The use of
slave
Slavery is the ownership of a person as property, especially in regards to their labour. Slavery typically involves compulsory work, with the slave's location of work and residence dictated by the party that holds them in bondage. Enslavemen ...
and
forced labour
Forced labour, or unfree labour, is any work relation, especially in modern or early modern history, in which people are employed against their will with the threat of destitution, detention, or violence, including death or other forms of ...
in
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany, officially known as the German Reich and later the Greater German Reich, was the German Reich, German state between 1933 and 1945, when Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party controlled the country, transforming it into a Totalit ...
() and throughout
German-occupied Europe
German-occupied Europe, or Nazi-occupied Europe, refers to the sovereign countries of Europe which were wholly or partly military occupation, militarily occupied and civil-occupied, including puppet states, by the (armed forces) and the governmen ...
during
World War II
World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...
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
Central Europe is a geographical region of Europe between Eastern Europe, Eastern, Southern Europe, Southern, Western Europe, Western and Northern Europe, Northern Europe. Central Europe is known for its cultural diversity; however, countries in ...
and
Eastern Europe
Eastern Europe is a subregion of the Europe, European continent. As a largely ambiguous term, it has a wide range of geopolitical, geographical, ethnic, cultural and socio-economic connotations. Its eastern boundary is marked by the Ural Mountain ...
.
[Part1]
an
Part 2
. Many workers died as a result of their living conditionsextreme mistreatment, severe
malnutrition
Malnutrition occurs when an organism gets too few or too many nutrients, resulting in health problems. Specifically, it is a deficiency, excess, or imbalance of energy, protein and other nutrients which adversely affects the body's tissues a ...
and abuse were the main causes of death. Many more became
civilian casualties from enemy (Allied) 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 (categorized as "displaced persons"), 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
Forced labour, or unfree labour, is any work relation, especially in modern or early modern history, in which people are employed against their will with the threat of destitution, detention, or violence, including death or other forms o ...
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
The Gulag was a system of Labor camp, forced labor camps in the Soviet Union. The word ''Gulag'' originally referred only to the division of the Chronology of Soviet secret police agencies, Soviet secret police that was in charge of runnin ...
prison camp. The
United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA),
Red Cross
The organized International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement is a Humanitarianism, humanitarian movement with approximately 16million volunteering, volunteers, members, and staff worldwide. It was founded to protect human life and health, to ...
, 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
Hitler
Adolf Hitler (20 April 1889 – 30 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was the dictator of Nazi Germany from 1933 until Death of Adolf Hitler, his suicide in 1945. Adolf Hitler's rise to power, He rose to power as the lea ...
's policy of ('room for living') strongly emphasized conquest of lands in the East, known as , and the exploitation of these lands to provide cheap goods and labour for Germany. Even before the war,
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany, officially known as the German Reich and later the Greater German Reich, was the German Reich, German state between 1933 and 1945, when Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party controlled the country, transforming it into a Totalit ...
maintained a supply of
slave labour. This practice started in the early days of
labour camps
A labor camp (or labour camp, see spelling differences) or work camp is a detention facility where inmates are forced to engage in penal labor as a form of punishment. Labor camps have many common aspects with slavery and with prisons (especi ...
for "unreliable elements" (), such as
homosexuals, criminals, political
dissident
A dissident is a person who actively challenges an established political or religious system, doctrine, belief, policy, or institution. In a religious context, the word has been used since the 18th century, and in the political sense since the 2 ...
s,
communists
Communism () is a sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology within the socialist movement, whose goal is the creation of a communist society, a socioeconomic order centered on common ownership of the means of production, d ...
,
Jew
Jews (, , ), or the Jewish people, are an ethnoreligious group and nation, originating from the Israelites of ancient Israel and Judah. They also traditionally adhere to Judaism. Jewish ethnicity, religion, and community are highly inte ...
s, the homeless and anyone the regime wanted out of the way. During
World War II
World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...
the
Nazis
Nazism (), formally named National Socialism (NS; , ), is the far-right politics, far-right Totalitarianism, totalitarian socio-political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in Germany. During H ...
operated several categories of (labour camps) 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
The invasion of Poland, also known as the September Campaign, Polish Campaign, and Polish Defensive War of 1939 (1 September – 6 October 1939), was a joint attack on the Second Polish Republic, Republic of Poland by Nazi Germany, the Slovak R ...
