View source for Forced labour under German rule during World War II

{{short description|none}} <!-- "none" is preferred when the title is sufficiently descriptive; see [[WP:SDNONE]] -->
{{See also|Forced labor in Nazi concentration camps}}
{{pp|small=yes}}
{{use dmy dates |date=September 2021}}
{{Infobox event
|title=Use of forced labour by Nazi Germany
|image=Bundesarchiv Bild 183-H26334, Berlin, 14-jähriger Ukrainer Zwangsarbeiter.jpg
|caption=Original [[Nazi propaganda]] caption: "A 14-year-old youth from Ukraine repairs damaged motor vehicles in a Berlin workshop of the German Wehrmacht. January 1945."
{{Navbox|border=none
|above='''Foreign forced labourers'''
|abovestyle=text-align:center;
|group1=Numbers
|list1=10{{nbsp}}million (1944 est.){{r|BeyerSchneider}}{{pb}}{{space}}including:{{pb}}{{space|5}}6.5{{nbsp}}million civilians{{pb}}{{space|5}}2.2{{nbsp}}million POWs{{pb}}{{space|5}}[[Forced labor in Nazi concentration camps|1.3{{nbsp}}million camp inmates]]
|group2=Abducted
|list2=12{{nbsp}}million{{r|BeyerSchneider}}
|group3=Place of origin
|list3=USSR (33.6%), Poland (21.7%), France (17.1%), Belgium, Netherlands, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, Italy, Bulgaria, Hungary, Denmark, Greece, Spain, Romania and others{{r|BeyerSchneider}}
}}
}}
The use of [[Unfree labour|slave and forced labour]] in [[Nazi Germany]] ({{langx|de|Zwangsarbeit}}) and throughout [[German-occupied Europe]] during [[World War II]] took place on an unprecedented scale.<ref name=Herbert>{{cite book |author-link=Ulrich Herbert|author=Herbert, Ulrich|title=Hitler's Foreign Workers: Enforced Foreign Labour in Germany Under the Third Reich|publisher=[[Cambridge University Press]]|year=1997|isbn=0-521-47000-5}}</ref> It was a vital part of the [[Economics of fascism#Political economy of Nazi Germany|German economic exploitation]] of conquered territories. It also contributed to the mass extermination of populations in occupied Europe. The Germans abducted approximately 12{{nbsp}}million people from almost twenty European countries; about two thirds came from [[Central Europe]] and [[Eastern Europe]].<ref name=BeyerSchneider>{{Cite book |author=John C. Beyer |author2=Stephen A. Schneider |title=Forced Labour under Third Reich |publisher=Nathan Associates }} [http://www.nathaninc.com/sites/default/files/Pub%20PDFs/Forced%20Labor%20Under%20the%20Third%20Reich%2C%20Part%20One.pdf Part1] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150824092603/http://www.nathaninc.com/sites/default/files/Pub%20PDFs/Forced%20Labor%20Under%20the%20Third%20Reich,%20Part%20One.pdf |date=2015-08-24 }} and [http://www.nathaninc.com/sites/default/files/Pub%20PDFs/Forced%20Labor%20Under%20the%20Third%20Reich%2C%20Part%20Two.pdf Part 2] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170403025028/http://www.nathaninc.com/sites/default/files/Pub%20PDFs/Forced%20Labor%20Under%20the%20Third%20Reich%2C%20Part%20Two.pdf |date=2017-04-03 }}.</ref> Many workers died as a result of their living conditions{{snd}}extreme mistreatment, severe [[malnutrition]] 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.<ref name="Łuczak">{{cite book |author=Czesław Łuczak |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Y5M8AAAAIAAJ
|title=Polityka ludnościowa i ekonomiczna hitlerowskich Niemiec w okupowanej Polsce |publisher=Wydawnictwo Poznańskie |year=1979 |isbn=832100010X |location=Poznań |pages=136 |trans-title=Civilian and economic policy of Nazi Germany in occupied Poland |quote=''Also in:'' http://www.polishresistance-ak.org/30%20Artykul.htm [Eksploatacja ekonomiczna ziem polskich] (Economic exploitation of Poland's territory) by Dr. Andrzej Chmielarz, ''Polish Resistance in WW2'', Eseje-Artykuły. |author-link=Czesław Łuczak |access-date=11 October 2013}}</ref> At the peak of the program, the forced labourers constituted 20% of the German work force. Counting deaths and turnover, about 15{{nbsp}}million men and women were forced labourers at one point during the war.<ref>{{Cite journal|url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/30036339|jstor = 30036339|title = Exploitation, Criminality, Resistance. The Everyday Life of Foreign Workers and Prisoners of War in the German Town of Osnabrck, 1939–49|last1 = Panayi|first1 = Panikos|journal = Journal of Contemporary History|year = 2005|volume = 40|issue = 3|pages = 483–502|doi = 10.1177/0022009405054568|s2cid = 159846665}}</ref>
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' population had been either killed or deported.<ref>{{Cite conference |last=Steinert |first=Johannes-Dieter |date=2013 |title=Kleine Ostarbeiter: Child Forced Labor in Nazi Germany and German Occupied Eastern Europe |url=https://www.researchgate.net/publication/267884530 |conference=127th Annual Meeting American Historical Association |quote=[A]part from Jewish forced labourers – workers from Belarus, Ukraine and Russia had to endure the worst working and living conditions. Moreover, German occupation policies in the Soviet Union were far more brutal than in any other country, and German deportation practices the most inhuman.}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=The Holocaust in Belarus |url=https://www.facinghistory.org/resource-library/resistance-during-holocaust/holocaust-belarus#:~:text=Timothy%20Snyder%20estimates%20that%20%E2%80%9Chalf,entirely%20destroyed%20by%20the%20war. |website=Facing History and Ourselves | date=12 May 2020 |access-date=29 December 2020|quote=The non-Jewish population was subjected to Nazi terror, too. Hundreds of thousands were deported to Germany as slave laborers, thousands of villages and towns were burned or destroyed, and millions were starved to death as the Germans plundered the entire region. Timothy Snyder estimates that "half of the population of Soviet Belarus was either killed or forcibly displaced during World War II: nothing of the kind can be said of any other European country."}}</ref>
