User:ICWatter/Strength Through Joy

NC Gemeinschaft Kraft durch Freude (KdF; German for 'Strength Through Joy'), originally called Nach der Arbeit (After Work), was a German state-operated leisure organization in Nazi Germany. It was part of the German Labour Front (German: Deutsche Arbeitsfront), the national labour organization at that time. Set up in 1933 as a tool to promote the advantages of Nazism to the German people and internationally, while also being utilized to ease the process of the rearmament of Germany. It was also intended to compensate for the lack of an increase in wages and for the loss of trade union rights. Through its structure of organized events and promotion of propaganda, it was also intended to prevent dissident and anti-state behavior. By 1939, it had become the world's largest tourism operator.

At home and abroad
The Sports Office organized several different sports events and classes throughout the operation of KdF. In the summer months activities such as horse-riding, sailing, and swimming, among numerous others, were offered with KdF emphasizing track & field activities. Gymnastics became an increasingly popular sport for German women during this time. During the winter, KdF organized activities such as skiing, ice-skating, and 'winter hiking.' Most of its activities and events occurred on weekends, and its volunteers, who mostly consisted of unsalaried schoolteachers, taught exercise and sports classes. KdF would utilize local school gymnasiums or meeting halls and hold classes able to be attended without prior registration, known as 'open courses,' for the price of 30 pfennings per 90 minutes. 'Closed courses' required participants to register for the entire course, cost 80 pfennings per 90 minutes, and often comprised of more skilled sports such as boxing, golf, and rowing. Activities organized early in KdF's existence often deliberately left out competition, training, and expectations of high performance, instead intending to focus on the production of joy and improvement of the population's health. Another reason may have been that the government sought to prevent opposition between participating groups, and rather promote and encourage cooperation. In 1939, KdF was awarded the Olympic Cup by the International Olympic Committee.

The Leisure Time Office offered a variety of different activities and discounts for workers. Offering discounted ticket packages to theatres for films, musicals, and plays for workers in cities, KdF also organized events to occur in rural areas by utilizing buses equipped with film projectors and loudspeakers as well as organizing productions using mobile stages. With the approval of the propaganda ministry, the Great Theatre (Großes Schauspielhaus) in Berlin was renamed the 'Theatre of the People' (Theater des Volkes) and was established as the official theatre of KdF, with numerous other KdF theatres opening in major cities. The Adult Education Office similarly used these theatres for showings of propaganda films, as well as the film buses. Employing civilian performers as well as organizing performances of their own orchestras, by 1938 KdF had sponsored and offered ticket packages to performances such as As You Like It by William Shakespeare and Journey's End by R.C. Sherriff, but over time the performances would be replaced almost entirely by propagandistic pieces. Other notable performances included Wibbel the Tailor and The Land of Smiles. Following the declaration of total war, most musicians and performers utilized by the KdF were used for troop entertainment.

The Office for Travel, Hiking, and Holidays offered various discounted vacation trips, ranging in length from day and weekend trips to one week or upwards of three weeks. Taking travelers via rail and bus to their destinations, within Germany or its occupied and annexed territories, the office organized activities such as hiking trips and swimming excursions. In most destinations hotelkeepers and some local businesses saw increased profits thanks to the increasing number of tourists, as did the Deutsche Reichsban (German National Railway). Popular extended holiday destinations included the Alps, the Black Forest, and the coasts of the North Sea and Baltic Sea, but most of the trips booked were overnight or over a weekend. Two weeks after the Anschluss, when SS-Gruppenführer Josef Bürckel became Reichskommissar für die Wiedervereinigung ('Reich Commissioner for Reunification') as well as Gauleiter, the first five KdF trains with some 2,000 Austrian workers left for Passau, where they were ceremonially welcomed. While Bürckel announced that he did not expect all of the travelers to return as National Socialists, he did expect them to look him in the eyes and say, "I tried hard to understand you." Many KdF travelers complained of their trips, noting poor travel conditions, second-class treatment by locals and the KdF alike, and little free time, thanks to the regimentation of activities.