,
Polish Jews
The history of the Jews in Poland dates back at least 1,000 years. For centuries, Poland was home to the largest and most significant Jews, Jewish community in the world. Poland was a principal center of Jewish culture, because of the long pe ...
over the age of 12 and Poles over the age of 12 living in the
General Government
The General Government (, ; ; ), formally the General Governorate for the Occupied Polish Region (), was a German zone of occupation established after the invasion of Poland by Nazi Germany, Slovak Republic (1939–1945), Slovakia and the Soviet ...
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 (see
Łapanka) to provide labour in the German war industry, repair bombed railroads and bridges, or work on farms.
Manual labour
Manual labour (in Commonwealth English, manual labor in American English) or manual work is physical work done by humans, in contrast to labour by machines and working animals. It is most literally work done with the hands (the word ''manual ...
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
Material handling involves short-distance movement within the confines of a building or between a building and a transportation vehicle. It uses a wide range of manual, semi-automated, and automated equipment and includes consideration of the pro ...
, or
machining
Machining is a manufacturing process where a desired shape or part is created using the controlled removal of material, most often metal, from a larger piece of raw material by cutting. Machining is a form of subtractive manufacturing, which util ...
. As the war progressed, the use of slave labour increased massively.
Prisoners of war
A prisoner of war (POW) is a person held captive by a belligerent power during or immediately after an armed conflict. The earliest recorded usage of the phrase "prisoner of war" dates back to 1610.
Belligerents hold prisoners of war for a ...
and civilian "undesirables" were brought in from occupied territories. Millions of Jews,
Slavs
The Slavs or Slavic people are groups of people who speak Slavic languages. Slavs are geographically distributed throughout the northern parts of Eurasia; they predominantly inhabit Central Europe, Eastern Europe, Southeastern Europe, and ...
and other conquered peoples were used as slave labourers by German corporations including
Thyssen,
Krupp
Friedrich Krupp AG Hoesch-Krupp (formerly Fried. Krupp AG and Friedrich Krupp GmbH), trade name, trading as Krupp, was the largest company in Europe at the beginning of the 20th century as well as Germany's premier weapons manufacturer dur ...
,
IG Farben
I. G. Farbenindustrie AG, commonly known as IG Farben, was a German Chemical industry, chemical and Pharmaceutical industry, pharmaceutical conglomerate (company), conglomerate. It was formed on December 2, 1925 from a merger of six chemical co ...
,
Bosch,
Daimler-Benz
Mercedes-Benz Group AG (formerly Daimler-Benz, DaimlerChrysler, and Daimler) is a Germany, German Multinational corporation, multinational Automotive industry, automotive company headquartered in Stuttgart, Baden-Württemberg, Germany. It is o ...
,
Demag,
Henschel
Henschel & Son () was a German company, located in Kassel, best known during the 20th century as a maker of transportation equipment, including locomotives, trucks, buses and trolleybuses, and armoured fighting vehicles and weapons.
Georg C ...
,
Junkers
Junkers Flugzeug- und Motorenwerke AG (JFM, earlier JCO or JKO in World War I, English language, English: Junkers Aircraft and Motor Works) more commonly Junkers , was a major German aircraft manufacturer, aircraft and aircraft engine manufactu ...
,
Messerschmitt
Messerschmitt AG () was a German share-ownership limited, aircraft manufacturing corporation named after its chief designer Willy Messerschmitt from mid-July 1938 onwards, and known primarily for its World War II fighter aircraft, in parti ...
,
Siemens
Siemens AG ( ) is a German multinational technology conglomerate. It is focused on industrial automation, building automation, rail transport and health technology. Siemens is the largest engineering company in Europe, and holds the positi ...
, and
Volkswagen
Volkswagen (VW; )English: , . is a German automotive industry, automobile manufacturer based in Wolfsburg, Lower Saxony, Germany. Established in 1937 by German Labour Front, The German Labour Front, it was revitalized into the global brand it ...
