Original Item: Only One Available. This is a very nice WWII German Reichsarbeitsdienst (RAD - National Labor Service) metal plaque, mounted on a black bakelite frame. It almost looks like it might the the lid to some type of box. The plaque is marked with the NSDAP Reichsadler, with the RAD Logo in the center of the swas (hook cross): a shovelhead, with two sheaves of wheat extending from the bottom at 45 degree angles. Below this is the RAD Motto: Arbeit adelt (Work Ennobles), and at the bottom the issue information 1/322 Sulzbach / Saar. This is a town in the far west of Germany, in the region known as the Saarland. There were many divisions of the RAD, based on location.

Condition is very good, with the expected degradation to the silver wash. The details are still clear, with lovely patination. The bakelite frame is also in good shape, though a portion at the top is broken away, possibly where the hanger ring was originally. Very interesting, with some great research potential!

The basis of the RAD, Reichsarbeitsdienst, (National Labor Service), dates back, at least, to 1929 with the formation of the AAD (Anhalt Arbeitsdienst) and the FAD-B (Freiwillingen Arbeitsdienst-Bayern).  Shortly after AH’s appointment as Chancellor in Jan 1933, the NSDAP consolidated all labor organizations into the NSAD (Nationalsozialist Arbeitsdienst), a national labor service. It served as an agency to help mitigate the effects of unemployment on the German economy, militarize the workforce and indoctrinate it with NSDAP ideology. It was the official state labor service, divided into separate sections for men and women.

On June 26 1935 the NSAD was officially re-designated RAD, and from then onward, men aged between 18 and 25 may have served six months before their military service. During World War II compulsory service also included young women and the RAD developed to an auxiliary formation which provided support for the Wehrmacht armed forces. The RAD was divided into two major sections, one for men (Reichsarbeitsdienst Männer - RAD/M) and the voluntary, from 1939 compulsory, section for young women (Reichsarbeitsdienst der weiblichen Jugend - RAD/wJ).