Ley, Robert

Wir alle helfen dem Führer: Deutschland braucht jeden Deutschen [We All Help the Führer: Germany Needs Every German]

Munich: Zentralverlag der NSDAP, Franz Eher Nachf. 1937. A collection of speeches and essays by Robert Ley (1890–1945), Reich Organization Leader of the Nazi Party and head of the German Labor Front (Deutsche Arbeitsfront), the vast state-controlled labor organization established following the destruction of Germany's independent trade unions in 1933. Ley was also responsible for the Kraft durch Freude (Strength Through Joy) program, which organized recreational, cultural, and travel activities as instruments of Nazi social policy and political indoctrination.

Organized into five sections, the volume expounds Ley's vision of National Socialist society, emphasizing absolute loyalty to Hitler, racial ideology, vocational education, political leadership, and the subordination of individual interests to the Nazi state. Individual chapters address the ideological superiority of National Socialism over Bolshevism, the training of future Nazi leaders at the Ordensburgen, the organization of German workers and craftsmen, and the role of leisure and collective enjoyment in forging national unity. Particularly revealing are Ley's discussions of the German Labor Front and his presentation of Nazism as a movement capable of transcending class divisions while binding workers to the regime.

12mo. Blue cloth boards stamped in silver to the front board and spine, top edge blue, 230 pp., [1] pp. adverts in rear; photo frontispiece depicting Ley with Hitler, 13 photographic plates. In German, Fraktur typeface. A near fine copy in the original pictorial dust jacket featuring a portrait of Ley and a photographic montage of uniformed Nazi Party members. Dust jacket is slightly rubbed and edgeworn with a small gouge to the rear panel. Item #15438

Price: $75.00