Use of
forced labour in Nazi GermanyNazi Germany and the Third Reich are the common English names for Germany between 1933 and 1945, while it was led by Adolf Hitler and the National Socialist German Worker's Party . The name Third Reich refers to the state as the successor to the Holy Roman Empire of the Middle Ages and the German...
during World War IIWorld War II, or the Second World War , was a global military conflict which involved a majority of the world's nations, including all great powers, organized into two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
occurred on a large scale. It was an important part of the German economic exploitation of conquered territories; it also contributed to the extermination of populations of
German–occupied EuropeGerman–occupied Europe refers to the countries of Europe which were occupied by the military forces of Nazi Germany at various times during World War II between 1939 and 1945....
. The Germans abducted about 12 million people from almost twenty European countries; about two thirds of whom came from
Eastern EuropeEastern Europe is a region lying in the Eastern part of Europe. The term is highly context-dependent and there are "almost as many definitions of Eastern Europe as there are scholars of the region"...
. Many workers died as a result of their living conditions, mistreatment or were civilian casualties of the war. They received little or no compensation during or after the war.
Forced workers
Hitler's policy of
Lebensraumserved as a major motivation for Nazi Germany's territorial aggression, was a reinterpretation of the by then century-old concept of Drang nach Osten...
strongly emphasized the conquest of new lands in the East, known as
Generalplan OstGeneralplan Ost was a secret Nazi plan of genocide and ethnic cleansing to be realised in the territories occupied by Germany in Eastern Europe during World War II...
, and the exploitation of these lands to provide cheap goods and labour to Germany. Even before the war,
Nazi GermanyNazi Germany and the Third Reich are the common English names for Germany between 1933 and 1945, while it was led by Adolf Hitler and the National Socialist German Worker's Party . The name Third Reich refers to the state as the successor to the Holy Roman Empire of the Middle Ages and the German...
maintained a supply of slave labour. This practice started from the early days of labour camps of "undesirables" , such as the homeless, homosexual, criminals, political
dissidentA dissident, broadly defined, is a person who actively challenges an established doctrine, policy, or institution. When dissidents unite for a common cause they often effect a dissident movement....
s,
communistsCommunism is a socioeconomic structure and political ideology that promotes the establishment of an egalitarian, classless, stateless society based on common ownership and control of the means of production and property in general. Karl Marx posited that communism would be the final stage in human...
,
JewThe Jews , also known as the Jewish people, are an ethnoreligious group originating in the Israelites or Hebrews of the Ancient Near East. The Jewish ethnicity, nationality, and religion are strongly interrelated, as Judaism is the traditional faith of the Jewish nation...
s, and anyone whom the regime wanted out of the way. During
World War IIWorld War II, or the Second World War , was a global military conflict which involved a majority of the world's nations, including all great powers, organized into two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
the Nazis operated several categories of
ArbeitslagerArbeitslager is a German language word which means Labor camp.During World War II the Nazis operated several categories of Arbeitslager for different categories of inmates...
(labour camps) for different categories of inmates. Prisoners in Nazi labour camps were worked to death on short rations and in bad conditions, or killed if they became unable to work. Many died as a direct result of forced labour under the Nazis.
The largest number of labour camps held civilians forcibly abducted in the occupied countries (see Łapanka) to provide labour in the German war industry, repair bombed railroads and bridges or work on farms. As the war progressed, the use of slave labour experienced massive growth.
Prisoners of warA prisoner of war or enemy prisoner of war is a combatant who is held in continuing custody by an enemy power during or immediately after an armed conflict...
and civilian "undesirables" were brought in from occupied territories. Millions of Jews,
SlavsThe Slavic Peoples are an ethnic and linguistic branch of Indo-European peoples, living mainly in eastern and central Europe. From the early 6th century they spread from their original homeland to inhabit most of eastern Central Europe, Eastern Europe and the Balkans...
and other conquered peoples were used as slave labourers by German corporations such as
ThyssenFriedrich "Fritz" Thyssen was a German businessman born into one of Germany's leading industrial families.-Youth:Thyssen was born in Mülheim in the Ruhr area...
