| Reichspräsident Paul von Hindenburg (October 2, 1847 – August 2, 1934) and Reichskanzler Adolf Hitler (April 20, 1889 – April 30, 1945) arrive at the Hitlerjugend (“Hitler Youth”) May Day rally in the Lustgarten. For the Tag der Nationalen Arbeit (“National Day of Labor”), Hindenburg and hitler drove to Tempelhof Aerodrome in the Reichspräsident’s car at 0900 Hours. Hitler appeared sociable with the aging President. Around noon, they hosted a workers’ reception at the Palace of the Reich President at Wilhelmstraße 73. At 2000 Hours, they returned to Tempelhofer Feld, which saw 1 1/2 1,000,000 attendees for Hitler’s speech. Hitler took the long path to the street, to greet the crowd. May Day, May 1, represented the annual focus on the German Worker. While Allgemeiner Deutscher Gewerkschaftsbund (ADGB – “General Federation of German Trade Unions”), was seeking to prove its “patriotic reliability,” the Aktionskomitees zum Schutz der Deutschen Arbeit (“Action Committee for the Defense of German Labor”) led by Chef des Deutsche Arbeitsfront (DAF – “German Labor Front”) Doctor Robert Ley (February 15, 1890 – October 25, 1945) was planning, in total secrecy, the decisive blow to be struck on “Tuesday, May 2, 1933 at 1000 Hours.” But this was only to be the 2nd half of a carefully staged coup. This bold stroke against the trade unions was preceded by individual acts which appeared to benefit the working class. Hitler had hitherto rarely applied the principle of stick and carrot more perfectly. What the Republic had failed to provide for the workers, the new regime now offered with an ostentatious gesture: without formal procedures, as was now possible, it proclaimed the heavily symbolic May 1 a public holiday. As with “Potsdam Day,” (the re-opening of the Reichstag on March 21, 1933) the Führer placed the preparation of the “premiere” in the hands of his congenial Reichsminister für Volksaufklärung und Propaganda, Joseph Goebbels (October 29, 1897 – May 1, 1945); significantly, Reichsarbeitsminister (“Reich Labor Minister”) Franz Seldte (June 29, 1882 – April 1, 1947) remained in the wings. More or less overnight the international day of struggle of the labor movement was turned into the “Day of National Labor (Tag der Nationalen Arbeit) and its purpose was formulated precisely by Goebbels before an audience of more than a 1,000,000 at the Berlin Tempelhof Airfield: “This evening, transcending classes, rank and confessional differences, the whole German Volk finds itself united to destroy finally the ideology of class struggle and to clear the path for the new ideas of solidarity and national community.” Hitler expanded on these thoughts in his keynote speech, in unusually mild and flowery language. In contrast to the vocabulary of internecine warfare and murder, hatred, misery and discord, he spoke of reconciliation, introspection, coming together, revival: “The German Volk must once again get to know one another! The millions of people who are torn apart in professions and trades, held apart in artificial classes, who, infected with the arrogance of status and the madness of class, learned to cease to understand one another; they must find one another again!’” Effectively equipped with an assurance of non-objection from the ADGB, which had called for participation in the nationwide festivities, the Chancellor considered concrete explanations of future labor policy unnecessary. “Honor work and respect the worker!” was the motto of the day, and Hitler left it at that, for he knew that anything other than this sort of wooing of support would only detract from the emotional appeal of the broadcast mass rally. This was an accurate appraisal: the French Ambassador André François-Poncet (June 13, 1887 – January 8, 1978) noted, “Yes, it really is a beautiful, wonderful festival! A breath of reconciliation and unity is wafting over the Third Reich.” Less than 12 hours later this newly postulated social consensus was put to a severe test which demonstrated the usefulness of skillfully manipulated political symbolism. The next morning, May 2, 1933, Sturmabteilung (SA) and Schutzstaffel (SS) auxiliary police, led by Nationalsozialistische Betriebszellenorganisation (NSBO – “National Socialist Factory Cell Organization”) functionaries, a Nazi workers organization, occupied the offices and institutions of the Free Trade Unions throughout the Reich. They met hardly any opposition. The senior leaders of the ADGB, caught totally unaware, and the leading functionaries of the individual unions were taken into protective custody, but so too were the directors of the trade union bank and the editors of the trade union press. In contrast, most of the middle- and lower-ranking trade union employees were allowed to remain in their posts, under NSBO direction. Simply for practical reasons it was necessary to limit the extent of the action, and its aim was in any case less the institutional than the final political destruction of the trade unions. The old organizational framework could perfectly well be used in setting up the DAF announced by Robert Ley. The Hirsch-Dunckersche Gewerkvereine (“Hirsch-Duncker Trade Union Ring”) and the Deutschnationaler Handlungsgehilfen-Verband (“German National Association of Commercial Employees”), intimidated by the action against the Free Trade Unions, joined Ley’s Action Committee. After only 3 days almost all the blue- and white-collar workers’ associations (with a total of 8,000,000 employees) had subordinated themselves to the Committee; only the Christian trade unions enjoyed a reprieve until the summer. In contrast to the thorough planning of the events of May 2, the future of the DAF at the time of its foundation was somewhat hazy; however, divergent interests rapidly emerged. Thus, the assertion, common at the outset, that the aim of the DAF was to realize the old dream of a single united trade union, had staunch advocates within the NSBO, whose leading