Talk:Arbeit macht frei

Rudolf Höss
I think that Rudolf Höss wrote this slogan who had himself been detained in prison and was (initially) sincere about it: he found the work that he did liberating when he was detained. Andries 10:41, 27 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Note: In the concentration camps:

ARBEIT MACHT TODT.

ARBEIT MACHT TODT.

ARBEIT MACHT TODT.

ARBEIT MACHT TODT.

Sorry, couldn't help it.... Work certainly killed in the camps.... &mdash; Rickyrab | Talk 03:33, 15 Apr 2005 (UTC)

If you are going to post puerile bad taste rubbish like this at least spell correctly Vauxhall1964 (talk) 21:19, 10 November 2008 (UTC)


 * Hess wasn't known for being the most mentally stable individual. Remember his little plane crash in Britain?  Perhaps he was simply so unhinged he didn't treat the plight of the Jews with the seriousness it deserved. Kade 04:43, 17 November 2005 (UTC)


 * that was a different nazi. it confuses many, but Rudolf_Höss and Rudolf_Hess were totally different guys.  Cramyourspam (talk) 02:30, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

Origin of the term
A discussion about origin of the term can be found on soc.history.war-world-war-ii at. (Especially Andrew Clark is highly knowledgeable expert) Article was updated with some information shown there. Pavel Vozenilek 20:16, 7 September 2005 (UTC)


 * This is a poor source. According to the "highly knowledgeable expert" Clark this information should be contained in "standard Holocaust histories" by Benno Müller-Hill, Richard Breitman and Christopher Browning, but without title or page, and I couldn't find anything about the origin of the term in the works of these authors (e.g., , , , ). Therefore, I remove this assertion about the "Weimar government" (btw: the government was residing in Berlin, just the German Reich in this period is also called the "Weimar Republic"). --84.130.166.90 (talk) 23:03, 29 May 2015 (UTC)


 * What most people do not know is that it originates from Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit and its master-slave dialectic. The slave frees himself through work, thus the modern world is born.It was only later perverted by the Nazis--Arado 12:27, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

because today somebody stolen the letters on gate A/I. of AMF ; again necessary to discuss of the meaning these words:

the Hegel's phenomenology discussion by Arado the correct way to understand the meaning. BUT i rode somewhere, originally these(!) Lagers used the R.A.D. (the "Spaten Brigade") and the workers of the "New Germany of 1935" the 'Arbeit Dienst' means: EVERYBODY must works together for a new State. so that's why use the Hegel terminology for the WORKING people... later combined the words with "another" meaning ! Vaterdingo (talk) 13:21, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

Minor vandalism
152.163.100.8 has been changing dates hundreds of years backwards and forwards, changing locations and changing or misspelling words. I've removed the damage (as 82.44.102.209 sinceI hadn't logged in at that point), but keep an eye out. --Cruci 12:42, 25 October 2005 (UTC)

Upside Down B
I know that in the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington D.C., they make a point of mentioning that the "b" in the Auschwitz sign is written upside down (i.e. in the font used, the top loop of the B should be smaller, but in actuallity it was larger). It is a noticeable feature of the sign once pointed out, and the explanation given is that when the sign was cast, the B was purposely made upside down to sort of nix the notion that "work makes free"...sort of like crossing your fingers when you promise something. (deathcamps.org/websites/pic/big1401%20KL%20Auschwitz%20Work%20makes%20free%20Arbeit%20macht%20frei%201945.jpg) here is an image of the sign, it's pretty easy to pick out the "upside down b." This always sticks in my mind when i think of the gate, but i'm not sure if its really all that notable, or even where to put it on in the article. Thoughts? jfg284 you were saying? 16:17, 8 December 2005 (UTC)


 * It looks to me like it is just a result of how the sign was made, by making the 'B' upside down it uses the same upper and side part as 'P' and 'R' --Lehk 19:02, 5 October 2006 (UTC)


