this sense the Labor Service was also a “school of manhood,” to use a phrase that Friedrich Paulsen, a professor of pedagogy and philosophy in Berlin, had coined in 1902 for the military.150 As I have already discussed, with the introduction of labor conscription for men in 1935, participation in the Labor Service was defined essentially by gender. By contrast, other possible criteria, such as class or religious confession, played no role, with the exception of anti-Semitism; in fact, they were supposed to be abolished. At the same time, while universal compulsory service had also been introduced for women in theory, in practice it was implemented on an even much smaller scale than the service for men. Most especially, the services for the two sexes remained strictly separated. Accordingly, gender was the single most important criterion of community formation in Hierl’s organization. Yet “manhood” was not something substantive but a declared educational goal. The Labor Service had a normative image of manhood that left no room for alternative conceptions.151 Of course, in this regard this institution was not alone in Nazi Germany, but merely one of many pedagogical forces in the regime that were supposed to influence the young generation with similar notions of gender. As the first scholarly forays into this area have shown, the Nazis were responding in this way to challenges to the masculine role model that they themselves were following. George Mosse has argued that in many Western societies a largely coherent ideal image of masculinity had emerged in the middle of the eighteenth century. It comprised the body as well as the virtues ascribed to it. Strength and vitality, along with self-control, were thus essential characteristics of the ideal, which Johann Joachim Winckelmann summarized in the well-known phrase as “noble simplicity and quiet greatness,” and upon which the Nazis, as well, based their own ideas.152 The 150 151

152

¨ ¨ F. Paulsen, Die deutschen Universitaten und das Universitatsstudium (Berlin, 1902), 471. In this the labor service copied the role that has generally fallen to the military in the ¨ modern world; see U. Frevert, Die kasernierte Nation. Militardienst und Zivilgesellschaft in Deutschland (Munich, 2001); in general, G. Bock, “Gleichheit und Differenz in der nationalsozialistischen Rassenpolitik,” Geschichte und Gesellschaft 19 (1993): 277–310; J. W. Scott, “Gender: A Useful Category of Historical Analysis,” American Historical Review 91 (1986): 1053–75; J. Butler, Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity (New York, 1991). ¨ J. J. Winckelmann, Ausgewahlte Schriften (Leipzig, n.d. [1914]), 38.

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vehicle of this conception in the nineteenth century was not least the military. It was now that this conception exerted its profound impact, since it was adopted into the canon of middle-class values.153 Through military conscription, the Prussian army, in particular, became an influential and shaping force. It sought to create men who were physically tough, ready to sacrifice, strong-willed, and at the same time also self-controlled, comradely, and anti-individualistic.154 Physical strength and self-control went hand in hand, and they were promoted chiefly to be put to use on behalf of the state. After the turn of the century, the canon of masculine qualities and virtues was profoundly challenged in two waves of change. At the fin de si`ecle, the traditional image of masculinity was attacked, first, by the women’s rights movement and by other women’s groups that sought to break out of their traditional role – the image of woman that had been dominant until then had stabilized male self-conception in essential ways. Second, alongside “unfeminine women,” it was “effeminate men” who questioned Winckelmann’s ideal under the banner of decadence; one prototype of these men was Oscar Wilde. The traditional image managed to gain a firm footing again in World War I – in fact, perhaps it was only now that it was able to fully assert itself. But then it was even more radically challenged under the Weimar Republic: now the lifestyles of the two genders seemed to grow more and more alike, which ran as much counter to traditional notions as did the even wider presence of men who departed from the conventional pattern. The traditional gender definition was further unsettled by the global economic crisis. At the same time, the traditional image of masculinity derived renewed vigor from the war experience: it was repackaged and disseminated by authors like Ernst ¨ Junger. National Socialism was also part of this defensive movement, and it strove to pass on its conception of masculinity especially through institutions of socialization like the Labor Service. One essential component of the masculine ideal of the NSDAP and other ¨ groups of the volkisch right was their image of the enemy. An analysis of that image also allows us to grasp the positive model. In particular, the stereotype of the “Jew” was a point of confluence for all the negative characteristics that distinguished the male antitype from the “Aryan,” and in Hierl’s organization from the labor man.155 Another male antitype to the labor man was the bourgeois who, with his elitist notion of work, shunned manual activity. This latter image, however, was put forth in a less crude fashion. 153 154

155

See Eisenberg, English Sports, esp. 47–56. Mosse, Image of Man, esp. 17–39; most recently Frevert, Nation. However, this question is only of secondary importance within the context of the present study, since the analysis centers on the Nazi image. We can also note that the Nazi image picked up on a similar, older model; scholarly disagreement revolves only around the question of just how old it was or when it began to take effect on a broad basis. Mosse, Image of Man, 77–154.

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These findings concerning the Labor Service fit perfectly into the ideology of National Socialism. However, in the first years after 1933, the anti-Semitic male antitype was depicted far less frequently in Hierl’s organization than the ideal of the German labor man itself. From a value-neutral point of view, the racism in Hierl’s organization was thus for a long time positive rather than negative.156 Moreover, the picture of the labor man had a positive counter-image in the model of the “Aryan woman,” the “German woman.” Labor men were generally admonished to treat the “German girl” as they would like their mothers or sisters to be treated: “Girls are not in this world for the lust and sensual pleasure of men, but fulfill the meaning of their lives most fully if they become mothers within marriage and if the Volk continues to live through them.”157 Conversely, promiscuity was denounced as “unmanly behavior” that rendered a man unfit to produce healthy offspring. Without identifying causes and consequences more precisely, writers linked the “senseless, wanton, and indiscriminate fulfillment of the sex drive” to infectious venereal diseases.158 Deterrence, not education, was the operative principle. In this regard the practice of the Labor Service was no different from the way in which National Socialism talked about sexuality to young people; but also no different from how the topic was approached in the first half of the twentieth century in general.159 While sexual intercourse in this view served the “preservation of our race,” it was set entirely within the context of marriage. The Labor Service thus had a conception of gender that corresponded to the mainstream views of the regime, a conception that picked up on traditional ideas of monogamy and marriage from a racist perspective. By contrast, the SS, for example, positioned racist thinking so firmly in the center that moral notions like monogamous marriage were largely dissolved: as long as the offspring was “Aryan,” the question about the relationship between the parents was secondary.160 On the whole, the Labor Service was very inhibited in the way it dealt with the topic of sexuality, which was for the most part simply treated with silence. This was even more true for homosexuality: it was so thoroughly taboo and unthinkable for a “real” labor man that it was usually not even mentioned in the publications. The same applies to the female anti-type, that is, for the negative female role. As for relations with Jewish women and other women who did not correspond to the Nazi ideal of the “German girl,” the Labor Service publications targeted at men were usually silent: presumably, such 156 157 159 160

See, for example, F. Edel, “Volksaufartung durch Arbeitsdienst,” Dt. AD 4 (1934a), 1097, and Section 3.1 below. 158 Ibid., 253. ¨ ¨ Gonner, Spaten und Ahre, 264f. C. Benninghaus, “Die Jugendlichen,” in U. Frevert and H. Haupt, eds., Der Mensch des 20. Jahrhunderts (Frankfurt/Main, 1999), 243–7. B. J. Wendt, Deutschland 1933–1945. Das “Dritte Reich” (Hannover, 1995), 251f.

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contacts were not to be elevated even into the realm of possibility. That the Labor Service chose to deal with sexuality in this form is explained not least by its tendency, already mentioned, to speak more about Volksgenossen than about “community aliens.” The pornographic quality that anti-Semitism ¨ assumed for example in Streicher’s Der Sturmer is hardly found in Labor Service publications. All in all, then, National Socialism had two ways of dealing with the topic: inhibited, narrow-minded, and vague when discussing German youth; suggestive, sensationalistic, and pornographic when depicting the sexuality of Jews and other “sub-humans.” Outside of these two approaches there was evidently no room for an open, educational, and accurate engagement with the topic.161 The role assigned to the “German girl” in this conception of gender roles can be seen for example in how the Labor Service for young women was interpreted. According to official publications, it was not supposed to imitate the Labor Service for men. As Hierl put it, these were not “incongruous women battalions,”162 rather, their task was “mother service.”163 The ambiguous phrase “mother service” referred chiefly to the fact that the young women were to perform service to mothers. At the same time, it contained the most important future task of the labor girls: motherhood, which is why the Labor Service was to prepare them for “their vocation as mothers and for their responsibility as mothers within the Volksgemeinschaft.” Other tasks and activities were for the most part not mentioned in the training materials, at least not in those for the Labor Service for the male youth in the prewar period; instead, women were largely relegated to motherhood and family.164 However, this image of womanhood was not representative for National Socialism as a whole, which also left room for women in other spheres in its propaganda – and thus even had a more diverse conception of gender roles than existed in the United States in the 1930s, where notions similar to those found in the RAD predominated.165 It fit with the extreme anti-emancipationist thrust of gender conceptions in the German male Labor Service that it had no notion of fatherhood comparable to that of motherhood. Instead, the parent–child relationship was reduced to the relationship between mother and son. This tendency in 161 163 164

165

162 Hierl, Schriften, vol. 2, 249 (1936). Ibid., 247–63. Ibid., vol. 2, 378 (1936). F. Beyer, Der Arbeitseinsatz in der Wehrwirtschaft (Berlin, 1936). See also Gaupp, Vorarbeiten, 46–53. For a contrary view see Rupp, Mobilizing Women, 42–8, who shows that the image of womanhood in the labor service for women was far more diverse; on the whole then, the understanding of gender roles was different between the male and the female labor service. Many studies that have focused on the labor service for the female youth attest that it, too, had a similar gender image: see, e.g., Miller-Kipp, “Erziehung,” 103–29. Rupp, Mobilizing Women, esp. 167–77.

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turn can be found generally within the National Socialist understanding of gender.166 According to this idea, a woman was “by nature physically weaker than the man,” which obliged the latter to offer “protection and support” and to display “chivalry.”167 The boundaries that this gender model erected between men and women were clearly defined and legitimated with hierarchical and essentializing concepts. Thus, the different allocation of roles merely corresponded to the alleged “nature” of the respective genders. Not only did this polar definition of the genders have its roots in old European traditions; it had also been put on a racial footing during the Empire. In this racial view it was a specific characteristic of “Aryans” to have clearly distinct categories of man and woman, whereas among the Jews, for example, these categories were blurred.168 In the publications of the Labor Service there was no room for women in politics, and they were also supposed to be pushed out of the economic sphere.169 Of course this image of womanhood did not directly correspond to Nazi policies: between 1933 and 1934, for example, the number of women in the workforce rose rather than declined.170 The ideology that was imparted to young men in the Labor Service thus did not match the regime’s actual practices. The conceptions of masculinity in the Labor Service were conveyed not only by the countermodel of the “German girl” and the demarcation of the male and female anti-type. The ideal also appeared within the context of diet, formation exercises, and physical education. Moreover, it was reflected in health education, where the service taught the basics of hygiene and disease prevention.171 Especially revealing is the attitude that Hierl’s organization took toward alcohol and nicotine. It explained to the young men that excessive, continued consumption of both drugs harmed the body.172 At least in the publications of the RAD from the late 1930s, smoking was generally depicted as a threat to manhood, for persistent consumption resulted in nervousness. Especially since World War I, that disorder was considered improper for a “real” man.173 In theory, the postulated connection between the purity of the body and the purity of character was the basis of hygiene education. Accordingly, anyone who did not pay attention to a neat appearance also had character deficits. As Robert N. Proctor has shown, the HJ and 166 167 169 170 171 172 173

I. Weyrather, Muttertag und Mutterkreuz. Der Kult um die “deutsche Mutter” im Nationalsozialismus (Frankfurt/Main, 1993), 46–8. 168 Bock, “Gleichheit,” 281f. ¨ ¨ Gonner, Spaten und Ahre, 253–5, 264f. See, e.g., Hierl, Schriften, vol. 2, 249f (1936). D. Winkler, Frauenarbeit im “Dritten Reich” (Hamburg, 1977), 42–65. See, e.g., W. Reich, “Gesundheitserziehung im Arbeitsdienst,” Gesundheit und Erziehung 47 (1934), 258–61. ¨ ¨ Gonner, Spaten und Ahre, 255–7; Henze, “Leibeserziehung,” 195. ¨ Deutschland zwischen Bismarck und Hitler J. Radkau, Das Zeitalter der Nervositat. (Munich, 1998); Mosse, Image of Man, 82–6.

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the BDM conveyed a similar message about nicotine consumption to their charges in the late 1930s and for the same reasons of racial hygiene.174 To the public and especially to concerned parents, the Labor Service promoted itself by noting that it prevented the young men from smoking and abusing alcohol, and in some camps alcohol was, indeed, served to the labor men only with special permission and under supervision.175 But the fact that in many locations it was the leadership corps in particular that consumed a lot of alcohol and thus set a negative example for the young people shows the shortcomings in the way this ideal was passed on. All in all, an article written by a troop leader in the magazine Deutscher Arbeitsdienst offers a summary of the Labor Service’s claim to be educating the labor men to this kind of masculinity. As he saw it, the conditioning of the body had the goal “of creating a Richtmann in the sense of the new state.” The word Richtmann referred to an ideal type who was supposed to combine “physical prowess and agility, toughness, strength of will, courage, decisiveness, discipline, love of order, camaraderie, and a willingness to defend and sacrifice for the Volk.”176 This was yet another summation of the qualities that the labor man and the Nazi man as such was supposed to embody. Far more frequently even than in these types of written sources, the masculine ideal of the service was conveyed in photographs and drawings that Hierl’s organization published in books, magazines, newspapers, and other outlets. These were supposed to exemplify the result of the physical conditioning in the Labor Service, for the masculine ideal found its clearest expression in the bodies of the labor men. In looking at these illustrations one is struck by the fact that the young men are usually depicted in two ways. One pictorial motif shows them in uniform, frequently during formation exercises or parades. Through its design, the uniform fulfilled the classic purpose of such dress. Identical throughout the Reich, the uniform consisted of a jacket with an open collar and long pants made of mixed cloth that was earth brown in color. There was also a brown shirt with a black ¨ tie and boots. The uniform was completed by a Spessartmutze (cap) created especially for the service; it was attributed to Hierl himself and came into use in 1934.177 In addition, a differentiated, military-like system of collar patches and epaulettes was introduced to distinguish the various ranks.178 The uniforms emphasized the shoulders, narrowed the waist, and gave the 174 175 176 177

178

Rober N. Proctor, “The Nazi War on Tobacco: Ideology, Evidence, and Possible Cancer Consequences,” Bulletin of the History of Medicine 71 (1997): 435–88. VB, March 21, 1939. ¨ P. Bahnen, “Gelandesport im deutschen Arbeitsdienst,” Dt. AD 4 (1934), 33. The service uniform was similar to the dress uniform, though it was made of lighter material and cut more loosely; see Wagner, Arbeitsdienst, 238. Unfortunately, Seifert’s study does not deal with the uniform in any detail. ¨ ¨ Gonner, Spaten und Ahre, 173, with the system of 1939.

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body as a whole an angular, strong, and athletic appearance. At the same time, the jacket and pants were closely cut and demanded, as one RAD author put it, “tight movements and a straight, upright posture.” But the uniform also seemed practical – its primary function was not decoration but functionality, which embodied a readiness for action. That latter quality is exemplified, for instance, by the open collar and the applied pockets. Above all, the uniform deprived its wearer of his individuality, especially when the labor men appeared in formation. At those times they formed the polar opposite to the unstructured, amorphous mass from which National Socialism was so eager to set itself apart. The uniform identified the young men as members of the Labor Service, especially since they had to wear the “uniform dress” during off hours outside the camp as well.179 Still, these characteristics, which marked the dress of the RAD the same way they do every uniform, could not prevent Hierl’s organization from becoming an ob¨ ject of ridicule, at least for its Spessartmutze. The name Nebelspalter (fog splitter) for this head covering was still fairly benign;180 the phrase “Arsch ¨ mit Griff” (ass with a handle), bestowed – according to Gunter Grass – on the cap because of its color and shape, could hardly have been what Hierl had in mind.181 At the party rallies, the only ones who stood out among the uniformed mass of the simple labor men were those in training at the leadership schools: they marched bare-chested.182 Through their semi-nudity they set themselves apart from the uniforms that dominated the look of the mass rallies at Nuremberg; the masculine ideal of physical strength, which is simultaneously restrained by the utmost discipline, was clearly reflected in these hand-picked, strapping young men. The depiction of bare-chested labor men was generally the second visual type found in the sources. If the many pictures in RAD publications are to be believed, the young men were scantily clad especially while at work. With striking frequency we find the members of the service depicted without a shirt and wearing work pants and boots.183 Considering the prevailing temperatures in Germany, it should be obvious what the archival documentation reveals: these pictures were not a simple “image” of everyday camp life. They were carefully selected with a propagandistic purpose and thus provide insight especially into the self-image of the service. Another striking aspect about the photos is that the young men for the most part have an athletic appearance. If one applies the three standard body types (a system not without its problems), it is apparent that there are few 179 180 181 182 183

Petersen, Erziehung, 66–8. “Tagebuch Karl Leisners im RAD,” Rundbrief 39, published by the Internationaler Karl-Leisner-Kreis (Kleve, 1999), 19. G. Grass, Cat and Mouse, trans. R. Mannheim (New York, 1963), 135. Mallebrein, Hierl, 75. ¨ On the significance of nakedness, see D. Wildmann, Begehrte Korper: Konstruktion und ¨ ¨ ¨ Inszenierung des “arischen” Mannerk orpers im “Dritten Reich” (Wurzburg, 1998).

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depictions of men with a very asthenic – that is, a long-limbed, thin – body type. There are also virtually no images of labor men with a pronounced pycnic – that is, short-limbed, squat – body type. Most of the men in the photos are of the athletic type, though they often tend to be slender rather than muscular. The young men were usually well conditioned but usually not muscle-bound model athletes, of the kind the Nazi sculptor Arno Breker liked to create, for example. The photos were thus idealizing but not unrealistic. Needless to say, no men with deformities or crippled limbs were ever shown. In addition, the men corresponded to Nazi racial ideas. Of course they were not all blond, but many were; frequently they had straight, rather severe features. For the most part they were not only handsome, but also made a healthy, indeed flawless impression. Since physical conditioning always claimed to be character education, as well, the pictures were not content to depict only the vigorous physical state of the men. After all, the transformations in character the Labor Service claimed to achieve were supposed to be reflected in the faces of the young men.184 The Labor Service was equated with an initiation that also changed the facial features of the young men for the better. Once again it was an experience to which was ascribed a transformative power. Moreover, the Labor Service, as National Socialism in general, was following an ideal of masculinity that, according to Mosse, had been taking shape since the second half of the eighteenth century. National Socialism merely placed a stronger emphasis on certain aspects of this ideal. Alongside the focus on community and racism, the preparation for a future war played an even greater role for the Nazi regime than it had in the preceding decades, even though this dimension had already gained in importance during the Wilhelminian period.185 In this way the young generation was prepared for conscription, military service, and war. Physical conditioning was supposed to increase the fitness ratio and fitness level, as well as the internal willingness to fight enthusiastically. In the process the Labor Service imparted above all a culture of service and sacrifice. Again and again, it emphasized that the body did not belong to the individual but to the Volksgemeinschaft and was to be used primarily for its interests – the cult of sacrifice and self-sacrifice played a greater role in the Labor Service than the notion of killing. That the pictorial propaganda was a strongly idealized depiction of the daily physical training in the Labor Service can be demonstrated on two levels. First, it is clearly exemplified in the written sources, as I have shown. Second, however, the images themselves occasionally call attention to this fact. This is especially apparent in the retouching that reveals alterations after the fact. One especially embarrassing example is an image in the Jahrbuch 184 185

See, e.g., R. Vater, Ein halbes Jahr – ein anderer Mensch. Ein Erlebnis in Bildern (Berlin, 1934), 19. See Eisenberg, English Sports.

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des Reichsarbeitsdienstes, in which Hierl, as a result of a failed manipulation of the picture, has three arms – which hardly corresponded to the Nazi ideal of masculinity.186 To sum up: the goal of physical training was to shape both the bodies and the character of the young men.187 The Labor Service had the task of alleviating the deficiency symptoms produced by the worldwide economic crisis, and to prepare the men for work and war. In addition, the formation exercises, in particular, taught unquestioning obedience, subordination, and general discipline, while physical education, apart from making the men stronger, also sought to instill in the young men a sense of sacrifice. The emphasis was clearly on creating men willing to take orders who could be easily activated and were physically capable, rather than forming individuals with a sense of self-responsibility. Nevertheless, the men were supposed to be able to show personal initiative within the given framework of norms. ¨ This assessment is similar to the one Arno Klonne arrived at for the HJ: both Nazi institutions, and probably many others besides, pursued the same goals.188 Moreover, the Labor Service (as well as the other institutions) had the more general task of conveying to the young men a specific notion of masculinity. This notion was also defined primarily in physical terms, but in the final analysis it, too, was supposed to produce a mature character. The medium of the educational efforts was the body of the labor men. It was the yardstick by which to measure the success of the Labor Service. In condensed form it was to exemplify the achievements of the organization in all four tasks assigned to Hierl’s institution with respect to the physical nature of those under its control: the humanitarian, economic, military, and ideological project of implanting in the labor men the racist Nazi conception of masculinity. A young man’s body thus mirrored the entire process of physical and character training he was to undergo in the Labor Service: not an inch was ignored, unmeasured, or unimproved. This fundamental disrespect of humanity emerged even more starkly in the second leg of the education program, political instruction. 3.3. “THE SCHOOL OF THE NATION”: POLITICAL INDOCTRINATION AND ORGANIZED RECREATION 3.3.1. Political Instruction and Other Forms of Indoctrination The Labor Service was not content to shape the men only at the emotional level. To a certain extent it also conveyed knowledge, especially within the 186 187 188

JB-RAD 4 (1940): 103. ¨ See also the sociopsychological interpretation in K. Theweleit, Mannerphantasien, 2 vols. (Frankfurt/Main, 1978) 2: 178–204, 260–87. ¨ Klonne, Jugend im Dritten Reich, 82–4. So far the HJ and the other institutions have not been studied with respect to their conceptions of masculinity.

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framework of “political instruction” (Staatspolitischer Unterricht). Unlike the other areas of everyday camp life, which placed primary emphasis on “experience,” this educational endeavor also employed traditional teaching methods. The young men were taught history, politics, economics, and culture, with set school hours, reviews, and assessments of the material. However, the goal was not to impart knowledge for its own sake, and the service was not interested in enhancing the men’s intellectual capacity. Instead, the purpose of the political lessons was, as Seifert put it so aptly, “to permit a rational engagement with the ideology.”189 The official purpose of these lessons was “to shape consciousness and will, to convey the knowledge of the value and necessity of community, to ground the men in the basic National Socialist concepts, and to provide the experience of National Socialist Weltanschauung.” From the perspective of the RAD, what mattered was thus the teaching not of factual knowledge, but of the “larger contexts.”190 Therefore it was not considered a success, for example, if the labor men were able to recite the party program by heart; rather, the important thing was that they believed in it. Stellrecht had already outlined some of the core elements of this instruction in the book on the Labor Service he wrote in the last days of the Weimar Republic.191 In the summer of 1933, the Reich Administration of the service created a teaching program that was supposed to go into effect in December of that year. In October, the instructors were called in for three-week-long training sessions; in the end, though, political instruction on a regular basis began a few months later than originally planned.192 As the basic text the service introduced Will Decker’s Der deutsche Weg (“The German Path”) at the end of 1933, and it was soon regarded as the “catechism of the Labor Service.” While Decker’s book was targeted primarily at the instructors, Hermann Kretzschmann’s Bausteine zum Dritten Reich (“Building Blocks of the Third Reich”), also compiled at the end of 1933, was intended chiefly for the labor men themselves.193 However, according to Kretzschmann, who was the head of the teaching division in the Reich Administration of the Labor Service and later of the Reich Schools, the “fundamental textbook” had in fact been penned by someone else: it was Hitler’s Mein Kampf.194 189 190 191 192 193

194

Seifert, Kulturarbeit, 185. Occasionally this part of the service was also called nationalpolitical instruction or education. Petersen, Erziehung, 74; in general Jonas, Verherrlichung, 187–207. Stellrecht, Deutscher Arbeitsdienst, 12–17. Compare the decree reprinted in Dt. AD 3 (1933), 384, and BA/B, R 2301/5645, Reich Administration of the Labor Service to district administrations, May 31, 1933. W. Decker, Der deutsche Weg. Ein Leitfaden zur staatspolitischen Erziehung der deutschen Jugend im Arbeitsdienst (Leipzig, 1933); H. Kretzschmann, Bausteine zum Dritten Reich. ¨ Lehr- und Lesebuch des Reichsarbeitsdienstes (Leipzig, 1933); later also Gonner, Spaten ¨ und Ahre. H. Kretzschmann, “Der staatspolitische Unterricht im Arbeitsdienst,” NSM 5 (1934): 1008.

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Starting in 1935, the lessons began with the new recruits having to write a short autobiography. It was the basis on which the freshly admitted labor men would get to know each other in the first days of service. After composing these texts, the young men, with guidance from the troop leaders, told each other the story of their lives; this biographical approach was supposed to foster an initial sense of togetherness.195 At the same time, the service leaders were to use the biographies to get a feel for the young men.196 The Reich Labor Leader himself wanted to be informed about anything out of the ordinary, and the self-composed biographies were seen as one way of identifying potential enemies and troublemakers early on. To give a revealing example: the life story written by Nicolaus Sombart was almost the perfect antithesis of Nazi expectations. His essay opened with these words: “What I am and what I know I owe to my father’s library and to my mother’s salon.” This elitist self-assessment was met with harassment from all of the section administrators – to the consternation of the young Sombart.197 Political instruction in the strict sense of the word did not begin until the third week of service. By that time, work at the job sites and the normal routine had already begun. The onset of lessons was deliberately delayed, as the young men were supposed to have gathered some initial experience in other areas of the service. The political instruction picked up on these experiences, deepened them, and placed them within larger contexts.198 In this sense, teaching was closely linked to education-by-experience and was, in the final analysis, subordinated to it. The time devoted to political instruction varied from year to year. In 1935, for example, instruction was given for thirty-five minutes on three afternoons a week. In 1938, lessons took up three hours a week during the first three months of service and four hours a week during the remaining months. The subdivision and description of the subject matter changed repeatedly between 1933 and 1945.199 At the same time, the actual implementation of the lessons was left to the individual labor districts within a rough overall plan. However, larger changes in content did not occur until World War II. With a greater focus on the work at the job sites and at the front, the lessons were increasingly narrowed to contemporary events; in 1944 they dealt exclusively with the history of the ongoing war.200 Many of the surviving duty schedules indicate that the emphasis of the lessons was on ideological instruction. In the labor district of Franconia in 1935, it took up no less than half of the hours, while Volkskunde (national 195 196 197 198 200

Petersen, Erziehung, 75f. BA/B, R 1501/5622, Protocol of the 7th Meeting of Labor District leaders, March 7–9, 1935. N. Sombart, Jugend in Berlin. 1933–1943. Ein Bericht (Frankfurt, 1991; orig. 1986), 51. 199 Schinnerer, Arbeitsgau, 27; Petersen, Erziehung, 74f. Petersen, Erziehung, 76. Jonas, Verherrlichung, 199–207.

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social studies), Heimatkunde (local social studies), and geography were more or less equally distributed among the remaining hours. Ideological instruction meant the history of the NSDAP and its Weltanschauung; according to this schedule from Franconia, four classes were devoted merely to the party program.201 This shows, contrary to the core thesis articulated by Michael Jonas in his dissertation, that the glorification of Prussia was by no means at the center of teaching, the service, or the Nazi relationship to history in general.202 That is also illustrated by the content of the history lessons, the second subsection of the curriculum. This was a teleological kind of history painted in sweeping, simplified strokes, in which the Volk and – to an even greater degree – “great men” were the crucial actors. The task of history was “to explore how the life of our Volk took shape within our geographic area on the basis of our racial composition. We then see our time as the result of ¨ a long development and recognize the starting points for our own volkisch tasks.”203 This statement already encapsulated the core elements of the Nazi ¨ vision of history: volkisch racism with its essentialization of the Volk, the narrowing of the focus to the history of the nation, and a teleological orientation toward the present. In the final analysis, this part of the curriculum was characterized by an “ahistorical relationship with history.”204 Historical figures – and to a lesser degree also the collective actor of the “Volk” – were seen first and foremost as anonymous, symbolic bearers of German power and thus as exemplars. By contrast, a deep and probing analysis of factors such as personality, the range of historical options, or historical context was not on the plan. In the end, the history lessons sought to introduce carefully chosen precursors against whose background the Third Reich was to radiate with even greater brilliance, and who acquired importance only in reference to National Socialism. This instrumental, utilitarian approach to the subject matter, which also marked other subsections of the political curriculum, was a general characteristic of National Socialism and served to legitimize and stabilize the regime. Volkskunde, the third subsection, was made up of family history (Familienkunde) and racial doctrine, including the principles of hereditary health. At the same time, racism and anti-Semitism were core ideas that ran like a thread through the other parts of the program, especially the ideological instruction. A duty schedule from 1935, for example, listed a lesson entitled 201 202

203 204

Schinnerer, Arbeitsgau, 28f. Jonas, Verherrlichung; for an opposing view see H. Mommsen, “Preußentum und Nationalsozialismus,” in W. Benz et al., eds., Der Nationalsozialismus. Studien zur Ideologie und Herrschaft (Frankfurt/Main, 1995b), 29–41. ¨ ¨ Gonner, Spaten und Ahre, 14. ¨ Zeitgeschichte F. Kroll, “Geschichte und Politik im Weltbild Hitlers,” Vierteljahrshefte fur 44 (1996): 351; see also H. Gies, Geschichtsunterrricht unter der Diktatur Hitlers (Cologne, 1992), esp. 76–98.

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“The Jew as Enemy of the German Volk.” That anti-Semitism played a central role can be seen from the mere fact that another lesson in the ideological curriculum was called “Why are we anti-Semites?”205 Contrary to what apologists claimed after 1945, anti-Semitism was a core element of education in the Labor Service.206 Anti-Semitism was also incorporated into the teaching material earlier and more thoroughly than was the case in state institutions like the schools or the Wehrmacht; in this respect, too, the institution was every bit a child of the party. However, compared to the SA, the SS, or the HJ, the emphasis within the racist worldview of the Labor Service in the first few years after the takeover of power was more on what one might call, in a value-neutral way, the positive elements of the Nazi conception of society – the chosen and select nature of the “Aryans” – than on the “fight against Jewry.”207 But if one takes the weekly paper Der Arbeitsmann, the most important instrument for indoctrinating the members of the Labor Service, as the yardstick, the RAD fell in line with the other Nazi organizations by 1937, at the latest. After this time, it relentlessly repeated a radical anti-Semitism grounded in racism. For example, in 1937, the paper reported on anti-Semitic pogroms in Poland, which were interpreted as a justified reaction against “this festering wound on its [i.e., Poland’s] national body.”208 It matters little that according to the report the violent acts were committed not by Germans, but by Poles. The goal of this and other accounts was still to promote among the labor men a radical anti-Semitism that was ready to engage in violent action. In World War II this would become a necessary – though not sufficient – condition for the genocide of the Jews of Europe. In the lessons as well as in other propaganda material, radical antiSemitism was closely linked to a virulent anti-Bolshevism. Using Der Arbeitsmann once again as a source, it becomes apparent that this also intensified after about 1937. The two images of the enemy were often merged, as one can see especially from cartoons: the depicted Soviets frequently show all the characteristics of the anti-Semitic stereotype of the Jews.209 In formal terms, the canon of subjects changed in the second half of the 1930s in that Volkskunde was now understood primarily as history, which ceased to exist as a separate subject.210 This reveals the extremely deterministic view of the past and the present, which was even more pronounced in 205 206 207

208 209 210

Schinnerer, Arbeitsgau, 28f. This was also the title of a programmatic speech that Hitler gave on August 13, 1920. ¨ See, e.g., Klabe, Arbeitsdienst, 8–13; Hierl, Dienst, 69–113. On the ideas within the SA, the SS, and the HJ, see U. Gerhardt, “Charismatische Herrschaft und Massenmord im Nationalsozialismus. Eine soziologische These zum Thema der freiwilligen Verbrechen an Juden,” Geschichte und Gesellschaft 24 (1998): 521. Arbeitsmann, July 10, 1937; a similar example in Arbeitsmann, July 23, 1938. See, e.g., Arbeitsmann, June 5, 1937; November 6, 1937. ¨ ¨ Gonner, Spaten und Ahre, 239f.

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the Labor Service than in National Socialism as such. In this view, history was primarily the product of biological circumstances.211 Finally, Heimatkunde, using as its foundation the landscape in which the respective camp was located, was supposed to teach an emotional connection to Heimat and nature, and to convey basic knowledge of folklore and anthropology, geography, and economics. The subject “Reich Labor Service,” which joined the curriculum around 1936, represented a history of the institution, and its mission was to justify the existence and necessity of the Labor Service to the men. In 1939 this subject was even given preferential status, a move that was consistent with the curriculum’s focus on experience.212 Decker’s approach thus prevailed over that of Laasch and Stellrecht, who had sought to place primary emphasis on Germanic prehistory, Prussia, peasant culture, and what was on the whole an agrarian romanticism with a fetish for Germanic motifs. Decker, by contrast, advocated a curriculum that was emphatically focused on the present, in which experience played a larger role.213 The various components of the political lessons could easily suggest that this was after all a varied and reasonably sophisticated curriculum. But in reality the service primarily conveyed slogans; it was not able to offer a coherent ideological system.214 Although all of this was typical for the mainstream of National Socialism, the Labor Service took these tendencies to an extreme. This is especially apparent in the rapid pace with which the service covered its topics: for example, when it came to Prussian history, a single hour was devoted to the period from Margrave Frederick I to King Frederick II; the subsequent lesson covered the years from the “Wars of Liberation to the Bismarckian Reich (the Second Reich).” The instruction had a little depth only when discussing the events since 1914, the history of the party, and the ideology of the NSDAP.215 But this lack of a thorough treatment of the subject matter was entirely in line with Hierl’s directives: the Reich Labor leader believed it was necessary for the service to content itself with the basics, especially since education centered on “experience” to begin with.216 Altogether, the teaching in the Labor Service was not fundamentally different from the approach used in other Nazi institutions. The primary reason for the superficial nature of the instruction was the emotional, antirational orientation that corresponded to the nature of the regime as a whole. But 211 212 213 215 216

Seifert, Kulturarbeit, 187. ¨ ¨ Gonner, Spaten und Ahre, 239; also NARA/CP, RG 242, T 81/110, Political instruction April–June 1938. 214 Lingelbach, Erziehung, 143–6. Seifert, Kulturarbeit, 428f. NARA/CP, RG 242, T 81/110, Leadership of Labor District 24 to groups and others, September 23, 1935. BA/B, R 1501/8365, Protocol of the 9th Meeting of Labor District leaders, October 18–19, 1935.

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the lack of depth had another, more specific cause in Hierl’s organization, which made the teaching here even more banal and superficial: the highly diverse educational background of the labor men, with university students and young people who had never completed the Volksschule (eighth grade) serving side by side. Had the service wanted to address the varied needs of the young men, it would have had to either give up its curriculum entirely or offer different courses depending on the prior knowledge and intellectual ability of the labor men. Such an idea, however, was anathema to the service. The uneven educational level of the men limited the effectiveness of the instruction from the outset. Still, the imparting of knowledge was intended, first, to underpin the belief in Nazi ideology with a scaffolding of facts and simple argumentative structures. Second, the lessons offered the Labor Service an opportunity to explain to the young men the importance of the work they were doing and of the shaping of the body pursued by the service; all in all, the goal of the teaching was to create meaning. Decker, in his book on the political curriculum, expressed this in a pointed way when he said it was “meaningless to move however many cubic meters of earth in the Labor Service, if not every single person standing in front of this earth knows why we are moving it.”217 The teaching was noticeably modern in its instructional methods, using not only the spoken word but also visual aids. In the later years, each section had a radio, a film projector, and an epidiascope along with the appropriate pictures and films. The sections were also furnished with maps that allowed for vivid lessons.218 In addition, it was considered to be “of the highest pedagogical value” for the young men to compile their own picture collections, build models, or make drawings. Finally, the leaders at the lower levels were continuously admonished not to merely lecture and to avoid “any kind of pedantry.” Teaching should encourage “active participation” from the men.219 The modern didactic methods thus offered many and varied incentives to absorb the content of the lessons. But it was not only the political instruction that served the goal of indoctrination in the sense I have described. Other elements also worked in this direction secondarily, especially the fifteen-minute lesson in the morning. Here the focus was on handing out the motto for each camp. With this practice, the service was following Christian traditions, the Youth Movement, and the system of military passwords. In 1935–6, the Reich Administration published a systematic canon of passwords in two volumes. The introduction pointed to the function that passwords had had since time immemorial. Whoever knew them “is one of us and belongs to our community. Whoever does not hear the password or does not want to hear 217 219

218 Petersen, Erziehung, 78; Kretzschmann, “Unterricht,” 1007. Decker, Weg, 10. NARA/CP, RG 242, T 81/110, Leadership of Labor District 24 to groups and others, September 23, 1935.

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belongs to the outsiders, the enemies.” Each section chose a password of the day that was briefly explained during the morning lesson. If the schedule called for political instruction in the afternoon, its content had to relate to the password and elaborate upon what was briefly introduced in the morning.220 Michael Jonas devoted a substantial portion of his dissertation to yet another element that was part of this educational concept: the honorary names of the Labor Service sections, introduced in 1935–6 at the initiative of the Reich Administration of the Labor Service. With this naming practice the service was following military traditions that were applied under National Socialism to the RAD and the divisions of the Waffen SS; no other Nazi institution had such an elaborate ritual of honorary names. Some names are reminiscent of German landscapes and regions, though most refer to individuals from the Nazi canon of heroes in politics and culture. Names like Frederick II or Bismarck were used more than once. Interestingly, there is no evidence that the male fraternity of the Labor Service commemorated a single woman. As Jonas has shown, the largest group of honored individuals from a political background came from the period after 1914; once again, as was the case in the political instruction, the emphasis was on the direct connection with the regime. The honorary names were also selected on the basis of regional considerations. The ceremonies on the occasion of a naming, with representatives from politics and society in the region, offered a special opportunity to establish a direct link between a camp and the geography and history of its environs; in this case, as well, Nazi ideology was to be conveyed through experience. But as Jonas has also revealed, the memory of the “patron saints” was often poorly cultivated in the sections. That is also reflected in the fact that only 35 percent of the approximately three-hundred former labor men he interviewed remembered the honorary name of their section. Judging from this data, the potential for an effective education offered by the granting of the names was poorly used.221 All this raises the broader question of the degree to which daily life in the camps corresponded to the plans for political instruction on paper. Serious problems in the implementation of the educational program occurred especially in the first few years. The delayed introduction of the lesson plan, which was not ready until 1934, was one of the minor problems. Much more important were the difficulties the service encountered in finding qualified leaders to teach. The previously mentioned survey of thirteen Labor Service districts concerning the service of Gymnasium graduates in the summer 220 221

¨ Berendt, Manner und Taten, 1, quote p. 3; see also Schinnerer, Arbeitsgau, 27–30. Jonas, Verherrlichung, 216–42, 268–5. Thus, his own findings relativize his thesis of the special importance that was attached to the glorification of Prussia, on the one hand, and of the great pedagogical significance of the honorary names, on the other.

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half-year of 1933 had harsh things to say about many leaders, especially with regard to their pedagogical qualifications. For example, the following comment appears in the survey concerning the political instruction: “In spite of good directives in the plan, instruction is bad. Teaching leaders have no idea what to do with the topics provided.” Although the situation was not equally dismal in all districts, this assessment does reflect the tenor of the reports.222 In some locations these kinds of problems persisted into the following summer, a situation that the labor leader Paul Seipp, in his 1934 dissertation, attributed to the fact that while the higher and midlevel leaders met the National Socialist criteria at the time, the same was not true for the lower echelons: on this level, with which the labor men had direct contact, the replacement process had not yet been completed. As a result, in some sections political instruction was only given if the weather was bad, and the content of the teaching was frequently not very persuasive.223 These difficulties fit perfectly with the initial problems of the service, which resulted in its radical reorganization in 1933. The “school of the nation” tried to counter the pedagogical problems by using “auxiliary instructors”: simple labor men who often knew a good deal more than the leaders, namely Gymnasium graduates and students. Officially the section leader was supposed to conduct the political instruction – one indication of the high expectations attached to the educational program.224 However, given all the demands on his time, the section leader was often unable to conduct classes in the appropriate way. Even the addition of “auxiliary instructors” was not enough to close the gap. In 1934, Seipp deplored the fact that these instructors were used far too infrequently – incompetent or overburdened section leaders were evidently reluctant to call on subordinates for help.225 The following year, 1935, Hierl initiated a change of direction at a meeting of leaders: henceforth the service should try to do without auxiliary instructors if possible and let the actual leaders do the teaching. The Reich Labor Leader criticized the fact that the assistants had often been exempted from all service duties, a situation that ran counter to the ideal of equality and to the goal of exerting complete control over all members of the troop. Still, Hierl was forced to concede that many of the regular leaders were still not up to the requirements of teaching.226 A year later Hierl still had to admit that the leadership corps was “not everywhere firmly in the saddle.”227 The political instruction thus posed a problem that stayed with the service far beyond the initial phase. We 222 223 224 225 226 227

BA/B, R 1501/5102, RMI, Protocol of negotiations, September 21, 1933. Seipp, Formung, 81–5. BA/B, R 1501/5622, Stamm to Reich Ministry of the Interior, March 11, 1935. Seipp, Formung, 81–5. BA/B, R 1501/5622, Protocol of the 7th Meeting of Labor District leaders, March 7–9, 1935. BA/B, R 2301/5653, Protocol of the 10th Meeting of Labor District leaders, February 8–9, 1936.

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learn this also from many different reports by labor men about the lessons, which often give poor marks to the leaders who did the teaching. Not all went so far as to speak of the “idiotic lectures by an Unterbann cripple [a ¨ play on the SS-rank of Unterbannfuhrer]” – though many clearly felt that the lessons held little appeal.228 Given these problems in the way the material was conveyed, the modern teaching aids like films or radio broadcasts offered a chance to offset the shortcomings of the teaching staff – without, of course, being able to make up for them entirely. Moreover, the political instruction was not underpinned by a clear didactic concept. According to Decker, one teacher “would be at his best in a lecture, while another, whose presentation would be tiresome, is able to stimulate the utmost interest of everyone in study groups.” On the whole, Decker went on to say, political instruction was a task that had to be accomplished without a set scheme.229 This didactic flexibility, which seems more like license to do anything given the inexperienced leaders, was thus another reason for the serious problems afflicting the implementation of the lesson plans. But the success of the political indoctrination was limited by a number of factors other than the incompetence of the leaders, the heterogeneous profile of the men, and the startup problems in the first few years after the takeover of power. The size of the groups was one of these factors. The lessons were frequently given to the entire section, and since it comprised up to 180 men, the effect could not be very profound. Another problem was the fact that political instruction took place in the late afternoon, when the men, after a long day of work, were hardly able to absorb anything new. Moreover, the weekly time set aside for the classes, three to four hours, was rather short.230 Finally, the short service period was not compatible with the pedagogical pretensions. Even the most general contexts could hardly be conveyed in the six months that the labor men were part of the institution after 1935. From the perspective of the RAD, it was thus perfectly sensible and rational to keep insisting on a longer term of service.231 Still, the Reich Labor Leader was constantly pointing to the importance of political indoctrination. As with physical training, the chief argumentative strategy that Hierl employed was to expose the shortcomings in the young men: against this backdrop, the pedagogical mission of the service was to appear unassailable. The already-mentioned reports about the condition of Germany’s youth addressed not only their physical state but in even greater detail their intellectual abilities, knowledge, and political attitudes; according to one report, the RAD offered a “complete and unvarnished 228 229 230

Berichte Neu Beginnen, 463. W. Decker, “Staatspolitische Erziehung im Arbeitsdienst,” NSM 5 (1934), 987–9. 231 See also Hansen, “Erziehungsideal,” 69f. Petersen, Erziehung, 75–80.

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picture of the mental and physical condition of today’s youth that has finished school.”232 On the whole the extant reports paint a disastrous picture. For example, the assessment of the first half-year cohort of labor conscripts, which Hierl sent to Hitler and others in early 1936, came to the conclusion that the “mental receptivity” of the young men was “on average extremely limited.” In addition, reports were coming in from throughout the Reich that the “majority of labor men” were lacking “even the most basic academic knowledge.” Above all, the familiarity with politics and the extent to which the ideology of the regime had permeated their thinking left much to be desired: The prior educational background and the extent of the influence in political terms preceding the Labor Service is utterly inadequate. In some cases, the level of immaturity and inexperience is shocking, especially among the labor men from rural areas. Many have barely studied the historical events after 1918; when it comes to the events of the last three years, most have only vague ideas; an alarmingly large number knows very little about the National Socialist view of life . . . The nadir of prior political education is exemplified by the relatively numerous cases in which the newly arriving labor men did not recognize the pictures of National Socialist leaders, ¨ in fact, not even the picture of the Fuhrer himself, or when it was barely possible to come up with the names of the best known National Socialist pioneers in an entire section (150 men!).

According to Hierl, the level of education was especially inadequate in purely Catholic regions. Simultaneously, as a result of the “harmful effect of political Catholicism,” many labor men of this confession were not receptive to National Socialism. These young men were “very inhibited” and had to be “loosened up” first. The only bright spot identified by the report were the “good intentions” of the cohort and its “eager effort to live up to all that was asked of them.” The comments closed with the demand that in view of the catastrophic state of affairs, the service period should be extended beyond the intended half-year.233 As I have already discussed in connection with the physical training, the function of this report and others like it was to justify the existence and pretensions of the service to the political decision-making elite of the regime. This situation report was not an isolated case. As late as the end of 1937, Hierl expressed similar sentiments to Darr´e, for example.234 Moreover, a detailed survey among the labor men of Labor District X (Lower Silesia) in the summer of 1935 revealed similar findings. For instance, a question about famous generals of World War I drew many “absurd” answers; overall, when 232 233 234

BA/B, R 1501/5102, Labor District X, Report of the survey of March 11, 1935. Ibid., Reich Labor Leader, Experiences with the first half-year cohort 1915, January 18, 1936. Landersatz referred to labor men from rural areas. Ibid., Hierl and Darr´e, December 21, 1937.

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it came to the political-historical questions, 23.3 percent of the young men answered them poorly or not at all, 43.9 percent gave mediocre answers, and only 30.8 percent did well. Once again, some of the responses by the young men pointed to political nonconformism: for example, the answers to the question of “who was the world enemy under Jewish leadership” included “Musolini [sic], fascism, and Adolf Hitler.”235 These kinds of responses were found primarily in purely Catholic regions, where, the survey claimed, school knowledge was especially low and the percentage of illiterates higher than average. Even if these reports undoubtedly reflected in part the actual experiences in the camps, their purpose was primarily one of legitimizing the service. As it did in the area of physical training, the Labor Service was using them to assert its claims against potential rivals that were targeting the youth with a similar pedagogical mission and competing for the same resources. The RAD tried to draw very sharp lines of separation between itself and these rivals. Hierl’s organization presented its pedagogical goal, and especially its political education, as unique, not only in the power struggles within the elite, but also to the public. These elements supposedly set the Labor Service fundamentally apart from institutions such as the Wehrmacht. The wellknown Nazi journalist Gunter d’Alquen, for example, explained that the educational work of the military was “deliberately apolitical.” By contrast, the “ideological-political preparatory training” of the Labor Service was therefore the necessary prerequisite for military conscription. It was only here that a young man learned “why and to what end he will be a soldier one day!”236 In actuality, though, such distinctions became less and less valid, since the Wehrmacht, guided by the model of the “political soldier,” engaged increasingly in educational work in the National Socialist sense. On the whole, the military, beginning in the fall of 1933 and then increasingly so after January 1936, took its place in a chain of educational institutions that shaped and influenced the German population and especially the male youth in keeping with National Socialist intentions. The Labor Service also displays no unique profile with respect to the educational materials used by other Nazi organizations. The topics and propositions were very similar in a whole ring of institutions: whether these were party organizations like the SA or the SS, affiliated organizations like the DAF, or classic educational institutions like the schools or the military. Moreover, this ring was continuously expanded. In each case character training, using content molded along Nazi lines, was dominant; frequently, and especially in the case of the Wehrmacht, the educational material was created in cooperation with other educational institutions. In sum, the goal of education in each instance was to shape the 235 236

Ibid., Labor District X, Report of the survey of March 11, 1935. VB, June 6, 1935; similar, Seipp, Formung, 132–40.

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“new German man.”237 In view of these overlapping missions, it became more and more important especially for the Labor Service to justify why it was laying claim to the time of young men – an economically increasingly scarce resource – in pursuit of its educational goals. This competitive environment also explains why the Labor Service repeatedly pointed out in its reports that education in other Nazi institutions was having very little effect. The report about the first half-year cohort of 1935 noted that “even SA and SS men . . . are politically untrained.”238 This finding was not quantified in any detail – the force of the argument lay precisely in the vagueness of its assertion. As late as 1938, the Labor Service emphasized in a similar report that the Hitler Youth had left no lasting, positive impact on the male youth.239 Yet the Labor Service itself provided no sources that systematically recorded and evaluated in a similar form the educational accomplishments of the service period. Instead of such quantitative sources, all we have are scattered, qualitative statements. As a result, one is reduced to speculating as to whether the service was able to change the foundation of factual knowledge, and especially the political convictions of the young men. In view of the short term of service and the problems the institutions had organizing political indoctrination, the success is not likely to have been compelling. Still, since the service was embedded within a host of institutions working toward a similar goal, it did contribute to ideologizing Germany’s youth. On the systemic level, however, it is possible to describe the success of the educational program in much more precise terms. Hierl evidently succeeded in convincing Hitler repeatedly that the Labor Service was necessary as the ¨ “school of the nation”; for example, the Fuhrer himself took note “with great interest” of the above-mentioned report about the half-year cohort of 1935.240 Hitler’s backing became clear in the initial plans for the introduction of labor conscription in 1933, and again in 1935, when the dictator brushed aside opposition from industry, the military, and segments of the top echelons of the state and the party. Hitler supported Hierl also in the following years, turning down suggestions to dissolve the service or have ¨ it absorbed by other organizations. The chief argument the Fuhrer used to justify the need for the Labor Service and its independence was its pedagogical mission: the political indoctrination and its function as the “cradle of the Volksgemeinschaft” were close to his heart. In actuality, though, Hierl’s organization fulfilled these tasks to an ever shrinking degree: in the face of 237

238 239 240

¨ M. Messerschmidt, “Bildung und Erziehung im ‘zivilen’ und militarischen System des ¨ ¨ NS-Staates,” in Militargeschichtliches Forschungsamt, ed., Militargeschichte. ProblemeThesen-Wege (Stuttgart, 1982), 190–214. BA/B, R 1501/5102, Reich Labor Leader, Experiences with the first half-year cohort 1915, January 18, 1936. BA/F, MFB 1/SF-01/16218, Hierl to Himmler, February 10, 1938, and appendix. BA/B, R 43 II/518, Note Reich Chancellery, April 3, 1936.

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the increasingly intensive construction work and the military deployment (of which more later), the time set aside for education was reduced to a minimum, and in many sections political instruction ceased entirely during World War II.241 Yet faith in the educational and formative effect of regular work persisted. More important still was the fact that the RAD, in spite of ¨ all its shortcomings, continued to enjoy the Fuhrer’s support. The dictator’s good will was still evident, for example, in the middle of 1944 and again in the fall of that year, when he emphasized that, for pedagogical reasons, “all German men and women . . . should pass through the school of the Reich Labor Service if at all possible.”242 Time and again Hierl was able to win Hitler over to the service – even if the everyday reality of the camps and the achievements in the area of education were often more modest than the dictator was given to believe. In the end the successful efforts at persuading Hitler were the primary reason behind the institutional survival of the Labor Service. The greatest achievement of the organization between 1933 and ¨ 1945 was thus concealing its shortcomings to the Fuhrer while at the same time highlighting its alleged accomplishments. 3.3.2. The Organization of Recreation as a Form of Educational Control The shortcomings of the instruction in the camps were moderated by the fact that other elements of the daily schedule directly supported its pedagogical effect. That was even more true of organized recreation than of the morning lesson, where problems with the qualifications and skills of the leaders were the same as those that bedeviled the political instruction in the afternoon, or the honorary names. Wolfgang Seifert devoted his dissertation to a comprehensive, exhaustive study of organized leisure time. He has shown that it was not merely an apolitical appendix but an integral part of the educational program. It was especially closely related to the political instruction: in both cases the service had a direct pedagogical effect, whereas that effect was only indirect in the case of the actual work or the order of the camps. And unlike the political instruction, which could be dry and dull, the evening hours were supposed to exert their pedagogical effect in an entertaining form.243 Twice a week all men spent their evening leisure hours together under the supervision of the section leader; on two other evenings they were organized into “interest groups” under the guidance of a special leader for recreational activities. Participation in these programs was once again obligatory. In singing and music, handicrafts, or theater, precedence was thus always given to group performance.244 By contrast, individual contributions 241 242 243

Jonas, Verherrlichung, 203–7. BA/B, R 43 II/520a, Bormann to Lammers, May 6, 1944; BA/B, NS 6/351, esp. Bormann to Reich and District leaders, August 23, 1944. 244 Petersen, Erziehung, 92. Seifert, Kulturarbeit.

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that could not be set within a larger context were suppressed. One example is singing, which allowed no room for soloists in order to maintain the homogeneity of the group.245 The everyday organization of leisure time was characterized by the regular, always similar, controlled group collaboration of the young men inside the camp. I will single out the puppet plays for a closer look; this seemingly innocuous activity reveals the basic political intentions behind the recreational program. As Seifert has shown, the puppet play was as highly regarded and widespread in the Labor Service as it was in National Socialism as a whole – evidently it did not conflict with the Nazi ideal of masculinity. The labor men fashioned the finger puppets themselves and put on their own, contemporary National Socialist, and traditional plays. Generally they were improvised plays based on a rough sketch, not a fully written out text. Moreover, the performance style was interactive, since the plot was driven by reactions from the audience. In this sense, the plays demanded a certain improvisational talent from the puppeteers. We know from Seifert that until 1937 the plays followed the traditional setup: the antagonist to Punch was the robber or the devil, for example. Beginning in 1938, other, specifically National Socialist characters were added, like the Jew, the grumbler, and the petty bourgeois. In these plays, Punch was certainly allowed to engage in pranks and start fights, but on the whole he represented a positive figure of identification that was supposed to embody the “healthy feeling of the Volk.” In this scheme, the only role left for Punch’s antagonist was that of absolute evil. These kinds of plays were published by the Reich Institute for Puppetry in Stuttgart, and the RAD used them and others like them. For example, during World War II, an aggressive, antiEnglish play was performed, in which Punch was confronted by Churchill and Chamberlain; ironically, that put Punch in the role of Hitler. The play ended with Punch defeating his two enemies, who – as the high point of the play – were devoured by the classic crocodile puppet. It is obvious how much the seemingly innocent puppet play reproduced the social ideas and the ideology of National Socialism. It picked up on performance practices that were found in the labor movement prior to 1933, and then did everything in its power to cover up these links. The pieces written by the labor men themselves were also political in content and often presented episodes from daily life in the camp. In this case, the labor men could draw directly on their own experience, both as performers and audience; education by experience reached a high point since the experimental theater reenacted the experience of the Labor Service – even more, it ordered and interpreted it.246 245 246

The following discussion is based on Seifert, Kulturarbeit, 189–311; a basic source is Berendt and Kretzschmann, Feierabendgestaltung. See, e.g., VB, December 3, 1937.