The defeat of Nazi Germany in 1945 freed approximately 11{{nbsp}}million foreigners (categorized as "displaced persons"), most of whom were forced labourers and POWs. During the war, German forces brought into the Reich 6.5{{nbsp}}million civilians, in addition to Soviet POWs, for [[unfree labour]] in factories.{{r|BeyerSchneider}} 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]] (UNRRA), [[International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement|Red Cross]], and military operations provided food, clothing, shelter, and assistance in returning home. In all, 5.2{{nbsp}}million foreign workers and POWs were repatriated to the Soviet Union, 1.6{{nbsp}}million to Poland, 1.5{{nbsp}}million to France, and 900,000 to Italy, along with 300,000 to 400,000 each to Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia, the Netherlands, Hungary, and Belgium.<ref>William I. Hitchcock, ''The Bitter Road to Freedom: The Human Cost of Allied Victory in World War II Europe'' (2008), pp 250–56</ref>
==Forced workers==
{{See also|Service du travail obligatoire|Arbeitsamt in occupied Poland}}
[[Image:Chodźmy na roboty rolne do Niemiec.jpg|left|thumb|upright=1.4|German [[Polish language|Polish-language]] recruitment poster:  "'Let's do farm work in Germany!'  See your {{lang|pl|[[wójt]]}} at once."]]
[[Hitler]]'s policy of {{lang|de|[[Lebensraum]]}} ('room for living') strongly emphasized conquest of lands in the East, known as {{lang|de|[[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 [[slavery|slave labour]]. This practice started in the early days of [[labour camps]] for "unreliable elements" ({{langx|de|unzuverlässige Elemente}}), such as
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.<ref name="Majer2003">{{cite book|author=Diemut Majer|title="Non-Germans" Under the Third Reich: The Nazi Judicial and Administrative System in Germany and Occupied Eastern Europe with Special Regard to Occupied Poland, 1939–1945|year=2003|publisher=JHU Press|isbn=978-0-8018-6493-3}}</ref> Historian Jan Gross estimates that "no more than 15 percent" of Polish workers volunteered to go to work in Germany.<ref>{{cite book|title=Backing Hitler: Consent And Coercion In Nazi Germany|author=Gellately, Robert|year=2002|page=127|location=Oxford|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=0192802917|author-link=Robert Gellately}}</ref> In 1942, all non-Germans living in the General Government were subject to forced labor.<ref>Majer, 2003, p. 303</ref>
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]] was in high demand, as much of the work that today would be [[mechanization|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. [[Prisoner of war|Prisoners of war]] and civilian "undesirables" were brought in from occupied territories. Millions of Jews, [[Slavic peoples|Slavs]] and other conquered peoples were used as slave labourers by German corporations including [[Fritz Thyssen|Thyssen]], [[Krupp]], [[IG Farben]], [[Robert Bosch GmbH|Bosch]], [[Daimler-Benz]], [[Demag]], [[Henschel]], [[Junkers]], [[Messerschmitt]], [[Siemens]], and [[Volkswagen]],<ref name="Buggeln">{{cite book |title=Slave Labor in Nazi Concentration Camps |author=Marc Buggeln |publisher=OUP Oxford |year=2014 |isbn=978-0191017643 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=hsuSBQAAQBAJ&pg=PA335 |page=335 |via=Google Books, preview |work=Index of Companies}}</ref> not to mention the German subsidiaries of foreign firms, such as {{lang|de|[[Fordwerke]]}} (a subsidiary of [[Ford Motor Company]]) and [[Opel|Adam Opel AG]] (a subsidiary of [[General Motors]]) among others.<ref>[[Sohn-Rethel, Alfred]] ''Economy and Class Structure of German Fascism'', CSE Books, 1978 {{ISBN|0-906336-01-5}}</ref> Once the war had begun, the foreign subsidiaries were seized and [[nationalization|nationalized]] by the Nazi-controlled German state, and work conditions deteriorated, as they did throughout German industry. About 12{{nbsp}}million forced labourers, most of whom were [[Eastern Europe]]ans, were employed in the [[Economy of Nazi Germany|German war economy]] inside [[Nazi Germany]] during the war.<ref name="MMDW">{{cite web|url=http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,2144,1757323,00.html |title=Final Compensation Pending for Former Nazi Forced Labourers |publisher=Deutsche Welle |date=2005-10-27 |access-date=2008-05-20 |last=Marek |first=Michael }} See also: {{Cite web|url=http://summeroftruth.org/enemy/barracks.html |title=Forced Labour at Ford Werke AG during the Second World War |access-date=2008-05-20 |publisher=The Summer of Truth Website |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071014235036/http://summeroftruth.org/enemy/barracks.html |archive-date=2007-10-14 }}</ref> The German need for slave labour grew to the point that even children were kidnapped as labor, in an operation called the {{lang|de|[[Heu-Aktion]]}}.
