German Labour Front membership book

Accession No: 2024.04.002

Status: Permanent Collection

Obverse of the Deutsche Arbeitsfront (DAF) Mitgliedsbuch

Article Profile

Classification: Documents

Era: Second World War (1939-1945)

Maker: Zentralverlag der NSDAP (Central Publishing House of the Nazi Party)

Dimensions: 15.1cm x 10.5cm

Historical Significance

This is a membership book for the German Labour Front, which was the state-run labour organisation in Nazi Germany. The DAF was known to control and track the German civilian workforce, and the booklet contained various information including the personal identification details of the worker, their employment history and industrial skills, and pages which were designated for pasting the colourful, official stamps shown in the Technical Gallery which existed to prove monthly payment of union membership dues.

The DAF was not a traditional trade union that focused on worker rights, but was instead a tool of state control designed to eliminate class conflict, to keep wages low, and to gear the entire workforce towards rapid militarisation and the eventual wartime production. Whilst the DAF was technically voluntary, non-members found that they were unable to secure employment, faced severe career stagnation or even found themselves inviting scrutiny from the Gestapo, the secret police. Furthermore, the membership dues funded the Strength Through Joy program, which controlled civilian leisure time by awarding people with sponsored vacations, concerts, and even a savings scheme for the early Volkswagen cars.

The exterior of the book features a marbled red cardstock pattern on both covers, with dark red fabric-reinforced bookbinding tape used to secure the pages. Only the front (shown above) displays the gold-stamped logo and it also shows his name.

Further details about some of the pages and the owner, can be found in the technical gallery below.

Technical Gallery and Further Images

The reverse of the membership book

This shows the opening title pages of the membership book, featuring the official DAF branding and a quote from Adolf Hitler.

The left page reads:

A person may be active wherever they should be, but they must never forget that the nation only lives through the work of all.

The right page features the title and slogan of the German Labour Front. The Emblem depicts the DAF mobile swastika inside a 14-toothed cogwheel. The slogan reads:

Work is creation, work is discipline!

The text on the left reads:

Never must we judge people by the type of work they do, but only by their performance at the workplace where they stand. We must have respect for all work, respect for every person carrying out this work.

The right page details the owner's Worker Indentification:

Name: Karl Hundt

Profession: Mechanic

DoB: 23rd November, 1917

Place of Birth: Siegen

Joined (as in entering the organisation): 1st September, 1934

Regional District: Westphalia-South

Administrative Branch: 23 Siegen

Dues Start Date: Contribution payments in this booklet began on the 10th Contribution week of the year 1936.

Printed Signature: Dr. R. Ley (meaning Robert Ley, the head of the DAF)

The left page is heded "Zur besonderen Beachtung", which means "For Special Attention" and details the strict rules regarding the book:

Ownership: The book remains the legal property of the DAF, rather than the worker.

Validity: The book is invalid without the owner's signature.

Stamps: Contribution stamps must be pasted in immediately. A lost stamp will not be replaced as the pasted stamp acts as the only valid receipt of payment.

Penalties: "Dishonourable behaviour" towards the national community will result in immediate expulsion and the loss of all accumulated benefits.

On the right page (Page 5), his previous work history is shown:

Former Association: It says "Dtsch. Met. Arb. Verb." which refers to the German Metalworkers' Union.

Dates: He was a member of the Metalworkers' Union from 16th July 1933 until August 31st, 1934.

Workplace Category: This is listed under "Reichsbetreibsgemeinschaft", and says that he was assigned to Sector 6, "Eisen und Metall", meaning Iron and Metal, in the Siegen area.

At the bottom, we can see Karl's signature written by his own hand, making the book (according to the rules above) valid.

There is a stamp and two ink seals on this page, they mean:

The Red Stamp is a 50-Pfennig Arbeitsopfer, otherwise known as a Labour Sacrifice, which was a contribution or a tax stamp, as seen on the lower left.

The Ink Seals were "cancelled", meaning that the stamp is permanently marked with ink so that it can't be peeled off and used again.

This is pages 12 and 13 of the book.

Page 12 is empty, however has repeating sections labeled "Anzahl der minderjahrigen Kinder", meaning Number of minor children. These fields were designed to register any underage children that the owner supported, which would have been verified against their Steuerkarte, an official tax card. Because Mr. Hundt was only around 16-18 between the timeframe of the early entries, these sections remain blank.

Page 13 contains a summary of contributions:

The section serves as a summary for previous payments, and tracks his dues from when he first joined the organisation until he was issued this book in 1936.

Dates: At the top of the page, it states that until the 9th week of 1936, 137 weekly contributions were pasted into his records. The records also show his contributions officially track back to the 29th week of 1933.

Below that is a breakdown of how many stamps were bought and the different rates in Reichsmarks:

60 stamps were bought at the 0.20 RM rate.
34 stamps were bought at the 0.15 RM rate.
39 stamps were bought at the 0.30 RM rate.
4 stamps were bought at the 0.75 RM rate.

It also says that the summary was finalised in Berlin on 23rd April, 1936.

We can also see at the bottom a unique identification number (6637265) which would have been used for tracking any financial or social assistance that he may have received from the state.

These are pages 18 and 19 of the book, and they show the weekly contribution stamps from 1940 and 1941.

On Page 18, we can see 12 monthly rows of stamps, each displaying the DAF cogwheel logo. Each stamp also features different colours, each including machine-printed green ink showing the membership card number (3357), the exact month and the year that they were stamped. For example, the march stamp reads:

3357 30 III. 40

These were stamped on to, again, "cancel" them so that they could not be reused.

Page 19 shows us the same, however this is for 1941. For example, the July stamp reads:

3357. 30 VII. 41

You will notice that there are boxes for other weeks. Some people preferred to simply pay for a monthly stamp (as seen above) which meant that they did not need to pay for stamps every week.

Select References & Further Reading:

The Wiener Holocaust Library. Deustche Arbeitsfront: Papers (microfilm).
Imperial War Museum. DAF (Deutsche Arbeitsfront) Membership Book (Catalogue Number: Documents.25483)
The Avalon Project (Yale Law School). Nazi Conspiracy and Aggression Volume IV - Document 2271-PS.
Office of the Historian. Foreign Relations of the United States, 1933, Volume II.
Tooze, Adam. The Wages of Destruction: The Making and Breaking of the Nazi Economy. Allen Lane.
Evans, Richard J. The Third Reich in Power. Penguin Press.
Freeman, Michael. Atlas of Nazi Germany, 2nd edition. Routledge.
Grunberger, Richard. A Social History of the Third Reich. Weidenfeld & Nicolson.
Baranowski, Shelley. Strength Through Joy: Consumerism and Mass Tourism in the Third Reich. Cambridge University Press

Header image: American troops approaching Omaha Beach on Normandy Beach, D-Day. Photographer Unknown; 1944. Image sourced via Public Domain.

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