,
not to mention the German subsidiaries of foreign firms, such as (a subsidiary of
Ford Motor Company
Ford Motor Company (commonly known as Ford) is an American multinational corporation, multinational automobile manufacturer headquartered in Dearborn, Michigan, United States. It was founded by Henry Ford and incorporated on June 16, 1903. T ...
) and
Adam Opel AG (a subsidiary of
General Motors
General Motors Company (GM) is an American Multinational corporation, multinational Automotive industry, automotive manufacturing company headquartered in Detroit, Michigan, United States. The company is most known for owning and manufacturing f ...
) 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 Europe
Eastern Europe is a subregion of the Europe, European continent. As a largely ambiguous term, it has a wide range of geopolitical, geographical, ethnic, cultural and socio-economic connotations. Its eastern boundary is marked by the Ural Mountain ...
ans, were employed in the
German war economy inside
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany, officially known as the German Reich and later the Greater German Reich, was the German Reich, German state between 1933 and 1945, when Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party controlled the country, transforming it into a Totalit ...
during the war.
[ See also: ] The German need for slave labour grew to the point that even children were kidnapped as labor, in an operation called the .
More than 2,000 German companies profited from slave labour during the Nazi era, including
Deutsche Bank
Deutsche Bank AG (, ) is a Germany, German multinational Investment banking, investment bank and financial services company headquartered in Frankfurt, Germany, and dual-listed on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange and the New York Stock Exchange.
...
and
Siemens
Siemens AG ( ) is a German multinational technology conglomerate. It is focused on industrial automation, building automation, rail transport and health technology. Siemens is the largest engineering company in Europe, and holds the positi ...
.
Classifications

A class system was created amongst ('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 German allies or neutral countries to forced labourers from conquered ('sub-humans') populations.
* ('
guest workers')Workers from Germanic and Scandinavian countries, France, Italy,
other German allies (Romania, Bulgaria, Hungary), and friendly neutrals (e.g. Spain and Switzerland). Only about 1% of foreign workers in Germany came from countries that were neutral or allied to Germany.
* (forced workers)Forced labourers from countries not allied with Germany. This class of workers was broken down into the following designations:
** ('military internees')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
upright=1.15, The original document in single pages, 1864
The Geneva Conventions are international humanitarian laws consisting of four treaties and three additional protocols that establish international legal standards for humanitarian t ...
. 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 (who performed similar forced labor) 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.
** ('civilian workers')ethnic Poles from the
General Government
The General Government (, ; ; ), formally the General Governorate for the Occupied Polish Region (), was a German zone of occupation established after the invasion of Poland by Nazi Germany, Slovak Republic (1939–1945), Slovakia and the Soviet ...
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
A curfew is an order that imposes certain regulations during specified hours. Typically, curfews order all people affected by them to remain indoors during the evening and nighttime hours. Such an order is most often issued by public authorit ...
. 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
lighter
A lighter is a portable device which uses mechanical or electrical means to create a controlled flame, and can be used to ignite a variety of flammable items, such as cigarettes, butane gas, fireworks, candles, or campfires. A lighter typic ...
s. They were required to wear a badge: the "Polish P", on their clothing. In 1939, there were about 300,000 Polish in Germany.
By 1944, their number had skyrocketed to about 1.7million,
or 2.8million by different accounts (approximately 10% of occupied Poland's prisoner workforce). In 1944, there were about 7.6million foreign so-called 'civilian workers' employed in Germany in total, including POWs from and the expanded USSR,
with a similar number of workers in this category from other countries.
** ('Eastern workers')Soviet and Polish civil workers, mostly rounded up in and in . They wore an "OST" (East) badge and had to live under guard in camps fenced with barbed wire, and were particularly vulnerable to the whims of the
Gestapo
The (, ), Syllabic abbreviation, abbreviated Gestapo (), was the official secret police of Nazi Germany and in German-occupied Europe.
The force was created by Hermann Göring in 1933 by combining the various political police agencies of F ...
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 (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).