More than 2,000 German companies profited from slave labour during the Nazi era, including [[Deutsche Bank]] and [[Siemens]].<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.charitywire.com/charity11/00257.html|title=Comprehensive List Of German Companies That Used Slave Or Forced Labour During World War II Released|publisher=[[American Jewish Committee]]|date=7 December 1999|access-date=2008-05-20|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080408151529/http://www.charitywire.com/charity11/00257.html|archive-date=2008-04-08|url-status=dead}} See also: {{Cite web|author=Roger Cohen|author-link=Roger Cohen|url=https://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9807EFD6113AF934A25751C0A96F958260&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=2|title=German Companies Adopt Fund For Slave Labourers Under Nazis|work=[[The New York Times]]|date=February 17, 1999|access-date=2008-05-20}} {{Cite web|url=https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Holocaust/germancos.html|title=German Firms That Used Slave or Forced Labour During the Nazi Era|publisher=American Jewish Committee|date=January 27, 2000|access-date=2008-07-17}}</ref>
===Classifications===
[[File:Arbeitsbuch Fur Auslander 1942.jpg|right|thumb|upright=1.05|{{lang|de|Arbeitsbuch Für Ausländer}} ('Workbook for Foreigner') identity document issued to a Polish forced labourer in 1942 by the Germans, together with a letter "P" patch that Poles were required to wear to distinguish them from the German population]]
[[File:Bundesarchiv Bild 183-78612-0004, KZ Sachsenhausen, Häftlinge bei Erdarbeiten.jpg|thumb|upright=1.05|Forced labor at [[Sachsenhausen concentration camp]]]]
A class system was created amongst {{lang|de|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 German allies or neutral countries to forced labourers from conquered {{lang|de|[[Untermensch]]en}} ('sub-humans') populations.
* '''{{lang|de|Gastarbeitnehmer}}''' ('[[guest workers]]'){{snd}}Workers from Germanic and Scandinavian countries, France, Italy,<ref name="UH"/> 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.{{r|BeyerSchneider}}
* '''{{lang|de|Zwangsarbeiter}}''' (forced workers){{snd}}Forced labourers from countries not allied with Germany. This class of workers was broken down into the following designations:
**{{lang|de|[[Internment|Militärinternierte]]}} ('military internees'){{snd}}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 ({{c.|300,000}}) were forced to work in Nazi Germany. In 1944, almost 2{{nbsp}}million prisoners of war worked as forced labourers in Germany.<ref name="UH">{{Cite web|author=Ulrich Herbert |author-link=Ulrich Herbert |url=http://www.ess.uwe.ac.uk/genocide/slave_labour13.htm |title=The Army of Millions of the Modern Slave State: Deported, used, forgotten: Who were the forced workers of the Third Reich, and what fate awaited them? |publisher=[[Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung]] |date=16 March 1999 |access-date=January 6, 2013 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110604024311/http://www.ess.uwe.ac.uk/genocide/slave_labour13.htm |archive-date=June 4, 2011 }}</ref> 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 (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.