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These plays were performed not only for the labor men, but also in the communities surrounding the labor camps. This points to two other functions the leisure activities were supposed to have, apart from educating the young men: first, they should influence the general population. The camps were seen as one possible way of bringing National Socialism closer to the rural population. Second, the service was to make a contribution to the revival of folk culture. The plays the Labor Service put on for men were targeted at the adults in the surrounding communities, while the Labor Service for women also put on performances for children. Seifert is entirely correct in seeing the puppet play as a thoroughly ideologized propaganda tool aimed not only at the labor men, but at the population as a whole.247 Similar tasks were attached to other elements of organized recreational activities – be it handicrafts, singing, or the beautification of the camp; some, like hiking, had the additional goal of promoting a closeness to nature. The Labor Service was consistently committed to an approach that emphasized amateur culture based on a reductionist notion of what was natural. This in turn limited the aesthetic, the materials, and the range of activities, committing them to plainness and artless simplicity. In the Labor Service this conception of culture was justified with historical and racist arguments: one stayed with the “tried-and-true” and a canonical Germanic culture that was in fact a mix of existing and invented traditions. At the same time, the reductionism was well suited to the budgetary constraints of the service in the first years after 1933. Once again, the group experience was at the center of activities, which is why the service disapproved of individual activities. As was the case with the puppet plays, the intent was not simply to bring the labor men together. This part of the daily schedule was also intended to have an impact on the outside world: varied evening entertainment – where the children of the surrounding communities were given presents of the handicrafts fashioned by the labor men – had a propagandistic purpose: they were supposed to promote the population’s acceptance of the Labor Service and of National Socialism.248 Especially in border regions we find sections that adopted specific villages: joint celebrations had the explicit task “of strengthening German culture [Deutschtum] and making it into a possession that can never be lost.”249 This goal of ethnic policy was one crucial reason why camps were increasingly located in border regions after 1937.250 Lastly, planned recreation had the goal of influencing the way in which the young men would spend their leisure time in the future. Similar to the way in 247 248 249 250

Seifert, Kulturarbeit, 285–96; Berendt and Kretzschmann, Feierabendgestaltung, 39f. W. Faaz, ed., Reichsarbeitsdienst. Sein Wollen, Sein Erfolg (Mainz, 1935), 30f. T. Scheller, “Der Feierabend und seine Auswirkungen im Reichsarbeitsdienst,” JB-RAD 1 (1936), 87–9. BA/B, R 1501/5607, Report from the Reich Ministry of the Interior regarding support for border regions, no date [1938].

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which the Nazi recreational organization Kraft durch Freude (KDF, Strength through Joy) was supposed to teach the workers ways to use their free time “sensibly,” the Labor Service was to accomplish the same for its men.251 Hierl couched this task in the following terms: “What arises here from the creative spirit of a new youth under the leadership of experienced men is intended to displace Jewish poison and patriotic kitsch from our national taste, and to create new national forms of culture.”252 That was why, in the final analysis, “the culture of our people of tomorrow” was to arise in the Labor Service.253 This “culture-creating” mission was not able to develop fully, however. Cultural work never became a third, equal leg alongside work and education. As a consequence, recreational planning remained primarily “the extended arm of education” or a control mechanism.254 In fact, Hierl openly said as much, calling the evening leisure hours “an indispensable supplement to political instruction for the purpose of National Socialist education.”255 This supportive role of recreational activities went so far that the conduct of the labor men during these hours, as well, became the basis for their evaluation. In 1935, for example, the Reich Student Organization let it be known that behavior during the recreational activities in the Labor Service would be part of the assessment of the young men, and would help decide whether a Gymnasium graduate was a suitable candidate for university enrollment.256 In that sense, what Sophie Scholl, a member of the famous resistance group “Weiße Rose,” wrote about her time in the Labor Service for women also applies to its counterpart for men: “We live as prisoners, so to speak, since not only the work, but recreation too is turned into service.”257 Even areas of recreation where one might have expected to find niches that were less controlled and thoroughly supervised were completely absorbed into the concept of supervision and education. Reading, for example, was one of the few activities that did not take place in a group and thus had the potential of offering the young men greater leeway with regard to the organization of time and the pace and manner in which the experiences were digested. But the service systematically limited this potential. This is evident, first of all, in the holdings of the camp libraries. The books they stocked were naturally oriented toward the National Socialist canon. For example, a list from 1934 detailed the periodicals that were to be procured for the camp libraries. For the 216 men of a section, the list calls for two copies 251 253 255 256 257

252 Hierl, Schriften, vol. 2, 362–9 (1935), quote p. 368. Petersen, Erziehung, 92. 254 Seifert, Kulturarbeit, 189–311, quotes pp. 195, 171. Scheller, Feierabend, 89. Hierl, Schriften, vol. 2, 245–8 (1936), quote p. 247. BA/B, R 4901/890, Reich Student Organization (Reichsstudentenwerk) to Reich Administration of the Labor Service, July 5, 1935. H. Vinke, Das kurze Leben der Sophie Scholl (Ravensburg, 1980), 82.

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¨ of the Volkischer Beobachter, two local papers, two copies of Deutsche Wehr (a rather sophisticated weekly journal of defense policy), two other magazines, one camp newspaper, and one copy of Deutscher Arbeitsdienst, the leadership journal of the organization.258 This procurement list changed little in subsequent years. It was made up of party newspapers, professional journals on teaching and recreation, and periodicals that prepared the young men for military service and life as a soldier.259 The actual holdings of books were drawn from a variety of sources. Apart from gifts from the NSDAP or third parties, the majority of the books were procured by the service itself. Needless to say, in the early phase the books taken over from the Weimar FAD were purged according to political criteria; book burnings took place also in the camps of the Labor Service.260 On the whole, the Reich Administration supervised the buildup of the holdings and guided it from above. The Verordnungsblatt der Reichsleitung (Decrees of the Reich Administration) mirrors that process perfectly: every book approved for the Labor Service is listed here. The book lists, which together comprised many dozens of titles, corresponded in their basic tenor to that of the magazines and newspapers; the only difference is that more room was given to entertainment.261 Still, here too the principle was that next to instructions for official use, the focus was on political indoctrination and war preparation. But it was not only the canon of available readings that placed severe constraints on the ability of the young men to strike out on their own in this area of the recreational program. Lack of time was an even more important reason why labor men interested in reading were barely able to make use of the library. And that was the case even though this was by far the most popular form of recreation, at least according to a regional survey in 1935.262 Complaints of too little leisure time to be able to pick up a book were already voiced by many labor men during the half-year service in 1933; a survey by Jonas of former members of the RAD of various cohorts produced the same finding.263 The persistent problems in this area indicate that the service was overextended. The claim to be offering a finely tuned recreational program, advanced by the service itself, fell increasingly short in view of the rising 258 259 260 261 262 263

BA/B, R 2301/5658, Reich Administration of the Labor Service, budget proposal, no date [spring 1934]. BA/B, R 2301/5659, Reich Labor Leader to section leaders, May 6, 1935; BA/B, R 2301/5660, Note Audit Office of the German Reich, April 30, 1936. Jonas, Verherrlichung, 198f. ¨ Berendt, Manner und Taten, 58–62; Verordnungsblatt, Reich Labor Service, for example the list of December 22, 1937. BA/B, R 1501/5102, Labor District X, Report of the survey of March 11, 1935. Ibid., Reich Ministry of the Interior, protocol of negotiations, September 21, 1933; Jonas, Verherrlichung, 199.

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demands on the labor output of the service; as a result, at the end of the 1930s, the elaborate system of leisure time activities came under growing pressure. This development, as well, reached its high point and conclusion during World War II. That is revealed by an interview that Hierl gave to ¨ the Volkischer Beobachter after the campaign against Poland. According to his comments, organized recreation had been suspended entirely in the East during the weeks of war; the Reich Labor Leader now declared: “If a lot of work is being done, I consider plenty of sleep the best form of recreation.”264 However, this problem would not challenge the organization of evening activities in a fundamental way until World War II. During peacetime, handicrafts, reading, or theater, which usually concluded the days in the camp, were joined by “one-time celebrations.” Most important were the party rallies in Nuremberg, since they involved special preparations and travel.265 In addition, a host of one-time celebrations were held, most of which were derived from the National Socialist calendar: Heroes Memorial Day in March; May 1, restyled into the National Holiday; Summer Solstice; and November 9, a day of remembrance for “those who have died for the movement.” These holidays were observed either with the surrounding population or by the sections alone in their camp.266 Outside of this schedule there were also festive occasions specific to the Labor Service, for example the completion of a portion of a work project or the awarding of an honorary name to a section. As I have discussed in greater detail elsewhere,267 these celebrations, especially, served to invoke a collective identity. By that I mean the identification of individuals with each other, the imparting of the notion that everyone was equal or just like everyone else.268 Like National Socialism as a whole, the service sought, when it came to essential identity-creating factors like political attitude, economic class, religious affiliation, membership in a generation, regional identity, notions of gender, and social standing, to replace prior identifications with a new sense of “we.” Political ideas that ran counter to the regime were completely suppressed, if possible, as were religious ties. A consciousness of regional identity was accepted, though only ¨ if it was defined in volkisch terms and was ultimately tied to the concept of a 264 265

266

267 268

VB, November 19, 1939. K. K. Patel, “‘Die Schule der Nation.’ Der Arbeitsdienst des ‘Dritten Reiches’ als Instrument ¨ der nationalsozialistischen Identitatspolitik,” in W. Rammert et al., eds., Kollektive Iden¨ titaten und kulturelle Innovationen. Ethnologische, soziologische und historische Studien (Leipzig, 2001), 309–11. ¨ Schein Petersen, Erziehung, 93; on the calender of events in general see P. Reichel, Der schone des Dritten Reiches. Faszination und Gewalt des Faschismus (Frankfurt/Main, 1993b), 209– 21. Patel, “Schule,” 301–16. For a summary discussion, see S. N. Eisenstadt and B. Giesen, “The Construction of Col¨ ¨ Soziologie 36 (1995), 72–102. lective Identity,” Europaisches Archiv fur

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Volksgemeinschaft embracing all regions. Economic class differences and the resulting social inequality were not actively opposed; instead, they were obscured chiefly by empty rhetorical phrases like that of the “Aryan notion of the blessing and nobility of labor.”269 In addition, an activity was regarded as valuable only if it had a connection to the community. Masculinity was to be defined primarily in physical terms, and in a society dominated by men, it was supposed to strengthen discipline and all the other qualities useful to a war of annihilation under racist premises. Finally, within the context of a cult of youth, the labor men were to see themselves as the first cohort in a chain of generations that would completely realize the National Socialist ideas about society. At the end of this redefinition of identity thus stood a ¨ conception that was defined in volkisch and racist terms and was bound to a system of inclusion and exclusion; a notion of social harmony that had no room for an orderly exchange of opinions and for pluralism; a promise of equality that was more symbolic than real social policy; and, finally, a generational experience that was glorified by analogy to the community of the trenches in World War I. This concept of identity was primordial because it referred to what were supposedly original and immutable characteristics that were not open to question and fraught with value judgments – especially race and gender.270 At the same time, exclusion was a constitutive element of this identity construct, since the image of the Jew combined all characteristics of the type considered antithetical to the Labor Service and National Socialism in general. AntiSemitism pervaded the instruction, and, as I have shown, it also influenced the organization of the Labor Service, as Jews were in principle kept out. Education was joined by a primarily anti-Semitic and, in the final analysis, generally racist system of inclusion and exclusion. A crossing of the boundary from the outside to the inside was not possible; that is to say, Jews had no chance of being admitted. But the reverse – exclusion – certainly existed in the case of serious misconduct and other kinds of nonconformity; education, above all else, was a means of making that determination. In such instances, however, exclusion was often justified on the grounds of “racial inferiority.” Yet the service drew lines of separation not only in one direction, that is, ` vis-a-vis an anti-type. In the “male society” of the Labor Service, a specific image of woman – that is, a counter-type of the “Aryan woman” – had a negative community-forming effect: only men were found in the camps. That was in no way changed by the expansion of the women’s Labor Service in 1939, since the camp systems for the two sexes always remained separate. In this case, as in the case of the antitype, the distinction was given a primordial justification, namely the supposedly “natural” difference between 269 270

Hierl, Schriften, vol. 2, 29–49 (1931–2), quote p. 38. According to Eisenstadt and Giesen, “Construction,” a conception of identity is primordial if it is linked to seemingly original, unquestionable, and essentializing distinctions.

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“Aryan” men and women. Additional, secondary criteria were added, such as physical wholeness. As with the attitude toward the Jews, we can see that the formation of community took place not only symbolically, but was communicated through social differentiation and general socioeconomic and political participation and distribution. Of course these two processes were not correlated, for on many questions the regime’s social policy did not necessarily follow its construction and rhetoric of identity. For example, the promise of equality did not mean that henceforth all forms of work – with the exception of time spent in the Labor Service – would receive equal pay, and that social differences between classes and groups would be eliminated through radical political interventions. Nevertheless, the regime did pursue a deliberate policy of identity that was supposed to convey to the Volksgenossen a sense of togetherness. This policy was part of the effort by the Nazis to secure the approval of the population, since the Third Reich, as a plebiscitarian dictatorship, based itself not only on terror but also on the consent of the Germans. At the same time, this was one way to implant Nazi ideology. Needless to say, these were not ideas advocated solely by the Nazis and thus imposed on the population from outside; instead, many had their roots in the history of German and European ideas. Finally, one must ask what effects the identity policy of the Labor Service, which was closely linked to all its other educational missions, had on the men. In trying to come up with an answer, one must note, first, that the identity-shaping program I have presented so far could be implemented only partially. The service failed to live up to its self-proclaimed goals on all levels. In reality, the time schedule was by no means as rigid as the guidelines from the Reich Administration of the service in Berlin demanded. The educational claim, to which the mission of identity policy was closely related, had to be scaled back in the wake of the accelerated war preparations at the end of the 1930s; I will discuss this further in connection with the practical work of the service. In addition, it could be realized only in part as a result of the already discussed organizational and structural problems. At the same time, the effect was reduced by the short term of service. Six months of labor service are unlikely to have exerted a profound influence on the men.271 Second, the six years of peace in the Third Reich were not long enough to bring about sweeping changes of attitude among a large segment of the population. Granted, the total number of three million men who passed through the Labor Service is substantial, but even this was only a fraction of the total population. Third, the effect was also weakened by the fact that discipline played such a prominent role. It taught the men to subordinate themselves unconditionally and to follow orders. Needless to say, this also influenced their identity. Autobiographical sources show that this was a primary reason 271

¨ Patel, “Lager,” 103f.; Kohler, Arbeitsdienst, 250–68.

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why some labor men rejected the service.272 Even those who were receptive to the service and its goals highlighted the importance of this factor.273 All in all, disciplining was thus a core aspect of the program of identity formation. In this way the members of the service became a “community of discipline,” characterized chiefly by a willingness to subordinate themselves and by a corresponding work ethic. It is quite difficult to state in general terms to what extent the service was able to shape and implant a collective identity. Any assessment is also rendered more difficult by the fact that it is impossible to isolate the influence of this one institution of socialization. Like all other educational establishments, the Labor Service had the mission of turning Germans into Volksgenossen and German society into a Volksgemeinschaft. While this feeling of “we” was also communicated by other means, for example through the media, the Labor Service, because of its closeness to the regime and its extensive possibilities of bringing influence to bear, was one of the most important of these pedagogical forces. At the same time, it was typical of the regime that it did not rely on just one institution in pursuit of such a goal. Instead, the various organizations allowed for repeated initiation experiences that were supposed to promote the inclusion of the next generation into the Volksgemeinschaft. The concatenation of influences with a similar effect was a positive factor in the attempt to impart a collective identity. At least equally important was the fact that the ideas of National Socialism were able to draw on notions and ways of thinking that were already widely diffused in the German population prior to 1933 – be it nationalism, anti-Semitism, authoritarian thought patterns, or a specific definition of gender. The National Socialist dictatorship combined and radicalized these and other notions, but it did not recast them entirely. This circumstance, and the interlinking of influences exerting a similar effect, were promising factors in the attempt to shape a collective identity. If the writings of labor men and memoirs are to be believed, the service was fairly successful in one area: it did in fact help to diminish the arrogance of class and social position as well as general social prejudices among the labor men. The shared labor and the shared life of Germans of the most diverse backgrounds constituted an intense form of contact, which at least put the existing notions about other social classes under the microscope. Of course there are also reminiscences in which the primary tenor is the confirmation of existing prejudices; still, no small number of labor men emphasized that the social interaction with others expanded their own horizon.274 Needless 272 273 274

See Ditfurth, Innenansichten, 134–41; Eppler, Wahrheit, 130–3; Sombart, Jugend, 51f.; Hausmann, “Heranwachsen,” 607–18. ¨ See Seipp, Formung; Klabe, Arbeitsdienst. See, e.g., the numerous (in part also critical) impressions of labor men collected by Seipp, Formung; in addition, see, for instance, “Tagebuch Karl Leisners,” 55; USHMM, RG 02106, Askevold manuscript and Ditfurth, Innenansichten, 134–41, according to whom the sense of togetherness spanning the social classes was created by the shared opposition to the RAD.

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to say, this rudimentary realization of a new sense of community excluded all those who were supposed to be “expunged.” If one sees modernization as the expansion of rights and opportunities as well as a dismantling of prejudices that includes all members of a society, it is therefore not possible to see the Labor Service as a modernizing institution. But that was not, in any case, a yardstick by which the Labor Service would want to be measured – which is also true of National Socialism in general.275 On the whole, though, the Labor Service played an important role in the identity politics of the Third Reich. The Volksgemeinschaft was to be symbolically expressed and constructed by its practical work, but also by the education it imparted, and not least by its festivities and celebrations. To be sure, when it came to political indoctrination, the Labor Service fell short of its own goals owing to a variety of problems. All the greater, however, was its contribution to creating unconditional discipline among the men. If scholarship has repeatedly noted that large segments of male youth and of young adults in Germany had a positive attitude toward National Socialism and its promises of community, at least until the turning point of the war at Stalingrad in 1942–3,276 one reason for this was the regime’s identity politics. Of course the Reich Labor Service for men was only a small cog in this machinery – but it provides a partial explanation for the high degree of acceptance that the Nazi regime could rely on throughout most of the years it existed.277 The educational program of the Labor Service was put to the acid test of pedagogical practice not in the area of education itself, however, but by the shortage of time that was available for this task. It was increasingly restricted in favor of work as the other goal of the service. But before I examine the problems this created, I will take a look at education in the CCC.

3.4. EDUCATION IN THE CIVILIAN CONSERVATION CORPS When it comes to education in the Civilian Conservation Corps, we are even less able than in the case of the German Labor Service to define a binding educational theory; the CCC was too much a hastily established, flexible job-creation measure for it to have had a well thought-out pedagogical mission. Rather, the initial intent was merely to educate the young men through work.278 That explains why there was talk of an educational effect but not yet of an explicit pedagogical dimension, let alone an

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276 277 278

On this see N. Frei, “Wie modern war der Nationalsozialismus?” Geschichte und Gesellschaft 19 (1993): 380–7. For an opposing view see R. Zitelmann, Hitler. Selbst¨ ¨ 3rd ed. (Stuttgart, 1990), 205–27. verstandnis eines Revolutionars, ¨ See, e.g., Klonne, Jugend, 228f. On the reasons behind the loyalty of the Germans see also Wendt, Deutschland, 655–7. ECW 1934a, esp. p. 10.

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educational theory, when the Corps was established in the early summer of 1933.279 As a result, a systematic educational program was added to the CCC only after the institution had already been set up for some months. The initiative came from W. Frank Persons, the director of selection. As early as the middle of May 1933, he presented Fechner with an ambitious pedagogical concept for the Corps. For even though no exact statistics existed in the first years on the educational level of the enrollees and especially the extent of illiteracy, it was already clear in 1933 that many young men had shockingly little general knowledge and few everyday skills.280 Spontaneously and without coordination, some camps had therefore introduced courses as early as the summer of 1933. Fechner, however, had little enthusiasm for Persons’s initiative, and the army initially rejected it. The military was concerned that “long-haired men and short-haired women” – meaning, educators – would upset camp discipline. No less neurotic was the fear of subversive activities by leftist extremists and the apprehension on the part of the army and Fechner that they would have to relinquish some of their authority.281 Yet Persons would soon gain the support of the Federal Commissioner of Education, George F. Zook, who, in personal conversations, was able to get Roosevelt interested in such a project. Willing or not, Fechner and the army had to go along now, but they were able to win important concessions. The concept itself was worked out by Zook’s Office of Education, which was part of the Department of the Interior, and the participating agencies agreed that Clarence S. Marsh, a renowned educator, should head the educational program. But the implementation was entrusted to the nine Army Corps Commanders, each of whom was assisted by an advisor chosen by the Office of Education. The same plan was established at the camp level, and it guaranteed, in the end, that the control of the army was secure.282 Given the outstanding importance of the military in the organization of the CCC, this compromise was a pragmatic solution. It demonstrates that education in the CCC was inserted into existing power structures only after the fact.283 However, because of the military’s opposition, the consequence for the pedagogical program was that the educational initiative was slow to take shape.284 The pedagogical ideas that existed in this phase of the CCC are compiled in an official handbook aimed at educators. The abstract goal was to prepare the young men for working life and to turn them into “citizens better equipped 279 280 281 282 283

Herlihy, “Comparison,” 25–33. ECW 1934a; later in more detail Aydelott, “Facts”; J. B. Griffing, Resume of the DouglasAllen Claremont Survey of the CCC Educational Program (San Francisco, 1936). Quoted in Salmond, Corps, 48. See Herlihy, “Comparison,” esp. 44–54; Salmond, Corps, 47–50. 284 Hill, School, 11–21. Herlihy, “Comparison,” 55.

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mentally and morally for their duties as such and with a better knowledge of the Government under which they live, and of all that that Government means.” These basic considerations avoided defining a vision of humanity or other core values, but proceeded pragmatically to the chief goals that were to be achieved. Thus, the “self-expression, self-entertainment, and self-culture” of the men was to be raised as much as the ability to integrate oneself into a group. In addition, the educational program had the mission of explaining to them the social and economic state of affairs in America, “to the end that each man may cooperate intelligently in improving these conditions.” The social deportment and health of the volunteers was to be improved as much as the knowledge and skills that would qualify them for a job. Lastly, the Corps was also charged with kindling a love of nature and acquainting the young men with life in the countryside.285 All of these ideas can be assigned to the progressive education movement. This pedagogical school, whose best known proponent was John Dewey (1859–1952), believed in the curiosity and interest of pupils and employed a method of pragmatic and practical experimentation to prepare individuals for their role as responsible members of society.286 Marsh took this position as well. In this pedagogical concept, education meant imparting academic knowledge, shaping the body, vocational training, and political instruction. The influence of progressive education also explains why voluntary participation, flexibility in the choice of courses, the absence of a grading system, and an orientation toward the needs of the enrollees were core elements of the project.287 But the success of these followers of the progressive education movement in no way ended the struggle over the direction of the educational program. Many professional educators, not least Marsh himself, had plans that were more far-reaching still. They were eager to use the CCC as an experimental field and a starting point for new forms of teaching in all educational institutions.288 The left-liberal magazine The New Republic, for instance, hailed the fact that one corps area had roundtable discussions on basic issues, such as the future of the family. As a result, the young men had arrived at the conclusion that “the old-fashioned family is no longer needed in American life.”289 Such statements made the American mainstream, and even more so the army with its conservative values, see red. For, unlike the professional educators, Fechner, the military, but also Roosevelt himself believed it was sufficient to train the youth in practical vocations and to teach them values 285 286 288 289

Secretary of War 1934, 1, 3f.; on this see esp. Herlihy, “Comparison,” 59–62. The handbook was published by the War Department but put together by the Office of Education. 287 HD, November 24, 1934. Stieglitz, Percent, 61–3. See, e.g., Aydelott, “Facts”; F. W. Persons, “Human Resources and the Civilian Conservation Corps,” Phi Delta Kappan 19 (1937): 323–5. Mitchell, “Roosevelt’s Tree Army,” 127–9, quote p. 128.

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like subordination and discipline.290 The two camps could agree only that the Corps should serve the goal of character-building, that is to say, the young men should learn self-discipline in the camps and be prepared for the requirements of the working world. Beginning in 1935, Fechner and the army, who usually had the president on their side, were increasingly able to gain the upper hand. A clear sign of the changing environment was Marsh’s resignation in the summer of 1935; time and again, his budget requests and reform ideas had been thwarted by Fechner.291 His successor Howard Oxley, appointed in July of that year, continued the conflict in the following years, but he, too, was unable to prevent the authoritarian change of course. A new textbook for the teaching staff of the CCC, compiled in 1935 by the Office of Education but reflecting the line of Fechner and the army, stated accordingly: “Teaching is the process of controlling, directing, or managing the thinking of the student so that he will be able to do and to understand the thing which you plan to teach him.”292 The time of experiments and of an open educational concept was thus over. That was also reflected by the choice of the didactic methods. Teaching was no longer based on the ideals of the progressive education movement, but on Herbartian pedagogical principles: the educational program was barely oriented toward the needs of the volunteers, who were, instead, reduced to the role of passive recipients.293 Now it was the teachers who stood at the center of the didactic thinking, which placed greater stock in external discipline and control and no longer in the “comradeship in the quest of knowledge” between teachers and students, which had still been talked about as late as 1934.294 Before turning to the question of how the conceptual quarrels over direction were reflected in the educational program, I will examine how the American labor service ordered space and time in the camps.295 The influence of the army was also felt in this area; the fact that it was the only institution in 1933 that was capable of mobilizing the CCC would have profound consequences for the physical appearance of the camps. The camps of the CCC were of the closed type, since they looked after the young men not only during the actual work period, but around the clock. Apart from pragmatic necessities, of which I will say more shortly, this setup was intended to provide the most comprehensive help possible to an especially needy segment of the population. Persons, for example, 290 291 292 293 294

See, e.g., HD, November 24, 1934. On the conflict, which was otherwise played down in public, see Mitchell, “Roosevelt’s Tree Army,” 127–9; for an apologetic perspective on the Army see Johnson, Corps, 140f. Office of Education 1935, 3. Herlihy, “Comparison,” 68–93; Herlihy also briefly describes the pedagogical school based on the ideas of Johann Friedrich Herbart (1776–1841). 295 See also Patel, “Lager,” 93–116. MLR 39 (1934): 375–7.

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illustration 9. Layout of a typical CCC camp. Source: Samuel F. Harby, A Study of Education in the Civilian Conservation Corps of the Second Corps Area (Ann Arbor, MI, 1938), 24.

stated: “For the period of camp service, an enrollee’s life is completely bound up with his camp. It is for him a complete community.”296 As was the case in Germany, the size of the sections, and thus of the camps of the CCC, was standardized; this made the units and camps uniform and easily monitored. A normal company in 1933 was composed of two hundred volunteers plus their leaders. In later years the target size was occasionally changed, but it always remained centrally regulated and largely standardized. Unlike in the German Labor Service, however, uniformity was occasionally abandoned in the name of efficiency. In addition to the actual company camps, there were also side camps: up to 10 percent of a unit could be housed there. They were not supervised by the military but by the agency in charge of a specific work project; residents returned to their unit camps, and thus to the control of the army, only on weekends. This allowed the completion of smaller projects where the deployment of an entire section would not have made sense.297 The American service was therefore more strongly focused on the criteria of work productivity than its German counterpart. The building type was initially very different from that in the RAD. The first units of the Corps in 1933 were housed in tents, which was entirely in keeping with the improvised character of the agency. In August of that year, Roosevelt decided to continue the Corps beyond the originally 296 297

Persons, “Human Resources,” 325. NARA/CP, RG 35/2, Advisory Council, July 19, 1933.

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approved period of six months. Now it made sense to discuss permanent accommodations, and the first solid wooden buildings appeared as early as the end of 1933. Beginning in 1934, the CCC experimented in some areas with portable barracks, and from 1936 on only this type was used.298 Much like in Germany, the building type that prevailed was the most efficient one due to its mobility and low cost. The setup of the camps corresponded essentially to that of military barracks. The four or five wooden barrack buildings that usually constituted a camp in later years, along with the administrative buildings, formed a “U” shape or framed a rectangular space.299 Transparency and the ability to maintain good control over the camp went hand in hand; the space was divided into lots and segmented. The army did not draw up any new plans of how to arrange the buildings on site, relying simply on its tried-and-true models. Moreover, given the low population density across wide stretches of the United States, it was inevitable that many units would be located in remote areas.300 By virtue of camp form and building type, layout and geographic location, the camps allowed for a highly controlling and disciplining hold over the individuals housed in them. The decisive reason why the camps took this form in 1933 was one of practical necessity. Only the military in the United States was at that time in a position to erect a camp system of this size very rapidly – and only if it was allowed to operate in familiar ways. Therefore, the layout and appearance of the camps were nearly identical to the arrangement that existed in the military organizations. But practical reasons are not the sole explanation for this outcome. At the height of the Great Depression in the winter of 1932–3, large segments of the population in the United States feared an increase in political extremism and crime,301 which is why officers carried arms in the early phase of the camps.302 Thus, practical considerations alone do not explain why the camps of the CCC allowed for such a high degree of oversight over the young men: control, discipline, and normalization were certainly desired goals. A study of the camps at the level below the units brings us to a similar conclusion. As was the case in Germany, living and working communities formed at this level, though, as I will discuss in more detail later, they were far less static and less hierarchical than those in the RAD. But even here punishment was to some extent imposed collectively. Officers made excessive use of their authority to punish, especially in the first few years. Time and again, they responded to strikes or mutinies with mass dismissals 298 299 301 302

NARA/CP, RG 35/2, Advisory Council, October 4, 1934; Otis, Forest Service, 71–80. 300 ECW 1934b, 5. Otis, Forest Service, 72. Pandiani, “Crime,” 348–58; Killigrew, “Impact,” 284–8. Herlihy, “Comparison,” 74.

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without following the legal procedure called for in these situations.303 The semi-military disciplinary authority of the officers, which was always downplayed in public,304 thus corresponded largely to the organization of space along military lines. This parallel was modified by the fact that the Corps accorded greater importance to peer pressure than did its German counterpart.305 Some American camp commanders explicitly promoted the sense of personal responsibility of the camp inmates. In these cases the young men participated formally in the camp organization. Enrollees accused of minor transgressions were tried in “kangaroo courts” run by the men themselves. This system functioned well in some camps, in others it led to abuses.306 Still, some units had a say in camp administration, which relativized and in some instances even breached the strict, hierarchical control mechanisms put in place by the spatial organization of the camps. But that was in no way true of all camps – it all depended on the personality of the commanding officer. One can note that the spatial camp arrangement made collective disciplining possible, and that this was desired, especially at the outset. There was a minimum consensus among the American public that this was one of the functions the Corps should fulfill. Yet the way it was implemented varied from one camp to the next, which means that no consistent finding emerges. It is clear, however, that the spatial structure of the camp accustomed the men to military order and thus to a specific form of discipline. The grouping of the buildings, the strict separation of men and officers, the clear external demarcation of the camp space, and other elements differed little from the camp organization in the military itself, which in turn can be explained largely by the history of how the CCC came into being. Finally, the geographic location of the camps corresponded with the idea of exposing the young men to nature. Contact with nature was to renew the frontier experience under twentieth-century conditions. About forty years after the end of the westward expansion of the United States, a process to which the historian Frederick Jackson Turner accorded such great importance in the formation of the American mentality, the men were to kindle in themselves the mythical pioneer spirit in the remote camps. They were to be won over to a simple, hard life on the land, a notion that reflected the kind of agrarian romanticism embodied not least by President Roosevelt himself. On the whole, the effort to heighten the young men’s appreciation of nature was one of the educational missions of the CCC, and it was directly 303 304 305 306

See, e.g., NARA/CP, RG 35/3.4, Department of War to Fechner, June 14, 1935. Killigrew, “Impact,” 322–30. N. H. Dearborn, “Educational Opportunity for Enrollees,” Phi Delta Kappan 19 (1937): 301. Harper, Administration, 44f.

268

“Citizens,” Volksgenossen, and Soldiers chart 5. Daily Schedule in the CCC 6:00 a.m. 6:30 6:45 7:00 7:45 12:00 4:00 p.m. until 5:00 5:00 5:30 after 6:00 10:00

Reveille, washing, bed-making Morning exercises Breakfast Morning roll call Departure for work Lunch in the field Return from work Free time Flag parade/roll call Dinner Evening classes in various subjects Lights out

promoted by the selection of campsites. At the same time, the glorification of the frontier and of work in nature conveyed the CCC’s ideal of masculinity, which was based on physical strength and ruggedness.307 The remote locations also prevented the Corps from taking job opportunities away from the local unemployed, and to that extent an isolated site was desirable also from the perspective of economic policy. All in all, the spatial arrangement of the camps allowed the Civilian Conservation Corps a complete hold over the young men. The question of whether this potential was used and how it related to the educational ideal will be discussed further when I look at the ordering of time and the day-to-day life in the camps. It is clear, however, that the camps accustomed the enrollees to a military life, which further reinforced the dimension of disciplining and control. Moreover, the often isolated location not only reflected practical and labor policy considerations, it also correlated with the pedagogical mission of the CCC to promote a specific ideal of nature and masculinity. The order of time was also thoroughly organized in the American labor service, as we can see from the daily schedule (see Chart 5).308 Weekends were free, unless it was necessary to make up on Saturday for work missed during the week because of inclement weather or other adverse conditions. Moreover, the young men could be deployed at any time for emergencies. Under normal circumstances, though, Saturday had recreational and educational offerings, and Sundays were off. 307

308

Stieglitz, Percent, 184–201; O. Stieglitz, “Generation,” 403–29. On the frontier idea, see F. J. Turner, “The Significance of the Frontier in American History,” in his The Frontier in American History (Norwalk, 1988; orig. 1920), 1–38. Harper, Administration, 51; Salmond, Corps, 137–42. The daily schedule is given with slight variations in the various accounts, although the basic structure is always the same.

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The schedule, however, was much more flexible than that of the RAD. For example, with approval from the camp commander, the young men in some locations were allowed to spend the night outside the camp. Also, enrollees were not always required to participate in the evening activities after 6:00. Instead, nearly the entire educational program in the evenings was voluntary, which sets the CCC fundamentally apart from the RAD. The American service thus provided its members opportunities to withdraw from the collective space and to process their experiences individually. It also allowed for a certain degree of individuality, since the young men were able to choose from a range of offerings; the strict integration into groups was modified by this freedom of choice. In addition, the camps were less rigidly closed off from the outside than were those in Germany. Churches in particular had institutionalized forms of access: Protestant, Catholic, and also Jewish clergy conducted services (usually ecumenical) and were integrated into the recreational program.309 Attendance at church was voluntary, though some enrollees found that “it was usually a little difficult to avoid it.”310 The closed, self-contained nature of the camps was also opened up by the fact that many courses in the evening program were taught by residents of the surrounding communities. And since the teaching staff included many women, the character of the Corps as a male society was weakened.311 There was one direction, though, in which the freedom of the young men was severely restricted when it came to contact with the outside world. Officers prohibited any kind of Communist influence and responded with harsh sanctions. Moreover, justified, objective criticism by the volunteers of shortcomings and problems in the camps – for example with respect to the food supply – were not infrequently denounced as Communist infiltration and punished with mass dismissals.312 The sensitivity of the Corps in this regard is also revealed by the fact that many regular reports about conditions in the camps had a separate entry for Communist activities.313 Over and above these constraints, the authoritarian line that gained in influence in the CCC especially after 1935 restricted some of the free choices for the hours after 6:00 p.m. Thus, it would be wrong to assume that 309 310

311 312

313

A. J. Brasted, Character Building Agencies (Fort Leavenworth, 1936). H. M. Walker, The CCC Through the Eyes of 272 Boys. A Summary of a Group Study of the Reactions of 272 Cleveland Boys to their Experience in the Civilian Conservation Corps (Cleveland, 1938), 50; this dimension is missing in Maher, More than Trees, 198–209. Hill, School, 22–8. NARA/CP, RG 35/2, Procedural Manuals, Box 2, Forest Service Handbook, 127; NARA/CP, RG 35/3.4, Camp Inspection Reports, e.g., Adjutant General’s Office to Fechner, June 14, 1935; NYHT, January 10, 1935. See NARA/CP, RG 35/3.4, Camp Inspection Reports, e.g., Alabama, SP-3, October 24, 1936; California, P-298, February 18, 1936; Minnesota, F-23, October 10, 1935. This fear did not decline until the second half of the 1930s.

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participation in the educational and recreational activities was unconditionally voluntary. The camp personnel encouraged the men to attend the courses, and occasionally backed up their encouragement with gentle pressure.314 How authoritarian the implementation of the educational program was depended once again on the actual camp administrators. In this regard, as well, the experience was not uniform. The Corps was also ambivalent when it came to the question to what extent the structuring of time in the camps referred back to the military. The synchronization and coordination of the various components reveals the borrowings from the schedule of the modern military, as does the flag parade, for example. But the Corps itself always emphasized its civilian character – its name already proclaimed as much. Moreover, the educational program that was part of the daily schedule did not include any weapons training, and paramilitary elements like marching or drills were long forbidden. Even when a consensus had emerged within American society that it would make sense, in the face of the threat of war in Europe, to give the men basic military training, Fechner and Roosevelt always shied away, while the army repeatedly called for it. The militarization of the Corps at the end of the 1930s was a very slow process, and the potential for rehearsing elements of the military life that was inherent in the camp setup was not fully utilized. At the same time, leading representatives of the CCC reiterated time and again that the enrollees had already acquired the most important values of a soldier through their service period – even without paramilitary elements.315 This argument, however, was used primarily to oppose the introduction of military training.316 On this issue, as well, the United States in the end did not decide on a clear course, which had to do with the complex question of the American attitude toward military service and toward a possible participation in a war overseas. By contrast, the daily schedule clearly reflects the idea of promoting, through contact with nature, an ideal of masculinity oriented toward the pioneering spirit and physical strength. As was the case in the RAD, the work was performed principally outdoors, and many of the training and recreational activities were also closely related to nature. All in all, the practice of the Corps with respect to the spatial and temporal order of the camps was ambivalent and very much depended on the camp commander. He could decide in how hierarchical a manner he wished to run his camp – it was mainly up to him how closely a camp approximated the model of the “total camp.” With respect to education, the camp setup 314 315

316

See Hill, School, 23–8; Stieglitz, Percent, 143–7. Hearings 1939, 9; on the complicated history of the paramilitary exercises and their meaning in American society of the 1920s and 1930s, see A. A. Ekirch, The Civilian and the Military (New York, 1956), 217–33. Salmond, Corps, 116–20, 193–9.

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was in part deliberate and in part the result of practical exigencies. Its total potential was not fully used, but by the same token the Corps did not clearly come out in favor of the ideal of autonomous, fully enfranchised, and equal citizens in a democracy. That is reflected above all in the discriminatory treatment of African Americans within the CCC. The shortcomings of the agency were related not least to the dominance of the military: this sector of the American society stood for values that were shaped more strongly by authority, discipline, and subordination than was true for society as a whole. As the director of the CCC, Fechner embodied ideas that were closer to the traditions and values of the military than to society in general, let alone to the reform-minded New Dealers. At the same time, however, the rather traditional tendencies were always controlled by the broader sociopolitical system. The influence of society at large explains why the Corps made only partial use of the total, disciplinary hold over the young men, and why there were also approaches that educated the enrollees into independent and responsible adults. The importance of discipline is thus evident in the setup and organization of the camps. The acid test came in pedagogical practice, which can be subdivided into the areas of physical conditioning, vocational training, academic instruction, and additional recreational offerings. The American labor service also had the mission of strengthening and shaping the bodies of the volunteers. The CCC’s cult of the body was expressed, for example, in the official report for 1940: “The tanned, healthy, well-muscled men who are discharged from the Corps at the end of their enrollment are in marked contrast to the pale, oft-times stoop-shouldered, undernourished youths who replace them in the camps.”317 The CCC was depicted as almost an agency of transformation that remedied physical defects of every kind. In part the positive effect was attributed to the good diet during the service period. The Corps reported the weight gain produced by the diet as evidence of its success:318 after all, in the face of the Great Depression, many young people in the United States were suffering from an inadequate diet and malnutrition. The labor service therefore had a social welfare and humanitarian mission: it was part of the expansion of the American welfare state that had existed only in rudimentary form on a national level prior to 1933 and was substantially advanced by the New Deal.319 However, the exuberant praise for the quantity and quality of the food as a promotional strategy could also have the opposite effect. As Michael Sherraden has shown in his dissertation, the diet was the most important 317 319

318 For example HD, June 24, 1933. CCC 1940, 8. Given the dire straits in which large segments of the population in the United States found themselves, the comments by Stieglitz, Percent, 187, are too critical.

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criterion for how satisfied the men were – in both a positive and a negative sense.320 Inadequate or poor-quality food repeatedly led to unrest that could turn into strikes by entire camps. The reactions of the officers reveal their disciplinary harshness in its purest form. As I have already mentioned, they frequently imposed collective punishment and often dismissed volunteers on the spot without a hearing or a legal process.321 More important still than diet for the shaping of the body was the hard work the young men engaged in for nearly eight hours a day; it will be discussed in greater detail in Chapter 4. But even the remaining hours after 6:00 p.m., a time that was in principle at the disposal of the enrollees, had many offerings that tended in this direction, especially athletics, which were explicitly promoted by the CCC. All camps offered such activities: in 1942, 90 percent of the camps had their own sports field, in addition to which the facilities of the surrounding communities were frequently used.322 A survey of enrollees in 1935 showed that sports were by far the most popular pastime.323 Unlike the German labor service, the CCC furthered not only broad athletic ability but also exceptional talent. Not a few of the volunteers saw the teams of the various companies as a possible entry into a career as professional athletes and thus a chance for social advancement. At the same time, the CCC was a recruiting field for professional teams. However, this also led to complaints that the existing facilities in some camps were being monopolized by a few select enrollees.324 Physical conditioning was also the purpose behind the brief morning exercises. These calisthenics warmed the men up for the work ahead and loosened their muscles and joints, which was supposed to help counterbalance one-sided stress. The disciplining effect of physical conditioning, meanwhile, became particularly evident in August 1941, when the Corps, after years of discussions and a few months prior to being dissolved, introduced a fifteenminute, military-like drill that was similar to the German formation exercises. Now the volunteers also learned marching and drilling, ostensibly merely as a supplement to “the basic health and physical training programs,” but in fact with an eye toward the growing likelihood of America’s entry into the war.325 Yet some units had been intensively drilled even before this. For example, a few select companies paraded on the occasion of Roosevelt’s second inauguration festivities and were trained for the event.326 Moreover, marching and drilling also took place in the conditioning camps that 320 321 322 323 324 325 326

Sherraden, “Corps,” 117–78, esp. 152–5. For example NYT, January 9, 1935; CT, January 16, 1935. K. Holland and F. E. Hill, Youth in the CCC (Washington, D.C., 1942), 203. Griffing, Resume, 22; also, N. H. Dearborn, Once in a Lifetime. A Guide to the CCC Camp (New York, 1936), 39. For example, HD, August 24, 1933; Holland and Hill, Youth, 203–5. On the discussion of the military drill, see Chapter 3 of this book. NARA/CP, RG 35/2, Advisory Council, January 8, 1937.

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illustration 10. “In all Camps fifteen minutes of ‘setting up exercises’ are given the first thing in the morning.” Source: The CCC at Work: A Story of 2,500,000 Young Men (Washington, D.C., 1941), 27.

preceded the actual service period in the CCC.327 Yet the late introduction of a universal drill, and the long and heated discussion preceding it, show how controversial this element was and how long Roosevelt and Fechner opposed it. As a result, military discipline was not especially pronounced in the CCC; only discipline in the general sense of a relationship of subordination was one of the missions that the agency pursued consistently throughout its existence. Accordingly, the goal of physical conditioning was less a preparation for war than a general disciplining. Simultaneously, the service was to accustom the enrollees to the working world. While in Germany the disciplining function in this regard tended to be concealed, in the United States, because 327

J. Lasswell, “Shovels and Guns. The CCC in Action,” Social Work Today 4 (1935), 11; R. Hoyt, “We can take it”: A Short Story of the CCC (New York, 1935), 51–63.

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of a different conception of work, it was openly expressed. The young men were told that the Corps would improve their chances in the job market not only through the vocational training it provided, but also through the strengthening, ordering, and normalizing effect it had on the enrollees. One report about the CCC noted with pride that many employers were speaking positively about the CCC boys’ “steadiness, promptness, and capacity to carry out orders.”328 Moreover, McEntee praised the Corps in 1940 for adjusting its training program directly to the needs of industry.329 Still, the conditioning also made a contribution to war preparations, even if the government, unlike the army, always downplayed this aspect. But many men who served as soldiers in World War II saw their time in the CCC as good preparation for the military; according to one former volunteer, they were used to life in the barracks and to discipline.330 According to statements by the CCC, the third element that ensured the physical well-being of the young men, aside from good food and the conditioning through work and recreation, was camp hygiene. It was carefully controlled, and the men had to pay painstaking attention to personal cleanliness and order. In many companies, alcohol consumption was grounds for dismissal. In general, the Corps led a fight against disease of every kind, not least venereal diseases. In the process, the CCC placed greater weight on deterrence than education, which means that one can confirm the primacy of discipline in this area, as well.331 If one asks about the success of the effort to improve the physical health of the young men, it is difficult to provide a generalized answer in the case of the CCC. The varying length of the service period, the different backgrounds of enrollees when they joined the Corps, and nonuniform conditions in the more than 1,000 CCC camps over a total period of nearly ten years do not allow it. On the whole, however, diet, work, and living conditions are likely to have had an invigorating effect; the weight gain is as much a clear indicator of this as the disease and mortality rates, which were noticeably lower than those found in the army or among all young men of this age cohort.332 Against the background of the cult of the body, it is not so surprising that the American labor service, as well, had the mission of conveying a specific notion of masculinity to the young men. As Olaf Stieglitz has shown, the 328 329 330 331 332

Holland and Hill, Youth, 241. J. J. McEntee, “The CCC and National Defense,” American Forests 46 (1940a): 309. Uys, Rails, 233; E. G. Hill, In the Shadow of the Mountain: The Spirit of the CCC (Pullman, Wash., 1990), 136. Hill, School, 75; ECW 1936, 10–13; on the whole, Stieglitz, Percent, 187–92; Gorham, “Practices,” 229–49. Holland and Hill, Youth, 194. Mortality rates were carefully tracked; see CCC 1939, 21. The CCC also kept precise statistics on all other issues, for example weight gain.

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service reacted not only to the unsettling changes in the traditional gender definition caused by the Great Depression, but also more broadly to a slow erosion of traditional gender images. The ideal propagated by the CCC defined masculinity physically by way of bodily strength and health, though linked at the same time to virtues such as moral steadfastness, courage, concentration, an attachment to nature, presence of mind, and a willingness to sacrifice. It was conveyed chiefly through pictures and drawings showing the young men bare-chested or in military-like uniforms that accentuated the shape of the body.333 The canon of values corresponded to that of the middle class of the late nineteenth century, though it was now joined by qualities such as toughness, aggressiveness, and violence, which were simultaneously to be tamed by the moral ideas. At the same time, these characteristics were linked to the frontier myth. An exemplary expression of this attitude is found in a letter to the editor in the New York Times: “Our lost frontier is found again . . . Manhood is being built up in the open by the old struggle against nature.”334 In this way the period of service was stylized into a male rite of initiation, best expressed when James McEntee entitled a 1940 book on the CCC Now They Are Men.335 The most visible expression of this process was to be the strong and healthy body of the enrollees; it was, as Stieglitz has aptly described it, the “signifier of the success of the CCC.”336 As an antitype it was juxtaposed to the image of the weak, deformed, and stooped city person, and on a moral level primarily to the criminal. The Corps always emphasized that it was neither a reformatory nor a prison, that the harsh conditions were not punishment but a challenge to prove oneself. A pronounced racist element is not found in the ideal of masculinity, even though it is striking how seldom the depictions of the ideal volunteer show African Americans or members of other racial minorities. According to this “weak” racism, the representative enrollee was a young white male. The goal was a disciplined personality, which was to embody not least secondary virtues like orderliness, cleanliness, and discipline. As Stieglitz has shown, the CCC simultaneously conveyed a conservative image of family and woman’s role in society. Thus, the positive female countertype to the CCC boy was very different from the bold females who visited dance halls, who were depicted to the enrollees as promiscuous, morally inferior, and unworthy of a real man.337

333

334 335 336 337

Stieglitz, Percent, 184–201; Stieglitz, “Generation,” 403–29; more recently with a differentiation between “black” and “white” masculinities, Stieglitz, “Black,” 60–80; by contrast, too uncritical is the account of Maher, More than Trees, 186–97. NYT, June 4, 1933. J. McEntee, Now They Are Men. The Story of the CCC (Washington, D.C., 1940b). Stieglitz, Percent, 185; Stieglitz, “Black,” 60–80; on “black” masculinity, Suzik, “Building Better Men,” 111–33. Hill, School, 9; Stieglitz, Percent, 190–201.

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Yet the main mission explicitly pursued by the CCC lay in a different area: educating and training the young men in a multitude of subjects. The most important branch was vocational training, which was supposed to improve their chances in the job market. Many of the evening courses offered in the leisure hours after 6:00 p.m. were directly related to the work the young men were engaged in during the day. As a rule, these courses lasted three months, after which time they were frequently continued at an advanced level; however, there were also shorter units.338 The targeted vocational training supplemented the skills the young men learned on the job, and after 1937 it was promoted more deliberately.339 The actual vocational classes had already been offered since the early summer of 1933 by members of the technical services and the army.340 Beginning in 1934, the system of courses was expanded and now administered by the educational advisors. In addition to these advisors, and alongside the personnel of the CCC, courses were also offered by teachers and other qualified individuals from the surrounding communities or the enrollees themselves. The palette of evening courses, encompassing vocational classes as well as sport, school, and university classes or art lessons, was dominated by handicraft activities and profession-oriented courses. In 1935, the latter made up 40 percent of the total number of courses, in the following years that ratio settled at the even higher rate of around 50 percent – that corresponded to the position taken by the army and Fechner, though less so to the intentions of professional educators.341 The program fanned out into hundreds of different courses, including, for example, road building, forestry, car repair, cooking, administration, and technical drawing.342 Of course most volunteers, given their level of prior training, were not fully qualified for a specific vocation at the end of the course. Still, they could be employed as semiskilled workers, occasionally even as foremen. Most men were not looking for much more in any case. A survey in 1935 reveals that not a single enrollee in a group of around four hundred expected to enter into a profession immediately following the period of service; asked what kind of work they expected to be pursuing ten years hence, only 12 percent indicated an academic profession, another 15 percent mentioned a higher vocation, while the majority saw their future as farmers or laborers.343 In contrast to the official statistics, which concealed such differences, numerous oral history sources reveal that the vocational training program was not entirely free of discrimination. While the courses offered to African Americans were largely identical to those in “white” camps, segregated 338 339 341 342

H. W. Oxley, Education in Civilian Conservation Corps Camps (Washington, D.C., 1936), 8. 340 See, e.g., ECW 1934b, 7. CCC 1942, 6f. Hill, School, 45; ECW 1936, 20; CCC 1938, 26; CCC 1939, 47. 343 Hill, School, 42–50. Dearborn, Lifetime, 51–121.

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camps for African Americans had a higher than average number on cooking and serving – less qualified work traditionally regarded as “Negro jobs.” Given the widespread racism among the American population, this bias was undoubtedly discriminatory, but it was not groundless: otherwise African Americans would have qualified for jobs in which they had little hope of being placed.344 To that extent it would be wrong to hold the CCC solely responsible for a problem that concerned society as a whole: still, the Corps reproduced existing structures of inequality through its educational system, and it can be reproached for not trying more actively to eliminate them. With vocational training, the CCC assumed part of the task that usually falls to private enterprise: the service not only improved the employability of the young men, it simultaneously freed companies from the cost-intensive task of training workers. It is doubtful, however, whether the CCC did indeed succeed in improving the chances of the enrollees in the job market, even if there were, in addition to the job training, placement offers by the camps and institutionalized contacts with local businesses.345 According to a survey of around 90,000 enrollees in 1934, only 20 percent found work after leaving the Corps; a statistic in 1935 that surveyed three age cohorts came up with an average of 28 percent.346 Oral history sources confirm that many men perceived it in much the same way in retrospect. The vocational training, they felt, had provided little help; what had been valuable was the experience of simply having work.347 These findings cannot be attributed primarily to shortcomings of the CCC, but to the poor economic situation in the first years of the New Deal. Still, the ratio of unemployed among the CCC boys was noticeably higher than the average for the population as a whole: participation in the Corps was thus not able to eliminate the disadvantages the men brought with them as a result of their age and social background.348 This modifies substantially the importance of the training program. No such numbers exist for the last years prior to America’s entry into the war. However, since the CCC, in the face of the accelerating war economy, had problems finding volunteers after 1941,349 it is likely that most of the former volunteers now also found employment. Of course that does not mean, conversely, that in these cases it was the vocational training of the CCC that paved the way to success; rather, the crucial factor was the improved situation in the job market. Within the context of job training in the Corps there was one remarkable development which has so far been overlooked by scholarship: one branch 344 345 347 349

Salmond, “Negro,” 88; Cole, Black Youth, 99; Cole, Experience. 346 MLR 39 (1934), 308–10. Hill, School, 51. 348 Great Depression, 257. Cole, “Black Youth,” 103, 133–5. Hosen, ed., CCC 1941, 4: until 1939, there were 2–5 applicants for every CCC slot, beginning in April 1941 the quota could no longer be filled.

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of the vocational training was directly inspired by Germany – National Socialist Germany, that is. At the end of the 1930s, against the backdrop of the looming threat of war, the United States engaged in a vigorous discussion over whether the vocational training of the CCC should be converted to military needs. In late 1938, a training program for “air mechanics” was considered as a way of alleviating a shortage of skilled workers in aircraft manufacturing. Behind this stood the realization that the United States, unlike other countries (such as Germany), did not have enough skilled workers to build, maintain, and operate airplanes. In trying to determine how to combat the problem, the federal government also drew on German experiences for comparison, especially the Flyer Hitler Youth, which offered this kind of training. One plan was to establish schools with private airplane manufacturers where current or former members of the CCC would be trained. As the papers of the White House show, these proposals were not only discussed in great detail, but actually implemented a few months later on personal orders from Roosevelt: henceforth there was a targeted procedure for placing CCC boys about to leave the Corps into trainee positions as air mechanics.350 This process of intercultural transfer, which represents a modified adoption of German experiences at the end of a learning process, fits into a larger context. The American president, confronted with the growing pressure generated especially by the threat of war, took a highly unconventional step at the end of the 1930s: he saw to it that he was personally briefed on the German Labor Service. Roosevelt requested a report on the RAD from the U.S. embassy in Berlin – not to obtain propaganda material against the Third Reich, but to examine whether there was something to be learned from the German experience. The embassy gave the task to Henry P. Leverich, who, as the files of the State Department indicate, had already written several evaluations of the RAD in previous years. In July 1938, he presented his hefty report (60 typewritten pages), which soon landed on Roosevelt’s desk. The study was a comprehensive, thoroughly researched, objective account of the RAD that largely eschewed passing judgment. It was based on a visit of several days that Leverich made to a German Labor Service camp – the contact to Hierl’s Reich Administration had been made through the Foreign Ministry.351 President Roosevelt did not read the report himself, but he was given a summary briefing on its content.352 It was also circulated in the agencies involved

350

351 352

NARA/HP, OF 58B, Box 4, esp. Memo Hopkins, August 15, 1938; NARA/CP, RG 407, Box 47, esp. Fechner to Adjutant General, May 23, 1939; on similar courses in the NYA see W. E. Leuchtenburg, “The New Deal and the Analogue of War,” in J. Braeman et al., eds., Change and Continuity in Twentieth Century America (Athens, 1964), 140. PA/B, R 47647, Hierl to Reich Ministry of the Interior and others, April 25, 1938. NARA/CP, RG 59/862.504/545, Wilson to Secretary of State, July 29, 1938; NARA/HP, OF 58B, Box 4, Welles to FDR, December 22, 1938.

