Robert Ley | Biography

Robert Ley was a devoted member of the German Nazi Party in the 1930s and served Adolph Hitler by breaking up the trade unions and incorporating them into the German Labor Front. During World War II Ley participated in the recruitment of slave labor to help the war effort. After the defeat of Germany the International Military Tribunal (IMT) indicted Ley for war crimes associated with these activities, but he killed himself before his trial at Nuremberg with 23 other alleged Nazi war criminals.

Ley was born on February 15, 1890 in Niederbreidenbach, Germany. He studied chemistry at the universities of Jena and Boon and earned a doctorate in natural science. During World War I Ley served as a fighter pilot and was shot down and taken prisoner by the French. Following the war he entered German industry, working as a chemist for I.G. Farben from 1920 to 1928. His promising career at Farben ended when he was discharged for political activity.

Ley's political activities involved the National Socialist or Nazi Party. He joined the party in 1923, when it was regarded as merely a fringe group of German nationalists. Ley showed some talent for political organization and in 1925 he was appointed the Gauleiter of the Rhineland South. He founded the West German Observer, a Nazi journal devoted to anti-Semitic propaganda. He was elected as Nazi Party member of the Prussian Diet in 1929, and in 1932 he was elected to the Reichstag, the German national parliament.

Ley became the chief deputy to the party's chief of organization, Gregor Strasser and succeeded Strasser in that position in 1932. When Hitler became chancellor in 1933, he sought to impose the government's control over every facet of national life. The German trade unions posed a problem for Hitler, as they had for many decades been a source of political power. Hitler named Ley in 1933 to tackle the trade union issue. First, Ley abolished democratic trade unions and established the German Labor Front. The unions were forced into this organization, which was designed to give the government total control over labor. It was hoped that the organization would improve the speed in which Germany could rebuild its armed forces, which had been severely crippled after World War I by the Treaty of Versailles. As head of the German Labor Front, Ley oversaw a large administrative staff that managed over 25 million members, making it the largest mass organization in Germany.

After World War II began in September 1939, Ley's task of mobilizing German labor became even more important. However, as more German males were called in the military services, labor shortages in critical war industries intensified. Therefore, Ley worked to bring in foreign labor. Jews, Poles and captured Russian prisoners were forced to work under appalling conditions. Many thousands died of maltreatment or were sent to the concentration camps for execution.

After Germany surrendered in May of 1945, Ley fled to a mountain retreat. He was captured by U.S. troops and tried to commit suicide. His attempt was unsuccessful, and he was indicted by the IMT for war crimes in August 1945. On October 25, 1945 while awaiting trial in Nuremberg, Ley hanged himself in his cell.