Sexual slavery
The Nazis issued a
ban on sexual relations between Germans and foreign workers. Repeated efforts were made to propagate ('racial consciousness'), 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 and SS officers were exempt from any such restrictions. It is estimated that at least 34,140 Eastern European women apprehended in Łapankas (military kidnapping raids) were forced to serve them as sex slaves in German military brothels and camp brothels during the Third Reich.] In Warsaw
Warsaw, officially the Capital City of Warsaw, is the capital and List of cities and towns in Poland, largest city of Poland. The metropolis stands on the Vistula, River Vistula in east-central Poland. Its population is officially estimated at ...
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 with an essential workforce, thereby supporting Nazi Germany in the Battle of the Atlantic
The Battle of the Atlantic, the longest continuous military campaign in World War II, ran from 1939 to the defeat of Nazi Germany in 1945, covering a major part of the naval history of World War II. At its core was the Allies of World War II, ...
. By 1939, the '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
Lorient (; ) is a town (''Communes of France, commune'') and Port, seaport in the Morbihan Departments of France, department of Brittany (administrative region), Brittany in western France.
History
Prehistory and classical antiquity
Beginn ...
and Saint-Nazaire
Saint-Nazaire (; ; ) is a Communes of France, commune in the Loire-Atlantique Departments of France, department in western France, in traditional Brittany.
The town has a major harbour on the right bank of the Loire estuary, near the Atlantic Oc ...
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 requested 2,700 skilled workers from Wilhelmshaven
Wilhelmshaven (, ''Wilhelm's Harbour''; Northern Low Saxon: ''Willemshaven'') is a coastal town in Lower Saxony, Germany. It is situated on the western side of the Jade Bight, a bay of the North Sea, and has a population of 76,089. Wilhelmsha ...
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
A superheater is a device used to convert saturated steam or wet steam into superheated steam or dry steam. Superheated steam is used in steam turbines for electricity generation, in some steam engines, and in processes such as steam reforming. ...
tubes on the , 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 (considered possible after 32 French fatalities in an air raid at Lorient Submarine Base) 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 (as happened to 1million of them).[ A small number objected to carrying out war work but the majority were found by the Germans to be willing and efficient workers.]
Numbers
In the late summer of 1944, German records listed 7.6million foreign civilian workers and prisoners of war
A prisoner of war (POW) is a person held captive by a belligerent power during or immediately after an armed conflict. The earliest recorded usage of the phrase "prisoner of war" dates back to 1610.
Belligerents hold prisoners of war for a ...
in the German territory, most of whom had been brought there by coercion. 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 internment and transportation to Europe of "the able-bodied male population between the ages of seventeen and forty-five" in the event of a successful invasion of the United Kingdom.
Organisation Todt
Organisation Todt
Organisation Todt (OT; ) was a Civil engineering, civil and military engineering organisation in Nazi Germany from 1933 to 1945, named for its founder, Fritz Todt, an engineer and senior member of the Nazi Party. The organisation was responsible ...
was a Nazi era
Nazi Germany, officially known as the German Reich and later the Greater German Reich, was the German state between 1933 and 1945, when Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party controlled the country, transforming it into a totalitarian dictat ...
civil and military engineer
Military engineering is loosely defined as the art, science, and practice of designing and building military works and maintaining lines of military transport and military communications. Military engineers are also responsible for logistics ...
ing group in Nazi Germany, eponymously named for its founder Fritz Todt
Fritz Todt (; 4 September 1891 – 8 February 1942) was a German construction engineer and senior figure of the Nazi Party. He was the founder of '' Organisation Todt'' (OT), a military-engineering organisation that supplied German industry w ...
, an engineer and senior Nazi
Nazism (), formally named National Socialism (NS; , ), is the far-right politics, far-right Totalitarianism, totalitarian socio-political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in Germany. During H ...
figure. The organization was responsible for a huge range of engineering projects both in pre-World War II
World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...
Germany
Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...