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with the CCC.353 Other expert reports on the German Labor Service likewise document the strong American interest in the CCC’s counterpart on the other side of the Atlantic.354 These, however, were perceptions that had no direct, demonstrable effect on the CCC or on any other American institution, unlike the case of the “air mechanics.” Still, it is instructive that the highest echelons of American democracy took such intense interest in the German institution and were evidently not averse to learning from a hostile dictatorship. Surprisingly, there was no public outcry against these learning processes. The most explosive project, the assimilation of German experiences in the training program for aviation mechanics, was reported in the New York Times for all to read. Still, it did not cause a storm of protest in the America of 1938 that a democratic government was seriously considering learning from the German dictatorship.355 In contrast to the first years of the New Deal, the government was no longer trying in every way possible to emphasize the difference between the RAD and the CCC. Given the growing tensions in international affairs, which made a war increasingly likely – a war in which the United States would have to fight against Germany – this is at first glance an astonishing change. The vocational classes were joined by courses seeking to teach school- and university-level knowledge. Most of them were intended to fill elementary gaps that existed among the enrollees. In 1936, for example, more than half the volunteers had not finished eighth grade. While 46 percent had attended high school, only a third had graduated. Three percent had attended college, but only 0.2 percent of the men between eighteen and twenty-five had actually obtained a degree.356 All in all, the percentage of men with college experience was therefore the same as the percentage of illiterates, which stood at just under 3 percent.357 One upshot of this was that groups that were taught at college and university level were always small and rather rare in the camps. However, since correspondence courses from institutions of higher learning were available, individual members of the Corps were able to continue their academic education and obtain genuine degrees. Moreover, in 1935, the New Deal established a more attractive offer than the CCC for the upper end of the educational scale: the National Youth Administration. It offered 353

354 355 356 357

For example, NARA/HP, CTP, Box 3, Confidential Remarks [statement by presidential advisor Taussig on reports by Leverich and Holland] 1938; NARA/CP, RG 35.2, Box 770, Fechner to U.S. Veterans Administration, January 14, 1939, and attachment. Additional reports on the Reich Labor Service from various reports are extant: NARA/CP, RG 59/862; NARA/HP, OF 58B, Box 4; NARA/CP, RG 35.2, Box 770. See the NYT, December 15, 1938, and the lack of a reaction in the press. MLR 43 (1936), 1203–5. The distribution varied across different years. In 1939, for example, 13 percent were high school graduates. 1936: 2.5 percent (ECW 1936, 19); 1938: 3 percent (CCC 1938, 26).

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part-time jobs to needy high school and college students. This option was more interesting to many, not least because members of the NYA were not housed in camps, but were allowed to remain in their normal social environments.358 Another upshot was that courses aimed at teaching the young men basic skills predominated in the CCC. As a result, some classes – especially reading and writing for illiterates, but also lectures in safety measures and hygiene, and similarly basic programs – became obligatory starting in 1937.359 These were not very popular with the men, all the more so since they were often taught with the teacher standing in front lecturing to the class. Since many volunteers had bad memories of their school years, a more open classroom style would probably have been more successful, but after the authoritarian change of course in 1935, that was out of the question.360 However, only about half of the courses required some prior knowledge, the other half combined enrollees with different levels of knowledge in subjects such as civics or biology.361 Yet the Civilian Conservation Corps as a whole was part of the various efforts by the New Dealers to remedy the scholastic shortcomings that had been caused especially by the economic crisis. Prior to the Depression, the educational system had been financed largely by local communities, to a lesser extent by some individual states, but hardly at all by the federal government. Faced with the Great Depression, which threw the educational system into crisis, the New Deal did not so much strengthen the existing educational tracks as erect parallel institutions with agencies like the CCC or the NYA, which were not only initiated, but also financed, administered, and conceptually defined by the federal government.362 Other courses were offered in various areas of recreation, for example in sports, which I have already mentioned, or in handicrafts and other hobbies such as theater, the publication of a camp paper, and music. In the CCC, as well, the chief idea was to teach the young men how to put their time to good use in the hours after work. Recreation meant both a restoration of energy for work and engagement in meaningful activities. Organized recreation was intended to prevent hanging about in gangs, apathy, wasting time, or even criminal activities. Of course the young men pursued some hobbies outside the organized program, just as they were free to visit the camp library. These libraries had been set up in 1933, in addition to traveling libraries that were also available. However, the companies did not have a lot of money to purchase 358 359 362

On the NYA see R. A. Reiman, The New Deal and American Youth. Ideas and Ideals in a Depression Decade (Athens, 1992). 360 Griffing, Resume, 17. 361 Hill, School, 35–41. Stieglitz, Percent, 146. In general, the New Deal hardly resulted in a strengthening of the existing structures in education; see Leuchtenburg, Roosevelt, 121–3.

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illustration 11. “A group of CCC boys plan their evening’s recreation as they change from their work clothes at the end of the day.” Source: The CCC at Work: A Story of 2,500,000 Young Men (Washington, D.C., 1941), 95.

books, which meant they depended on gifts and donations.363 Among the men, reading ranked second in popularity after sports, with cowboy novels and popular scientific magazines at the top of the list.364 363

Stieglitz, Percent, 178.

364

Griffing, Resume, 22f.

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The desire to discipline and control the volunteers is revealed not least in the canon of books that was made available to them: Communist publications were prohibited. Such literature was also confiscated by the officers if it was found among the enrollees, and such incidents were reported to the higher authorities.365 But it was not only the publications of the radical Left that were to be kept out of the camps; left-liberal magazines like The New Republic and The Nation were also on the forbidden list. The biggest scandal in the area of censorship was the banning of William F. Ogburn’s You and Machines in November 1934.366 Fechner considered this textbook, written especially for the CCC to explain the Great Depression to the young men, as excessively pessimistic and skeptical of technology; in actuality, the content was less critical than some of Roosevelt’s speeches. Still, Fechner simply banned the book. In response, the Commissioner of Education, Zook, organized a wave of protest letters. But even this public protest could not overturn the prohibition, since not only the army, but Roosevelt himself, stood behind Fechner.367 On this question, the top leadership of the Corps pursued a conservative, restrictive course, one that was hardly in keeping with educating the young men into fully enfranchised, critical citizens of a democracy. In the first few years, all courses – whether vocational, academic, or recreational – suffered from insufficient funding for the pedagogical mission of the Corps. For example, in 1935 the education advisors in the camps had merely $100 at their disposal.368 A fundamental change did not occur until 1937, when the law extending the Corps underscored the educational mission and more than doubled the budget devoted to it. But inadequate conditions were not the only basic problem afflicting the pedagogical program. One must add the often incompetent teachers, not least when they were hands-on people from the technical services. In addition, the segregated “black” camps had to regard it as discriminatory that their teaching staff was mostly white.369 Moreover, there were frequent friction between the professional educators, above all the educational advisors, and the military leadership. The resulting frustrations caused more than half of the advisors to leave the CCC after their first year.370 365

366 367 368 369 370

For example, NARA/HP, OF 268, Box 3, Early to Chief of Staff and Fechner, June 18, 1935; NARA/CP, RG 35/2, Personal Correspondence of the Director, Box 4, David Bickel to FDR, October 9, 1935, and the prohibition in the camps against the Communist magazine Champion of the Youth; on this see Gower, “Conservatism,” 282–5. W. F. Ogburn, You and Machines (Washington, D.C., 1934). NARA/HP, OF 268, Box 7, with numerous letters; ibid., Box 2, McKinney to Early, November 16, 1934; on the public reaction see, e.g., NYT, December 2, 1934. Harby, Education, esp. 34. Gower, “Struggle,” 123–35. It was virtually inconceivable that African Americans would have been used as teachers in “white” camps. Hill, School, esp. 14–21, 29–34, 56–8; Stieglitz, Percent, 149.

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All in all, then, the educational program of the Civilian Conservation Corps faced considerable initial difficulties. The problems were moderated by the skillful policy of using existing institutional resources in this area as well: for example, members of the technical services offered vocational classes, while officers lectured on administrative tasks and teachers from nearby schools taught reading and writing. Moreover, by deciding that the primary goal was to teach elementary knowledge, and by not making the Corps the starting point for a comprehensive reform of the educational system, the government also avoided creating overly ambitious goals, against which pedagogical practice would have invariably foundered. Measured by the participation rate, which the CCC itself used to assess the success of the classes, the teaching was on the face of it successful. In 1936, 74 percent of the men attended courses, the following year it was 83 percent, in 1939, 91 percent, and in 1941 – when the Corps was already in an existential crisis – the rate was still 83 percent.371 However, I have already mentioned that in many cases participation was not voluntary, which means that these figures alone do not add up to a success story. The officers created moral pressure to attend classes, and the teaching material worked in the same direction.372 In some camps the administrators used subtle methods to increase the rate, for example a point system for evaluating the overall performance of the men that included as a major component the participation in the course system. Others employed more draconian measures, for example, turning off the lights everywhere except in the classrooms, which meant that the classes did not have to compete with anything else.373 Such elements were used on a larger scale especially after the programmatic reorientation of the agency in 1935. As I have shown, the turn toward a more authoritarian model was also reflected in the educational content. Although critical voices urging a return to the values of the handbook of the early days continued to make themselves heard, they were unable to carry the day.374 All areas of education conveyed a specific notion not only of masculinity, but also of citizenship. But these two areas were in any case closely connected, as a chaplain in the CCC made clear: “The American ideal of citizenship is far more than non-alien residence . . . An American citizen, in the highest 371

372 373 374

Oxley, Education, 1; ECW 1937, 1; CCC 1939, 45; CCC 1941, 7, 11. The figures for 1937 and 1941 are estimates, obtained by dividing the total number of courses by the total number of enrollees; the ratio is not exact, especially since one man could attend more than one course. Dearborn, Lifetime, 222. Holland and Hill, Youth, 27f., 204. Oxley, Education, 8, explicitly recommended the first method. Herlihy, “Comparison,” 77–85. The laws of 1937 and 1939 brought no changes in this regard. Their pilot projects in camps of the fifth corps area made no difference; on these see Holland and Hill, Youth, 224–8. On the Sharon experiment see also Chapter 2, Section 4.

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sense of the term, is a person of value as an individual who has been rescued from obscurity, endowed with self-respect, dignity, and social and economic opportunity – a ‘man’ in the completed sense of the word.”375 Kenneth Holland and Frank E. Hill, in their 1942 study, also expressed the fact that the values the Corps was teaching the young men, especially after 1935, lay in the area of subordination. They distinguished between “conforming” and “contributing citizenship.” The former was made up of basic values that an individual needed in order to interact socially – independent of the political context. Holland and Hill believed that the Corps was teaching these qualities, which were chiefly drawn from the sphere of secondary virtues. From this they differentiated contributing citizenship, that is to say, values necessary for an independent participation in a democracy, such as the ability to assume responsibility in a self-governing group, to represent general interests, or to thoroughly grasp fundamental political issues. In this area, according to Holland and Hill, the Corps was making hardly any contributions. In a paradoxical conclusion, they reduced the ambivalent educational practice of the Corps to a nutshell: it sought “to teach the principles of democracy within an authoritarian atmosphere.”376 The experiment at Mount Sharon mentioned earlier, which was linked to Rosenstock, was a comprehensive attempt to resolve this paradox and to strengthen contributing citizenship through the CCC – but as we have seen, this communitarianism avant la lettre was unable to take hold. In spite of these shortcomings, one must conclude that in this area there was relatively equal treatment regardless of skin color. African Americans as well as the members of all other ethnic groups were sworn to diligence, preparedness, and – especially as tensions in international affairs increased – patriotism; the main problem for African Americans was thus to get admitted into the Corps in the first place. Once they became enrollees, they did not have a different educational program, leaving aside the more subtle forms of discrimination like the slightly different range of vocational classes offered to them. The volunteers, the majority of whom came from the lower class, were given a clear level to aspire to – though also one they were not likely to exceed. In contrast to the German Labor Service, education was hardly part of a concept aimed at creating a sense of “we,” that is, a collective identity. The CCC generally did not call special attention to the enrollees’ experience of encountering volunteers of diverse ethnic, social, religious, and political backgrounds in the camps. A few sources idealized that experience as a 375 376

R. S. Orr, “The CCC as a Factor in the Development of Good Citizenship,” Army Chaplain 9 (1938): 26. Holland and Hill, Youth, 222–32, quote p. 224; see also Gorham, “Service,” 142–6; Stieglitz, Percent, 202–22.

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“melting pot” and a way to balance the allegedly pronounced individualism of Americans with a sense of community acquired by life in the camps.377 But such statements stand out precisely for their rarity. Once again the fundamental differences between the two societies with regard to their political culture come to the fore: Germany with its stronger focus on state and community, the United States with its stronger focus on the individual.378 Communityforming rituals like the flag parades, but especially the joint work, would certainly have fostered a sense of collective identity in the CCC as in the German Labor Service. Yet the CCC exerted its influence primarily on the personal identity of the young men. The guiding concept of education was discipline and subordination, and the goal was more to help the men to help themselves rather than to create a community. 3.5. INTERIM CONCLUSION Both the German and the American labor services had an educational mission, but the importance accorded to education was different. In the Reich Labor Service, all other questions were nominally – and for a long time in fact – secondary to the pedagogical task, whereas the Civilian Conservation Corps was always seen primarily as a work-creation measure with an educational component. All attempts to insert more ambitious goals into the CCC, for example by the progressive education movement, were unsuccessful. In terms of content, these attempts ranged from approaches that would have made the Corps into an important, democratic pedagogical institution, to those that had no chance of being implemented in American society because of their radically anti-authoritarian core. Theoretical deficiencies notwithstanding, compared to the CCC, the RAD had a fairly elaborate educational concept, in which “experience” was supposed to be the means for enacting “camaraderie” and Volksgemeinschaft and conveying it as an ideal. Some of its methods, for example visual aids, the use of the newest media at the time, and the like, strike us as quite modern. By contrast, a pragmatic quietism was always dominant in the United States when it came to questions of ultimate justifications and clear ideas about goals, and in its didactic methods, as well, the Corps was less rigid than the RAD. The notion – widely held throughout the world at the time – that the Depression could be overcome not least through greater social intermingling, played a secondary role in the Corps compared to the RAD, the result of a different political culture in the United States. The more modest ambition was at the same time a reason for the relative success of the CCC, while, conversely, the RAD was almost predestined to be undone by the great expectations that were placed on it. 377

HD, October 26, 1935.

378

¨ On the political culture see Zollner, “Kultur,” 259–326.

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Yet there were striking similarities between the two services at the level of educational practice. This is exemplified by the prominent role played by disciplining, as demonstrated primarily by the camp system. In general, the ideal type of the total camp, which made possible the absolute hold over individuals through the ordering of time and space, controlling and disciplining them but not educating them to individual responsibility and independence, must be seen as a mark of modernity, one that was accorded a great potential for creating order in many societies in the period between the wars.379 Measured against this ideal type, the German Labor Service was conceptually the attempt to create the total camp experience. If practice did not correspond to this ideal, the primary reasons were economic and organizational-structural problems. Moreover, the nature of the camp organization in Germany was very closely related to the RAD’s educational model, for which it was the prerequisite, means, and mirror. After all, disciplining, control, habituation to the military life, and a connection to the National Socialist image of nature and masculinity were also core elements of the RAD’s educational mission. At first glance, the camps of the CCC were even more strongly oriented toward the military, especially since they were directly conceived, set up, and run by the army. The American labor service therefore also had the potential of turning into a total camp system. There are no indications, however, that the CCC was in any way influenced by its Nazi counterpart with regard to the design of the camps. In the United States, the elements of discipline, supervision, and habituation to the military life were in part the result of practical necessity, and in part desired. But the camp commanders worked in very different ways with these basic elements, which is why the finding changes from one camp to the next. Because the Corps was tied to a democratic, pluralistic society, the tendency toward the establishment of a total system fell far short of playing itself out. Still, values and concepts such as the permanence of the Corps, labor conscription, and militarization, which the military advocated, show a striking number of similarities to the development of the German service. The hypothetical question of whether the total elements might have grown in influence had the country witnessed social unrest or political destabilization must be answered in the affirmative. In the absence of such crises, the principles of freedom of choice and the selfdetermination of the individual asserted themselves time and again over the tendencies toward standardization and discipline. On the whole, there was an unstable balance between these two poles, a balance that was constantly readjusted in the CCC; the clash between the two extremes is reflected in all areas of educational practice. 379

See Bauman, “Jahrhundert,” 81–99; Herbert, “Jahrhundert,” 11–27. However, the emancipatory counter-idea is, paradoxically, also typical of modernity. In calling the camp the signature of modernity, I do not intend to imply that similar phenomena did not already exist earlier on a smaller scale (e.g., monasteries).

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Yet the shortcomings produced by the CCC’s questionable conception of democracy were moderated not only by the ever-present influences counteracting the trend toward the creation of a total and all-embracing system. A similar effect was produced by the fact that the labor service with its specific educational profile was only transitory in nature. Before and after their service (and sometimes even during their service), enrollees could take advantage of other pedagogical offerings that promoted the values of contributing citizenship. In Germany, by contrast, the Labor Service was merely one link in a whole chain of institutions of socialization, which – like the RAD – came quite close to the ideal type of the total camp. The two camp systems were instruments of mass mobilization, but they also reflected an ambivalent attitude toward mass mobilization. Both nations unleashed social forces as they pursued policies to motivate and guide the masses in responding to the upheavals caused by the Great Depression. The camp systems captured and disciplined the destabilizing potential of these social forces: this process of channeling and moderating the effects of mass mobilization was one of the chief tasks of both labor services. In spite of the strikingly similar disciplinary missions of the two institutions, the content of their educational programs diverged. In formal terms there was the difference that the CCC, in addition to areas also taken on by the RAD, taught academic skills and especially knowledge and skills that would qualify enrollees for a job. This is explained chiefly by the fact that Germany overcame the Great Depression much more rapidly, which meant that the labor men were soon no longer dependent on additional job training to find employment after their period of service. Moreover, and I have not mentioned this so far, there existed in Germany an equivalent to the vocational classes and job placement services of the CCC: the Organisation Arbeitsdank. Set up by the Labor Service in the fall of 1933 (and virtually unstudied to this day), it had the task of providing job counseling to labor men and placing former members of the RAD in the private sector. In addition, the organization also erected camps, so-called Arbeitsdank camps, which took in former labor men who found no regular employment following their service period and who could not be placed into the Landhilfe, the Emergency Work, or other job-creation programs. In so doing, Arbeitsdank was following in the footsteps of the Emergency Work of German Youth from the last months of the Weimar Republic. Since all labor men became corporative members of Arbeitsdank, it was a large organization, but only on paper. Its own camps housed no more than a few thousand men.380 On the one hand, this was a way of prolonging the service period. If a semi-official commentary is to be believed, the young men would find there the “cherished camp discipline and 380

Exact figures are not extant; however, see Vorstand Arbeitsdank, ed., Mitgliederversammlung Arbeitsdank e.V. am 7. Mai 1937 (Berlin, n.d. [1937]).

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camaraderie” of the Labor Service; in fact the two institutions were largely the same.381 On the other hand, Arbeitsdank offered training in agricultural vocations that made it resemble the CCC.382 In the end, though, Arbeitsdank remained merely an episode in the labor market policy of Nazi Germany. Because of quarrels over lines of authority and internal problems, the organization never attained any real importance; moreover, with the disappearance of mass unemployment, it soon became superfluous. As a result, parts of the organization were integrated into the German Labor Front in 1935, and Arbeitsdank was finally dissolved in 1937.383 Had the problem of mass unemployment persisted, it is likely that this and similar institutions would have continued to exist as stop-gaps and educational agencies: the regime was perfectly aware that it could not afford, for ideological reasons, to release thousands of labor men back into unemployment after their service period. Education in the RAD and the CCC also meant different things in terms of content. In Germany, the young men were to be chiefly prepared for a future war. A second thread running through the educational concept and practice was a radical anti-Semitism based on racism. Both goals – war preparation and anti-Semitism – corresponded to the institutional structure of the service and its criteria of access, and they are also found in almost all other National Socialist educational institutions. The Labor Service was not an apolitical island; in terms of content, it took its place within the chain of Nazi organizations. Still, when it came to infusing the men with Nazi ideology, the Labor Service fell far short of its self-proclaimed goals. For a whole host of reasons, the political instruction was never able to develop into an effective educational module. Given the fact that the teaching personnel were overtaxed and that other, structurally obstructing factors existed, no great success was achieved in this area, especially since the “roughnecks” who were in many cases supposed to implement the strikingly modern didactic methods, instead of applying them, tended to regard them with suspicion. Nevertheless, since Nazi ideas were woven into every part of the service, and since the education was dominated in any case by the goals of physical conditioning and discipline, Hierl’s organization was – not only by its own claim, but in fact – an important pedagogical instrument of the Nazi dictatorship. The organization was much more successful in “steeling the bodies” through work, formation exercises, and sports, and in conveying a specific National Socialist sense of masculinity and a collective identity, than it was in providing political instruction. 381 382

383

Hamburger Tageblatt, March 20, 1936. Vorstand, Mitgliederversammlung; on the Arbeitsdank see also BA/B, R 36, esp. 1946; BA/B, R 3903/220; BA/B, NS 22/767. In addition, the heterogeneous organization took on other tasks; in particular, it provided financial support to the leadership corps until the passage of the AD-Versorgungsgesetz. VB, May 19, 1937.

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By contrast, in the United States active war preparation was made part of the educational program only late and after protracted controversies. The CCC responded to the aggression of Germany, Japan, and other states, which made America’s entry into the war increasingly likely, with military drill, vocational courses adapted to military needs, and a heightened patriotism. The idea of masculinity and the gender order conveyed by the Corps were similarly polarized and hierarchical to what existed in Germany, and the CCC also sought to produce a personality that was toughened, bodyoriented, disciplined, and endowed with secondary virtues. But the focus on community, a future war, and racism was much less pronounced. Especially the racist component, which exerted some influence on who was admitted into the Corps, played no substantial role in the pedagogical program – the Corps can be merely criticized for not having actively fought against existing inequalities. At least some institutions of the New Deal (though by no means all), like the National Youth Administration, for example, were far more concerned than the CCC with combating the racism that was deeply rooted in American society.384 But that must not blur the fundamental differences between the RAD and the CCC: racism in the United States always remained implicit, whereas the Nazi regime developed a more radical and explicit form of it. The anti-Semitism that was at the core of the Nazi race ideology was for its part an important – though not sufficient – precondition for the Shoah. The area of education, in which I have noted the greatest distance between the two services on some questions, saw at the same time the closest form of exchange. The American side, and especially President Roosevelt himself, was strikingly open and receptive to ideas emanating from Nazi Germany. As I have shown, that receptivity was reflected on a number of questions, most clearly in the modified adoption of the training of air mechanics after the model of the HJ Flyers. In this case there was not simply an awareness of what was happening on the other side of the Atlantic, but an actual intercultural transfer. In my concluding reflections at the end of the book I will return to the question of what one should make on the whole of this willingness by the American democracy to learn from the German dictatorship. Both organizations had initial difficulties with their teaching personnel – the frictional losses resulting from teachers mismatched with their assignments, quarrels over lines of authority, insufficient funding, and an inadequate organizational apparatus were similar in the two countries. The CCC, however, was more skillful in combating this problem, for one because it had a much less ambitious and comprehensive educational goal. The Corps was intent on shaping not the “new man” as part of the Volksgemeinschaft, but – in keeping with American political culture – the individual who could 384

See, e.g., McElvaine, Great Depression, 190f.; Kifer, “Negro”; Stoff, Utopian Thinking.

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prove his worth. Moreover, most pedagogical elements that went beyond disciplining were voluntary educational offerings. Another reason was that the Corps once again made better use than its German counterpart of the existing potential for resolving the crisis. The RAD utterly overtaxed its leadership corps by making it responsible for areas that in the CCC were distributed among the officers, members of the technical service, and outside teachers. And yet, the fact that even recreation – though to different degrees – was part of the daily schedule shows that both services had far-reaching ambitions. It was in keeping with the spirit of the times to see leisure hours as more than a time to recharge the capacity to work. Given the international trend toward shorter working hours, all modern industrial societies were aware that the amount of time available for an individual’s free disposal would increase for wide segments of the population. In this context, the labor services represent an attempt to deal with this phenomenon. They were intent on teaching the young men orderly, meaningful – and simultaneously socially stabilizing – activities for their leisure hours; it was all about disciplining free time. The educational and general sociopolitical ideas that the organizations taught were to be reinforced during recreation. In the RAD, leisure time was in fact explicitly seen as a form of “learning control.” By contrast, the Corps offered its young men a broader sphere of creative and productive activity. In both institutions, the specific contribution that education made to overcoming the Depression and stabilizing society was similar to that in the area of organization, namely to make young, idle men into orderly, disciplined members of society: capacity for work instead of squalor, a willingness to work and disciplined subordination instead of protest, an ideal of masculinity oriented toward toughness instead of effeminacy, conformity instead of criminality and deviance – such were the mottoes inscribed on the banners of the German and the American labor services. These shared elements may seem surprising given the fundamental differences in the political culture of the two societies; they are explained by the crisis of the Great Depression and in general by what modern societies consider normality. Even after Nazi Germany had overcome the economic crisis, it needed disciplined Volksgenossen, which is why there was no change in the educational mission of the RAD after 1935. Racism and war preparation, hardly present in the CCC, marked not only the National Socialist Labor Service, but in general the path that the regime chose out of the crisis of the 1930s. Its economic success was built on sand, and so it needed as many conditioned and disciplined racists as possible to maintain itself, at least for a time, on the back of military conflicts. Education in the RAD was thus in line with the Third Reich’s systemic logic for overcoming the crisis. That logic led into an abyss of destruction and self-annihilation. The United States, at the same time, took a different path: while the semi-authoritarian educational ideal of the CCC helped to keep American society stable in the 1930s, it in no

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way educated the enrollees consistently into self-responsible, enfranchised citizens in a democracy. The Corps therefore did not make use of its full potential in combating the Great Depression. With control and discipline at the core of the educational practice in many camps on either side of the Atlantic, there were not only significant differences in the area of education, but also many shared elements. The same is true for the question of continuity regarding the German institution before and after 1933. However, before 1933 there was neither a standardized camp structure nor prescribed educational theories and practices, as these questions were left entirely to the discretion of the participating sponsor organizations. Since the Nazis were hardly involved in the FAD, and since many camps were based on concepts drastically different from their own, the discontinuities predominated in this area. Greater overlap existed between the RAD and the CCC with respect to the work they did, which is the topic of the following chapter.

4 In “The Grandeurs of Nature” The Work of the Labor Services

There were numerous similarities in the work undertaken by the RAD and the CCC. Forestry and soil improvement projects made up a substantial share of the work on either side of the Atlantic, and in both countries the labor service was also used for disaster relief and cultural projects. What varied was the significance that was officially accorded to these activities. While practical work was the chief mission of the CCC, in Germany it was subordinated to the educational goal of the service. Still, even in the RAD, according to Hierl, “work on the German person” was joined by “work on the German soil.”1 Historians have paid virtually no attention to the latter, which is especially striking since work accounted for the largest single block of service hours. I begin this chapter by analyzing work in the German Labor Service with respect to the areas of activity, planning, the notion of work and its implementation at the job sites; this is followed by a look at CCC projects and a comparative assessment. In the final analysis, my intent is to juxtapose the effectiveness and efficiency of the two services with regard to their work projects. Unfortunately, neither effectiveness nor efficiency can be precisely determined for either the RAD or the CCC, since conditions in the more than one-thousand camps were too varied over the years. Because of the nature of the statistical material, it is impossible even to indicate the total work output for each of the two services. Activities were not consistently calculated on the basis of the same assessment criteria: for example, built roads were reckoned in kilometers, trees by the number. A direct productive comparison between the RAD and the CCC is therefore impossible. However, since we have comparative assessments for both services relative to other institutions engaged in similar tasks, whether in the freemarket or job-creation measures, approximate comparative statements are possible.

1

Hierl, Schriften, vol. 2, 173–87 (1934), quote p. 174.

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4.1. WORK PLANNING AND AREAS OF WORK IN THE GERMAN LABOR SERVICE 4.1.1. The Struggle for “Food Independence” (Brotfreiheit): Project Types The only work projects that may be supported are those that are supplementary and for the common good, and which could not be undertaken as emergency work projects without this support, especially soil improvement, the preparation of land for settlements and small gardens, local traffic improvements, and work that serves to enhance the health of the nation.2

In these terse words the Emergency Decree of June 6, 1931, outlined the kind of work projects the FAD was allowed to take on. A supplementary decree a few weeks later elaborated that the determination of which projects fulfilled these criteria would be made by the Reich Office for Job Procurement and Unemployment Insurance (RfAVAV) or the subordinate offices in the 3 ¨ Lander. A short time later, the president of the Reich Office specified the directives in greater detail. He declared that the work output had to be serious, although he did not fix the number of daily working hours. He further stated that the notion of the common good should not be interpreted “too narrowly” – accordingly, support should also be given to projects that benefited a narrower circle of individuals – such as associations or cooperatives – instead of the public as a whole. The only projects that should be excluded were those that served only individuals or private interests. The criteria of what constituted “supplementary” work was also broadly defined. On the one hand, the FAD was not to take on tasks that could be accomplished by a free-market employment relationship. On the other hand, however, since the work was supposed to be useful, proof of the supplementary nature of a project required merely that “without support” the work “could not be carried out either at this time or on the planned scale.” A final criterion for what constituted work that was meaningful, serious, for the common good, and supplemental was the principle of “subsidiariness”: whenever possible, projects were to be carried out as Emergency Work projects, and the FAD would get its chance only if that was not feasible.4 The formal body of regulations remained comparatively vague, as it had to, for it tended to be mutually exclusive that a project could be both meaningful and supplementary. Instead of providing excessively detailed directives, the regime left the choice of projects largely to the discretion of the experienced civil servants ¨ in the Lander employment offices; after all, they had to review every single project. 2 4

3 Ibid., 1931, I, 398. RGBl. 1931, I, 295. ¨ RABl. 1931, I, 180; see in general Kohler, Arbeitsdienst, 93f.; H. Pieper, “Arbeitsdienst und Wirtschaft,” Arbeitgeber 23 (1933): 146–9.

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Among the panoply of projects, some were singled out in July 1931 because ¨ the Lander employment offices had the power to declare them as being “valuable to the national economy.” Special benefits were possible for projects given this classification: after a minimum deployment of twelve weeks, volunteers could receive a settlement voucher. The advantage for sponsoring organizations was that this type of project could be extended beyond the usual twenty weeks to a maximum of twice that period.5 The label “valuable to the national economy” applied to projects that served the general public and not merely a limited group of people, especially to soil improvement work. By contrast, projects that “elevated the health of the nation,” such as the construction of sports facilities, outdoor pools, or youth hostels, never fulfilled these criteria. In this way, the Reich created indirect incentives for sponsors to undertake above all projects “valuable to the national economy.” The quantitative changes that occurred in the transition from the Weimar Republic to the Nazi regime reveal that the sponsors had fairly wide latitude in selecting projects. At the end of 1932, the largest category of projects (43 percent) comprised those devoted to improving the “health of the nation” – the chief explanation for which is the fact that such undertakings were usually smaller than the other project types and entailed fewer technical and organizational difficulties. In many cases the project was undertaken by a sponsoring group that benefited directly from the work, for example, a gymnastics club that built sports facilities. By contrast, projects that were economically valuable were for the most part taken on by public corporations. That was the case, for example, with soil improvement projects. At the end of February 1932, these expensive projects made up only 18.6 percent of all the work being done.6 It should be noted, though, that the organization was still in its infancy at that time.7 With the rise in the number of volunteers in 1932, the mix of the various project types shifted in favor of those deemed “valuable to the national economy.” At the end of December 1932, only around 11 percent of volunteers were working on measures devoted to “enhancing the health of the nation”; merely a month later, on January 31, 1933, that figure had dropped to no more than 6 percent.8 As in all other areas of the FAD, when it came to the work projects the Nazis emphasized the differences between their positions and the practice of the Weimar Labor Service. Whereas Hierl had pleaded for the deployment of the service on skilled projects as late as 1930, beginning in 1932 he wanted it used only on projects that were “valuable to the national 5 7 8

6 Funcke, “Freiwilliger Arbeitsdienst,” 126f. RGBl. 1931, I, 401. RABl. 1932, II, 128. Ibid., 1933, II, Beilage 4, 12; Beilage 7, 12; Syrup, “Arbeitsdienst,” 381–90.

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economy” and required unskilled labor.9 These priorities were in fact reflected in the work the service pursued at the beginning of the Third Reich. At the end of September 1933, 45.1 percent of the young men were working on soil improvement, 19.7 percent on transportation improvements, 9.7 percent on forestry projects, 6.2 percent on suburban housing developments, and only 1.8 percent on rural settlements. Together, the “economically valuable” projects made up more than 80 percent of all activities.10 Less than two years later, in July 1935, the ratio of soil improvement work, following some fluctuations, had risen further, to 56.8 percent; the proportion of economically valuable work had thus reached nearly 90 percent.11 If one compares the forms of deployment directly, it is evident that during the transition to the Nazi regime, changes occurred in the areas of work that were pursued under the Weimar Republic. But if one shifts the question to the level of processes, the Nazis were merely continuing trends that had already been set in motion by the directives of Reich Commissioner Syrup in 1931. Hierl always sought to conceal these similarities, as he did on other issues, and to emphasize the break with the “Weimar system.”12 What was different, however, was the ideological backdrop: unlike the presidential cabinets, which had also intermittently advocated the settlement idea, the Nazis ¨ embedded their institution consistently within a volkisch-racist concept of “blood and soil.”13 For example, whereas Hierl did everything he could to establish only closed and remote camps that were as equal in size as possible, he was evidently in much less of a hurry when it came to restructuring the work measures themselves. The rise in the proportion of economically valuable projects from around 70 percent at the seizure of power to around 90 percent in July 1935, nearly two years later, represented a slower and more careful reorientation than the change of the camp form to a “closed” type and the Gleichschaltung of the sponsoring organizations. The quantitative comparison thus reveals that the Nazi dictatorship’s interest in the Labor Service was primarily educational. In what follows, however, I will trace the deployment forms less in quantitative than in qualitative terms. A quantitative approach is problematic, since reliable sources on the extent of the project types become very sparse 9 10

11 12 13

Hierl, Schriften, vol. 2, 14–16 (1930); ibid., 84 (1932). BA/B, R 72/325, Reich Administration of the Labor Service, Statistics, October 12, 1933. These figures are not entirely reliable, because they include a small number of female volunteers. BA/B, R 2301/5638, Labor Service Statistics, July 1935; also Humann, Wirtschaftliche Seite, 80f. Grote and Erb, Hierl, 63; Stellrecht, Der deutsche Arbeitsdienst, 74. ¨ Syrup, “Arbeitsdienst,” 385; on Stegerwald’s plans, see Kohler, Arbeitsdienst, 104–13, ¨ 192–209; Kohler, “Arbeitsbeschaffung, Siedlung und Reparationen in der Schlußphase der ¨ Zeitgeschichte 17 (1969): 276–307. ¨ Regierung Bruning,” Vierteljahrshefte fur

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after 1934. The number of extant archival sources is inadequate; moreover, the basis on which the assessments are made varies, which means that no clear overall picture emerges.14 The published sources are equally unreliable. One can see this, for example, from the patently incomplete lists during the war, when some deployment forms are essentially not mentioned at all.15 Previous studies of the Nazi Labor Service did not call attention to this fact and for the most part simply reproduced the official data.16 Although the published material allows one to draw well-founded conclusions about the public image that the Labor Service sought to convey, beyond that it is only useful in making statements about broad trends. Moreover, a qualitative analysis is more revealing than a purely quantitative one, since it provides insight into the conflicts and cooperation between the Labor Service and other Nazi institutions, thus shedding light on its place within the power structure of the regime. For that reason I will first examine the priorities in the choice of projects that the Labor Service established in the first years, followed by a look at the nature of the various types of work. As early as April 1933, the Reich Commissioner for the Labor Service decreed that all ongoing projects – except those undertaken by Nazi sponsors or the Stahlhelm – could be continued only if they were “economically valuable” or if ending them would create substantial costs.17 He spelled out his priorities in greater detail in a directive in June 1933: “The work projects of the Labor Service should serve to expand the food basis of the German Volk and at the same time to shift the social structure of the population and teach it to be grounded in the soil. Consequently, the Labor Service should support primarily projects on land preservation, that is, soil improvements of every kind including river regulation, flood protection, and the necessary road building and forestry work.”18 Moreover, since the task of selecting ¨ projects fell to the presidents of the employment offices of the Lander, and 14

15 16

17 18

For example, because of the sources available, it is not possible to compare the economic efficiency of the deployments systematically with other organizations engaged in similar projects. In addition, there was essentially no such thing as “the” efficiency of the service: the daily work period fluctuated over the years, and the productivity of the service varied by project type. Lastly, the quality and extent of the labor depended even on local factors, such as the number of sick labor men, the weather, and not least the concrete project managers. And to all of this one must also add macroeconomic factors such as price fluctuations and the like. ¨ Deutschland (Berlin, 1944), 15–17, where work on See, e.g., K. Kampmann, . . . schaffen fur military fortifications after 1938 is not mentioned. See most recently Seifert, Kulturarbeit, 153–9; Seifert is suspicious only when it comes to the large-scale deployments, but he still reproduces the work output according to the official information. RABl. 1933, I, 124. BA/B, R 2301/5648, Reich Administration of the Labor Service to district administrations, June 8, 1933.

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since they were compelled in March 1933 to relinquish their authority to the newly staffed labor district administration and soon after to the labor district leaders, the regime was soon in a position to support only projects of which it approved, while simultaneously continuing less meaningful projects if they were being undertaken by one of its own sponsoring organizations.19 In July 1934, the Reich Administration of the Labor Service put in place some fundamental regulations concerning work deployment. Expanding arable land and preparing settlements remained the most important tasks, since they were particularly well suited to realizing the goals of the Labor Service: “economic goals, because these projects promote the autonomy of our national economy in the most effective way, especially with respect to the food supply . . . ; educational goals, because they lead our youth back to a rootedness in the soil through healthful work that can be tailored to their capacities.” The activities of the service were now listed in detail. The “chief tasks” were: (1) land reclamation and improvement; (2) forestry work; (3) rural settlement work; (4) urban settlement work; (5) road building. These were joined by “secondary tasks”: (6) work in support of the building of the highways (Reichsautobahnen); (7) construction of airfields; (8) construction ¨ of Thingstatten (open-air festival arenas); (9) construction of new fire ponds and air raid shelters; (10) emergency services; and (11) harvest work.20 These guidelines thus justified the importance of a project type not only with economic arguments, but also with the educational concern that it should create in the labor men a sense of rootedness in the soil. In fact, a number of other educational needs were behind this list of priorities. For projects to live up to the Nazi ideal of the total camp experience, they had to allow for the use of large groups on work that was in principle equal for all and easy to learn. In addition, the need for manual labor had to be high for a particular project to make it worth the effort over the medium term to set up at least one camp and deploy an entire section. At the same time, it had to be possible to extend the work over a longer period of time. Because of the educational component of the service, the actual time spent on the job site was relatively short, which is why assignments that had to be finished very rapidly under great time pressure were not suitable. Syrup had emphasized the importance of these pragmatic criteria as early as 1932. However, since the service at that time had chosen a kind of work planning – flexible, highly dispersed, and rather short-term – that was dependent on the sponsors, these trends were able to gain not much more than a foothold prior to 1933.21 On the whole, the Nazis, in this case as well, merely elaborated upon a prior 19 20 21

Ibid., Reich Administration of the Labor Service to Labor District administration, October 17, 1933. Bayr. HStA, ML/3448, Reich Administration of the Labor Service, regulations for labor deployment, July 4, 1934. Syrup, “Arbeitsdienst,” 386.

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policy that was supported to a large extent by practical considerations. Since the educational goal acquired enormous importance after 1933, it was only natural that the regime in the same year prohibited all types of deployment that were incompatible with it.22 Pickaxe and shovel were the chief tools of the Labor Service. Hierl’s organization rarely used machines, carrying out its projects with work-intensive manual labor. Apart from simple tools, the young men had to rely on their muscle power. Even when transporting construction materials or soil in dump cars on railway tracks, locomotives were usually not used to haul them; instead, the men pushed the cars. Backhoes, trucks, or other modern equipment were also rarely available to the service. That situation would not change in any substantial way until 1938.23 There were three reasons behind the labor-intensive form of work. First, it was pedagogically motivated. This kind of work was meant to bond the men: the “work community” was to be the precursor to the Volksgemeinschaft. Direct contact with the “German soil” was also intended to root the young men in their “native earth” and motivate them for a rural life. This idea grew out of the opposition to technology that marked some aspects of National Socialism. Moreover, backhoes and similar equipment would have required specially trained personnel, which would have run counter to the ideal of equal work for all. Finally, arduous physical labor was in keeping with the ideal of masculinity propagated by the service. Second, there were financial reasons why no machines were purchased. The necessary funds were simply not available, especially since Hierl had to fight tenaciously for every penny throughout the period of the Nazi regime. Third, and more important still, were considerations of labor market policy. In the first years, the chief economic task of the Labor Service was to put the idle to work. The primary concern was not effectiveness and efficiency, but simply to give the young men any kind of work as a means of overcoming mass unemployment – be it as much in appearance as in actual fact. After 1933, the Labor Service did not set up the program to be material and capital intensive, since that approach would have resulted in secondary employment effects to a much higher degree. Rather, the goal was to get the greatest possible number of unemployed young men off the street at the lowest possible cost. However, this particular form of deployment was not unique to the Labor Service, but a general characteristic of the regime’s direct work-creation programs – Emergency Work, Landhilfe (rural assistance), or Landdienst (farm service) pursued essentially the same tasks. Whenever possible, their projects were also undertaken without heavy machinery. In this respect, the Labor Service was employed very much in keeping with the proposals 22 23

BA/B, R 2301/5648, Reich Commissioner FAD to district leaders, May 3, 1933. See also BA/B, R 2301/5651, esp. Reich Labor Leader to Labor District leaders, July 1, 1939.

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Reich Labor Minister Seldte had put forth in April 1933 to reorganize the job-creation measures (including the Labor Service), and which were subsequently implemented.24 Yet the labor deployment was especially well suited to the educational requirements of the Labor Service, which set it apart from pure work-creation programs. This pedagogical orientation ruled out the raising of productivity through rationalization and the use of machinery, thus precluding a modernization of these sectors. That did not pose a problem in 1933 and 1934 against the backdrop of mass unemployment. However, as I will show later, in subsequent years it created serious difficulties for Hierl’s organization. Still, the labor-intensive deployment itself was not a post-1933 innovation. The Weimar FAD had been used the same way for reasons of finance policy, labor market policy, and secondarily also pedagogy – that is to say, for essentially the same reasons as its successor.25 In what follows I will take a closer look at the various types of projects undertaken by the Labor Service. Land reclamation work (Landeskulturarbeiten), especially, met all the indicated criteria. That is also why it made perfect sense that it was – as it had been since 1932 – the “primary task” of the service throughout the period of Nazi rule. It was at the center not only of the activities of the Labor Service, but also of the Emergency Work program and other job-creation measures. Land reclamation was a multifarious area of work. In most instances the term was used synonymously with soil improvement and melioration. Soil improvement in the narrower sense encompassed both the irrigation and drainage of arable land, with the goal of optimizing the soil for agricultural use. For example, the accumulation of moisture in meadows prevents the growth of economically valuable grasses. Here and in similar situations where an oversupply of water exists, the groundwater level must be lowered through the construction of open ditches and drainage (subterranean drainage pipes). That requires downstream regulation to draw off the water into brooks and streams. Especially large and involved projects in this area were undertaken in the moors. In the final analysis, this kind of work – like its counterpart, irrigation, where water is channeled from rivers to agricultural land through a system of ditches – is aimed at increasing the productiveness of the land, both quantitatively and qualitatively. This goal of improved productivity constitutes a further definition of the term soil improvement: apart from hydrological improvements, it includes the reclamation of wasteland, diking, leveling, flood protection, and consolidation of arable land.26 These were all tasks the Labor Service took on. 24 25 26

BA/B, R 1501/25384, Seldte to Lammers, April 27, 1933; on the distinction between direct and indirect work-creation measures see Marcon, Arbeitsbeschaffungspolitik. Wendt, Deutschland, 170–86; J. Stelzner, Arbeitsbeschaffung, 53–113. Stellrecht, Der deutsche Arbeitsdienst, 42–62; H. Bohte, Landeskultur in Deutschland. Entwicklung, Ergebnisse und Aufgaben in mehr als 250 Jahren (Hamburg, 1976), 11–53.

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Land reclamation and improvement work fulfilled all of the criteria of the Labor Service. It met the educational goals, and it could be carried out in a labor-intensive fashion, which was in line with the directives of fiscal and labor market policy. In 1933, for example, Stellrecht had explained that around 500 companies with about 40,000 workers were engaged in soil improvement projects at the time. And the need for work in this area was such that it would be easy to employ a million persons for more than ten years.27 Given the immensity of the tasks at hand, the Labor Service therefore did not pose a competition to free enterprise, especially since many of the privately employed were needed as foremen for the Labor Service.28 In principle all the criteria that characterized land reclamation and improvement work also applied to forestry work. Reforestation was undertaken for flood protection, but also in general to expand and improve the lumber industry. The service reforested clearings, damaged forest sections, inferior arable land, and wasteland, in addition to taking on tasks like tree pruning to improve the quality of the wood.29 Closely linked to soil preservation and forestry work was road building. In undeveloped tracts of land it was the precondition for any other kind of work. Paths and small roads also allowed an area to be put to better agricultural use in the future. These kinds of infrastructure measures played a larger role especially in northern and northeastern Germany, whereas in the south the service was often put to use on arable land consolidation projects.30 By contrast, experiments with planting yucca palms in Germany strike us as exotic in the literal sense – however, all these efforts were aimed at freeing Germany from dependence on imported agricultural products.31 Closely related to all the possible deployments mentioned so far were projects the service undertook within the framework of rural and urban settlement. In the countryside it dug ditches, built roads, and took on general excavation work. Moreover, it also had the task of preparing arable land for new farmers. Analogously, at the outskirts of cities Hierl’s organization was to create the possibility for the population to grow some of its own food. These settlements were intended not only to help secure Germany’s autonomy in agricultural goods, but also to “disperse the large cities in the face of the threat of air raids in a future war.”32 This reveals yet again the military dimension that also underpinned all the planning. It also leads us back once more to the educational component of the service, which sought – ¨ under the volkisch-racist banner of “rootedness in the soil” – to strengthen 27 29 30 32

28 Ibid., 40f. Stellrecht, Der deutsche Arbeitsdienst, 74. ¨ R. v. Bistram, “Der Deutsche Arbeitsdienst,” Europaische Revue 10 (1934): 58. 31 Puttkamer, Arbeitsdienst, 40. Ibid. Stellrecht, Der deutsche Arbeitsdienst, 64; in general, 62–5.

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the willingness of labor men to live in such settlements.33 But the suburban settlements became increasingly less important to the service – supposedly it lacked in this area the kind of partner it had for rural settlements in the 34 ¨ Reich Agricultural Organization (Reichsnahrstand). But as I have already discussed in connection with the location of the camps, the real reason was different. In 1934, Hierl reached an agreement with the president of the RfAVAV that the Labor Service would no longer be deployed in the vicinity of conurbations, as sufficient numbers of emergency workers were available there. That explains why this project area made up only 4 percent of the work undertaken by the middle of 1935. Beginning in 1936, settlement work as a whole played only a minor role, since it was subordinated to the priorities of the Four Year Plan and to what the regime called the Erzeugungsschlacht (“Battle for Food”). If one considers that settlement, along with the “battle for food autonomy,” were on the whole the official primary goal of the Labor Service, this development is surprising. It reveals that the agrarian romantics among the Nazi decision makers lost influence as war preparations became increasingly important.35 In addition, the service was repeatedly deployed on tasks that properly fell within the province of the fire department, the technical emergency service, and similar organizations: disaster relief. This use of the service went back to a suggestion by the state ministry of Anhalt in August 1933.36 Pickaxes and shovels were useful tools for the service in emergencies, but other tools and larger machinery were also acquired. For example, separate disaster relief trucks existed, and as late as 1936 the budget for the Labor Service still set aside two million Reichsmark for the purchase of specialized equipment for these deployments.37 Henceforth the men were called out for fires and floods, dike breaches and wind breaks, accidents and other catastrophes. Large-scale deployments occurred especially in the following year in the snowbreak and windbreak regions of western Germany, where twelve-thousand labor men took part in cleanup efforts that extended over several months.38 However, it was above all the direct aid in the rural communities close to which the sections were 33 34 35 36

37 38

See, e.g., K. Doleschal, “Siedlung und Arbeitsdienst, ein Weg zum wirtschaftlichen Aufbau,” ¨ Standisches Leben 5 (1935), 307–32. ¨ Politik 24 (1934a), H. Tholens, “Arbeitsdienst und Wirtschaftsgestaltung,” Zeitschrift fur 717–20. Bohte, Landeskultur, 47. BA/B, R 2301/5645, esp. State Ministry of Anhalt to Reich Administration of the Labor ¨ Service, August 3, 1933; Muller, “Arbeitsdienst und Katastrophenschutz in Anhalt,” Dt. AD 3 (1933): 447–50. BA/B, R 2301/5707, Guidelines, August 9, 1938; BA/B, R 2/4542, Reich Labor Leader to ¨ Korner, November 12, 1936. BA/B, R 2301/5662, Reich Labor Leader to Leader of Labor District XXb and others, May 28, 1935; Hierl, Schriften, vol. 2, 366f., 375f. (1936).

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usually located that raised the standing of the Labor Service among the population, and especially among disaster victims. In these emergencies the labor men often rescued lives and property. This kind of deployment represented a much more direct form of support for the rural population than the soil improvement projects, and it was thus supremely well suited for propaganda purposes – and, needless to say, that is precisely how it was used.39 It was justified with the argument that while the primary goal of the service was “to add to the national wealth,” it was “equally important to protect and preserve the precious possessions of the entire German Volk.” According to information supplied by the service itself, in fiscal year 1934–5 alone its disaster relief deployments prevented damage in the amount of more than seven million Reichsmark.40 A similar argument was used to justify the harvest deployments, which, given their importance, will be examined in a separate section. There were other forms of work, however, that did not serve to create autonomy or settlements. To a limited extent the Labor Service was involved in projects of cultural importance. These were geological and archaeological excavations that are not included in the 1934 list. At no time did these projects amount to a significant portion of the entire work output. The FAD had already lent a hand on such tasks prior to 1933.41 In the Third Reich, however, they were especially glorified. For one, this was a service to science and scholarship.42 Most importantly, however, it was a way of conveying “Heimatkunde [local history and geography] and German history” to the young men in a “vivid and compelling way.” Specific examples include the in¨ volvement of the Labor Service in excavations at Castle Goltzsch in Saxony43 and a geological project at a limestone plateau from the Tertiary period in Rheinhessen.44 The educational effect that was imputed to such deployments thus fit within the service’s legitimization and creation of tradition that is also evident, for example, in the camp names or the handicraft activities. Also part of the province of cultural policy, though substantially more ¨ important, was the construction of Thingstatten during the first years of the regime. At the end of 1933, the Reich Propaganda Ministry asked Hierl to put his organization to work on the construction of initially twenty of these open-air arenas. Shortly thereafter, Hierl and Goebbels came to an agreement ¨ that the Labor Service would build the Thingstatten in consultation with the Propaganda Ministry. The background to all of this was the attempt to create

39 41 42 43 44

40 Dt. AD 5 (1935), 951f., quote p. 952. See, e.g., VB, August 22, 1934. BA/B, R 2301/5648, esp. Reich Administration of the Labor Service to Professional Association of Pre-Historians, May 19, 1933. Faaz, Reichsarbeitsdienst, 31. ¨ H. Laasch, “Die Ausgrabung der Ritterburg Goltzsch bei Rodwisch in Sachsen,” JB-RAD 3 (1938): 89; see also Dt. AD 3 (1933), 276. Faaz, Reichsarbeitsdienst, 31.

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a form of popular theater appropriate to National Socialism along with suitable performance venues. In addition to small ensembles of actors, large groups – such as the Nazi mass organizations – were supposed to appear in these arenas to celebrate, and thus create, the Volksgemeinschaft in a pseudo-sacred spirit with a mixture of political rally and oversized popular theater. Alongside the Propaganda Ministry, the Reich League of German Open-Air and Popular Theater provided official support and organizational ¨ underpinning to the Thingstatten movement.45 Of course this work, much like the archaeological excavations, did not help to gain “food autonomy” or establish settlements. Yet the Reich Labor ¨ Leader justified it by arguing that the building of Thingstatten provided an “impressive link between the great past of our history and the present,” and this was in line with the educational task of the service.46 In fact, the construction of open-air arenas did fit well into the pedagogical context. For on these projects the Labor Service exemplified, in accordance with its de¨ clared goal, the cultural and volkisch renewal of Germany not only through its camp communities, but also through the work itself. Thus the Labor Service, itself a model and realization of the Volksgemeinschaft on a small scale, created the conditions for its fulfillment on a large scale. The Labor Service and the open-air festival play movement benefited in equal measure from the ideological effect that was always highlighted in the reporting on ¨ the construction of the Thingstatten. Moreover, through its participation in cultural projects that were bound to attract international attention, the service was able, in the early years of the regime, to emphasize once again its supposedly peace-loving nature. Yet the agreement in principle about the building of these sites at the end of 1933 was initially not followed by any practical steps. Planning did not start up until the spring of 1934. In the middle of April, Hierl stipulated that ¨ a maximum of two Thingstatten would be built per labor district. The Labor Service thus exerted considerable influence on the choice of locations.47 As Rainer Stommer has shown, the Volksgemeinschaft ideology of the Labor Service was staged with special care during the construction of these theaters.48 Suitable for that purpose were the groundbreaking, the official opening of the arenas, but also the Thing plays themselves. The attempt by the service to influence the kinds of plays that were produced and how they were staged was rather unsuccessful, but, despite the minor importance that was accorded to these projects within the RAD, Hierl’s 45 46 47 48

Seifert, Kulturarbeit, 154, 418. BA/B, R 2301/5648, Reich Administration of the Labor Service to Labor District Administration, March 27, 1934. Ibid., esp. Reich Administration of the Labor Service to Labor District Administration, March 27, 1934. Stommer, Volksgemeinschaft, esp. 51–115.

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organization had a very visible role at these festive events. A particularly glaring example was the groundbreaking for the Thingplatz Halle-Brandberge in February 1934. For the occasion, Hierl called out a parade of 3,000 labor men who performed a chant – while afterward a mere 160 volunteers worked at the site. Since many of the theaters, originally conceived for about onethousand spectators, were supposed to hold ten to twenty times that number according to plans revised in 1934, the service soon came up against the limits of what it could do. Many privately employed specialists had to be called upon, especially for the growing number of technically complicated tasks. In addition, Hierl was often unable to provide enough manpower, which meant that emergency workers had to be used in addition to private workers. However, propaganda always downplayed the size of the last two groups. That was very much the spirit in which Goebbels praised Hierl’s men at the ded¨ ication of the Heidelberg Thingstatte in June 1935.49 There were also other elements that clashed with the public image and the daily schedule of the service: given the time pressure under which these projects stood, Hierl’s men had to work in shifts at breakneck pace.50 For reasons not directly related to the Labor Service, the Thing movement failed. As a result, Hierl’s organization soon took on very few of these projects, though a handful were completed as late as 1938.51 The most visible expression of the decline of the Thing movement was a change in course by Goebbels. At the end of 1935, he prohibited the use of the words Thing ¨ in connection with the party, thus bringing the entire moveand Thingstatte ment to a halt.52 The involvement of the Labor Service in this area was thus merely a brief episode. But if the original plans calling for up to sixty sites had been implemented, the construction of these open-air arenas would have accounted for a substantial share of the service’s work over many years. The primary function of this particular deployment was propaganda, aimed not only at the German population but also at foreign observers. But after the middle of the 1930s, the diplomatic concerns became increasingly unnecessary, since the Reich had by then acquired substantially greater leeway in its foreign policy.53 After 1933 the service was also used for other cultural projects on a small scale. In many cases its function alternated in the process between being a work unit to providing staffing. In other words, Hierl’s organization was part of the regime’s apparatus for staging theatrical spectacles. It is therefore not surprising that at the 1936 Olympic Games, for example, Labor Service 49 50

51 53

See his speech in VB, June 24, 1935. Stommer, Volksgemeinschaft, esp. 51–115; Stommer, “Alltag,” 149–73; summary in Seifert, Kulturarbeit, 298–308, also on the many reasons why the Thing movement declined in importance. 52 Stommer, “Alltag,” 149–73. Hierl, Schriften, vol. 2, 365 (1935). Seifert, Kulturarbeit, 300f.

