Figure 1.-- There were several associated NAZI Party federations, known as supervised organizations, in addition to the formal Party structure. The Volkswohlfahrt/People's Welfare Organization (NSV) at first helped poor families with financial benefits, a kind of welfare. The NSV gradually shifted to performing services aiding poor families as it began to gain control over charitable contributions. As the photogragh of the NSV nurse suggests (notice the NSV pin), the activities were obtenibly benighn, but the affiliated associations also plyed a role in the Holocaust and other NAZI barbarities. we see a NSV nurse feeding a baby. This was card no. 12 in a seies called 'Activities of NSV. We think these cards were cigarette cards somewhat like American baseball cards were sold with bubble gum.

There were several associated NAZI Party federations, known as supervised organizations, in addition to the Party structure. These varied somewhat over time, both in numbers and responsibilities. These were not Party leadership organizations, but rather the organizations primarily to enforce the Party's dictates to the German public. Partly this was done through the implied use of force and in part through professional advancement and other benefits such as a secure job or welfare benefits. These organizations were nominally independent. They had legal representation and owned property. They were supported by the Nazi Party in many ways, such as requiring membership. Many of these organizations were labor units. The largest was Deutsche Arbeitsfront/German Labor Front. There were also professionl organizations in which membership was needed to practice. Some were created by the NAZIs. Others were organizations that already Nazified under the Gleichschaltung policy. Gleichschaltung mean something like 'coordination' or 'bringing into line'. It was the process the NAZIs used to construct a totalitarian system with its tentacles into every aspects of national society. Thee organizations were use to punish people who were not politically relable and to isolate and impoverish Jews and others. The Volkswohlfahrt/People's Welfare Organization (NSV) replaced the churches (by controling fund raising) as the primary welfare organization. These organizations may seem benighn compared to organiaztions like the SS and SA, but in fact they played a role in the Holocaust and other NAZI babarities. The NSV for example created political and racial tests as to who received benefit. As a result, while not involved in the better known killing operations, these organizations were complicit in the Holocaust. They were involved in the infmous T-4 euthenasia campaign. These were also involved in prorams like sterilzing people identified by racial hygene courts. Lehrerbund/Teacher Federation (NSLB) played a major role in NAZIfying German education and inculcating the vicious attitudes that the German Wehrmacht displayed in atrocity after atrocity throughout Europe.

Deutsche Frauenwerk/German Women's Work

Deutsche Arbeitsfront/German Labor Front (DAF)

The NAZIs upon seizing power swiftly created the Deutsche Arbeitsfront (German Labor Front, DAF). This essentially replaced free trade unions which had a Socialist/Communist orientation with a labor association controlled by the NAZI Party (May 2, 1933). Hitler ordered the SA to arrest former labor leaders throughout Germany and confiscate the property of the supressed unions. Hitler selected Dr. Robert Ley to organize the new DAF. Ley was both Reichsorganisationsleiter (Reich Organization Leader) and leader of the German Labor Front. There had been NAZI Party cells organized in the unions (National Socialist Factory Cells Organization of NSBO). The key positions in the DAF were filled with these individuals. At a NAZI organized Worker's Congress, Hitler was made the DAF patron (May 10, 1933). He then gave Robert Ley the task of forming the Labour Front (DAF), the only union organization allowed in the Third Reich. Trade union collective bargaining was replaced with the NAZI Leadership Principle (Fuehrerprinzip) by decree (January 1934). Essential the industrialist and other entrepreneur became the leader and the workers were expected to loyally follow rather than make demands. In fact Ley through the DAF implemented a pay freeze (1933). The DAF set wages as well as a system of compulsory deductions (income tax and for the Strength Through Joy program). The DAF issued work-books with details on each worker's employment record. Workers could not obtain jobs without a DAF work book. This made it difficult for Jews and disidents to obtain work. The NAZIs created the Reichsarbeitsdienst/Labor Service (RAD) under which young men and women between 18 and 25 years of age were conscripted for labor service under the administration of the Reich Minister of Interior, Frick (1935). The DAF became the the largest but hardly the most important of the Party's organizations. At the outbreak of World War II there were 23 million members and an estimated 10 million corporative members (1939). The DAF during the war was responsible for the care of foreign labor employed within the Reich. Ley and Youth Leader Budar von Sirich cooperated to set up the Adolf Hitler Schools.

