The major faultline running through the left wing of the working class, for by no means all workers came under the rubric, was hostility between the … - Michael Burleigh

In northern and western Germany, dynamic leaders such as Gregor Strasser and the Elberfeld journalist Joseph Goebbels wanted to concentrate on breaking into the urban socialist vote… These men espoused a Prussian socialism. Whereas Hitler had recently vented his animosity towards Russia, they regarded it ‘as the socialist nationalist state for which consciously or unconsciously the younger generation in all countries long.’

Workers were encouraged to overcome a trades union mentality – Ley’s Germany Labor Front (DAF) rapidly ceased to describe itself as such – and to think in terms of a ‘socialism’ transcending mere bread and butter issues. In a departure from labourist economism, the Nazis recognized the workers’ need for respect, and the pride they took at their work, their skill, their tools, and the products of their labour, attitudes already evident in the modern technological sectors, such as aircraft or optical manufacturing. This lends plausibility to the idea that they were embarked on a revolution in consciousness, changing the way people perceived the world, rather than its material circumstances.

Apparently inspired by the tidy coalmines of the Netherlands, the ‘Beauty of Labour’ section of the Labor Front tackled physical surroundings, providing improved air, light and space; decent canteens and washing facilities, and exteriors designed to make factories less forbidding. Employers with scruffy premises were warned and then stigmatized by inspectors. Each campaign was conducted under a slogan such as ‘Clean people in a clean plant’ or ‘Struggle against noise.’ Holistic talk of factory communities and of the whole man replaced over-emphasis upon the more limited question of enhancing worker productivity.