,
KruppThe Krupp family, a prominent 400-year-old German dynasty from Essen, have become famous for their steel production and for their manufacture of ammunition and armaments. The family business, known as Friedrich Krupp AG Hoesch-Krupp, was the largest company in Europe at the beginning of the 20th...
,
IG FarbenI.G. Farbenindustrie AG was a German chemical industry conglomerate. Its name is taken from Interessen-Gemeinschaft Farbenindustrie AG . The company was formed in 1925 from a number of major companies that had been working together closely since World War I...
and even Fordwerke - a subsidiary of the
Ford Motor CompanyThe Ford Motor Company is an American multinational corporation based in Dearborn, Michigan, a suburb of Detroit. The automaker was founded by Henry Ford and incorporated on June 16, 1903. In addition to the Ford, Lincoln, and Mercury brands, Ford also owns Volvo Cars of Sweden, and a small stake...
. About 12 million forced labourers, most of whom were
Eastern EuropeEastern Europe is a region lying in the Eastern part of Europe. The term is highly context-dependent and there are "almost as many definitions of Eastern Europe as there are scholars of the region"...
ans, were employed in the German war economy inside Nazi Germany throughout the war. More than 2000 German companies profited from slave labour during the Nazi era, including
Deutsche BankDeutsche Bank AG is an international Universal bank with its headquarters in Frankfurt, Germany. The bank employs more than 81,000 people in 76 countries, and has a large presence in Europe, the Americas, Asia Pacific and the emerging markets.Deutsche Bank has offices in major financial centers,...
and
SiemensSiemens AG is a German electrical and telecommunications companysiemens may refer to*siemens , the SI unit of electrical conductance, equivalent to 1 ampere/voltSiemens may also refer to:...
.
A class system was created amongst
Fremdarbeiter (foreign workers) brought to Germany to work for the Reich. The system was based on layers of increasingly less privileged workers, starting with well paid workers from Germany's allies or neutral countries to slave labourers from conquered
untermenschUntermensch is a term from Nazi racial ideology used to describe "inferior people", especially "the masses from the East," that is Jews, Gypsies, Poles along with other Slavic people like the Russians, Ukrainians and anyone else who was not an "Aryan" according to the contemporary Nazi race...
(Nazi German term for what they saw as subhuman) populations.
- Gastarbeitnehmer (guest workers) - Workers from Germanic, Scandinavian countries, Italy or other German allies (Romania, Bulgaria, Hungary). This was a very small group, only about 1% of foreign workers in Germany came from countries that were neutral or allied to Germany.
- Zwangsarbeiter (forced workers)
- Militärinternierte (military internees
Internment is the imprisonment or confinement of people, commonly in large groups, without trial. The Oxford English Dictionary gives the meaning as: "The action of ‘interning’; confinement within the limits of a country or place"...
) For example, almost all Polish non-officer prisoners of war (c. 300,000) were forced to work in Germany. In 1944 there were almost two million prisoners of war employed as forced labourers in Germany.
- Zivilarbeiter
Zivilarbeiter refers primarily to Polish prisoners from the General Government , used during WWII as forced laborers in Germany. Poles were conscripted on the basis of the Polish decrees ....
(civilian workers). Primarily Polish prisoners from the "General GovernmentThe General Government refers to a part of the territories of Poland under German military occupation during World War II and that were a separate part of "Greater Germany"...
. They were regulated by strict Polish decreesPolish decrees, Polish directives or decrees on Poles refer to the decrees of the Nazi Germany government announced on 8 March 1940 during World War II. They concerned the Polish laborers used during WWII as forced laborers in Germany, regulating their working and living conditions...
