Forced labour under German rule during World War II


The use of slave and forced labour in Nazi Germany and throughout German-occupied Europe during World War II took place on an unprecedented scale. It was a vital part of the German economic exploitation of conquered territories. It also contributed to the mass extermination of populations in occupied Europe. The Germans abducted approximately 12million people from almost twenty European countries; about two thirds came from Central Europe and Eastern Europe.
Many workers died as a result of their living conditionsextreme mistreatment, severe malnutrition and abuse were the main causes of death. Many more became civilian casualties from enemy bombing and shelling of their workplaces throughout the war. At the peak of the program, the forced labourers constituted 20% of the German work force. Counting deaths and turnover, about 15million men and women were forced labourers at one point during the war. Besides Jews, the harshest deportation and forced labor policies were applied to the populations of Belarus, Ukraine, and Russia. By the end of the war, half of Belarus's population had been either killed or deported.
The defeat of Nazi Germany in 1945 freed approximately 11million foreigners, most of whom were forced labourers and POWs. During the war, German forces brought into the Reich 6.5million civilians, in addition to Soviet POWs, for unfree labour in factories. Returning them home was a high priority for the Allies. However returning citizens of the USSR were often meant suspicion of collaboration or reincarceration in a Gulag prison camp. The United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration, Red Cross, and military operations provided food, clothing, shelter, and assistance in returning home. In all, 5.2million foreign workers and POWs were repatriated to the Soviet Union, 1.6million to Poland, 1.5million to France, and 900,000 to Italy, along with 300,000 to 400,000 each to Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia, the Netherlands, Hungary, and Belgium.

Forced workers

's policy of Lebensraum strongly emphasized conquest of lands in the East, known as Generalplan Ost, and the exploitation of these lands to provide cheap goods and labour for Germany. Even before the war, Nazi Germany maintained a supply of slave labour. This practice started in the early days of labour camps for "unreliable elements", such as
homosexuals, criminals, political dissidents, communists, Jews, the homeless and anyone the regime wanted out of the way. During World War II the Nazis operated several categories of Arbeitslager for different categories of inmates. Prisoners in Nazi labour camps were worked to death on short rations in lethal conditions, or killed if they became unable to work. Many died as a direct result of forced labour under the Nazis.
After the invasion of Poland, Polish Jews over the age of 12 and Poles over the age of 12 living in the General Government territory were subject to forced labor. Historian Jan Gross estimates that "no more than 15 percent" of Polish workers volunteered to go to work in Germany. In 1942, all non-Germans living in the General Government were subject to forced labor.
The largest number of labour camps held civilians forcibly abducted in the occupied countries to provide labour in the German war industry, repair bombed railroads and bridges, or work on farms. Manual labour was in high demand, as much of the work that today would be done with machines was still done by hand in the 1930s and 1940s, such as digging, material handling, or machining. As the war progressed, the use of slave labour increased massively. Prisoners of war and civilian "undesirables" were brought in from occupied territories. Millions of Jews, Slavs and other conquered peoples were used as slave labourers by German corporations including Thyssen, Krupp, IG Farben, Bosch, Daimler-Benz, Demag, Henschel, Junkers, Messerschmitt, Siemens, and Volkswagen, not to mention the German subsidiaries of foreign firms, such as Fordwerke and Adam Opel AG among others. Once the war had begun, the foreign subsidiaries were seized and nationalized by the Nazi-controlled German state, and work conditions deteriorated, as they did throughout German industry. About 12million forced labourers, most of whom were Eastern Europeans, were employed in the German war economy inside Nazi Germany during the war. The German need for slave labour grew to the point that even children were kidnapped as labor, in an operation called the Heu-Aktion.
More than 2,000 German companies profited from slave labour during the Nazi era, including Deutsche Bank and Siemens.

