The CCC and the German Labor Service: We Know The Difference

Despite what you may have heard, and contrary to what some historians may be saying in the months and years to come, our Civilian Conservation Corps and the Reich Labor Service of Nazi Germany were the offspring of two distinct ideologies and the programs approached their task from vastly different perspectives.

An in depth discussion and explanation of the CCC is not warranted here, except as it compares to its German counterpart but it may help to have a brief description of the German Reicharbeitsdeinst or RAD; the German National Work Service. The RAD was created in 1934 as the official labor service of the German state and the Nazi party. The RAD was an outgrowth of previous labor organizations that existed largely as a result of the economic hardships being faced by Germany in the 1920s and 1930s. In their initial manifestation, these labor organizations focused on supplying labor for agricultural related duties and relieving some of the strain of high unemployment – remember that the Great Depression was a worldwide depression and Germany likely suffered more as a result of her defeat in World War I. With the consolidation and renaming of various labor services over time, and the rise to power of the Nazis under the leadership of Adolf Hitler, six-month service in the newly named RAD became compulsory for young men aged 18 to 25. Upon completion of their RAD service, the young men then entered military service. (An exemption was given to young men who signed up for officer training, in which case their compulsory RAD service was waived.)

Prior to Germany’s instigation of war in 1939, the RAD worked to reclaim marshlands, build dikes, build and repair roads, plant trees and harvest annual crops. With Germany’s general mobilization in late August 1939, over 1,000 RAD units were transferred over to the general military – primarily the Army – where they worked as construction troops in direct support of the military. RAD units served on all fronts in World War II, from Norway to the Mediterranean, and from France to Russia. RAD members carried weapons, manned anti-aircraft batteries and were eligible for combat medals. In April 1945, the RAD died with the criminal regime from which it sprang.

Knowing what we know, it’s difficult to understand how a historian or scholar could closely align the American CCC with the German RAD, but some have done it and in years to come, more may do so. Who knows why they’ll do it? They’ll do it because it’s fashionable to equate something noble with something sinister. They’ll do it to prove Franklin Roosevelt was a bum, or the New Deal a scam. They’ll do it because there’s nothing else to write about and they must publish something or risk losing their grant money, thereby slipping into that awful group of folks who have to work for a living.

Stated simply, we know the difference. Young Germans were compelled to join their nation’s labor service. Young men in America often begged to be allowed to enroll in the CCC and were occasionally turned away several times before gaining entry. In their first few weeks in the German National Work Service, young Germans learned military drill and the manual of arms (using a shovel instead of a rifle) before they ever set foot on a work site. In the United States, a distinct line was drawn between the work project and the limited influence of the military running the camps. Finally, no CCC enrollee embarked for combat against a foreign enemy and while many a former CCC enrollee earned a medal for valor, serving in some faraway place, he did so with his CCC service behind him and in the distinctly different uniform of the U.S. Marines, Army, Navy, Coast Guard or Merchant Marine – not in the forest green uniform of the CCC.