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German Labour Front (NSDAP, Germany)

Deutsche Arbeitsfront, DAF

6:7 image by Jaume Ollé

German Labour Front / Deutsche Arbeitsfront
Flag for a Model Factory (Musterbetriebsfahne)
National Socialist Factory Organisation (Nationalsozialistische Betriebsorganization / NSBO)
Deutsche Arbeitsfront chartering ships
Nationalsocialist National Association of German Victims of Industrial Accidents (Nationalsozialist Reichsverband der deutschen Arbeitsopfer / NSAO)

See also:

National Labour Service (Reichsarbeitsdienst / RAD)
Introduction to NSDAP Flags
Third Reich 1933-1945
Germany

German Labour Front / Deutsche Arbeitsfront

The Deutsche Arbeitsfront was founded in 1934 and became the only legal [trade] union in the Third Reich.
Marcus Wendel, 1999

It used a red flag with a black Swastika in a white disk in a black spoked wheel at the center. Ratio 6:7. Surrounded by a silver fringe (except at hoist).
Norman Martin, Feb 1998

Flag for a Model Factory / Musterbetriebsfahne

image by Jaume Ollé, modified by Marcus Wendel, 27 Dec 2007

The Musterbetriebsfahne is incorrect, the cogwheel was in gold. Information and photos available in "Labor organizations of the Reich" by John R. Angolia and David Littlejohn.
That book lists the four ways that flag differes from the normal DAF flag:
1. The cogwheel is in gold
2. The swastika is narrower and has a white, then black outline.
3. The fringe is gold
4. The flag-pole top is gold
Marcus Wendel, 27 Dec 2006

National Socialist Factory Organisation / Nationalsozialistische Betriebsorganization / NSBO

[National Socialist Factory Organisation (NSDAP, Germany)]

image by Jaume Ollé

NSBO was a left-wing Nazi trade union. It was planning to become the only union after Hitler came to power. In 1934 Hitler crushed the Sturmabteilung (SA) and the left wing of the party lost all power and the NSBO never gained any influence in the Third Reich.
Marcus Wendel, 1999

Color and letters of the rectangle on canton, uncertain.
Norman Martin, Feb 1998

The Nazis had a trade union, prior to their seizure of power. They opposed the other trade unions, the free (loosely connected with the Social Democrats), the Red (smaller, Communist) and the Hirsch-Dunkler (loosely connected with the Democrats). After they took power all of these were nationalized and merged into the German Labor Front and at first the NSBO became a cell group within the DAF. I do not know when they closed down, but the lists of party organizations during the 1940s seem not to have it listed.
Norman Martin, 21 Dec 2000

Deutsche Arbeitsfront chartering ships

images by Klaus-Michael Schneider, 10 Jun 2007

Deutsche Arbeitsfront was not really a company but an organization of NSDAP. The front was chartering ships. According to source its flag was always hoisted together with the shipowners houseflag and a white pennant with an inscription "Kraft durch Freude" (transl.: power by joy) in red gothic letters. Being a party organization of NSDAP it must have existed between 1933 and 1945 and dissolved in 1945.
Description of flag:
It is a white flag with a black gear in its centre. The gear has fifteen teeth, a fine lined red edge and a black swastika in its centre. From the outside of the gear there are four non-symmetric red bundles of twelve rays. Perhaps they are symbolizing sparks, which occur, when the gear is moving fast.
Source: Arnold KLUDAS: Die Geschichte der deutschen Passagierschiffahrt (5 vols.), Hamburg 1986; Reprint Laibach Slovenia-Buch Nr. 03617-8; flagchart p.224.
Klaus-Michael Schneider, 10 Jun 2007

Another image of the flag you can see in Hormann/Plaschke: "Deutsch Flaggen Geschichte, Tradition, Verwendung", Hamburg/Bielefeld 2006; ISBN 3-89225-555-5; p.143
The red rays there are denominated as a wheel of sun.
Klaus-Michael Schneider, 14 June 2007

Nationalsocialist National Association of German Victims of Industrial Accidents / Nationalsozialist Reichsverband der deutschen Arbeitsopfer / NSAO

Scott Singleton sent me an inquiry about a possible Third Reich flag he owns with hammer, cogwheel and letters 'NSAO'. Initially I thought it might be a Technische Nothilfe (TeNo) flag but it appears to belong to a different organisation. This is a picture of the flag, he said the flag is about 5-6 feet square.
Santiago Dotor, 19 Dec 2000

The flag seems homemade. It doesn't have any finials and the circle seems a bit small. I found this webpage that mentions the initials NSAO in a military context, "5610 a NS.- Reichsverband der deutschen Arbeitsopfer (NSAO) Mitgliedsabzeichen".
Marc Pasquin, 19 Dec 2000

This is the membership insignia of a Nazi era organisation whose name means NS (i.e. National Socialist) National Association of German Victims of Industrial Accidents. It was apparently not officially part of the party - at least I have not been able to find it in lists, etc. and it is not mentioned, as far as I can find, in the Party Organization Book for 1943 nor in the 1939 list of organizations whose insignia are protected by law. Oddly the abbreviation is NSAO and not as one would expect either NSRVDA, NSRDA, NSRVDAO or NSRDAO - i.e. Reichsverband is not abbreviated. Apparently, the same insignia was (later?) used by the Gesamtverband deutschen Arbeitsopfer (General Association of German Victims of Industrial Accidents, abbreviated GDAO). The insignia on the unidentified flag roughly corresponds to that on the membership insignia, although the disk with the swastika is much too large and I still suspect it to be hand made. The data above comes from Handbuch der Abzeichen deutscher Organisationen 1871-1945, 1985/1986 edition.
Norman Martin, 20 Dec 2000