Maybe the central goal of Nazi ideology and politics was to conquer territories in Eastern Europe (« Lebensraum ») for the settlement of German people. In order to prepare the German nation for war, from the beginning the Nazis concentrated their economic resources or armament and autarchy.
As a consequence, consumption suffered from these priorities. For instance, tourism in foreign countries was restricted because of the lack of currency. To compensate the limitation to consumption, the Nazis initiated a mixture of propaganda and activities. One was the planning of « people's products », like the « Volksempfänger », which was a radio receiver, the «Volkswagen », the « Volkskühlschrank », a refrigerator, and others. The idea was to make consumer goods cheaper by extreme rationalisation and mass production.
One element of this particular Nazi strategy of consumption, not concerning products, but services were the leisure and tourist activities of the « Kraft durch Freude »-movement (literally : power by enjoyment). KdF- tourism consisted of hiking, one day-excursions by train or bus, holiday-travels, and sea-cruises. The sea-cruises were only within a small minority's reach, but had a considerable propaganda effect. KdF-holiday-tours competed with the travel agencies'packaged ones. In the beginning this resulted in sharp conflicts between KdF and the tourist business which were settled by a typical Nazi compromise formula. The KdF would serve the working class whereas the travel agencies would find their clients in the more well-to-do people. This was completely wrong because most of the KdF-tourists came as well from the middle classes.
The KdF-visions of tourism went far beyond its activities. Its goal was, by transferring the principles or rationalisation and mass production to tourism, to enable at least its 14 million members and their families to go on holidays each year and to take part in a sea-cruise at least one time in their lives. KdF planned to erect a special shipyard for the construction of cabin-cruisers. In 1936, it started to build a gigantic seaside resort near Prora on the island of Rügen for 20 000 guests what would result in some 100 000 holiday-makers per year. Some more seaside resorts of the Prora-type were under discussion.
The KdF-standard programme and its future planning collapsed since 1938, that is before the war, because of a lack or resources. The German economy was not capable to fulfil the armament and autarchy-programme on the one side, and to provide transportation capacity, building equipment, and manpower for tourism on the other side. KdF was forced to postpone its plans until the end of the war. In the last consequence it intended a totalitarian welfare state tourism. The majority of German people should spend KdF-holidays where they would be exposed to Nazi propaganda. The tradional tourist business should have to care of the minority of wealthier people.