[vague] During World War II, compulsory service also included young women, and the RAD developed to an auxiliary formation which provided support for the Wehrmacht armed forces.

In the course of the Great Depression, the German government of the Weimar Republic under Chancellor Heinrich Brüning by emergency decree established the Freiwilliger Arbeitsdienst ('Voluntary Labour Service', FAD), on 5 June 1931, two years before the Nazi Party (NSDAP) ascended to national power.

The state sponsored employment organisation provided services to civic and land improvement projects, from 16 July 1932 it was headed by Friedrich Syrup in the official rank of a Reichskommissar.

The concept was adopted by Adolf Hitler, who upon the Nazi seizure of power in 1933 appointed Konstantin Hierl state secretary in the Reich Ministry of Labour, responsible for FAD matters.

Meant as an evasion of the regulations set by the 1919 Treaty of Versailles, voluntariness initially was maintained after protests by the Geneva World Disarmament Conference.

Hierl's rivalry with Labour Minister Franz Seldte led to the affiliation of his office as a FAD Reichskommissar with the Interior Ministry under his party fellow Wilhelm Frick.

On 11 July 1934, the NSAD was renamed Reichsarbeitsdienst or RAD with Hierl as its director until the end of World War II.

With massive financial support by the German government, RAD members were to provide service for civic and agricultural construction projects.

The pre-war organization would also provide funding for education or training for poor members so they could learn a trade or get a university degree.

Donors received an enameled Erinnerungsnadel ("commemorative pin") that used the oval NSAD or RAD symbol with the text Arbeits / Dank added in the colored border.

The understrength unit was made up of 90 Pioneers armed with flamethrowers and extra machineguns, which Moeller divided into two assault companies.

On 17 September, SS-Kampfgruppe Moeller advanced from the railway station but were blocked just east of the Arnhem town square by the British 2nd and 3rd Parachute Battalions.

[citation needed] Moeller's Pioneers were then involved in the fighting on 18 September to reduce the British perimeter and retake the northern end of the Arnhem bridge.