Forced labor of Germans in the Soviet Union was considered by 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...
to be part of German war reparations for the damage inflicted by
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...
on the Soviet Union 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...
.
PolandPoland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe . Poland is bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...
,
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...
, the
United KingdomThe United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is a sovereign state located off the northwestern coast of continental Europe. It is an island country, spanning an archipelago including Great Britain, the northeastern part of Ireland, and many small islands...
and the U.S. also made heavy use of Germans as forced labour in order to rebuild several regions from enormous destruction made by Nazi Germany; see the
Morgenthau PlanThe Morgenthau Plan was a plan for the occupation of Germany after World War II that advocated measures intended to remove Germany's ability to wage war...
for details and references.
Information about this was suppressed in the
Soviet BlocThe terms Eastern Bloc, Communist Bloc or Soviet Bloc were used to refer to the former Communist states of Eastern and Central Europe, including the countries of the Warsaw Pact, along with Yugoslavia and Albania, which were not aligned with the Soviet Union after 1948 and 1960...
until the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Forced labor of Germans in the Soviet Union was considered by 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...
to be part of German war reparations for the damage inflicted by
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...
on the Soviet Union 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...
.
PolandPoland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe . Poland is bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...
,
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...
, the
United KingdomThe United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is a sovereign state located off the northwestern coast of continental Europe. It is an island country, spanning an archipelago including Great Britain, the northeastern part of Ireland, and many small islands...
and the U.S. also made heavy use of Germans as forced labour in order to rebuild several regions from enormous destruction made by Nazi Germany; see the
Morgenthau PlanThe Morgenthau Plan was a plan for the occupation of Germany after World War II that advocated measures intended to remove Germany's ability to wage war...
for details and references.
Information about this was suppressed in the
Soviet BlocThe terms Eastern Bloc, Communist Bloc or Soviet Bloc were used to refer to the former Communist states of Eastern and Central Europe, including the countries of the Warsaw Pact, along with Yugoslavia and Albania, which were not aligned with the Soviet Union after 1948 and 1960...
until the collapse of the Soviet Union. Before that, however, it was known in the West through statistics and recollections of the internees.
The use of German labor was analyzed by the Soviet government starting in 1943, and the issue is present in the paperwork of the
Yalta ConferenceThe Yalta Conference, sometimes called the Crimea Conference and codenamed the Argonaut Conference, was the wartime meeting from 4 February 1945 to 11 February 1945 among the heads of government of the United States, the United Kingdom, and the Soviet Union—President Franklin D...
, but the
Potsdam ConferenceThe Potsdam Conference was held at Cecilienhof, the home of Crown Prince Wilhelm Hohenzollern, in Potsdam, occupied Germany, from 16 July to 2 August 1945. Participants were the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, and the United States...
did not discuss it. In fact, the USSR began forcing labor of Germans in 1944.
The
NKVDThe People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs The People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs The People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs was the public and secret police organization of the Soviet Union that directly executed the rule of power of the Soviets, including...
took the lead role in it via its department, Chief Directorate for Prisoners of War and Internees' Affairs (Главное управление по делам военнопленных и интернированных, ГУПВИ, transliterated as GUPVI).
Civilians
Secret
Order 7161Order 7161 refers to the top secret USSR State Defense Committee Order no 7161ss of December 16, 1944 about mobilisation and internment of able-bodied Germans for works in the USSR...
(December 1944) issued by USSR State Defense Committee made possible the internment of all adult Germans from
RomaniaRomania is a country located in Southeastern and Central Europe, North of the Balkan Peninsula, on the Lower Danube, within and outside the Carpathian arch, bordering on the Black Sea. Almost all of the Danube Delta is located within its territory...
,
YugoslaviaYugoslavia is a term that describes three political entities that existed successively on the Balkan Peninsula in Europe, during most of the 20th century.The first country to be known by this...
,
HungaryHungary , in English officially the Republic of Hungary , is a landlocked country in the Carpathian Basin of Central Europe, bordered by Austria, Slovakia, Ukraine, Romania, Serbia, Croatia, and Slovenia. Its capital is Budapest. Hungary is a member of OECD, NATO, EU, V4 and is a Schengen state...
,
BulgariaBulgaria , officially the Republic of Bulgaria , is a country in the Balkans in south-eastern Europe. Bulgaria borders five other countries: Romania to the north , Serbia and the Republic of Macedonia to the west, and Greece and Turkey to the south...
and
CzechoslovakiaCzechoslovakia was a sovereign state in Central Europe which existed from October 1918, when it declared its independence from the Austro-Hungarian Empire, until 1992...