** {{lang|de|[[Zivilarbeiter]]}} ('civilian workers'){{snd}}ethnic Poles from the [[General Government]] territory.<ref name="UH"/> 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 [[lighter]]s. They were required to wear a badge: the "Polish P", on their clothing. In 1939, there were about 300,000 Polish {{lang|de|Zivilarbeiter}} in Germany.{{r|BeyerSchneider}}<ref name="UH"/> By 1944, their number had skyrocketed to about 1.7{{nbsp}}million,<ref name="UH"/> or 2.8{{nbsp}}million by different accounts (approximately 10% of occupied Poland's prisoner workforce).<ref>A. Paczkowski, Historia Powszechna/Historia Polski, Wydawnictwo Naukowe PWN, Warszawa 2008, tom 16, p. 28</ref> In 1944, there were about 7.6{{nbsp}}million foreign so-called 'civilian workers' employed in Germany in total, including POWs from {{lang|de|Generalgouvernement}} and the expanded USSR,<ref name="UH"/> with a similar number of workers in this category from other countries.{{r|BeyerSchneider}}
** {{lang|de|[[Ostarbeiter]]}} ('Eastern workers'){{snd}}Soviet and Polish civil workers, mostly rounded up in {{lang|de|[[Distrikt Galizien]]}} and in {{lang|de|[[Reichskommissariat Ukraine]]}}. 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]] and the industrial plant guards. Estimates put the number of OST workers between three  and 5.5{{nbsp}}million.<ref name="HS">{{cite book |author1=Alexander von Plato |author2=Almut Leh |author3=Christoph Thonfeld |year=2010 |title=Hitler's Slaves: Life Stories of Forced Labourers in Nazi-Occupied Europe |publisher=Berghahn Books |isbn=978-1845459901 |pages=251–62 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=FUjRhscAaToC&pg=PA251}}</ref><ref name=Zvezda2>{{Cite web|url=http://magazines.russ.ru/zvezda/2005/6/po8.html|script-title=ru:Остарбайтеры|access-date=2008-05-20|language=ru |author=Павел Полуян}}</ref>
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.{{r|BeyerSchneider}} Prisoners of labour or concentration camps received little if any wages or benefits.{{r|BeyerSchneider}} 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 [[Rassenschande|ban on sexual relations between Germans and foreign workers]].<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.ns-archiv.de/imt/ps3001-ps3200/3040-ps.php |title='Sonderbehandlung erfolgt durch Strang' |trans-title=Special treatment is done by train |work=ns-archiv.de }}</ref> Repeated efforts were made to propagate {{lang|de|Volkstum}} ('racial consciousness'), to prevent such relations.<ref name=hertzstein>{{cite book |first=Robert Edwin |last=Hertzstein |title=The War That Hitler Won: The Most Infamous Propaganda Campaign in History |year=1978 |publisher=Putnam |isbn=9780399118456}}</ref>{{rp|139}} Pamphlets, for instance, instructed all German women to avoid physical contact with any foreign workers brought to Germany as a danger to their blood.<ref>{{cite book |first=Leila J. |last=Rupp |title=Mobilizing Women for War |date=30 January 1978 |pages=124–5 |publisher=Princeton University Press |isbn=0-691-04649-2 |oclc=3379930 }}</ref> Women who disobeyed were imprisoned<ref name=hertzstein/>{{rp|212}} although executions also took place.<ref>{{cite book |author=Evans, Richard J. |title=The Third Reich at War: How the Nazis Led Germany from Conquest to Disaster |year=2009 |isbn=978-0141015484 |page=354 |publisher=Penguin |author-link=Richard J. Evans}}</ref> Even fraternization with the workers was regarded as dangerous, and targeted by pamphlet campaigns in 1940–1942.<ref name=hertzstein/>{{rp|211–2}} Soldiers in the {{lang|de|[[Wehrmacht]]}} and [[SS]] officers were exempt from any such restrictions. It is estimated that at least 34,140 Eastern European women apprehended in [[Łapanka]]s (military kidnapping raids), were forced to serve them as sex slaves in [[German military brothels in World War II|German military brothels]] and [[German camp brothels in World War II|camp brothels]] during the Third Reich.<ref name="Herbermann">{{cite book |author1=Nanda Herbermann |author2=Hester Baer |author3=Elizabeth Roberts Baer | title =The Blessed Abyss | year =2000 | pages =33{{nbhyph}}34 | publisher =[[Wayne State University]] Press | location =Detroit | isbn=0-8143-2920-9 | url =https://books.google.com/books?id=3JM3AdnmE18Cpg | format =[[Google Books]] | access-date =January 12, 2011}}</ref><ref name="Lenten">{{cite book |last=Lenten |first=Ronit |title=Israel and the Daughters of the Shoah: Reoccupying the Territories of Silence |year=2000 |publisher=Berghahn Books |pages=33–34 |isbn=1-57181-775-1}}</ref> 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.<ref name="polityka">{{cite news |first1=Joanna |last1=Ostrowska |first2=Marcin |last2=Zaremba |url=https://www.polityka.pl/archiwumpolityki/1912104,1,do-burdelu-marsz.read |title=Do burdelu, marsz! |trans-title=To the brothel, march! |work=[[Polityka]] |volume=22 |number=2707 |date=May 30, 2009 |page= |pages=70–72 |language=pl |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20101205003034/http://archiwum.polityka.pl/art/do-burdelu-marsz,424445.html |archivedate=2010-12-05 }}</ref>