, and in occupied Europe
German-occupied Europe, or Nazi-occupied Europe, refers to the sovereign countries of Europe which were wholly or partly militarily occupied and civil-occupied, including puppet states, by the (armed forces) and the government of Nazi Germany at ...
from France to Russia. Todt became notorious for using forced labour
Forced labour, or unfree labour, is any work relation, especially in modern or early modern history, in which people are employed against their will with the threat of destitution, detention, or violence, including death or other forms of ...
. Most so-called "volunteer" Soviet POW workers were assigned to the Organisation Todt. The history of the organization falls into three main phases:
# A pre-war period between 1933 and 1938, during which the predecessor of Organisation Todt, the office of General Inspector of German Roadways (), was primarily responsible for the construction of the German network. The organisation was able to draw on "conscripted" (i.e. compulsory) labour from within Germany through the Reich Labour Service (, RAD).
# The period from 1938 to 1942, after Operation Barbarossa
Operation Barbarossa was the invasion of the Soviet Union by Nazi Germany and several of its European Axis allies starting on Sunday, 22 June 1941, during World War II. More than 3.8 million Axis troops invaded the western Soviet Union along ...
, when the Organisation Todt proper was founded and used on the Eastern front. 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: . From 1938 to 1940, over 1.75million Germans were conscripted into labour service. In 1940–42, Organization Todt began to rely on ( guest workers), ( military internees), ( civilian workers), ( Eastern workers) and ("volunteer") POW workers.
# The period from 1942 until the end of the war, with approximately 1.4million labourers in the service of the Organisation Todt. Overall, 1% were Germans rejected for 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.
Extermination through labour
Millions of Jews were forced labourers in ghetto
A ghetto is a part of a city in which members of a minority group are concentrated, especially as a result of political, social, legal, religious, environmental or economic pressure. Ghettos are often known for being more impoverished than other ...
s, before they were shipped off to extermination camp
Nazi Germany used six extermination camps (), also called death camps (), or killing centers (), in Central Europe, primarily in occupied Poland, during World War II to systematically murder over 2.7 million peoplemostly Jewsin the Holocau ...
s. The Nazis also operated concentration camps
A concentration camp is a prison or other facility used for the internment of political prisoners or politically targeted demographics, such as members of national or ethnic minority groups, on the grounds of national security, or for exploit ...
, some of which provided free forced labour for industrial and other jobs while others existed solely to exterminate their inmates. To mislead the victims, at the entrances to a number of camps the lie 'work brings freedom' () was placed, to encourage the false impression that cooperation would earn release. A notable example of a labour-concentration camp is Mittelbau-Dora
Mittelbau-Dora (also Dora-Mittelbau and Nordhausen-Dora) was a Nazi concentration camp located near Nordhausen in Thuringia, Germany. It was established in late summer 1943 as a subcamp of Buchenwald concentration camp, supplying slave labour f ...
, a labour camp complex that produced V-2 rocket
The V2 (), with the technical name ''Aggregat (rocket family), Aggregat-4'' (A4), was the world's first long-range missile guidance, guided ballistic missile. The missile, powered by a liquid-propellant rocket engine, was developed during the S ...
s. Extermination through labour was a Nazi German principle that regulated most of their labour and concentration camps. The rule demanded that inmates of German World War II camps be forced to work for the German war industry with only basic tools and minimal food rations until totally exhausted.[ See also:
*]
Controversy over compensation
To benefit the economy after the war, certain categories of victims of Nazism were excluded from compensation by the German government; these groups had the least political influence they could have brought to bear, and many forced labourers from Eastern Europe fall into this category. There has been little effort by businesses or the German government to compensate forced labourers from the war period.
As stated in the London Debt Agreement of 1953:
To this day, there are arguments that such settlement has never been fully carried out. German post-war development has been greatly aided, while the development of victim countries has stalled.
A prominent example of a group which received almost no compensation is 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 Union
The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...
's share of those reparations; under Soviet pressure on the Polish Communist government, the Poles agreed to a system of repayment that ''de facto'' meant that few Polish victims received adequate compensation in any way comparable to the victims in Western Europe or Soviet Union itself. Most of the Polish share of reparations was "given" to Poland by Soviet Union under the Comecon
The Council for Mutual Economic Assistance, often abbreviated as Comecon ( ) or CMEA, was an economic organization from 1949 to 1991 under the leadership of the Soviet Union that comprised the countries of the Eastern Bloc#List of states, Easter ...
