KDF WWII German armband

Rare KDF armband, Kraft durch Freude, the National Socialist Organization Strength through Joy. This is a rarely seen reproduction armband.

Kraft durch Freude (German for Strength through Joy, abbreviated KdF) was a 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 had become the world’s largest tourism operator by the 1930’s.

KdF was supposed to bridge the class divide by making middle-class leisure activities available to the masses.

It also sought to bolster the German tourist industry, something it did successfully up until the outbreak of World War II. By 1934, over two million Germans had participated in a KdF trip; by 1939 the reported numbers lay around 25 million people.  With the outbreak of war in 1939, the organization was mothballed, and several projects, such as the Prora holiday resort, were never completed.