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sections assumed auxiliary, policing, and labor tasks alongside organizations such as the SS, the Wehrmacht, or the police.54 Labor men were also used for the Winter Relief program, and in 1937 they were even put to work processing mail during the Christmas and New Year’s season.55 If these assignments cannot be said to have had a real function in terms of cultural policy, that link is much more readily apparent in the participation of the service at the Reich party rallies. These activities were even less productive and economically valuable than other forms of work: instead, they served the goals of self-representation and the mobilization of the masses for political purposes. Yet, as the importance of these appearances to the service has shown, they legitimated the Labor Service as much as the work it performed. There were also other types of work. As late as 1936, the RAD was still involved in the construction of a sports stadium with a capacity of fifteenthousand in Donaueschingen, at the edge of the Black Forest.56 The project was not significant in terms of cultural policy – instead, it fell into the category of work intended “to elevate the health of the Volk.” But officially such projects were no longer undertaken after 1933, and in this case, too, National Socialist propaganda and practice diverged. While the service opposed such “useless” undertakings in most of its publications, they appear repeatedly in the picture books of the organization. Conversely, there were also projects of national political importance that were – and are – often ascribed to the Labor Service, but on which it was in fact hardly used. Most importantly, it played no significant role in building the highways (Autobahnen). The decree of July 1934 had listed the highways among the “secondary tasks.” In September of that year, following talks with the management of the Reichsautobahnen, Hierl directed his labor district leaders “to immediately take the necessary steps for the best possible deployment of the Labor Service on the Reichsautobahnen.” According to the directive, where local manpower was lacking, his organization could be used especially on “development work (ground improvement and road building),” but also on “preparing the foundation soil for the roads.”57 Needless to say, any kind of skilled labor was excluded. A few days before the directive was issued, Hierl and Fritz Todt, who was in charge of building the highways, had agreed on the deployment, which came in response to a repeatedly expressed desire on the part of the service.58 However, the service 54 55

56 57 58

See, e.g., Arbeitsmann, February 22, 1936. BA/B, R 72/325, Reich Administration of the Labor Service, Statistics, October 12, 1933; Hierl, Schriften, vol. 1, 295 (1935); BA/B, R 2301/5648, Reich Labor Leader to Labor District leaders, October 26, 1937. VB, September 25, 1936. BA/B, R 2301/5648, Reich Labor Leader to Labor District Administration, September 18, 1934. Ibid., Directorate of the Reich Highways to the Reich Commissioner of the FAD, September 10, 1934.

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never took on projects on this scale, as they tended to require a high expenditure of material and money, and were less dependent on manual labor.59 That meant they ran counter to the premises under which the Labor Service was to be deployed. According to Wolfgang Seifert, Todt also considered the labor men too inexperienced and therefore did not want to use them at his construction sites.60 One source from 1937 appears to confirm that. At the time, Todt complained to Hierl that on the construction of the road across the Alps, the output of a labor man was only 32 percent of that of a wage worker: Todt therefore demanded more equipment and reinforcements for the Labor Service units.61 Dan Silverman, who recently examined this question as well, points to two other reasons: first, wherever possible, the highways were to be built by workers drawn from the ranks of the unemployed, and since the summer of 1933, Hierl’s labor men no longer fell into that category. Second, Todt was afraid that Hierl could challenge his status as the organizer of this prestigious project if the Labor Service participated on a massive scale.62 The projects of the Labor Service aimed at infrastructure improvements were thus largely in the area of road building, not the construction of the Autobahnen. The building of airfields, likewise listed in the guidelines of 1934 under “secondary tasks,” also represented improvements to the transportation system. But unlike the other two deployments, these projects were in no way devoted primarily to peaceful, civilian uses. Unfortunately, neither archival nor published sources tell us much about the quantitative extent of this kind of work. However, a press directive from October 1934 exemplifies the context of these facilities: it explicitly prohibited any reporting about the “construction of air fields and training grounds for the Reichswehr” by the Labor Service.63 For like the “air raid shelters,” and unlike the previously discussed projects, these were military projects that went against the Geneva prohibition. The same was true, for example, of the construction of military installations in East Prussia, where several thousand labor men were being deployed for the Reichswehr.64 Although it is impossible to quantify the extent of these activities, one can assume that they did not account for a significant portion of the work prior to 1938. Otherwise they would have far too easily aroused the suspicions of the victorious powers of World War I, 59 60 61 62 63 64

¨ P. Garack, Die Arbeitsdienstpflicht als Wirtschaftsproblem, unter besonderer Berucksichtigung der Finanzierung (Bottrop, 1933), 23. Seifert, Kulturarbeit, 154f. BA/B, R 2/4552, Todt to Hierl, February 15, 1937; on the deployment in the Alps see also Scheins, Bedeutung, 54. Silverman, Economy, 187–90. NS-Presseanweisungen der Vorkriegszeit: Edition und Dokumentation, ed. H. Bohrmann and G. Toepser-Ziegert, vols. 1–7, 1933–1939 (Munich, 1984–2001), 2: 425. See, e.g., Deutschland-Berichte, vol. 3 (1936), 1344, and the reminiscences by former labor men collected in BA/B, ZSg 145/3, and in BA/B, ZSg 145/1.

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which was not something Hitler could afford to do in the first years following his takeover of power. Still, to a secondary and subordinate degree, the service was also making a direct contribution to war preparations through its work projects during the regime’s peaceful phase. Another area of work was quantitatively of little significance, though equally revealing of the character of the Labor Service in the Third Reich: a variety of scattered sources show that the Labor Service was directly involved in repression and terror measures during the initial phase of the regime. In 1933, it took part in the construction of the Dachau concentration camp, while at the same time members of the service were guarding inmates at the Nohra concentration camp in Thuringia.65 It is likely that such assignments were taken on only by labor men with very close ties to the party and the participating Nazi sponsor; they were not, in any case, a larger field of activity for the Labor Service. At the same time, this type of deployment shows continuity with the use of Nazi Labor Service units as party thugs in Anhalt, Oldenburg, and elsewhere at the end of the Weimar Republic. All projects in the primary area of activity shared a modern and anthropocentric view of nature. Nature was approached exclusively through its usefulness to human beings.66 Given the irrational agrarian romanticism with which the statements of the service were embellished, it is important not to overlook the instrumental orientation of the projects, which were always based on a rational analysis of human needs and how to satisfy them. This modern conception of nature is reflected most incisively in photographs of the service, where one frequently finds the original state of a particular landscape juxtaposed with its appearance at the end of a project. For example, the Labor Service contrasted a photo of an unregulated, meandering brook with a photo of the same brook flowing the shortest possible distance in a cement bed: the straightening of the brook was reported as the proud accomplishment of the Labor Service.67 For a long time, Hierl deflected criticism – already voiced at the time – that the service was spoiling nature and promoting its transformation into “steppeland” by pointing out that the projects were not selected by him but by officials in the regional offices for land preservation. Although there were also antimodern currents within National Socialism, for example around Heinrich Himmler, the Labor Service and many other organizations were based on a modern, rational conception of nature. In this case, there was thus not one single Nazi perspective, and the

65 66

67

Stokes, “Oldenburgisches Konzentrationslager, C 189–210, as well as additional essays in the same anthology; on Dachau, p. 14; on Nohra, p. 17. For a more extensive discussion see Patel, “Neuerfindung des Westens.” J. Radkau, Natur und Macht. Eine Weltgeschichte der Umwelt (Munich, 2000), 13–17, had correctly pointed out that this kind of distinction is not very meaningful for an environmental history. However, it is quite suitable for an analysis of historical conceptions of the environment. ¨ See, e.g., the pictures in A. v. Graefe, Manner unterm Spaten (Leipzig, 1936).

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modern, rational one was able to prevail in the end.68 Of course this does not mean that the service also pursued its projects with modern, rational methods, or that it pursued goals that were modern in the political sense. On the whole, one finds a high degree of continuity between the forms of deployment – and in part also their justification – before and after 1933. Using even more state intervention, the Nazi regime continued the directions the FAD had begun to implement. However, the Nazi state never felt bound by its own directives; instead, at all times it also undertook projects that were not in line with them. The National Socialists for the most part adopted the canon of goals the FAD had already pursued in the fields of labor market policy, military policy, practical work, education, cultural policy, and the economy. Only two aspects now came to the fore more strongly: one was the educational dimension, which increasingly guided the planning of the work deployments, with the result, for example, that certain kinds of projects were excluded because it was not possible to use the men equally. The other aspect was that the service was focused more strongly on a future war. The contributions of the service to the creation of “food autonomy” and settlements now served as indirect preparation for a military conflict down the road. Direct contributions were made through the construction of airfields and air raid shelters, although the Labor Service did this work on a small scale until 1938. By comparison, the involvement in projects arising out of cultural policy – whether as part of the Thing movement or on archaeological excavations – remained secondary and was never more than a marginal phenomenon. So far I have left out one factor that was an essential influence on the type of projects in the first years after Hitler’s takeover of power, even though it explains not least the substantial continuity in the labor projects beyond 1933: the involvement of local communities and state offices in the organization of the deployments. It is to them that I shall now turn, as well as to the question as to what extent the activities of the service competed with the free market. 4.1.2. Cooperation and Chaos: Project Planning and Project Coordination at the Beginning of the Nazi Regime An essential role in the organization of the Labor Service was played by local ¨ communities, who acted as the “work sponsors” (Trager der Arbeit), that is, the institutional framework through which the actual work was carried 68

Hierl, Schriften, vol. 2, 400 (1938). For an example of the criticism of the melioration work see especially the article by the “Reichslandschaftsanwalt.” A. Seifert, “Naturnahe Wasserwirtschaft,” Deutsche Landeskultur-Zeitung 7 (1938): 93–105; also W. Schoenichen, “Naturschutz und Landschaftspflege als Planungsaufgabe,” Raumforschung und Raumordnung 1 (1937): 194–7; for a contrary view see J. Buck, “Landeskultur und Natur,” Deutsche Landeskultur-Zeitung 6 (1937): 48–53; for a mediating voice see Klose, “Naturschutz und Landeskultur,” Deutsche Landeskultur-Zeitung 6 (1937): 43–8.

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¨ illustration 12. Work in the mountains. Source: Spaten und Ahre: Das Handbuch der deutschen Jugend im Reichsarbeitsdienst (Heidelberg, 1938), Figure 48.

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¨ out. They must be distinguished from the “sponsors of the service” (Trager des Dienstes), the organizations that provided the institutional framework for the administration of the Labor Service. The latter were responsible for organizing the volunteers; the work sponsors were supposed to assume “full economic, technical, and financial responsibility for the projects.”69 Under the Weimar Republic, a multitude of associations and organizations had been sponsors of the service: they were all coordinated into the Nazi Labor Service in 1933. By contrast, the work sponsors were the local communities, ¨ the Lander, and other public-law corporations, as well as private associations such as sports clubs. Especially on the larger projects, work sponsors often cooperated with the offices of land amelioration in order to undertake the demanding deployment planning. For the communities, the establishment of a Labor Service camp within their district brought both advantages and burdens. Since 1931, they were required, at the demand of the relevant district commissioner, to provide housing and food for the volunteers in return for “appropriate compensation.”70 Soon they were in effect forced to provide housing for the sections free of charge.71 As a result, many communities incurred considerable expenses. One has to distinguish between communities who were themselves involved in performing the work and those in which another body was carrying out a project. In either case, however, the financing of the camp fell to them. This obligation strained their budgets to the breaking point, especially since their funds were often exhausted to begin with as a result of the economic crisis – and because many communities were too generous in their calculations when it came to building the camps.72 Yet the communities also benefited from the camps. First, the Labor Service offered them a chance to carry out projects that were directly useful and would otherwise not get done. If a community functioned as the work sponsor, it was in an even better position to tailor the deployment more closely to its own needs. Second, the camps were an important boost to the local economy, providing work for all kinds of suppliers. The presence of a camp thus had a stimulating effect similar to that of a military garrison, for example, and given the catastrophic state of the economy in Germany, this was an important economic factor. Third, if communities and associations of communities themselves maintained a camp, it was easier for them to try and get their own unemployed into the service. The communities were especially interested in placing welfare recipients with the Labor 69 70 71 72

Syrup, “Arbeitsdienst,” 381–90, quote p. 384. RGBl. 1931, I, 399–401, quote p. 401. Bayr. HSta., MJu/15006, Salisko to Ziegler, January 9, 1934. See, e.g., BA/B, R 36/1915, Memorandum Bavarian State Ministry of Economics, no date [beginning of 1934]; BA/B, R 36/1921, Hierl to German Association of Communities, October 3, 1933.

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Service: these men were supported by the communities themselves and not the Reich government, and they were to a large extent responsible for the fiscal crisis afflicting the communities.73 At the beginning of the Nazi regime, however, the balance between advantages and disadvantages shifted clearly to the downside for the communities. Already in the last months of the Weimar Republic, when Syrup’s plans to substantially reduce the number of open camps were made public, the communities – alongside many sponsors of the work – had opposed this move: smaller cities and towns, in particular, maintained such open camps and were now protesting against their closure.74 The interruption of work and the uncertainties in the wake of the Gleichschaltung in 1933 had serious repercussions for the communities.75 Apart from the question of how the expenses would be distributed, one of the chief problems in 1933 was the lack of certainty about the future size of the Labor Service. Following the abandonment of the plans for labor conscription, it looked like the service would be substantially reduced. It is therefore not surprising that many communities and associations of communities now took a skeptical and even disapproving stance toward the Labor Service, in which they had placed such great hopes.76 Lower level talks did not initially produce any clarification. At a conference between members of the Reich Administration of the Labor Service and the German Association of Communities (Deutscher Gemeindetag) in October 1933, Hierl tried to reassure the communities. He conceded that their complaints were legitimate.77 On December 13, 1933, an agreement was reached between the association and the Labor Service on who would bear which expenses in the future.78 That agreement, however, was soon worthless, since the Reich Audit Office and the Reich Finance Ministry demanded that the communities should become more involved financially. In addition, because of its disastrous budget situation, the Labor Service was not able to honor previous commitments. As a result, sections of the Labor Service and communities entered into agreements that did not correspond to the stipulations of December 1933.79 All in all, the German communities had plenty of reason to complain about Hierl’s organization in 1934. Conditions in the Ruhr region, for example, reveal that the grievances had not been addressed. The local Labor

73 75 76 77 78 79

74 BA/B, R 36/1942. RGBl. 1932, I, 251, 353; Winkler, Katastrophe, 23–6, 415f. BA/B, R 1501/2584, Seldte to Reich Chancellery, April 27, 1933. BA/B, R 2/4520, Note Reich Ministry of the Interior, October 1933. BA/B, R 36/1915, Note of meetings, German Association of Communities, October 27, 1933. BA/B, R 2301/5691, Reich Administration of the Labor Service to Labor District administration and others, December 15, 1933. BA/B, R 36/1937, German Association of Communities to Reich Ministry of the Interior, February 2, 1935.

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Service district accepted unemployed welfare recipients into the service only in return for a payment of 25 Reichsmark. Although this action was not covered by any decree, it put pressure on the communities: either they paid, or the Labor Service, which had been in charge of its own recruitment since December 1933, would look for volunteers elsewhere.80 The German Association of Communities, which had learned of this and similar agreements in the Ruhr region, demanded that the Labor Service cease this practice. In his response, Hierl noted that the grants paid by the communities had been entirely voluntary and had been made without any kind of pressure.81 This was a way for Hierl to save face; the association, meanwhile, could read into it the comforting message that possible demands for payment by the labor district leadership did not reflect directives from the Reich leadership. Hierl also informed the cities and communities in question that they were not obligated to make such payments.82 Nevertheless, similar blackmail attempts occurred also in other Labor Service districts.83 The financing issue placed a considerable strain on the relationship between the Association of German Communities and the Labor Service during the first two years of the regime. Because of this question, and because of organizational problems, the association counseled the communities to be cautious. In May 1934, it advised them confidentially “that new Labor Service camps should be set up only if the Reich Administration of the Labor Service has clarified both the question of financing and the question of how the work will be carried out.”84 With the introduction of labor conscription in 1935, the communities took the position that the costs for the camps should henceforth be borne by the Reich – the Labor Service type of “Reich barracks” should be used instead of community-provided housing.85 In the following years, the association and the Labor Service continued to quarrel vehemently over housing agreements and other issues.86 In the end, Hierl himself was increasingly interested in housing his sections in state barracks to avoid these conflicts. As a result of the improved financial situation and general consolidation of the service, the RAD was able to increase the proportion of barracks camps in the following years, and with increasing frequency they 80 81 82 83 84 85 86

¨ BA/B, R 3903/220, esp. President of the Lander Employment Office of the Rheinland to the president of the RfAVAV, January 17, 1934, with attachment. BA/B, R 36/1947, esp. German Association of Communities to Reich Administration of the Labor Service, March 2, 1934. Ibid., German Association of Communities to the mayor of Krefeld and others, June 22, 1934. BA/B, R 36/1921, esp. German Association of Communities to Reich Administration of the Labor Service, September 12, 1933; Schinnerer, Arbeitsgau, 55f. BA/B, R 36/1915, German Association of Communities to Bavarian Association of Communities, May 5, 1934. BA/B, R 36/1912, Note German Association of Communities, November 8, 1935. BA/B, R 36/1913, 1914, 1924.

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were paid for by state funds. This loosened the close ties between the Labor Service and the communities, which had been the cause of so many problems in the first few years. Although the difficult relationship between Labor Service and communities revolved primarily around the question of finance, it also had profound consequences for the work projects. For example, criticism by the communities of this aspect took up a substantial part of a memorandum from the Bavarian State Ministry for Economics. It stated that many Labor Service leaders, because of their military background, were utterly incompetent when it came to work planning.87 Even more devastating was the verdict of the Bavarian Regierungsbaurat (government building surveyor) Salisko, who worked closely with the Labor Service. At the beginning of 1934, Salisko complained that the district leaders of the Labor Service were not willing to cooperate with the land reclamation officials in planning the work. In the final analysis, the two sides had fundamentally different views of their tasks: “Whereas we [the land reclamation offices] emphasize above all that the Labor Service should be used on the most important and urgent economic projects, the district leaders or their deputies place the greatest emphasis on completing the prescribed number of camps as quickly as possible, while the question of work procurement is only secondary to them.” Obviously, the Labor Service was trying to make itself independent of the state authorities, but the lack of administrative experience on the part of its leaders led to serious problems and mistakes. According to Salisko, the following principle should apply: “‘The Labor Service will be used where economically valuable work is available that could not be done without the Labor Service,’ not, as has been the case until now, ‘Camps will be given to those communities who pay the most for them, and work will then be found for these camps.’”88 Salisko’s criticism indicates that beyond the quarrels and disagreements, there was a structurally conservative alliance between Labor Service and communities which made it more difficult to deploy the labor in a meaningful way. The communities had a vital interest in keeping labor camps in their districts for as long as possible if they had spent a lot of money setting them up. As a result, projects were frequently continued even though they had become pointless. For that reason the communities were partly responsible for the shortcomings of the Labor Service.89 If one asks how these problems affected the work productivity of the service, there is no clear answer, nor is such an answer possible. A precise determination could be made only if one could calculate the output over the 87 88 89

BA/B, R 36/1915, Memorandum Bavarian State Ministry of Economics, no date [beginning of 1934]. Bayr. HStA, MJu/15006, Salisko to Ziegler, January 9, 1934. Compare with an example from a different part of the Reich, BA/B, R 2/4519, Note Reich Finance Ministry, January 31, 1934.

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¨ illustration 13. RAD worker laying sewage pipe. Source: Spaten und Ahre: Das Handbuch der deutschen Jugend im Reichsarbeitsdienst (Heidelberg, 1938), Figure 47.

various months in the more than one-thousand camps; moreover, external influences like the weather or the season would have to be taken into account. Still, broadly indicative statements are certainly possible. For example, the Bavarian memorandum explained that the work output of the young men varied a great deal. In general, during the daily work period of six hours, the labor men accomplished at most half of what wage workers accomplished in eight hours – sometimes even less.90 Various sources mention that the 90

BA/B, R 36/1915, Memorandum Bavarian State Ministry of Economics, no date [beginning of 1934].

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RAD achieved around 30 percent of the normal work output, even though in some areas a peak output of more than 90 percent was achieved.91 By contrast, the labor leader Tholens publicly claimed in 1934 that many places were achieving a 100 percent work output, even of skilled workers.92 But the data that Paul Humann collected in his dissertation the same year seems much more realistic. He found a range of 30–90 percent; according to the calculations of Schellenberg, prior to 1933 there was an output of about 55 percent of the normal work efficiency, using an eight-hour workday as the yardstick.93 Given the problems created by the coordination of the service, that figure is unlikely to have increased following the takeover of power. If one applies merely the daily output of an unskilled laborer in the free market as the yardstick of comparison, the work accomplished by a labor man had to be significantly less, simply because of his shorter workday and the more limited use of machinery. Paul Garack, in his economic dissertation in 1933, had demanded that the workweek be fixed at thirty-six hours, at the least, for anything less was a “trifle.”94 In actual fact, in the first years of the regime the service worked substantially less, which meant that its output had to be significantly lower than that of private employees. Criticism of the chaotic conditions in the Labor Service came not only from the communities, but also from the land reclamation offices (Kultur¨ bauamter) and other state agencies that wanted to be more closely involved in planning the work deployments.95 They possessed the necessary expertise to put the service to better use. Hierl, jealously guarding his own fiefdom, was hesitant about continuing the cooperation that had developed since the Weimar days. In this area, as well, the Nazi Labor Service did not use the institutional resources at its disposal. It took years before, on the one hand, the leadership corps acquired sufficient expertise to carry out meaningful planning on its own, and, on the other hand, constructive cooperation with the land amelioration offices got going after all. In the end, these findings supplement the picture of the organizational difficulties the Labor Service was facing in the first year-and-a-half following the takeover of power by the Nazis. The precipitous coordination, the lack of expertise among the leaders, the unwillingness to create a clear structure and to cooperate with knowledgeable and experienced institutions gave rise to defects and shortcomings that Hierl’s organization was able to remedy only slowly in 1934–5. It is another demonstration of how high a cost the regime had to pay also in 91

92 93 94 95

See, e.g., Berichte Neu Beginnen, 246 (1934), 539 (1935); BA/B, R2/4552, Todt to Hierl, February 15, 1937; BA/B, R 2/4519, Audit Office of the German Reich to Reich Finance Ministry, March 17, 1934. H. Tholens, “Die Wirtschaftlichkeit des Arbeitsdienstes,” NSM 5 (1934b), 996–8. Humann, Wirtschaftliche Seite, 42; Schellenberg, Der freiwillige Arbeitsdienst, 120f. P. Garack, Die Arbeitsdienstpflicht als Wirtschaftsproblem (Bottrop, 1933), 8. ¨ ¨ Baumgartl, “Erfahrungen mit dem Arbeitsdienst und Wunsche der Landeskulturgenossen¨ schaften an den Arbeitsdienst unter besonderer Berucksichtigung der Provinz Brandenburg,” Deutsche Landeskultur-Zeitung 3 (1934): 12f.

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material terms for the radical Gleichschaltung of the complex institution of the Labor Service. While numerous sources speak of the conflicts with the land amelioration offices and the communities, it is striking that the documentary record provides hardly any information at all on the service’s relationship to private enterprises. Evidently there was hardly any friction in this area, at least after 1934. Given the fluid boundaries between the tasks that Hierl’s organization took on and projects that were also of interest to private enterprises, that seems astonishing at first glance, especially since there is evidence of protests against measures by the FAD during the final months of the Weimar Republic. In the second half of the 1930s, the order books of most companies were full and they found plenty of work, which meant they did not have to fear competition from the Labor Service. But that was not the case in the first years following the takeover of power. The only explanation for why there do not appear to have been larger rivalries in spite of this must be that the Labor Service pursued a skillful policy in this area. The chief reason for the absence of friction was probably the shift of the activities into the sphere of land improvement, which Syrup had already initiated prior to 1933. In this area there were very few private companies with which the Labor Service would have been in competition. While the Labor Service did not have to contend with companies in the ` niche of land improvement, it did have to stake out its place vis-a-vis other publicly funded measures of the Nazi regime. The job-creation programs, in particular, pursued tasks that were essentially like those of Hierl’s organization. Since emergency workers were for the most part men who were married or at least twenty-five years of age, and whom one did not wish to remove from their social environment, the spheres of work were divided up in 1934 in the way I have described previously. While emergency workers were generally deployed near cities, which allowed them to return to their homes after work, the Labor Service was located in remote areas.96 Even if the process of shifting the affected sections had by no means been completed by 1935, unnecessary rivalries were avoided through negotiations, much as was done with respect to the private sector. But the demarcation of the activities of the service against those of the private sector had another side to it. Already during the Weimar Republic, interest groups representing especially the craft trades had complained that the Labor Service was competing with them through the manner in which it procured and repaired clothing and equipment.97 Similar problems still existed in 1933. Private-sector interest groups continued to bring pressure to 96 97

BA/B, R 3903/220, Reich Administration of the Labor Service to the president of the RfAVAV, February 28, 1934, and attachment. BA/B, R 3101/13616, esp. Reich Association of German Trade to Reich Commissioner of the FAD, November 4, 1932.

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bear to stop these practices.98 Against this backdrop, the NSDAP decided in the first year after its takeover of power to leave as many contracts as possible to the private sector. Clothing and equipment for the labor men were to be purchased from private companies, and the service did only minor repairs on its own.99 The Reich Labor Leader publicly justified the additional costs this would impose by noting the effects this approach would have on employment.100 In the final analysis, then, a cost-intensive, demand-oriented policy was supposed to stimulate the economy. In addition to utilizing production capacity, the policy also had the goal of generating indirect employment effects. Still, the Labor Service continued to make furniture and other equipment for its own use on a small scale. This was no longer done during the work hours, but it was a permanent part of the recreation program after 1933, ostensibly for pedagogical reasons. Moreover, the fact that the service produced some of its food was also not entirely in keeping with a management approach that was supposed to be demand-driven and focused on stimulating purchasing power. Many camps maintained large vegetable gardens and some enhanced their menu options by keeping pigs.101 The chief motivation behind such measures was the cloudy financial situation of the service. There were two effects that flowed from this: one, some of the men did not work on the actual projects; two, the agricultural sector lost potential business. Although one must not exaggerate the extent of service activities that competed with the private sector when it came to clothing, food, and equipment, it must be noted that the precarious budget situation forced Hierl to find pragmatic compromise solutions. Criticism from the private sector of these kinds of activities is attested only for the first months of the regime. We can only speculate why it fell silent thereafter. It is not very likely that the interest groups were too intimidated to protest. Rather, the successful policy of the Labor Service on this question, along with the good flow of orders to private companies from the middle of the 1930s, was probably the reason why the private sector did not see Hierl’s organization as a competitor. On the whole, compared to the conflict-ridden relationship to the commu` nities, the attempt to carve out a space vis-a-vis the private economy was successful. 98

99

100 101

See, e.g., Bayr. HStA, MWi/3135, Chamber of Trade of Upper Bavaria to the German Cham¨ ber of Trade and Commerce, March 4, 1933; BA/B, R 1501/25373, esp. Muller-Brandenburg to Reich Association of German Industry, May 16, 1933; in general, BA/B, R 3101/13616; BA/B, R 3905/63. BA/B, R 2301/5662, Reich Commissioner of the FAD to Reich League of German Labor Service Associations, August 3, 1933; E. Wiens, “Sinn und Form der Arbeitsdienstpflicht,” Arbeitgeber 23 (1933): 171. Scheins, Volkswirtschafliche Bedeutung, 26f. Schinnerer, Arbeitsgau, 54f.; BA/B, R 2301/5653, Protocol of the 10th Meeting of Labor District Leaders, February 8–9, 1936.

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In “The Grandeurs of Nature” 4.2. GLORIFICATION AND PRAGMATIC COMPROMISE: THE CONCEPT AND PRACTICE OF WORK IN THE GERMAN LABOR SERVICE 4.2.1. “Every Cut of the Spade a Prayer for Germany”: The Concept of Work

As it did with the activities it undertook, the service after 1933 sought to distance itself as much as possible from its Weimar precursor with respect to its conception of work. The service and its projects were hailed as an authentic National Socialist achievement and at the same time placed within a tradition that allegedly stretched from the Germanic tribes to the colonization of the East by the Teutonic Order, down to the soil improvement carried out by Frederick II.102 Simultaneously, the Reich Labor Leader and other members of the service, in an unending flood of speeches and articles after 1933, emphasized the differences between the way work was valued before and after the Nazis took power. The argument was always the same, as articulated, for example, by Hierl at the party rally in 1933: “The liberal conception saw work merely as a means of making money . . . To us, work means the content of life. In work we recognize a sister of struggle. Existence without work and the struggle for life strikes us as a stale sick room. The liberal conception valued work according to the gain it brought to the individual, we appreciate work for its value to the Volksgemeinschaft.”103 Hierl polemicized against the “liberal conception” of work, which he usually equated with the Weimar Republic. Thus, he offered a crudely distorted and simplistic picture of the valuation of work before 1933, for the word in fact had meant many different things at the time. The concept of “national work” had figured in the work of early economists such as Adam Smith and Friedrich List, and the National Socialist theory built directly on this intellectual tradition.104 The Reich Labor Leader understood “work” fundamentally as an activity that gave meaning to life and in the final analysis legitimized the existence of the individual. Most of all, work was regarded as valuable only if it served the Volksgemeinschaft. In the same speech, Hierl also denounced the “arrogance” with which the “liberal conception” had looked down on those who worked with their hands. According to the Reich Labor Leader, things 102 103 104

¨ ¨ See, e.g., Gonner, Spaten und Ahre, 104–7. Hierl, Schriften, vol. 2, 345–9 (1933), quote p. 345. W. Conze, “Arbeit,” in O. Brunner et al., eds., Geschichtliche Grundbegriffe, Historisches Lexikon zur politisch-sozialen Sprache in Deutschland, 8 vols., vol. 1 (Stuttgart, 1972): ¨ 208–15; A. Ludtke, “The ‘Honor of Labor.’ Industrial Workers and the Power of Symbols under National Socialism,” in D. F. Crew, ed., Nazism and German Society, 1933–1945 (London, 1994), 67–109; on the RAD’s conception of work, see most recently also Hansen, “Erziehungsideal,” 58–60. The issue here is not so much continuity after 1933, but the question of the Nazi conception of work and how it contrasted with practice.

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were different in the Third Reich: “We wish to give the German worker his honor, which is more indispensable to him than contract wages, because he is a German. We wish to make the word ‘worker’ a title of honor for every German, which is why every young German shall, for a certain period of his life, perform honor service to his Volk as a manual laborer.”105 This idea was not a logical consequence of the first consideration, but it was readily compatible with it and both referred the activities back to the Volksgemeinschaft. That is also why it was consistent to praise work – especially in the Labor Service – as “honorary service.” The connection that was established between labor service and the Volksgemeinschaft exhibited five elements. First, the glorification of simple manual work was part of the attempt to win the workers over to the regime. Before and after 1933, the National Socialist program was not targeted at a single social class or stratum that was exclusively wooed. Rather, the regime made offers of integration that were specific to social class. The emphasis on the value of (manual) labor was directed primarily at the working class: it was to be incorporated into National Socialist rule by according it symbolically a place of equality alongside all other Volksgenossen.106 The background to this was the distinction that Hitler had drawn in Mein Kampf between a material and an ideal conception of work. Here all work was regarded as equally valuable if it served the Volksgemeinschaft – but that did not mean that all activities should receive equal pay.107 It was thus primarily an offer of symbolic recognition, not material improvement, with which National Socialism tried to court the working class. This aspect was especially important for the Labor Service, since its members were drawn primarily from the ranks of the workers. In the years of the Great Depression, it offered them, especially, a way out of the misery of mass unemployment. The wooing of the Social Democratic or Communist working class played an important role in the public statements of the Labor Service especially in the first years after the Machtergreifung. This is apparent in the frequent use of phrases such as “German socialism” or “socialist army of workers,” which were drawn from the language of the workers’ movement.108 The Labor Service adorned itself with an anticapitalistic pathos, which neither it nor the regime as a whole ever intended to translate into a change in the distribution of property or a break with the capitalist economic system. At the same time, this propaganda characterized Nazi rule as a plebiscitary dictatorship, which sought to win over the population not only through terror, but also by wooing it with offers of incorporation. 105 106 107 108

Hierl, Schriften, vol. 2, 345–9 (1933), quote p. 345. See also Schneider, Unterm Hakenkreuz, 141–6; C. Schmitz-Berning, Vokabular des Nationalsozialismus (Berlin, 1998), 41–3. Hitler, Mein Kampf, 433–4. For example, H. Biallas, “Die Arbeit im neuen Reich,” Arbeitertum 4 (1934): 4f.

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Second, the members of the service paid a high price for this symbolic recognition of their labor: subordination to the interests of the Volksgemeinschaft, which were, needless, to say, defined by the state and party leadership. Apart from its educational ideology, it was the focus on the community as a whole that justified the introduction of universal labor conscription: the shared labor was to provide the “glue” of the Volksgemeinschaft.109 In this way, recognition of manual labor and the performance of a service for the common good on a compulsory basis were combined. Third, this conception of work provided an entryway for broad state intervention in the labor market and the economy. After 1933, the idea of compulsory service for the good of the Volksgemeinschaft, the basis of Hierl’s organization, was continuously expanded into a general duty of both genders to work.110 In that sense, Hierl’s organization was merely one part of a broader current, while at the same time leading the way in propagating and implementing this idea, which one could characterize as the universalization of the idea of service. Fourth, it was thus not only Hierl’s organization in general that was glorified, but its concrete work projects, in particular. Unlike the Weimar Labor Service, whose activities were hardly charged with ideology, after 1933, the logic of the ideology of labor demanded that the service take on only projects that served the Volksgemeinschaft. Since it was, for example, incompatible with the valuation of work that only a specific group should benefit from the fruits of the Labor Service, it was a virtual necessity that the service made projects in soil improvement and settlement the central focus of its activities. As work was always conceived of within the context of the “German soil,” and the service had the mission of “reconnecting the blood and soil of our Volk,” these two areas were particularly well suited.111 A fifth element was the sacralization of work. Although it is hard to distinguish this from the already discussed glorification of work as “honor service,” it was a qualitative intensification beyond such phrases as “labor ennobles” (Arbeit adelt), which was written above the entry gates of some camps.112 As early as the end of 1933, Hierl had written in the magazine Arbeitgeber that “proper work was not only service to the idol of mammon, but a true service to God [Gottesdienst].”113 Especially during the second half of the 1930s, the Reich Labor Leader repeatedly used religious concepts in reference to his organization and its activities. At the Reich party rally in 1937, for example, he delivered a veritable credo: “By thus serving our 109 110 111 112 113

¨ A. Kruger, “Die Arbeit im Arbeitsdienst,” Nationalsozialistische Sozialpolitik 2 (1935c): 161–4, quote p. 163. ¨ Gemeinschaft aus dem Gleichgewicht. Gotz, Hierl, Schriften, vol. 2, 350–9 (1934), quote p. 357. On this sacralization see also Hansen, “Erziehungsideal,” 59f. K. Hierl, “Die Zukunft des Arbeitsdienstes,” Arbeitgeber 23 (1933): 414f., quote p. 414.

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Volk with heart and hand, we also believe that we are serving God, who has created the peoples and has placed us within our Volk. In this way our Labor Service becomes in the deepest sense also a service to God.”114 Subsequently, this formulation was used repeatedly in the press and especially in the publications of the Reich Labor Service.115 Once again, the Nazis were not the first to elevate labor in this way – the Victorian writer Thomas Carlyle, for example, had declared that working was equal to praying.116 At the Reich party rally in 1937, the labor men sang a song that hailed every cut of the spade as a “prayer for Germany.”117 This idea was neither new nor specifically German, but it was now linked consistently and with broad effect to the idea of Volksgemeinschaft. Central to this and other notions was the fact that they were not merely used by the small elite of the regime – rather, the members of the Labor Service reproduced their content day in and day out, in every part of the daily schedule. In this way the Labor Service was not simply connected to the notion of honor: in the final analysis, a profane object and a profane activity were elevated into the realm of the sacred. However, through its use of the term Volksgemeinschaft, the religious vocabulary referred back to an object that was of this world.118 These five elements in reference to Volksgemeinschaft not only shaped the conception of work itself, but were also reflected to a lesser extent in the many related terms used by the Labor Service. From November 15, 1933, State Secretary Hierl, at that time still subordinated to Reich Commissioner Seldte, called himself “Reich Labor Leader.”119 The title was absolutely presumptuous: though vague, it suggested that this “leader” was organizing labor at the behest of the Reich. In actuality, this title should have belonged to the head of the German Labor Front, the Reich Labor Minister, or in later years the Administrator for the Four-Year Plan, and ideally even to a person who combined all these tasks. The fact that a relatively unimportant state secretary adorned himself with it revealed, for one, the extent of his ambitions. Since Hierl gave himself the title a few months after the temporary cancellation of labor conscription, it was a reminder of that ultimate goal, for it was hardly conceivable that a Reich Labor Leader would be in charge 114 115 116 117 118

119

Hierl, Schriften, vol. 2, 380–3 (1937), quote p. 382. See, e.g., Mitteldeutsche National-Zeitung, September 9, 1938; T. Scheller, “Unsere Feierstunden,” JB-RAD 3 (1938): 64. Conze, “Arbeit,” 199. ¨ Reichsarbeitsdienst, Nurnberg-Feier, Reichsparteitag (n.p., n.d. [1937]). This finding could be expanded into the larger question – which has lately become once again a topic of wider discussion – to what extent National Socialism was a political religion; on this see most recently, e.g., H. A. Winkler, Der lange Weg nach Westen, vol. 2: Deutsche Geschichte vom “Dritten Reich” bis zur Wiedervereinigung, 3rd ed. (Munich, 2002), esp. 1–8, and M. Burleigh, The Third Reich: A New History (New York, 2000). BA/B, R 2301/5638, Reich Administration of the Labor Service to Labor District administration and others, November 15, 1933. Hierl arrogated the title for himself in 1933, though he did not bear it officially until 1935; see RGBl. 1935, I, 1215.

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of just a few tens of thousands of volunteers. For another, the title could be justified with the comprehensive pretension of the Labor Service, which grew out of its conception of labor and its connection to the semi-utopian project of the Volksgemeinschaft. Finally, Hierl’s title was an expression of the rivalry between the National Socialist Hierl and his superior, the Stahlhelm man Seldte: in this conflict, Hierl used the fanciful job title to assert his claim to the leadership of the organization. The same intent was behind the term “Reich Administration” (Reichsleitung) that was introduced in 1933 for the headquarters of the Labor Service, a term that was not supported by the legal situation at the time. Analogously, the bill of May 1933 calling for the introduction of labor conscription referred to the members of the organization as “Reich service workers” (Reichsdienstarbeiter).120 In the first months following the takeover of power, however, many writers were still using neutral expressions (much as they had in the Weimar Republic) such as “volunteers” or “willing Labor Service participants” (Arbeitsdienstwillige). While the title Reich Labor Leader became established after 1933, the phrase “Reich service worker” did not last and did not become part of public speech. It was different for the shorter label “Reich worker” (Reichsarbeiter). It is found in numerous books and articles of the first years of the regime, most influentially in Stellrecht’s basic work published in early 1933.121 But it, too, was hardly used after 1935. Beginning in the fall of 1934, commentators spoke increasingly of the “labor man” (Arbeitsmann) – an expression used in the fifteenth century as a synonym for craftsman, in the nineteenth century as a synonym for worker. Hierl employed it for the first time in a prominent setting at the Reich party rally in 1934.122 Thereafter, the expression was adopted by a grateful press.123 Once again it was the Reich Labor Leader who helped in the successful launch of a term referring to the Labor Service. That is not to say that he coined a specific term himself, but an expression made it into the conceptual canon only if he used it. This word for the workers was simple, and since it dispensed with the notion of the Reich and its own multifarious meanings,124 it could be even more readily associated with the idea of Volksgemeinschaft. Arbeitsmann combined the Nazi concepts of work and masculinity, much like the analogous term Arbeitsmaiden joined work and femininity. The label was institutionalized for good in the fall of 1935, when, in tandem with the introduction of labor conscription, the weekly paper Der ¨ Fuhrer ¨ Arbeitsmann. Zeitung des Reichsarbeitsdienstes fur und Gefolgschaft 120 121 122 123 124

BA/B, R 2301/5645, Reich Labor Ministry to Audit Office of the German Reich, May 29, 1933, and attachment. Stellrecht, Arbeitsdienst, 82, also, e.g., H. v. Grafenstein, Der freiwillige Arbeitsdienst als ¨ Vorstufe der Arbeitsdienstpflicht (Wurzburg, 1934), 28. Hierl, Schriften, vol. 2, 350–1 (1934), quote p. 350. See, e.g., VB, September 7, 1934; Der Deutsche, September 9, 1934; GER, October 7, 1934. Winkler, Weg, vol. 2, 6–8.

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(The Labor Man: Journal of the Reich Labor Service for Leaders and Men) was launched as the official organ of the service. Also, the conceptual history of labor service cannot be separated from the history of the media under the Nazi regime. From the end of 1933, the Labor Service became increasingly an institution that established a monopoly over how it was interpreted and depicted. Whereas in the summer of 1933 the press had still been a stage on which different ideas about the Labor Service clashed,125 by the end of that year the publicly conveyed picture became more and more static and sealed off. In this area, as well, the free and many-sided discourse was radically curtailed: henceforth, nearly all articles and books about the Labor Service came from the pens of members of the organization or reproduced their views. The scattered nonconformist statements that still made it into the press were carefully noted and harshly attacked. For example, in December 1933, Domenicus Zorn, a former senior government official who had written about ¨ the Labor Service previously, suggested in the Berliner Borsenzeitung that the Labor Service should be reorganized on a liberal basis that was diametrically opposed to the ideas of the National Socialists. Not only did the press with close ties to the regime polemicize against this suggestion, Goebbels’s Angriff actually threatened to throw the former civil servant into a concentration camp.126 After that there were very few attempts in the daily press to go against the National Socialist hold over the interpretation of the service. The discourse controlled by Hierl was able to reproduce itself largely undisturbed. There were only two sides from which future criticism would come. First, other institutions of the Third Reich criticized the service repeatedly in specialized journals, booklets, and the like; Stellrecht’s previously mentioned book of 1934 is a good example. Second, on rare occasions nonconformist statements did make it into the press in subsequent years. These, too, were picked up and denounced by the Labor Service. But one indication of just how thoroughly the service had established its interpretive monopoly is the fact that in the second half of the 1930s, it was still criticizing books published back in 1933 – evidently the Nazi Labor Service was running out of enemies it needed as a foil for its own self-representation.127 On the whole, one can note that the views of the Labor Service and its conception of work that I have outlined here were canonized from the end of 1933 and no longer challenged by alternative approaches. 125 126 127

See Chapter 1, Section 1.2.1 of this volume. See BBZ, December 10, 1933; reactions: BBZ, December 13, 1933; VB, December 14, 1933; AN, December 14, 1933. ¨ ¨ See A. D. Muller, Die Verkundigung im Arbeitsdienstlager als Problem der Volksmission (Frankfurt/Main, 1933); on this book see Der Arbeitsmann, June 13, 1936; A. Chwala, ¨ ¨ den Arbeitsdienst (Dulmen, ¨ Katholisches Hand- und Gebetbuchlein fur 1933); on his book see Der Arbeitsmann, October 10, 1936; Die Bewegung 38 (1936).

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A second dimension of the notion of work – alongside that of the Volksgemeinschaft with all its implications – was racism. Above all, the valuation of work after 1933 had a decidedly anti-Semitic thrust.128 In a speech in 1935, for example, Hierl emphasized that the Labor Service was an “educational tool for a break with the materialist conception of work,” which had been “shaped by a Jew and parroted by an apathetic and tired people devoid of hope.”129 Hitler had arrived at a similar conclusion in a major speech in 1920 and later again in Mein Kampf, charging the Jews with being “parasites” living at the expense of the “Aryans” who worked out of a sense of idealism.130 The anti-Semitism that speaks from these lines was articulated with increasing frequency and openness in Der Arbeitsmann, a magazine directed equally at leaders and labor men, especially after 1937.131 This side of the Nazi conception of work thus found expression not only in a few scattered speeches, but also in a whole host of statements of various kinds. ¨ At the same time, however, the anti-Semitism was only part of a volkisch racism. The concept of work was split into a positive and a negative category, and individuals and entire peoples were assigned to one or the other depending on racial criteria. Needless to say, the “Aryans” and their notion of work stood at the top, the Jews at the very bottom of the scale. Moreover, as the labor leader Decker put it, work was “the great means of selection by which the weak are separated out from the strong,” it was the “law of struggle of humanity.”132 The crude Social Darwinism in these lines reveals that the Labor Service’s conception of work was anti-Semitic, but in the final analysis also generally racist and based on a biological fundamentalism. This racist element was also part of the method for wooing the members of the service: “honor service” would be available only to the “racially valuable” part of the nation. As a logical consequence, inclusion entailed exclusion. “Community aliens” were on principle excluded from work that was transfigured into “honor service,” racially defined, and oriented toward the good of the Volksgemeinschaft. This deterministic dimension was joined by a voluntaristic one: anyone who refused to participate in and submit himself to the Nazi work ethos was likewise expelled from the community. To that extent, work was to a special degree the factor that was used to distinguish between Volksgenossen and “community aliens.” Even more important to the work projects of the Labor Service was the implication that it was impossible, because of the ideological charge that work carried, for the excluded part of the population to pursue the same projects as the Volksgenossen in the Labor Service and in other organizations. Hence soil improvement, in 128 129 130 131 132

¨ Conze, “Arbeit,” 215; Kohler, Arbeitsdienst, 246f. Hierl, Schriften, vol. 2, 222–9 (1935), quote p. 227. Hitler, Mein Kampf, 296–306, 433–4; on his speech see Campbell, Joy in Work, 314f. See, e.g., Der Arbeitsmann, July 17, 1937; also, Chapter 3, Section 3.3.1 of this volume. ¨ Decker, Weg, 21; see also Kruger, “Arbeit,” 161–4.

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particular, was presented as an exclusive form of work. According to this conception, it was unthinkable for “community aliens” to work in the same area, as the glorification of work could not refer to concrete projects, but only in very basic ways to the nature of the work itself. The third tendency that becomes apparent in the conception of work within the Labor Service was militarization. By that I mean both the use of military terms and metaphors, as well as the mental preparation for war by linking the concepts of work and war. This militarization already occupied a large space in Nazi publications prior to 1933,133 and initially this did not change after the Machtergreifung. In the magazine Arbeitertum, the organ ¨ of the National Socialist Company Cell Organization, Bernhard Kohler, for example, published an article in July 1933 in which he quoted the opening lines of the Nibelungenlied (a medieval German epic poem). When it speaks ¨ of “famous heroes, of mighty toil,” Kohler, the head of the Commission for Economic Policy in the Reich Administration of the NSDAP, interpreted this as follows: “Work and war are the two forms in which the struggle for existence by the individual as well as the Volk takes place. In essence, work and war are the same, they arise from the same primordial law of life and have the same eternal meaning. The worker and the soldier are one thing: Volksgenossen in the struggle.”134 After Hitler had been forced to postpone the introduction of labor conscription in the summer of 1933, the warlike dimension was for a few months consigned to a secondary role. All the more frequently, the work of the service was now presented as a peaceful enterprise.135 Here, too, the conceptual elaboration of work fit into the general approach of the regime – for during the first years, it was precisely the apparently innocuous conception of work that served to conceal the emerging military rearmament.136 But the Labor Service did not hold to this line very long. A few months later we find once again a growing number of statements that placed the organization within the context of a culture of war preparation. In January 1934, Hierl declared before an audience of students at Berlin University: “Every German should be a worker and fighter for his Volk . . . The men who serve their Volk in peacetime with the spade, the weapon of peace, are mentally also prepared to risk their lives to protect their work of peace and the honor of their Volk.”137 The tendency to highlight the military dimension of work grew stronger when universal military conscription was introduced in March 1935, followed six months later by labor conscription. This can also be demonstrated in qualitative terms. For example, beginning in November 1935 and continuing for several months, one can find in Der Arbeitsmann 133 134 135 137

Hierl, Schriften, vol. 2, 29–49 (1931/32). ¨ B. Kohler, “Vom Sinn der Arbeit,” Arbeitertum 3 (1933): 13f., quote p. 13. 136 Schneider, Unterm Hakenkreuz, 485. See Dt. AD 3 (1933), 263f. Hierl, Schriften, vol. 2, 133–49 (1934), quotes pp. 133, 142.

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at least one article per issue on military questions. These articles stand out in a magazine that was otherwise devoted to problems of direct concern to the Labor Service. Hence, it was not only a militarization of the notion of work that moved the service into a military context.138 The militarization of the conception of work acquired increasing importance in tandem with the broadening of the regime’s maneuvering room in foreign policy, eventually settling down at a high level in 1935–6 – where it would remain until the final downfall of the regime in 1945. The growing significance of the military component in the understanding of work is especially apparent in a metaphor for the members of the service that became established even before the term “labor men” emerged as the standard usage: “soldiers of labor.” Once again it was Hierl who used this expression in a public speech, thus making it acceptable in connection with the Labor Service. At a flag consecration ceremony on the occasion of Hitler’s birthday in April 1934, he elaborated by saying that the men of the Labor Service called themselves “soldiers of labor,” not because the service was “a military institution in disguise,” but “because the word ‘soldier’ is for us an expression of a certain mental attitude.” Hierl defined soldiering through concepts like “self-sacrifice,” “honor,” “sense of duty, manly discipline, and camaraderie.”139 While the phrases “soldier of labor” and “labor man” were normally used as synonyms, in 1935 Hierl emphasized the difference between them: it was only the formation exercises that turned the “labor man” into the “soldier of labor.”140 In Hierl’s eyes it was clearly the premilitary training by which the young men earned the latter title. Although the relationship between the two labels was not always articulated in the same way, one can say that the metaphor “soldiers of labor” encapsulated the canon of virtues that the Labor Service was supposed to instill in the young men. The militarization of the conception of work, which is found beyond the Labor Service throughout the Nazi regime, could also be seen as an unintended trivialization of war. To connect regular, eight-hour (maximum) work on land reclamation projects with concepts like “struggle,” “self-sacrifice,” or putting one’s life at risk, trivializes war, since the activities of the labor men were incomparably less risky and physically and psychologically less stressful than the military deployment of soldiers. Yet it would be too simplistic to interpret the militaristic language as evidence of the theatrical character of the Labor Service. For the opinion elite of the Labor Service and of National Socialism in general, who coined these phrases and concepts, were quite clear that the language of war should be more than merely a linguistic reference system. Rather, it was to prepare for a future in which most 138 140

Der Arbeitsmann 1935, 1936. Ibid., vol. 2, 194 (1935).

139

Hierl, Schriften, vol. 2, 163f. (1934), quotes pp. 163f.

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members of the service would soon find themselves. The reference to war legitimized the service in a society that was preparing for war with the utmost exertion. In summary, the work of the Labor Service was ideologically transfigured in three respects. First, a direct link was made to the Volksgemeinschaft, with work deriving its value only from its usefulness to the national community and helping to establish it. Second, work took on a racist and, in particular, anti-Semitic dimension. Third, the concept of work was militarized; aside from a brief interlude of moderation in 1933, work was given martial associations and thereby became part of the mental preparation for war. This aspect, like the racist one, grew even more radical in the second half of the 1930s. At first glance, there appears to be a contrary trend after 1935, when the entertainment element was expanded in official RAD publications, and funny pages and the like appeared in Der Arbeitsmann and in other organs. However, this trend is generally found in the Nazi press, in the aesthetic products, and the politics of those years.141 There was nothing new to be said about the fundamental questions; the redundant articles about the meaning of it all lost their mobilizing force. Instead, a larger and more attractive program of recreational offerings, which included the funny pages as well as the vacation trips of the KdF, was now supposed to win over the population. But it was not only the Labor Service that held to the conception of work I have outlined. One can see this, apart from the references to Hitler, also in Meyers Lexikon of 1936, for example, which provides a generally valid definition of labor for the Nazi period. It says there that labor is “every targeted use of mental or physical strength for work that serves the entire Volk, no matter to how small a degree.” Labor was “the socialist duty of the Volksgenosse, and not – as Jewish ethics present it – a necessary evil arising from the Fall.” The article concluded by asserting that three institutions were primarily responsible for conveying this conception of labor: the Labor Service, the German Labor Front, and labor law.142 With the exception of militarism, all the essential aspects of the National Socialist understanding of labor were summarized in this entry. In the concepts and terminology it used, the Labor Service thus by and large echoed the Nazi mainstream.143 Moreover, the article shows the eminent place that Hierl’s organization had for the valuation of labor as a central category in the Third Reich.

141 143

142 Meyers Lexikon, vol. 1, 496f., quote 496. See, e.g., Stommer, “Alltag,” 151. More precise differentiations in Campbell, Joy in Work, 312–75; her discussion on the Labor Service (329) neglects to mention that Hierl and Stellrecht held the same opinion on the question under discussion.

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There were also intellectual offers to define the concept of labor more precisely that the Labor Service did not adopt. One such offer came to the service from an unexpected side in May 1933. In his infamous rector’s address, Martin Heidegger inquired into the task, place, and self-understanding that students should have “to withstand the German fate in its time of utmost need.” In his view, the students had to establish three kinds of connections. The first was that to the Volksgemeinschaft, which imposed the obligation of “supportive and active participation in the effort, striving, and accomplishments of all estates and segments of the Volk.” According to Heidegger, that connection was best realized in labor service. Alongside it the Freiburg philosopher placed two other elements: military service and the “service of knowledge” (Wissensdienst), which went far beyond a “quick training for a ‘distinguished’ profession.” The three bonds – “through the Volk to the fate of the state in the mission of the intellect” – expressed themselves for him in the trinity “labor service, military service, and service of knowledge.”144 Of these three dimensions, the philosopher himself was interested chiefly in the “service of knowledge,” which fell within his province and was to be a vehicle for reshaping the German university. In the months following his rectoral address, he developed a concept of the “camp of scholarship” (Wissenschaftslager) and tested it in practice.145 There is no evidence, however, that Heidegger sought to make contact with the Labor Service. Conversely, Hierl did not do anything to adorn his organization with the famous professor. Heidegger became neither a house philosopher nor a figurehead. Positive note was taken of Heidegger’s speech only in a few publications that were marginally concerned with the Labor Service.146 That no contact was established is all the more striking if one considers that this was not the only time Heidegger spoke or wrote about a labor service – his speech was by no means a momentary intellectual fancy. He explained his ideas on several occasions; one speech was broadcast by radio throughout southern and western Germany.147 On the whole, Heidegger’s discussions of the labor service idea were brief and not very original. The fact that his words did not resonate with Hierl probably had to do with the latter’s narrow-mindedness. Hierl failed to see the propagandistic possibilities that a collaboration with Heidegger would have opened up. The Reich Labor Leader also did not pick up the points of contact that existed in the case of 144 145

146 147

¨ (Breslau, 1933), 14–17. Martin Heidegger, Die Selbstbehauptung der deutschen Universitat H. Ott, Martin Heidegger. Unterwegs zu einer Biographie (Frankfurt/Main, 1988), 214–33; in general R. Safranski, Heidegger: Between Good and Evil, trans. E. Osers (Cambridge, Mass., 1998), 232–54. See F. Feld, Hochschule und Arbeitsdienst (Berlin, 1935), 18f. See Freiburger Zeitung, November 27, 1933; Der Alemanne, November 25, 1933; also Der Alemanne, February 2, 1934; Freiburger Zeitung, January 24, 1934; on this also V. Far´ıas, Heidegger und der Nationalsozialismus (Frankfurt/Main, 1989), 181–9.

