This attitude also lead directly to the "holocaust" btw. Instead of just machine gunning all of the communist subversives into the nearest anonymous ditch, there was this idea that they could be reformed through labor. "Arbeit Macht Frei" did not come from the famous German love of irony, it's a mission statement. This is from the age of the penitentiary, the idea that by forcing a quiet industrious life style on someone they would become closer to god and be cured of their social ails.