The German Labour Front (DAF) was the organization with the largest membership in the "Third Reich". Its goal was explicitly stated in a decree issued by Hitler on October 24, 1934: It was to be used to realize "the formation of a real community of the people and of achievement for all Germans". It therefore had to "ensure that each individual can take his place in the economic life of the nation in the mental and physical condition that enables him to achieve the highest performance and thus guarantees the greatest benefit for the national community".1 The DAF, which was founded in May 1933 as the successor to the trade unions that had been smashed by the National Socialists, did not only represent the interests of the employees organized in it; it also included employers and the self-employed. The DAF's main task was to promote the integration of the workforce into National Socialism, which is why it exercised far-reaching support and control measures. Individual membership was nominally voluntary.2 However, it was difficult to resist the social pressure to become a member, as there was the threat of disadvantages in terms of finding a job or housing, social insurance or vacation planning. At the same time, DAF membership served many who did not want to join the NSDAP as a "useful and non-binding concession to the National Socialist regime, whose omnipresent demands for approval one did not dare to completely evade", as the historian Michael Schneider emphasizes.3

The DAF had enormous financial power from the annual contributions paid by its approximately 25 million members in 1942 alone. The monthly contributions were usually between 1.50 and 2.00 Reichsmark.4 In addition, the Nazi organization led by Robert Ley owned a huge business complex, which was primarily active in the banking sector, but also in automobile, shipbuilding, housing construction and publishing. At the height of the Second World War, the DAF employed around two hundred thousand people and generated an annual turnover of around two billion Reichsmarks.5 The DAF was also responsible for building the Volkswagen factory and the associated "City of the KdF Car near Fallersleben". Volkswagenwerk GmbH, as well as the urban planning office headed by Peter Koller and the Neuland housing association, were DAF companies, which therefore played a central role in the planned Nazi model city.

The DAF office in the "City of the KdF-Wagen" was housed in a barrack on Fallerslebener Straße in the communal camp. Despite the special importance of the Nazi organization in the factory and the city, its influence in the Volkswagen factory was limited. Its works chairman, Walter Krone, was responsible for the ideological orientation, supervision and control of the workers and repeatedly spoke at party rallies, but otherwise hardly made an appearance.6 However, the DAF held regular factory roll calls. However, the DAF had a say in the establishment of trade and commerce in the new town. In addition, in meetings with the city administration, it repeatedly complained about the low wages in particular, which were offset by the high rents, and thus stood up for its members.7

In addition to looking after the workers, the Nazi organization was also important for the social welfare and leisure activities of workers and residents of the city through its sub-organization Kraft durch Freude (KdF). Under National Socialism, leisure was by no means an end in itself, but was intended to produce healthy and motivated workers. The KdF organization therefore put together a broad leisure programme that included concerts and dance evenings as well as sports and variety events, while the Office for Travel, Hiking and Holidays arranged excursions and trips for the workers. However, the cruise ship trips abroad advertised primarily by Nazi propaganda - as well as the promise of motorization of the "people's community" through the Volkswagen - only benefited very few "people's comrades". The work of the KdF employees on site was essentially limited to the planning and implementation of art exhibitions, dance and home evenings as well as the organization of company sports clubs, readings or bus trips to Lübeck, the Steinhuder Meer, Hamburg or the Harz Mountains. Hikes along the Aller river were also part of the leisure activities that the Nazi organization offered to entertain the "Volksgenossen".8 It is not without reason that historian Rüdiger Hachtmann describes the KdF organization as a "service provider for the national community".9

-__-0000-__- Decree on the nature and aims of the German Labor Front of October 24, 1934, reprinted in: Otto Marrenbach, Foundations of Victory. Die Gesamtarbeit der Deutschen Arbeitsfront von 1933 bis 1940. Berlin 1940, pp. 17-19, here p. 17. Cf. also Rüdiger Hachtmann, "Arbeit und Arbeitsfront: Ideologie und Praxis", in: Michael Wildt/Marc Buggeln (eds.), Arbeit im Nationalsozialismus. Berlin 2014, pp. 87-106.
-__-0001-__- Der Reichsorganisationsleiter der NSDAP (ed.), Organizational Handbook of the NSDAP, 3rd edition, Munich 1937, p. 225.
-__-0002-__- Michael Schneider, Under the Swastika. Arbeiter und Arbeiterbewegung 1933 bis 1939, Bonn 1999, p. 178.
-__-0003-__- Willy Müller, Das soziale Leben im neuen Deutschland, unter besonderer Berücksichtigung der Deutschen Ar-beitsfront, Berlin 1938, p. 142f.
-__-0004-__- Rüdiger Hachtmann, The economic empire of the German Labor Front 1933-1945, Göttingen 2012, p. 9.
-__-0005-__- Hans Mommsen/Manfred Grieger, The Volkswagen factory and its workers in the Third Reich. Düsseldorf 1996, p. 412. Hans Mommsen, "Erfahrungen mit der Geschichte der Volkswagenwerk GmbH im Dritten Reich", in: Lothar Gall/Manfred Pohl (eds.), Unternehmen im Nationalsozialismus. Munich 1998, pp. 45-54.
-__-0006-__- StadtA WOB, HA 259 I, note on a meeting with the local DAF representative, Bayer, dated April 28, 1941.
-__-0007-__- "Omnibus trips of the NS-Gemeinschaft Kraft durch Freude", in: Aller-Zeitung of May 18, 1939.
-__-0008-__- Rüdiger Hachtmann, "'Volksgemeinschaftliche Dienstleister'? Notes on the self-image and function of the German Labor Front and the Nazi community 'Strength through Joy'", in: Detlef Schmiechen-Ackermann