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the writer Gottfried Benn: in 1933, Benn called upon the youth to “gird their loins and take up the winnow shovel.”148 The Labor Service also failed to respond to a much more elaborate and polished intellectual offering. In his 1932 book Der Arbeiter (The Worker), ¨ Ernst Junger had interpreted the age in which he was living as the transition from the disintegrating bourgeois society to the rule of the worker. He demanded labor conscription as the “morning gift [Morgengabe] of the worker to the state.” It was to be the successor to general military conscription and should assume the latter’s role with respect to “education, penetration, and ¨ uniform discipline.” Moreover, Junger wanted to do away with the “silly arrogance” of regarding manual labor as inferior. Unlike traditional military conscription, this new form of service would be expected of “not only males capable of bearing arms, but the entire population.”149 ¨ There are important links between Junger’s concept and the National Socialist Labor Service, and it may be surprising that Hierl failed also to pick up the suggestions of this writer and bearer of the Pour le m´erite medal, especially since the two men had been personally acquainted since the 1920s.150 ¨ Junger, similar to Hierl’s organization and like Hitler in Mein Kampf, universalized the type of the worker and combined it with a revaluation of manual labor. Militarization and an orientation toward a future war are also found in his book. The fact that the Labor Service literature after 1933 did not refer to him in spite of this, had to do with the author’s past as a member of the Stahlhelm and with his difficult attitude toward National ¨ Socialism. Most especially, however, Junger did not make a sharp distinction between labor conscription and a general duty to work. That ran counter to Hierl’s definition and program – even though the Reich Labor Leader himself later sought to potentially abolish that distinction through the project of the National Auxiliary Service (Nationaler Hilfsdienst). Moreover, it was ¨ difficult to derive any real connection between Junger’s aestheticizing, vi¨ sionary ideas and the harsh labor in such a service. Finally, for Junger, as for Heidegger, the state was the reference point, and not – as with the Nazis – the Volk. These are the reasons why Der Arbeiter did not become ¨ the Bible of the Labor Service. However, Junger found a thorough reader of his work in Heidegger, whose own notions about the labor service were ¨ directly influenced by Junger. At the same time, Hierl and Hitler remained the sole reference points in the RAD publications, a circumstance that was also supposed to substantiate the claim that the roots of the service were ¨ purely National Socialist. Heidegger’s and especially Junger’s ideas would 148 149 150

G. Benn, Der neue Staat und die Intellektuellen (Stuttgart, 1933), 20. ¨ Junger, Der Arbeiter, 288f. ¨ The official Labor Service publications made no connection to Junger; see Hußmann, ¨ Arbeitsdienst, 12, 14, 27f., and FZ, February 4, 1933. On the contact between Junger and Hierl, see Erb and Grote, Hierl, 45.

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have made the service more attractive in right-wing intellectual circles. While Hierl’s organization deliberately wooed the workers with its conception of labor, it was evidently not interested in that kind of strategy. Still, the conception of labor the service entertained constituted enormous ideological baggage, and equally striking is the subordinate place that the concept of performance assumed within this context. The following examination of some individual projects and types of work must therefore also address the question of the relationship between the practice of the service and this ideology. 4.2.2. “Moor Soldiers”? The Large-Scale Emsland Project as an Example of the Struggle Over Direction The Labor Service’s activities began to change in character in 1934 and more markedly from 1935 on. To a much greater extent than before, Hierl’s organization worked on large projects. Frequently these were projects on which the service had been deployed previously on a much smaller scale. In September 1935, the Reich Labor Leader was able to report at the Reich party rally that almost 13 percent of the 1,260 sections of the service were being deployed on such large undertakings.151 Important large-scale projects included the cultivation of the moors in the Emsland, of the Havel and Rhin marshes, and of the moors in Sprottebruch, the land reclamation along the North Sea ¨ coast of Schleswig, cultivation work in the Westerwald and along the Rhon, and, finally, the enlargement of waterways, for example in the Straubing basin of the Danube.152 The massing of sections in certain regions made the planning and organization of the work less costly and complicated. In addition, the RAD was now put to work with greater frequency on land that belonged to the Reich or the German states, which also simplified the planning and deployment. To that extent the shifting of many units made it possible for the service, at least in theory, to work more efficiently and smoothly. One of the most important undertakings was the cultivation work in the moors of the Emsland. For a time this was the largest project of the service. Since it is especially interesting and instructive, I will examine it as an example of the large, civilian projects of the Labor Service in the second half of the 1930s. In the Emsland, a structurally weak region at the border with the Netherlands, the RAD took on chiefly drainage tasks.153 The goal of this ambitious regional project, which the service began in early 1935, was to create an arable area of about eighty by thirty-five kilometers. In February 1935, 151 152 153

Hierl, Schriften, vol. 2, 363f. (1935). ¨ WIS 18 (1938): 126–30; H. Muller-Brandenburg, Die Leistungen des deutschen Arbeitsdienstes (Stuttgart, 1940), 13. ¨ See, e.g., Kruger, Aufgabe, 14.

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the Labor Service reported publicly that four-thousand men were at work in the Emsland.154 Initially the sections were part of the Labor District XIX (Lower Saxony West); beginning in February 1937 they made up the specially established Labor District XXXI (Emsland).155 According to published figures, by 1937 a total of forty-five thousand labor men had passed through these moor camps in succession; although – as I will show – this number was exaggerated, it demonstrates the importance the regime accorded to this project in public.156 While the cultivation of the Emsland had been continued by the Nazi Labor Service in 1933 primarily from the perspective of job creation, the justification of the deployment changed with the beginning of the large-scale project two years later. To the public the work was presented as especially urgent: on the other side of the border, in the Netherlands, were “broad fruitful fields, lush-green crops, large healthy farms,” whereas immediately adjoining them, on the German side, there stretched “a brown-black, desolate, swampy wasteland.” This “eyesore” had to be eliminated as soon as possible.157 At the same time, the deployment in the moors was glorified even more than other projects and transfigured into an object of prestige for the Nazi regime. Labor men throughout the Reich were urged to volunteer for the unusually hard work. Simultaneously, these sections were made to stand out from the others by making their members wear on their uniforms a black band bearing in silver lettering the word “Emsland.”158 In a speech to the Emsland sections, Hierl emphasized how “honorable” it was for them to be working “for German culture, here at this advance position, as the cream of the German Labor Service.”159 Of course the Reich Labor Leader neglected to mention that at the end of the Weimar Republic, the Stahlhelm had already made plans for a work project in the Emsland that would have far surpassed anything the Nazis were undertaking.160 The “honor service” idea that the regime used to transfigure the work of the service ideologically was translated into a flood of propaganda articles ¨ about the Emsland project, as well. According to labor leader Alfred Kruger, the youth deployed in the Emsland was handing down, in a special way, “the legacy of Langemarck,” the (in)famous battle of World War I. In the Nazi canon of values, it was hardly possible to bestow a greater compliment on a civilian labor project.161 The propaganda relentlessly repeated the mantra that Labor Service was “honor service.” With such statements the service

154 155 156 158 159 161

Dt. AD 9 (1935), 258–65. BA/B, R 2/4530, Note Reich Finance Ministry, July 8, 1936. 157 Dt. AD 9 (1935), 263. E. Wendt, Kameradschaft im Moorlager (Bochum, n.d.), 5. BA/B, R 2301/5662, Reich Labor Leader to Labor District administration, January 9, 1935. 160 On these plans see BA/B, R 43/I/2086; BA/B, R 72/319. Dt. AD 9 (1935), 265. ¨ A. Kruger, “Arbeit schafft Kapital: Die Tat des Arbeitsdienstes,” Nationalsozialistische Sozialpolitik 2 (1935a): 357–61, quote p. 359.

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wooed the labor men, whose task, according to Hierl, must under no circumstances resemble “forced labor.”162 Therefore it was part of the Labor Service’s objectives to prevent those “unworthy of the service” from taking on the same kind of work. That was the thrust of statements that one of Hierl’s closest collaborators, for example, made to the newspaper Angriff (published in Berlin by Joseph Goebbels) before the large-scale project even got under way. Asked whether both the Labor Service and concentration camp inmates could be used on land reclamation projects, he responded emphatically in the negative, since that would be incompatible with the character of the Labor Service. After all, it was an honor “to be working on the cultivation of German soil and German earth,” hence it was unthinkable to use inmates for such a task.163 Yet the practice of the regime contradicted the claim made in such statements. For contrary to what one might assume, it was not only Volksgenossen who worked on reclamation projects in the Emsland; prisoners, too, were performing essentially the same work as Hierl’s men, though under much harsher conditions. Some of these men were concentration camp inmates: the concentration camp Esterwegen had been set up as early as 1933 along with others, and in the first years following the Nazi seizure of power it was the largest and most important such camp after Dachau. Many prominent intellectuals and politicians of the Weimar Republic were interned and tormented in Esterwegen, and some were murdered. The inmates included the social democratic politicians Julius Leber and Theodor Haubach, as well as Carl von Ossietzky, the winner of the 1935 Nobel Peace Prize.164 Thus, the ideological program of the Labor Service clashed with the interests of the Prussian Ministry of the Interior, which was initially in charge of the concentration camps, and later with those of the SS. The existence side by side of camps housing the Labor Service and prisoners undermined the credibility of the idea of an “honor service.” But an equally serious challenge to Hierl’s claim came from another side. Those working in the moor included not only labor men and concentration camp inmates, but also prisoners under the authority of the Reich Justice Ministry. On a smaller scale they had been used as early as 1923, and then much more intensively after 1934.165 In the Emsland, then, Volksgenossen and Gemeinschaftsfremde (“community aliens”) engaged in essentially the same kind of work separated only by a few kilometers – a diametrical contradiction to the Nazi ideology of labor. 162 163 164 165

Hierl, Schriften, vol. 2, e.g., 392 (1937). AN, September 15, 1933. Otto’s article was based on a conversation with Stellrecht. On the concentration camps in the Emsland see Kosthorst and Walter, eds., Konzentrationsund Strafgefangenenlager, 1: 74–512. Ibid., esp. 527–53.

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In this situation, the Reich Labor Leader resorted to three strategies to assert the exclusive claim of his organization to this project, and, on principle, all others like it. First, he negotiated directly with the SS and the Reich Justice Ministry to enforce the stipulation that only the Labor Service would be allowed to work on land reclamation. But he had to accept a compromise before the project even began. On December 6, 1934, before the RAD started to work in the Emsland on a large scale, an interministerial conference took place. Here it was decided that in the southern part of the region, 7,700 members of the Labor Service would perform “honor service,” while a few kilometers away, in the northern section, 5,500 prisoners would be deployed. This division of labor came up for discussion again in 1936. The Reich Labor Leader now proposed to expand the activity of the Labor Service in the Emsland.166 Needless to say, his goal was to have only his organization work in the region, and no prisoners at all. Occasionally he even said so openly.167 Second, Hierl used the media to propagate the ideologically grounded interests of his organization – very much like he had already done in 1934, for example, and would do again later in the clashes over the harvest deployment. His calculation was simple: if he could get the press and, if possible, other media to report often enough about his organization and the exclusive character of its activity as “honor service,” the other two organizations and Hitler, the supreme decision-making authority, would eventually come to realize that prisoners could not be used simultaneously for the same kind of work. In this way the media and the public became a kind of advocate, since the articles were directed primarily at the political decision makers of the regime, and only secondarily at the public at large. There was also a second way in which the press campaign could be useful. The chances were good that the articles would reach Hitler himself – it was well known that he followed the press attentively. By contrast, it was often difficult to speak to the ¨ Fuhrer directly, especially for individuals like Hierl, who stood only in the second tier of the Nazi hierarchy of power. Hitler increasingly walled himself off and was oftentimes not a good listener, preferring instead to indulge in his own monologues. A well-placed newspaper report could therefore be ¨ more effective than an attempt to talk to the Fuhrer in person. In this media battle there were, however, various levels of discourse, indicated by whether or not the real problem – the competition with other organizations – was mentioned. In the negotiations that one can reconstruct from archival sources, the rivalries were openly articulated. Such open criticism was very rare in magazines addressed at the Labor Service itself. One of the few examples is the publication of a speech by Hierl, which he delivered in February 1935 to the Emsland sections before the launch of the 166 167

BA/B, R 2/4530, Note Reich Finance Ministry, June 8, 1936. ¨ Ibid., Darr´e to Gurtner, June 20, 1936.

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project. The Reich Labor Leader emphasizes that it was “intolerable” that prisoners were being used for the same kind of work that was done by the service.168 This criticism reached not only several hundred labor men, but Hierl’s organization in general through its publication in the magazine Deutscher Arbeitsdienst. By contrast, in statements directed at the general public, criticism of the other institutions was usually implicit. The ideological claim of the service was elaborated, which means that only those who knew about the prisoners understood that these issues were controversial. This shows the limits within which the discourse took place. To be sure, the actual rivalries were bitterly contested. Toward its own men, the Labor Service played with an open hand – especially since some of them were directly aware of the presence of prisoners. In public, however, Hierl sought to preserve the regime’s favorable image by avoiding open criticism of other National ¨ Socialist institutions. That was, in fact, the general practice in the Fuhrer state. The Labor Service used its own publications as media vehicles. Even more important was the fact that far beyond its own organs, newspapers published articles disseminating the “honor service” propaganda. Some of these articles were reports, interviews, reprinted speeches and the like that came directly from members of the Labor Service or reproduced their views. Others were written by journalists working for the papers who repeatedly pushed the concerns of the Labor Service.169 But oftentimes Hierl’s organization was also behind these journalistic pieces: the Labor Service had its own press office that worked deliberately in that direction and organized trips to the Emsland, for example.170 The Labor Service was hoping that this would prompt journalists to write friendly reports about the “honor service” in the region. But the same message was also carried by other media, for example Riefenstahl’s film “Triumph of the Will.” Riefenstahl echoed Hierl’s farreaching pretensions, and in so doing lent them additional force.171 The “honor service” idea also found its way into professional publications, for example, legal journals.172 Third, and finally, the Reich Labor Leader made efforts to stop the reporting about the work of prisoners. Even before his organization began its large-scale deployment in the Emsland, Hierl sent an indignant telegram to ¨ Hermann Goring, the Prussian minister-president. Hierl complained that the 168 169 170

171 172

Dt. AD 9 (1935), 264. See, e.g., Der Arbeitsmann, March 6, 1937; F. zur Loye, “Emsland,” JB-RAD 1 (1936): 55–7; VB, November 2, 1934; BT, April 4, 1933. ¨ See K. Kampmann, “Das Amt des Pressesprechers beim Reichsarbeitsfuhrer,” JB-RAD 1 (1936): 44–6; BA/B, R 1501/5622, Protocol of the 7th Meeting of Labor District Leaders, March 7–9, 1935. On the Labor Service in Riefenstahl’s film see Hinton, Films of Leni Riefenstahl, 25–62. See, e.g., K. Stamm, “Der Reichsarbeitsdienst,” Deutsches Recht 5 (1935): 432–5; Maunz, “Der Reichsarbeitsdienst,” 353–7.

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Preußische Pressedienst had reported falsely on the land reclamation project in the Emsland, since it talked about the work of prisoners. “In the name ¨ of 250,000 soldiers of labor,” Hierl asked Goring to protect the honor of the organization.173 But Hierl’s protest was unable to prevent the press from reporting, in the summer of 1934 and in the years following, about the use of prisoners in the Emsland.174 Even if the last of the three strategies soon turned out to be futile, Hierl did win a partial victory with the combination of negotiations and a propaganda campaign. At the end of 1936, the concentration camp Esterwegen was closed down. In January 1937, Heinrich Himmler, the leader of the SS, offered this explanation for the closure of the camp: I have dissolved this camp in the Emsland in response to arguments from Reich Labor Leader Hierl, who explained to me, as did the Justice Ministry, that it was wrong to tell one person that the service in the moors, the service of making land arable, was honor service, while at the same time sending prisoners there . . . That is indeed illogical, and after half or three-quarters of a year, I have dissolved the camp in Esterwege [sic] and have moved it to Sachsenhausen near Oranienburg.175

Himmler invoked the “honor service” ideology to justify the closure of Esterwegen. However, if this move had been prompted by Hierl’s propaganda campaign or the force of his arguments, Himmler should have closed the camp very quickly. In fact, it took four conflict-ridden years before the Reich Leader SS decided to take this step. It would appear that Himmler’s actions were also not influenced by the fact that he was a former member ¨ of the Artamanen, even though that volkisch organization had been especially active in the 1920s in setting up volunteer Labor Service camps.176 His argument that the Justice Ministry had also persuaded him of the necessity to give up Esterwegen was absurd – after all, the normal prisoners posed almost as much challenge to the “honor service” character of the Labor Service as did the concentration camp inmates. The real reasons that impelled Himmler to close the camp were different. Beginning in 1936, the concentration camps were centralized on economic grounds. Another factor arguing against the location in the Emsland was its proximity to the border, which made it unsuitable for national defense and might also encourage escape attempts.177 The “honor service” propaganda of the Labor Service was thus only a secondary factor in the entire bundle of reasons for the closure of the concentration camp. Still, this element is significant, since it allows insight into the thinking and the strategy of the Reich Labor Leader, who believed that the appeal to the public was an effective device. 173 175 177

174 See, e.g., KOZ, ¨ ¨ BA/B, R 43 II/516, Hierl to Goring, June 8, 1934. June 9, 1934. 176 Seifert, Kulturarbeit, 31–3. UuF, vol. 11, No. 2486, 16–29, quote p. 19. Sofsky, Order of Terror, 45f.

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One macabre detail should not be left out. When it became clear that the concentration camp would be closed, Hierl wanted to take over the site for the RAD, intending to house four sections there. Without consulting the Reich Justice Ministry, he negotiated with the SS, who acceded to his wish and sold him the camp. Evidently the Reich Labor Leader shrank from nothing to expand his influence in the Emsland. With this move, Hierl violated the agreement of December 1934, since the concentration camp lay in the northern part of the region where prisoners were supposed to be deployed.178 Eventually, in response to protests from the Justice Ministry, Hierl had to hand the camp over to it.179 At the same time, this was not the only case in which Hierl displayed such indifference to the original purpose of an installation. Already in 1935, the Labor Service had taken over a camp originally intended for prisoners.180 Hierl’s morbid zeal exemplifies once more the structural similarities between the camp system for Volksgenossen and that for “community aliens.” A few minor changes were enough to transform a concentration camp into a place for the education of young “Aryans.” The deployment in the Emsland also reveals organizational problems of the Labor Service. Although Hierl tried in every way possible to expand his sphere of influence in the region, he was not able to meet the expectations placed on him. For reasons that cannot be reconstructed from the archival documents, he could not provide the necessary sections. What one can say, however, is that the manpower planning of the service was inadequate. The agreement in December 1934 had stipulated that the Labor Service would put about 7,700 men to work in the Emsland. By 1936, however, only around 3,500 labor men were in fact deployed there. This situation was discussed at a conference of Reich ministries on July 7, 1936. If the Labor Service continued at the present pace, the project would not take ten years, as originally estimated, but thirty years. The Labor Service was therefore asked to put another 4,500 men in the field immediately. Hierl’s deputy, however, could promise only an additional 3,800 labor men, and even those no earlier than the spring of 1937.181 Reich Minister Hanns Kerrl, the head of the Reich Office for Area Planning, had called attention to the failure to meet the quotas as early as the end of June 1936. Kerrl remained skeptical even after the conference in early July. ¨ At the end of July he passed on an assessment from the Regierungsprasident ¨ of Osnabruck, who was doubtful, first, that Hierl would be able to raise the number of sections as directed, and, second, if he were able to do so, whether 178 179 180

BA/B, R 2/4530, esp. Note Reich Finance Ministry, July 8, 1936. Ibid., Kerrl to Reich Finance Ministry, January 6, 1937; see also the documents in Kosthorst and Walter, Konzentrationslager, vol. 1, 590–644. 181 BA/B, R 2/4530, Note Reich Finance Ministry, July 8, 1936. Dt. AD 9 (1935), 263.

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meaningful work would still be possible with so many camps crowded into such a small area. Criticism of the deployment planning by the Reich Labor Service was joined by criticism of its efficiency and effectiveness. Although Kerrl also believed the work by the prisoners was proceeding too slowly, in the end he agreed with the Reich Finance Ministry that using them was “much quicker, more intensive, and cheaper” than using the Labor Service.182 After all, during the summer, prisoners worked an average of ten hours a day, Hierl’s men hardly more than five. Moreover, the labor men turned over after a relatively short period of time.183 Nevertheless, Hierl categorically ruled out the possibility of making his men more efficient through the increased use of large machinery or shift work.184 As a result, according to an estimate ¨ ¨ from December 1936, prisoners by the Regierungsprasident of Osnabruck were accomplishing three times as much as the men of the RAD.185 It was also no real victory for Hierl that the Reich Justice Minister pledged to use only those prisoners “who would be readmitted into the Volksgemeinschaft after serving their term” – while this satisfied the “honor service” ideology of the Labor Service superficially, it did not satisfy Hierl’s expansionary dreams.186 For the time being, however, this massive criticism of the Labor Service and its work organization and output had no consequences. The perspective of Kerrl and the land reclamation agencies, who at the end of 1936 mulled over the idea of placing the Emsland reclamation entirely into the hands of prisoners,187 could not yet prevail against the RAD. Instead, in an agreement with the Reich Justice Ministry, Hierl was actually able to secure a further guarantee of his organization’s “honor service” claim. In addition, both sides agreed that the Labor Service would leave the heavy reclamation work to the prisoners and would take on only lighter, finishing tasks.188 The Reich Labor Leader was thus able to stand his ground in 1936 – even if he was not able, conversely, to get the prisoners out of the Emsland, as had been done with the concentration camp inmates. ¨ At the beginning of 1937, Goring charged Kerrl with coordinating all the work in the Emsland within the Four-Year Plan with the goal of finishing it as soon as possible. On January 6, Kerrl once more affirmed the regional division between the Labor Service and the Justice Ministry. In addition, the number of labor men was to be increased to 10,000 by April 1, that 182 183 184 185 186 187

Ibid., esp. Note Reich Finance Ministry, July 8, 1936. Ibid., Kerrl to Reich Finance Ministry, July 25, 1936. BA/B, R 1501/5622, Protocol of the 8th Meeting of Labor District leaders, June 28–9 1935. Kosthorst and Walter, Konzentrationslager, vol. 1, 598–600. BA/R, R 2/4530, Kerrl to Reich Ministry for Nutrition and Agriculture, June 25, 1936. 188 Ibid., 601f. Kosthorst and Walter, Konzentrationslager, vol. 1, 542, 595–8.

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of prisoners to 11,000. The German press was forbidden to report on these changes.189 Since the number of prisoners was raised in tandem with the enhanced deployment of the Labor Service, this, too, was no victory for Hierl. In the end, the expansion of the projects even became a problem for the RAD. Once again the Reich Labor Leader was unable to keep his promises. The reason was that sections of the RAD repeatedly refused to implement Kerrl’s plans for deployment.190 Against this background, the plans to withdraw the RAD entirely from the Emsland moors gained ground in the middle of 1937. Faced with the criticism ¨ ¨ and other regional agencies, a from the Regierungsprasident of Osnabruck ministerial conference in October 1937 discussed the allocation of the work once again. The suggestion was made to Hierl that he withdraw his men from the state territory he had been working on until then, but the Reich Labor Leader initially refused by invoking the “honor service” character of the labor of the RAD. But as early as December, Hierl had to agree to remove all sections deployed in state moors west of the Ems river, and to use them only on private land.191 The reason for the defeat was the greater efficiency of the prisoners. There were also complaints about the short working hours of the men in view of their other activities, for example, drilling in preparation for the party rally, and about missed deadlines and leaders who were inadequately trained in work techniques.192 Although the RAD continued to be represented in the region with labor sections, it had virtually no presence on state-owned land. In the middle of 1938, it withdrew many sections from the region, but once again the press was explicitly forbidden to report on it.193 In August 1938, the Reich Labor Leader dissolved the separate Labor District administration for the Emsland. Hierl had now lost the large-scale project he had taken on in 1935.194 The withdrawal of the RAD cleared the way for an expansion of the camp systems for prisoners. Decisive for Hierl’s defeat was the low efficiency of his men, which made the agricultural agencies in particular unhappy. In this case even the ideological arguments were no help. The low work output, caused especially by a lack of deployment planning, the reluctance to cooperate, and the primacy of education, tipped the scale in the defeat of the RAD in the Emsland. In addition, the organizational problems and the frictions with agencies with whom the RAD had to collaborate were a serious matter, and they made Hierl into an unreliable partner. But these problems were not the most important reason behind the greater efficiency of the prisoners. Both 189 190 191 192 193 194

NS-Presseanweisungen, vol. 5 (1937), 55. Documentation in Kosthorst and Walter, Konzentrationslager, vol. 1, 653–65. Ibid., 666–701. BA/R, R 2/4530, esp. Reich Labor Leader to Kerrl, December 29, 1937. NS-Presseanweisungen, vol. 6 (1938), 419. NARA/CP, RG 242, T 81/110, Note to file on the meeting of Labor District leaders on June 6, 1938; also, Korsthorst and Walter, Konzentrationslager, vol. 1, 719–26.

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of the institutions competing with the RAD in this case had the same low rate of machine use, but they had a very different level of control over the men under their command. Prisoners and concentration camp inmates performed slave labor under the harshest conditions. By comparison, working conditions in the RAD were, for pedagogical reasons, less draconian, and the working hours were substantially shorter. The differences between the situation of the “moor soldiers,” captured in the famous song of the concentration camp inmates from the Emsland, and that of the labor men were profound. Yet the greater productivity of the prisoners was not the only reason why the Justice Ministry prevailed. Like Hierl, it used the media to push its interests. It advanced a far-reaching claim that competed with that of the Labor Service, for it, too, praised its sites in the Emsland as model camps. And its propaganda was likewise targeted at both a professional readership and the mass media.195 This broadly effective propaganda campaign became even more important following the withdrawal of the RAD. The Emsland land reclamation by prisoners was now placed alongside other large undertakings by the Third Reich, for example, the construction of the Autobahnen, and treated as a prestige project of national politics.196 These media battles exemplify in general that the press was employed by rival institutions. In the struggle over the Emsland, both sides addressed the public. These were two different discourses that were not directly related to each other, since one side usually did not mention the other. But the discourses did overlap, since both the professional journals and the mass media published articles side by side whose statements were not compatible. In the process, the two institutions once again aimed their propaganda less at the public and more at the direct rival and those who would make the decisions in this conflict. And so the Emsland deployment reveals not only the problems from which the RAD still suffered in the second half of the 1930s with respect to work planning, deployment organization, and efficiency, but also the challenges from outside. Given the problems of the Labor Service, it is not very surprising that the overall accomplishment of the regime in its effort to win “food autonomy” was rather modest. Notwithstanding all the “blood and soil” romanticism, the official propaganda reports about re-agrarianization projects and land reclamation, and the involvement of several organizations side by side on the actual projects, the successes were underwhelming. The entire settlement area that was newly created between 1933 and 1940 amounted to 195

196

¨ R. Marx, “Die Gefangenenarbeit unter besonderer Berucksichtigung der Urbarmachung ¨ andereien,” ¨ von Odl Deutsches Strafrecht 2 (1935): 364–73; O. Kellerhals, “Die Kongress¨ Strafrecht 39 (1935): 442–63. Studienreise,” Schweizerische Zeitschrift fur ¨ June 9, 1934; see also the articles reprinted in Kosthorst and Walter, KonzenSee, e.g., KOZ, trationslager, vol. 1, 1030–1160.

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518,422 hectares, less than the 744,208 hectares that had been added between 1919 and 1932. Calculated on a yearly basis, the National Socialist effort thus exceeded that under the Weimar system by around 30 percent – a noticeable increase, but certainly not the radical change of course the regime claimed for itself. Thus, Nazi Germany did not succeed in becoming independent from agricultural imports.197 These conflicts over land reclamation also reveal the inconsistencies in the Nazi conception of labor. The glorification of certain activities, to which a fundamentally honorable character was imputed, was part of the idealizing self-image after 1933. It pales, however, if we measure it against the regime’s practice – as seen in the deployment of prisoners, concentration camp inmates, and labor men in the Emsland. But the debate over the deployment along the Dutch border was only one slice of the struggles that Hierl’s organization waged over its activities and their honorable character. On other large-scale projects, as well, for example in Schleswig-Holstein, concentration camp inmates worked alongside labor men.198 Yet the battle was especially fierce over the Emsland deployment, and therefore Hierl’s defeat in the moors of that region did more than anything else to undermine the “honor service” character and with it the educational claim the organization had been propagating since 1933. But this lost battle was a minor defeat compared to the repercussions from the harvest deployment of the RAD, which challenged even more fundamentally the educational model and thus the primary task of the Labor Service.

4.3. THE LABOR SERVICE AT WORK: NEW CHALLENGES IN THE LARGE-SCALE DEPLOYMENTS BEGINNING IN 1937 4.3.1. From “Ancillary Task” to the “Tannenberg Deployment”: The Harvest Help One sphere of work that was not regionally limited and eventually challenged the educational mission of the service even more profoundly than did the joint use of prisoners and labor men in the Emsland was harvest help. An analysis of this activity is hampered – more so than other issues – by the fact that the sources essentially allow us to reconstruct the changes that took place only on a qualitative and not a quantitative level. What is clear, though, is that units of the Voluntary Labor Service helped in harvest work already before 1933, and the NSDAP also did not rule out on principle the 197

198

Bohte, Landeskultur, 47. The comparison is intended merely as an indication of trends, since there was also an optimization of land already in use. In any case, the fact is that Germany did not attain self-sufficiency. Stokes, “Konzentrationslager,” 198–201.

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use of the organization for this purpose. Stellrecht had emphasized in 1933 that the Labor Service should be drafted into such activities only if there was a shortage of regular manpower. As there was a danger that the service could compete with normal workers, and that landowners would be too quick to report the need for such assistance for their own benefit, Stellrecht’s plans stipulated that farmers would have to pay the Labor Service for its work at the regular wage rate.199 In spite of mass unemployment, there was reason to fear that some parts of Germany could experience a shortage of harvest helpers in the summer of 1933. Along with other organizations, the Labor Service was now included in plans on how to deal with this problem. Hierl’s reaction was entirely in line with Stellrecht’s position. In July 1933, he ordered the Labor Service camps to accede to requests for help from the agricultural sector. To prevent abuses, however, the Reich Labor Leader directed landowners to “hand over to the labor camp sums equal to the wages that would normally be paid.”200 In the summer of 1933, the service was in fact used on these terms, though on a small scale.201 Official statistics at the end of September 1933 did not even list this form of activity as a separate category.202 While harvest help had been a marginal phenomenon in 1933, the following year it was requested with greater urgency. The Reich Labor Ministry now asked that the agricultural workers who had volunteered for the Labor Service be released so they would be available to the labor market once again. At least in some regions, this had already been done in 1933.203 Hierl issued a directive to that effect at the end of March 1934, although March 31 was a regular release date, in any case.204 A month later, however, he turned against this policy, arguing that it was especially these labor men (between 6 percent and 8 percent of the service) who “urgently” needed to be “educated in a communal way of life.” The Reich Labor Leader further proposed that the needs of agriculture be met by the unemployed and other groups, and solely “as a last resort by the Labor Service.” There were only two ways in which the Labor Service was willing to help: first, within the framework of a job exchange process, agricultural labor men who volunteered to leave the service would be placed in the primary sector. Second, Hierl offered that in emergency situations “complete units [of the Labor Service] would be made available for brief periods.”205 Under these conditions, 199 200 201 202 203 204 205

Stellrecht, Der deutsche Arbeitsdienst, 73. BA/B, R 2301/5653, Hierl to district administrations, July 7, 1933. Hamburger Fremdenblatt, July 14, 1933. BA/B, R 72/325, Reich Administration of the Labor Service, Statistics, October 12, 1933. See Bayr. HStA, REpp/496, District Administration Bavaria-East to camps and schools, July 27, 1933; see also AdR, Part II, No. 73, 271. ¨ LAAFr/688, president of the RfAVAV to state and local employment offices, StA Mu, March 29, 1934. BA/B, R 2301/5648, Hierl to Reich Labor Ministry, April 23, 1934.

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Labor Service sections were deployed in harvest help on a small scale also in 1934. It is against the backdrop of this debate that one must see the already mentioned regulations of July 1934 regarding the deployment of the service. Harvest help was listed there as merely the last of the “secondary tasks.”206 The explanation for why the service rejected this activity has to do only in part with the problem of separation from the private sector. The primary reason was that it was difficult to reconcile this type of work with the organization’s educational ideas. Land cultivation and forestry projects allowed regular and comparatively short daily working hours without the projects necessarily suffering from such a schedule. Harvest work, however, demanded a fundamentally different deployment. The weeks of the harvest demanded the utmost exertion, with no regard for education, organized recreation, or weekends. Moreover, harvest work did not readily lend itself to a labor deployment focused on a uniform camp system. In order to respond to the changing needs, the men had to be mobile. Finally, the use of complete sections was inconsistent with the work that needed to be done. Oftentimes the fields were too small to allow the use of entire sections for the harvest, and the necessary logistical preparations were out of proportion to the utility of the work. Harvest work was therefore hardly compatible with the educational mission of the service.207 So, the structural differences between the way in which the Labor Service was deployed and the requirements of harvest work would invariably pose a serious challenge if and when the shortage of other harvest helpers became severe. To that extent, instances in which the Labor Service developed a strong interest in harvest work in 1934 were situation-specific exceptions. In some regions, for example in Saxony, it used the deployment as a source of money by foisting the labor men on the farmers and charging them dearly for it.208 This kind of highway robbery can be explained only against the backdrop of the financial problems plaguing many camps until 1934. In fact, given the increasing shortage of agricultural workers, Hierl was forced to make substantial concessions as early as 1935 at the expense of his organization’s educational mission. On June 15, 1934, he decreed that members of the Labor Service could be furloughed for harvest work for up to three weeks if there was an urgent need on their family’s farm. For this period they were completely removed from the daily life of the Labor Service. A second possibility was that labor men who did not come from a farm could be assigned to one, again for up to three weeks; in this case the time counted as labor service. Wherever possible, these men should 206 207 208

Bayr. HStA, ML/3348, Reich Administration of the Labor Service, regulations for labor deployment, July 4, 1934. For a different view, see Seifert, Kulturarbeit, 153f. Deutschland-Berichte, vol. 1 (1934), 223.

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“live in section quarters. The camp order remains in force for them.” While thus responding to the needs of the agricultural sector, the Reich Labor Leader tried simultaneously to save as much as possible of the educational program. Once again the landowners had to pay for the use of the Labor Service, and in this case as well the organization itself was the primary beneficiary of the income. In addition, Hierl established stringent criteria that had to be met before the Labor Service was deployed.209 But these and other requirements, which made it more difficult to request labor men, did not change the fact that beginning in the middle of 1935, the educational program was entirely suspended for up to three weeks for those furloughed, and curtailed to varying degrees for those assigned to harvest work details. Members of the Labor Service were still being used this way in the fall. Hierl, however, ordered his Labor District leaders “to examine in each individual case whether such an emergency exists”210 – he was thus doing everything he could to keep these kinds of deployments on a small scale. In a speech on November 16, 1935, Hierl expressed his displeasure with the developments. He began by emphasizing that the RAD stood “by the ¨ side of the Reich Agricultural Organization (Reichsnahrstand).” However, the Labor Service “did not exist to allow greedy farmers, who could afford to hire farmhands, maids, and harvest workers, to do without these laborers.” Moreover, one had to bear in mind that the RAD “was also, and primarily, supposed to be a school of the nation.” Therefore the work time should not exceed eight hours, including the time it took to get to the job site and back, and that was also the justification for the educational program, the use of entire sections, and the shared living arrangements in camps. Hierl summarized his position in these words: “The deployment of the Reich Labor Service is tied to the conditions I have mentioned, nothing may change that.”211 Alas, his great pronouncements did not help the Labor Service, as no easing of the situation was in sight for 1936. As early as February of that year, the Labor Service, in view of the increasingly severe shortage of agricultural workers, expected that it would be drafted into harvest work on a significant scale in the following summer.212 At the end of May 1936, however, Hierl repealed the directive from the previous year and limited the possibilities of furloughs and harvest work details.213 This step reveals how hard the Reich 209

210 211 212 213

¨ See, e.g., BA/B, R 2301/5648, esp. Reich Farmer Leader to farmers’ leadership in the Lander ¨ ¨ LAAFr/688, president of the RfAVAV Lander and others, April 13, 1935; StA Mu, employment offices and [other] employment offices, July 16, 1935. BA/B, R 2301/5648, Reich Labor Leader to Labor District leaders and others, October 31, 1935. Hierl, Schriften, vol. 2, 222–9 (1935), quotes pp. 223, 225. BA/B, R 2301/5658, Protocol of the 10th Meeting of Labor District Leaders, February 8–9, 1936. BA/B, R 2301/5648, Reich Labor Leader to Labor District leaders and others, May 28, 1936.

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Labor Leader tried to eliminate exceptions to the greatest possible degree of control over the lives of the labor men. But given the increasingly dire situation in the agricultural sector, all dams burst only two weeks later. Hierl now decreed the following: “The Reich Labor Service must provide every possible assistance in bringing in what is expected to be a large harvest. Harvest help takes precedence over any other kind of work that can be postponed.” To that end, individual furloughs should be granted “on the largest scale,” and the harvest details were also expanded. No longer was there any mention of a time limit of only a few weeks.214 Once again, these regulations applied not only in the summer, but also to the root crop harvest at the end of October.215 Of course, these developments did not affect all Labor Service sections, and the organization was forced to make concessions at the expense of its claim to be an “educational school” only for the period of the harvest. Still, its pedagogical mission was undermined by this deployment. At the same time, it created problems for the normal work projects of the service. They had to be interrupted, and depending on the kind of activity and the stage of the work, this could jeopardize everything that had been done up to that point. In any case, the temporary interruptions for harvest deployment substantially reduced the work output and efficiency of the service on its regular projects; the inevitable result was criticism of the RAD from the communities, the land reclamation agencies, and other institutions.216 How difficult it was for the RAD itself to justify these changes is revealed by the official report of its Reich Administration on the work of the organization in the fiscal years 1935 and 1936. Here the harvest deployment was not mentioned separately among the work tasks.217 This is also another demonstration of how unreliable the published sources are. In 1937, the labor men were put to work on terms similar to those in 1936. On April 5, 1937, Hierl conceded that assistance to the Reich Agricultural Organization during the harvest took precedence over other tasks; the aim should be the use of entire sections. A crucial point of the new regulation was that the working time was now adjusted to the normal wage regulations – which meant that the eight-hour period, including the time to get to the job site and back, could be expanded to about ten hours.218 Only now, four years after the takeover of power, did the working time and thus the 214 215 216 217 218

Ibid., Reich Labor Leader to Labor District leaders and others, July 13, 1936. Ibid., Reich Labor Leader to Labor District leaders and others, October 21, 1936. Bayr. HStA, ML/3448, esp. Leader of Labor District XXX to Bavarian State Ministry for the Economy and others, July 23, 1937. Reichsleitung des Reichsarbeitsdienstes (publisher), Das Werk des Reichsarbeitsdienstes in den Haushaltsjahren 1935 und 1936 (Heidelberg and Berlin, 1937), 31. BA/B, R 2/4530, Verordnung RAD, April 5, 1937. On the complicated, nonuniform handling of working hours, see Schneider, Unterm Hakenkreuz, 547–52.

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most essential factor determining work output become more than a “trifle.”219 All in all, the work deployment assumed new dimensions that summer. According to an estimate by the Reich Agricultural Organization, the agricultural sector had a shortage of 60,000 workers in July, and the Labor Service should thus be used “to the fullest extent” to fill the gaps.220 Judging on the basis of reasonably reliable figures, the service contributed about three million man-days between April and September 1937 alone, compared to 920,000 man-days in all of 1936. While 1936 had thus been the year in which the regulations allowing for a more generous use of the RAD on harvest work had been put in place, 1937 was the year the deployment was put in practice on a larger scale. The journal Wirtschaft und Statistik reported that the share of harvest work in all of fiscal 1936 had been 7 percent, whereas in the summer of 1937 it was 33.2 percent.221 In some regions, like the heavily agricultural Labor Districts of Mecklenburg and Pommerania-East, more than half of the labor men were in fact doing harvest work. As a result, the service cut back especially on its land reclamation projects.222 ¨ On October 18, 1937, Hierl gave Goring a summary report about the effects this kind of deployment had had on the RAD. According to the Reich Labor Leader, the aid to the farmers had led to an “intolerable state of affairs, because the form and extent of the deployment had paid too little attention to the necessities of life arising from the nature of the Reich Labor Service.” Most labor men had spent four to five of their six-month term of service in small groups outside of the “camp community,” and therefore the service was hardly able to attend to its educational mission. Hierl complained that many farmers and lower level peasant leaders saw the Labor Service as “a convenient and cheap supply of servants.” He closed by saying that he would continue to exert himself to the fullest on behalf of his organization’s educational concerns, for “with the destruction of the Reich Labor Service, a block would be torn from the foundation of the National Socialist Reich.”223 Hierl presented similar arguments to the public, though naturally in a more moderate form, and insisted once again on the primacy of education within his organization.224 While he occasionally ennobled the harvest work by raising it to the rank of “honor service,”225 that aspect, especially compared to the Emsland deployment, remained comparatively less pronounced. Had 219 220 221 223 224 225

¨ As a sign of the tougher approach see also BA/B, R 2/4532, Goring to Krosigk, March 26, 1937. ¨ ¨ LAAFr/688, president of the RfAVAV to Lander StA Mu, employment offices, July 16, 1937. 222 WIS 18 (1938), 126–30. Hierl, Schriften, vol. 2, 384f. (1937). ¨ BA/B, R 2/4532, Hierl to Goring, October 18, 1937. See, e.g., Hierl, Schriften, vol. 2, 383–93 (1937). See, e.g., BA/B, R 2/4530, Decree RAD, April 5, 1937.

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illustration 14. RAD workers reinforcing an embankment. Source: Spaten und ¨ Aher: Das Handbuch der deutschen Jugend im Reichsarbeitsdienst (Heidelberg, 1938), Figure 45.

the service chosen to do otherwise, it would have landed in another scrape: in the face of the acute labor shortage, prisoners were also used for harvest work.226 That harvest service was nevertheless praised as “honor service” on occasion reveals the paradoxical situation of the Reich Labor Service: on the one hand, because of its ideological transfiguration, every kind of work it did was a priori honorable; on the other hand, Hierl did everything in his power to put a stop to harvest help as a form of activity that was difficult to reconcile with the “total camp.” And although Hierl had good reason to protest vehemently to the Administrator of the Four-Year Plan, it must be said that the Reich Labor Leader had not suffered a total defeat. He 226

Deutsche Wochenschau 15 (1938): 13.

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¨ mentioned to Goring that his men had been deployed “in small groups.” For with the exception of the furloughed men, most “soldiers of labor” were at least sent to farms in groups that usually comprised fifteen men, thus remaining part of small communities. Hierl was largely successful in warding off the demands from farmers that they also be assigned individual men.227 Hierl tried to limit the harvest deployment not only by invoking the educational and institutional needs of his organization. Beginning in late 1936–early 1937, he was simultaneously negotiating with the relevant ministries about the already mentioned National Aid Service (Nationaler Hilfsdienst). Among other goals, the Reich Labor Leader sought to build up this organization to relieve the Labor Service of the burden of harvest help. As I have shown, his plan came to naught in February 1937. But there were also other proposals on how to solve the manpower shortage. One suggestion was to draft part of the winter quota of the Labor Service a month earlier or to keep the summer quota a little longer, which meant that in the fall, both contingents would be available simultaneously for a few weeks; Hierl himself floated a proposal like this in February 1937.228 These negotiations dragged on for almost the entire year. They were complicated not least by the fact that the dates had to be coordinated with the draft dates of the Wehrmacht, and that the Reich Finance Ministry was concerned about additional costs. Eventually, though, Hierl’s initiative prevailed. Hitler’s decree of November 24, 1937 stipulated that, effective October 1, 1938, the size of the Labor Service would be two-fifths of the total number of conscripts for a year in the winter, and three-fifths in the summer.229 This made more labor men available for work in agriculture between fall and spring. At the same time, the capacity of the service had to be expanded accordingly. While this agreement went back to a proposal by Hierl himself, it did represent a setback for the Reich Labor Leader. More so than before, the RAD was organized in accordance with the needs of the harvest deployment. Even the attempts to demonstrate in public the compatibility of harvest help and the educational mission could not conceal the tension between these two tasks.230 Although Hierl was still able to prevent the mass use of his labor men, the increasingly dire condition of the agricultural sector necessitated ever more drastic measures. In addition, a growing number of institutions were becoming involved in the question over the future ¨ direction of the Labor Service. Goring, who was not convinced by the organization’s educational concerns, now had far-reaching decision-making 227 228 229

¨ W. Stothfang, “Die Landwirtschaft braucht Arbeitskrafte,” Soziale Praxis 46 (1937): 626–32. BA/B, R 2/4532, esp. Memorandum Hierl, February 23, 1937. 230 FZ, December 2, 1937. RGBl. 1937, I, 1298.

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authority as the Administrator of the Four-Year Plan.231 A new negotiation partner in questions pertaining to the RAD was Himmler, who was more ¨ sympathetic than Goring to Hierl’s needs. Others, for example Darr´e and the Reich War Ministry, were also interested primarily in what the RAD could accomplish in its harvest deployment. It makes perfect sense that this should be Darr´e’s chief concern, considering that he was the Reich Food Minister and Reich Farmers’ Leader. In the case of the Wehrmacht this interest arose from the fact that its troops were also being asked to help out. So, the military argued that the Labor Service should take on as many of the tasks as possible.232 Hitler, by contrast, played no crucial role in the discussions – only Hierl tried repeatedly to assert his interests by pointing out that the “honor service” character of his organization reflected the will of the 233 ¨ Fuhrer. In 1938, the service was used much the same way it had been the previous year – the problems of agriculture had gotten worse. Cautious estimates by experts of National Socialist agrarian policy now put the shortage of manpower in the primary sector at more than 10 percent of what was needed, which was equivalent to 250,000 agricultural workers.234 According to a not entirely reliable source, the Labor Service furloughed 70,000 men for work in agriculture that summer.235 Looking back at the Reich party rally in September 1938, Hierl noted that the labor men with an agricultural background in the current year had been drafted exclusively in the winter. While a stronger mix would be desirable “from an educational and work-related point of view,” that was not possible given the shortage of agricultural workers. The Reich Labor Leader emphasized once more that over the previous months, his organization had accommodated “the needs and wishes of the Reich Agriculture Organization to the utmost limits of what was possible and permissible.” He was critical of the fact that the RAD not only helped agriculture with harvest work, but also harmed it – after all, the melioration projects were being left undone, and over the long run the agricultural sector would benefit far more from that work.236 On one crucial point, however, Hierl was able to get his way. With the exception of the furloughed workers, the young men continued to be deployed in closed groups of at least fifteen men.237 In this way the basic prerequisite for a minimal educational program remained intact. 231 232 233 234 235 236 237

¨ BA/B, R 2/4532, Goring to Krosigk, March 26, 1937. ¨ LAAFr/679, Blomberg to BA/B, R 1501/5102, Hierl to Darr´e, December 21, 1937; StA Mu, the president of the RfAVAV, October 19, 1937. ¨ On the “will of the Fuhrer” see Longerich, Propagandisten, esp. 332–7. ¨ G. Corni and H. Gies, Brot-Butter-Kanonen. Die Ernahrungswirtschaft in Deutschland unter der Diktatur Hitlers (Berlin, 1997), 291. IfZ, MA 479, Armed Forces High Command to Army High Command, August 18, 1938. Hierl, Schriften, vol. 2, 396–410 (1938), quote pp. 397f. Arbeitsmann, August 13, 1938.

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Yet the Reich Labor Leader had to continually fend off demands that deployments of individual labor men be expanded, the possibility of individual accommodations, and a lengthening of the term of service. The duration of service, in particular, became a controversial issue once again. Since 1937, the work day had already been expanded from eight to ten hours, including breaks and the time to get to the jobsite and back, which corresponded to an effective working time of seven to eight hours. In a conference on March 14, 1939, Hierl opposed the demand that the real work period be extended to ten hours; the only concession he was willing to make was to let the young men exceed the total work period of ten hours on a project if the overtime was made up by time off on other days. After the deployment of the Reich Labor Service had been oriented less and less toward its own needs during the previous years, Hierl was now able to consolidate the educational claim, though at a more modest level. This meant that the service was not adapted entirely to the criterion of economic efficiency.238 All in all, the negotiations reveal just how hard Hierl had to fight for these concessions to his organization’s educational concerns, and that they represented a certain success for him. A letter written by a labor man in the summer of 1938 sheds light on the fallout from this tenacious struggle over the RAD’s workers. We are told that a hard day’s labor on the harvest was followed by further duty lasting until ten or eleven at night – but reveille was still sounded at five in the morning. The only ray of light the young man saw was the approaching release date, when “all this will be over with.”239 Since the shortage of agricultural workers worsened dramatically in 1939, Hierl had to agree yet again to an expansion of the deployment of his organization in agricultural work. Because of the tense diplomatic situation, fewer foreign migrant workers were coming into the Reich, especially from Poland.240 The RAD was thus called upon more than ever before to contribute its labor power. But in a change from the previous arrangement, the service was not only supposed to help during the high-demand period of the harvest, but also participate in agricultural work in general. In April 1939, Hierl was compelled to authorize the deployment of up to 55,000 labor men as replacements for missing migrant workers, and another 45,000 as replacements for missing farmhands; this amounted to more than onequarter of the total strength of the RAD. Even though it was Hierl who gave 241 ¨ the final approval, it was not he who had made the decision, but Goring.

238 239 240

241

BA/B, R 3601/1995, esp. Notes of consultation, March 15, 1939. Deutschland-Berichte 1980, vol. 5 (1938): 848. BA/B, NS 10//35, Darr´e to Armed Forces High Command, May 19, 1938; BA/B, R 1501/5363, General Plenipotentiary for the Economy to the chairman of the Ministerial Council for Reich Defense and others, October 10, 1939; in general see Croni and Gies, Brot, esp. 280–97. BA/B, R 3601/1995, Note Reich Ministry for Nutrition and Agriculture, April 6, 1939.

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However, for this deployment, as well, the rule applied that at least ten men would be put to work as a group.242 These men were needed above all in agricultural processing facilities (e.g., cheese and sausage producers). But if the Reich Food Ministry had its way, a substantial portion of the other sections would also be made available to the agricultural sector; according to one estimate, the ministry figured on an additional 50,000 men for harvest help. Under this scenario, nearly half of the Labor Service would have worked directly in agriculture on activities that only five years earlier had been listed as “secondary tasks” or had not been envisaged at all.243 Needless to say, this had dramatic consequences for the normal work of the service. For example, the Labor District BayernHochland directed that of the four platoons in each section, one was to be used to replace migrant workers and farmhands. Since the district would also be facing harvest work on a scale it could not yet predict, the Labor District leader issued a directive that “every effort should be made so that one platoon of each section” would remain at the regular jobsites. The Labor District leader was therefore expecting that at least three-quarters of the Labor Service would be deployed on direct assistance to the agricultural sector.244 In fact, over and above the 100,000 labor men included in the planning as early as April as support for the agricultural sector, additional manpower was needed in the summer for harvest work. East Prussia, in particular, lacked tens of thousands of harvest workers in 1939. In response, 16,000 labor men were transferred to the northeast of the Reich in the summer to join the sections of Labor District I for the “Tannenberg deployment” – the battlefield reference shows once again the militarization of the language in the RAD. But even in this case, the heightened need for manpower did not result in the men being deployed with more efficient methods. Work was still done by hand with little use of machinery. In Eastern Prussia, for example, a few highly mobile sections existed since 1936, extensively reported on by the press. To be sure, the labor men in these “motorized harvest work platoons” were transported quickly by truck; but what characterized these units, apart from their mobility, was the skill with which the men wielded the scythe.245 The problem that educational and organizational goals clashed with the demands of the harvest deployment was not unique to the Labor Service. Other organizations, for example the Wehrmacht, the HJ, or the “student harvest help,” were also used to support the Reich Agricultural Organization 242 243

244 245

Ibid., Reich Labor Ministry to Reich Labor Leader, May 19, 1939. BA/B, R 2301/5649, Reich Labor Leader to Labor District leaders, April 13, 1939; BA/B, ¨ R 3601/1995; Reich Labor Ministry to presidents of the Lander employment offices and others, April 14, 1939. ¨ Bayr. HStA, ML/3448, Leader of Labor District XXX to Kulturbauamter and others, May 5, 1939. Arbeitsmann, July 29, 1939.

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in the face of the shortage of agricultural workers, and this deployment impinged on their other tasks, as well.246 The Wehrmacht, for one, was forced to make larger concessions at the expense of its interests. In February 1937, the Reich War Minister decreed that, among other things, soldiers could be detailed for harvest work as units in special situations.247 The harvest deployment thus posed a special challenge to many institutions of the Nazi regime, and each would require a separate study to examine the extent to which it was able to defend its own interests in the process. But this area of work was especially hard on organizations that had an educational goal alongside an economic mission, as it was difficult to reconcile with the specific type of deployment required by harvest work – and the RAD was precisely this kind of organization. On the whole, Hierl had to make substantial concessions with respect to the educational side of the service, though he was able to consolidate it at a lower level. While the primacy of pedagogy therefore had to be given up, education as such was not. Nevertheless, the elements of the “total institution” were substantially weakened for the sections deployed in agriculture. For example, one Nazi-critical labor man who served his half-year term in the summer of 1937 wrote in his English memoirs that the harvest work had been the “highlight” of the service, since the men had been “free of all military drill and coercion” during this time.248 The harvest deployments of the RAD also provide insight into the Nazi regime’s crisis strategy to combat the rural exodus, the shortage of agricultural workers, and urbanization. The shortage of agricultural manpower intensified during the 1930s. In 1933, 28.9 percent of all gainfully employed individuals were still working in agriculture, by 1939 that figure had dropped to 25.9 percent, with the ratio of young workers declining even more precipitously. This shows that the regime’s efforts to motivate young workers to take up agricultural vocations were not successful. And that pertains not least to the Labor Service, which pursued that goal explicitly through the “service to the German soil,” and not only with an educational program, but initially also by offering economic incentives in the form of settlement vouchers. Of course these measures were only one slice of the efforts by the Nazi regime to counter urbanization and the demographic shift toward the secondary sector. There were also improvements for agricultural wage workers, for example, and coercive legal measures intended to stop the migration of the rural population into the cities. In the end, though, the policy of the Nazi dictatorship was inconsistent: on the one hand, it sought to recruit young people for agricultural vocations through the Labor Service and similar institutions, but on the other hand, it offered hardly any prospects to those who were in fact interested. Moreover, working conditions and 246 247 248

Corni and Gies, Brot, 280–97. BA/B, R 2/4532, Note Reich Finance Ministry, June 12, 1937. UHSMM, RG 02–106, Askevold manuscript, 22.