===French shipyards===
French workers at naval bases provided the {{lang|de|[[Kriegsmarine]]}} with an essential workforce, thereby supporting Nazi Germany in the [[Battle of the Atlantic]]. By 1939, the {{lang|de|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, France|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 {{lang|de|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 {{lang|de|[[German battleship Scharnhorst|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 (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 1{{nbsp}}million of them).<ref name=BeyerSchneider/> A small number objected to carrying out war work but the majority were found by the Germans to be willing and efficient workers.<ref name="Hellwinkel">{{cite book |last1=Hellwinkel |first1=Lars |title=Hitler's Gateway to the Atlantic: German Naval Bases in France 1940–1945 |date=2014 |publisher=Seaforth Publishing |location=Barnsley |isbn=978-1848321991 |page=passim |edition=Kindle}}</ref>
===Numbers===
In the late summer of 1944, German records listed 7.6{{nbsp}}million foreign civilian workers and [[prisoners of war]] in the German territory, most of whom had been brought there by coercion.<ref name="UH"/> 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.<ref name="UH"/><ref>{{cite book|author=Allen, Michael Thad|title=The Business of Genocide|url=https://archive.org/details/businessofgenoci00alle|url-access=registration|publisher=The University of North Carolina Press|year=2002|pages=[https://archive.org/details/businessofgenoci00alle/page/n18 1]|isbn=9780807826775}} See also: {{cite web|url=http://projekte.geschichte.uni-freiburg.de/herbert/uhpub/forcedlaborers.html|title=Forced Labourers in the "Third Reich"|publisher=International Labour and Working-Class History|access-date=2008-05-20|last=Herbert|first=Ulrich |archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20080415124110/http://projekte.geschichte.uni-freiburg.de/herbert/uhpub/forcedlaborers.html <!-- Bot retrieved archive --> |archive-date = 2008-04-15}}</ref> 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 [[Operation Sealion|invasion of the United Kingdom]].<ref>Shirer, William (1960) ''The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich''. New York: Simon and Schuster. p.782.</ref>
[[Image:Polenabzeichen.jpg|thumb|upright|Polish forced workers' {{lang|de|[[Zivilarbeiter]]}} badge]]
[[Image:Ostarbeiter-Abzeichen-vector.svg|thumb|upright|{{lang|de|OST-Arbeiter}} badge]]
[[File:Armband-ot-arbeitet.jpg|thumb|upright|{{lang|de|[[Organisation Todt|Todt-Arbeiter]]}} badge]]
{| class="wikitable" width="70%" style="font-size:95%; text-align:right;"
|+ Foreign civilian forced labourers in Nazi Germany by country of origin, January 1944 with transfer payment to the Reich per labourer{{r|BeyerSchneider}}
|-
! Countries !! Number !! % of total !! [[Reichsmark|RM]]
|-
! style="background:#CCCCCC;" | Total
| '''6,450,000''' || '''100.0'''% ||
|-
! style="background:#E1E1E1;" | Occupied Central and Eastern Europe
| '''4,208,000''' || '''65.2'''% || ''[[median]]'' '''15''' RM
|-
| align="center" | Czechoslovakia
| 348,000 || 5.4% ||
|-
| align="center" | Poland
| 1,400,000 || 21.7% || 33.5 RM
|-
| align="center" | Yugoslavia
| 270,000 || 4.2% ||
|-
| align="center" | USSR including annexed lands
| 2,165,000 || 33.6% || 4 RM
|-
| align="center" | Hungary
| 25,000 || 0.4% ||
|-
| align="center" | Greece
| 20,000 || 0.3% ||
|-
! style=“background:#E1E1E1;” | Occupied Western Europe
| '''2,155,000''' || '''33.4''' || ''[[median]]'' 700 RM
|-
| align="center" | France (except Alsace-Lorraine)
| 1,100,000 || 17.1% || 487 RM
|-
| align="center" | Norway
| 2,000 || – ||
|-
| align="center" | Denmark
| 23,000 || 0.4% ||
|-
| align="center" | Netherlands
| 350,000 || 5.4% ||
|-
| align="center" | Belgium
| 500,000 || 7.8% || 913 RM
|-
| align="center" | Italy{{efn|name=fn1}}
| 180,000 || 2.8% || 1,471 RM
|-
! style="background:#CCCCCC;" | German allies and neutral countries
| '''87,000''' || '''1.3'''% ||
|-
| align="center" | Bulgaria
| 35,000 || 0.5% ||
|-
| align="center" | Romania
| 6,000 || 0.1% ||
|-
| align="center" | Spain
| 8,000 || 0.1% ||
|-
| align="center" | Switzerland
| 18,000 || 0.3% ||
|}
==Organisation Todt==
{{main|Organisation Todt}}
[[File:Female foreign workers from Stadelheim prison work in a factory owned by the AGFA camera company.jpg|thumb|upright=1.1|Foreign workers from [[Stadelheim Prison]] work in a factory owned by the [[AGFA]] camera company.]]
