Democracy Destroyed The First 100 Days of Nazi Rule

Laws and decrees

Law Reich Government, under the Enabling Act

National Labour Day Law

Gesetz über die Einführung eines Feiertags der nationalen Arbeit

Law on the Introduction of a Holiday of National Labour

Made 1 May the ‘Holiday of National Labour’, giving it the legal standing of New Year’s Day under Reich and state law, with further rules left to the Interior Minister and Goebbels’s new Propaganda Ministry. The labour movement’s own May Day, which the Weimar Republic had never made a national holiday, was taken over as a state festival. The day after the first celebrations, on 2 May 1933, the SA and SS occupied the free trade unions’ offices.

Dated
Monday 10 April 1933
Published in
Reichsgesetzblatt Teil I, no. 37, Tuesday 11 April 1933, p. 191
Citation
RGBl. I S. 191
In force
12 April 1933, the day after promulgation (the law has no commencement clause, so Article 3 of the Enabling Act applies)

On the day pages

  1. Signed Day 71, Monday 10 April 1933
  2. Published Day 72, Tuesday 11 April 1933
The Reichsgesetzblatt Teil I page on which the measure was published
RGBl. I S. 191. Commons record

The text

Gesetz über die Einführung eines Feiertags der nationalen Arbeit.
Law on the Introduction of a Holiday of National Labour.
Vom 10. April 1933.
Of 10 April 1933.
Die Reichsregierung hat das folgende Gesetz beschlossen, das hiermit verkündet wird:
The Reich Government has enacted the following law, which is hereby promulgated:
§ 1 Der 1. Mai ist der Feiertag der nationalen Arbeit.
§ 1 The 1st of May is the Holiday of National Labour.
§ 2 Für diesen Tag finden die für den Neujahrstag geltenden reichs- und landesgesetzlichen Bestimmungen Anwendung. Weitere Bestimmungen kann der Reichsminister des Innern im Einvernehmen mit dem Reichsminister für Volksaufklärung und Propaganda erlassen.
§ 2 The provisions of Reich and state law applying to New Year’s Day apply to this day. Further provisions may be issued by the Reich Minister of the Interior in agreement with the Reich Minister for Public Enlightenment and Propaganda.
Berlin, den 10. April 1933.
Berlin, 10 April 1933.
Der Reichskanzler Adolf Hitler
The Reich Chancellor Adolf Hitler
Der Reichsminister des Innern Frick
The Reich Minister of the Interior Frick
Der Reichsminister für Volksaufklärung und Propaganda Dr. Goebbels
The Reich Minister for Public Enlightenment and Propaganda Dr Goebbels

About this text

The full text is given. Transcribed from the RGBl. scan (issue 37, p. 191); compared word by word with documentArchiv.de, which agrees with the gazette.

The English translation was made for this site and is not an official translation. ‘Feiertag der nationalen Arbeit’ is the regime’s own name for the day; on this page it is translated literally.

German laws and decrees are official works and not protected by copyright (§ 5 UrhG).

Terms

Feiertag der nationalen Arbeit
‘Holiday of National Labour’. The law was replaced by the Holidays Law of 27 February 1934, which kept 1 May as the ‘national holiday of the German people’.
Neujahrstag
New Year’s Day: by tying the new holiday to an existing statutory one, the law brought in at once the existing rules on holiday rest, such as the closing of shops and offices.

Sources

  1. Reichsgesetzblatt 1933 Teil I, Nr. 37 (11. April 1933), S. 191 (Reichsministerium des Innern; scan on Wikimedia Commons)
  2. Gesetz über die Einführung eines Feiertags der nationalen Arbeit (10.04.1933) (transcription) (documentArchiv.de)

Gazette scans: public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.