Evening star., 1940-10-20
Nazi Labor Reduced to SerfdOm
Slowly by Persistent DEGREES
DR.. Hamburger Traces Steps by Which All
Wage Farmers Lost Their Freedom in
Hiters Intense Nationaism
By Raymond p. Brandt.

shortage of farm labor. AS the increased
military forces and the public works pro-
grams decreased the unemployment rolls,
shortages of skilled workers developed in
the metal industries and the building
trades. The young farm laborers, at
tracted by urban jobs, began drifting to
the cities To halt this drift and to make
increase the German food supply, Hitler
passed the law for the discharge of for
mer agricultural workers.
The farm aids drawn from the city,"
DR.. Hamburger explains, were not yet
conscriptS, for enrolment was voluntary.
1t is true that if the young urban un-
employed refused the position offered on
a farm he might lose his claim to un-
employment benefits or relief; but no
physical coercion was applied
The next restriction applied to geo.
graphical movements only. BY decree,
it became illegal after January, 1885. for
public as well as private business to hire
skilled metal workers resident outside
the district of their original employment
office, unless special leave had been Sc
cured. This was not restriction against
entering certain areas it was prohibi-
ton against leaving certain areas. Less
| than two years later, this decree was
| extended to cover unskilled metal
workers and related groups of employees.
The system of special leave not merely
checked the mobility of labor, it gave the
government power, within limits, to di-
rect labor to such employment as the
| governmental officials decided to be of
national Importance.
Gains Control of Youth.
AS early as August, 1884, Hitler for
bade the hiring of persons as workers
or salaried employees male or female)
below the age of 25, unless approval had
been obtained from the employment
| Office. Ostensibly this was for the bene-
fit of the elderly employed; the decree
actually gave the Nazis control over the
lives of millions of young people in their
formative years. Most of these young
people went into labor camps, to farms
and into the fighting forces
BY March, 1888, Hitler was able to
issue another decree ordering parents or
guardians to report to the employment
Office the names of all young people leav-
ing primary or secondary schools. This
order was retroactive to January l, 1884.
The decree empowered the employment
Office to order the young to report in
person and with the monopoly of voca-
tlonal guidance it was able to direct vir-
tually the entire youth of the country.
vocational training was made COM
pulsory in 1887, and, according to DR..
Hamburger, will certainly bear fruit for
some time to come because in Germany
there will be no lack of skilled men to
make guns, planes and ships and to
build workshops and factories"
Under the industrial conscription law
OF 1888, the Economics Minister had
been empowered to send any person to
work at any place he chose to assign
them for specified period not to exceed
six months or to undergo a course of
vocational training
1888 Law Tightens Control.
This tightened the screws on all
workers. BY 1888. before an employe
could change jobs he had to get two per-
missions: By the employment office in
charge of the employer whom the
worker wanted to leave as we'll as by the
Office in charge of the employer to whom
the worker wanted to go. By this decree,
according TO DR.. Hamburger, the modern
German worker had become the indus
trial equivalent of the medieval bonds
man.
The Nazi government made it a GRIM
lnal offense for the worker to quit his
place of work without permission of the
employment authorities. Sentences
ranging from two to eight months i'm
prisonment have been by no means
rare, he said.
Actual war brought the ultimate in
control with only vague fctions regard
ing freedom of employers and employees.
BY decree of September l, 1899, the
prohibitions to hire and release, except
by permission of the employment office,
was extended over all enterprises, busi-
/ nesses, administration ETC., both private
and public, as well as over all workers,
salaried employees. apprentices and all
persons working without wage or salary.
Dr. Hamburger doubts that peace will
bring substantial restoration of the Ger
man workers freedom. He predicts that
some of the rigors Of the system will
be modified, but adds that the suppress
sion of this freedom is only part of the
regimentation of the nation as a whole,
| a RECOMMENDATION based on fundamental
philosophy of which war itself is mere
incident.