. In January 1945 100,000 ethnic Germans, women aged 18–30, men aged 17–45 were sent to the Soviet Union from Romania. 10% died in the camps or in the train transports.. (See also
Flight and expulsion of Germans from Romania during and after World War IIThe expulsion of Germans from Romania after World War II, conducted on Soviet order early in 1945, uprooted tens of thousands of Romania's Germans, many of whom lost their lives. After the World War II deportation of Jews to Transnistria , it was the largest mass deportation in modern Romanian...
).
After Christmas 1944 between 27,000 to 30,000 ethnic Germans (aged 18–40) were sent to the USSR from Yugoslavia. Women made up 90% of the group. Most were sent to labor camps in the Donbass(Donez basin) where 16% of them died.
The later Order 7467 (February 3, 1945) of the State Defense Committee called for the mobilization of able-bodied male Germans aged 17–50 from
Upper SilesiaUpper Silesia is the southeastern part of the historical and geographical region of Silesia; Lower Silesia is to the northwest. Since the 9th century, Upper Silesia has been part of Greater Moravia, Bohemia, Poland, Holy Roman Empire, Austria, Prussia, and later of unified German Reich...
and
East PrussiaEast Prussia is the main part of the region of Prussia along the southeastern Baltic Coast from the 13th century to the end of World War II in May 1945. From 1772–1829 and 1878–1945, the Province of East Prussia was part of the German state of Prussia...
, "to prevent terrorist acts and diversions" in the rear of active Soviet fronts. Those who served in the regular army or in
VolkssturmThe Volkssturm was a German national militia of the last months of World War II...
were considered
POWsA 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 deported to
NKVDThe People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs The People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs The People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs was the public and secret police organization of the Soviet Union that directly executed the rule of power of the Soviets, including...
POW camps. The rest had to form labor battalions which were transferred to the Soviet Union for reconstruction works, primarily in the
Ukrainian SSRThe Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic or the Ukrainian SSR was one of the founders of the Soviet Union constituent republic that made up the former Soviet Union from its formation in 1922 to its abolition in 1991.-Name:...
and
Byelorussian SSRThe Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic was one of fifteen constituent republics of the Soviet Union...
. Implementation was under the control of the commanders of the corresponding Soviet Army Fronts, with further processing by the NKVD.
According to some sources, in early 1945 close to 165,000 Germans were deported to the Soviet Union from the German territories that were de-facto annexed by Poland.
In total, there were 155,262 civilian internees from Germany, according to the official Soviet sources. Together with the internees 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"...
, the total number of internees by 1945 was about 267,000. They were assigned different status based on their geographical origin: those from Eastern Europe were classified as "mobilized internees," while those from Germany itself were "arrested internees".
From the group "mobilized internees" by October 1, 1946 35,775 had died out of an original 208,239. From the group "arrested internees" which in May 1945 numbered 94,601 by 1946 some 21,250 were repatriated and 25,889 likely died ("or withdrew for other reasons")
The majority were placed within the European USSR. Over 75% worked within Ukraine (Donbass and its mining and metallurgical neighborhood) and 11% in the
UralsThe Ural Mountains are a mountain range that runs roughly north-south through western Russia. They are usually considered the natural boundary between Europe and Asia....
.
Forced labor turned out to be inefficient and unprofitable.
RepatriationRepatriation The process of returning a person back to one's place of origin or citizenship. This includes the process of returning refugees or soldiers to their place of origin following a war...
started as early as 1945-1946. Notably, Romania refused to take back its former German citizens.
However, selective internment of skilled workers and engineers continued until 1949, when
East GermanThe German Democratic Republic was a Communist state that originated from the Soviet Zone of occupied Germany and the Soviet sector of occupied Berlin...
communists asked Stalin to discontinue the practice.
The reported death rate was 19% among "mobilized internees" and 39% among "arrested internees".
Thanks to opening of the Russian archives the fates of some of these civilians have been made known, by late 1996 the German Red Cross had received from Russia 199,000 records of deported German civilians who had either been repatriated or died in Soviet captivity. An example of a case record is that of Pauline Gölner; her records reveal that she was born in 1926 in Wolkendorf in
TransylvaniaTransylvania is a historical region in the central part of Romania. Bounded on the east and south by the Carpathian mountain range, historical Transylvania extended in the west to the Apuseni Mountains; however, the term frequently encompasses not only Transylvania proper, but also the historical...
, was arrested on January 15, 1945 and sent to forced labor in the coal mines of Chanchenkowo (Ukraine) where she died on February 26, 1949, only 23 years old.
Scientists
A number of German scientists worked in the Soviet Union, e.g.