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wages in industry remained more attractive.249 Interestingly enough, some decision makers were quite aware of the discrepancy between the ideological pretensions and their actual implementation in terms of policy, as some statements by Hierl attest.250 One example of the ambivalent, half-hearted policy is the Labor Service itself, which abandoned the settlement vouchers at the beginning of 1934, and which was, needless to say, unable to make any meaningful contribution to halting the erosion of the agricultural sector merely by preaching its blood-and-soil ideology. These kinds of approaches alone were not even able to slow the general trend of modern societies in any substantial way. Measured against the labor market goal of inducing the young men to find their way back to the land through education, Hierl’s organization was a failure. The role of the Labor Service appears more ambivalent still if one takes a close look at the harvest deployments. In this context, Hierl’s organization ` exerted, dialectically speaking, a dysfunctional effect vis-a-vis the ideological goals of the regime. For the very deployment of the Labor Service and other organizations like it offered a makeshift solution to the problems of the agricultural sector, thereby reducing the pressure to address the shortage of agricultural workers through more fundamental measures. In that sense the use of the Labor Service worked against the effort to solve the difficulties over the long term, and became, through its practical work, part of the problem. This dialectic became even more apparent when the Labor Service succeeded in finding a compromise between its educational concerns and the demands of the harvest work. The system of pragmatic makeshift solutions, which was ¨ diametrically opposed to the volkisch ideology, was further expanded during the war through the increased use of foreign workers and forced labor. But since labor men and other Volksgenossen were continuing to work in the agricultural sector, this situation demonstrates once again the inconsistency in the Nazi conception of labor. 4.3.2. “Under Shovel and Rifle”: Militarization and the Deployment on the West Wall In the summer of 1938, the nature of the work they performed changed profoundly for some labor men. For the first time, many sections were put to work on a project of immediate military utility: the construction of the West Wall. Now the RAD took on not only tasks that created the conditions for waging war – that is what the land reclamation projects and harvest work had been – but participated directly in undertakings of immediate importance to the war. On a limited scale, labor men had already been deployed previously 249

250

F. C. v. Hellermann, Landmaschinen gegen Landflucht. Praktische Wege zur Sicherung des Arbeitseinsatzes in der Landwirtschaft des deutschen Ostens (Berlin, 1939), 23–5; Corni and Gies, Brot, 280–97. See, e.g., Hierl, Schriften, vol. 2, 382 (1937).

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for the construction of air raid shelters and air fields used by the military and, in the East, for the expansion of border fortifications.251 The West Wall, however, was a large-scale project. On May 28, 1938, Hitler instructed Fritz Todt, Inspector-General of the German Road and Highway System, to erect a defensive line along Germany’s western border. The original deadline for its completion (which proved impossible to meet) was October 1, 1938: the western border was to be secure by the time Germany would launch its attack on Czechoslovakia, which Hitler contemplated doing in October. In June 1938, the dictator gave Todt the authority to employ all the manpower and materials he deemed necessary. The gigantic project involved, apart from private companies, the Organization Todt, the Wehrmacht, as well as the RAD.252 Extensive fortifications were built between May 1938 and September 1939. Since Hitler got his way in Czechoslovakia without a war, the military motive for the construction of the wall evaporated; and in 1944, the defensive line proved no serious obstacle to the Allies. In early summer 1938, RAD sections from all across the Reich were pulled together for the “Limes” deployment, as the project was known internally. At the beginning of June there were already 16,000 labor men, by early August the number had risen to 55,000, and eventually there were no fewer than 100,000 men.253 The majority of all sections were now deployed either on harvest work or on the West Wall, which meant they were engaged in activities that had not been part of the original plan. The sections that were shifted to sites along the western border of the Reich included many that previously had been put to work in the Emsland.254 In the construction of the 630-kilometer-long fortified line stretching from Basel to Aachen, with concrete dragon’s teeth, bunkers, and fortified shelters, the RAD took on chiefly earth-moving tasks. It laid down roads and paths, but was also involved in erecting fortifications and barbed-wire obstacles. Although Hierl’s organization was also used for work that involved pouring concrete,255 most of what it did involved unskilled labor. For the sections detailed to this project, the educational orientation of the service was pushed further into the background. Working hours at the construction sites were as long as they had previously been only during harvest work, and Saturday was turned into a regular working day. In early 1939, 251 252 253 254 255

BA/F, MFB 1/WF-10/22628, Army General Staff to various sections of the Labor Service, October 30, 1937. ¨ R. T. Kuhne, Der Westwall. Unbezwingbare Abwehrzone von Stahl und Beton an Deutschlands Westgrenze (Munich, 1939), 16–39. BA/F, MFB 1/WF-03/23094, Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces to Army Group Command 2, June 3, 1938. See the reports of the group leader conferences in the Labor District W that are extant in NARA/CP, RG 242, T 81/110. BA/F, MFB 1/WF-03/23094, Army Group Command 2 to Army High Command, October 22, 1938; Arbeitsgau XXIV, Der Westwall steht, n.p., n.d. [ca. 1940], 43–5.

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the total work period at the jobsites in the RAD was essentially forty-eight hours per week in the summer, and no fewer than forty in the winter.256 Some of the young men were working in shifts, and duties now also existed on Sundays.257 Hierl put it in a nutshell when he instructed the Labor District leaders in question: “The only decisive criterion is the utmost increase in work output.”258 The focus on efficiency, which had increased during the harvest deployment, gained ground; eventually, during World War II, it would gain the upper hand altogether. The resistance that the additional workload called forth among the youth can be seen especially well in a propaganda novel about the West Wall deployment, where the protest of the young men is put in words. However, the protagonists of the novel reject the criticism and call for sacrifice for the community, which means that the potential for protest was, in the final analysis, nullified by Nazi ideology.259 The pressures resulting from the increased workload manifested themselves even more clearly in a decree by the labor leader Busse to the sections under his command who were deployed on the West Wall. Busse noted that it was imperative to find a way “to substantially increase the joy our labor men feel in their work and their output.” In his opinion the most suitable method was to recognize outstanding effort, which could be most readily done by granting free time. Busse ordered his sections to define daily tasks for half or whole squads; those tasks would be based on “a very good average of the work output of the squads deployed at a jobsite.” If units completed their daily quota sooner than expected, they were allowed to leave the site early and dispose freely of their time in the camp, until “the next, regularly scheduled duty.” Busse called this “absolute leisure time” in contrast to the organized recreation program. He made sure that each squad would have a good mix of stronger and weaker men, and he insisted that all rest periods were observed to the minute lest the young men suffer physical harm.260 The surviving documents do not indicate whether this model was adopted by all sections at the West Wall, whether it was a special case, or whether it was prohibited by higher authorities after some time. We do know that the Labor District Bayern-Hochland introduced similar regulations at the beginning of 1939.261 All in all, this points to two things. The increased demands 256 257 258 259 260 261

Bayr. HStA, ML/3448, AGF XXX to Reich Governor of Bavaria and others, January 4, 1939. Arbeitsgau XXIV, 24f. BA/F, MFB 1/WF-03/23094, Reich Labor Leader to Leader of Labor District W and and others, June 15, 1938. W. Flack, Wir bauen den Westwall. Ein Fronterlebnis deutscher Jugend im Frieden (Oldenburg, 1939). NARA/CP, RG 242, T 81/109, Leader of Group W 11, 1st Labor Regulation of Group W II, August 5, 1938. ¨ Bayr. HStA. ML/3448, Leader of Labor District XXX to Kulturbauamter and others, January 17, 1939.

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made it necessary, on the one hand, to orient the planning of the deployment toward productivity criteria, and, on the other hand, to find ways to keep the dissatisfaction of the young men within bounds. The educational aspect, meanwhile, had to take a back seat. What becomes clear is that such impulses were not always directed at the service from outside, but sometimes also arose from within the organization itself in response to external demands. The final result was that the total control of the individuals, which reflected the National Socialist idea of the camp, was modified. The men were given incentives to work harder to escape the reach of the “total institution” of the Labor Service – a development that was diametrically opposed to the Nazi concept of labor service. The qualitative change in the nature of the work and its relationship to education was joined by another important transformation: the sections deployed at the West Wall received weapons training. As early as 1933, some leaders within the regime had contemplated using parts of the Labor Service as border guards in case of a general mobilization or war. At the time, the intervention of the victorious powers of Versailles had blocked the military training such a deployment would have required. In 1935, as well, when labor conscription was introduced, the regime did not yet feel in a position to militarize the service. In 1938, by contrast, its assessment of the situation was different. On orders from Hitler, it was decreed at the end of June 1938 that the RAD sections deployed on the West Wall would receive weapons training from Wehrmacht instructors – for the time being, the militarization thus occurred on a regional level, not throughout the entire Reich. The general command of the XII Army Corps said about the program: “The goal of the training is to give the members of the Labor Service military training over a period of about 3 months, to enable them to defend a certain section of the fortifications for a limited period of time.” The plan, however, did not call for the training in “formal matters and those relating to military drill.”262 While the regular labor men were given only light weapons training, the Labor Service leaders were instructed also in the use of heavy machine guns and antitank guns.263 However, the RAD and the Wehrmacht were soon at odds about how much time this training required. Once again, Hitler had to make the decision, stipulating that the young men should work two-thirds of the time and be trained in weapons the remaining one-third of the time. This meant that the new element in the daily schedule of the RAD was to be added at the expense of work and not education – which was contrary to the tendency of making work efficiency the primary concern. This shows that education, and even 262 263

BA/F, MFB 1/WF-03/23097, General Command of the 12th Army Corps to Division 33 and others, June 25, 1938; for a contrary view see Jonas, Verherrlichung, 163. NARA/CP, RG 242, T 81/110, Note to file about the consultation of Labor District leaders on June 6, 1938.

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more so the practical work, was more important to the Reich Labor Leader than military training.264 This may come as a surprise, since Hierl, a former general staff officer, had previously been open to the idea of military training. For one, however, education was a genuine concern of his; for another, he now assumed, most likely as a result of the lesson from the debacle in the Emsland, that his organization would be measured by the value and extent of its labor – and not by its military effectiveness. Moreover, given his own professional military background, he knew that even 15–20 hours of military training per week would not turn his “Soldiers of Labor” into an effective fighting unit. The Army Group Command also complained that the RAD was unable to contribute to defense: because of the length of the training, its level of preparedness and fighting strength were inadequate. Added to this was the fact that a “substantial portion of the Labor Service leaders and sub-leaders” had no military training. When all was said and done, the deployment of such units was considered “not a help but a burden and a danger,” and in case of war it would “amount to a senseless sacrifice of inadequately trained and led units.” The group command therefore initially proposed to the High Command to refrain from military training altogether. When that suggestion did not go anywhere, it pleaded that the RAD units be included in the planning only as guards and not for the actual defense of the fortifications.265 Similarly, at the end of October 1938, the Army High Command told the Armed Forces High Command that the use of the RAD as a “security garrison is only a makeshift solution.” If the Labor Service were still needed, it would be only as a construction unit. Any further “military training of the RAD . . . is not necessary and undesirable in view of the demands being placed on the active troops.”266 The Wehrmacht also criticized the reluctance to cooperate on the part of the top RAD leadership, for whom “prestige and a craving for recognition” were paramount.267 They displayed this reluctance even though the Labor Service had been placed under the command of the Wehrmacht in September 1938 on Hitler’s orders and on the basis of Special Annex 7 to the Mobilization Plan of the Army.268 On September 10, 1938, Hierl’s organization was then in fact assigned to the Wehrmacht, although it kept its autonomy 264

265 266 267 268

BA/F, MFB 1/WF-03/23095, Army Group Command 2 to Army High Command, July 22, 1938; BA/F, MFB 1/WF-03/23097, Army Group Command 2 to Army High Command, July 15, 1938. BA/F MFB 1/WF-03/23094, Note Army Group Command 2, August 25, 1938; see also the file in general. BA/F, RH 2/1161, Army High Command to Armed Forces High Command, October 27, 1938. BA/F MFB 1/WF-03/23095, Army Group Command 2 to Army High Command, July 16, 1938. BA/F MFB 1/WF-10/13235, Hierl to Labor District leaders and others, January 15, 1936.

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to some extent. For the Armed Forces High Command was supposed to arrange the training of the Labor Service in agreement with the Reich Labor Leader, while the service undertook the work projects on its own authority.269 But Hierl snubbed the Wehrmacht repeatedly by making decisions without prior consultation.270 Cooperation was thus by no means without friction. The subordination of the service, though not the conflict, came to an end on October 20, 1938, except for the sections working on the fortifications in the west.271 Given the tensions and problems between the RAD and the Wehrmacht, one should therefore not place too much stock in the fact that both sides thanked each other politely at the end of this phase for the close collaboration.272 The history of the militarization of the RAD thus provides insight into the interests of the various actors. To Hierl, military training was less important than participation in the prestigious project of the West Wall. Moreover, education continued to have priority for the Reich Labor Leader. But the Wehrmacht, too, had no great interest in a militarily trained RAD. As far as one can tell from the sources, it was Hitler himself who wanted the militarization of the Labor Service. It was one of the few occasions when the ¨ Fuhrer made a decision regarding the work of Hierl’s organization, to which he otherwise was indifferent. This confirms that Hitler was interested only in the educational and war-preparation functions of the service, functions that fit into the conceptions he had spelled out in Mein Kampf. By contrast, the work deployment and its nature mattered little to him. The dictator ordered the continuation of military training, for which the Wehrmacht and the Labor Service had no enthusiasm. The result was a Solomonic compromise: in the end, the Labor Service was neither well prepared militarily, nor did it accomplish much at the jobsites.273 So, the Labor Service was forced to admit in September 1939 that “the productivity of four labor men was equivalent to one skilled worker.”274 Yet weapons training for the service was not an entirely new phenomenon. As a “secret Reich matter,” the leader of Labor District Franken, Waldemar Henrici, detailed selected leaders of the RAD to “milit. courses” as early 269 270

271 272 273 274

BA/F MFB 1/WF-01/9352, Keitel to Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces and others, September 14, 1938. BA/F MFB 1/WF-03/23095, Army Group Command 2 to Army High Command, July 16, 1938; BA/F MFB 1/WF-03/23094, esp. Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces to RAF, June 9, 1938. BA/F MFB 1/WF-03/23097, Hitler to Armed Forces High Command and others, October 21, 1938. BA/F MFB 1/WF-03/23094, Army Group Command 2 to Hierl, October 12, 1938; BA/F MFB 1/WF-03/23095, Hierl to Adam, October 21, 1938. BA/F MFB 1/WF-03/23097, General Command VI to Army Group Command 2, June 30, 1938. BA/B, R 2/4530, Note Reich Finance Ministry, August 25, 1939.

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as May 1937.275 This document and few scattered others, all classified as secret, indicate that some leaders of the RAD were receiving their first military training already before the construction of the West Wall, although the available sources do not allow any more substantive conclusions. The same is true for the alleged military training of the simple labor men, which is occasionally mentioned in the Deutschland-Berichte, for example.276 What can be said is that neither the men nor the leaders of the Labor Service went through a general, systematic military training program prior to 1938.277 Given the explosive issue of weapons training, it comes as no surprise that special security measures applied to those working on the West Wall. In Labor District W – which for a time encompassed all the districts working on the West Wall278 – from the beginning of the “Limes” deployment, the young men were instructed twice a month about measures regarding secrecy and defense against sabotage.279 In general, the public was initially not informed about the West Wall deployment, later the information was vague.280 At the Reich party rally in the fall of that year, Hierl justified the deployment, at which he only hinted, by saying that his organization was helping to build a “strong fence” around the large garden it was cultivating.281 Only now were reporters allowed to report on the West Wall to a limited extent.282 Moreover, before the work began, the Reich Labor Leader had issued the following stipulations: “Foreigners, ethnic Germans of foreign nationality, and Reich citizens (Reichsdeutsche) of foreign ethnic minorities may not be used in the area of Labor District W. The same is true for labor men whose political reliability is in question.”283 This order exemplifies how narrow the boundaries of the Nazi promise of equality were under the banner of Volksgemeinschaft. On this delicate mission, the indicator of political reliability was political and especially nationalistic and what the Nazis would have regarded as racial criteria. And so the boundaries of inclusion and exclusion were measured out once more and drawn more narrowly in this case. As a result, many labor men were now for the first time in fact “under shovel and gun” – as Werner Flack wrote in his 1939 novel about the RAD at the West Wall.284 It is difficult, however, to get a clear conceptual grip on 275 276 277 278 279 280 281 282 283 284

NARA/CP, RG 242, T 580/934, Henrici to Group Leaders and others, May 4, 1937. Deutschland-Berichte, vol. 1 (1934), 224; ibid., 644. NARA/CP, RG 242, T 81/110, Note to file about Labor District administration, June 6, 1938; BA/B, R 2/4532, Memorandum Hierl, February 23, 1937. See Jonas, Verherrlichung, 163 NARA/CP, RG 242, T 81/110, Report about the third group leader meeting in Labor District W, May 12, 1938. NS-Presseanweisungen, vol. 6 (1938), 446. Hierl, Schriften, vol. 2, 396–410 (1938), quote p. 402. NS-Presseanweisungen, vol. 6 (1938), 860, 1004. NARA/CP, RG 242, T 580/934, Decree Reich Labor Leader, April 28, 1938. Flack, Westwall, 51.

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this militarization. For just as it was impossible to define the Labor Service precisely in terms of state law at the beginning of the regime, it now resembled Pufendorf’s “freak” with respect to its relationship to the military. In a certain sense the RAD became a paramilitary organization in 1938, if by that term one means weapons training that is not given as part of the standing army. Yet there are two ways in which the service departed from the paramilitary paradigm. For one, the military training was carried out only on a regional basis. Moreover, the men were merely trained in the use of weapons; every indication suggests that they were not equipped with them permanently. So, the RAD fell short of the typology of the paramilitary organization. For another, however, Hierl’s organization already possessed elements of a genuine military institution. For the training was done by the Wehrmacht and – as long as the RAD was placed under its authority – even within its framework. At any rate, the designation as “premilitary” that is found in the sources for this state of affairs certainly does not correspond to the facts.285 Hierl’s organization was premilitary between 1933 and 1938: against the backdrop of the intervention by the victorious powers of Versailles, the young men were physically and mentally prepared for military service during this period, but not systematically trained in the use of weapons. After the Geneva veto, Hierl had explicitly forbidden such training, and in the first few years after 1933 he enforced this prohibition to avoid any diplomatic exposure.286 The service met the definition of a premilitary institution, even if selected leaders were secretly given weapons training. For the period that began in the second half of 1938, the RAD is probably best described as semi-military. Beginning in December 1938, all RAD men received training in infantry weapons from their leaders after the latter had returned from a fourteenday course taught by the Wehrmacht. Still, the RAD was to remain “the school for the social and work-ethical education of the youth,” which made it imperative that the term of service not be shortened. Instead, working hours were cut back to compensate for the military training.287 Since the RAD did not become a permanently armed group and was to offer its members only a brief military training, it continued to be a semi-military organization. In addition, Hierl tightened the disciplinary tools. Since the RAD was now involved on a larger scale in national defense, special vigilance was called for, as well as secrecy under threat of a charge of reckless treason.288 285 286 287 288

This is also the definition in Duden; for a characterization that is off the mark see Keim, Erziehung, 73. BA/F, MFB 1/WF-10/22628, Reich Administration of the Labor Service to Labor District leaders, February 7, 1934. NARA/CP, RG 242, T 580/93, esp. Henrici to group leaders and others, December 9, 1938. Ibid., esp. Henrici to group leaders and others, November 1, 1938.

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As early as March 1939, Hierl, in the face of the looming harvest work that was taking up an increasingly large share of the Labor Service’s projects, requested that “the Reich Labor Service” be enlisted “to a lesser extent than previously for the western and eastern fortification work.” Needless to say, the Reich Agricultural Organization supported this request.289 At that very time, however, 70,000 labor men were tied up in the construction of the West Wall, and an additional 35,000 were requested for the construction of the fortifications on Germany’s eastern border.290 A short time later, 100,000 men were in fact deployed in the west, and 25,000 in the east.291 As late as the summer of 1939, 300 of the RAD’s 1,700 sections were still at work on the West Wall.292 To be sure, the Armed Forces High Command was cognizant of how low the military effectiveness of these units was. Still, in the words of General Keitel, Chief of Staff of the Armed Forces High Command, the units were to be deployed as security garrisons “in case of a surprise attack by the enemy.”293 As a propaganda pamphlet in 1940 put it, these poorly trained young men were thus among the “few, but select troops carefully trained for the demands of fortification warfare,” whose task it was to protect Germany’s back in the west as it went to war against Poland.294 The forms of deployment during World War II, which I shall examine briefly, linked up with those that had become central in 1937–8. On the whole, the RAD steadily moved away from its original project types. As part of that trend, the primacy of education, the official basis of the organization since 1933, had to be abandoned. Like the Organization Todt and the Technical Emergency Service, the RAD became in World War II part of the extensive mobilization of labor power for the war effort, which played an important role in Germany’s initial military success. The Labor Service now took on tasks of direct military utility. The motorized, highly mobile Wehrmacht needed a good system of roads and streets, and the RAD and similar organizations provided it. As early as August 1939, in the wake of mobilization, most Labor Service sections were subordinated to the Wehrmacht as construction companies made up of two construction battalions – and over the next years followed the Wehrmacht to most theaters of war. In the process, the RAD provided military auxiliary services, for example, building or repairing roads and bridges, or removing debris. Any kind of education in the prewar sense was already out of the question during these first few months of war – even 289 290 291 292 293 294

BA/B, R 3601/1995, Note Reich Ministry for Nutrition and Agriculture, March 15, 1939. Ibid., Minutes of meeting, March 14, 1939. Ibid., Note Reich Ministry for Nutrition and Agriculture, April 21, 1939. BA/B, R 2/4545, Minutes of meeting between the Reich Finance Ministry and the RAD, September 29, 1939. IfZ, MA 479, Armed Forces High Command to Army High Command, August 18, 1938. ¨ Kuhne, Westwall, 40.

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Hierl himself now considered sleep the best activity for balancing out the work.295 Following the defeat of Poland, the construction battalions were dissolved at the end of 1939 and the units returned to the command of the Reich Labor Leader. All sections, with the exception of those still detailed to the eastern or western fortifications, were now deployed on civilian projects again. Although these were frequently land melioration and the like, they were now carried out under a new banner: “The most important tasks of the Reich Labor Service during the war are projects in the interests of warfare.” For that reason, the “demands of the chief of the Armed Forces High Command on labor deployment” had absolute priority.296 With the outbreak of hostilities in the West, many sections were put to use for the Luftwaffe, for example in the construction of makeshift or operational airfields. But the RAD also supported the army once again. In addition to these kinds of activities in the hinterland, Hierl “in view of the extraordinary demands,” agreed in 1940 that the sections could be used for unskilled work in the armaments industry. The Reich Labor Leader continued to insist, though, that the labor men at least be deployed in squads.297 Lastly, the RAD undertook land melioration and similar projects in the Reich and in the “annexed Eastern territories.” However, the extensive plans to use the conquered Eastern lands for land cultivation projects could not be implemented on any meaningful scale because of the demands of the war. Still, the RAD regarded itself as the tool of “Volkstumsarbeit” (work on race and nation) and “colonization.”298 Before the assault on the Soviet Union, sections of the Labor Service set up enormous, camouflaged munitions depots. From the end of June 1941, units equipped with bicycles or trucks and with captured French and Belgian weapons followed directly behind the troops. Once again they built temporary bridges and took on the kinds of other tasks that in modern wars have fallen to engineers or civilian workers. The year 1941, however, saw the beginning of change that was to gradually assert itself as 1942 progressed: the RAD increasingly transformed itself from a construction unit of the Wehrmacht into one of its subordinate fighting units. This was reflected in the fact that the labor men were used during the war in the East to guard prisoners of war and to fight “partisans.” The degree of the RAD’s involvement in this dark chapter of the history of the Wehrmacht has not been examined,

295 297 298

296 RGBl. 1939, I, 2465. VB, November 19, 1939. BA/F, MFB 1/WF-01/9802, Reich Labor Leader to Armed Forces High Command, October 6, 1940, and this file in general. See the statements by M. Maschmann, Fazit. Kein Rechtfertigungsversuch (Stuttgart, 1963), ¨ 94–137, which apply, with modifications, also to the Labor Service for men; Korber, Volkstumsarbeit; on the plans see NARA/CP, RG 242, T 81/109, esp. Memorandum RAD, 1941.

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and given the poor state of the sources, will be difficult to clarify in the future.299 At least some individual sections were directly involved in the crimes of the Nazi race war. Information about this comes, for example, from the chronicle of a RAD site in the Wartheland in 1941. We are told that in the summer of that year, men of the RAD construction corps Turek and Uniejow destroyed a Jewish cemetery, using the materials to build troop accommodations. Jews were conscripted for the work and supervised by labor men. When a representative of the Jewish community complained about the destruction of the cemetery in early June, the chronicle goes on to say that RAD men “taught him a painful lesson that the pleasant time of the ‘chosen people’ is over once and for all.” The following entry was made on the same day: “No ghetto has been built yet in Uniejow, the Jews are running around freely. A special action by the Reich Labor Service was successful. No Jew shows himself in the streets any more when a member of the RAD appears.” The RAD also participated in the next stage of the policy of persecution: when a ghetto was set up in September 1941, the Labor Service, as “support for the rural police [Gendarmerie]” detailed “10 labor men to guard the action.”300 Similar deployments were reported – with a certain perverse pride – even by the official RAD publications as early as 1939 during the Polish campaign. There, too, labor men guarded prisoners of war, and the harassment of Polish Jews is openly described.301 A third example dates to the summer of 1942. When, in response to the attempted assassination of Reinhard Heydrich, all the men in the west Bohemian village of Lidice had been shot and all the women and children dragged off to concentration camps, three RAD sections, in collaboration with other formations, razed the village to the ground. Before that, the labor men had desecrated graves to steal valuables from the dead; in general, the RAD took on the task of gathering together the possessions of the murdered men and their deported families. In the search for those responsible for the attempt on Heydrich’s life, the RAD was also used during identity checks.302 299

300 301 302

¨ See, e.g., H. Looks and H. Fischer, Arbeitsmanner zwischen Bug und Wolga (Berlin, 1943). One piece of evidence for the mistreatment of civilians comes from USHMM Photo Archives W/S #85110; however, this photo and others like it do not allow us to draw any conclusions about the level at which these crimes were ordered, and to what extent the RAD was involved in them. Other photos show Polish forced laborers guarded by the RAD (ibid., W/S #76209; W/S #76210; W/S #50967), and the execution of one Polish prisoner of war (ibid., W/S #50095). The file of the trial of a RAD leader who ordered two escaped concentration camp inmates executed in the middle of April 1945 also points to the participation of the RAD in the crimes of the Nazi regime; see IfZ, Gm 04.02, Criminal proceedings against R. P., 1957. BA/B, ZSg 145/57, Chronology of the sections of location Uniejow, 1941. W. Decker, Mit dem Spaten durch Polen. Der Reichsarbeitsdienst im polnischen Feldzug (Leipzig, 1939), 68, 71. ¨ U. Naumann, ed., Lidice. Ein bohmisches Dorf (Frankfurt/Main, 1983), 24–41.

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In the final analysis, because of the inadequate sources, it is not possible to make precise statements about the extent of the RAD’s involvement in the Holocaust and other crimes against civilian populations. What can be said, however, is that the Labor Service, contrary to what its apologists claimed after 1945, is also tarnished in this regard. While direct participation in shootings and other forms of murder cannot be proven at this time, the Labor Service did have a direct hand in setting up the very ghettos in which living conditions were so appalling that estimates put the number of Jews who died in the Warthegau and the General Government at five hundred thousand.303 One can thus see the outlines of a trajectory of participation in crimes, stretching from guarding concentration camps in 1933, to the harassment of Polish Jews, all the way to the “partisan war” and anti-Semitic extermination actions. That the RAD had turned into a badly trained, half-improvised fighting unit by 1942 at the latest became apparent in August/September of that year. At that time, several RAD sections were fighting at the front lines as part of the 9th Army at the defensive battle of Rzhev. In the order of the day on September 7, Field Marshal Model praised the labor men for their actions, for they had “contributed superbly to repelling numerous enemy attacks carried out with great superiority in men and material.”304 Hierl had strictly prohibited such deployments as late as 1939 – in the war against the Soviet Union, however, there was no room for such considerations. Even before the turning point of Stalingrad, labor men were being used as soldiers time and again in crisis situations. Largely because of these strains on the labor conscripts, many of whom were only seventeen years old, the RAD was withdrawn from the entire Eastern campaign in 1943. Previously, in the fall of 1942, no fewer than 427 sections had been involved. Henceforth the service was deployed on military construction projects in the Reich and in France, for example, in the building of the Atlantic Wall or the launch ramps for V2 rockets.305 Since the second task after the pullback from the Eastern campaign became air defense, the withdrawal from the East did not amount to a development of the service back into a construction unit of the Wehrmacht. Beginning in September 1942, as a result of the heavy losses in the Eastern fighting, regular soldiers who previously had been detailed to providing air defense for the Reich were sent to the East. In response, the RAD initially formed 240 antiaircraft batteries in August 1943, and nearly 400 in 1944.306 While the use in antiaircraft defenses seemed less dangerous in the fall of 1942 than 303 304 305 306

Hilberg, Destruction, 1292. BA/F, MSg 2/1512, Order of the day, Model, September 7, 1942. Jonas, Verherrlichung, 170f. AdP, Part 1, No. 17111; BA/B, R 2301/5640, Hierl speech, February 22, 1944; BA/F, MSg. 2/144, Kumpf draft, 1954.

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deployment in the rear of the Russian front, that changed the following year with the beginning of the area bombing of German cities, at the latest.307 Weapons training therefore became increasingly important for the RAD during the war.308 Meanwhile, work training as well as political indoctrination receded very much into the background; at the end of 1944, practical work was given up entirely in favor of military training and military deployment.309 As the front line moved closer to the Reich, the anti-aircraft batteries were used with growing frequency in the ground fighting, where the poorly trained labor men, often battling with grim determination, suffered high casualties, as they had in the Eastern campaign. In January 1945, the Armed Forces High Command decreed that the members of the 1928 cohort – in other words, sixteen-year-olds – should “in no way be prematurely used up in the fighting,” but should be trained first. All RAD men from that cohort were therefore withdrawn from the frontline sections, which means that they had already been deployed there.310 This restraint, however, could not be maintained for long. On March 31, 1945, Hierl announced that three infantry divisions were to be formed from the ranks of the RAD within two weeks. They were to be used in the defense of Berlin. The units, often falsely referred to as RAD divisions, were regular Wehrmacht units, though composed almost entirely of Hierl’s men – between 15,000 and 16,000 of them. These troops, who, “with a few exceptions, had not yet received any machine gun training,” had only a “basic infantry training,” which is why their military usefulness was very low.311 And so in the final days of the war, several thousand additional men were killed in entirely pointless fighting. At least one of the three units, the division “Friedrich Ludwig Jahn,” was wiped out by Russian units while it was being formed.312 Some RAD formations, however, fought until the very end. In the final battle for Berlin, the fanatical Will Decker was killed on May 3, 1945; his “Fighting Group Decker,” cobbled together from various RAD units, formed part of the final mobilization.313 307 309

310 311 312 313

308 Seifert, Kulturarbeit, 91. Wendt, Deutschland, 644. ¨ BA/B, ZSg 145/9, Order of Leader of Group 12, December 15, 1944; “Fuhrer-Erlasse” 1939–1945, compiled with an introduction by Martin Moll (Stuttgart, 1997), no. 361, p. 454. BA/F, MFB 1/WF-01/1666, esp. Armed Forces to High Command to Chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces and others, January 29, 1945. BA/F, MFB 1/WF-01/1647, Winter to Wenck, April 7, 1945; BA/F, RH 2/1123, Reich Labor Leader to RAD, March 31, 1945. J. Pechmann, Die RAD-Infantrie-Division “Friedrich Ludwig Jahn.” Aufstellung und Einsatz beim Kampf um Berlin April/Mai 1945 (Vienna, 1993). ¨ For a summary discussion of the war deployment see Muller-Brandenburg, Reichsarbeitsdienst, 13–40; Klausch, “Der Reichsarbeitsdiest im Kriege,” JB-RAD 6 (1942): 11– 25; Mallebrein, Hierl, 106–9 (all of these uncritical, needless to say); Jonas, Verherrlichung, 164–74; Seifert, Kulturarbeit, 87–92.

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All in all, when war broke out, the RAD had been part of the elaborate and differentiated system of labor power working in support of the Wehrmacht. On the whole there was a division of war tasks, with the Labor Service and similar organizations, as construction units, relieving the fighting troops of some of their tasks. But when the total war turned back upon the Reich, the Labor Service lost its specialized function. It increasingly came to resemble a fire brigade – in the literal and figurative sense – that was put to work on a multitude of jobs.314 In addition, the service had ¨ influential enemies, not the least of whom was Goring. The chief legitimization for the continued existence of this institution was the hope for the “final victory,” after which it would return to its civilian projects and its educational mission. Given the heterogeneity of the goals during the war, it is difficult to describe the position of the organization and its relationship to the Wehrmacht. Under international law the labor men were not considered soldiers, since they were not performing military service under the provisions of the military service act, even if they were directly drawn into the fighting with increasing frequency since 1942. One should therefore describe this “improvised Wehrmacht institution” once again as a semi-military organization in the first phase of the war until 1941–2; but from that time to the capitulation of Germany, it was virtually indistinguishable from the regular forces.315 4.4. WORK IN THE CIVILIAN CONSERVATION CORPS “[S]imple work, not interfering with normal employment, and confining itself to forestry, the prevention of soil erosion, flood control and similar projects” – according to Roosevelt, this was to be the focus of the work of the Civilian Conservation Corps he wished to set up in the spring of 1933.316 While these words outline the three areas in which the American labor service would be used, the bill that was passed only a few days later stated in more general terms that the task of the Corps was “to provide for the restoration of the country’s depleted natural resources and the advancement of an orderly program of useful public works.”317 The bill did not specify how the vaguely defined work was to be organized and supervised – those questions were answered only with the mobilization of the CCC in the spring of 1933. Roosevelt, who shaped the structure of the CCC in crucial ways especially in the first few months, was interested chiefly in forestry, an issue with which he had concerned himself for many years. In his view, the CCC 314 315 316

A. Vagts, “Construction and Other Labor Troops,” Military Affairs 9 (1945): 1–12. BA/F, MSg 2/144, Kumpf draft, 1954; IfZ, MS145/5, Absolon note, 1958. 317 ECW 1934a, 13. Public Papers 1938, vol. 2 (1933), 80–4, quote p. 80.

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illustration 15. Learning a lot about strip-cropping, terracing, and the saving of farm lands from waste. Source: The CCC at Work: A Story of 2,500,000 Young Men (Washington, D.C., 1941), 65.

was supposed to help undo the enormous damage from natural disasters, neglect, and exploitation. In general, the publications of the 1930s emphasized the environmental problems the European settlers had caused in North America since the seventeenth century, and which now had to be addressed and alleviated.318 318

See FRC and Maher, Trees.

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As in other areas, the federal government drew on institutional resources already in place to organize the work: various existing institutions were entrusted with the technical part of the projects. This echoed on a smaller scale the division of labor that marked the Corps as a whole. To be sure, the Forest Service, an agency within the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), was not capable of running the camps in 1933 – that task had to fall to the army. But the Forest Service did become the largest of the technical services that took on the job of planning the deployment of the Corps, the organization of the work, and the supervision of the construction sites. In the first six months of the existence of the CCC, 82 percent of all projects fell within its sphere of authority. A multitude of smaller agencies joined the Forest Service as other technical services. The National Park Service, itself part of the Department of the Interior, organized no less than 11 percent of all projects in 1933. On a smaller scale, the Bureau of Plant Industry and the Bureau of Entomology, for example, all part of the USDA, had some say at the jobsites. The army acted as a technical service in military areas. In later years, the Soil Conservation Service, an agency within the Department of Agriculture, displaced the National Park Service as the second most important service.319 The particular project that a section of the CCC would take on therefore depended on the character and nature of the specific technical agency to which the work was entrusted. The over 150 different kinds of work created a broad spectrum of activities, which encompassed improvements in the technical infrastructure, projects to increase agricultural yields, conservation, disaster relief, and tasks relating to cultural policy. The various forms of deployment were not assigned systematically to various agencies; rather, many organizations ran similar projects. The technical services correspond only superficially to the “sponsors of the work” in Germany. For while these agencies in the United States were part of the institutional structure of the Corps itself, in the case of the RAD they were external organizations. As a result, the Corps, with its broad and open structure, had to deal chiefly with internal issues, whereas the work of the RAD was characterized by cooperation or competition with outside institutions. Given the organizational structure of the CCC, local communities – unlike in Germany – had no direct involvement in the agency. They were not required to provide buildings, bicycles, or other kinds of equipment. But that does not mean they had no interest in the camps. As in Germany, the camps of the CCC provided a boost to the local economy. Therefore communities – as well as counties and states – tried to have as many camps as possible assigned to them, and to that end they employed all the instruments of exerting influence that are available in a democracy. Congressmen and other politicians went directly to Roosevelt, pointing to the negative economic 319

ECW 1934a, 7–9; CCC 1940, 82; Salmond, Corps, 121.

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consequences if a camp was not approved or moved.320 Only the camps for African Americans were unpopular, and the CCC often had great difficulty finding a location where these CCC men would not encounter the hatred of white neighboring communities. As a consequence, a disproportionate number of their sections were put to work in restricted military areas.321 Among the activities of the American labor service, forestry work was always accorded a privileged place. The president took a strong personal interest in it, and it was central to the way the CCC portrayed itself in public. The Corps was supposed to improve the state of the forests. The men planted millions of trees – which is why the CCC certainly deserved its popular nickname: “Roosevelt’s Tree Army.”322 In a typical year the CCC planted more than 270 million seedlings on federal land alone. In total, more than half of all the forest planting undertaken in the history of the United States up to that point was done by the CCC.323 Moreover, the Corps made an essential contribution to protecting the existing forests. By 1942, the men had spent nearly 6.5 million mandays fighting fires, and in the same period the country lost the lowest acreage ever to fire. Less spectacular than the actual fighting of blazes, in which a total of forty-seven enrollees lost their lives, was fire prevention work. The CCC constructed fire breaks, cleared underbrush, erected hundreds of lookout towers, and patrolled threatened areas. In addition, the roads, trails, and telephone lines constructed by the CCC, which naturally had other purposes as well, also played an important role in the fight against forest fires. Moreover, the Corps was also used to combat diseases and insects. Finally, the young men constructed recreational facilities such as picnic sites and cabins to open up the forests to hikers and tourists.324 The CCC boys, however, did not work only in the forests. In the Western states, for example, they replanted grass to combat erosion. In fact, in many states land was purchased specifically for these projects. The Soil Conservation Service frequently supervised these activities as the technical service. This agency, along with the Bureau of Agricultural Engineering or the Division of Grazing, also undertook soil improvement work on a large scale, chiefly drainage projects.325 Another area of activity was flood protection through the construction of water reservoirs and dams. In 1938, the Corps reported 320 321

322 323 324

For example, NARA/HP, OF 268, Box 3, esp. Fechner to FDR, January 3, 1936; Salmond, Corps, 102–4; Maher, Trees. A discriminatory move by FDR motivated by electoral politics, e.g., in NARA/HP, OF 268, Box 5, esp. Woodring to FDR, July 6, 1938; in general Gower, “Conservatism,” 123– 35. For example, Mitchell, “Roosevelt’s Tree Army,” 64–6, quote p. 64; on the activities see now also Maher, Trees, esp. 78–143. ECW 1936, 29. 1940: 287 million on all types of land (Holland and Hill, Youth, 114). 325 USDA 1939. Salmond, Corps, 121; ECW 1936, 28–9.

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illustration 16. “Working amid Nature’s grandeur.” Source: The CCC at Work: A Story of 2,500,000 Young Men (Washington, D.C., 1941), 55.

that over the previous year, in addition to several smaller dams in southern Montana, it had erected Anita Dam, an earth mound three hundred meters long. The dam on the Tangipahoa River in Mississippi, completed the following year, was twice as long.326 More spectacular still were two projects under the direction of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and hardly known to the public: flood protection work on the Winooski River in Vermont and on the Walkill River in New York State. Three large dams were constructed merely to tame the Winooski River. For a time, this work in Vermont was the largest project on which the CCC was deployed.327 326

CCC 1938, 41f.; CCC 1939, 59.

327

ECW 1936, 15 f.; also Johnson, Corps, 203–9.

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In addition to fighting forest fires, the CCC was also used for relief work in other natural disasters. For example, the Corps was put to the test following catastrophic flooding along the East coast in March 1936 – and, in the words of the president, it did “extraordinarily good work.” The men saved lives and possessions, they guarded the property of evacuees and refugees, cleaned up debris, and selected men were even entrusted with policing tasks during the crisis.328 These kinds of spectacular deployments, in particular, which raised the esteem of the Corps in the eyes of the public, were repeatedly used to advocate a permanent CCC. For example, the paper Happy Days declared: “There Will Be More Floods” – and so, the Corps would be needed to fight them.329 Some units of the CCC were employed in wildlife conservation – for example, setting up refuges for waterfowl and other animals.330 All in all, the Corps had two goals in mind in its forestry and agricultural work: the first was to increase the productivity of agricultural lands both qualitatively and quantitatively; the second was conservation. The backdrop was the depredations and destruction of past decades and centuries, combined with the romantic notion that nature had to be preserved or restored for the enjoyment and edification of humans. The projects therefore represented a turning away from the frontier conception that had prevailed at the turn of the century, according to which natural resources were inexhaustible and could therefore be exploited at will. The frontier as redefined by the New Deal was now to protect what existed.331 However, nature was not left to itself. Beginning especially in 1935, it was opened up to tourism, a development reflected in the construction of accommodations and campgrounds in national and state parks.332 While the CCC – unlike the RAD – therefore pursued many nature-related projects that were not aimed at increasing agricultural production, in these projects, as well, the focus was on making nature serve human needs. In addition to the recreational value of these projects, tourism was supposed to create jobs.333 That is shown, for example, by what was at times the largest regional project under the supervision of the National Park Service, the flood control and drainage work in Skokie Valley in the state of Illinois: it served as a recreational area for the residents of nearby Chicago.334 On the whole, then, the American labor service had a modern, anthropocentric image of nature, one that defined the natural world by way of its 328 330 331 332 333 334

329 HD, December 4, 1937. Public Papers 1938, vol. 5, 140–3 (1936), quote p. 140. ECW 1936, 32. On the frontier notion and its transformations see R. Slotkin, Gunfighter Nation. The Myth of the Frontier in Twentieth-Century America (New York, 1992). A. C. Oliver and H. M. Dudley, eds., This New America. The Spirit of the Civilian Conservation Corps (London, 1937), 82. On the anthropocentric, physiocentric, and romantic views of nature, see Brockhaus ¨ Enzyklopadie (1991), vol. 15, 384–7. CCC 1938, 46.

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utility to humankind.335 In contrast to the direct instrumental orientation toward agricultural production in Germany, in the United States there was room within this framework also for projects with a recreational dimension and, to a smaller extent, even for environmental protection, especially in the second half of the 1930s. A physiocentric perspective, however, emphasizing respect for every form of life and justifying this on religious or general ethical grounds, was rare. One exception was a letter to the editor in the New York Times, whose writer lamented the roads that were being built by the CCC, because they were making the remotest corner accessible to the “casual tourist.” The end result would be deplorable: “The Roosevelt administration and the CCC are destroying or desecrating all the magnificent gifts God bestowed on us. A few years hence we shall have no national forests, but only national botanical gardens.”336 Although this attitude could not command a majority, Cornelius Maher has recently shown that the Corps did play a role of outstanding importance in the environmental history of the United States, in two regards. First, it popularized the idea of conservation – which had been discussed merely within a socially exclusive group during the Progressive era – among millions of CCC boys, in the communities surrounding the camps, and within the American population as a whole. Second, it changed the way in which people looked upon the environment: in addition to the utilitarian idea of the optimal economic use of the resource of nature, its recreational value was now also emphasized. Indeed, some Americans went so far that they wished to leave nature as undisturbed as possible and to protect it for its own sake.337 On the whole, the debates triggered by the Corps on these issues mirrored the transition from industrial to consumer society. Work in nature was joined by projects of cultural and historical significance, especially within the framework of the National Park Service (NPS). For example, the Corps maintained the site of the battle of Gettysburg, where in July 1863 the Union army had inflicted a crucial defeat on the Confederate forces.338 In California, the Corps rebuilt the Mission la Pur´ısima, a cluster of late eighteenth-century buildings that had fallen into complete disrepair. Here, the responsible authorities had no concerns about a questionable historical reconstruction, since the voices of critical historians went unheeded.339 Thus, the young men were supposedly making their contribution to “aiding in dozens of ways the recapturing of America’s epochs.”340 335 336 337 338 339

On the conception of nature in the New Deal, see also Radkau, Natur, 210–15; Maher, Trees. NYT, October 15, 1934; see, e.g., also JoF 33 (1935): 955–7, and Maher, Trees, 276–304. Maher, Trees; also see Stieglitz, “Save the Soil!” 59–74; Patel, “Neuerfindung des Westens.” CCC 1939, 58f.; in general ECW 1936, 39. 340 CCC 1941, 58. See Savage, New Deal Adobe, esp. 59–61; also CCC 1938, 47.

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These projects were invested with an educational mission whose goal was to promote in young people an identification with their nation, their cultural treasures, and their history. Still, the propaganda in this regard was never on the scale it reached in the German Labor Service. Analogously, the use of the CCC at political events such as parades or the like was the rare exception, not – as in the RAD – the rule: unlike the RAD, the CCC did not serve official, state-representational functions. There is little extant statistical data to indicate how the projects were distributed among the various types of work. Evidently the Corps had no interest in publishing this kind of data; in fact, in the annual reports from the director, it preferred to describe its activities by means of examples. That being the case, the listing and weighting of the activities to date have followed the Annual Reports and other suggestive, public self-descriptions, which scholarship has tended to reproduce uncritically. In actuality, the focal points were in areas different from what the Corps would have us believe. Forestry work, in particular, occupied a much smaller share than is usually assumed. It is true that the Corps planted more than 200 million trees a year, but that accounted for only 5 percent of its activities.341 Some scattered statistical data allow us to construct a more precise picture. As early as 1933, only 337 of the 1,520 camps reported that they were being used on planting work, 293 counted erosion-combating projects among their tasks, while the majority of the camps were used exclusively or in part for technical infrastructure measures such as the construction of roads, buildings, or CCC camps.342 The more revealing figures that exist for 1935 confirm this picture. According to this data, the breakdown was as follows: transportation improvements, 37.2 percent; land melioration, including all measures in forestry and wildlife conservation, 20.3 percent; environmental protection, 13.2 percent; construction of houses, 13.7 percent; recreational facilities, 11.2 percent; all other types, 4.4 percent.343 In 1941, infrastructure measures accounted for just under 50 percent, while conservation and soil improvement together made up less than half of all projects.344 The focal point of the work was thus not in forestry, but in technical infrastructure measures, chiefly road building, hydraulic engineering, home construction, and improvements to the communication structures. The question of the reasons behind this divergence between public statements and the actual weighting of the projects takes one into the area 341 342

343 344

C. L. Pack, “Auditing the C.C.C. Ledger,” Review of Reviews 89 (1934): 29; see also the still uncritical view of Maher, Trees. ECW 1934a, 26, 34f. In this statistic it was possible to list multiple tasks, which means that no clear profile emerges. For a definition of technical infrastructure, see Brockhaus ¨ Enzyklopadie 1991, 10: 501. F. Morrell, “Emergency Conservation Work Policies,” Journal of Forestry 34 (1936): 289 (percentages according to completed projects). School Life 27 (1942): 148.

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of justifiable speculations. The importance of the Corps could be put to good propaganda use especially in the area of conservation – helping endangered animals or sick trees sounded better than building roads. Moreover, it reflected the president’s personal predilections. In addition, the Corps in this way concealed the proximity of its projects to the private sector and avoided providing additional fuel to concerns about competition on the part of contractors and unemployed workers. A third reason has to do with the role of the army in the work projects, which I will examine at a later point. The manner in which the CCC undertook its projects was initially similar to that of the German RAD. In the United States, as well, labor-intensive, auxiliary manual labor at remote locations involving little machinery was the norm. One reason for this lies in the original motivation behind the agency: the CCC had been set up as a job-creation measure for unskilled young men. Against this backdrop of labor market policy, and in the face of the Great Depression, the goal – as in Germany – was less to maximize work output and efficiency, and more to find reasonably meaningful work for young unemployed men. Closely linked to this was a second reason: from the perspective of labor market policy, it made sense to employ the young men in the remotest possible areas so they would not take jobs or projects away from regular private-sector workers and businesses. The choice of far-off locations was thus motivated not only by the frontier myth and the Corps’ image of masculinity, but also by pragmatic concerns of labor policy. Third, this form of work was driven by financial reasons, as I will examine in greater detail when I look at the question of the degree of mechanization. Still, the Corps had a stronger orientation toward labor output than its German counterpart. That is exemplified by the daily working hours, which were raised soon after the founding of the CCC from six to eight; the workweek amounted to forty hours. Even though the technical services occasionally complained about repeated failures to meet the required hours, the forty-hour workweek alone meant that the practical work in the American labor service was more than a “trifle.”345 And yet the work time was rather short within the American context: in 1929, on the eve of the Great Depression, more than 80 percent of workers in the United States had workweeks that exceeded forty-eight hours. In the wake of the economic crisis, working hours were reduced also in the United States, but the weekly service hours of the CCC boys still remained far below average. The extent to which the Corps should use heavy machinery instead of manual labor remained a controversial issue. In 1933, Roosevelt stated publicly that one of the advantages of the Corps was the fact that it required 345

N. C. Brown, “Comments,” Journal of Forestry 32 (1934b): 213; R. Fechner, “My Hopes for the CCC,” American Forests 45 (1939b): 10.

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“the intervention of very little machinery.”346 This question was soon taken up by the Advisory Council as well, and there was a consensus that the existing machines of the technical services should be used.347 The technical services had an interest in optimizing the work output. Although their perspective did not prevail entirely, it did shape the Corps in essential ways.348 This is also revealed by the nature of many CCC projects. The numerous dam projects would hardly have been possible with the simple techniques of the RAD. Beginning around 1935, the Corps therefore began a massive expansion of its machinery. In the second half of the 1930s, every unit had between fifteen and twenty items of heavy equipment, especially trucks and tractors. The total value of the machinery in 1937 was substantial, amounting to $40 million.349 That efficiency had become an objective is also reflected in the fact that shift work, including night shifts, was introduced in some units as early as 1933 in the interest of making optimal use of the expensive equipment.350 When Fechner, in spite of this, referred to the Corps as an “unskilled, mobile force” as late as 1939, that was to some extent smoke and mirrors intended to conceal possible competition with the private sector.351 Only in the Corps’ final years did critics complain in particular about its high costs, and as a result it was unable to maintain its high level of mechanization. Although it is no longer possible to determine precisely the CCC’s degree of mechanization and rationalization, the American labor service was more strongly subjected to the logic of work and machine than was the case for the German service for most of its existence. The Americans themselves were cognizant of this fact: a report by McEntee to Roosevelt noted that by comparison to the United States, all the projects of the German Labor Service were “simple” and required “little machinery and few materials.”352 It is evident that in the United States, as well, there was a gap between the public self-depiction of the Labor Service and its real profile of activities. That profile is in part also reflected in the CCC’s conception of work. As in the area of education, the pretensions that the CCC attached to its work were less far-reaching than was the case with the RAD in Germany. Emphasis was often placed on what the Corps was accomplishing for the nation as a whole, and its activity reports were proudly directed at the public. 346 347 348 349 350 351 352

Public Papers 1938, vol. 2 (1933), 160–8, quote p. 162. NARA/CP, RG 35/2, Advisory Council, June 5, 1933. Morrell, “Emergency Conservation,” 290. CCC 1938, 13; see also CCC 1941, 23; also CCC 1942, 2. Harper, Administration, 76; NARA/CP, RG 35/2, Procedural Manuals, Box 2, Forest Service Handbook, 432. Fechner, “Hopes,” 10–12, 30, quote p. 30. NARA/HP, OF 268, Box 5, McEntee to FDR, September 29, 1938. “Goldbrickers” were slackers.

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It is revealing, however, that beyond this, in the speeches and publications of the CCC, there were very few reflections and musings about the notion of work and its value. Instead, the focus was squarely on the concrete projects, and the work of the volunteers was not stylized into an undertaking endowed with national prestige. Labor service was not considered “honor service,” but stood under the motto “We can take it.” This slogan defined the time in the Corps as a test that each man had to undergo alone and in which he had to prove himself. This test revolved around hard physical labor – and if the use of machinery occasionally made this labor easier, the notion of work did not reflect that. There was little sufferance for volunteers who failed to live up to the demands. They were branded as “disturbers” or “goldbrickers”; essentially, each individual was expected to be willing and able to work. If he was, he would find success in the CCC and in the working world.353 This meritocratic thinking had no racist traits, however. As I have already described, discrimination and segregation on the basis of race occurred in recruitment practice, everyday camp life, and some educational content, but the concept of work was not used to give to any of these aspects an ideological explanation or meaning. By and large, most of the accomplished work was glorified in relationship to the individual, less so to the community. The activities were not explicitly sacralized, even though they drew on the Puritan notion of the individual who proves himself on earth. Ray Hoyt encapsulated the relationship between the conception of work and the community when he wrote: Earlier trails had been built and other lands had been cleared of fire hazards by men to whom the labor was nothing but toil, at so much per hour. But there has been something personal in the work of the C.C.C. men; something of themselves has been laid with each mile of new road and each acre of timber saved from fire or blight. There has grown up among the men of this new forest army from the towns and cities a spirit that is new . . . It is a patriotism that involves trees and hillsides and streams, and is fused with one’s interest in one’s family and one’s own future, and too, one’s feeling of gratitude toward a government that has given rather than taken away.354

Hoyt defines patriotism as an enrollee’s reflections – tinged with nature romanticism – about himself, his future, and his family. The outstanding place that the propaganda expert accords to the effect on the individual and his immediate environment reflects the individualism that is so highly developed in American political culture. It was only after these aspects that Hoyt mentions gratitude to the government. The volunteer was supposed to feel a sense of loyalty directly to Roosevelt and his administration, while the bond 353 354

J. H. Darling, “The CCC Makes Good!” Christian Century, October 25, 1933. R. Hoyt, “We can take it”; A Short Story of the C.C.C. (New York, 1935), 3.

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to the state as such was secondary. In this way the Corps was always also an expression of a paternalistic notion of the welfare state and a campaigning instrument for Roosevelt and the Democrats. At the same time, this conception reflects the distrust of “the state” that is deeply rooted in American political culture. That “work” in the CCC was not “honor work” for the community, but primarily the output of an individual proving himself, is also revealed by a countercheck: voices emphasizing that the CCC offered a chance to weaken the focus toward self-interest in favor of service to the community were few and far between.355 These findings on the conception of work therefore confirm what became clear in the discussion of the pedagogical dimension of the Corps, the central focus of which was also not on a community-forming mission. Although Hoyt did not want to see work merely as paid labor, the Corps nevertheless affirmed the capitalist economic order. That is evident not only in the individualistic, competitive notion of work, but also in the profile and goal of the vocational training, for example.356 There was, however, some tension between this credo, economically liberal in tendency, and the actual situation of young people, who had virtually no prospects in the job market. This attitude was even less compatible with the state-interventionist policy of the New Deal, which did not rely on the self-healing power of the market and on the individual, but regarded massive state intervention as necessary. Thus, the New Deal in the end placed itself in the paradoxical situation of helping young unemployed workers by means of state intervention, while at the same time conveying to them a free-market economy concept of work. This contradictory state of affairs was neutralized – but not resolved – by a militarization of the notion of work. The role of the army in shaping the appearance of the CCC was reason enough why the agency was associated with the military in the public’s mind. It was referred to as “Roosevelt’s Tree Army,” “Labor Army,” or the “army of conservation,” and the enrollees were called “soil soldiers.”357 This language was more than a mere journalistic whim. As William E. Leuchtenburg showed in a classic essay some forty years ago, the language of the military and the reference to war played a central role in the New Deal in general. “The analogue of war” constituted one of the most important interpretive patterns with which the United States sought to combat the Great Depression. Beginning in 1929, many Americans 355 356

357

N. Osgood and C. Glaser, Work Camps for America. The German Experience and the American Opportunity (New York, 1933), esp. 10, 31. Studies that look at the history of concepts in connection with the New Deal come to similar conclusions: on “success,” see R. F. Carroll, “The Impact of the Great Depression on American Attitudes Toward Success” (PhD diss., Rutgers University, 1969); on “liberty,” see F. Foner, The Story of American Freedom (New York, 1998), 195–218. For example, CT, March 27, 1933; Literary Digest 115, April 15, 1933; L. A. Lacy, The Soil Soldiers: The Civilian Conservation Corps in the Great Depression (Chilton, 1976), who was instrumental in popularizing the phrase “soil soldiers.”

