Hey guys! My question is pretty self-explanatory. I'm interested in how the Nazi government treated the working class, what was the relationship like between labor, capital and the state during the years of nazi reign. Is there any monographs on it in English? If not, I'll be satisfied with anything you have for me. Thank you!
Although it is long out of print, Robert Smelser's biography Robert Ley: Hitler's Labor Leader is a good introduction to the Deutsche Arbeitsfront, the state body that governed labor affairs and replaced trade unions. The ability of the NSDAP to recruit among certain segments of labor in the Weimar Republic is covered in the anthology The Rise of National Socialism and the Working Classes in Weimar Germany. Conversely, the anthology Business and Industry in Nazi Germany examines the role of capital within the Third Reich. Richard Overy's The Nazi Economic Recovery 1932-1938 is a good overview of the Third Reich's peacetime economy and the structural strains created by its particular form of recovery. Finally, although it sounds like fodder for the likes of American far right conservatives, Soldiers of Labor: Labor Service in Nazi Germany and New Deal America, 1933-1945 by Kiran Klaus Patel is a comparative history of the Reichsarbeitsdienst (RAD) and the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) examining issues like masculinity, collective identity, and tacks a transnational approach to the issue of labor's relationship to the state.