Reich Labour Service: ditches in the mountain meadows, 1937
Among hay barns in a mountain valley, gangs of young men cut turf and dig drainage ditches with spades and picks, digging in step below the peaks.
On a tussocky valley floor scattered with weathered hay barns, young men bare to the waist drive spades into the turf and lever out sods; a boot presses a curved spade into the grass, a line of men works along the course of a new ditch beneath a steep mountain flank, a gang swings picks in stony ground, and five men dig in unison beneath a great ridge and white clouds.
Draining wet meadows was among the first tasks the labour service took on, for it promised more hay and pasture without a single new machine. The picture of youth, spade and mountain landscape was the one the service itself liked best to publish.
