WORLD'S BIGGEST 'UNION'

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LXIII, Issue 19104, 27 August 1936, Page 14

WORLD'S BIGGEST 'UNION'

"j qeeman workers • Making life happy '";. , ordered joy BERLIN, July 10. Tho Nazi party, enrolling 25,000,000 men find >vomcn in the Nazi labour front, claimed to-day to.be the world's biggest, '/union." . . Membership is compulsory for all German workers, employees and employers. And since the organisation has nrr estimated revenue of nearly 1,000,000,000 mark* (£SO,000,000) annually, it is regarded as the National Socialist Party 's most powerful and self-sustaining propaganda apparatus. This "Arboitsfront" is the sole successor of the former Marxist, Nation alistic and party confessional trade unions and employers' associations as well, all of which were wiped out When the Nazis. " legally confiscated' their estimates " by an ""all-embracing pfbcess.of. "glieehsehaltung"—or coordination under pressure. FINANCIAL BACKBONE OF ARMS ;; J PROGRAMME. For some time' it was rumoured persistently, not only in foreign circles, that- tremendous sums from the vast income of the " Arbe'itsfront" probably were the financial backbone of Reiehsfuehrer Hitler"V rearmament programme. That, however, was denied officially. Since a strike is regarded as "high treason.and would be treated accordingly, and " salary increase's n,ow are impossible," according to Robert Ley, stout little leader of the organisation, the Labour Front; has turne< its efforts toward "beautifying life" for its members. It tries to do this by a special set up called "power through joy." The construction of five giant beach resorts, on the North Sea and the Baltic at a! cost of about 250,000,000 marks (£20.000,000) now is one of the main points of the programme. Under the slogan, "enjoy your life," the power through joy formation also is selling mass vacation travel to a multitude of its members. MORE PLEASURE SHIPS PLANNED. For several years the organisation has been sending its small fleet of three ocean-going steam-ships to the Canary Islands and the Scandinaviav coast. Thirty more ships are planned to enlarge the fleet. The organisation a]so plans beautification of German hamlets and villages, "t.o make life more agreeable for the German farmer." It owns a number of theatres and offers courses in professional education and sport, besides subsidising construction of cottages for tlte labour serviceand automobile road building.*