Konstantin Hierl was a major figure in the administration
of the Third Reich, and head of the Reichsarbeitsdienst as well as an
associate of Adolf Hitler before he came to power.
In 1919, as a major in the Reichswehr's Political Department
in Munich, Hierl ordered the ex-soldier Adolf Hitler to attend a meeting
of the German Workers Party (which soon became the Nazi
Party).
On June 5, 1931, two years before the Nazi party ascended to power,
Hierl became head of the FAD (Freiwilliger Arbeitsdienst), a state sponsored
voluntary labour organization that provided services to civic and agricultural
construction projects. There were many such organzations in Europe at
the time, founded to provide much-needed employment during the Great
Depression.
At the time, Hierl was already
a high-ranking member of the NSDAP and
when they took power in 1933,
he remained the head of the labour organization
- now called the Nationalsozialistischer
Arbeitsdienst, or NSAD. In 1934,
it was yet again renamed, this time as the
Reichsarbeitsdienst, and Hierl would control
it to the very end of World
War II.
When the Nazi Party came
to power, Hitler named Hierl as the State
Secretary for Labor Service, a Reich Labor
Leader in 1935,
a Reichsleiter in 1936,
and a Reichsminister in 1943.
He was tried and found guilty of “major
offenses” after the war,
and spent five years in a labor camp. He
died on September 23, 1955, in Heidelberg,
Germany at the age
of 80.