[[Organisation Todt]] was a [[Nazi Germany|Nazi era]] [[Civil engineering|civil]] and [[military engineer]]ing group in Nazi Germany, eponymously named for its founder [[Fritz Todt]], an engineer and senior [[Nazism|Nazi]] figure. The organization was responsible for a huge range of engineering projects both in pre-[[World War II]] [[Germany]], and in [[German-occupied Europe|occupied Europe]] from France to Russia. Todt became notorious for using [[forced labour]]. Most so-called "volunteer" Soviet POW workers were assigned to the Organisation Todt.<ref>Christian Streit: ''Keine Kameraden: Die Wehrmacht und die Sowjetischen Kriegsgefangenen, 1941–1945'', Bonn: Dietz (3. Aufl., 1. Aufl. 1978), {{ISBN|3-8012-5016-4}} – "Between 22 June 1941 and the end of the war, roughly 5.7{{nbsp}}million members of the Red Army fell into German hands. In January 1945, 930,000 were still in German camps. A million at most had been released, most of them were so-called "volunteer" (Hilfswillige) for (often compulsory) auxiliary service in the Wehrmacht. Another 500,000, as estimated by the Army High Command, had either fled or been liberated. The remaining 3,300,000 (57.5 percent of the total) had perished."</ref> The history of the organization falls into three main phases:<ref name="HBC"/>
# A pre-war period between 1933 and 1938, during which the predecessor of Organisation Todt, the office of General Inspector of German Roadways ({{lang|de|Generalinspektor für das deutsche Straßenwesen}}), was primarily responsible for the construction of the German {{lang|de|[[Autobahn]]}} network. The organisation was able to draw on "conscripted" (i.e. compulsory) labour from within Germany through the Reich Labour Service ({{lang|de|[[Reichsarbeitsdienst]]}}, RAD).
# The period from 1938 to 1942, after [[Operation Barbarossa]], 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: {{lang|de|Zwangsarbeit}}.<ref>''Verordnung zur Sicherstellung des Kräftebedarfs für Aufgaben von besonderer staatspolitischer Bedeutung'' of October 15, 1938 (''Notdienstverordnung''), ''RGBl''. 1938 I, Nr. 170, S. 1441–1443; ''Verordnung zur Sicherstellung des Kräftebedarfs für Aufgaben von besonderer staatspolitischer Bedeutung'' of February 13, 1939, ''RGBl''. 1939 I, Nr. 25, S. 206f.; ''Gesetz über Sachleistungen für Reichsaufgaben (Reichsleistungsgesetz)'' of September 1, 1939, ''RGBl''. 1939 I, Nr. 166, S. 1645–1654. [''RGBl''. = ''[[Reichsgesetzblatt]]'', the official organ for the publication of laws.] For further background, see [http://www2.hu-berlin.de/gemenskap/inhalt/publikationen/arbeitspapiere/ahe_12.html ''Die Ausweitung von Dienstpflichten im Nationalsozialismus''] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20051127102756/http://www2.hu-berlin.de/gemenskap/inhalt/publikationen/arbeitspapiere/ahe_12.html |date=2005-11-27 }}{{in lang|de}}, a working paper of the ''Forschungsprojekt Gemeinschaften'', Humboldt University, Berlin, 1996–1999.</ref> From 1938 to 1940, over 1.75{{nbsp}}million Germans were conscripted into labour service. In 1940–42, Organization Todt began to rely on {{lang|de|Gastarbeitnehmer}} ([[guest workers]]), {{lang|de|Militärinternierte}} ([[Internment|military internees]]), {{lang|de|Zivilarbeiter}} ([[Zivilarbeiter|civilian workers]]), {{lang|de|Ostarbeiter}} ([[Ostarbeiter|Eastern workers]]) and {{lang|de|Hilfswillige}} ("volunteer") POW workers.
