Nazi Make-Work Projects

I stumbled across a small library in Manchester, UK while studying abroad. One gem was a book by an author who I have since been unable to identify. What I know is that he was a journalist from Australia or New Zealand covering Germany in the 30s (As an avid viewer of Flight of the Conchords, I don't take this distinction lightly). He detailed one of the employment schemes set up by the German government during the Depression - large numbers of civil servants were paid to identify and cut out newspaper articles that mentioned the Reich. Sort of the Nazi-version of digging holes and filling them in again.