Strength Through Joy
The Strength Through Joy program was designed to attract the working class – who had during the Weimar Republic been the power base of the Social Democrats and, to a lesser extent, the Communists – to the Nazi Party by offering numerous cultural events and mass tourism at affordable prices. They also presented an opportunity for the inculcation of Nazi ideology through constant indoctrination by propaganda. Founded in November 1933, in the year 1934, 400,000 people took Strength Through Joy package tours, a number which rose to 1.7 million by 1937, not to mention 7 million who availed themselves of weekend excursions and 1.6 million who participated in organized hikes.