 * In the German Wikipedia you can read the following: Former prisoners of Auschwitz report that the inverted "B" is a secret protest. The prisoner Jan Liwacz was a metal worker who was forced to work for the SS and also to create this sign. So the "B" was his secret protest.--Heinecke (talk) 20:12, 5 June 2008 (UTC)


 * This claim seems highly dubious. I can't find any reliable sources about it (the BBC article just says "it is believed", and nor does the International Auschwitz Committee article cite any source).  Since the blacksmith was Polish, and lots of Polish typography from the era used an upside-down B, this idea seems to be a sentimental fabrication that was dreamed up after the fact. Thurallor (talk) 21:20, 20 July 2021 (UTC)


 * Not much of a secret. He would have been shot? Martinevans123 (talk) 22:11, 20 July 2021 (UTC)

Shouldn't the Auschwitz sign appear here?
It's the first image that pops into my mind when I hear this phrase, and I'm sure I'm not the only one. It's the most obvious image for this article, I see no reason for it to be kept out.

John 8:32?
"It is probably derived from John 8:32 in The Bible, "the truth shall make you free""

IMO there's a problem with this etymology - it works far better in English than in German. In the Luther Bibel, John 8:32 reads "und ihr werdet die Wahrheit erkennen, und die Wahrheit wird euch frei machen." "Macht" and "frei" are there, admittedly, but in a different order and grammar, and they're such common words that the slogan could easily have come from a lot of less well-known places, or just been made up without any clear thought given to the passage in the Bible.

Can we get a citation for the John 8:32 claim? I did a quick Google, and while other people have considered the same thing, none look particularly authoritative. A search in German on www.google.de turned up absolutely nothing (3 non-related hits ), which I find more telling. On the surface, this etymology is an English invention. --Sam Blanning(talk) 23:05, 5 July 2006 (UTC)


 * It doesn't seem valid to assume 'truth' and 'work' can be treated as synonyms, does it? Do any respectable scholars say they are synonymous concepts? No, I didn't think so. --Squiddy | (squirt ink?)  23:18, 5 July 2006 (UTC)


 * I'm not sure where you're going with that. Do you believe that 'Arbeit macht frei' probably wasn't derived from John 8:32, or that it was? --Sam Blanning(talk) 23:57, 5 July 2006 (UTC)


 * I think it has no connection with John 8 - the context doesn't relate to work at all. Sorry if that wasn't clear. I don't know where it does come from, but I can't see how you could interpret John 8:13 as the source of this slogan. --Squiddy | (squirt ink?)  00:14, 6 July 2006 (UTC)


 * I think it arguably works in English - "the truth shall set you free" is the Bible passage, and "work shall set you free" is a translation occasionally used of "arbeit macht frei", and only the noun differs (whereas in German the word order and inflection of machen changes). I think that's why someone wrote it as such, but I don't think any Germans have ever noticed. --Sam Blanning(talk) 00:22, 6 July 2006 (UTC)


 * It's most likely not based on the bible. AFAIK it was a common phrase, just like "Jedem das seine" ("To each his own") until the nazis picked it up. The latter is still in use, though mostly sarcastically, outside the nazi context, though. &mdash; Ashmodai (talk &middot; contribs) 16:24, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

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Incredible today !!!

http://www.krisis.org/feierabend_f-schandl_verwesen-der-arbeit.html http://www.sfs-dortmund.de/aktuell/sfsfor1.html Wer nicht arbeitet, soll auch nicht essen, sagt man. Ora et labora. Arbeit macht frei. Arbeit, sagt man, macht erst das Leben süß« (Franzobel 1995, S. 27).

Franzobel (1995): Die Krautflut. Erzählung, Frankfurt/Main

Frydman Charles... Son of matricule 42030 (Auschwitz)

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Pronunciation
I think that adding the pronunciation of the sentence in IPA would be appropriate. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 200.227.159.13 (talk) 03:12, 14 December 2006 (UTC).


