The traditional day of the international labor movement, May 1, was declared a public holiday by the National Socialist regime after the SPD in the Weimar Republic had always renounced it out of consideration for the bourgeois coalition partners. On April 17, Goebbels wrote in his diary of an agreement with Hitler: "May 1, we will make a grand demonstration of German popular will." The union houses will be occupied on May 2. Gleichschaltung also in this area Give a couple of days of noise, but then they are ours and one should not be in any respect for that. […] If the unions are in our hands, then the other parties and organizations will not be able to last much longer either. "
That's exactly how it should be. The alternation of lure and threat could not have been more cynical. It had devised a dual strategy, which should cause confusion and break the resistance. The ADGB leadership said they would not stand aside on such a "day of national work" and called for participation on 19 April. Goebbels called with pathetic slogans on 1 May: "Honor the work and respect the worker! […] Wreath your houses and the streets of the towns and villages with fresh green and the colors of the empire […] Germans of all Stands, tribes and professions, hold your hands! Closed, we march into the new time. "
At the same time, a "secret action committee for the protection of German work" was formed under the direction of the head of the political organization of the NSDAP, Robert Ley, and the NSBO man Reinhold Muchow, in order to prepare the decisive strike for the 2nd of May. "Carrying the action should be the NSBO SA or SS must be used to fill the trade union houses and the protective custody of the persons in question … The takeover of the free trade unions must take place in a form that the worker and Employees are given the feeling that this action is not directed against him, but against an outdated and incompatible with the interests of the German nation system. " That aimed to separate the organized workforce from the cohesion and protection of their associations in order to be able to dispose of them more easily. For the works council elections, which had started in March 1933, had brought the NSBO an increase in votes, but no majority, so that an internal seizure of power within the working-class movement could not be achieved.
On May 1, the workers actually marched in line with those who had previously been hostile to them. At a mass rally on the Tempelhofer Feld in Berlin, Hitler spoke of the "national community" to which the "national state" would educate, and of the "upliftment" of the people over "classes, estates and individual interests". This and the promise to "refine the concept of work" appealed to feelings and expectations shared by many without being National Socialists.
The other no less characteristic side of National Socialist social policy became evident the following day in the party and SA actions against the ADGB. Everything went wild: union houses, offices, banks, and editorial offices of the free unions were seized, all assets confiscated, and a number of leading trade unionists put in "protective custody," including ADGB chairman Leipart. The mass of union workers were offered the opportunity to continue working under the leadership of NSBO commissioners. The demonstration of power on May 2 brought the other unions to an organizational end. In the following days, the liberal "Hirsch-Dunkerschen Gewerkschaften" and the member-strong "Deutschnationale Handlungsgehilfen-Verband" submit
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