Veranstaltungen 1939/40
Berlin: Verlag der DAF. GmbH. 1939. First edition. Softcover. Quarto. 24pp. Original wrappers illustrated with Arno Breker's statue "Die Partei" with the emblem of the National Socialist organization Kraft durch Freude* in the background. The back cover depicts a floor plan of the municipal theater in Bielefeld.
Scarce photo-illustrated program of cultural events organized by the KdF for the 1939/1940 season in Bielefeld, a city in the Ostwestfalen-Lippe Region in the north-east of North-Rhine Westphalia, Germany. The festivities include a series of concerts by the local classical orchestra, a concert of a military band of the Wehrmacht, as well as theatrical and opera representations.
Sporadic minor creasing along edges of wrappers. Text in German, gothic script. Wrappers in overall good+, interior in very good condition. g+ to vg. Item #39815
*Kraft durch Freude (German for Strength through Joy, abbreviated KdF) was a large state-operated leisure organization in Nazi Germany. It was a part of the German Labor Front (Deutsche Arbeitsfront, DAF), the national German labor organization at that time. Set up as a tool to promote the advantages of National Socialism to the people, it soon became the world's largest tourism operator of the 1930s. KdF was supposed to bridge the class divide by making middle-class leisure activities available to the masses. This was underscored by having cruises with passengers of mixed classes and having them, regardless of social status, draw lots for allocation of cabins. Another less ideological goal was to boost the German economy by stimulating the tourist industry out of its slump from the 1920s. It was quite successful up until the outbreak of World War II. By 1934, over two million Germans had participated on a KdF trip; by 1939 the reported numbers lay around 25 million people. Due to the outbreak of WWII, the organization essentially collapsed in 1939, and several projects, such as the massive Prora holiday resort, were never completed.
Price: $325.00