 * An audio recording, anyone? Thanks.Pristine 09:15, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

New Nazi Slogan with "Arbeit" in it Discovered
"Chret die Arbeit" (I think), see, I don't know what "chret" means and the Altavista translator is also clueless. 204.52.215.107 05:20, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

That's an E, not a C :) Making it "Ehret die Arbeit", "honor (the) work". --Brazzy 10:09, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

The word "seems" is not factual
The article states and quatoes reference 1 saying that Hoss "seems not to have intended it as a mockery, nor even to have intended it literally, as a false promise that those who worked to exhaustion would eventually be released, but rather as a kind of mystical declaration that self-sacrifice in the form of endless labor does in itself bring a kind of spiritual freedom."

This is not factual. It is an assumption on the part of the writer. The fact was there at the front gate and anyone who saw it would have been given a false sense of hope. To assume otherwise is self-delusion, and both the reference and that portion of the wiki should be deleted. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 58.136.170.53 (talk) 01:47, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

I really concur. While I acknowledge that viewpoints overly sympathetic to the Nazi's and to Anti-Semites are accepted by a minority, I think it is clear to all of us that they are wrong and that some issues we cannot be entirely neutral on.

Besides, this incidence seems poorly sited and of dubious source.

Ha, ha, then again, it is true that American users of Wikipedia live in a society where little concentration camps exist in every major city and some small ones in the form of "abortion clinics". We all know that those "camps" were for killing, not "camping". But somehow most of think that people and problems get "fixed" and "healed" at these "clinic". Perhaps we should start calling them "freedom camps" in line with our detached view of "murder" as "abortion", "simply the ending of the life of what is clearly not human".

What a piece of work humans are. And indeed, Wikipedia very often isn't much better.

Article reviews, anyone? Well-done, please.

Epigraphist (talk) 15:34, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

Carcass Reference
The song was actually originally titled Arbeit Macht Frei. This is seen on the disc of demos in the latest reissue of the Heartwork album...I'm not sure if it's worth including that but anyway.. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 125.254.115.6 (talk) 05:01, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

Ethical Spectacle Quote
The beginning of the Nazi Use section quotes http://www.spectacle.org/695/arbeit.html for why this slogan was put at the entrences of concentration camps. The quote is "He seems not to have intended it as a mockery, nor even to have intended it literally, as a false promise that those who worked to exhaustion would eventually be released, but rather as a kind of mystical declaration that self-sacrifice in the form of endless labor does in itself bring a kind of spiritual freedom."

Is this really encyclopedic? Isn't this someone's opinion about why the phrase was used (the statement begins with he seems)? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Lumarine (talk • contribs) 21:27, 25 August 2008 (UTC)
 * I moved the quote to the end of the article so that it is clear it is someone's opinion. Kitfoxxe (talk) 15:45, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

A Form of Anti-Semitism
According to the Nazi "theology" the Jews did not earn an honest living, preferring instead to enage in "parasitic" activities such as moneylending, financial speculation, etc. By requiring them to work in the concentration camps, they were given a chance to work for their bread, and thereby save their souls.

John Paul Parks (talk) 04:11, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

It wasn’t just NAZI anti-Jewish theology, was it? One could easily argue that it was indeed also Christian theology too over the centuries and I say that as someone born a Christian. The favorite pastime of a Christian of wealth was always to have his Jewish banker close to hand so he wouldn’t have to engage in the "awful" practice of interest gathering, yet still being in the position of benefiting from it. That’s just a theory of mine ongoing. I could be wrong. Of course today everybody charges interest for everything as they should. Money is not, nor will it ever be, something that is free…yet the unfair stigmatism remains.Worldneedsplastic (talk) 09:54, 9 April 2018 (UTC)

Article revision called For
I just read this article and it seems to me that it needs attention. In my mind, it's a little too clinical regarding places where millions of people where legally and institutionally murdered. It actually seems biased against Jews and for the Nazi's, which is unfortunate because this neither reflects the truth nor what the majority of Wikipedia readers believe about the Holocaust. Epigraphist (talk) 15:26, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

