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NC Gemeinschaft Kraft durch Freude (German for 'Strength Through Joy'; KdF) 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 November 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 poor increases 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.KdF was composed of several departments with their own specific goals, with each department organizing different leisure activities. It organized activities such as sporting events on factory floors, art exhibitions, discounted concerts and, most famously and popularly, subsidized holidays and cruise trips. One of its largest departments, although sometimes considered a separate organization altogether, was Beauty of Labour, which concerned itself with physical and sanitary improvements of the workplace. KdF was responsible for the improvement of several factories and sports facilities throughout its operations in the 1930s.
KdF was supposed to bridge the class divide by making middle-class leisure activities available to the masses. It also sought to bolster the German tourist industry, something it did successfully up until the outbreak of World War II. Official statistics showed that in 1934, 2.3 million people took KdF holidays. By 1938, this figure rose to 10.3 million. With the outbreak of war in 1939, most of the organization's programs were suspended and several projects, such as the Prora holiday resort, were never completed.Organization
On November 27, 1933, Strength through Joy was announced by Robert Ley as a subset of the German Labour Front whose goal was to provide Germans with access to once-privileged leisure activities such as cruises and the ownership of motorcars. The government feared that increasing wages would dampen the rearmament process and decided to raise living standards differently to influence the opinion of Nazism, and paid for the program by taking deductions from workers' wages. By providing these luxuries, the government hoped that class divisions would be bridged leading to the building of a 'people's community,' and that a common national consciousness would end class conflict and enable all classes to work together for the greater benefit of the nation. A key feature of the people's community was the overall good physical health of the German people, in order to produce a population fit for military service. In addition, it was believed that if workers were given sufficient leisure time and provided with cleaner workplaces morale and productivity would increase, aspects needed of the working class for the rearmament. It initially was intended to focus on the control evening and weekend leisure time, but after positive reception of KdF train trips tourism became an important priority.Departments
KdF had a number of individual departments. The Beauty of Labour (Schönheit der Arbeit) department was devoted to improvements in the workplace, from general hygiene to reduction of sound pollution. Other departments included the Sports Office (Sportamt), Adult Education Office (Volksbildungswerk), Leisure Time Office (Amt Feierabend), the Office for Folklore and Homeland (Amt für Volkstum und Heimat), and the Office for Travel, Hiking, and Holidays (Amt Reisen, Wandern, und Urlaub).
The Sports Office organized tennis, skiing, and likewise sports that the working class were previously unable to partake in. Its main concerns were in building 'everyday joy' and improving the health of the masses, and KdF took a keen interest in building the physicality and bodily strength of the German population. Physical education classes and gymnastic events were scheduled on weekends and after working hours, but also included skiing and hiking trips. It also encouraged workers to partake in physical exercise and sports, encouraging employers to provide access to facilities and equipment during work hours and after hours.
The Adult Education Office was headed by Fritz Leutloff. Its goal was to educate Germans on cultural and artistic topics. 'Popular education' programs had been taken over when the government began imposing Gleichschaltung, but the programs offered by the Adult Education Office were not centralized by KdF until 1936 when the Reichskulturkammer and KdF began stern cooperation. Plans had been proposed by 1939 to designate KdF as a chamber of culture, but ultimately fell through due to backlash from Alfred Rosenberg and Rudolf Hess.
The Leisure Time Office enabled workers to attend theatres and concerts by organizing local events and offering discounted tickets. It also organized concerts and events to take place in factories. As the Adult Education Office focused more on propaganda and refined education, the Leisure Time Office was more concerned with the recreational aspects of spare time.
The largest and most profitable department was the Office for Travel, Hiking, and Holidays, headed by Bodo Lafferentz. Organizing both domestic and international excursions, for the first time workers were able to travel at length. This was achieved by offering discounts on travel and tour packages, sending thousands of Germans on holidays before 1939.
The Office for Folklore and Homeland was tasked with organizing smaller Nazi organizations that promoted the 'folklore' and the idea of Lebensraum, but was dissolved in 1934.At home and abroad
The Sports Office organized several sports events and classes throughout the operation of KdF. In the summer months, activities such as horse riding, sailing, and swimming were offered with KdF emphasizing track and 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 were mostly unsalaried schoolteachers, taught exercise and sports classes. KdF would use local school gymnasiums or meeting halls and offer courses people could attend 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 covered 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.  This was intended to focus the course on the production of joy and improvement of the population's health. Another reason for it 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, called Theaterzüge, 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 Reichsbahn (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 Nazis, 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.
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