Helmut GröttrupHelmut Gröttrup was a German electrical engineer and assistant of Wernher von Braun in the V-2 rocket-project. Gröttrup was responsible for the guidance system....
with his group.
POWs
The majority of German forced labor after WWII was represented by 2.3 million German POWs left by the end of the war; see
POW labor in the Soviet UnionSystematic POW labor in the Soviet Union is associated primarily with the outcomes of the World War II and covers the period of 1939-1956.This form of forced labor was handled by the Chief Directorate for Prisoners of War and Internees Affairs of the NKVD, established in 1939 Systematic POW labor...
.
The last Germans (those who were sentenced for war crimes, sometimes without sufficient reason) were repatriated in 1956.
See also
- Forced labor of Germans after World War II
Forced labor of Germans after World War II refers to the Allied use of Germans civilians and captured soldiers for forced labor for several years after World War II....
- Against Their Will: The History and Geography of Forced Migrations in the USSR
- Foreign forced labor in the Soviet Union
Foreign forced labor in the Soviet Union was an important part of the Soviet economy during and in the aftermath of the World War II, which continued up to 1950s....
- Forced labor in Germany during World War II
Use of forced labour in Nazi Germany during World War II 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 Europe...
- Zippe-type centrifuge
The Zippe-type centrifuge is a device designed to collect Uranium-235. It was developed in the Soviet Union by a team of 60 German scientists captured after World War II, working in detention...
- Journey Back to Youth
Journey Back to Youth is a 2001 documentary film by a Russian film makers, Alexander Gutman and Sergei Litviakov, an interview of four German women who tell the story of four young German girls from East Prussia placed into a Soviet labor camps by the end of World War II according to the Stalin's...
- Eastern workers, about foreign forced labor in Germany
- Polish forced labor camps
Sources
- Павел Полян, Не по своей воле... (Pavel Polian
Pavel Markovich Polian is a Russian geographer, historian and sociologist, Doctor of Geographical Sciences with the Institute of Geography of the Russian Academy of Sciences. He authored over 300 publications. He is famous for his researches of history and geography of the forced migrations...
, Against Their Will... A History and Geography of Forced Migrations in the USSR), ОГИ Мемориал, Moscow, 2001, ISBN 5-94282-007-4
- Dokumentation der Vertreibung der Deutschen aus Ost-Mitteleuropa./ Bearb. von T. Schieder. Bd. 1–5. Wolfenbattel, 1953–1961
- Die Deutschen Vertreibungsverluste. Bevolkerungsbilanzen fuer die deutschen Vertreibungsgebiete 1939/50. Wiesbaden, 1958
- Rhode G. Phasen und Formen der Massenzwangswanderungen in Europa. // Die Vertriebenen in Westdeutschland. Bd. 1. Kiel, 1959.
- Karner, Stefan, Im Archipel GUPVI. Kriegsgefangenschaft und Internierung in der Sowjetunion 1941-1956. Wien-München 1995.
- Sharkov, Anatoli, GUPVI Archipelago: Prisoners of War and Internees on the Territory of Belarus: 1944—1951(in Russian) (2003), Minsk, Belarus, ISBN 985-463-094-3
- Gerhard Reichling. Die deutschen Vertriebenen in Zahlen, Bonn 1995, ISBN 3-88557-046-7
- Ivan Chukhin, Interned Youth, a history of the NKVD Camp 517 for interned female Germans, Padozero, Karelia
Karelia , the land of the Karelian peoples, is an area in Northern Europe of historical significance for Finland, Russia, and Sweden...
- The Expulsion of 'German' Communities from Eastern Europe at the end of the Second World War, Steffen Prauser and Arfon Rees, European University Institute, Florense. HEC No. 2004/1 (The section "The "expulsion" of the German speaking minority from Yugoslavia" contains info on their deportation to the SU for forced labor)
External links
- Against Their Will: The History and Geography of Forced Migrations in the USSR Partial preview of the book at Google Book Search
Google Book Search is a service from Google that searches the full text of books that Google scans, converts to text using optical character recognition, and stores in its digital database. The service was formerly known as Google Print when it was introduced at the Frankfurt Book Fair in October...
- http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/documents/cab_195_3_transcript.pdfTranscripts of UK War Cabinet
A War Cabinet is a committee formed by a government in a time of war. It is usually a subset of the full executive cabinet of ministers. It is also quite common for a War Cabinet to have senior military officers and opposition politicians as members....
discussions] Provided by The National Archives. The meetings of May 18 1945, and June 11 1945 discuss the provisions made for slave labor in the Yalta protocol, and the value to be extracted from the workers.