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 Poland
The Polish People's Republic (1952–1989), formerly the Republic of Poland (1947–1952), and also often simply known as Poland, was a country in Central Europe that existed as the predecessor of the modern-day democratic Republic of Poland. ...
renounced its right to further claims of reparations from the successor states of Nazi Germany. Only after the fall of communism in Poland
Autumn, also known as fall (especially in US & Canada), is one of the four temperate seasons on Earth. Outside the tropics, autumn marks the transition from summer to winter, in September (Northern Hemisphere) or March ( Southern Hemispher ...
in 1989/1990 did the Polish government try to renegotiate the issue of reparations, 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 Nazi rule who were still alive as of August 1999 was 2.3million. The German Forced Labour Compensation Programme was established in 2000; a forced labour fund paid out more than €4.37billion to close to 1.7million of then-living victims around the world (one-off payments of between €2,500 and €7,500). German Chancellor Angela Merkel
Angela Dorothea Merkel (; ; born 17 July 1954) is a German retired politician who served as Chancellor of Germany from 2005 to 2021. She is the only woman to have held the office. She was Leader of the Opposition from 2002 to 2005 and Leade ...
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:
See also
*Private sector participation in Nazi crimes
Private sector participation in German war crimes, Nazi crimes was extensive and included widespread use of forced labor in Nazi Germany, forced labor in Nazi Germany and German-occupied Europe, confiscation of property from Jews and other victims ...
* , (forced labour deployment)
** , a colloquial term used for a subset of the program concerning 400,000 Czechs
* , (Polish Construction Service in the General Government)
* , (German Economic Enterprises)
* Fritz Sauckel
Ernst Friedrich Christoph Sauckel (27 October 1894 – 16 October 1946) was a German Nazi politician and convicted war criminal. As General Plenipotentiary for Labour Deployment ('' Arbeitseinsatz'') from March 1942 until the end of the Second Wor ...
* Forced labor in the Soviet Union
* Italian military internees
* Ispettorato Militare del Lavoro
* , (Compulsory Work Service in Vichy France
Vichy France (; 10 July 1940 – 9 August 1944), officially the French State ('), was a French rump state headed by Marshal Philippe Pétain during World War II, established as a result of the French capitulation after the Battle of France, ...
)
* Forced labor of Germans after World War II
In the years following World War II, large numbers of German civilians and captured soldiers were Forced labour, forced into labor by the Allies of World War II, Allied forces. The topic of using Germans as forced labor for World War II reparat ...
* 1943 Greek protests against labour mobilization
In February–March 1943, a series of large-scale protests took place in Athens against the intended Forced labour under German rule during World War II, forcible mobilization of occupied Greece's labour force for work in Nazi Germany. The protests ...
Notes
Citations
Further reading
* Homze, Edward L. ''Foreign Labor in Nazi Germany'' ( Princeton UP 1967)
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External links
Compensation for Forced Labour in World War II: The German Compensation Law of 2 August 2000
Report on victim compensation
International Organization for Migration
The International Organization for Migration (IOM) is a United Nations related organization working in the field of migration. The organization implements operational assistance programmes for Human migration, migrants, including internally displa ...
Forced Labour document
from Yad Vashem
Yad Vashem (; ) is Israel's official memorial institution to the victims of Holocaust, the Holocaust known in Hebrew language, Hebrew as the (). It is dedicated to preserving the memory of the Jews who were murdered; echoing the stories of the ...
"Forced and Slave Labour in Nazi-Dominated Europe, 1933 to 1945"
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM) is the United States' official memorial to the Holocaust, dedicated to the documentation, study, and interpretation of the Holocaust. Opened in 1993, the museum explores the Holocaust through p ...
Symposium (2002)
International Red Cross
Nazi Forced Labour Documentation Centre in Berlin-Schoeneweide
Claims against Germany
{{Authority control
Economy of Nazi Germany
Germany home front during World War II
Labor history of Germany
Nazi war crimes
Germany WWII