Part 1

The designation work shy or more commonly in Nazi language "asocial" did – while it pertained to people being unemployed – go a little further than just meaning people without jobs. It described individuals or social groups – both most likely from the lower or lowest rungs of the social ladder in Germany – of whom the Nazi leadership alleged that they were unwilling or hereditary unable to become part of social community and the race-based Volksgemeinschaft (the people's racial community).

This was intrinsically tied to two major factors at the time: Eugenics and social discipline. /u/kieslowskifan wrote about Eugenics in-depth here where they highlight that not only did the "Third Reich's eugenics program often intertwined various social prejudices and precepts with specific types of eugenics of that era", including social prejudices and precepts but also that for the T4 program e.g.

Although maintaining a healthy gene pool was one rationalization given, the idea of removing "worthless eaters" and other drains on society enjoyed far more prominence in the state's arguments in favor of mass murder. Internal memoranda and studies of the problem often examined the amount of resources devoted to the care of these individuals. Media justifying eugenics often foregrounded the social burden of caring for these deficient people and kept the scientific discussion of inherited problems it to a minimum.

This is important because the ideas about "worthless eaters" and the rhetoric of the social burden of those who do not contribute to society did not exclusively apply to the handicapped but was used to define and condemn those whom the Nazis made out to be "asocial".

The second important factor with regards to this topic was the evolution of the state's power to enforce social discipline, especially regarding the topic of labor. This was, of course, a longer process and did manifest itself in such institutions like "work houses" of the 19th century but what best exemplifies this is the establishment of the central, Germany-wide labor administration in the Weimar Republic and the powers it received.

In 1927, the Weimar Republic reformed its labor administration to create one Germany-wide institution that united all local and regional labor administrations under one roof. I do not know how this works in the US but you need to imagine this institution as the place people who are unemployed go, they are registered and helped to find employment as well as receive money to tie them over until they have a job again – simply put.

In their mission to find work for the unemployed, the newly created German-wide Labor Administration received rather far reaching competences, not just in regards to what they could do in order to find someone employment but also in what kind of measures they could impose on people who were unemployed individually.

The Labor Administration and its administrators for example gained the competence and concrete mission that they were in charge of leading the unemployed to a "healthy change of lifestyle" (gesunder Lebenswandel) in order not just to make them more employable but also to make them into good members of the national community able to contribute to said community with their labor. In practice, this meant that a labor administrator could tell someone who was unemployed that he ought to stop smoking and drinking or otherwise have his unemployment benefits cut. In this, the state claimed to have social-educationary discretion in dealing with the unemployed and relied on methods that have been described as repressive work pedagogy in dealing with them. It also extended to their mission to "create a social-ethical congruence between character and labor", meaning that the Labor Administration could also order a person to learn a new trade, a new profession if they believed him on basis of his character to be unsuitable for his current work.

This is important for the later persecution of the people deemed "asocial" because both in terms of method as well as in terms of underlying thinking, the form of persecution the Nazis instituted vis a vis those they deemed "asocial" or "work shy" they relied on these factors. Being unemployed became not merely a question of economic opportunity in your field but something tied to the character of a person and mixed with eugenics, which alleged that the supposed unwillingness or inability to find a job was hereditary laid the ground work for the targeted campaign of persecution of certain groups of people.

Work in the sense of employment became one of the most important measures for inclusion and exclusion in the German racial community for the Nazis. Someone not able to "contribute" to said community through their labor was deemed to be outside this community. This kind of rhetoric is evident as also having been employed regarding Jews or so-called Gypsies in that it was alleged that they were racially incapable or contributing to the German people's community because of their inherit work shyness and "natural" antipathy against "good, honest German work".

In terms of the non-Jewish, non-Roma individuals targeted by this ideological precept, who they were was also the result of, let's say, practical evolution of policy. The big wave of persecution of so-called "asocials" took place in 1937/38 (though as Julia Hörath recently researched in her dissertation, which is to be published this year, it did start on a smaller scale with the Nazi take over of power).

The situation in 37/38 needs to be taken into account: By 1936 the Nazis faced a choice in terms of economic policy. Continue with a policy that would prepare the Reich for war or gear it towards a different economic path. This decision resulted from the simple fact that labor, resources and foreign currency were not available in abundance but in such limited numbers that it came down to an either or decision. The Nazis, as is known, decided to pursue a course for war (eschewing the eternal truth that it is good for ABSOLUTELY NOTHING AHA YEAH), which meant that available resources, including labor had to be mobilized in service of that goal.

This meant that the Labor Administration receive new and even further reaching competencies: They could now decide that a person was needed in a different job for the war economy and in essence order them to take up a new job/profession, something that was possible because they had been working on registering all labor forces in Germany since the 1920s. In consequence unemployment, at least the kind based on someone unable to find a job in their profession, ceased to exist. If you couldn't find work as a tailor, the labor administration would simply order you to become a factory worker in a tank factory.

This left those people who were either unable to hold down a steady job – people with un-diagnosed mental illnesses and alcoholics e.g. –, those who were on the outside of the employment system altogether – the homeless e.g. – and those who for a variety of reasons were not all too happy about this new system and started acting out in some form. I mean, imagine you are a shoemaker and suddenly you are ordered to instead work in a munitions factory. It is easy to imagine that for many reasons you are not happy about this and in consequence start stuff like taking many sick days, quarrel with your boss or try to find different employment without authorization. These were the people targeted as "asocial" because they alleged out of a ideological and economic reasons that those unable or unwilling to work were a threat to both the people's community and the war economy.

In 1936, the Gestapo became an independent agency of the Reich where it formerly had been subordinate to the police as such. With this 3rd Gestapo Law of February 1936 (pdf warning, see p. 92) and with Himmler's elevation to the Head of Police of the Reich, the police was united with the SS; a state agency with a party agency. Its new responsibility was not just to encompass fighting communists but rather a program of racial and social "general prevention", meaning that it was not only to concern itself with who was dangerous but also who could become dangerous and also that it was now the responsibility of the Gestapo and police overall to follow a program of "racial and social hygiene" in order to keep the Volksgemeinschaft clean and orderly – Himmler's Staatschutzkorps (state protection corps) made up from party and police had been founded.