Veritas vos liberabit
There is a similar Christian saying that goes by the words Veritas vos liberabit, the truth will set you free. Although it is unclear whether this is somewhow related to the Auschwitz slogan, it would be a good idea if anybody could do some relevant research on a possible connection between the two. There is some indication that the original author of Arbeit macht frei, Rudolf Hoess, was brought up in a strict Catholic background, meaning that would have presumably heard of the original phrase found in the Gospel of John. ADM (talk) 07:29, 29 September 2009 (UTC)
 * He was not the original author, as the article explains. Kitfoxxe (talk) 15:43, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

Work or Labor?
Can the word Arbeit be translated as "labor" as well as "work"? If so I think "work liberates" in the intro should be changed to "labor liberates." I think I have heard it translated this way and to me it sounds more normal. (BTW there is nothing wrong with the idea that work makes free or labor liberates. It's just that the Nazi's put up some stupid signs. See: Occupational therapy for one article on the general concept.)Kitfoxxe (talk) 23:56, 4 October 2009 (UTC)
 * I'll go ahead and make the (minor) change. Kitfoxxe (talk) 15:05, 5 October 2009 (UTC)
 * 'Work' is better for various reasons. --John (talk) 15:10, 5 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Please explain. I will be able to understand and I sincerely wish to know. Thanks. Kitfoxxe (talk) 15:30, 5 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Sure. Work is better than labor because it means exactly the same thing, is one syllable shorter, and is a Germanic rather than a Latinate word. If there were a significant difference in meaning, or if there were many sources that used this translation, I might support using both. I don't think these conditions obtain though. --John (talk) 17:08, 5 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Thanks. Those are sound reasons, although I do see a slight difference in that "work" tends toward looking at the product while "labor" looks at the process. I was also trying to get the alliteration. (I just checked Google and "work liberates" has 10 times the hits. The second one for "labor liberates" was about childbirth. :-) So I guess I was wrong.)Kitfoxxe (talk) 21:01, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

Incorrect wording regarding Auschwitz sign
"The slogan can still be seen at several sites, including a replica that stood at the entrance to Auschwitz I until stolen." The replica wasn't stolen, the original was. Kaldari (talk) 21:47, 18 December 2009 (UTC)


 * ✅ Correct, Kaldari. I actually fixed it without reading your note here. But some editor has since added a new section about the theft which may be giving it too much weight. Though I suppose that some editors will be extremely upset by this theft. It is also an extremely historic artifact. I wonder if there have been any previous theft attempts? --220.101.28.25 (talk) 22:35, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

Sign Theft
I've added details about the signs' weight etc, to the section covering its theft, but they may be better added to the Auschwitz article instead, as this section may now be too much weighted to Auschwitz rather than Arbeit macht frei in general. --220.101.28.25 (talk) 13:09, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

Translation of the slogan: "Arbeit Macht Frei"
I am of german origin and have read about the theft of the "Arbeit macht frei" sign in Auschwitz in the BBCnews section and the Guardian newspaper. There I have read the translation of this sign as "work sets you free" or "work brings freedom", which is not correct. The slogan doesn´t mean cynical that there was a possibility to get freedom through intense work. The slogan means "corporal work brings spiritual liberty" in an Orwellian sense (George Orwell 25.06.1903 - 21.01.1950). It´s a kind of Orwellian newspeak. Therefore the best translation is the word-by-word translation of "Arbeit Macht Frei" in "Work Makes Free".

Translations: Work makes free = Arbeit macht frei, Labour liberates = Arbeit befreit, Work sets you free = Arbeit setzt dich frei, Work brings freedom = Arbeit bringt Freiheit.

