For the rest, the newly installed commissars will be nominated by the Gauleiters in close cooperation with the Regional Factory Cells Office. [Gaubetriebszellenamt].
It is to be understood that this action is to proceed in a strongly disciplined fashion. The Gauleiters are responsible in this respect; they are to hold the direction of the action firmly in hand.
Heil Hitler!
/s/ Dr. Robert Ley
The NSBO (National Socialist Factory Cells Organization) took over not only the administrative apparatus but the entire press of the "Free Trade Unions." The papers and magazines which had a pronounced party political [parteipolitisch] tendency had to stop their publication, while the other special publications continued. By all these measures Marxism was to be hit exclusively, but not the idea of trade unions as such, in which the right and defense of the German workers were embodied.
On 5 May 1933, the leader of the action committee reported to Hitler the success of the ordered action. Then, in a public mass demonstration, he reported about the events of 2 May to the workers of Berlin; at the same time, he unfolded before them his future plans which were to secure the maintenance of the financial efficiency of the trade unions in the interest of the worker.
Following the crushing of the free trade unions, the danger came, of course, that former functionaries would try to acquire money and other property items for themselves in an illegal manner. This, however, would have entailed damage to the members. To avoid these dangers on 12 May 1933, the Attorney General of the State confiscated the property of the free trade unions and of all of their affiliated unions and administrative agencies in order to secure an orderly disposition of the property of the German workers. Dr. Robert Ley was assigned as the attorney with the right to dispose of the confiscated property [vefuegungsberechtigter Pfleger der beschlagnahmten Vermoegen].
While the free trade unions were smashed [zertruemmert] in the action of 2 May, Dr. Ley granted the entire Union of the Christian Trade Unions with further full liberty of movement. For this purpose, he told it on the 6th of May 1933 that "nothing will be changed in the present situation until the return of the Saar to the Reich and that they (the Christian Trade Unions) should continue as before to represent and carry on the idea of the Christian Trade Unions and of Germandom as they see it". Therefore the Christian Trade Unions put on temporary constraint in their attitude toward the social political events of 2 May and participated in the Saar in forming the "German Trade Union Front" in order to help to secure the result of the Saar voting by achieving a unity of the people.
The former free trade union leaders behaved differently. These, with the assistance of their colleagues abroad and of the international union of the trade unions, tried to oppose the measures of the German government; this induced Dr. Ley to introduce the defense against sabotage by the legal authorities.
The hostile activities reached their peak at the International Workers Conference of Geneva which began on 8 June 1933. From the German side, Dr. Ley also took part in it; representatives of the Reich Cabinet and of the Christian Trade Unions were with him. The subjects for the meeting were labor mediation, work conditions in certain branches of industry, social insurance, provision for unemployed, and shortening of the working time. The participating states were to enter the basic rules, which were to be set up in an international agreement, into their social legislations. The Germans represented voiced the opinion that the situation of the working people could not be improved by international agreement but by providing work and bread for the workers. In spite of this opposite opinion, Germany took part at the conference; in this way the German government wanted to prove that it had no purpose whatever to smash the social achievements of the German labor but that, on the contrary, she endeavored to retain them and lead them further. However, she was not willing to approve of an international agreement by which the further development of the German social legislation could be hampered.