: they received lower wages and could not use public conveniences (such as public transport) or visit many public spaces and businesses (for example they could not attend a German church service, swimming pools or restaurant); they had to work longer hours than Germans; they received smaller food rations; they were subject to a curfewA curfew refers to one of the following:# An order by a government for certain persons to return home daily before a certain time. It can be imposed to maintain public order , or suppress targeted groups...
; they often were denied holidays and had to work seven days a week; could not enter a marriage without permission; possession of money or objects of value, bicycles, cameras or lighters was forbidden; and they were required to wear a sign - the "Polish P" - attached to their clothing. In 1939 there were about 300,000 of them in Germany; In 1944 there were about 2,8 m Polish Zivilarbeiter in Germany (approximately 10% of Generalgouvernement workforce) and a similar number of workers in this category from other countries.
- Ostarbeiter (Eastern workers) Soviet civil workers primarily from Ukraine. They were marked with a sign OST ("East"), had to live in camps that were fenced with barbed wire and under guard, and were particularly exposed to the arbitrariness of the Gestapo and the industrial plant guards. Estimates put the number of OST Arbeiters between 3 million and 5.5 million.
In general, foreign labourers from Western Europe had similar gross earnings and were subject to similar taxation as German workers. In contrast, the central and eastern European forced labourers received at most about one-half the gross earnings paid to German workers and much fewer social benefits. Forced labourers who were prisoners of labour or concentration camps received little if any wage and benefits. The deficiency in net earnings of central and eastern European forced labourers (versus forced labourers from western countries) is illustrated by the wage savings forced labourers were able to transfer to their families at home or abroad (see table).
The official German records for the late summer of 1944 listed 7.6 million foreign civilian workers and prisoners of war in the territory of the "Greater German Reich", who for the most part had been brought there for employment by force. By 1944, slave labour made up one quarter of Germany's entire work force, and the majority of German factories had a contingent of prisoners. The Nazis also had plans for the deportation and enslavement of Britain's adult male population in the event of a
successful invasionOperation Sea Lion was Nazi Germany's plan to invade England during World War II, beginning in 1940. However, to have any chance of success, the operation required air supremacy over the English Channel...
.
Foreign civilian forced labourers in Nazi Germany by country of origin, January 1944 Source: Beyer & Schneider
| Countries | Number | % of total | Transfers per labourer
in Reichsmarks |
|---|
| Occupied Eastern Europe |
4,183,000 |
64.8 |
c. 15 |
| Czechoslovakia |
248,000 |
5.4 |
|
| Poland |
1,400,000 |
21.7 |
33.5 |
| Yugoslavia |
270,000 |
4.2 |
|
| USSR |
2,165,000 |
33.6 |
4 |
| Occupied Western Europe |
2,175,000 |
33.7 |
c. 700 |
| France (except Alsace-Lorraine) |
1,100,000 |
17.1 |
487 |
| Norway |
2,000 |
0.0 |
|
| Denmark |
23,000 |
0.4 |
|
| Netherlands |
350,000 |
5.4 |
|
| Belgium |
500,000 |
7.8 |
913 |
| Greece |
20,000 |
0.3 |
|
| Italy |
180,000 |
2.8 |
1,471 |
| German allies and neutral countries |
82,000 |
1.4 |
|
| Hungary |
25,000 |
0.4 |
|
| Bulgaria |
35,000 |
0.5 |
|
| Romania |
6,000 |
0.1 |
|
| Spain |
8,000 |
0.1 |
|
| Switzerland |
18,000 |
0.3 |
|
Organisation Todt
The
Organisation TodtThe Organisation Todt was a Third Reich civil and military engineering group in Germany eponymously named after its founder, Fritz Todt, an engineer and senior Nazi figure...
was a
Third ReichNazi Germany and the Third Reich are the common English names for Germany between 1933 and 1945, while it was led by Adolf Hitler and the National Socialist German Worker's Party . The name Third Reich refers to the state as the successor to the Holy Roman Empire of the Middle Ages and the German...
civilCivil engineering is a professional engineering discipline that deals with the design, construction and maintenance of the physical and naturally built environment, including works such as bridges, roads, canals, dams and buildings...
and
military engineerA military engineer is primarily responsible for the design and construction of offensive, defensive, and logistical structures for warfare. Other duties include the layout, placement, maintenance and dismantling of defensive minefields and the clearing of enemy minefields and the construction...
ing group in Germany eponymously named for its founder,
Fritz TodtFritz Todt was a German engineer and senior Nazi figure, the founder of Organisation Todt. He died in a plane crash during World War II.- Life :Todt was born in Pforzheim, to a father who owned a small factory...
