21 Nov. 45
it is you whom we want; we will not
let you be until you stand with us in complete, genuine
acknowledgment." (614-PS)
The first Nazi attack was upon the two larger
unions. On April 21, 1933 an order not even in the name of the
Government, but of the Nazi Party was issued by the conspirator
Robert Ley as "Chief of Staff of the political organization of
the NSDAP," applicable to the Trade Union Confederation and the
Independent Employees Confederation. It directed seizure of their
properties and arrest of their principal leaders. The Party order
directed Party organs which we here denounce as criminal
associations, the SA and SS "to be employed for the occupation
of the trade union properties, and for the taking into custody of
personalities who come into question." And it directed the
taking into "protective custody" of all chairmen and
district secretaries of such unions and branch directors of the labor
bank. (392-PS)
These orders were carried out on May 2, 1933. All
funds of the labor unions, including pension and benefit funds, were
seized. Union leaders were sent to concentration camps. A few days
later, on May 10, 1933, Hitler appointed Ley leader of the German
Labor Front (Deutsche Arbeitsfront) which succeeded to the
confiscated union funds. The German Labor Front, a Nazi controlled
labor bureau, was set up under Ley to teach the Nazi philosophy to
German workers and to weed out from industrial employment all who
were backward in their lessons. (1940-PS) "Factory troops"
were organized as an "ideological shock squad within the
factory" (1817-PS). The Party order provided that "outside
of the German Labor Front, no other organization (whether of workers
or of employees) is to exist." On June 24, 1933 the remaining
Christian Trade Unions were seized, pursuant to an order of the Nazi
Party signed by Ley.
On May 19, 1933, this time by a government decree, it was
provided that "trustees" of labor appointed by Hitler,
should regulate the conditions of all labor contracts, replacing the
former process of collective bargaining (405-PS). On November 30,
1934 a decree "regulating national labor" introduced the
Führer Principle into industrial relations. It provided that the
owners of enterprises should be the "Führer" and the
workers should be the followers. The
"enterprise-Führer" should "make decisions for
employees and laborers in all matters concerning the enterprise"
(1861-PS). It was by such bait that the great German industrialists
were induced to support the Nazi cause, to their own ultimate ruin.
Not only did the Nazis dominate and regiment
German labor, but they forced the youth into the ranks of the
laboring people