# The period from 1942 until the end of the war, with approximately 1.4{{nbsp}}million 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.<ref name="HBC">{{cite web |url=http://histclo.com/essay/war/ww2/cou/ger/mil/for-todt.html |title=Organization Todt |publisher=HBC Historical Clothing |work=World War II: German Military Organizations |date=25 September 2009 |access-date=16 October 2014 |author=HBC |quote=''Sources:'' 1. Gruner, Wolf. ''Jewish Forced Labor Under the Nazis. Economic Needs and Racial Aims, 1938–1944'' (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006), published in association with the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. 2. U.S. War Department, "The Todt Organization and Affiliated Services" ''Tactical and Technical Trends'' No. 30 (July 29, 1943).}}</ref>
==Extermination through labour==
{{main|Extermination through labour}}
{{See also|List of Nazi concentration camps}}
[[Image:Camp ArbeitMachtFrei.JPG|thumb|right|upright=1.1|{{lang|de|[[Arbeit Macht Frei]]}} ('work will set you free') gate at [[Sachsenhausen concentration camp|KZ Sachsenhausen]]]]
[[File:Bundesarchiv Bild 185-23-21, Bremen-Farge, U-Boot-Bunker "Valentin", Bau.jpg|thumb|right|upright=1.1|Forced [[concentration camp]] labour at [[U-boat pen]]s in Bremen, 1944]]
Millions of Jews were forced labourers in [[ghetto]]s, before they were shipped off to [[extermination camp]]s. The Nazis also operated [[Nazi concentration camps|concentration camps]], some of which provided free forced labour for industrial and other jobs while others existed solely to [[Nazi extermination camp|exterminate their inmates]]. To mislead the victims, at the entrances to a number of camps the lie 'work brings freedom' ({{lang|de|[[arbeit macht frei]]}}) was placed, to encourage the false impression that cooperation would earn release. A notable example of a labour-concentration camp is [[Mittelbau-Dora]], a labour camp complex that produced [[V-2 rocket]]s. [[Extermination through labour]] was a Nazi German principle that regulated most of their [[labour camp|labour]] and concentration camps.<ref name="Dobosiewicz">{{cite book|author=Stanisław Dobosiewicz|author-link=Stanisław Dobosiewicz|title=Mauthausen/Gusen; obóz zagłady (Mauthausen/Gusen; the Camp of Doom)|year=1977|pages=449|publisher=Ministry of National Defense Press|location=Warsaw|isbn=83-11-06368-0|language=pl}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|author=Wolfgang Sofsky|title=The Order of Terror: The Concentration Camp|year=1999|pages=352|publisher=[[Princeton University]] Press|location=Princeton|isbn=0-691-00685-7|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=rf1VqMP3gMsC&pg=PA38}}</ref> 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.<ref name="Dobosiewicz"/><ref>{{cite book|author=Władysław Gębik|title=Z diabłami na ty (Calling the Devils by their Names)|year=1972|pages=332|publisher=Wydawnictwo Morskie|location=Gdańsk|language=pl}} See also: {{cite book|author=Günter Bischof|author-link=Günter Bischof|author2=Anton Pelinka|title=Austrian Historical Memory and National Identity|year=1996|pages=185–190|publisher=Transaction Publishers|isbn=1-56000-902-0|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=75l45XlpXTsC&q=Mauthausen&pg=PA185}}
*{{cite book|author=Cornelia Schmitz-Berning |title=Vokabular des Nationalsozialismus (Vocabulary of the National Socialism)|year=1998|pages=634|chapter=Vernichtung durch Arbeit|publisher=Walter de Gruyter|isbn=3-11-013379-2|language=de}}</ref>
==Controversy over compensation==
{{Further|World War II reparations}}
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.<ref name="Dingell">{{Cite web|author=Jeanne Dingell|url=http://www.remember.org/educate/dingell.html|title=The Question of the Polish Forced Labourer during and in the Aftermath of World War II: The Example of the Warthegau Forced Labourers|work=remember.org|access-date=2008-06-02}}</ref> There has been little effort by businesses or the German government to compensate forced labourers from the war period.{{r|BeyerSchneider}}
As stated in the [[London Debt Agreement of 1953]]:
{{blockquote|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 {{lang|de|Reichskreditkassen}} shall be deferred until the final settlement of the problem of reparations.}}
To this day,{{as of when|date=November 2024}} 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.{{r|BeyerSchneider}}
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 [[war reparations|reparations]] not from Germany itself, but from the [[Soviet Union]]'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]] 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]] renounced its right to further claims of reparations from the successor states of Nazi Germany. Only after the [[fall of communism in Poland]] 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.<ref name="Dingell"/>