Classifications

A class system was created amongst Fremdarbeiter 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 German allies or neutral countries to forced labourers from conquered Untermenschen populations.
  • Gastarbeitnehmer Workers from Germanic and Scandinavian countries, France, Italy, other German allies, and friendly neutrals. Only about 1% of foreign workers in Germany came from countries that were neutral or allied to Germany.
  • Zwangsarbeiter Forced labourers from countries not allied with Germany. This class of workers was broken down into the following designations:
  • *Internment Prisoners of war. Geneva Conventions allowed captor nations to force non-officer prisoners of war to work, within certain restrictions. For example, almost all Polish non-officer prisoners of war were forced to work in Nazi Germany. In 1944, almost 2million prisoners of war worked as forced labourers in Germany. Compared to other foreign workers, prisoners of war were relatively well-off, especially if they came from Western countries that were still at war, such as the United States or Great Britain, as the minimum standards of their treatment were mandated by the Geneva Conventions. Their working conditions and well-being were subject to supervision by the International Red Cross and, in cases of mistreatment, retaliation against German prisoners held in the US, Britain and Canada was almost certain. However, the treatment of these workers varied greatly depending on their country of origin, the period, and the specific workplace. In particular, Soviet prisoners of war were treated with utter brutality, as Nazis did not consider them protected under the Geneva Conventions, which had not been ratified or implemented by the Soviet Union.
  • * Zivilarbeiter ethnic Poles from the General Government territory. They were regulated by strict Polish decrees: they received much lower wages and could not use conveniences such as public transport, or visit many public spaces or businesses. For example, they could not visit German church services, swimming pools, or restaurants; they had to work longer hours and were assigned smaller food rations, and they were subject to a curfew. Poles were routinely denied holidays and had to work seven days a week. They could not marry without a permit; they could not possess money or objects of value, even bicycles, cameras, or lighters. They were required to wear a badge: the "Polish P", on their clothing. In 1939, there were about 300,000 Polish Zivilarbeiter in Germany. By 1944, their number had skyrocketed to about 1.7million, or 2.8million by different accounts. In 1944, there were about 7.6million foreign so-called 'civilian workers' employed in Germany in total, including POWs from Generalgouvernement and the expanded USSR, with a similar number of workers in this category from other countries.
  • * Ostarbeiter Soviet and Polish civil workers, mostly rounded up in Distrikt Galizien and in Reichskommissariat Ukraine. They wore an "OST" badge and had to live under guard in camps fenced with barbed wire, and were particularly vulnerable to the whims of the Gestapo and the industrial plant guards. Estimates put the number of OST workers between three and 5.5million.
In general, foreign labourers from Western Europe had similar gross earnings and were subject to similar taxation as German workers. In contrast, Central and Eastern European forced labourers received at most about one-half the gross earnings paid to German workers and had far fewer social benefits. Prisoners of labour or concentration camps received little if any wages or benefits. The deficiency in net earnings of Central and Eastern European forced labourers is illustrated by the wage savings forced labourers were able to transfer to their families at home or abroad.

Sexual slavery

The Nazis issued a ban on sexual relations between Germans and foreign workers. Repeated efforts were made to propagate Volkstum, to prevent such relations. Pamphlets, for instance, instructed all German women to avoid physical contact with any foreign workers brought to Germany as a danger to their blood. Women who disobeyed were imprisoned although executions also took place. Even fraternization with the workers was regarded as dangerous, and targeted by pamphlet campaigns in 1940–1942. Soldiers in the Wehrmacht and SS officers were exempt from any such restrictions. It is estimated that at least 34,140 Eastern European women apprehended in Łapankas were forced to serve them as sex slaves in German military brothels and camp brothels during the Third Reich. In Warsaw alone, five such establishments were set up under military guard in September 1942, with over 20 rooms each. Alcohol was not allowed, unlike on the Western front, and the victims underwent genital checkups once a week.

French shipyards

French workers at naval bases provided the Kriegsmarine with an essential workforce, thereby supporting Nazi Germany in the Battle of the Atlantic. By 1939, the Kriegsmarine's planning had presumed that they had time to build up resources before the war started. When France fell and the ports of Brest, Lorient and Saint-Nazaire became available, there were insufficient Germans to man these repair and maintenance facilities, so huge reliance was made on the French workforce. At the end of 1940, the Kriegsmarine requested 2,700 skilled workers from Wilhelmshaven to work in bases on the Atlantic coast, but this was out of a total available workforce of only 3,300. This same request included 870 men skilled in machinery and engine building, but there were only 725 people with these skills in Wilhelmshaven. This massive deficit was made up of French naval dockyard workers. In February 1941, the naval dockyard at Brest had only 470 German workers, compared with 6,349 French workers. In April 1941, French workers replaced defective superheater tubes on the German battleship Scharnhorst, carrying out the work slowly but, in the opinion of Scharnhorst's captain, to a better standard than could be obtained in the yards in Germany. An assessment commissioned by Vizeadmiral Walter Matthiae in October 1942 of the potential effect of withdrawal of French dockyard workers stated that all repairs on the surface fleet would cease and U-boat repairs would be cut by 30 per cent. Admiral François Darlan stated on 30 September 1940 that it was useless to decline German requests for collaboration. In September 1942, Rear Admiral Germain Paul Jardel, commander of the French navy in the occupied zone, stated "We have a special interest in that the workers at our arsenals work, and that they work in the arsenals and not in Germany." From a practical point of view, French workers needed employment and could have been conscripted to work in Germany. A small number objected to carrying out war work but the majority were found by the Germans to be willing and efficient workers.