NS Literature Archive Mirror

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𝐎𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐍𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐚𝐥 𝐒𝐨𝐜𝐢𝐚𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐭 𝐄𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐨𝐦𝐲 ＰＡＲＴ （３／３） The German Labour Front was the biggest workers union in history for good reasons too. The DAF was responsible for eliminating unemployment, providing livable working conditions, etc. Even during the outbreak of the war, the German Labour Front was still the most successful body of workers under the direction of the NSDAP towards state goals. In 1942, the managing director of the Deutsche Arbeitsfront Otto Marrenbach published an article in the official NSDAP organ on it's success:

Above all, the Führer—and the German Labour Front acting on his behalf—has instilled in the hearts of all working people the conviction that, following this war, a social undertaking of the greatest magnitude will be realized in Germany. Even before the outbreak of the war, our German socialism was already in the process of eradicating the liberalist and capitalist system within the sphere of influence of Greater Germany. Adolf Hitler’s new social order took its place. This development will continue after the war ends, and all the necessary domestic prerequisites for this are already being established.

The German Labor Front and its leader, Dr. Ley, as the Führer himself explained in a speech to the German people during the war, created the conditions for internal German reconstruction in peacetime. Now during the war, social work, which the German Labor Front provided with ever new impulses in accordance with the Führer's order of October 1934, has become a cornerstone of our war economy. What has been done to preserve and promote the health of our working people is incomparable. Even during the war, when there was a general shortage of doctors, company medical care did not decrease, but rather increased in scope.

The social work led by the German Labor Front, and practically realized in the enterprises on its initiative, is today concentrated entirely on measures that are directly necessary for maintaining labor power and the will to perform, for upholding work discipline, preserving the health of the people, and increasing productive output.

On May 2, new National Socialist Model Enterprises will again be designated. These enterprises, and others that performed extremely valuable in-house social work during the 1941/42 War Production Effort, are living proof of our long-repeated assertion that careful and correct leadership of people and social work within the enterprise simultaneously promotes the work result — the production output — indeed, that it is an indispensable prerequisite for today's enormous demands of war production, despite various hardships and sometimes difficult conditions. If, simultaneously and independently of these National Socialist Model Enterprises, some firms are also newly honored as 'War Model Enterprise' and granted the distinction of pinning the War Merit Cross to the factory banner, this too reflects the close bond between our production sites and the present freedom struggle of the German people. No enterprise can become a Model Enterprise in wartime unless, alongside outstanding social work, it also delivers first-class output for our armaments.

Most recently, Dr. Ley expressed these principles once again in a directive of January 26, 1942, in a new War Organization Plan of the German Labor Front: "The entire work of all offices is to be aligned with this unified goal, and the remaining staff are to be fully deployed for these war-necessary tasks."

With all of these sources in mind, the National Socialist reader will finally understand how the economy ought to function and its purposes for benefiting the Volkstum. Source: "Durch Kampf zum Sieg!" Der Führer: das Hauptorgan der NSDAP Gau Baden; der badische Staatsanzeiger 01.05.1942 p.1 𝔊𝔬𝔱𝔱𝔤𝔩ä𝔲𝔟𝔦𝔤𝔨𝔢𝔦𝔱

𝐎𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐍𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐚𝐥 𝐒𝐨𝐜𝐢𝐚𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐭 𝐄𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐨𝐦𝐲 ＰＡＲＴ （２／３） The National Socialists enforced state set price/wage controls to continue encouraging full production. This is because market based price/wage control causes profiteering from war and hardship therefore making rationing fair for everyone in the national economy with the use of taxes. Basically, there is no winners and losers in the war economy, only service to the nation and thus the Volk. in 1941, Friedrich Landfried who was part of the Reich Ministry of Economics gave a lecture on the war economy on how the state maintains cohesion for the German people in such a time like war:

The State Secretary, conveying the greetings of Reich Minister of Economics and Reichsbank President Walther Funk to the assembly, began by emphasizing that when the Führer—at the outset of his struggle—demanded the primacy of politics and an economy directed by political leadership and oriented toward the common good, and when he coined the concepts of "Blood and Soil," the "right to work," and the "national community," he was misunderstood and ridiculed by many. Yet today, the economy of the Greater German Reich rests upon this very foundation. National Socialist economic theory had revived the concept of the national economy and restored its original meaning. Since 1933, Germany has possessed an economy rooted in the people and committed to their welfare, guided by the nation's vital necessities; its objective is the common good.