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understood the crisis as a warlike threat that had to be defeated like some external enemy. In most cases a direct analogy was drawn to World War I. Not only was that conflict close in time to the 1930s, but it had also brought with it a previously unknown level of state interventionism, to which contemporaries now resorted once again.358 This abandonment of the economic liberalism of the 1920s was the precondition for the possibility of setting up the CCC, and the metaphorical level was even more important for its conception of work. The Corps was transfigured into an assault force in the battle against the Depression. In fact, the mobilization of tens of thousands of young men, and work deployments that would be life-threatening during disaster relief efforts, suggested such parallels. At the same time, by equating it with a foreign foe, the crisis was externalized and turned into a problem that could be solved by a massive national effort. This metaphor found expression, for example, in an article about the CCC that began with the words: “America has a new army and has sent it to war.”359 There was also a more civilian version of the war analogy. Here the already mentioned William James was the point of reference: as early as 1910, the Harvard philosopher and pacifist had expressed the hope that war could be replaced by a moral equivalent. Now, the labor service was to take over the processes of community formation, disciplining, and the development of masculinity that were promoted by military conflicts. Even though Roosevelt, who had studied under James at Harvard, always denied that his teacher had influenced the creation of the Corps, the work experience in the CCC was repeatedly interpreted in public against the background of the philosopher’s ideas.360 The militarization of the concept of work in the CCC was thus either embedded within a larger scheme that regarded the battle against the Great Depression as a challenge comparable to World War I – in this case the reference to war was primarily backward-looking and above all metaphorical in the nature of an analogy; or it was driven by compensatory, pacifist considerations. The fact that the militarization of work for a long time had no distinctly aggressive, forward-looking side correlates with the avoidance of any kind of military-like activity in the Corps until the end of the 1930s. Only in 1940–1, when America’s entry into the war became increasingly likely and the discussion of paramilitary training for the CCC reached its high point, was there a change in the tenor of the military dimension of the 358 359 360

Leuchtenburg, “Analogue,” 81–143. H. Doty, “Our Forest Army at War,” Review of Reviews and World’s Work 88 (1933): 31; see also HD, July 1, 1933; NYT, February 8, 1934. James, Equivalent. Moley, one of Roosevelt’s most important advisors in the early stages of his presidency, pointed to the influence of James on the CCC; on this see on the whole NARA/HP, OF 268, Box 2, Keller note, November 11, 1934; ibid., Box 11, esp. Robinson to FDR, February 17, 1939. The public discussion of the CCC made reference to James, for example, in Time, February 6, 1939, 10–12; Mitchell, “Roosevelt’s Tree Army,” 129.

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understanding of work. Henceforth, this kind of labor was seen as preparation for a future conflict. Parallel to this development, there was a stronger emphasis on the connection between the projects, the needs of the nation, and national defense. Now it was said that the work “contributes to the Nation’s strength and to its defense.”361 Still, on the whole work in the CCC was less ideologically charged, and the militarization of the word was for a long time very different in nature from what was taking place in Germany. The Americans did not dwell at any length on philosophical essays about the value and conception of work. Moreover, it was entirely in line with the pragmatic attitude toward the activities of the Corps that their glorification did not reach the point where it spawned exclusionary pretensions. For although the CCC always emphasized that there was no room in its ranks for prisoners and parolees, it never claimed that its work was so honorable that it could not also be done by prisoners. The CCC thus spared itself the enormous problems that bedeviled the RAD, for example in the Emsland. The work-related difficulties that the American labor service had to confront were in other areas. I will therefore take a brief look at the three most important problems, which together provide some valuable insights into the way the CCC organized and carried out the work: the separation from the private sector, the difficulties with the U.S. Army, and the problem of the militarization of the projects at the beginning of 1940. An examination of these three issues is essential for the subsequent discussion of the efficiency and effectiveness of the service. To begin with, the CCC – like the RAD – had to set itself apart from the private sector. This was the most important and simultaneously the most complex problem with respect to the projects of the agency. For one, the Corps had to stick with the private sector in procuring materials. Apart from minor initial difficulties, there were hardly any problems in this area after 1933. Roosevelt’s move of making a well-known union man – Fechner – the director of the CCC paid off; Fechner, needless to say, was very keen on preventing any situation in which the Corps would compete with the private sector and organized labor. Accordingly, only the construction of camps occasionally led to some minor disagreements.362 Clothing, food, and housing were the responsibility of the army, and it used its accustomed channels to restock its supplies. In this area, as well, the decision to rely on existing institutional resources and well-established routines proved a recipe for success.363 361 362 363

FAS/CCC 1941 [unpaginated]; Suzik, “Building Better Men,” 128–33. On this, and especially the problems of 1933, see Johnson, Corps, 178–99, although he exaggerates their significance. ECW 1936, 1; on the scandal see NARA/HP, OF 268, Box 1, esp. the testimony of Fechner, June 6, 1933; Salmond, Corps, 44f.

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For another, there was the problem of separating the agency’s own projects from those of the private sector. Beginning in 1933, the Corps – much like the RAD in Germany – emphasized that its activities were supplementary and posed no threat to any regular jobs.364 As the files of the CCC reveal, in spite of the many infrastructure measures, complaints that sections were undertaking projects in competition with the private sector were indeed rare. The few exceptions prove the rule.365 The question of setting itself apart was more problematic in relation to a specific type of land: the CCC worked on federal land as well as on land belonging to the states, counties, municipalities, or private persons.366 Time and again, the work on private land proved to be fraught with problems, as there was the danger that the CCC was providing the individuals in question with a competitive advantage. This question was already discussed at length during the joint congressional hearings in March 1933. The head of the Forest Service, Stuart, reassured the members of Congress that only work already covered by existing legislation would be carried out on private land.367 This included, for example, measures to prevent flooding, erosion, or forest fires. Here the Corps often had to work on adjoining private land in the interest of protecting the common good and securing state land. In these cases, however, the Corps asked to be compensated for its efforts. A Forest Service handbook stipulated that forest owners who received help from the CCC had to supply the respective camp with lumber and firewood. This was a gentlemen’s agreement that dispensed with specified amounts and the like. If the Corps worked on private land for the purpose of demonstrating better planting methods, it was precisely defined how much it could do.368 Although the specific forms were different, overall there was a system aimed at avoiding competitive distortions. By contrast, the question of who should enjoy the benefit of these activities proved a difficult one. However, it was Roosevelt himself who had insisted on these projects in 1933. Moreover, only he and Fechner were authorized to approve individual applications for this kind of work – and Roosevelt did not hesitate to make full use of his decision-making authority.369 For example, the American president believed that he, not the experts of the CCC, had to determine whether regulating the river in Yerington, Nevada, met the criteria. In this case, Fechner’s weakness in making decisions corresponded to the well-known problem that Roosevelt was unable to delegate and often reversed his own decisions and those of others. At the same time, the lack of clarity opened the door for inequities and 364 365 366 368 369

Joint Hearings 1933, 4–26, 46–9. NARA,CP, RG 35/3.4, Camp Inspection Reports, New York, SP-16, esp. Roberts, American Federation of Labor, to McEntee, August 15, 1935; ibid., Kenlan to McEntee, July 21, 1934. 367 Joint Hearings 1933, 6–21. ECW 1934a, 9. NARA/CP, RG, 35/2, Procedural Manuals, Box 2, Forest Service Handbook, 439–42. FRC, no. 133; NARA/HP, OF 268, Box 1, Memo, April 18, 1933.

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lobbying – after all, landowners were interested in getting the CCC onto their land, and they drafted congressmen and other politicians to represent their interests.370 The Corps would therefore have been well advised to avoid such projects altogether, or at least to establish clear regulations that would have allowed decisions to be made at lower levels in accordance with rational criteria. While these problems had little impact on the effectiveness of the service at the jobsites, if one defined the mission of the CCC as that of protecting and improving the property of the federal government or individual states, its accomplishments were clearly diminished if at times one-quarter of all camps were working on projects on private land.371 But the reverse conclusion is also possible: the Corps did such extensive work on private land because that is where the need was especially acute. As Frederick Morrell, the Forest Service representative in Fechner’s Advisory Council, noted in 1936, it would have made sense to deploy even more units on private land, otherwise they would be pursuing less important tasks on federal land. If one defines the accomplishments of the CCC by way of the usefulness of the projects, regardless of who benefited from them, the CCC fell short of the optimum because too little of its work was performed on private land.372 The problem of setting itself apart from the private sector emerged not only with respect to private land, but also with one particular kind of work. Like the RAD in Germany, the CCC was repeatedly asked to help in the harvest. In the summer of 1937, various federal states approached the Corps with such a request: Minnesota, for example, asked to have all enrollees in the state exempted for sixty days for the wheat harvest. At that time the CCC did not accede to that request, arguing that the regular work could be legitimately interrupted only during disasters.373 The CCC, too, had established a canon of areas of work that could be matched up with its organizational structure and its educational side, and harvest work was evidently not part of it. This demonstrates that the Corps, through its pedagogical mission and the need to distinguish itself from the private sector, had developed its own interests that set it apart from a highly flexible job-creation measure. When the shortage of agricultural workers became more acute in the summer of 1941, the Corps was unable to sustain that restrictive line. In the crossfire of public criticism – the Corps was now accused of “boondoggling” – the CCC had to initiate a change of course.374 Roosevelt gave permission for enrollees to be loaned to private enterprises for harvest work. However, they continued to be housed in their camps, and the new employers had to pay 370 371 372 373 374

Ibid., Box 4, esp. Fechner to FDR, November 17, 1937. In 1937 there was a total of 2,069 camps; see ECW 1937, 16. Morrell, “Emergency Conservation Work Policies,” 288. NARA/CP, RG 35/2, Advisory Council, July 21, 1937. See Star (Indianapolis), March 31, 1941.

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the Corps for the labor.375 The CCC thus embarked on a path that the RAD had already taken a few years earlier in the face of what was essentially the same challenge. A cynic could argue that it was only the persistent unemployment that for a long time spared the Corps from suffering the same fate as the RAD. When the Corps was called upon to reshape itself, its response was hardly more flexible than that of its German counterpart. Second, the central role of the army had profound consequences for the Corps’ efficiency. The most important point of friction between the technical services and Fechner, on the one hand, and the army, on the other, was the problem of overhead. Officers exempted young men from the actual work so they could undertake projects in the camps, such as erecting and maintaining the camps, and jobs like cooking or cleaning. That made sense, since otherwise outside workers would have had to be paid. At the same time, however, it reduced the efficiency of the Corps at the jobsites, especially when the overhead made up 50 percent of the camp – as was the case in some camps in the summer of 1933. When Chief Forester Stuart alerted Fechner to the problem, all the latter could do was to pass it on to the army, since it had decision-making authority on this question. The army’s attempt to remedy this situation proved halfhearted. At the same time, Roosevelt was not willing to let Fechner decide the issue. The director had to be content with suggesting to the army that the size of the overhead be reduced to twentythree men per unit – which was still equivalent to 12 percent of the entire crew.376 The army, however, did not follow this recommendation. In April 1934, for example, it was reported that in the first corps area, an average of forty-seven men were detailed to such internal jobs; that was no less than 24 percent of the total manpower. While the technical services repeatedly complained about this situation, and with good reason, the army was able to prevent this issue from falling under the authority of the director of the CCC.377 For it saw in the criticism an attempt to deprive it of the sole responsibility for the camps. Moreover, it justified the large overhead by arguing that the primary goal was to employ young men in a meaningful way, and that could be done just as well within the camps as on the jobsites. This also explains why the construction of houses and other facilities loomed so large in the previously mentioned 1935 report on the CCC’s accomplishments. By contrast, the technical services 375 376

377

Ickes 1945, vol. 3, 620 (entry of September 28, 1941); against a farm deployment see also NARA/CP, RG 35/2, Advisory Council, July 8, 1941. See also Advisory Council, July 3, 1933, July 19, 1933, July 24, 1933, October 26, 1933; for a summary account see also Johnson, Corps, 101–6; the assertion by Sherraden, Corps, 182, however, is erroneous. NARA/CP, RG 35/2, esp. Advisory Council, April 9, 1934; on the criticism by the technical services see, e.g., JoF 34 (1936): 303–7; Paige, Corps, 54.

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and Fechner saw the Corps as a job-creation measure, the value of which would be measured by its performance at the jobsites. They charged that the camps were needlessly “dolled up.”378 But as the success of the army shows, in this case the efficiency argument did not prevail. The productivity of the Corps was significantly impaired by the way in which authority was allocated, which had been a precondition for the rapid mobilization in the spring of 1933. Similar frictions stemming from the distribution of power that was put in place in 1933 also existed on other issues. For example, the technical services advocated, for reasons having to do with the organization of the work, that the size of the camps should be even more flexible than was possible with the breakdown into main camps and side camps. This proposal was also thwarted by opposition from the army, which feared a loss of control. It insisted on the primacy of a disciplinary order, which supposedly could be implemented only in the main camps. And the quarrel over the question of whether machinery and vehicles should be serviced and repaired in centralized shops or by the army and the technical services actually turned into a severe test for the Corps.379 Yet this problem had less devastating consequences for the efficiency of the Corps than did the large overhead. Still, Charles Johnson is not off the mark with his thesis that the frictions between the army and the technical services were on the whole minor.380 However, the explanation is not that there were no problems, but that Fechner and the Corps simply resigned themselves in the face of the influential position of the army and its rigid stance. Nevertheless, when it came to the output on the jobsites, the military’s conception of work, which was guided by the primacy of disciplining control and not efficiency, had negative consequences. Third, the question arises as to what impact the militarization of the Corps had on the projects and the effectiveness of the agency. Just as the CCC long resisted the introduction of military drill, it was reluctant to orient the actual projects toward military priorities. In essence this reflects the fact that the United States was able to satisfy its need for external security within the framework of the regular military, while Germany, especially against the backdrop of the Versailles Treaty, relied since the days of Weimar on halfconcealed, auxiliary measures like the Labor Service. Although, as opinion polls revealed, a clear majority of the American public had already come to favor a militarization of the CCC by the fall of 1939, Roosevelt remained wary of a possible military involvement overseas given his complex domestic 378 379 380

See, e.g., Brown, “Comments,” 213. On the size of the camps see Johnson, Corps, 94–9; Paige, Corps, 57f.; on the “repair shops” see Salmond, Corps, 175f. Johnson, Corps, 91.

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policies.381 As a result, even after the outbreak of World War II, no connection was established between the activities of the CCC and military goals. While the CCC was still claiming as late as the middle of 1941 that it was making the largest contribution to the defense of the nation next to the army and the navy, the work projects themselves were essentially the same as before.382 The only difference was the context into which the activities were placed. As one publication noted, many of the projects “parallel those done by engineer troops.”383 Only the 12,000 enrollees who were put to work in military areas in the spring of 1941 were engaged in tasks that were also substantively new: they were not improving the civilian technical infrastructure, but were building shooting ranges, operational airfields, and the like.384 Only after the United States entered the war were the projects oriented toward military interests. The “Victory war program,” which formed the basis of the CCC from January 1942, stipulated that 200 camps would henceforth be located on military territory, and another 150 in the western United States for the prevention of forest fires, which was important for the war effort. Given the drastic reduction in the size of the CCC – by June 1942 only 400 camps were left – this amounted to a reorganization of its activities.385 The prevention and fighting of forest fires loomed so large thanks to Roosevelt’s intervention. The president, who took a special interest in forests, saw the following danger: “It is obvious that many of them [the forests] will be deliberately set on fire if the Japs attack there.” So, at least in the president’s eyes, the Corps was performing “essential war work” by being deployed on fire-fighting tasks. If it were withdrawn from this task, some other organization would have to step in – “probably at a net increased cost.”386 Roosevelt used this argument to lobby for the continued existence of the CCC in the spring of 1942. But even his personal intervention could not stop the decision that was made at the end of June to dissolve the Corps. Compared with military projects like the building of bunkers, which the RAD pursued at least from 1938, the CCC thus retained its civilian character for a long time also in its construction projects. Only in reaction to America’s entry into the war was the Corps given responsibility for tasks that corresponded to those of the RAD after 1938.387 Since some of the activities resembled those 381 382 383 384 385 386 387

NYT, October 10, 1939; see in general Salmond, Corps, 116–20, 194–6, 209; Suzik, “Building Better Men.” NARA/HP, PMC, Box 39, esp. Memo ECW, July 18, 1941. FSA/CCC 1941 [unpaginated]. Ibid.; also, NARA/CP, RG 35/3.1, Box 4; in general, Johnson, Corps, 200–18. CCC 1942, 2–6; on the number of camps see Charleston Post, June 15, 1942. FRC, esp. no. 1079. Of course, it made little sense to build bunkers in the United States – which is why the support work on military territory was the functional equivalent of the deployment on the Western Wall and similar projects by the RAD. Conversely, the threat of forest fires was not

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undertaken prior to 1941 and were merely put into a different context, and since the other activities were not structurally contrary to previous projects, the integration of the CCC into the war effort entailed only minor changes and was correspondingly quite neutral with respect to efficiency. The agency’s personnel policy also had no major negative repercussions for the effectiveness of the Corps; this question, which caused such problems for the RAD, requires a brief look. It proved to be an important advantage of the CCC that it was able to draw on experienced employees from various federal agencies. Central to the actual work at the jobsites was the cooperation with the technical services, in which all the expert knowledge the Corps required was collected. There were also new hires because the personnel of the participating agencies was not sufficient to meet the needs of the CCC. There was comparatively little abuse in the hiring, that is to say, few jobs were filled according to political criteria rather than on the basis of qualifications. Since these were sensitive positions, for example as educational advisor or – more important still for the actual work – foreman or member of the technical services, any other approach could have substantially impaired the efficiency of the Corps. Although the technical services complained repeatedly about political influence, on the whole it did not reduce the agency’s effectiveness in any significant way. Political patronage was also less pronounced in the CCC compared to other New Deal agencies, such as the emergency work under the supervision of the WPA.388 If one asks about the economic efficiency and effectiveness of the Corps, it is imperative to distinguish between avoidable and unavoidable problems. All but impossible to prevent were the frictional losses in the early phase, which can be explained by the breakneck speed with which the CCC was set up. In 1933 there were no blueprints in any drawer on how to deploy such a large labor force in a meaningful way. Some less sensible projects were therefore undertaken in the first few months, and at times the agency was idle. In addition, the technical services often had exaggerated hopes in 1933, since they were expecting to get from the volunteers the output of experienced workers.389 The delayed and inconsistent mechanization and rationalization posed another problem. It was virtually inevitable that working hours were shorter than in the private sector on account of the educational mission that set the CCC apart from conventional job-creation programs. Moreover, there was no way to get around the costs

388 389

the kind of consideration in Germany that it was in the United States. The correspondence between the two countries lies in the fact that the emphasis was put on direct military projects, and that supporting core resources (arable land in Germany, the forests in the US) were to be protected and put to use. JoF (1933): 914–19; JoF 32 (1934): 397–9; in general also Salmond, Corps, 42, 104–6. J. D. Guthrie, “Foresters, the Army, and the C.C.C.,” JoF 32 (1934): 942.

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associated with transporting enrollees from the densely populated Eastern part of the United States, where there was comparatively little demand for the kind of work the CCC did, to the sparsely settled Western states, where the Corps could be deployed at many sites. Other problems had to do with the organizational structure of the CCC. The recourse to existing institutional resources was the most important precondition for the success of the agency. That is revealed by the cooperation with various technical services that had experience working together on their tasks, or the admission of so-called “Local Experienced Men” into the camps. The professionalism of the collaborating organizations was also the primary reason why there was so little friction with the private sector with respect to the procurement of materials and the selection of projects. As a result, the Corps could be justifiably proud about its accomplishments in many areas.390 Similar to what happened in the case of the educational mission, however, the collaboration of different institutions with divergent interests led to deficits in the work. This is especially apparent if one measures the Corps by its labor output at the jobsites. The army’s understanding of the CCC’s purpose as a means of instilling discipline through work stood at odds with the CCC’s official goals and the public image it cultivated. Thus, the overheads significantly diminished the effectiveness of the Corps. The problematic influence of the army was also one reason why the CCC did not give a careful breakdown of its activities to the public, but was content with summary and vague statements. That was in stark contrast to the publications about the educational side of the agency, which provided statistical information on every conceivable question. Another negative factor was Roosevelt’s repeated change of direction, of which I have already spoken in the chapter on the organization of the CCC. His vacillating policy concerning the size of the agency made planning ahead almost impossible. That also affected efficiency, especially when projects that had already been started were abandoned, unfinished – in some cases to be resumed again after some time at considerable effort and expense. This problem also had its roots in the organizational structure of the Corps, in which the president repeatedly intervened. To that extent the recourse to institutional resources was not only a precondition for the rapid mobilization of the CCC and for its relative degree of success; at the same time it was also a burden, especially since no organizational reform was undertaken to remedy the resulting shortcomings. It is difficult to say what consequences the efficiency-reducing factors had on the whole, since there are virtually no comparative assessments. Similar to Germany, however, the efficiency was below that of private employees. That was the finding of a comparative analysis in 1934, where a unit was put to 390

See, e.g., Brown, “Comments,” 212.

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work for some time in a direct comparison with a private company. According to this source, however, the enrollees achieved a respectable 72 percent of the private-sector workers. The chief reasons for the difference were thus the shorter work period and the lack of skills on the part of the CCC boys.391 The final report by the CCC noted that the efficiency of the CCC was between 82 percent and 90 percent of that of the private sector.392 When it came to the funds that were necessary to reach that goal, the technical services, in particular, painted a bleak picture. But here, too, no detailed information was provided.393 Measured against a different yardstick, the Corps did reasonably well. One dissertation from the 1930s concluded that the CCC, compared to other job-creation programs of the New Deal, could show “a greater amount of work accomplished in the same time as well as a more widespread popular approval.” Not even the most vociferous critics of the Corps, the technical services, challenged that view; in fact, many shared it.394 Yet all of these comparative approaches have a fundamental flaw: they are merely tendentious statements that are not based on any replicable calculations. Such calculations were hardly possible: to arrive at findings that were reasonably secure would have required an analysis of conditions in the various types of camps in different parts of the country at various times. Moreover, the Corps itself did not process the kinds of numbers required for comparative statistics. The impression of one representative of a taxpayer association was apt when he expressed the following criticism: “We felt that there was inefficiency when we tried to figure out the cost, though if any man in existence knows the cost, I would like to meet him – we could not find him.”395 The Corps itself was not interested in providing this kind of breakdown, and it cannot be produced today on the basis of the extant data. What can be said is that the American public, content with reports about heroic disaster relief efforts and millions of planted trees, did not ask critical questions about the work output of the Corps. No independent study was commissioned, no investigative committee was created, there were not even any probing questions. Instead, politicians, representatives of the private sector, and the press always emphasized the humanitarian and educational accomplishments of the CCC. For example, the Boston Evening Transcript noted in 1935: “It is, perhaps, not too much to say that they [the enrollees] have benefited more than the forests.”396 If the CCC was – by its creation, official chief mission, and self-representation – primarily a work program, the emphases in actual practice were nevertheless on the social welfare dimension of the agency and on the discipline it imparted. Had that not been the case, the accomplishments and efficiency of the Corps would have been more 391 393 395

392 CCC 1942, 13; Sherraden, Corps, 180f. Pack, “Auditing,” 28f., 58. 394 Harper, Administration, 90. See, e.g., JoF 34 (1936): 303–7. 396 Boston Evening Transcript, January 3, 1935. JoF 34 (1936): 303–19, quote p. 306.

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closely scrutinized, subjected to comparative analyses, and debated in public; in addition, the institutional structure would have been oriented more closely toward the logic of the projects, at least after the initial mobilization phase. And so the actual labor at the jobsite always had de facto a subordinate role, even though the Corps was officially considered above all a work measure. 4.5. INTERIM CONCLUSION As in the case of the RAD, the second mission of the CCC, apart from education, was practical work. While in the Reich Labor Service this work was subordinated to the pedagogical side both in theory and in practice, according to official pronouncements it stood squarely at the center of the Civilian Conservation Corps. But as I have shown, humanitarian and educational concerns in America had a noticeably greater influence on the way in which the deployment of the service was conceived than the self-presentation of the CCC would lead one to believe. The American public likewise measured the CCC by its educational effect and less so by its practical work accomplishments. As a result, there is a striking similarity in the importance that was accorded to the work on the jobsites in both organizations. The types of projects pursued by the RAD and the CCC were also largely the same. Soil improvement (including forestry work), infrastructure projects, disaster prevention, and tasks of cultural and historical importance were undertaken by both organizations. Even if the geographic conditions and the details of deployment were different on either side of the Atlantic, distinct parallels are evident. What differed, however, was the priority given to the various subsections. Germany sought to free itself from dependence on agricultural imports and therefore gave precedence to soil improvement projects until 1938, all in an effort to become self-sufficient for a future war. In the United States, meanwhile, technical infrastructure measures accounted for more than half of all the work. America had no shortage of food, and some New Deal initiatives, like the Agricultural Adjustment Act, were in fact aimed at reducing the agricultural surpluses, not at raising yields. While conservation and especially the creation of recreation zones was an important area of work for the CCC, it played no role whatsoever in the RAD. On the one hand, that points to the greater importance of leisure activities and to ecological problems in the United States. On the other hand, it reveals the maximum effort with which the Nazi regime prepared itself for war. Important parallels existed in regard to the conception of nature on which the projects in the two countries were based: in both instances we are talking about an anthropocentric modern view that defined nature primarily as a resource and by way of its usefulness to humankind. In the Third Reich, the irrational agrarian romanticism merely concealed the exceedingly rational orientation toward improved yields and aggression against others. In

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America, by contrast, the CCC provided the starting point for a new, critical engagement with nature, and the lopsided interest in making the most efficient possible economic use of nature was profoundly shaken. In both countries, moreover, the value placed on agriculture and forestry shaped the services – work in the secondary or tertiary sectors was modest, even though Germany and the United States were modern industrialized societies. As the comparison has shown, the primacy given to the agricultural sector had not only political, fiscal, and practical work reasons, but was also an expression of the spirit of the times, which associated special virtues with heavy manual labor and contact with “the soil.” This perspective was a reaction to the crisis of modernization in the first half of the twentieth century. Many modern industrial societies responded at that time with similar, backward-looking ideas that were simultaneously aimed at restoring preindustrial social relations. While this turn to the past in Germany rested on a consensus of the political elite, it was not a commonly shared attitude in the United States. Unlike Roosevelt and the regionalist movement, for example, with its critique of modernization, many – including influential advisors and ministers in the president’s cabinet – favored a less retrospective model in the fight against economic misery. At the same time, the choice of projects meant that neither the German nor the American service was able to make a substantial contribution to overcoming the Great Depression. The projects did not affect sectors crucial to economic recovery. For a long time, neither service pursued projects of real military significance. But this external similarity was based on different motivations: international intervention forced the Reich to set aside such plans in 1933. Already during the Weimar Republic, Germany, under the impact of the strictures of the Versailles Treaty and the resulting traumas (explainable only in sociopsychological terms), had made every effort to compensate for what it believed to be shortcomings in its security. That was the goal behind the buildup of the “black Reichswehr” and all types of pre- and paramilitary training, also within the framework of the FAD. The 1933 veto by the victorious powers in Geneva put Hierl’s plans in this regard on hold for several years. Not until 1935 did the regime believe it had gained sufficient diplomatic maneuvering room, and shortly before enacting labor conscription it also introduced military conscription. With the draft in place, the Reich could initially close its real and imagined security gaps, as a result of which the RAD was for now committed entirely to its ideological goal. When the Nazi regime stepped up its military efforts in 1938, the RAD was transformed into a construction unit of the Wehrmacht. Beginning in 1941–2, however, it was increasingly drawn into direct combat, which is why by the end of the war it was a unit that was dependent on and virtually indistinguishable from the regular armed forces. Within this context the RAD also participated in the crimes of the Nazi war, whether it was the Holocaust or the fight against “partisans.” Although it will take further research to determine the extent of

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its involvement, it is already possible to say that the RAD underwent the process of brutalization that is evident not only among the actual perpetrators, but also among many other Nazi institutions during World War II. In the United States, by contrast, the distance to military forms of deployment was part of the founding consensus that had made the CCC possible in 1933. For one, America was able to satisfy its security needs within the framework of its regular military forces, and there was a public consensus that this did not even require the military draft. For another, because critics invoked the example of the Reich Labor Service and leveled the general charge of fascism, the Corps neither engaged in weapons training nor pursued projects that were directly military in nature. It was only after America’s entry into the war in December 1941 that these two elements were introduced into the CCC. Thereafter, the character of the two organizations became very similar once again. In both services, most units became construction troops for the armed forces. The remaining sections pursued the usual projects, although these were now directly related to the war economy. This remnant of civilian deployment was central to the self-legitimization of both organizations. It was a reminder of the original concerns of the institution and thus an argument for its continued existence. Since both agencies lost their earlier, specific profile during this phase, a growing chorus of voices in Germany and the United States began calling for the disbanding of the labor services. In both countries, the continuation of civilian projects was therefore in line with the interests of the labor services in their systemic self-preservation. The larger political context, however, was different. This explains why Nazi Germany regarded the construction units of the RAD as essential when the military conflict began, while in the United States, a few months after the country’s entry into the war, a consensus emerged that the Corps was no longer needed. However, the disbanding of the CCC was not the democratic alternative to the integration of the RAD into the waging of the war. The American democracy could have turned its labor service into the kind of work troops into which the Nazi regime transformed the RAD, and after 1942, some military experts in the United States looked with a certain envy at Hierl’s organization, which had no equivalent in their country.397 It was therefore primarily the concrete political constellation that led to the dissolution of the Corps. However, given the persistent opposition to a militarization of the agency and its opening up to broader social circles beyond the unemployed, this was a logical decision in line with the development of the CCC up to that point. The structural similarities of the services, each of which sought a balance between work and education while avoiding competition with the private sector, are also evident in their similar reactions to the demand that they help bring in the harvest. The RAD opposed harvest work on the grounds 397

Vagts, “Labor Troops,” 1–12. Interestingly enough, Vagts, like Rosenstock, was a German historian living in exile in the United States.

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that its comprehensive educational goals were incompatible with this type of work. In contrast, the CCC frequently justified its protest against this form of deployment by pointing to the lines of demarcation from the private sector. Nevertheless, overall one can find similar argumentative patterns in both services. The different course that the economy took in the United States is the only reason why the CCC was used for this task only later and on a much smaller scale compared to the RAD. This, in turn, demonstrates that, contrary to its public image, the American labor service, as well, was not a job-creation measure that could be used in a flexible manner for all kinds of activities without seriously jeopardizing its original organizational structure. A comparative analysis thus shows that Hierl’s defensive reactions had structural reasons related to the general character of labor services. If one compares the two organizations with respect to their economic effectiveness and efficiency, it must be noted, first, that it is not possible to make definite statements for either one. In the case of the RAD that comes as little surprise, given the available sources and the legitimization needs of a dictatorship that published hardly any unmanipulated data. In the case of the CCC, the explanation lies in the comparatively secondary importance of practical work and the resultant shortfalls in what the Corps was able to accomplish. The effectiveness of the CCC in relation to the national context was crucially determined by the fact that it was a rather small program within the New Deal universe. Since it employed only a small percentage of young Americans, the overall impact of its work could not be that great. Still, within the particular niche of measures it undertook – such as technical infrastructure projects, fire prevention, and tree planting – the Corps was impressively effective. By comparison, the RAD was substantially bigger, both in relationship to the German population as a whole, and in the number of work projects. However, the RAD failed to live up to its ambitious and far-ranging land melioration plans, since it was impossible to achieve a substantial increase in agricultural yields with its limited use of machinery and its organizational problems. Like the CCC, the RAD was joined by a large number of similar institutions. Land improvement work was also done by private sector workers and by emergency workers, soldiers, and prisoners who pitched in during the harvest. The Organization Todt participated in the construction of the West Wall, and the fire service and the Technical Emergency Service lent a hand during fires. Because of the variety of projects that were undertaken and the various elements that one could possibly compare, assessments are hardly possible on this general level.398 398

On the impossibility of such a comparison, see also the reflections of Gassert, “New Deal”; on the various results of a profitability analysis using private-sector criteria instead of national economy criteria, see NARA/CP, RG 242, T 81/109, RAD Memorandum, 1941.

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Somewhat more precise statements are possible if one compares the efficiency of the services to the private sector. While the Corps achieved about 70 percent of the productivity of the private sector, that figure was quite a bit lower for the German service and is likely to have been substantially below 50 percent on average.399 Taking into account all the problems involved in making such a generalizing statement, the various sources do indicate such a low level of efficiency by the German Labor Service. They also suggest that the efficiency showed another significant decline especially in the wake of the militarization in 1938–9 and stood at less than a third of the private sector’s productivity. Per man-day, the effectiveness of the CCC, assuming the few existing sources are credible, was substantially higher than the RAD. The chief reasons for the higher efficiency of the Corps lie in the more extensive use of machinery and the longer working hours. In Germany, working hours were raised to a level that made sense economically only during the harvest deployment in 1937. Moreover, the technical guidance in the CCC was more professional, and the Corps had better labor men than the RAD thanks to its vocational education and training on the job. Then there were the many organizational problems of the RAD. The fact that the “soil soldiers” often stayed with the organization for a much longer period of time than did the “soldiers of labor,” and thus had more experience, also increased the relative efficiency of the CCC. Another cause for the disparity in efficiency was the way in which technical oversight was embedded in the two organizations. In the RAD, the interest in the highest possible efficiency and effectiveness lay less within the organization itself than outside, with the land melioration offices, the local communities, and the Administrator for the Four-Year Plan. Their functional equivalent in the United States was the technical services, which were themselves a part of the organizational structure and thus of the system of the CCC. Because of this integration into the agency, labor efficiency was taken more seriously in the Corps than in Germany. There, many RAD leaders regarded the work itself as less important than the disciplinary control; moreover, they were overtaxed by the expectation to possess a range of qualifications in the area of education and work. The front lines, however, were similar. In the United States, too, there was a conflict between the idea that the enrollees should work primarily for reasons of discipline, and the focus on the output at the jobsites. In Germany, this conflict was fought out between the Labor Service and its environment, with no counterbalancing weight within the organization in the form of the technical services. As a consequence, the criticism of the RAD articulated by third parties was harsh and largely justified. In the chaotic administrative jungle of the Nazi regime below the level of the dictator, the Labor Service did not bring about 399

See also Holland, Youth, 126.

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any changes that increased productivity and efficiency; in fact, the very justification for the existence of the RAD was frequently challenged. That is ¨ especially evident in the conflicts between Hierl and Goring. On the whole, then, the CCC did well in terms of its performance not only in comparison with other New Deal job-creation programs, but also in comparison with the RAD, even though its efficiency was inevitably lower than that of workers in the private sector: there, the degree of mechanization was even more sophisticated, working hours were longer, and the basic qualifications of workers were higher. In assessing the economic efficiency, it is helpful to look at a cost analysis of the two services that was done by the CCC in 1938 at Roosevelt’s request. It concluded that the organizations were about equally expensive in terms of costs per man, leaving aside the $25 that each enrollee usually sent to his family. The study listed the numerous problems confronting such a comparison, but its findings probably came very close to the actual situation.400 While the level of efficiency in terms of costs was thus similar, the work output of the CCC was substantially higher. In the final analysis, the RAD had to fail as a result of the tremendously ambitious plans for its work projects, in two regards. First, in 1933, Stellrecht and others advocated the view that the Labor Service was the panacea for resolving all economic problems simultaneously over the medium term. It was obvious that the Labor Service could not meet these high expectations – the goal of macroeconomic profitability was as illusory as the notion that this organization could make a substantial contribution to Germany’s selfsufficiency. National Socialism was forced to realize this in World War II, when it discovered that “food independence” had in no way been achieved. Of course, the view that the Labor Service was a panacea was not widely shared in Germany, but within the power elite of the regime, the organization was repeatedly measured against the claim that it was. Second, the RAD’s conception of work was highly charged, especially since it reserved the work, which it elevated into “honor service,” for Volksgenossen while simultaneously according only secondary importance to concrete accomplishments. The ideological dilemma that the RAD created for itself when “community aliens” were used on essentially the same kinds of projects and occasionally side by side with the Labor Service undercut the pretensions of the organization. As we have seen, Hierl’s efforts notwithstanding, the regime was not willing to elevate ideology above economic considerations. Hierl’s ability to assert his demands based on an exclusive labor service ideology declined, especially in the wake of the intensifying war preparations within the framework of the Four-Year Plan. As a

400

NARA/HP, OF 268, Box 5, McEntee to FDR, September 29, 1938.

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result, education was increasingly pushed aside and eventually abandoned altogether during the war. The CCC had no such ambitious goals with respect to either work or ideology. It was not given the task of single-handedly reviving the economy. Roosevelt’s assertion that the United States was in need of “bold, persistent experimentation,”401 and that the crisis would have to be overcome through the joint effort of many initiatives and approaches without following a master plan, formed the background to the CCC and for the New Deal in general. The Corps retained its educational side to the very end; only the content changed to a certain extent over the years. Moreover, the work of the Corps was not elevated to “honor service to the nation,” but was seen as a test for the individual – which meant that the agency was very much in harmony with the country’s political culture. At the same time, though, it placed itself in the difficult position of seeking to restore, by way of a state-interventionist labor service, the homo oeconomicus shaped according to free-market ideals. Yet this conceptual tension was of comparatively minor importance, since the Corps spent little time on fundamental discussions about the philosophy of work. A comparison of the work dimension of the Weimar Republic’s FAD and the Nazi Labor Service would produce even greater similarities than the juxtaposition of the RAD and the CCC. Prior to 1933, the same kinds of projects were pursued for the same reasons, and the plans for a paramilitary use of the organization were well advanced. For this and other reasons, the efficiency and effectiveness of the FAD was also rather low – in this regard the Nazi service had the most in common with its precursor organization. Given the diversity of sponsoring organizations prior to the takeover of power, it is not possible to define the conception of work held by the FAD – each sponsor advocated and articulated its own notions; some corresponded to National Socialist ideas, others were diametrically opposed. Still, more detailed study would reveal that the tendency toward sacralization and militarization, and key concepts such as Reich, Volksgemeinschaft, and the like, are also found among sponsors who were hostile to the National Socialists and filled these concepts with different content. Even if one interprets their efforts as an attempt to contribute to the fight against National Socialism, the Third Reich was in many cases able to simply pick up on their concepts and ideas. Finally, if one asks about the contribution that the practical work of the two organizations made to overcoming the economic crisis, we arrive at a similar finding. Because of the kind of activities that were chosen, the size of the organizations, the labor-intensive way in which the work was carried out, and the relatively low level of economic efficiency and effectiveness, neither the RAD nor the CCC were essential pillars in the economic policy 401

Public Papers, vol. 1, 639–47 (1932), quote p. 646.

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fight against the Great Depression. The explanation for some of these factors lies in the very basic structure of the labor services: unemployed young men whose level of qualifications tended to be low or at least varied can not accomplish as much as private-sector workers – this factor, in particular, was a fundamental limit on the potential of the organizations to resolve the crisis. However, a larger service with an optimized use of machinery could have been put to use in the economically more relevant secondary sector. In practice, the CCC, which had such a potential thanks to its better work organization, always remained too small within the context of the New Deal. The proportionately larger RAD, because of its shortcomings in the conception and implementation of the work projects, never attained the rank of an important initiative in the fight against the Great Depression.

Concluding Reflections

Both the German and the American labor services were established as instruments in the battle against youth unemployment. In addition, both had an educational mission. On a sociopsychological level, the two institutions were the result of the enormous pressure under which contemporaries found themselves: the coincidence of accelerating changes in all spheres of life and massive modernization crises in the form of the Great Depression made existing concepts for resolving the crisis, especially free-market ones, appear obsolete. In this situation, labor services became important around the world; in some societies they were even seen as a virtual miracle cure. But what role did the organizations actually play in the fight against the crisis in Germany and the United States? As I have shown, the two labor services – because of their size, form of financing, project types, laborintensive deployment, and in the case of the CCC, the vocational training it offered – made no significant contribution to pulling their respective economies out of the great slump. Moreover, for a very long time, both institutions were dominated by the primacy of education, even if the CCC claimed that it was interested primarily in practical work. It was only through massive armament efforts and by transforming themselves into war societies that the two nations were able to overcome the Great Depression.1 Of course, this formal similarity must not conceal the fact that in Germany this happened as the result of an aggressive policy aimed at a war of racial annihilation, while the United States saw itself forced, rather unwillingly, to pursue armament measures in the face of the approaching storm clouds of war. The German service’s insignificant contribution to the economic resolution of the crisis stands in stark contradiction to its goals and self-presentation. The CCC, by contrast, had – and conveyed to the public – a somewhat more appropriate self-image. At the same time, though, both institutions were able to draw in a significant portion of the unemployed male youth. Within the panoply of what were on the whole inadequate social welfare measures to combat mass unemployment, the labor service played a preeminent role in both societies. In Germany, it was for a brief time the largest job program 1

On Germany see Herbst, Deutschland, 97–9; on the United States see McElvaine, Great Depression, 306–49.

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for the unemployed; in the United States it was, at least for a while, the most important program available for jobless youth. Yet one would not be doing justice to the services if one judged them only by their economic importance and significance with respect to job policy in the fight against the Great Depression. The international economic crisis was much more than an economic problem: in addition to its political and social consequences, it shaped, not least, people’s emotional experience. In this context, both organizations were important instruments for alleviating the crisis, for they represented tools of symbolic politics. The labor services conveyed not only to the young people in their ranks, but to society as a whole, the sense that the time of inaction and resignation in the face of the crisis was over and that the state was now taking vigorous action. The CCC conveyed this feeling of an energetic move toward change above all through images of strapping young men. The message was this: hard physical labor in nature would rekindle the frontier spirit and produce a mobilization of energy similar to what the United States had experienced during World War I. America, reeling from the Great Depression, was thus falling back on existing myths to generate a new sense of self-confidence. Under these circumstances, even opponents of the CCC for a long time did not ask about economic effectiveness and efficiency, about actual accomplishments and their costs. Of course, the New Deal did not simply revive the existing myths, but adjusted them to the needs of the moment. That is evident, for example, in the new interpretation of the meaning of “frontier,” which tended to be skeptical of progress and even had the beginnings of an ecological approach. When German labor men were reforesting the woods or marching through impoverished areas in singing columns, this was not so much an economically sensible and efficient deployment of labor resources as a ritually charged, national symbol of the will to take up the fight against the Great Depression and other problems in society. Thus, the evocation of a sense of new departure, and not the concrete result of the work, was given prime importance for a long time also in Germany. Moreover, the mechanisms of symbolic politics resembled those in the United States. In Germany it was chiefly the community of the trenches of World War I, and the idea of the Volksgemeinschaft connected with it, that was supposed to call forth a feeling of positive change. If one compares the content of the myths, what stands out is the greater focus on community and the racist and aggressively militaristic dimension in the case of Germany. In this way, the Labor Service contributed to the integration on an affective level into the National Socialist Volksgemeinschaft. It did not, however, make a real, substantive contribution to dismantling social differences between Volksgenossen – nor was that its intent. On a different level, though, it did have some measure of success: if memoirs and reminiscences can be believed, the Labor Service did in fact help reduce social prejudices and preconceptions of class and status. However, since that

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process was always linked to a rigid system of inclusion and exclusion, of “selection” (Auslese) and “elimination” (Ausmerze), one cannot attribute to the RAD a modernizing accomplishment in this respect.2 In the United States, by contrast, the emphasis was on the individual, and even the war experience of the years 1917 and 1918 was hardly interpreted from a genuinely militaristic perspective, let alone in terms of an aggressive foreign policy. These fundamental differences can be explained by the political cultures of the two societies. Nevertheless, their sociocultural importance as symbols of new and better times is something the services had in common. In that sense, they represented not only targeted aid for a segment of young unemployed workers, but also a propagandistically used form of state-guided mass motivation and mobilization. In fact, one could, somewhat pointedly, interpret the two services as rituals of mobilization: they affirmed the myth of society’s departure toward something new through the steady, uniform, and primarily ritual actions performed by hundreds of thousands of young men. In the case of the German Labor Service, the manifestation of this symbolic dimension was especially striking in the organization’s appearances at the Reich party rallies. The goal was not only to convince the German people of the value of the RAD; the parading, and the symbolic meaning of the organization in general, were also central to securing the Labor Service a place within the regime’s power structure. Hierl knew that a successful presentation of his organization at the mass spectacle in Nuremberg would do more to win over Hitler than a positive balance sheet in the struggle for ¨ self-sufficiency in agricultural products. Since the Fuhrer’s backing was the primary reason why the Labor Service was able to defend its very existence in numerous clashes with rival Nazi institutions, this factor must be accorded considerable importance. What is true of the CCC therefore also applies to the RAD: the unspoken primary mission of the German Labor Service during the period of Nazi rule was to be an instrument of symbolic politics. Of course, the Labor Service was not alone in playing such a role: other organizations and prestigious projects of the Nazi state were much less dominated by the primacy of economic considerations or concrete necessity than one might be led to believe. One example is the Nazi highways. Here, too, the labor policy or military function was less than is often assumed – instead, their mission was to exert a propaganda effect and to be a political symbol of integration.3 The most important reason behind the significance of the symbolic dimension in the Labor Service is to be found in an idea that Hitler had already articulated in Mein Kampf. The future dictator was convinced that Germany would not be able to attain self-sufficiency by improving its agricultural land. 2 3

See Frei, “Nationalsozialismus,” 380–7; for an opposing view, see esp. Zitelmann, Hitler, 205–27. Reichel, Schein, 278–81.

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As he saw it, that goal could be achieved only on the battlefield. And that is why it became the official, primary task of the Labor Service in 1933 to educate the labor men. Education in this context meant physical strengthening, the imparting of a specific image of masculinity, discipline, and indoctrination with Nazi ideology, including its racist conception of collective identity. In the final analysis, this process was to create committed soldiers ready for action in a future war. In the CCC, by contrast, the concept of education combined a variety of different, competing approaches – the only thing they were able to agree on in the end was an emphasis on authoritarian discipline. On this point, the practice of the German and the American labor services overlapped, in spite of the differences in their pedagogical conceptions. Under the primacy of discipline, the dynamic energies that were released by the Great Depression and that threatened the stability of society were to be channeled and captured. The belief that the medium of the labor service was especially well suited for that task was not only widely shared in Germany and the United States, it also reflected the general spirit of the times in many industrial nations. All in all, both services were thus effective instruments not only of symbolic politics, but also of discipline – and that should be seen as the second, sociohistorical contribution of the organizations to the struggle against the economic crisis. This is already a partial answer to the question about the uniqueness of the Nazi institution. Other elements that shaped both labor services can also be explained with reference to the spirit of the 1930s: the concept of the “total camp” with its organizational borrowings from the military, along with the belief that social differences could be abolished by mixing the social classes; the goal of re-agrarianization and the ideal of hard physical labor with little use of technology and expertise; a transfiguration of premodern social relations; and, finally, the concept that social integration could best be achieved through work. Incidentally, all these elements, specific to this historical time, also marked the Labor Service of the Weimar Republic. The originality of the Nazi Labor Service lay merely in the fact that it was not original, but picked up the threads of existing clusters of ideas. What is striking, though, is the frequency with which the most extreme solution was chosen. For example, when Hierl articulated his own ideas about the labor service fairly early and independently, his position stood out among the ¨ notions that were common property in the volkisch-national camp merely for its radical nature. The CCC, in contrast, took an approach that showed the beginnings of a more modern conception, one that emphasized integration through education instead of manual labor. However, this line was not able to come to full fruition in the Civilian Conservation Corps. It is certainly true that with its rather traditional understanding of the welfare state, reflected, for example, in the exclusion of women, the discrimination and segregation of

Concluding Reflections

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African Americans, or the authoritarian educational content, the CCC was not entirely untypical of the New Deal. Still, there were influential, emancipatory countertendencies. Altogether, the “total camp” was the exception in the United States, but the rule in Germany. Generally speaking, the German Labor Service fit seamlessly into the politics of the Nazi regime, whereas the CCC was not directly representative of the New Deal. That the disciplinary regimen in the Corps never reached the level of harshness that marked the German service can be attributed directly to the fact that the CCC was in many ways anchored in a pluralistic, democratic society, and more generally to the different political culture and greater liberal resources of the United States. These factors also explain why the labor service always remained voluntary in America. In the final analysis, the goal of the Corps was to integrate the young men as independent individuals. Although it did not live up to the ideal of educating them into autonomous citizens, it did cultivate a certain measure of self-responsibility, independence, and political participation. By contrast, the paradigm of the German service was compulsory integration without political participation, accompanied at all times by the threat of exclusion. That points to a second fundamental difference between the two organizations: the CCC had no functional equivalent ¨ of the radical, volkisch anti-Semitism and racism that ran through the Nazi RAD like a red thread alongside the preparation for war. The discriminatory racism that characterized the recruitment practice with respect to African Americans was a flaw in the Corps, no doubt, but it was not part of its agenda; in fact it was actively opposed by parts of the organization. In institutional terms, the two services also differed in that the RAD was largely self-referential and shut itself off to outside stimuli. The CCC, by contrast, did not form a closed system, but solicited outside expert advice when it came to fundamental policy decisions. It drew on its close contacts to a variety of agencies, which can be explained simply by its open organizational structure. There were even contacts with the Nazi Labor Service. This was an especially precarious circumstance, since the CCC had for a long time distanced itself from its German counterpart as much as possible, and since the Americans as a nation regarded certain options for the Corps as taboo for that reason. For example, any militarization was essentially suspected of being Fascist, even though in actuality a militarized service could have been compatible with a democratic system. A change took place only in 1938. But now it was the American president himself who, in the face of the impending transformation of the Corps, suggested that the agency’s leadership take a look at comparable experiences in Nazi Germany. As a result, some of the German measures were not only examined in the United States, but adopted in modified form. Ironically, this came at a time when the RAD itself came under enormous pressure. There was, therefore, a chronological disjuncture between the internal development of the German Labor Service and its reputation outside the Reich. For in the last few years preceding the

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war, Hierl’s organization became an advertisement for the regime, with interest in the RAD running high not only in the United States, but also in many other countries. How should one interpret these transfers between the German dictatorship and the American democracy? First, the perception of National Socialist measures was only one source which the reform debate in the United States drew upon. The United States did not copy these measures in their entirety: instead, it emphasized the fundamental differences between its political goals and those of Germany. That is especially evident in a letter in which Roosevelt expressed his appreciation for Leverich’s report on the RAD: “All of this helps us in planning, even though our methods are of the democratic variety!”4 Roosevelt’s administration was thus following Ovid’s famous saying that sometimes it was even proper to learn from the enemy. But in their direct contacts and exchanges with the German authorities, the American officials displayed a remarkable open-mindedness, one that seems peculiar from a modern perspective. The American ambassador, Wilson, not only thanked Hierl personally in a friendly letter for the access to the RAD that had been granted to the diplomat Leverich. He also related that Leverich, who had spent a few days working in the RAD, was “proudly showing off his work-beaten hands.”5 A generally friendly tone also existed between the publicity sections of the RAD and the CCC, which regularly exchanged material.6 This contact, on the one hand, is an important part of the explanation for why the Reich Labor Service regarded itself as vastly superior to the CCC. But, on the other, this exchange was also a compromising overture on the part of the American democracy toward the German dictatorship. Yet there is no indication that the United States emulated measures that would have reflected Nazi ideology. The situation was different in politically neutral areas, for instance when it came to the training of young men for aviation service. In general, these examples show how strongly the United States was tied into the international debates and repeatedly learned from the experiences of other countries – a circumstance that is often overlooked in public awareness in the United States and in American historical scholarship.7 Second, the modified adoption of individual elements from the RAD shows that one could learn from the National Socialist government. The regime was by no means entirely irrational, and some of its economic and sociopolitical initiatives accomplished their intended goals. Some measures were successful and sensible with respect to their direct, immediate purpose. To be sure, 4 5 7

NARA/HP, PSF, Box 32, FDR to Wilson, September 3, 1938. 6 PA/B, R 98850. PA/B, R 98850, Wilson an Hierl, June, 1938. See the recent debate surrounding the work of D. T. Rodgers, Atlantic Crossings. Social Politics in a Progressive Age (Cambridge, 1998). Rodgers studied American borrowings in social policy from European democracies in the period 1870–1945 (though without looking at transfers from the Third Reich). On the transnational broadening of American history in general, see Bender, Global Age; Patel, “Transatlantische Perspektiven.”

Concluding Reflections

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all initiatives in Germany between 1933 and 1945 in the end served two inseparable goals: the preparation for and pursuit of war, on the one hand, and the implementation of Nazi racial ideology, on the other hand. However, removed from this particular context and transferred to another society and political culture, they could be filled with a different meaning. It was therefore possible for them to function in a democratic context like the New Deal. That explains why the intensive analysis of the Nazi Labor Service by American experts was not an isolated case. At the end of the 1930s, the Roosevelt administration also studied other National Socialist institutions, such as the recreational organization Strength Through Joy (Kraft durch Freude) or jobcreation measures. The findings were passed on to the American president, with the goal of drawing lessons from them for the United States.8 This points, third, to a more general phenomenon: it is evident that modern societies not only cooperate and compete politically, economically, and occasionally militarily, but that their functional and opinion-making elites also observe and, to a certain degree, are willing to learn from one another. It is therefore necessary, especially for modern societies, not only to engage in comparisons, but also to examine questions of reciprocal perceptions and transfers. I have tried in this book to show what such a transnational historical scholarship might look like.9 On the whole, the Corps, thanks not only to its openness to outside ideas and suggestions, but also to its organizational structure, which drew largely on existing institutional resources, was characterized by a high level of efficiency that the German Labor Service lacked. What contribution did the labor services make to the war preparations that both societies eventually used to pull themselves out of the economic crisis? What phases in the history of the institutions can one distinguish? As for the CCC, the present study was able to substantiate the turning points identified by previous scholarship. After a dramatic, brief mobilization phase in 1933, the Corps developed for a long time at a relatively steady pace. As a result of the moderating course charted by Congress and the CCC itself, even Roosevelt’s vacillating policy regarding the size of the agency in the end did not lead to major upheavals. It was only in 1937–8 that the Corps’ situation grew a little more problematic, when the cooperation between Fechner and the participating agencies deteriorated. The efficiency of the CCC now declined for purely internal organizational reasons that were not even directly related to the overall development of American society. Eventually, though, the Corps did find itself in an existential crisis from external causes. 8 9

NARA/HP, PSF, Box 157 on job-creation programs, and Box 32 on the KdF. ¨ ¨ See also K. Patel, “Der Nationalsozialismus in transnationaler Perspective,” Blatter fur deutsche und internationale Politik 29 (2004): 1123–34; for the Imperial era, see S. Conrad and J. Osterhammel, eds., Das Kaiserreich transnational. Deutschland in der Welt 1871–1914 ¨ (Gottingen, 2004).

