Organisation

The mass forced labour of foreign workers became the foundation of the German economy as the war progressed. The organisation of this forced labour was complex, with various agencies and institutions of the Nazi regime responsible for its implementation. Many decisions were made by local authorities, both within the German Reich itself and in the occupied territories. Virtually all German authorities were involved in the Nazi system of forced labour, as was the largest part of the German economy and society. This is why it is also called a societal crime, a crime committed by an entire society.

The role of the labour offices

Even before the beginning of the war, labour offices and their officials in the German Reich were central actors in the forced labour of Jews, Sinti, Roma and people deemed antisocial. In the occupied territories, the labour offices themselves were responsible for recruiting people for forced labour. They often came in behind the Wehrmacht and opened offices almost as soon as an area had been conquered. Working with the local administration, they registered the local population and learned what labour was available. They helped with recruitment or the drawing up of recruitment lists. They issued work orders and administered food stamps, which were often used as a means of pressure – those who did not report for work would not receive stamps and would go hungry. Labour office staff worked closely with the Wehrmacht and sometimes with the local police, who carried out street raids and transported forced labourers. The Wehrmacht was also responsible for guarding prisoners of war and forcing them to work. The SS administered the housing and guarding of concentration camp inmates and the “renting” of prisoners to companies. The Nazi administration created a separate body responsible for the deployment of civilian forced labourers, the General Plenipotentiary for Labour Deployment (GBA). This newly created office was responsible for bringing into Germany the workers needed by German industry. The GBA set quotas for the number of people to be deported from the occupied territories to work in Germany.

In the German Reich

On arrival in the German Reich, forced labourers from the occupied parts of the Soviet Union, and increasingly from other countries, were initially housed in transit camps run by the labour offices, from which forced labourers were allocated to German companies. The companies applied for the workers they needed, and their staff often went to the transit camps to try to secure the fittest, strongest and best-trained forced labourers for their businesses. Farmers could also find the people who would be forced to work for them by attending the markets where the deportees were exhibited.

Control and surveillance

The highest state authority responsible for the control, supervision and punishment of forced labourers was the Reich Security Main Office (RSHA). Organisations under this office included the Gestapo and the SS. The SS was responsible for the concentration camps and therefore for the concentration camp prisoners who were forced to work as forced labourers. The Gestapo was responsible for the surveillance of forced labourers from Eastern Europe.

Heinrich Himmler, Reichsführer SS and head of the German police, issued the Poles Decrees in 1940 and the Ostarbeiter Decrees in 1942. These legal regulations laid the foundations for racial discrimination against Polish and Soviet forced labourers and were designed to ensure their strict segregation from the German population. Among other things, these decrees stipulated that there should be no contact between the “Aryan” German population and the forced labourers from Eastern Europe. The decrees also enforced strict compliance with the obligation to wear identifying badges, banned Polish and Soviet forced labourers from using public transport and set lower wages for them.

The German Labour Front

In addition to the two central bodies, the GBA and the RSHA, there were many other agencies involved in the organisation of forced labour, such as the largest Nazi mass organisation, the German Labour Front (DAF). In many cases, the DAF was responsible for the accommodation of civilian forced labourers and provided the camp administrators. Its members and functionaries also drew up restrictive rules for the leisure time of civilian forced labourers and were actively involved in administering punishment in the camps. As intimate relationships between “Aryan” German women and foreign forced labourers continued to occur despite all the propaganda and disciplinary measures, the DAF deliberately set up brothels for workers of a foreign race in which women from the occupied territories were forced to do sex work.

As forced labourers usually had to pay for their own insurance, local health insurances were also involved. The Reich Ministry of Finance was responsible for the special taxes levied on forced labourers from Poland and the Soviet Union. Part of the forced labourers’ wages were often paid into savings accounts in German banks and invested directly into the war economy. In this way, the Nazi state earned 7.5 million Reichsmark in 1943.

Further Reading:

Ulrich Herbert. Fremdarbeiter. Politik und Praxis des ‚Ausländer-Einsatzes‘ in der Kriegswirtschaft des dritten Reiches, Bonn 1999

Alexander Nützenadel (Hrsg.). Das Reichsarbeitsministerium im Nationalsozialismus. Verwaltung – Politik – Verbrechen, Göttingen 2017.