Most famously, the office also offered discounted cruise trips to German citizens. Although not initially planned to be a program offered by KdF, the initial successes of the cruises led to six large ships, including the MV Wilhelm Gustloff and the MV Goya, being built specifically for use by KdF while a further six were chartered. They were first ships to be built specifically for cruises, and did not have different classes of cabins. They were collectively known as the KdF fleet, with the MS Robert Ley being considered as its flagship. Through these cruises Nazism was promoted internationally, and KdF travelers therefore were expected to represent its positively by dressing modestly and behaving appropriately. Ship events included masquerades, political and educational lectures on subjects from the Nazi perspective, and events dedicated to displaying customs of individual German regions, such as shows of dance groups performing dances from their home regions. Drinking alcohol was prohibited, and the government planted spies on ships instructed to pose as passengers and monitor participants' behavior. Cruise trips were sometimes offered as prizes in KdF competitions, but were largely affordable. An eighteen-day trip to Madeira cost 120 Reichsmarks, the equivalent to about four weeks' average salary at the time, and a seven-day trip to Norway cost about 50 Reichsmarks. Although cruises were inexpensive, workers were often greatly underrepresented on these voyages, with most of KdF's cruise participants being from the middle class. Following Germany's invasion of the Soviet Union, tourism opportunities were suspended and the organization shifted to more domestic activities and troop entertainment; up until this point, KdF had sold more than 45 million package tours and excursions, totaling over 700,000 German travelers.

The Nazi government also sought to attract tourists from abroad, a task performed by Hermann Esser, one of the secretaries of the Ministerium für Volksaufklärung und Propaganda ('Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda'). A series of multilingual and colourful brochures, titled Deutschland, advertised Germany as a peaceful, idyllic and progressive country, on one occasion even portraying Joseph Goebbels grinning in an unlikely photo series of the Cologne carnival.

Wartime activities
KdF formed 'troop-care units' (Truppenbetreuung) in 1935, and after the invasion of Poland in 1939 the Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda created the 'Caring for the Troops' department of KdF, with Goebbels appointing Hans Hinkel as its head. The equivalent of the United States' USO, the troop-care units utilized portable stages and civilian performers such as musicians and actors, hiring them for up to 100 Reichsmarks per day. Many of the hired performers had little experience or were considered third-rate. By the end of 1941 it had become a massive program, as troop-care units had staged over 300,000 performances across every theater of war, including Africa. Hinkel described the units in official propaganda as equally essential as the Wehrmact, stating that soldiers and artists had a special bond through their allegiance to Hitler, and "an essential part of modern war and human leadership in National Socialist Greater Germany." Seeking also to ensure the heightened physical and mental health of troops, other forms of light KdF entertainment were made available such as art exhibitions and sports. Entertainment by troop-care units was not exclusive to the Wehrmact, as they were also tasked to put on shows for SS guards in concentration camps and 'Ethnic Germans' living in occupied territory.

Several KdF cruise ships were requisitioned into the Kriegsmarine and converted to serve as hospital ships. The Robert Ley was requisitioned in August 1939 and converted to serve as a hospital ship after only six months of operation. The ship would converted several times to serve different purposes throughout World War II and was bombed by the Royal Air Force in the port of Hamburg on 9 March, 1945 where the wreckage remained afloat until June 1947, when it was towed to the UK and scrapped. The MV Wilhelm Gustloff, requisitioned in September 1939, was designated as Lazarettschiff D and converted to serve as a hospital ship. In November 1940, medical equipment was removed from the ship and it was converted to serve as a floating barracks. Tasked with transporting civilians and military personnel during Operation Hannibal, the Lazarettschiff D was sunk on 30 January 1945 while returning to Germany from Prussia, killing an estimated 9,934. It was one of the deadliest maritime disasters in history.

Propaganda
An important propaganda tool in Nazi Germany was the radio, something that Goebbels realized and attempted to utilize. At his request, engineer Otto Greissing developed the 'people's receiver,' or 'people's radio' (Volksempfänger.) The original model was the VE301 and exhibited in August 1933 at the cost of 76 Reichsmarks, the equivalent to two weeks' average salary at the time. A cheaper model was later produced, the DKE38 (sometimes called the Goebbels-Schnauze – "Goebbels' snout" – by the German public) and was used as the base of KdF branded radio. Giving poor Germans access to this media for the first time, it cost 35 Reichsmarks and the option of paying with an installment plan was offered. Cheaply produced, these radios suffered from a short reception range, and it was deemed that as long as the radios could recieve Deutschlandsender and the local Reichssender. The radios were designed to be produced as cheaply as possible, and because the act of listening to non-German radio stations had become a criminal offense, it is speculated that the short reception range was a purposeful feature. Penalties ranged from fines and confiscation of radios to, particularly later in the war, sentencing to a concentration camp or capital punishment.

Being one of Nazi Germany's largest organizations, KdF was often featured in radio and newsreel propaganda. A number of films were produced to promote KdF, usually showing workers engaging in the many activities offered by the organization. One was produced by UFA titled Henkel - ein deutsches Werk in seiner Arbeit, which showcased the improved conditions of factories. Groups were shown engaging in calisthenics, going on walks through company grounds, and checking out books from the company library.