M Belzer —Preceding unsigned comment added by MBelzer (talk • contribs) 19:25, 19 December 2009 (UTC)


 * There was some discussion of this issue above at John 8:32?. I can't argue with a speaker of the language. I think you can argue about the meaning of a sentence in any language. Even more so when you are trying to translate it! You may upset a few editors by altering this. You need to have cite/reference for just about everything. You may get reverted on that grounds alone. Unfortunately your opinion, however well founded, and even correct, doesn't really count on wikipedia. Verifiability does. And please use 4 tildes "~" or the sign button to sign you comment! Thanks --220.101.28.25 (talk) 19:43, 19 December 2009 (UTC)
 * It's also mentioned at Work or Labor? too. Good idea to read these before making what might be seen as a controversial change. You may jump into the middle of a long running controversy by making a 'minor' edit.--220.101.28.25 (talk) 19:51, 19 December 2009 (UTC)


 * "Work makes free" doesn't mean anything in English, so we shouldn't change it to that. "Work makes you free," "work sets you free," "work liberates," or "labour liberates"&mdash;any of these would do, and they incorporate the Orwellian sense that MBelzer refers to. SlimVirgin  TALK  contribs 00:47, 20 December 2009 (UTC)
 * I have not changed the two phrases ("Work makes free" and "Labour liberates"), but I have altered the wording to make clear that "Work makes free" is a word-to-word correspondence of the phrase in English, while "Labour liberates" is one of the possible translations. I don't think the phrase "literally translates as 'Work makes free'" was a good one, because "Work makes free" is a sequence of glosses, not a translation.  And "translate" is not an intransitive verb; a translation can exist only if somebody actively produces it. Lfh (talk) 13:15, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

MBelzer has a point, sort of. The German verb "macht" contains a lot more nuances than the English verb "makes". For example, German has: Normally such splitting hairs over the correct interpretation of a non-English phrase would make an article far too detailed, but this is about the phrase itself. Do we have a source endorsing or rejecting the translation "work is free" (or "work is freedom")? Or at least explicating a bit on such interpretations? Gabbe (talk) 13:00, 24 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Das macht nichts (literally That makes nothing but meaning "That's nothing"/"No matter"/"Never mind")
 * Liebe macht blind (literally Love makes blind but meaning "Love is blind")
 * [Etwas] macht Spaß (literally [Something] makes fun but meaning "[Something] is fun")


 * I raised this issue at the Reference Desk, and a translator provided the phrase "Work liberates", from the reputable source Encyclopedia of the Holocaust. That is currently the only translation for which we have an external reference.  I think it's important that anything we say about how to translate this phrase is backed up by actual usage among translators/historians.  Otherwise I fear that it will simply keep changing every five minutes, since there are numerous possibilities.


 * As you say, since this article is about the phrase itself, there is room for more than one translation, perhaps even for a whole section on it. But we should insist on using external sources. Lfh (talk) 14:30, 24 December 2009 (UTC)
 * I see a couple of the other references use "Work sets you free", although these are newspapers rather than academic publications and one doesn't know how they selected that translation. But I'll reference them for the time being. Lfh (talk) 14:37, 24 December 2009 (UTC)

Weimar 1928?
It states that the phrase was used about public works programmes from 1928. I would really like to find a primary source on this. Or a reliable secondary. Hexmaster (talk) 08:23, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

Arbeit Macht Frei durch den Schornstein
Currently, it is stated in the article that "Prisoners in Auschwitz ridiculed the German cynicism of the slogan by saying Arbeit Macht Frei durch den Schornstein (Work brings freedom through the chimney)". In German, however, "Arbeit Macht Frei durch den Schornstein" is bad German and doesn't really make much sense and the English translation doesn't really fit. Literally, I would translate: "Work Sets/Makes Free through the chimney". I wonder, if there are additional sources for the use of the sentence. 92.231.86.76 (talk) 18:28, 3 August 2011 (UTC)

Non-Instrumental Labor
Or 'labour with no productive purpose'. I think it's worth noting in the article that 'arbeit macht frei' also most likely had a malevolent sense of schadenfreude to it, as Germans found amusement in putting Jews to work for working's sake, as a form of torture. See Chapter 10 in 'Hitler's Willing Executioner's' by Daniel Goldhagen. 24.62.95.150 (talk) 02:23, 22 December 2011 (UTC)


 * Goldhagen is one of the worst authors you could cite on anything re: the Holocaust.Historian932 (talk) 18:32, 18 April 2015 (UTC)