ABSTRACT
Whereas Goerdeler was inclined to retain the DAF as a system which would include both employers and employees from the lowest level, Leuschner insisted that the workers must have an organisation of their own but one which was united instead of being (as hitherto) fragmented. He deserves some of the credit for the success of trade unions in the Federal Republic. His basic aim for the workers was equality of social status, which he believed could be achieved by better education as much as by redistribution of wealth. He wanted central supervision of the economic system combined with local selfmanagement. He was sympathetic to the idea of a corporate state (Standestaat) with three 'estates' of workers, peasants and bourgeoisie. He would even have been prepared to go along with Goerdeler's idea of making the Kaiser's grandson Prince Louis Ferdinand Head of State, if the latter had been ready to accept the post. Moltke referred to him by the cover-name of 'the Uncle' and they had arguments, in which Mierendorff acted as intermediary, as to the relative merits of unions and works councils. In the later months, he left relations with the Kreisau Group increasingly to his assistant Maas who did not carry much weight in that quarter. He hoped to see the SPD develop after the war as it has in fact done, as a Volkspartei based on concept rather than class. On security grounds, he refused all approaches made to him by Communists and advised Leber to do the same. The intention was that he should become Vice-Chancellor.
