LEY, Robert (1890-1945)
Nicknamed 'Reich Drunkard', Reichstrunkenbold
Robert Ley, the son of poor peasants, was born in Niederbreidenbach, on 15th February, 1890.Ley studied chemistry and earned a doctorate in natural science. He was a military aviator during the First World War but was shot down over France in 1917 and spent over two years as a prisoner of war.
After the war Ley worked as a chemist ( From 1920 to 1928 he was employed by I.G. Farben ) but was sacked because of his serious drink problem. He joined the National Socialist German Workers Party (NSDAP) in 1925 and later that year became Gauleiter for Rhineland South.
In 1932 Ley replaced the murdered Gregor Strasser as leader of the Reich Organization. He also began publishing the Nazi journal Westdeutscher Beobachter.
On 2nd May, 1933, Adolf Hitler ordered the arrest of Germany's trade union leaders. He then gave Ley the task of forming the German Labour Front (DAF) to replace the now outlawed trade unions. Ley confiscated union funds and used the money to fund the Strength through Joy programme.
( On May 1, 1933 Nazi leaders proclaimed that May Day would be celebrated as the "Day of National Labor" and a massive pro-labor demonstration was organized in Berlin. Ten days earlier, on April 21, 1933, however, a secret memo from Ley authorized SA and SS troops on May 2nd to occupy all trade union buildings, confiscate union funds and place union leaders in protective custody. Shortly thereafter all unions were integrated into a single organization, the Deutsche Arbeitsfront (DAF), headed by Ley. Within a matter of weeks all collective bargaining was eliminated. Wages were set by labor trustees appointed by the DAF and after 1935, when the Arbeitsbuch was introduced, workers, particularly industrial workers lost the freedom of the labor market and were bound to a particular employer. Manpower allocation was dictated by the Department of Labor. During this time, the DAF, directed by Ley throughout the Third Reich, was not an advocate of labor, but rather attempted to divert attention of the masses of workers through a series of recreational and leisure time activities. )
In 1934, the propaganda division of the Nazi Party came up with the solution to make people join DAF – a program that would go under the name ‘Kraft durch Freude’ (KdF), or ‘Strength through Joy’.
Bormann, Hess ,Ley
The idea was rather simple: as a member of the German Labour Front or the Nazi Party, everyone would be given the opportunity of a low-price ship cruise to various destinations. This scheme would make the workers happy, and happy workers would result in more labour – hence the program’s name.
But the KdF-program was not only a way to keep the labourers content, it was also a good way to make use of ships that would otherwise had been laid up because of the Depression. Several vessels were requisitioned from Germany’s three largest shipping companies; Hamburg-Amerika Line, Norddeutscher Lloyd and Hamburg-South America Line, for example the Dresden, Der Deutsche, Oceana and Monte Olivia.
Not long after the first Kdf-cruises could the Nazis see that the program was a complete success. The German working class simply loved the exotic destinations that were offered, as they could never have dreamed that they would someday experience such voyages. Nearly all voyages were booked full, and the astonishing progress of the program soon led the Nazis to order two new ships especially built for Kdf-cruising purposes.
The first of the two vessels was the Wilhelm Gustloff, launched at the yards of Blohm & Voss in Hamburg on May 5th 1937. It looked as if she and the second ship, which was being built as ship number 754 in the yards of Howaldt in Hamburg, would soon enter a very profitable service. The future was indeed looking bright.
On March 29th 1938, the second ship was launched in the presence of among others Adolf Hitler himself. The ship was christened Robert Ley, after the leader of the DAF in Germany. Many of the workers that had built the ship were also present, and in his launch-speech, Hitler made sure to point out that the ship had been built for the workers:
"The purpose of the ‘Kraft durch Freude’ organisation is to show the less fortunate the wonders and beauties of their nation. It opens opportunities to the people that formerly were reserved for the well-to-do."
Almost one year after her launch, the Robert Ley was handed over to the DAF on March 24th, 1939. Shortly afterwards she sailed on her maiden voyage, on which Hitler was also present.
Robert Ley...
The Robert Ley and her older sister-ship Wilhelm Gustloff would go into history as the first purpose-built cruise ships ever. Unlike every other ship built at the time, the two new Germans’ passenger accommodations were not divided into separate classes. It was made sure that the passengers and the crew members were given the same kind of cabins. Equality had for the first time reached the high seas, ironically in a Nazi ship. The Robert Ley was managed by the Hamburg-Amerika Line, although she was technically owned by the DAF.
The Robert Ley served as a Kdf cruise ship for about two months, but was called in for other duties in May of 1939. German forces known as the Legion Condor had been busy in Spain helping Franco’s nationalists seize power of the country. Now they needed transport back home to the Reich, and for this purpose the Robert Ley, Wilhelm Gustloff, Stuttgart, Der Deutsche, Sierra Cordoba and Oceana were called in. The Robert Ley alone took on 1,416 men and on May 30th the convoy returned to Germany. Later the Robert Ley was commissioned and converted into a hospital ship for the German Kriegsmarine on August 25th.
In January the Robert Ley’s sister ship Wilhelm Gustloff was lost when she was sunk by a submarine in the Baltic Sea, taking with her more than 5,000 people.
By March 1945, the Robert Ley had been sent back to Hamburg for further transport duties. These tasks, however, she would never be able to perform. On March 9th, the British Royal Air Force made a bombing raid over the city, and the Robert Ley lying in the nearby waters was simply too good a target to resist. Soon the bombs were falling down on the former cruise ship, and it was not long before fires were ravaging her. When these eventually extinguished, all that was left of the Robert Ley was a burned-out hulk.
http://www.greatoceanliners.net/robertley.html
After the war Robert Ley was charged with war crimes. While awaiting trial in Nuremberg Ley wrote a statement denouncing Anti-Semitism and then hanged himself in his cell on 25th October, 1945.
Ley and Hitler
More photos:
http://motlc.wiesenthal.com/albums/p...3/a0199p1.html
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http://www.history-of-the-holocaust..../RobertLe.html
http://www.dhm.de/lemo/objekte/pict/leybio/
http://faculty-web.at.nwu.edu/sociol...it/ab02cd.html
http://www.calvin.edu/academic/cas/gpa/ley2.htm
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/GERley.htm
