From: mars1933@hotmail.com   
      
    Here is excerpt from his memoirs General Leon Degrelle, former   
    leader of the Belgian contingent of the Waffen-SS:   
      
     "One of the first labor reforms to benefit the German workers   
    was the establishment of annual paid vacation. The Socialist French   
    Popular Front, in 1936, would make a show of having invented the   
    concept of paid vacation, and stingily at that, only one week per   
    year. But Adolf Hitler originated the idea, and two or three times as   
    generously, from the first month of his coming to power in 1933.   
      
     Every factory employee from then on would have the legal right   
    to a paid vacation. Until then, in Germany paid holidays where they   
    applied at all did not exceed four or five days, and nearly half the   
    younger workers had no leave entitlement at all. Hitler, on the other   
    hand, favored the younger  workers. Vacations were not handed out   
    blindly, and the youngest workers were granted time off more   
    generously. It was a humane action; a young person has more need of   
    rest and fresh air for the development of his strength and vigor just   
    coming into maturity. Basic vacation time was twelve   
    days, and then from age 25 on it went up to 18 days. After ten years   
    with the company, workers got 21 days, three times what the French   
    socialists would grant the workers of their country in 1936.   
      
     These figures may have been surpassed in the more than half a   
    century since then, but in 1933 they far exceeded European norms. As   
    for overtime hours, they no longer were paid, as they were everywhere   
    else in Europe at that time, at just the regular hourly rate. The   
   work  day itself had been reduced to a tolerable norm of  eight hours,   
   since  the forty-hour week as well, in Europe, was first initiated by   
   Hitler.  And beyond that legal limit, each additional hour had to be   
   paid at a  considerably increased rate...   
      
     Dismissal of an employee was no longer left as before the   
    sole discretion of the employer. In that era, workers' rights to job   
    security were non-existent. Hitler saw to it that those rights were   
    strictly spelled out. The employer had to announce any dismissal four   
    weeks in advance. The employee then had a period of up to two months   
    in which to lodge a protest. The dismissal could also be annulled by   
    the Honor of Work Tribunal. What was the Honor of Work Tribunal? Also   
    called the Tribunal of Social Honor, it was the third of the three   
    great elements or layers of protection and defense that were to the   
    benefit of every German worker. The first was the Council   
    of Trust. The second was the Labor Commission.   
      
     The Council of Trust was charged with attending to the   
    establishment and the development of a real community spirit between   
    management and labor. In any business enterprise, the Reich law   
    stated, the employer and head of the enterprise, the employees and   
    workers, personnel of the enterprise, shall work jointly towards the   
    goal of the enterprise and the common good of   
    the nation...   
      
     Thus from 1933 on, the German worker had a system of justice   
    at his disposal that was created especially for him and would   
    adjudicate all grave infractions of the social duties based on the   
    idea of the Aryan enterprise community. Examples of these violations   
    of social honor are cases  where the employer, abusing his power,   
    displayed ill will towards his staff or impugned the honor of his   
    subordinates, cases where staff members threatened work harmony by   
    spiteful agitation; the publication by members of the Council of   
    confidential information regarding the enterprise which they   
    became cognizant of in the course of discharging their duties.   
    Thirteen Tribunes of Social Honor were established, corresponding   
   with  the thirteen commissions...   
      
     From then on the worker knew that exploitation of his physical   
    strength in bad faith or offending his honor would no longer be   
    allowed. He had to fulfill certain obligations to the community, but   
    they were obligations that applied to all members of the enterprise,   
    from the chief executive down to the messenger boy. Germany's workers   
    at last had clearly established social rights that were arbitrated by   
    a Labor Commission and enforced by a Tribunal of Honor. Although   
    effected in an atmosphere of justice and moderation, it was a   
    revolution.   
      
     This was only the end of 1933, and already the first effects   
    could be felt. The factories and shops large and small were reformed   
    or transformed in conformity with the strictest standards of   
    cleanliness and hygiene; the interior areas, so often dilapidated,   
    opened to light; playing fields constructed; rest areas made   
   available  where one could converse at one's ease and relax during   
   rest periods;  employee cafeterias; proper dressing rooms.   
      
     With time, that is to say in three years, those achievements   
    would take on dimensions never before imagined; more than 2,000   
    factories refitted and beautified; 23,000 work premises modernized;   
    800 buildings designed exclusively for meetings; 1,200 playing   
   fields;   
    13,000 sanitary facilities with running water; 17,000 cafeterias.   
    Eight hundred departmental inspectors and 17,300 local inspectors   
    would foster and closely and continuously supervise these renovations   
    and installations.   
      
     The large industrial establishments moreover had been given   
    the obligation of preparing areas not only suitable for sports   
    activities of all kinds, but provided with swimming pools as well.   
    Germany had come a long way from the sinks for washing one's face and   
    the dead tired workers, grown old before their time, crammed into   
    squalid courtyards during work breaks.   
      
     In order to ensure the natural development of the working   
    class, physical education courses were instituted for the younger   
    workers; 8,000 such were organized. Technical training would be   
    equally emphasized, with the creation of hundreds of work schools,   
    technical courses and examinations of professional competence, and   
    competitive examinations for the best workers for which large prizes   
    were awarded.   
      
     To rejuvenate young and old alike, Hitler ordered that a   
    gigantic vacation organization for workers be set up. Hundreds of   
    thousands of workers would be able every summer to relax on the   
    sea. Magnificent cruise ships would be built. Special trains would   
    carry vacationers to the mountains and to the seashore. The   
    locomotives that hauled the innumerable worker-tourists in   
    just a few years of travel in Germany would log a distance equivalent   
    to fifty-four times around the world!   
      
     The cost of these popular excursions was nearly insignificant,   
    thanks to greatly reduced rates authorized by the Reichsbank.   
      
     Didn't these reforms lack something? Were some of them flawed   
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)