Volkswohlfahrt/People's Welfare Organization (NSV)

The NSV at first helped poor families with financial benefits, a kind of welfare. The NSV gradually shifted to performing services aiding poor families as it begn to gin control over charitable contributions. The welfare services included organizing and managing day care centers, caring for children, assistance to youth and pregnant women, and various family health and nutrition programs. The NSV was established (May 3, 1933). There may have been an early progra, but until the NAZIs seized power and had the authority of the German Government at its disposal as well as swelling ranks of Party members could the NSV run significant programs. The NSV was the umbrella organization for a range of social and welfare programs. It was organized on the same basis as the NAZI Party. There was a central office in Berlin and then regional offices in each Gau. Germany in 1933 was severely affected by the Depression. With the NAZI rearmament program as well as the RAD program, the unenployment proble disappeared. As a result by 1938 the NSV began shifting from welfare programs to promoting services. A major effort was day care for worker's families. Here there was some competition with day care programs run by churches. A anjor slogan at NSV day care centers was "Hände falten, Köpfchen senken - immer an Adolf Hitler denken"--Hands folded, head lowered - always of Adolf Hitler thinking“. With the advent of the War, the NSV became the principal national effort devoted to children and youth welfare efforts. The NSV managed several different programs. One of the best known was the Mutter und Kind program which cared for pregant women. (I believe this was entirely different than the Lebensborn progrm which took the choldren away from the mothers.) The NSV also supported mothers in various ways, especially in the case of emergencies. One source indicated tht the NSV was financed through voluntary contributions of its members which increased from 1 million in 1938 to 11 million during the War. The NSV began publishing the ??? (National Socialist people service) magazine in 1933. It also began publishing a series of books ???? (Eternal Germany) in 1936. NSV leaders desired to make the organization the exclusive German welfare agency. While they administered a wide range of programs, they never managed to become the only German social welfare organization. There were a range of workers' welfare institution (AWOs). Other important groups were the German Red Cross and Caritas. One source indicates that NAZI racial overtones gradually appeared in the NSV progams, but we do not have details at this time.

Kregsopferversorgung/War Victims' Organization

Bund Deutscher Technik/German Technology Bund

Deutscher Aerztebund/Physicians' Bund

Lehrerbund/Teacher Federation (NSLB)

The NAZI Party estanlished Nationalsozialistische Lehrerbund (National Socialist Teachers League, NSLB) as it rose to be an important political party (1929). The organization continued to operate through most of the NAZI era, until 1943. Its offices were in Bayreuth. The founder and first Reichswalter was Hans Schemm. Its in house organization was the Nationalsozialistische Lehrerzeitung (NS Teachers' News). This organization saw itself as "the common effort of all persons who saw themselves as teachers or wanted to be seen as educators, independently from background or education and from the type of educational institution". Its goal was to make the National Socialist worldview and foundation of all education and especially of schooling. In order to achieve this it sought to have an effect on the political viewpoint of educators, insisting on the further development of their spirit along Nationalsocialist lines. Organized mountain excursions in places called Reichsaustauschlager (Exchange Camps of the Reich) were perceived as helping in this purpose. After the Nazi takeover of power in 1933 the Nazi Party validated the NSLB as the sole organization of teachers in the German Reich (membership was not compulsorily). In July 1935 the NSLB was merged with the existing organization of lecturers to form the Nationalsozialistischer Deutscher Dozentenbund (NSDDB) (National Socialist German Lecturers League).

Reichsbund der Deutschen Beamten/German Civil Service

Rechtswahrerbund/League of Legal Officials

Juristenbund

Altherrenbund der Deutschen Studenten/Federation of Former German Students

Reichsbund Deutsche Familie/Reich League "German Family

Deutscher Gemeindetag/German Communal Congress

Reichsbund fuer Leibesue/Bund for Physical Exercise

Created: 12:44 AM 1/30/2016
Last updated: 12:45 AM 1/30/2016