personalities around NSBO Chef Walter Schumann (April 3, 1898 – December 2, 1956) held important positions within the labor Front. But even after Ley, mainly for reasons of power politics and in the wake of the purges after the Night of Long Knives on June 30, 1934, had eliminated numbers of NSBO “leftists,” certain trade union tendencies remained intact within the Labor Front. The DAF was soon advancing interests relating to social and wages policy, especially in those industries benefiting from the rearmament boom. At 1st and above all, however, the DAF was an instrument for the regimentation of the workers. This was demonstrated only 9 days after its official foundation, when on May 19, 1933, Gesetz über Treuhänder der Arbeit (“the Law on Trustees of Labor”) substituted state compulsion for the hitherto existing autonomy in negotiating wage rates. Formally it placed similar restrictions on both capital and labor, but in reality the law meant a strengthening of the employers, for the 13 senior officials who henceforth acted as Reichstreuhänder der Arbeit (“Reich Trustees of Labor”) were, for the most part, nearer to industry than to the employee side or the NSBO. Indeed, regional conflict with the NSBO arose on more than 1 occasion in the following months. Gesetz zur Ordnung der nationalen Arbeit (“The Law on the Regulation of National Labor”) of January 20, 1934, confirmed the role of the Reich Trustees and shifted the balance of power further in favor of the employers. Subsequently, the DAF participated only in an advisory capacity in wage negotiations and the formulation of employment contracts; the previously existing employee codetermination was abolished. Drawing an analogy with Volksgemeinschaft (“the national community”), the law posited the Betriebsgemeinschaft (“works community”) which allocated the role of Führer to the employer and merely that of Gefolgschaft (“retinue”) to the employees. In future, conflicts were supposed to be resolved by “social courts of honor.” Betriebsräte (“Works Councils”) were replaced with powerless Vertrauensräte (“consultative councils of trust”), which were to be “elected” from a single list drawn up by the Betriebsführer and the NSBO shop steward; the workers reacted to this farce in April 1934 and again in the following spring with less than 50 percent of votes in favor in some places, after which no more elections took place. The Nazis undoubtedly pursued further aims with the DAF than simply the elimination of trade union power so welcomed by industry. Besides the satisfaction of the desire for social and political compulsion, there was also the conscription and control of the workers and ultimately the ideological penetration of every aspect of the world of work. But the DAF was not the cutting edge of Nazi social policy which the ideologists of Volksgemeinschaft may have had in mind. For the present it remained above all an organizational juggernaut with the – eminently political – function of a “kind of no-interest group.” This was clearly expressed in the autumn of 1933 by the “Appeal to all working Germans,” in which the DAF Chef Robert Ley, together with the Reich Ministers for Labor and Industry and the industrial commissioners of the NSDAP, posited “the integration of all persons involved in working life regardless of their economic standing.” In the DAF “the worker” was supposed to stand alongside the entrepreneur, no longer divided by groups and associations which serve to protect specific economic or social strata and interests. Once again the DAF was denied any competence in questions of labor or social policy: “In accordance with the will of our Führer, Adolf Hitler, the German Labor Front is not the place for deciding material questions of daily working life, or for reconciling the natural differences of interest between individual working men.” Thus, the misgivings from the employers’ camp that the Labor Front could become too powerful were taken into account. Gustav Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach (August 7, 1870 – January 16, 1950), President of Freidrich Krupp Aktiengesellschaft and the Führer of the newly established Reichsstand der Deutschen Industrie (“Reich Estate of German Industry”) was able to recommend entry into the DAF to his fellow employers with an easy conscience. In any case, the Nazi Gleichschaltung of the industrial organizations had remained cosmetic. Of course, the Party Commissioner for Economic Matters, Reichskommissar Otto Wagener (April 29, 1888 – August 9, 1971), forced the resignation of the managing director and several Jewish board members of Reichsverband der Deutschen Industrie (RDI – “the Reich Confederation of German Industry”), but it escaped a long-term presence of Nazi commissars. For this it was sufficient for Krupp to promise the Chancellor that, as the new boss of the Confederation, he would make sure there was a tight central organization. Hopes and expectations were great on both sides; each in turn believed itself to be indispensable. In no other sphere did Hitler repress the “Party revolution” so clearly as in the industrial arena – or at least, he allowed Präsident des Reichsbank Hjalmar Schacht (January 22, 1877 – June 3, 1970) free rein in this regard. The leaders of industry reciprocated by remaining silent about the discrimination against their Jewish colleagues. | |
| Image Filename | wwii0816.jpg |
| Image Size | 504.39 KB |
| Image Dimensions | 2155 x 2883 |
| Photographer | |
| Photographer Title | |
| Caption Author | Written or Adapted by Jason McDonald |
| Date Photographed | May 1, 1939 |
| Location | Lustgarten |
| City | Berlin |
| State or Province | Berlin |
| Country | Germany |
| Archive | Deutsches Historisches Museum |
| Record Number | |
| Status | Caption ©2026 MFA Productions LLC Please Do Not Duplicate or Distribute Without Permission; Image in the Public Domain |
Author of the World War II Multimedia Database