The total number of forced labourers under Nazi rule who were still alive as of August 1999 was 2.3{{nbsp}}million.{{r|BeyerSchneider}} The [[German Forced Labour Compensation Programme]] was established in 2000; a forced labour fund paid out more than €4.37{{nbsp}}billion to close to 1.7{{nbsp}}million of then-living victims around the world (one-off payments of between €2,500 and €7,500).<ref name="Reuters">{{Cite web|publisher=[[Reuters]]|url=http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L1260929.htm|title=Germany ends war chapter with "slave fund" closure | author= Erik Kirschbaum|date=12 June 2007 |access-date=2008-07-13|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080724135101/http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L1260929.htm |archive-date=2008-07-24}}</ref> German Chancellor [[Angela Merkel]] 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.<ref name="Reuters"/> German president [[Horst Koehler]] stated:
{{blockquote|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.<ref name="Reuters"/>}}
==See also==
*[[Private sector participation in Nazi crimes]]
* {{lang|de|[[Arbeitseinsatz]]}}, (forced labour deployment)
** {{lang|de|[[Totaleinsatz]]}}, a colloquial term used for a subset of the {{lang|de|Arbeitseinsatz}} program concerning 400,000 Czechs
* {{lang|de|[[Baudienst|Polnischer Baudienst im Generalgouvernement]]}}, (Polish Construction Service in the General Government)
* {{lang|de|[[Deutsche Wirtschaftsbetriebe]] (DWB)}}, (German Economic Enterprises)
* [[Fritz Sauckel]]
* [[Forced labor in the Soviet Union]]
* [[Italian military internees]]
* [[Ispettorato Militare del Lavoro]]
* {{lang|fr|[[Service du travail obligatoire]] (STO)}}, (Compulsory Work Service in [[Vichy France]])
* [[Forced labor of Germans after World War II]]
* [[1943 Greek protests against labour mobilization]]
==Notes==
{{notelist|refs=
{{efn|name=fn1|By September 1943 Italy had switched sides, and in Northern Italy the [[Italian Social Republic]] puppet state was born; therefore it is included in Occupied Western Europe. Bulgaria, Hungary and Romania would not switch sides until summer 1944 and are included in German allies section. }}
}}
==Citations==
{{Reflist}}
==Further reading==
* Homze, Edward L. ''Foreign Labor in Nazi Germany'' ([[Princeton UP]] 1967)
* {{cite journal|author=Edward L. Homze|title=Review of Benjamin B. Ferencz, ''Less Than Slaves: Jewish Forced Labour and the Quest for Compensation''|journal=[[The American Historical Review]]|volume= 85|pages=1225|date=Dec 1980|issue=5|jstor=1853330|doi=10.2307/1853330}}
* {{cite book|author-link=Eugen Kogon|author=Kogon, Eugen|title=The Theory and Practice of Hell: The German Concentration Camps and the System Behind Them|publisher=[[Farrar, Straus and Giroux]]|year=2006|isbn=0-374-52992-2}}
* {{cite book |authorlink=Mark Mazower |last=Mazower |first=Mark |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=A189PwAACAAJ |isbn = 9780143116103|title = Hitler's Empire: How the Nazis Ruled Europe |chapter=Chapter 10: Workers |page=294 |year = 2008|publisher = Penguin Press  }}
* {{cite book |doi=10.2307/j.ctv75d8v5 |jstor=j.ctv75d8v5 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctv75d8v5 |title=Macht Arbeit Frei? |last1=Mędykowski |first1=Witold Wojciech |year=2018 |publisher=Academic Studies Press |isbn=9781618115966 }}
* {{cite web |last=Ruhs |first=Florian |url=https://www.aventinus-online.de/neuzeit/krise-der-klassischen-moderne-1918-1945/art/Foreign_Workers/html/ca/9361b30f252a10ba0f78429b5a5528f1/indexee27.html |title=Foreign Workers in the Second World War. The Ordeal of Slovenians in Germany |work=aventinus nova |issue=31 |date=29 May 2011 }}
* {{cite book|author-link=Adam Tooze|author=Tooze, Adam|title=The Wages of Destruction|publisher=[[Viking Press]]|year=2007|pages=476–85, 538–49|isbn=978-0-670-03826-8|title-link=The Wages of Destruction}}
==External links==
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20080415133352/http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=915693 Compensation for Forced Labour in World War II: The German Compensation Law of 2 August 2000]
*[https://web.archive.org/web/20121208113958/http://www.ushmm.org/assets/frg.htm German compensation law]
*[http://www.iom.int/jahia/webdav/shared/shared/mainsite/about_iom/en/council/83/MCINF248.pdf Report on victim compensation],  [[International Organization for Migration]]
* [http://www1.yadvashem.org/odot_pdf/Microsoft%20Word%20-%206625.pdf Forced Labour document] from [[Yad Vashem]]{{verify source | date=January 2013}}
* [http://www.h-net.org/announce/show.cgi?ID=131096 "Forced and Slave Labour in Nazi-Dominated Europe, 1933 to 1945"], [[United States Holocaust Memorial Museum]] Symposium (2002)
* [http://www.icrc.org/Web/Eng/siteeng0.nsf/html/57JNWV International Red Cross]
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20100508161735/http://www.topographie.de/en/nazi-forced-labor-documentation-center Nazi Forced Labour Documentation Centre in Berlin-Schoeneweide]
* [http://www.salamander-zwangsarbeit.de/english.html Forced Labour at Salamander AG]
* [http://forms.claimscon.org/comp_guide/comp_guide.php Claims against Germany] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171126020755/http://forms.claimscon.org/comp_guide/comp_guide.php |date=26 November 2017 }}
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20140419114500/http://www.its-arolsen.org/en/help-and-faq/glossary/index.html '''International Tracing Service – Glossary''']
{{Nazism}}
{{World War II}}
{{Authority control}}
[[Category:Nazi forced labour| ]]
[[Category:Economy of Nazi Germany]]
[[Category:Germany home front during World War II]]
[[Category:Labor in Germany]]
[[Category:Nazi war crimes]]
[[Category:Slavery in Europe|Germany WWII]]