Stadtfuhrer N.S.S. Kraftdurch Freude KdF WWII German armband

Stadtfuhrer N.S.S. Kraftdurch Freude WWII German 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 1930s.

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