War economy is the planned maximum use of the national economy in the service of national defense

Upon the outbreak of war, National Socialist Germany had no need for such a roundabout approach to increasing production and restricting consumption. For the most part, two legislative measures sufficed to secure the necessary wartime effects within our economy: the Decree on the Provisional Safeguarding of the German People's Vital Needs of August 27, 1939, and the War Economy Decree of September 4, 1939. Consequently, war finance in Germany no longer had to perform a steering function—as was the case in England, for example—but merely had to raise the funds required for waging war. Raising the funds themselves was, of course, not a problem, as the state could procure the necessary resources in any event; the decisive factor was simply the method of raising them. For this reason, the state levies war taxes primarily on income and only secondarily on consumption—specifically, solely on the consumption of luxury goods. Beyond fiscal considerations, these war taxes are also indispensable from an economic standpoint: by siphoning off excess purchasing power, they curb non-essential consumption, thereby facilitating the management and equitable distribution of consumer goods. Our people’s struggle for survival demands sacrifices. The German economy is prepared to make this sacrifice; it also recognizes that wartime leaves no room for a fundamental restructuring of our tax legislation, even if such a process entails certain hardships. However, regarding all tax-related measures, it was essential to ensure that the productive capacity of the national economy and the individual citizen's willingness to save were both preserved. Under the protection of a rigorous wage and price policy—and with the assurance that the currency and purchasing power remained secure—the German people could focus on their most important task: work. Work had always been the watchword for the German economy; indeed, as State Secretary Landfried emphasized, it was no exaggeration to say that, in wartime, productivity was a factor that would decide the outcome of the war.

The development and utilization of our domestic raw material sources to achieve raw-material independence is one of the principles of National Socialist economic policy, which retains its validity during and after the war.

Source: "Kriegswirtschaft ist planvoller Höchsteinsatz der Volkswirtschaft" Der Führer: das Hauptorgan der NSDAP Gau Baden; der badische Staatsanzeiger 08.01.1941 p.6 𝔊𝔬𝔱𝔱𝔤𝔩ä𝔲𝔟𝔦𝔤𝔨𝔢𝔦𝔱

𝐎𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐍𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐚𝐥 𝐒𝐨𝐜𝐢𝐚𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐭 𝐄𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐨𝐦𝐲 ＰＡＲＴ （１／３） An important topic which is not much talked about in depth is the economy in National Socialism. In this thread we will be going over how it functioned and formulated via primary sources. The economy is boiled down to: Productive national economy free from dependence on international finance, with employment, national self-sufficiency, and cooperation replacing class conflict, utilizing property to achieve the aims of the state along with mass nationalization to make a symbiotic financial system. In other words, True Socialism, not Marxism. Gottfried Feder wrote and published an article in 1931 in the official NSDAP newspaper "Der Führer" titled "Fundamentals of National Socialist Economic Policy":

The primary task of the national economy as a whole is to adequately meet the three fundamental needs of all members of the nation—food, housing, and clothing—and, beyond that, to satisfy all cultural and civilizational needs in accordance with the prevailing level of technology and income conditions. The economy as a whole is a serving component within the total organism of the nation; in the best sense, it is a service to the people for the greatness and welfare of the nation. A nation's economy is not an end in itself; it does not exist to enrich individual business leaders at the expense of their officials, salaried employees, and workers, nor—even less—does it exist to serve as an object of exploitation for international high finance.

During the era of liberalism, the organic management of the economy was dismantled, and a fierce power struggle developed between the state and the economic sector. This power struggle can lead to one of two outcomes: either purely materialist-capitalist interests triumph over the state—and thus over the population—through policies driven by interest and usury; or political authorities seize control of the entire economic apparatus—as in socialism—whereupon the state itself transforms into an economic machine, sinking to the level of an institution of forced labor, as seen in Russia. National Socialism unequivocally assigns the state primacy over the economy; for the state—as the representative and guardian of the nation’s power, honor, and prestige, and as the expander of the Reich—must not engage directly in productive economic activity. To do so would risk entangling it all too quickly in the vested interests of specific economic sectors, thereby compromising its ability to freely safeguard the common good. Consequently, regarding the relationship between state and economy, two principles arise: first, the state’s right to oversee the economy; and second, the state’s right to intervene—through police, administrative, and fiscal (tax) measures—whenever the overarching interests of the state so require. [...] National Socialism recognizes private property in principle and places it under state protection. However, it ties the right of ownership to moral obligations toward the national community. National Socialism also recognizes the right of inheritance, as it regards the family as the most important unit of the state.