, an engineer and senior
NaziNazism, known officially in German as National Socialism , is the totalitarian ideology and practices of the Nazi Party or National Socialist German Workers’ Party under Adolf Hitler, and the policies adopted by the dictatorial government of Nazi Germany from 1933 to 1945.Nazism is often considered...
figure. The organization was responsible for a huge range of engineering projects both in pre-
World War IIWorld War II, or the Second World War , was a global military conflict which involved a majority of the world's nations, including all great powers, organized into two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
GermanyGermany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a country in Central Europe. It is bordered to the north by the North Sea, Denmark, and the Baltic Sea; to the east by Poland and the Czech Republic; to the south by Austria and Switzerland; and to the west by France, Luxembourg, Belgium,...
, and in Germany itself and
occupied territories from
FranceFrance , officially the French Republic , is a country located in Western Europe, with several overseas islands and territories located on other continents. Metropolitan France extends from the Mediterranean Sea to the English Channel and the North Sea, and from the Rhine to the Atlantic Ocean...
to
RussiaRussia , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia . It is a semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
during the war, and became notorious for using forced labour. Most of the so-called "volunteer" Soviet POW workers were consumed by the Organisation Todt. The history of the organization falls fairly neatly into three phases:
- A pre-war period from 1933–1938 during which the predecessor of Organisation Todt, the office of General Inspector of German Roadways (Generalinspektor für das deutsche Straßenwesen), was primarily responsibility for the construction of the German Autobahn
Autobahn is the German word for a major high-speed road restricted to motor vehicles capable of driving at least 60 km/h and having full control of access, similar to a motorway or freeway in English-speaking countries.In most countries, it usually refers to the German autobahn specifically...
network. The organisation was able to draw on "conscripted" - i.e., compulsory - labour, from within Germany, through the Reich Labour Service (ReichsarbeitsdienstThe Reichsarbeitsdienst was an institution established by Nazi Germany as an agency to reduce unemployment, similar to the Civilian Conservation Corps of the United States. During the Second World War it was an auxiliary formation which provided support for the Wehrmacht.The RAD was formed during...
, RAD).
- The period from 1938, when the Organisation Todt proper was founded until 1942, when the huge increase in the demand for labour created by the various military and paramilitary projects was met by a series of expansions of the laws on compulsory service, which ultimately obligated all Germans to arbitrarily determined (i.e. effectively unlimited) compulsory labour for the state: Zwangsarbeit. From 1938-40, Over 1.75 million Germans were conscripted into labour service. From 1940-42, Organization Todt began its reliance on Gastarbeitnehmer (guest workers), Militärinternierte (military internees
Internment is the imprisonment or confinement of people, commonly in large groups, without trial. The Oxford English Dictionary gives the meaning as: "The action of ‘interning’; confinement within the limits of a country or place"...
), Zivilarbeiter (civilian workersZivilarbeiter refers primarily to Polish prisoners from the General Government , used during WWII as forced laborers in Germany. Poles were conscripted on the basis of the Polish decrees ....
), Ostarbeiter (Eastern workers) and Hilfswillige ("volunteer") POW workers.
- The period from 1942 until the end of the war, with approximately 1.4 million labourers in the service of the Organisation Todt. Overall, 1% were Germans rejected from military service and 1.5% were concentration camp prisoners; the rest were prisoners of war and compulsory labourers from occupied countries. All were effectively treated as slaves and existed in the complete and arbitrary service of a ruthless totalitarian state. Many did not survive the work or the war.
