National Socialist People's Welfare
The
National Socialist People's Welfare (
German:
Nationalsozialistische Volkswohlfahrt, NSV) was a
social welfare organization during the
Third Reich. The NSV was established in 1931 as a local welfare organization; on 3 May 1933, shortly after the
Nazi Party took power in
Weimar Germany,
Hitler turned it into a party organization of the
NSDAP. The main offices were in
Berlin. The structure of the NSV was based on the Nazi Party model, with local, county (
Kreis) and district (
Gau) administrations.
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With 17 million Germans receiving assistance under the auspices of NSV by 1939, the agency "projected a powerful image of caring and support".
[6] The Nazis provided a plethora of social welfare programs under the Nazi concept of
Volksgemeinschaft, which promoted the collectivity of a people's community where citizens would sacrifice themselves for the greater good. The NSV operated 8,000 day-nurseries by 1939 and funded holiday homes for mothers, distributed additional food for large families and was involved with a wide variety of other facilities.
[7]
The Nazi social welfare provisions included old age insurance, rent supplements, unemployment and disability benefits, old-age homes and interest-free loans for married couples, along with healthcare insurance, which was not decreed mandatory until 1941.
[8] One of the NSV branches, the Office of Institutional and Special Welfare, was responsible "for travellers' aid at railway stations; relief for ex-convicts; support for re-migrants from abroad; assistance for the physically disabled, hard-of-hearing, deaf, mute, and blind; relief for the elderly, homeless and
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