The Office for Leisure Time                 
 
 The task of the Office for Leisure Time is to
enable workers to go to the opera, theaters and concerts, 
which they would otherwise find it impossible
to attend; to arrange factory concerts, community
singing, costume and dance festivals and broadcasts
by amateur musicians; to send travelling theatrical
companies and motion-pictures out into the country
districts; and generally to help workers' spend their
spare time pleasurably and profitably. The service 
of the organization in bringing about a kind
of back-to-the-theater movement is deserving of
special interest.
 
 An inquiry undertaken in 1933 among the 50,000
workers of the Siemens plant in Berlin showed that
87 per cent of the men, and 81 per cent of the women,
had never heard an opera, and that respectively 63
and 74 per cent of the men and women had never been
to the theater. While the Labor Front authorities,
according to their own statement, did not regard this
as remarkable in view of the fact that 58 per cent of
the German workers earn 150 marks or less per month,
the same officials set themselves the task of bringing 
these people to theaters and to concerts at prices 
they could afford. The price scale now in effect 
is one mark for opera and the best concerts,
and 75- 80 pfennigs for the theater (including the
checking of hats and coats).