Extreme cases: extermination through labour
Millions of Jews were forced labourers in
ghettoOriginally used in Venice to describe the area where Jews were compelled to live, a ghetto is now described as a "portion of a city in which members of a minority group live; especially because of social, legal, or economic pressure." - Etymology :...
s, before they were shipped off to extermination camps. The Nazis also operated
concentration campsNazi Germany, under Adolf Hitler, maintained concentration camps throughout the territories it controlled. The first Nazi concentration camps were greatly expanded in Germany after the Reichstag fire in 1933, and were intended to hold political prisoners and opponents of the regime...
, some of which provided free forced labour for industrial and other jobs while others existed purely for the extermination of their inmates. Ironically, at the entrances to a number of camps a
GermanGerman is a West Germanic language, thus related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. It is one of the world's major languages and the most widely spoken first language in the European Union. Around the world, German is spoken by approximately 105 million native speakers and also by...
phrase meaning "work brings freedom" (
Arbeit macht frei"Arbeit macht frei" is a German phrase meaning "work brings freedom" or "work shall set you free/will free you" or "work liberates" and, literally in English, "work makes free"...
) was placed. A notable example of labour-concentration camp is the
Mittelbau-DoraMittelbau-Dora was a Nazi Germany labour camp that provided workers for the Mittelwerk V-2 rocket factory in the Kohnstein, situated near Nordhausen, Germany....
labour camp complex that serviced the production of the
V-2 rocketAccording to head of Nazi rocket program Walter Dornberger, the V-2 rocket was the world's first ballistic missile and first human artifact to achieve sub-orbital spaceflight. It was the progenitor of all modern rockets...
.
Extermination through labourExtermination through labor is a principle that guided the operation of the Nazi concentration camp system, defined as the willful or accepted killing of forced laborers or prisoners through excessive heavy labor and inadequate care....
was a Nazi German
World War IIWorld War II, or the Second World War , was a global military conflict which involved a majority of the world's nations, including all great powers, organized into two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
principle that regulated the aims and purposes of most of their labour and concentration camps. The rule demanded that the inmates of German WWII camps be forced to work for the German war industry with only basic tools and minimal food rations until totally exhausted.
Controversy over compensation
To facilitate the rebuilding of German economy after the war, certain groups of Nazi victims were excluded from direct compensation through the German Government; those were the groups with the least amount of political pressure they could have brought to bear, and many forced labourers from the Eastern Europe fall into that category. Since the end of the war, there has been little initiative on the part of the German government or German industry to compensate the forced labourers under the Third Reich.
As stated in the London Debt Agreement of 1953:
- Consideration of claims arising out of the Second World War by countries which were at war with or were occupied by Germany during that war, and by nationals of such countries, against the Reich and agencies of the Reich, including costs of German occupation, credits acquired during occupation on clearing accounts and claims against the Reichskreditkassen shall be deferred until the final settlement of the problem of reparations.
To this date, there are arguments that such settlement has never been fully completed and that Germany post-war development has been greatly aided, while the development of victim countries stalled.
A prominent example of a group which received almost no compensation for their time as forced labourer in Nazi Germany are the Polish forced labourers. According to the Potsdam Agreements of 1945, the Poles were to receive reparations not from Germany itself, but from the
Soviet UnionThe Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. The name is a translation of the , tr. Soyuz Sovetskikh Sotsialisticheskikh Respublik, abbreviated СССР, SSSR. The common short name is Soviet Union, from , Sovetskiy Soyuz...
share of those repatriations; due to the Soviet pressure on the Polish communist government, the Poles agreed to a system of repayment that
de facto meant that few Polish victims received any sort of adequate compensation (comparable to the victims in Western Europe or Soviet Union itself). Most of the Polish share of repatriations was "given" to Poland by Soviet Union under the
ComeconThe Council for Mutual Economic Assistance , 1949–1991, was an economic organization of communist states and a kind of Eastern Bloc equivalent to—but less geographically inclusive than—the European Economic Community...
