- published: 23 Sep 2011
- views: 16615
Robert Ley (German pronunciation: [ˈlaɪ]; 15 February 1890 – 25 October 1945) was a Nazi politician and head of the German Labour Front from 1933 to 1945. He committed suicide while awaiting trial for war crimes.
Ley was born in Niederbreidenbach (now a part of Nümbrecht) in the Rhine Province, the seventh of 11 children of a heavily indebted farmer, Friedrich Ley, and his wife Emilie (née Wald). He studied chemistry at the Universities of Jena, Bonn, and Münster. He volunteered for the army on the outbreak of World War I in 1914 and spent two years in the artillery before training as an aerial artillery spotter with Field Artillery Detachment 202. In July 1917 his aircraft was shot down over France and he was taken prisoner. It has been suggested that he suffered brain injury in the crash; for the rest of his life he spoke with a stammer and suffered bouts of erratic behaviour, aggravated by heavy drinking.
After the war Ley returned to university, gaining a doctorate in 1920. He was employed as a food chemist by a branch of the giant IG Farben company, based in Leverkusen in the Ruhr. Enraged by the French occupation of the Ruhr in 1924, Ley became an ultra-nationalist and joined the Nazi Party soon after reading Adolf Hitler's speech at his trial following the Beer Hall Putsch in Munich. By 1925 he was Gauleiter of the Southern Rhineland district and editor of a virulently anti-Semitic Nazi newspaper, the Westdeutsche Beobachter. Ley proved unswervingly loyal to Hitler, which led the party leader to ignore complaints about his arrogance, incompetence and drunkenness.
Hey Look at the way she's wavin' her sail,
It's a wonderous sight to see.
People hurry on down from every town
Have a look at the Robert E. Lee.
Proud and strong and made to be free,
Can't go wrong on the Robert E. Lee.
Got the sun in my eyes and the wind in my face.
And it's good just to be alive.
Gonna set out tonight for New Orleans;
I won't sleep till I arrive.
And if I'm lucky
I'll find a young lady under the stars,
And we'll dance the night away.
Somebody wake me and say it's a dream
Leadin' me far from my home.
And haven't you noticed, despite what it seems.
You can't deny it's you and I alone.
Maybe spend my life just workin' the land,
Maybe livin' from day to day.
But I'm free tonight in New Orleans:
If I like it I just might stay!
Proud and strong and made to be free,
Can't go wrong on the Robert E. Lee.
Got the sun in my eyes and the wind in my face.
And it's good just to be alive.
Gonna set out tonight for New Orleans;
I won't sleep till I arrive.