402

Concluding Reflections

Once it became apparent, from the middle of 1941, that mass unemployment was coming to an end, pressure on the CCC increased, and in the final analysis the end of the Great Depression was the primary reason why the agency was abolished in June 1942. The Corps therefore did not make a substantial, direct contribution to war preparations; rather, after its abolition, the capacities it had tied up were available to advance the country’s military preparedness and other goals. By contrast, for the German service, the year 1935, previously regarded as a turning point because of the introduction of labor conscription, had no significance on the level of the RAD’s organization, education, or practical work. After the transformative phase from 1933 to 1934 with the process of political “coordination” and the beginning consolidation of the Labor Service, larger changes did not occur until 1937–8. In the – admittedly short – interim period from 1934 to 1937, Hierl was able to stabilize his organization and turn it into an important Nazi educational institution. Had the Reich Labor Leader succeeded in establishing the National Auxiliary Service (Nationaler Hilfsdienst) and implementing general labor conscription in practice, the RAD would have also risen into the top rank of institutions within the regime’s bureaucratic jungle. But even without that added degree of importance, the Labor Service’s educational impact should not be underestimated. Even if the political instruction in Hierl’s organization suffered from substantial structural deficiencies and was never able to bring its full potential for indoctrination to bear, this shortcoming was compensated for by the fact that essentially all elements of the daily routine had a pedagogical effect in line with National Socialist ideology. Moreover, the goal was less to convey formal knowledge than to prepare obedient soldiers for a racially and economically motivated war of annihilation. When it came to that mission, the regime’s institutions of socialization clearly had considerable success – how else can one explain the high degree of acceptance the Nazi regime enjoyed among the population in general and especially among young people right up to the end of the war?10 The Labor Service therefore did not lead a “shadowy existence” with respect to its pedagogical dimension, and it is primarily in this area that one should look for its contribution to war preparations in the regime’s peaceful phase. In 1937, however, the German Labor Service faced a massive organizational challenge through its deployment for harvest work. With the beginning of construction on the West Wall a year later, the RAD not only lost its independence for a time, it also had to relinquish the primacy of an explicit educational mission, which had characterized the organization until then, in favor of a more efficient deployment of labor. Only now was the service measured chiefly by its contribution to the accelerating war preparations, and it declined into the “shadowy existence” which, according to Benz, it 10

¨ ¨ Schneider, Unterm Hakenkreuz, 406–11; Kuhne, “Mannerbund,” 165–9.

Concluding Reflections

403

had led since 1933. Moreover, the young men were now taken hold of by several waves of militarization, which transformed the RAD from a premilitary into a semimilitary organization. Compared to the turning point of 1938, the outbreak of war a year later brought only minor changes in its wake. On the whole, then, 1937–8 proved to be as important in the history of the German Labor Service as it was in many other areas of the German dictatorship: the regime’s persecution of the Jews and its foreign policy, for example, also became increasingly radical at this time.11 However, the years 1937–8 did not bring a radicalization in terms of ideology for the RAD, but a restriction of its educational pretensions in favor of the needs of the armament industry and the war the regime was planning. Now, at the latest, all plans of making the RAD into the very place where the value of a Volksgenosse was judged on the basis of his performance in the Labor Service had to be abandoned. No systematic, further selection among those who were initially included within the Volksgemeinschaft took place, as revealed by the fact that the grading system in the Labor Service never attained any real importance. Similar developments can be found in other areas of the regime. For example, in the wake of the accelerating war preparations, the racial resettlement policy that was planned for the region of the ¨ Mountains also had to be abandoned. In addition, during the second Rhon half of the war, the SS increasingly lost its character as an elite institution based on racial criteria.12 Further studies are needed for a better assessment of the extent and timing of the decline in the radical and utopian nature of the policy toward the Volksgenossen. The partial de-radicalization of the policy toward Volksgenossen went hand in hand with an accelerating, cumulative radicalization toward all “community aliens.”13 But these two processes not only occurred simultaneously, they also had a dialectical relationship: precisely because the quasi-utopian visions of society were not pursued further in regard to the Volksgenossen, the regime was able to focus its energies on the persecution and destruction of “community aliens.” All in all, the overcoming of the Great Depression, which the two societies accomplished at different points in time, threw the German and American 11

12

13

¨ On the persecution of the Jews see, e.g., S. Friedlander, Nazi Germany and the Jews, vol. 1: The Years of Persecution, 1933–1939 (New York, 1997); P. Longerich, Politik der Vernichtung. Eine Gesamtdarstellung der nationalsozialistischen Judenverfolgung (Munich, 1998), 153–207; on the workers see Schneider, Unterm Hakenkreuz, 121–492; on the importance ¨ of the years 1937–8 in general, see N. Frei, Der Fuhrerstaat, 130–2. ¨ 2 vols. J. S. Hohmann, Landvolk unterm Hakenkreuz. Agrar- und Rassenpolitik in der Rhon, (Frankfurt/Main, 1992); on the SS see B. Wegner, Hitlers Politische Soldaten: Die Waffen-SS 1933–1945. Studien zu Leitbild, Struktur und Funktion einer nationalsozialistischen Elite, 4th ed. (Paderborn, 1990), 263–317. On this cumulative radicalization see H. Mommsen, “Kumulative Radikalisierung und ¨ ¨ Selbstzerstorung des Regimes,” in Meyers Enzyklopadisches Lexikon, 25 vols. (Mannheim, 1976), 16: 785–90.

404

Concluding Reflections

labor services into an existential crisis: in both cases, the original mission in terms of work policy had become obsolete. Roosevelt was therefore forced to abolish the CCC. The Nazi regime, by contrast, sought to give the RAD new tasks. In 1935, with the realization that mass unemployment was coming to an end and the simultaneous introduction of labor conscription, the educational goal, which already in 1933 had moved into the center of the RAD’s activities, became the most important justification for the existence of the Labor Service. Soon after, however, it came under intense pressure once again from the regime’s economic and military needs. On the whole, the RAD developed more and more into a kind of emergency response service that was deployed wherever the regime’s crisis-ridden nature was most apparent – attempts by the state to guide and direct every conceivable sphere of society brought still more interventions in their wake. The Labor Service was an institution that cushioned deficiencies in the most diverse areas, for example, the shortage of Polish agricultural workers created by the Nazi dictatorship itself. During World War II, moreover, it was increasingly deployed to fill in gaps at the front. If one wanted to further subdivide the phase after 1938, the line of demarcation would be around 1941–2. Until that time, an RAD that was noticeably smaller and reduced in its pretensions was employed primarily as a construction unit of the Wehrmacht. From the outbreak of war with the Soviet Union down to Germany’s capitulation, it evolved increasingly into an auxiliary fighting unit that was difficult to distinguish from the regular units. In view of the crimes committed by the Wehrmacht as part of the Nazi racial war, it comes as no surprise that the RAD, as well, was involved in criminal actions, whether in the fight against “partisans” or within the context of the destruction of the Jews.14 However, further study on the extent of the RAD’s involvement in these activities is needed. We do know that during this phase it had a direct part in the regime’s racial policy in a different form: within the framework of the policy of Umvolkung (change of national loyalty, assimilation), it became on a larger scale a place where Western and Eastern Europeans “suitable for Germanization” were to prove themselves. In institutional terms, the RAD, increasingly insignificant within the regime’s power structure, developed into an octopus whose arms latched onto a great many different spheres of deployment. It had long since lost its specific profile and identity. At the same time, it took on tasks that had already been assigned to other Nazi institutions. And the more numerous the grounds on which it was intruding, the more numerous were its potential rivals who were all fighting for the same resources to accomplish the same mission. Only its interest in self-preservation and the confidence that Hitler placed in Hierl explain why the RAD persisted until the end of the war, in spite of powerful enemies calling for its abolition. This development, however, was not unique to the Labor Service. A similar inflation of functions 14

For broad accounts that already incorporate the more recent scholarly work, see for example Winkler, Weg, 2: 71–115; Burleigh, Third Reich, esp. 656–768.

Concluding Reflections

405

with a simultaneous loss of a distinct profile in a time of crisis is evident also in other Nazi organizations, for example in the German Labor Front.15 If one asks, in conclusion, about the relationship between the German labor services before and after 1933 and to their American counterpart, it is evident that there were about as many differences between the FAD and the CCC as between the RAD and the CCC, on the one hand, as between the German Labor Service before and after 1933. It is difficult to reduce the Labor Service of the Weimar Republic to a common denominator, given its brief existence and the multitude of aspects and plans associated with it: it moved back ¨ and forth between sociopedagogical, statist, militaristic, volkisch, and even communitarian ideas. On the whole, one thing it had in common with the National Socialist service – in contrast to the CCC – was the orientation toward the community; the Corps revolved more strongly around the individual. Moreover, in Germany, unlike in the United States, the Labor Service was placed in the context of military training and armament already during the Weimar Republic. In addition, in Germany the assumption was that the organization would be needed on a permanent basis, which was not the case in the United States. Furthermore, a tightening of the criteria of access emerged prior to the Nazi seizure of power, which means that universal compulsory labor service also had its origins in the Weimar days. Another element shared by the German labor services before and after 1933 was that they had no vocational training, whereas the CCC did. This characteristic situates the American service within the realm of ideas about vocational pedagogy and other conceptions motivated by sociopedagogical and economic concerns. However, the democratic communitarianism that Rosenstock and others wanted to inject into the Corps was not able to take root. The similarities between the FAD and the Nazi Labor Service can not conceal the sharp break that came with the process of political “coordination” in 1933. In a number of respects, that process was more like a new beginning than a restructuring. But the highly flexible, largely nongovernmental structure of the FAD, for example, had no more in common with the CCC than it did with the Nazi Labor Service, which for its part corresponded largely ¨ to volkisch-nationalistic ideas in the first years after 1933, and then went on to develop a militaristic character. The deeper continuities in the development from the FAD into the Nazi Labor Service thus emerge clearly in a comparison with the American service. All in all, though, the relationship between the three institutions of the 1930s was a complex one, with all three showing a similar number of parallels and differences to each other. In 1945, the labor service idea for Germany was by no means fundamentally discredited in the eyes of contemporaries. Various groups continued to see 15

T. Siegel, Leistung und Lohn in der nationalsozialistischen “Ordnung der Arbeit” (Opladen, 1989).

406

Concluding Reflections

it as an appropriate answer to social problems. In fact, some wanted to continue the RAD – under changed conditions, of course. Such a suggestion was made, for example, in 1944 by the Supreme Headquarters of the Allies in a strategy paper for the period after a victory over Germany. Not only should the service help rebuild the devastated country, with a different orientation in terms of substance and content it was also to become “a valuable education factor in post-war Germany.”16 However, the Allies did not pursue this idea further after Germany’s surrender, but instead dissolved the RAD. Against this backdrop, it is not surprising, however, that many Germans also continued to think about a labor service. Many of the reformist educators who had been involved in the FAD spoke out during the debates in West Germany after the war. In 1947, for example, the educator and philosopher Herman Nohl called for a service under the banner of social policy.17 On the whole, the postwar years saw a vigorous debate about a voluntary or compulsory labor service. Such a service was seen as a means of dealing with two of the most pressing problems at the time: youth unemployment and the devastation of the war. In many of the proposals, economic arguments were once again joined by sociopedagogical concerns, and many of the posi¨ tions of the Weimar era were revived.18 Even the conglomeration of volkisch ideas came back to life under the guise of seeking to create a European peace service. Former members of the RAD, in particular, sought to establish an organization that went beyond Germany but was, in the final analysis, similar to the Nazi Labor Service. Until his death in 1955, Hierl himself was the spokesman for this squad of apologists. These voices, however, remained marginal.19 The year 1955 was a turning point in the labor service debates of the Federal Republic, though for a reason other than the death of Hierl: with the introduction of the draft in November of that year, the discussion about a compulsory service waned. In the Federal Republic, unlike in the Nazi state, a dual obligation on young men from the labor service and the draft could not command a consensus. Nevertheless, the civilian service, established in 1960 as an alternative to the draft for conscientious objectors, had labor service-like traits, although it lacked various defining characteristics, such as shared accommodations in camps. However, that the ideas that arose during the period of the Great Depression still exerted a shaping influence on this 16 17 18 19

Supreme Headquarters, Allied Expeditionary Force Evaluation and Dissemination Section, The RAD (Reichsarbeitsdienst), National Labor Service (n.p., n.d. [1944]), 2. ¨ H. Nohl, Padagogik aus dreißig Jahren (Frankfurt/Main, 1949), 298f. On the postwar debates see Gestrich, “Jugendgemeinschaftsdienste,” 101–4; Hafeneger, Alle ¨ Deutschland, 174–210. Arbeit fur See, e.g., K. Hierl, Gedanken hinter Stacheldraht. Eine Lebensschau (Heidelberg, 1953); Hierl, “Idee und Gestaltung eines Jugendarbeitsdienstes,” Nation Europa 3 (1953), 35–41; Hierl, Dienst; as well as numerous articles in the journal Nation Europa and the bulletin of former Labor Service members, which was published for a long time under the title Die Notgemeinschaft (it ceased publication in 1993).

Concluding Reflections

407

institution is apparent from the fact that the initial legislative draft in 1957 envisaged soil improvement and land reclamation, not work in the area of social services. Moreover, the experiences of the RAD were also invoked in the public debates about the civilian service at the time. Among other things, a proposal was floated to house the young men in camps, and to recruit the camp leaders chiefly from the leadership corps of the Nazi Labor Service. Luckily, the civilian service was spared that fate.20 While the debate over a compulsory service petered out after 1955, voluntary services continued to have many supporters. In fact, a number of these initiatives were realized, in various forms and in different degrees of proximity to labor services as defined at the beginning of this study. Examples would ¨ ¨ be the international camps of the Care of War Graves (Kriegsgraberf ursorge) ¨ since 1953, the Aktion Suhnezeichen initiated by the Protestant Church, and the Voluntary Social Year (Freiwilliges Soziales Jahr). New organizations were continually added in subsequent years, with a shift in content since the 1950s away from the reconstruction of Germany, first to social services within the national context, later to environmental projects and international cooperation. One of the most recent projects is the European Voluntary Service for Young People, set up in 1998 by the European Union with the goal of offering young people the opportunity to participate, on a voluntary basis, in projects devoted to the common good in another EU member country.21 What many of these various programs share is that they explicitly set themselves apart from the Nazi Labor Service. In the debates of the 1950s, by contrast, the FAD was well known to everyone involved in the discussion and served as a positive reference point in some of the proposals. Since that time, the FAD has receded from public awareness and as a political argument.22 Still, it is revealing that none of the more important Western German projects bears the name “Arbeitsdienst” – evidently that name has been discredited by historical experience. The GDR took a different path on this issue. In the summer of 1952, ¨ the Council of Ministers decided to set up Service for Germany (Dienst fur Deutschland). Although official pronouncements highlighted the pedagogical dimension of the service, in the final analysis this was a paramilitary reserve unit. The plans called for all young men and women to serve six months of compulsory duty. This organization bore considerable resemblance to the Reich Labor Service. Needless to say, this is not something that was expressed openly, even though the planners referred back directly to the National Socialist experiences. However, the attempt to set up the 20 21

22

U. Raichle, Zivildienst. Entwicklung und soziale Bedeutung (Stuttgart, 1992), 27–9. Gestrich, “Jugendgemeinschaftsdienste,” 102–4; on voluntary services in general, see B. Guggenberger, ed., Jugend erneuert Gemeinschaft. Freiwilligendienste in Deutschland und Europa (Baden-Baden, 2000). ¨ Deutschland, 195–9. Hafeneger, Alle Arbeit fur

408

Concluding Reflections

service was beset by numerous problems, which were attributable chiefly to incompetence. In fact, these difficulties exceeded those experienced by the Nazi Labor Service during the phase of “coordination” between 1933 and 1934. As a result, the most important attempt by the GDR to create a labor service–like organization collapsed the following year.23 All in all, it can be said that right up to the fall of the Berlin Wall, the GDR, its anti-Fascist posturing notwithstanding, was more receptive to the Nazi Labor Service than to the FAD, whereas the situation was exactly reversed in West Germany. The topic has also been debated since reunification. In 1996, a series of essays in the weekly Die Zeit prompted by sociologist ¨ Sibylle Tonnies’s call for a labor service was widely discussed. But those opposing any form of labor service and work obligation also spoke out. In 1998, moreover, an initiative – supported by the Robert Bosch Foundation – from an independent, nonpartisan commission composed chiefly of young parliamentarians pointed in the direction of a voluntary labor service. It called for a broad palette of options for young people to pursue voluntary social work for one year. Finally, most recently, in the wake of the structural reform of the Bundeswehr and its downsizing, universal compulsory service was contemplated as a replacement for the draft, along with a strengthening of the voluntary services.24 Similar to what took place during the Weimar Republic, the debates often vacillate between a labor service on a voluntary or compulsory basis, on the one hand, and the obligation to work, on the other. Moreover, many of the suggestions not only invoke economic needs, labor market policy concerns, or a presumed pedagogical need on the part of young people; they also place the labor service into the context of conscription. In a reunified Germany, however, unlike in the Weimar Republic, labor service-like projects are not connected to any paramilitary goals, but to problems of participation and the basic duties in a democracy. Typologically, these projects should therefore be located in the communitarian category. In the United States after 1945, the CCC was used even more frequently as a positive reference point for political initiatives. Several voluntary organizations set up since then referred explicitly to Roosevelt’s labor service and adopted some of its elements. Examples are the Peace Corps established under President John F. Kennedy, the National Job Corps under his successor Lyndon B. Johnson, Bill Clinton’s AmeriCorps, as well as numerous regional and local initiatives. The California Conservation Corps, founded 23 24

¨ Deutschland.” Arbeitsdienst und Militarisierung M. Buddrus, Die Organisation “Dienst fur in der DDR (Weinheim, 1994). ¨ See the series of essays in Die Zeit, beginning with that of S. Tonnies: Die Zeit 29, July 12, 1996; for a forum of those opposed to such ideas see, e.g., the contributions in ¨ Frankfurter Arbeitslosenzentrum, ed., Arbeitsdienst – wieder salonfahig? Zwang zur Arbeit in Geschichte und Sozialstaat (Frankfurt/Main, 1998); on the Bosch Foundation, including the manifesto and a number of supporting contributions, see Guggenberger, Jugend erneuert Gemeinschaft.

Concluding Reflections

409

in 1976, invokes the CCC by its very name. Although the lessons drawn from the CCC have varied, what is striking is the largely unbroken, positive view of the agency in various political camps right down to the most recent period.25 The high regard for the organization is also being consolidated by the association of former CCC boys, and by a small but steady stream of enthusiastic memoirs of enrollees who have now reached old age.26 Finally, the positive public image of the CCC, little changed in recent years despite a more critical scholarship, was also disseminated in Germany over the last few years, especially in the Zeit debate of 1996.27 In contrast to this public image, this study has shown that the CCC was by no means one of the brighter chapters of the New Deal. Similarly, the FAD can not be a direct model for modern-day service forms. The only point of connection would be approaches that pointed in the direction of a democratic communitarianism and that are closely linked, on both sides of the Atlantic, with the name Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy. These are the ideas that should be picked up by anyone who ponders a labor service today – it would mean a return to concepts that were not able to prevail in the interwar period in Germany and the United States for structural reasons, against the backdrop of the spirit of the time, and concrete historical circumstances. The Nazi Labor Service, least of all, can claim model character for itself. As this study has shown, it was closely related to the regime’s policy of racism and annihilation: through its criteria of access, the content of its education, its work tasks, and its participation in the persecution in the East, it was directly involved in the darkest chapter of the history of Nazi rule. At the same time, the RAD, like many other Nazi institutions, participated in the crimes in a dialectical sense, since the curtailment of its educational mission and the shift to war-important activities freed up the capacities that the regime needed for terror and war. In a broader sense, as well, there was a special relationship between the labor men and the crimes of National Socialism: they were linked not only by direct connections and a dialectical relationship, but also by a special closeness. That closeness was manifested in the takeover of RAD barracks by concentration camps, in the essentially identical structure of the two camp systems, and in the educational slogans, which, at least in the early concentration camps, prison camps, and work 25

26 27

Gorham, Service, esp. 5–7, 31–51; Herlihy, Comparison; D. Eberly and M. Sherraden, ed., The Moral Equivalent of War? A Study of Non-Military Service in Nine Nations (New York, 1990); H. D. Humphreys, “The History of an Idea Whose Time Had Come: Franklin Roosevelt’s Civilian Conservation Corps,” in B. W. Daynes et al., eds., The New Deal and Public Policy (New York, 1998), 47–62. On the association see National Association of Civilian Conservation Corps Alumni; Hill, Shadow, 142. See the article by M. Greffrath in Die Zeit, August 16, 1996; a more differentiated view by ¨ S. Tonnies, e.g.: “Gemeinschaft versus Gesellschaft,” in Guggenberger, Jugend, 82f.

410

Concluding Reflections

education camps were strikingly similar to those used in the Labor Service.28 Thus, only the particular political context determined whether the camp module should serve to educate and discipline Volksgenossen, or to punish and destroy “community aliens.” The camps themselves were thus valueneutral building blocks that could be put to a variety of uses. The instrumental reason so clearly evident in the camps and the Manichaean designation of “community aliens” characterize National Socialism as a pathological form of modernity. On the whole, the regime did not bring about a meaningful modernization of German society either intentionally or functionally. But it did choose highly rational, modern means to pursue and implement thoroughly irrational goals.29 In this context, the camp constitutes a hitherto underestimated signature feature of National Socialism: and contrary to the perception of previous scholarship and especially public opinion, this refers not only to the system that terrorized and murdered “community aliens.” For “elimination” was joined by the “selection” of Volksgenossen, and selection was linked to an educational mission. While this study has examined the extent to which the camps of the Labor Service approximated the “total camp” in the abovedefined sense, the same could be done for the Hitler Youth, the National Socialist Motor Transport Corps, and other institutions whose organization was similar to the Labor Service. Together they formed a dense web that was spread over the entire Reich. Although the camps were targeted specifically at young people and the elite, by their own claims they were, time and again, supposed to encompass all Volksgenossen. All came close to the type of the total camp. And if Nazi Germany was not transformed into one big “carceral continuum”30 of camps also for the positively defined segment of the population, the chief explanation lies with the priority that was given to the destruction of “community aliens” over the disciplining and selection of Volksgenossen. 28

29

30

On the program of the prisoner camps see, e.g., R. Freisler, “Der kommende Jugendstrafvoll¨ zug,” in R. Freisler, ed., Gedanken uber Strafvollzug an jungen Strafgefangenen (Berlin, 1936), 72–92; the similarity in the slogans is also pointed out by Stokes, “Konzentrationslager,” 200. Peukert, Inside Nazi Germany, 243f.; Bauman, Modernity and Ambivalence; on the debate over the relationship between National Socialism and modernization see Gerhardt, “Charismatische Herrschaft,” 506; H. Mommsen, “Noch einmal: Nationalsozialismus und Modernisierung,” in his Der Nationalsozialismus und die deutsche Gesellschaft (Reinbek, 1991), 391–402; Wendt, Deutschland, 690–707; Frei, “Nationalsozialismus,” 367–87. Foucault, Discipline and Punish, 297.

Abbreviations

AA AD ADGB AdP AdR AGF AGL AN BA/B BA/BDC BA/F BBZ BDM BT CCC CT DAF DAZ DGT DHV DINTA DP DST DT Dt. AD ECW FAD FDR FRC FSA FZ

Arbeitsamt (Employment Office) Arbeitsdienst (Labor Service) Allgemeiner Deutscher Gewerkschaftsbund (General German Federation of Labor Unions) Akten der Partei-Kanzlei Akten der Reichskanzlei ¨ Arbeitsgaufuhrer (Labor Gau Leader) Arbeitsgauleitung (Labor Gau Leadership) Der Angriff Bundesarchiv, Berlin Bundesarchiv, former Berlin, Document Center Bundesarchiv, Freiburg ¨ Berliner Borsenzeitung ¨ Bund deutscher Madel (League of German Girls) Berliner Tageblatt Civilian Conservation Corps Chicago Daily Tribune Deutsche Arbeitsfront (German Labor Front) Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung Deutscher Gemeindetag Deutschnationaler Handlungsgehilfen-Verband (GermanNational Trade-Helpers Association) ¨ technische Arbeitsschulung (German Deutsches Institut fur Institute for Technical Vocational Training) Democratic Party ¨ Deutscher Stadtetag Der Deutsche Deutscher Arbeitsdienst Emergency Conservation Work Freiwilliger Arbeitsdienst Franklin Delano Roosevelt Franklin D. Roosevelt and Conservation Federal Security Agency Frankfurter Zeitung

411

412 GER Gestapa GStA HD HGrKo HJ HSP HRSA HStA IfZ IZE JB-RAD JoF KdF ¨ KOZ KPD KRZ KV KZ LAA/A¨ LAAFr LEM LoC MInn MLR Mu¨ NARA/CP NARA/HP NPS NS NSAD NSDAP NSDStB NSM NYA NYHT NYT

Abbreviations Germania Geheimes Staatspolizeiamt (Secret State Police Office) Geheimes Staatsarchiv Happy Days Heeresgruppenkommando (Army Group Command) Hitler-Jugend (Hitler Youth) Hitler, Speeches and Proclamations Hitler, Reden. Schriften. Anordnungen Hauptstaatsarchiv ¨ Zeitgeschichte Institut fur ¨ Erziehung Internationale Zeitschrift fur Jahrbuch des Reichsarbeitsdienstes Journal of Forestry Kraft durch Freude (Strength Through Joy) ¨ Kolnische Zeitung Kommunistische Partei Deutschlands (Communist Party of Germany) Kreuz-Zeitung ¨ Kolnische Volkszeitung Konzentrationslager (concentration camp) ¨ ¨ Landesarbeitsamt/amter (Lander employment offices) Landesarbeitsamt Freising Local Experienced Men Library of Congress (Bayerisches) Staatsministerium des Innern Monthly Labor Review Munich National Archives and Record Administration/College Park (Maryland) National Archives and Record Administration/Hyde Park (New York) National Park Service Nationalsozialismus, nationalsozialistisch (National Socialism, National Socialist) Nationalsozialistischer Arbeitsdienst (National Socialist Labor Service) Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (National Socialist German Workers’ Party) Nationalsozialistischer Deutscher Studentenbund (National Socialist German Student Alliance) Nationalsozialistische Monatshefte National Youth Administration New York Herald Tribune New York Times

Abbreviations OKH OKW PA/B RABl. RAD RAF RAM ¨ RAM RDA REM

REpp RFM RfAVAV

RGBl. RH RK Rkei RL RMI RMVP

SA SS StA Sten. Ber. STH StJB StK TBJG USDA USHMM UuF VB VO-Bl.

413

Oberkommando des Heeres (Army High Command) Oberkommando der Wehrmacht (Armed Forces High Command) ¨ Politisches Archiv des Auswartigen Amtes, Berlin Reichsarbeitsblatt Reichsarbeitsdienst (Reich Labor Service) ¨ Reichsarbeitsfuhrer (Reich Labor Leader) Reichsarbeitsministerium (Reich Labor Ministry) ¨ Ernahrung ¨ Reichsministerium fur und Landwirtschaft (Reich Ministry for Nutrition and Agriculture) Reichsverband Deutscher Arbeitsdienstvereine (Reich League of German Labor Service Associations) ¨ Wissenschaft, Erziehung und VolksReichsministerium fur bildung (Reich Ministry for Science, Education, and National Training) Reichsstatthalter Epp (Reich Governor Epp) Reichsfinanzministerium (Reich Finance Ministry) ¨ Arbeitsvermittlung und ArbeitslosenverReichsanstalt fur sicherung (Reich Institute for Job Placement and Unemployment Insurance) Reichsgesetzblatt Rechnungshof des Deutschen Reiches (Audit Office of the German Reich) Reichskommissar (Reich Commissioner) Reichskanzlei (Reich Chancellery) Reichsleitung (Reich administration) Reichsministerium des Innern (Reich Ministry of the Interior) ¨ ¨ Reichsministerium fur Volksaufklarung und Propaganda (Reich Ministry for Public Enlightenment and Propaganda) Sturm-Abteilungen (Storm Troopers) Schutzstaffel (Security Squad) Staatsarchiv Stenographische Berichte Der Stahlhelm Statistisches Jahrbuch des Deutschen Reiches (Bayerische) Staatskanzlei ¨ Tagebucher von Joseph Goebbels U.S. Department of Agriculture U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum Ursachen und Folgen ¨ Volkischer Beobachter Verordnungsblatt

414 VZ VzU WIS WPA

Abbreviations Vossische Zeitung ¨ Verein zur Umschulung freiwilliger Arbeitskrafte (Association for the Retraining of Volunteer Workers) Wirtschaft und Statistik Works Progress Administration

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Index

African Americans and the CCC, 171–5, 186, 271, 275, 276–7, 282, 284, 368, 399 Allgemeiner Deutscher Gewerkschaftsbund (ADGB). See General Federation of German Trade Unions Allgemeiner Freie Angestelltenbund, 77 Allied Control Council, 112 American Federation of Labor, 152, 155 Americorps, 408 Angriff, 86, 323, 332 anti-Semitism and the German Labor Service, 51, 54, 186, 232–4, 242–3, 258, 288, 324, 362–3. See also Jews and the German Labor Service ¨ Arbeiter, Der (The Worker) (Junger), 29, 329 Arbeitertum, 325 Arbeitgeber, 320 Arbeitsmann, Der, 217, 243, 322, 324, 325, 327 Arbeitspflicht, 23 Arbeitswissenschaftliches Institut der Deutschen Arbeitsfront, 10 Armed Forces High Command (German), 356, 357, 360, 361, 364 Army (US), 156, 159–60, 161, 162, 172, 173, 181, 262, 263, 264, 270, 276, 367, 376–8, 381–2 Arnold, Karl, 31, 226 Artamanen, 29 Association for the Establishment of Rural Economic Women’s Schools, 24 Association for the Retraining of Voluntary Workers, 58, 76 Ateliers Nationals, 25 Aumann, Josef, 26, 29, 41 Austria, 28, 107–8, 145 Autobahnen, 297, 305–7, 339, 397

Baden-Powell, Robert, 28 Bausteine zum Dritten Reich (Building Blocks of the Third Reich) (Kretzschmann), 240 Baeumler, Alfred, 199 Baumer, Gertrud, 24 Bebel, August, 23 Beck, Ludwig, 104 Benn, Gottfried, 329 Benz, Wolfgang, 11, 23, 112, 114, 402 Berle, Adolf, 155 Berlin, Isaiah, 5 ¨ Berliner Borsenzeitung, 323 Berliner Tageblatt, 73 Bertram, Adolf, 76 Best, Werner, 55, 184 Bismarck, Otto von, 246 Bloch, Marc, 18 Blomberg, Werner von, 67, 68, 145 Boston Evening Transcript, 386 Boxheim Documents, 55 Braun Commission, 42 Brecker, Arno, 238 ¨ Bruning, Heinrich, 2, 30, 42–4, 47 ¨ Buhler, Karl, 13 Bulgaria, 3, 26 ¨ Bund Deutscher Madel (BDM). See League of German Girls Bund Jung-Deutschland, 28 Bureau of Indian Affairs, 165 ¨ Busch, Otto, 8 Busse, Wilhelm, 354 Cabarrus, Theresa, 24 California Conservation Corps, 408 Carlyle, Thomas, 321 C´er´ebole, Pierre, 32 Chamberlain, Neville, 253 Chicago Tribune, 158 Churchill, Winston, 253

439

440

Index

Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), 3–4, 7, 9, 14–16, 40–1, 157–9, 182 admission/exclusion policies, 163–75, 185–6 CCC Law of 1937, 158, 166 comparisons to RAD, 73–4, 153–4, 162–3, 181–4, 189, 285–91, 374, 387–94, 395–405 creation of and structure, 64, 151–6, 159–63, 169–70, 182, 264–75, 286, 384 disbanding of, 160–1, 383, 402 effectiveness/accomplishments, 176–81, 183, 187–9, 373–4, 382, 384–7, 390–4, 395–6 fitness standards, 271–5 funding of, 156–7, 186–8, 282 German perceptions of, 74, 100–2, 184–5 harvest work, 380–1, 388, 389 influence of German Labor Service, 168–9, 278–9, 399–401 and local communities, 367–8 media regarding, 73, 152, 158, 279, 386 military training and role of the Army, 159–60, 162, 262, 270, 274, 289, 376–8, 381–4, 385, 388–9 pedagogical mission, 261–4, 276–9, 282–5, 398 and private industry, 378–81 work projects, 365–74 Clinton, Bill, 408 Civil Works Administration, 179. See also Works Progress Administration Communist Party of Germany (KPD), 35, 48 Communist Youth League of Germany, 128 Couzen, James, 41 Croon, Helmuth, 10–11 Czechoslovakia, 353 d’Alquen, Gunter, 250 Darr´e, Richard, 92, 249, 348 Decker, Will, 58, 94, 111, 115, 199, 240, 244, 245, 248, 324, 364 Department of Agriculture (US), 151, 154, 165, 167, 367 Department of Interior (US), 151, 154, 165, 262 DePriest, Oscar, 171 Depression/The Great Depression, 3, 4–5, 7, 8, 18, 32, 33, 290, 395 in Germany, 4–5, 26–7, 33–8, 47, 216, 218, 224, 287, 319, 395–6

in US, 38–9, 164, 172, 183, 188, 266, 271, 275, 280, 282, 285, 287, 373, 377 See also unemployment Deutsche Arbeitsdienst, Der. Aufgaben, Organisation und Aufbau (Stellrecht), 57 Deutsche Arbeitsfront (DAF). See German Labor Front Deutsche Studentenschaft. See German Student Corps Deutsche Weg, Der (The German Path) (Decker), 240 Deutsche Wehr, 256 Deutscher Arbeitsdienst, 71, 236, 256, 334 Deutscher Gemeindetag. See German Association of Communities ¨ technische Deutsches Institut fur Arbeitsschulung. See German Institute for Technical Worker Training Deutsches Studentwerk, 122 Deutschland-Berichte, 358 Deutschlands Erneuerung, 100 Deutschnationaler Handlungsgehilfenverband (DHV). See German-National Association of Clerks ¨ Deutschvolkischer Offiziersbund, 53 Dewey, John, 263 ¨ Deutschland,” 407 “Dienst fur Dudek, Peter, 13, 23, 58 Duesterberg, Theodor, 59, 66, 68 Eisenbeck, Martin, 58 Emergency Conservation Work (ECW). See CCC Emergency Organization for German Youth, 48, 287, 299 Emsland project, 330–40, 353, 356 England. See Great Britain Erb, Herbert, 115 Erzeugungsschlacht, 301 European Voluntary Service for Young People, 407 FAD. See Weimar Voluntary Labor Service Faulhaber, Michael, Cardinal von, 76 Faupel, Wilhelm, 76 Fechner, Robert, 155–6, 157, 159–60, 171, 173, 176, 184, 262, 270, 271, 273, 276, 282, 374, 378, 379, 381–2 Federal Security Agency (FSA), 160 Flack, Werner, 358

Index Forest Service (US), 154, 155, 367, 379 Foucault, Michael, 15, 199, 225 France, 22, 70, 73, 93, 109–10, 363 French Revolution, 22, 23–4 Francois-Poncet, Andr´e, 65 Frankfurter, Felix, 155 Frederick II, 91, 244, 246, 318 Free Corps of Labor (Freikorps der Arbeit), 26, 29, 42 Freiwilliger Arbeitsdienst. See Weimar Voluntary Labor Service Frick, Wilhelm, 65, 78, 82, 90, 91, 102, 110, 123, 145 Friedrich I of Brandenburg, 244 Garack, Paul, 315 Garraty, John, 6 GDR, 407–8 Gemeinschaftsfremder, 135, 332 General Federation of German Trade Unions, 47–8, 77 General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money, The (Keynes), 187 Geneva disarmament conference of 1933, 70–1, 72, 73–4, 92, 141, 306, 359, 388 German Association of Communities, 201, 311–13 German Institute for Technical Worker Training, 31, 226–7 German Labor Front, 124, 132, 227, 250, 288, 321, 405 German Labor Service, The. Tasks, Organization and Structure (Stellrecht), 57 German-National Association of Clerks, 76 German Student Corps, 123, 131 ¨ German-Volkisch Officers’ League, 53 Gleichschaltung, 148, 182, 201, 212, 295, 311, 316 Goebbels, Joseph, 62, 91, 100, 106, 302, 304, 323, 332 Goffman, Erving, 199 Goltz, Kolmar Freiherr von der, 28, 224 Gorham, Eric, 15 ¨ Goring, Hermann, 65, 104, 105, 109, 334, 337, 345, 347, 365, 392 ¨ Norbert, 14, 104 Gotz, ¨ Grass, Gunter, 237 Great Britain, 3, 28, 30, 71, 93 Green, William, 152, 155

441

¨ Gruttner, Michael, 148 ¨ Gurtner, Franz, 82 Happy Days, 158, 370 Haubach, Theodor, 332 Hedin, Sven, 1 Heidegger, Martin, 328, 329 Heimat and the labor camp, 208, 214, 244, 302, 304 Henrici, Waldemar, 357 Herbst, Ludolf, 187 Herzl, Theodor, 25 Hess, Rudolf, 103 Heydrich, Reinhard, 362 Hierl, Konstantin, 85, 113, 328–9, 406 career, 50–1, 57, 90–1, 102–3, 110–12 Emsland project, 331–2 establishment and structure of RAD, 51–3, 54, 57, 59–63, 66–70, 71–3, 80, 95, 96–100, 103–10, 113, 118–21, 128–9, 130–2, 133, 139, 147, 149, 182, 183, 194–8, 212–14, 217, 229–30, 398 funding for RAD, 81–3, 88–9, 298 harvest projects, 341–51, 360 and Hitler, 53–4, 57, 62–3, 66, 83, 86, 91, 102–3, 111, 184, 249 and media, 239, 329, 333–5 military aspects of RAD, 220–3, 227, 356, 357, 359–60 Nuremberg party rallies, 92–4 pedagogical mission of RAD, 149, 194, 207, 244, 248–50, 251–2, 255 ¨ and Rohm, 60–1, 89–90, 184 and Stahlhelm, 61–3, 78–9 West wall construction, 354, 358 women’s labor service, 106, 234 work mission of RAD, 204, 292, 294, 295, 301, 302, 304, 305–6, 311–13, 315, 318–27, 331–2 Hilberg, Raul, 133 Hill, Frank E., 284 Himmler, Heinrich, 110, 112, 230, 307, 335–6, 348 Hindenburg, Paul von, 65, 90 Hitler, Adolf, 5, 55–6, 62, 78, 79, 96, 136, 152, 329, 333, 348 and CCC, 102 establishment of RAD, 65–70, 81–2, 89, 91, 97, 105, 106 Geneva disarmament conference, 71, 72–3 and Hierl, 53–4, 57, 62–3, 66, 83, 86, 91, 102–3, 111, 184

442

Index

Hitler, Adolf (cont.) Mein Kampf, 55–6, 193, 198, 240, 319, 324, 329, 357, 397 military training for RAD, 325, 355, 357 Nuremberg party rallies, 92, 106, 228, 397 pedagogical mission of RAD, 191, 216, 251–2 policies regarding RAD, 134, 144, 347 ¨ Rohm purge, 89–90 “Second Book,” 55–6 West Wall construction, 353 Hitler Youth (Hitler Jugend) (HJ), 87, 90, 95, 124, 125, 147, 191–2, 197, 208, 229, 230, 236, 239, 243, 278, 289, 350, 410 Holland, Kenneth, 284 Holocaust, RAD role in, 307, 362–3, 409 ¨ Christoph, 208 Holz, Hoover, Herbert, 39, 40, 41 Hopkins, Harry, 155, 156, 166, 176 ¨ Hordt, Philipp, 199 Hoyt, Ray, 375–6 Hugenberg, Alfred, 65, 68 ¨ Huhnlein, Adolf, 102 Humann, Paul, 315 Hungary, 28 Ickes, Harold, 156, 165 Indianapolis Star, 160 “intercultural transfers,” 17–19, 278–9, 399–401 International Association of Machinists, 155 Italy, 6, 152 Jahn, Friedrich Ludwig, 28, 224 Jahrbuch des Reichsarbeitsdienstes, 238 James, William, 25, 40, 377 Jews and the German Labor Service, 132–3, 134, 232–4, 258, 362–3 Johnson, Charles, 382 Johnson, Lyndon B., 161, 408 Jonas, Michael, 13, 242, 246, 256 Judenstaat, Der (The Jewish State) (Herzl), 25 Jullien, Marc-Antoine, 24 Jungdeutscher Orden, 47 Junger, Ernst, 29, 196, 232, 329 Junges Deutschland, 87 Keitel, Wilhelm, 360 Kennedy, John F., 408 Kerrl, Hanns, 336–8

Keynes, Johan Maynard, 177, 187 and Keynesian economic model, 82 ¨ Klonne, Arno, 239 ¨ Kocka, Jurgen, 6 ¨ Kohler, Bernhard, 325 ¨ Kohler, Henning, 11, 23 Kortzfleisch, Ida von, 24 KPD. See Communist Party of Germany Kraft durch Freude (KDF), 255, 401 Kretzschmann, Hermann, 58, 240 Krieck, Ernst, 190–1, 193, 198, 199 Kriegshilfspflicht, 105 Krosigk, Lutz Graf Schwerin von, 68, 70, 81, 82–3, 88–9, 98, 187 ¨ Kruger, Alfred, 99, 331 Laash, Hermann, 244 Labor Department (US), 151, 154, 172, 181 Lammers, Hans Heinrich, 86, 89 Lancelle, Otto, 58, 76, 93–4, 115 Landhilfe, 125, 140, 287, 298 Landon, Alfred M., 158 Lange, Helene, 24 League of German Girls, 87 League of Red Front Fighters, 36 Leber, Julius, 332 Leuchtenburg, William E., 376 Leverich, Henry P., 278, 400 Lidice, 363 Lingelbach, Karl Christoph, 13 Local Experienced Men (LEM), 166, 385 Ludendorff, Erich, 53 Luftwaffe, 105, 361 Machtergreifung, 47, 54, 64, 73, 89, 150, 318, 319, 325, 332 Maher, Cornelius, 371 Mahnken, Heinrich, 61, 66–8, 74 Marsh, Clarence S., 190, 262, 263–4 Maunz, Theodor, 99 McEntee, James, 160, 167, 173, 274, 275, 374 McKellar, Kenneth, 161 McNutt, Paul, 160 Mein Kampf (Hitler), 55–6, 193, 198, 240, 319, 324, 329, 357, 397 Meyers Lexicon, 327 Model, Walther, 363 Moltke, James, Helmuth von, 31 Moore, Barrington, 6

Index Morrell, Frederick, 380 Mosse, George, 231, 238 ¨ Muller-Brandenburg, Herman, 101–2 Mussolini, Benito, 1, 250 Nation, The, 152, 282 National Auxiliary Service (Nationaler Hilfsdienst), 103–4, 113, 329, 347, 402 National Job Corps (US), 408 National Socialist Company Cell Organization, 325 National Socialist Labor Service (Nationalsozialistischer Arbeitsdienst, NSAD), 79, 118. See also National Socialist Reich League of German Labor Service Associations. National Socialist League of German Students (NSDStB), 123 National Socialist Motor Transport Corps, 410 National Socialist Reich League of German Labor Service Associations (RDA), 77, 79. See also National Socialist Labor Service National Youth Administration (NYA) (US), 156, 160, 161, 170, 175, 179, 280, 289 Native Americans and the CCC, 165, 166 Nazi Women’s League, 106 Nehru, Jawaharlal, 1 Neurath, Konstantin von, 72 New Deal, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 39, 101, 151, 155, 158, 172, 175, 179, 184, 188, 271, 279, 280, 376 New Republic, 152, 263, 282 New York Times, 275, 279, 371 Nibelungenlied, 325 Nohl, Herman, 406 Notwerk der deutschen Jugend. See Emergency Organization for German Youth Now They Are Men (McEntee), 275 NSDAP, 35, 42, 57, 74, 84, 95, 107, 141, 142, 232–9 and compulsory labor service, 55, 122, 124, 130, 132, 133 and Hierl, 53–5, 57, 66 pedagogical mission of RAD, 190–9, 201, 214–15, 220, 224, 240, 253–4, 256–61 and Stahlhelm, 61, 68, 75, 77–8, 79–80, 114

443

and Weimer Labor Service (FAD), 47, 50, 58–63, 76, 77, 79 work projects of RAD, 308, 317, 340 Nuremberg party rallies, 92–4, 105–6, 220, 223, 228, 237, 257, 397 Office of Education (US) 262, 264 Office of Education and Training (German), 115 Ogburn, William F., 282 Order of Young Germans, 29 Organisation Arbeitsdank, 287–8 Organization Todt, 353, 360, 390 Ossietzky, Carl von, 332 Ovid, 400 Oxley, Howard, 264 Pandiani, John, 180 Papen, Franz von, 37, 44, 45, 46, 49, 66, 122 Patriotic Auxiliary Service, 23, 25, 104 Paulmann, Johannes, 17–18 Paulsen, Friedrich, 231 Peace Corps, 408 Persons, Frank, 172, 262, 264 Petersen, Hellmut, 227 Poland, 29, 109, 116, 243, 257, 349, 360, 361, 362 Popper, Josef, 25, 28 Proctor, Robert N., 235 Progressive Education Movement, 263–4, 285 Prussia, 13, 83, 334 Pufendorf, Samuel, 95, 359 Reich Agricultural Ministry, 97 Reich Agricultural Organization, 301, 343, 344–5, 348, 350, 360 Reich Association of Jewish Veterans, 134 Reich Association for Social Service, 47–8 Reich Audit Office, 10, 118, 139, 311 Reich Central Security Office, 127 Reich Committee for National Health, 130 Reich Curatory for Youth Training, 49, 71 Reich Defense Ministry, 97 Reich Economic Ministry, 98, 104 Reich Education Ministry, 97, 104, 131, 150 Reich Finance Ministry, 10, 69, 81–2, 88, 98, 118, 311, 337, 347 Reich Food Ministry, 348, 350 Reich Interior Ministry, 10, 65, 96, 102, 131 Reich Justice Ministry, 332–3, 335, 336, 337–8, 339

444

Index

Reich Labor Ministry, 70, 81, 90, 97, 114, 115, 341 Reich Labor Service (RAD), 1, 3, 7, 9, 13–14, 103, 107 admission/exclusion policies, 121–2, 124–7, 129–35, 145–7, 185–6, 324–5 Autobahnen, 297, 305–7, 339 camp structure and camp life, 76, 85, 127–8, 201–30, 241–7, 252–7, 317 comparisons to CCC, 73–4, 100–2, 162–3, 181–4, 189, 285–91, 387–94, 395–405 compulsory service/service terms, 96, 104–5, 110, 122–9, 135, 143–8 creation of/organizational structure, 65–70, 74, 75, 83–4, 91–2, 94–5, 96–9, 100, 109–10, 114–21, 181–2 disbanding of RAD, 112, 404 effectiveness/accomplishments, 113–14, 137, 142, 148–51, 187–9, 313–16, 336–40, 390–4, 395–6 Emsland project, 330–40 for women, 9, 12, 24, 46, 87, 105–6, 111, 119, 122, 137, 202, 231, 234, 255 funding of, 81–3, 88–9, 108, 186–8, 311–13 harvest work, 340–52, 360, 389 and local communities, 308–13 media regarding, 73–4, 92, 95–6, 235–9, 323, 333–5, 339 military training/military projects, 72, 220–30, 306–7, 325–7, 352–62, 363–5, 388–9 Nuremberg party rallies, 92–4, 105–6, 220, 223, 228, 237, 257, 397 pedagogical mission, 13, 190–9, 231–9, 240–61, 299, 350–1, 398, 402–3 Reich Labor Service Law of 6/35 (RAD Law), 3, 98–9, 108, 126, 127, 129, 131, 132, 135, 145, 148 Thingstatten projects, 302–4 US perceptions of, 153–4, 168–9, 184–5, 278–9, 374, 399–401 West Wall, construction of, 352–5, 358–9 work projects, 294–301, 308, 318–28. See also National Auxiliary Service; Weimar Voluntary Labor Service Reich League of German Labor Service Associations, 60 Reich League of German Open-Air and Popular Theater, 303

Reich Office for Job Procurement (RfAVAV), 36, 37, 42–3, 45, 75, 91, 125, 141, 204, 293, 301 Reich Propaganda Ministry, 73, 302–3 Reichsarbeitsdienst. See Reich Labor Service Reichsarbeitgemeinschaft der ¨ ¨ Diensttragerverb ande. See Reich Working Group of Sponsor Associations Reichsarbeitsgemeinschaft Sozialer Dienst. See Reich Association for Social Service Reichsautobahnen. See Autobahnen Reichsbank, 104, 125 Reichsbanner, 47, 76 ¨ Reichsbund judischer Frontsoldaten. See Reich Association of Jewish Veterans Reichsgesetzblatt, 100 Reichsicherheitshauptamt. See Reich Central Security Office ¨ Jugendertuchtigung. ¨ Reichskuratorium fur See Reich Curatory for Youth Training Reichslandbund, 10 ¨ Reichsnahrstand. See Reich Agricultural Organization Reichstag, 54, 55 Reich Student Organization (Reichsstudentenwerk), 124, 255 Reichsverband DeutscherArbeitsdienstvereine. See Reich League of German Labor Service Associations Reichswehr, 26, 51, 74, 75, 89, 90, 94, 116, 128, 224, 306 Reich War Ministry, 348 Reich Working Group of Sponsor Associations, 50 Riefenstahl, Leni, 95, 334 Robert Bosch Foundation, 408 ¨ Rohm, Ernst, 53, 56, 60–1, 89–90, 184 Roosevelt, Eleanor, 168, 170, 186 Roosevelt, Franklin D., 3, 5, 375 creation and structure of the CCC, 151–6, 157, 158–9, 164, 172, 175, 176–8, 184, 187, 377, 385, 393, 401 and the Depression, 5, 40, 164 disbanding the CCC, 160–1, 383 and Germany/German Labor Service, 73, 101, 289, 374 military involvement with the CCC, 270, 273, 278, 381, 382, 383

Index pedagogical role of CCC, 262, 263, 267, 282 work missions of the CCC, 365–6, 373, 378, 379–80 Roosevelt, James, 159 Rosenberg, Alfred, 55 Rosenstock-Huessy, Eugen, 31, 167–8, 284, 405, 409 ¨ Roter Frontkampfer bund. See League of Red Front Fighters Rumania, 29 Ryder, Melvin, 158 SA, 36, 60–1, 75, 76, 78, 80, 89–90, 93, 139, ¨ 153, 191, 243, 250. See also Rohm, Ernst Salmond, John, 14 Schacht, Hjalmar, 97, 104, 125, 146 Schellenberg, Ernst, 315 Schirach, Baldur von, 87 Schlaghecke, Wilhelm, 203 Schleicher, Kurt von, 37, 48, 49, 50, 123 Schlesische Jungmannschaft, 31, 42 Schlicker, Wolfgang, 11, 23 Schneider, Michael, 14, 216 Scholl, Sophie, 255 Scholtz-Klink, Gertrud, 106 ¨ Schopke, Karl, 218 Schulz, Paul, 56, 57–8, 61–2, 86 “Second Book” (Hitler), 55–6 Seeckt, Hans von, 51, 52, 54 Seifert, Wolfgang, 13, 206, 214, 240, 252–3, 306 Seipp, Paul, 83, 207, 214, 230, 247 Seldte, Franz, 65–6, 67, 76, 77, 81, 82–3, 89, 90, 91, 97–8, 146, 299, 321, 322 “Service for Germany,” 407 Sherraden, Michael, 271 Shirer, William, 92 Silverman, Dan, 14, 142, 306 social Darwinism, 129, 131, 133–4, 324 Sombart, Nicolaus, 241 Soviet Union, 6, 110, 152, 243, 361, 363, 404 SPD, 10, 47, 77, 85, 99, 125, 217, 223 SS, 10, 76, 78, 85, 90, 93, 95, 112, 135, 191, 233, 243, 250, 305, 332, 333, 336, 403 Stahlhelm, 10, 29, 47, 48, 58, 59, 61, 65–8, 71, 74, 75, 76, 77–8, 79, 84, 115, 142, 184, 201, 224, 296, 329, 331 Stahlhelm, Der, 60

445

Stamm, Kurt, 114 Stars and Stripes, 158 Stellrecht, Helmut, 57–8, 60, 86–7, 121, 221, 228, 240, 244, 300, 322, 341, 392 Stieglitz, Olaf, 15, 274, 275 Stierling, Griffion, 87 Stommer, Rainer, 303 Strasser, Gregor, 53, 56, 57, 61–2, 86 Stratenwerth, Georg, 67 Streicher, Julius, 234 Stuart, Robert, 379, 381 Student Compensatory Service/Studentischer Ausgleichsdienst, 131 ¨ Sturmer, Der (Striecher), 234 Sweden, 3, 14, 28 Switzerland, 3, 32 Sur´en, Hans, 220, 226 Syrup, Friedrich, 45, 60, 65, 67, 125, 201, 295, 297, 316 Tannenberg-Bund, 53 Technical Emergency Service, 360, 390 Tenorth, Heinz-Elmar, 20 ¨ Thingstatten, 297, 302–4 Thomas, Elbert D., 165 Todt, Fritz, 227, 305–6, 353 ¨ Tonnies, Sibylle, 408 “Triumph of the Will” (Riefenstahl), 95, 334 ¨ Tubingen League for Labor Service and Work Year, 76 Turek, 362 Turner, Frederick Jackson, 267 unemployment, 2, 30, 32–9 and CCC, 151, 160, 164, 178–80, 183, 277, 373–4 and RAD, 136–42, 341 See also Depression Uniejow, 362 Van Horn Moseley, George, 175 ¨ Vaterlandischer Hilfsdienst. See Patriotic Auxiliary Service Verein zur Umschulung freiwilliger ¨ (VzU). See Association for Arbeitskrafte the Retraining of Voluntary Workers Versailles, Treaty of, 50, 51, 100, 107, 116, 125, 355, 359, 382, 388 ¨ volkisch nationalism, 26, 29–30, 31, 44, 51–6, 57, 61, 72, 101, 115, 208, 242–3, 257–8, 405

446

Index

Volkischer Beobachter, 53, 69, 92, 96, 125, 256, 257 Volksgemeinschaft, 1, 14, 49, 68, 98, 101, 103, 134, 136, 148, 151, 190, 191, 195–7, 198, 234, 238, 251, 258, 285, 289, 298, 303–4, 318–27, 358, 396–7, 403 and the labor camps, 204, 207–8, 260–1 Volksgenossen, 29, 131, 135, 208–9, 234, 259, 260, 290, 319, 324–5, 327, 332, 336, 396, 403, 410 Wagner, Hermann, 111 Wagner, Horst, 228 War Department (US), 151, 154, 159, 162, 168, 173 Wehrmacht, 85, 94, 105, 107, 109–11, 114, 131, 145, 146, 207, 229, 243, 250, 305, 347, 348, 350, 351, 353, 361, 364, 365, 388, 404 and military training for RAD, 355, 356–7, 359 Wehrpolitische Vereinigung, 53 ¨ Wehrverbande, 26 Weimar Republic, 26–8, 35, 36–8, 48, 126–7, 129, 139, 181, 192, 232, 310, 408 Weimer Voluntary Labor Service (FAD), 2, 3, 7, 13, 30, 38, 41, 58, 81, 88, 118, 142, 183, 192, 227, 256, 291, 398, 405 admission/exclusion policies, 44–5, 121–2, 126–7, 129, 135, 136–7 creation of/structure, 42–5, 46, 50, 114–20, 128, 200–9, 216 effectiveness, 150–1, 393

and military training, 49–50, 223 and NSDAP, 50, 56–63 work projects of, 293–5, 302, 308, 316 Weltanschauung, 121, 190, 212, 240, 242 West Wall, construction of, 109, 116, 352–5, 358–9, 390, 402 Wheeler, Burton K., 165 Wilde, Oscar, 232 Wilson, Hugh, 400 Winckelmann, Johann Joachim, 231–2 Winkler, Heinrich August, 6 Wirtschaft und Statistik, 345 Witt, Peter-Christian, 8 women and labor service, 25 in Germany, 9, 12, 24, 96, 106, 118, 137, 142, 231, 234–5, 258 in US, 170 Woodring, Harry, 153 Works Progress Administration (WPA), 156, 179, 384 World War I, 5, 23, 25, 104, 144, 158, 164, 196, 224, 232, 235, 258, 377 World War II, 108, 133, 134, 146, 209, 215, 229, 241, 252, 253, 257, 274, 354, 360–5, 377–8, 404 Wurm, Theopil, 112 You and Machines (Ogburn), 282 Young Germany League, 28 Zeit, Die, 408, 409 Zook, George F., 262, 282 Zorn, Domenicus, 323