framework, which was not only highly inefficient, but benefited Soviet Union much more than Poland. Under further Soviet pressure (related to the London Agreement on German External Debts), in 1953 the
People's Republic of PolandThe Polish People's Republic was the official name of Poland from 1952 to 1990.Although the Polish People's Republic was a sovereign state as defined by international law, its leaders were at the very least approved by the Kremlin...
announced its waiver of further claims of reparations from the successor states of the German Reich. Only after the fall of communism in Poland in 1989/1990 did the Polish government try to renegotiate the issue of repatriations, but found little support in this from the German side and none from the Soviet (later, Russian) side.
The total number of forced labourers under the Third Reich who were still alive as of August 1999 was 2.3 million. The
German Forced Labour Compensation ProgrammeThe German Forced Labour Compensation Programme was a program to pay compensation to people forced by Nazi Germany to work as slaves during World War II...
was established in 2000; a forced labour fund paid out more than 4.37 billion euros to close to 1.7 million of then-living victims around the world (one-off payments of between 2,500 to 7,500
euroThe euro is the official currency of 16 of the 27 Member States of the European Union . The states, known collectively as the Eurozone, are Austria, Belgium, Cyprus, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Malta, the Netherlands, Portugal, Slovakia, Slovenia and Spain...
s). Germany Chancellor
Angela Merkel' is the current Chancellor of Germany. Merkel, elected to the German Parliament from Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, has been the chairwoman of the Christian Democratic Union since 10 April 2000, and Chairwoman of the CDU-CSU parliamentary party group from 2002 to 2005...
stated in 2007 that "Many former forced labourers have finally received the promised humanitarian aid"; she also conceded that before the fund was established nothing had gone directly to the forced labourers. German president Horst Koehler stated
- It was an initiative that was urgently needed along the journey to peace and reconciliation... At least, with these symbolic payments, the suffering of the victims has been publicly acknowledged after decades of being forgotten.
See also
- Baudienst
Baudienst , full name Polnischer Baudienst im Generalgouvernement , was the labour battalion created in Nazi-occupied Poland . Baudienst was subordinate to the Reichsarbeitsdienst Baudienst (from German, lit. "building service" or "construction service"), full name Polnischer Baudienst im...
, German (In English, building service or construction service); full name - Polnischer Baudienst im Generalgouvernement, German (In English, Polish Service of Construction in the General Government)
- Deutsche Wirtschaftsbetriebe
Deutsche Wirtschaftsbetriebe , generally abbreviated DWB was a project launched by the Allgemeine SS to profit from the use of Nazi concentration camp inmates as slave labor.- Holding company for Nazi concerns :...
, German (In English, DWB - German Economic Enterprises)
- Forced labour of Germans in the Soviet Union
- Hunger Plan
The Hunger Plan was an economic management scheme that was put in place to ensure that Germans were given priority over food supplies, at the expense of everyone else. Featured as part of the planning phase of the Wehrmacht invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941...
- Kidnapping of Polish children by Nazi Germany
Kidnapping of Polish children by Nazi Germany , part of the Generalplan Ost , involved taking children from occupied Poland and moving them to Nazi Germany for the purpose of Germanization, or conversion into Germans...
- Organisation Todt
The Organisation Todt was a Third Reich civil and military engineering group in Germany eponymously named after its founder, Fritz Todt, an engineer and senior Nazi figure...
- Service du travail obligatoire
During the German occupation of France in the Second World War, the Service du travail obligatoire was the forced enlistment and deportation of hundreds of thousands of French workers to Germany in order to work as forced labour for the German war effort...
, French (In English, STO - Compulsory Work Service)
- Sexual enslavement by Nazi Germany in World War II
Further reading
German historian who has conducted a lot of research into the issue of Nazi forced labour.
External links