Original Item: Only One Available. This is a very nice WWII German Reichsarbeitsdienst (RAD - National Labor Service) metal plaque, mounted on a black painted wooden frame with a portrait on the backside in a separate frame. 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 2/95 (SVII) Busenberg. Busenberg is a municipality in the Südwestpfalz district, in Rhineland-Palatinate, western Germany. The plaque measures about 6 1/8" x 4" x 5/8" overall.

On the reverse side of the plaque is a thin metal picture frame with a yellow plastic cover and a portrait of a young Vormann (foreman) with a unit patch easily seen on his left shoulder, 121/6.

This is a very nice piece with a lot of 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).