Law for the Reich Labor Service
The Reich Labor Service Act , or Reich Labor Service Law, was passed on June 26, 1935. The Reich Labor Service was subordinate to the Reich Minister of the Interior ; the power of command lay with the Reich Labor Leader Konstantin Hierl .
The service was intended for both male and female 18- to 24-year-olds. The performance of the female conscripts was regulated in special regulations according to Section 9. The length of service - i. d. Usually a six-month period - was determined by the "Führer and Reich Chancellor" Adolf Hitler . The service should serve the education in the National Socialist spirit and the "true work conception", above all the respect for manual labor (meaning physical labor).
According to § 1, the performance of the service was considered "honorary service to the German people" and served to carry out charitable work. Therefore, different groups of people were excluded from compulsory service:
- with prison punished,
- those who have lost their civil rights ,
- Preventive detention ,
- judicially convicted of "subversive activity",
- "Non-Aryans" according to the Nuremberg Laws or people who had a " mixed marriage ".
In contravention of the law, 17-year-olds were drafted as early as 1940 and from 1942 the draftsmen born in 1924 were not used for charitable work, but for military service mainly on the Eastern Front, even beyond the usual period of six months before they were accepted into field training regiments .
Web links
- Reichsgesetzblatt 1935 I, pp. 769–771.
- Reich Labor Service Act on the website of the Austrian National Library