BACKGROUND: Free Trade Unions in Germany were dissolved when the Nazis came to power in 1933, their members being absorbed into the newly created DAF, "Deutsche Arbeitsfront" (German Labor-front). The DAF was originally a sub-section of the NSDAP, but became an affiliated organization by 1936, and was the largest of all of the various Nazi organizations. The stated aims of the DAF were to create a national community of German professional and manual laborers, and to educate them in National Socialist principles. Membership was voluntary, but most workers chose to join to take advantage of the entertainment, sport, and travel opportunities provided by the attached KdF, "Kraft durch Freude" (Strength through Joy), welfare organization. The Volkswagen, for example, was a KdF project designed to provide German workers with a reliable and inexpensive vehicle, initially being called the "KdF Wagen."

PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: A 3 1/8" diameter, machine woven patch, against whose 1 7/8" diameter white wool center is woven the DAF emblem of a black, mobile swastika encircled by a black, fourteen-toothed cog. This image is ringed in silver, beyond which is a red border, which is also ringed along its outside in silver. To the border is woven the silver script, "- Gauwaltung - Hessen-Nassau" (- District-administration - Hessen-Nassau, referring to the tenth "Gau" of "Großdeutschland," whose headquarters city was Frankfurt). The insignia exhibits typical, light age soiling and wrinkling, but does not appear to have ever been worn.

GRADE ****1/4                             PRICE $90.00