The images and the entire text used on this and all other USMBOOKS web pages are the copyrighted property of USM Inc.  Those images and the text may be used by others ONLY AFTER completion of a formal international licensing agreement and payment of a licensing fee! It is therefore, illegal for anyone to take any of the material found on USMBOOKS.com and use it for their own purposes without our written permission, irrespective of any excuse they may feel they have for doing so.

This is a very nice First Edition example of Durchbruch der Sozialen Ehre (Breakthrough of Social Honor) by Dr. Robert Ley. The 1935 hardcover book contains excerpts of speeches and Ley’s thoughts on labor and its importance to the national spirit of Nazi Germany. The material was assembled and edited by Hans Dauer with the help of Walter Kiehl.

Reichsorganisationsleiter Dr. Robert Ley was the organizational genius behind the complex organizational structure of the NSDAP. He was responsible for the publication of the Organisationsbuch der NSDAP and Der Schulungsbrief magazine, and head of the Reichsarbeitsdienst (RAD) and the Deutsche Arbeitsfront (DAF). As Reichsleiter of the DAF he built the Ordensburg Castles at Vogelsang, Crössensee and Sonthofen. He built the towns and factories that produced everything from Volkswagens to tanks and airplanes to ships and plywood. He oversaw every laborer that worked on the Reichsautobahn and on every other project in Germany that employed labor.

Facing the title page is an unusual striking portrait of Dr. Ley by Carl Rosenmeyer, printed on glossy photo paper. That is followed by a foreword by Rudolf Schmeer, a very early National Socialist from the western part of Germany. In 1931 and 1932 Schmeer was the deputy Gauleiter of NSDAP Gau Cologne-Aachen, and subsequently held high-ranking jobs at the DAF (under Ley), Ministry of Economics (for Hermann Göring’s Four Year Plan) and the Nazi Ministry of Armaments and War Production (under Albert Speer).

In his foreword Schmeer points out the tireless efforts by “Hitler’s loyal follower“ Dr. Ley in the early days of the Nazi movement and in the Nazi government, to help Adolf Hitler reach his goals of improving living conditions and increasing wealth for average German citizens, and thereby changing the destiny of Nazi Germany.

The 5-½ x 8-¼ inch, 1+ inch thick 278-page Nazi book has chapters about Ley’s creation and success of the Deutsche Arbeitsfront (DAF or German Labor Front) and Gemeinschaft Kraft durch Freude (KdF or Strength through Joy community), the duty and honor of labor, the economy of Nazi Germany, the important task of the German Arbeiter (“without German laborers there is no German Fatherland!”), the erasing of social barriers, the role of women in the workforce, etc. There is even a chapter titled “the rebirth of the Nation through race and soil.”

Any prospective purchaser might be interested to know that we purchased this Third Reich book in a group of rare books that was ‘liberated’ shortly after the end of World War II by an American Army Captain working in an office that had been occupied during the Third Reich by staff of Ortsgruppe Nürnberg-St. Johannis.

This is a very nice, virtually unread dark brown linen hardcover First Edition of Durchbruch der Sozialen Ehre published by Mehden-Verlag of Berlin in 1935. The front cover and spine have gold blocking which is in excellent condition as it was protected by the striking dust jacket during the last 87 years. The book has a tight spine and no offensive odor. This early edition of 10,000 is much harder to find than subsequent editions of the sme book published by Franz Eher Nachfolger, the Central Publishing House of the Nazi Party.

This 87 year old Nazi book in the German language came from the library of the NSDAP Ortsgruppe St. Johannis in Nürnberg, Gau Franken where it was book number NS 38. This library number was written on the front flyleaf, and the spine of the dust jacket has a label with the NS 38 number as well. The 35mm round eagle and swastika stamp of the NSDAP Ortsgruppe St. Johannis in Julius Streicher’s Gau Franken appears on the front flyleaf.