[...] a new development in economic life has emerged: the so-called economic chambers. These are composed of independent men who have a genuine personal interest in the economy or whose livelihoods depend upon it. The task of these economic chambers is to examine and monitor the significance of individual economic sectors, acting in the spirit and service of the public interest. A particularly important function of these chambers will be the cultivation of the domestic market and the careful supervision of foreign trade. The economic chambers are united within the Reich Economic Council, which safeguards the general interests of the entire nation against the special demands and interests of individual economic sectors.

Source: "Grundsätzliches über nationalsozialistische Wirtschaftspolitik" Der Führer: das Hauptorgan der NSDAP Gau Baden; der badische Staatsanzeiger, Kapital und Arbeit 02.08.1931 p.1 𝔊𝔬𝔱𝔱𝔤𝔩ä𝔲𝔟𝔦𝔤𝔨𝔢𝔦𝔱

𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐢𝐦𝐩𝐫𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐨𝐟 𝐥𝐢𝐯𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐧𝐝𝐚𝐫𝐝𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐫𝐨𝐮𝐠𝐡 𝐍𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐚𝐥 𝐒𝐨𝐜𝐢𝐚𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐦 The book "Das Danken Wir Dem Führer" contains a comprehensive list of what exactly was improved for the everyday German. Perhaps we as National Socialists must take note of the Third Reich's successes to establish why it was so great. Purely based off of the contents of the book, it lists these as the NSDAP's accomplishments: Unemployment Elimination

By the end of 1933, two million more Germans had bread again. By September 1936, the number of unemployed had already fallen below one million. In 1937, unemployment was finally eliminated, and now the focus shifted to the workforce needed to tackle the great tasks still to be accomplished. A shortage of work became a shortage of workers!

Worker Income Increase

The increase in total national income by approximately 23 billion Reichsmarks is almost as high as the total income from wages and salaries in 1933, which amounted to around 26 billion Reichsmarks and was expected to rise to 38 billion Reichsmarks by 1937. The total income of German workers increased by a full 70 percent.

Birth Rate

The fundamental change that took place here finds clear expression in the rising birth rate of the German people. While only 993,000 children saw the light of day in 1932, around 6 million children were born to the German people between 1933 and 1937. This increase in births by almost 1.26 million corresponds to the entire population of Germany's third-largest city, Hamburg! But it is not the birth rate alone that gives us the right to look to the future with pride and confidence. Even more important is the fact that this youth is growing up in health, strength, and joy of life The reproduction of all those with hereditary illnesses and those deemed inferior, which represented an unspeakably heavy burden for all healthy working people, has been prevented. However, in the new Germany, everything humanly possible is being done for the genetically healthy youth to raise a strong generation.

Housing Construction

As early as 1933, housing construction, with a particular focus on small and medium-sized apartments for the less affluent, rose to over 178,000 units. This number increased year after year, so that by 1937, with 340,000 apartments built, more than double the number constructed in 1932. Overall, since 1933, National Socialism has provided the German people with over 1.4 million new, and above all, healthy and affordable apartments; this is such a large number that all households in the city of Berlin could be housed in these apartments.

Food Consumption

An irrefutable testament to the rising prosperity of the German people is the sharp increase in personal consumption of food and luxury goods of all kinds. While in pre-war Germany only slightly more than 2.9 million tons of meat were consumed in 1913, consumption had risen to around 3.7 million tons by 1937, an increase of 5% compared to 1932. Thanks to the elimination of unemployment and rising incomes, the consumption of bread grains also increased by 10% between 1932 and 1937, and that of sugar even by 15%. Butter consumption rose from 420,000 to nearly 519,000 tons. In 1932, 23.5 billion liters of drinking milk, as well as milk processed into butter and cheese, were consumed, compared to around 25.4 billion liters in 1937.

All of which was listed in the NSDAP's accomplishments as proven by their own given statistics is exactly what we must strive for in government policy. The common good before the individual. Source: Das danken wir dem Führer, Berlin, 1938 p. 5, p.6, p.7, p.9, p.12 𝔊𝔬𝔱𝔱𝔤𝔩ä𝔲𝔟𝔦𝔤𝔨𝔢𝔦𝔱

This is a mirror of Florian Geyer’s National Socialist Literature Archive. The translations are Geyer’s work unless otherwise stated. The source of these PDFs is Geyer’s Internet Archive page. You can find his Twitter announcement thread here. His Substack is here. I am not Florian Geyer, nor are we properly acquainted. You can find him on Twitter if you have comments on his work. (Update: Florian is now a co-owner of the channel.) The texts are presented in the same order that Geyer originally uploaded them in. Where available, I’ve added authors and publication dates to the file names. A few of the PDFs are in German — I’ve added “_GERMAN” to the titles of these.