Robert Ley Biography and Timeline

Birth of Robert Ley

Birth of Robert Ley

NSDAP

Joins the NSDAP

Editor

Appointed Gauleiter of the Southern Rhineland district and editor of a virulently anti-Semitic Nazi newspaper, the Westdeutsche Beobachter

Westdeutsche Beobachter

Appointed Gauleiter of the Southern Rhineland district and editor of a virulently anti-Semitic Nazi newspaper, the Westdeutsche Beobachter

Gauleiter

Appointed Gauleiter of the Southern Rhineland district and editor of a virulently anti-Semitic Nazi newspaper, the Westdeutsche Beobachter

Election

Elected to the Prussian Landtag

Election

Elected to the Reichstag

Reichsorganisationsleiter

Appointed head of the party organisation (Reichsorganisationsleiter) following Hitler's dismissal of Gregor Strasser in an internal dispute

Trades Unions

Takes a leading role as SA and police occupy trade union offices, seize funds and arrest union leaders.

Role range: 1933-1945 – 1933-1945

German Labour Front

Forms the German Labour Front to replace independent trade unions with a Nazi-controlled labour organisation.

Role range: 1933-1945 – 1933-1945

German Labour Front (DAF)

As a means of preventing labour disaffection, the DAF established Strength Through Joy (Kraft durch Freude, KdF), to provide a range of benefits and amenities to the German working class and their families.

German Labour Front (DAF)

Some of the world's first purpose built cruise-liners, the Wilhelm Gustloff and the Robert Ley, were built to take KdF members on Mediterranean cruises.

German Labour Front (DAF)

These included subsidised holidays both at resorts across Germany and in "safe" countries abroad (particularly Italy).

Kraft Durch Freude (KDF)

As a means of preventing labour disaffection, the DAF established Strength Through Joy (Kraft durch Freude, KdF), to provide a range of benefits and amenities to the German working class and their families.

Kraft Durch Freude (KDF)

Some of the world's first purpose built cruise-liners, the Wilhelm Gustloff and the Robert Ley, were built to take KdF members on Mediterranean cruises.

Kraft Durch Freude (KDF)

These included subsidised holidays both at resorts across Germany and in "safe" countries abroad (particularly Italy).

Strength Through Joy

As a means of preventing labour disaffection, the DAF established Strength Through Joy (Kraft durch Freude, KdF), to provide a range of benefits and amenities to the German working class and their families.

Strength Through Joy

Some of the world's first purpose built cruise-liners, the Wilhelm Gustloff and the Robert Ley, were built to take KdF members on Mediterranean cruises.

Strength Through Joy

These included subsidised holidays both at resorts across Germany and in "safe" countries abroad (particularly Italy).

German Labour Front (DAF)

Appointed Head of the German Labour Front (Deutsche Arbeitsfront, DAF)

German Labour Front (DAF)

Formed after all independent German labour unions were made illegal in May 1933

German Labour Front (DAF)

The DAF take over the existing Nazi trade union formation, the National Socialist Factory Cell Organisation (Nationalsozialistische Betriebszellenorganisation, NSBO) as well as the main trade union federation

German Labour Front (DAF)

The DAF, the German Labour Front, is the amalgamation of all German unions into one Reich union

German Labour Front (DAF)

There was no wage bargaining, no industrial action or strikes and no protests. Established "for the good of the fatherland"

National Socialist Factory Cell Organisation

The DAF take over the existing Nazi trade union formation, the National Socialist Factory Cell Organisation (Nationalsozialistische Betriebszellenorganisation, NSBO) as well as the main trade union federation

German Labour Front (DAF)

The DAF became little more than an arm of the state for the more efficient deployment and disciplining of labour to serve the needs of the regime, particularly its massive expansion of the arms industry

Volkswagen

Brought Ley's socialist tendencies back into prominence. The party he said had taken over where private industry had failed, because of the "short-sightedness, malevolence, profiteering and stupidity" of the business class

German Labour Front (DAF)

Now working for the DAF, Porsche built a new Volkswagen factory at Fallersleben, at a huge cost which was partly met by raiding the DAF's accumulated assets and misappropriating the dues paid by DAF members.

German Labour Front (DAF)

The DAF and KdF's most ambitious program was the "people's car," the Volkswagen, originally a project undertaken at Hitler's request by the car-maker Ferdinand Porsche.

German Labour Front (DAF)

The Volkswagen was sold to German workers on an installment plan, and the first models appeared in February 1939

German Labour Front (DAF)

The party, he said, had taken over where private industry had failed, because of the "short-sightedness, malevolence, profiteering and stupidity" of the business class.

German Labour Front (DAF)

When the German car industry was unable to meet Hitler's demand that the Volkswagen be sold at 1,000 Reichsmarks or less, the project was taken over by the DAF. This brought Ley's old socialist tendencies back into prominence.

Final Solution

Present at a meeting along with Speer, Bormann and Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel at which Hitler had set out his views on the "Jewish question" at some length, making it clear that he intended the "disappearance" of the Jews one way or another

Role range: 1939-1945

Reich Commissioner for Social House-Building

Appointed Reich Commissioner for Social House-Building (Reichskommissar fur den sozialen Wohnungsbau)

Role range: 1939-1945

Arrest of Robert Ley

Captured by American paratroopers of the 101st Airborne Division in a shoemaker's house in the village of Schleching

Role range: 1939-1945

Indictment Served at Nuremberg

The International Military Tribunal served the indictment, Charter and notice of rights on him at Nuremberg.

Role range: 1939-1945

Death of Robert Ley

Death of Robert Ley, suicide

Role range: 1933-1945

Suicide

Death of Robert Ley, suicide

Role range: 1933-1945