Konstantin Hierl (24 February 1875 – 23 September 1955) was a major figure in the administration of Nazi Germany. He was the head of the Reich Labour Service (Reichsarbeitsdienst; RAD) a Reichsleiter of the Nazi Party and an associate of Adolf Hitler before he came to national power. Life Hierl was born in Parsberg near Neumarkt in the Bavarian Upper Palatinate region, and attended secondary school (Gymnasium) in Burghausen and Regensburg. In 1893 he joined the Bavarian Army as a cadet. He obtained the rank of Leutnant in 1895 and graduated from the military academy in 1902. He was promoted to Hauptmann in 1909. He served as a company commander in the Bavarian infantry. In World War I Hierl served as a member of the general staff of the I Royal Bavarian Reserve Corps, part of the German 6th Army fighting on the Western Front, where he achieved the rank of Oberstleutnant and was awarded the Iron Cross, 1st and 2nd class and other decorations. Upon the German defeat and the November Revolution of 1918, Hierl became head of a paramilitary Freikorps unit. Hierl played a role in organizing the Black Reichswehr paramilitary forces in the early years of the Weimar Republic. He was discharged from the service with the rank of Oberst in September 1924, in part due to his support of General Erich Ludendorff's participation in the Beer Hall Putsch. In 1925, he joined Ludendorff's far-right Tannenbergbund political society, which Hierl left two years later. Nazi Party In April 1929 he joined the Nazi Party (NSDAP) and became head of Organization Department II that same year, serving as Deputy to Gregor Strasser. In the federal election of 1930, he became a member of the Reichstag parliament. On 5 June 1931, two years before the Nazi Party ascended to national power, Hierl became head of the FAD (Freiwilliger Arbeitsdienst), a state sponsored voluntary labour organization that provided services to civic and agricultural construction projects. There were many such organizations in Europe at the time, founded to provide much-needed employment during the Great Depression. Hierl was already a high-ranking member of the NSDAP when the Party took power in January 1933. He remained the head of the labour organization - now called the Nationalsozialistischer Arbeitsdienst, or NSAD. Adolf Hitler named him as State Secretary in the Reich Ministry of Labour under Franz Seldte, with the order to build up a