Recruitment and Conscription

During the Second World War, Germany met its growing need for labour by recruiting and deporting people from almost every European country. While the Nazi regime sought to recruit workers voluntarily, it also forcibly deported millions of people for forced labour. The reason for this difference in recruitment is the racist ideology of the Nazis, who saw people from Western Europe as more valuable and people from Eastern Europe as being less valuable. While the German administration in the occupied parts of Western Europe initially relied on voluntary recruitment, in Eastern Europe, men, women and children were often violently and summarily deported. As the war progressed, the methods used to coerce people to work became harsher in every occupied territory.

Allied States

The German Reich had allies all over Europe. Through intergovernmental agreements, workers were recruited from allied countries, including Hungary, Slovakia, Croatia, and, until 1943, Italy. The workers who came to Germany this way were primarily men, and were not formally forced workers. However, their living and working conditions often did not live up to German promises. As the war went on, the status of various groups changed, and formerly free workers became forced labourers.

Western Europe – Propaganda and Coercion

In the Western European countries occupied by Germany, such as France, Belgium and the Netherlands, the Nazis kept to their plan to have people recruited as volunteers to work in Germany for quite some time. The occupation authorities put up posters, which could be seen everywhere, offering good living and working conditions in Germany. They often pursued a dual strategy of pressure and promises. For example, in the summer of 1942, the German occupation administration, together with the French collaboration government, launched an extensive propaganda campaign intended to morally blackmail the French people: For every three volunteers who signed up to work in Germany, they promised to release one French prisoner of war back home. However, the desired success did not materialise. Only a third of the hoped-for 150,000 workers came forward.

German recruitment offices opened in all Western European cities: branches of the labour offices where volunteers were supposed to register. The basis of their employment relationship in Germany was a contract. In reality, however, the contract terms were not honoured in Germany. Workers were not allowed to return to their home country after the formal end of their contract, and holidays were often not granted. The living and working conditions in Germany were also frequently unsatisfactory. Here, too, employment relationships that were initially mutually agreed upon turned into forced labour during the course of the war.

The propaganda brochure “Europe works in Germany - Sauckel mobilises the labour reserves“, 1943 © Dokumentationszentrum NS-Zwangsarbeit

Labour Conscription – Forced Labour

In addition to these more or less voluntary agreements, many French, Belgian, Dutch and Czech men and women were forced to work in Germany. In France, for example, the German occupiers introduced the Compulsory Work Service (STO) in 1943: All men born between 1920 and 1922 had to perform a two-year labour service in Germany. In Belgium, on the other hand, the recruitment of men aged between 18 and 50 and of unmarried women aged between 21 and 35 was introduced as early as October 1942. However, there was widespread protest against the measure, so the regulation for the recruitment of women was withdrawn.

At the same time, living conditions in the occupied deteriorated to such an extent that working in Germany appeared to some to be the lesser evil. By denying ration cards or closing down workplaces, the German occupation administration deprived entire families of their livelihoods. In purely formal terms, some people continued to volunteer. In reality, it was often a coerced decision in a hopeless situation. As the number of volunteers was nowhere near enough to cover the German demand for labour, coercive measures to recruit workers increased in occupied Western European countries throughout the war, culminating in organised manhunts.

Eastern Europe and Poland

Developments in Eastern Europe were different. In occupied Poland and in the occupied Soviet Union and their Belarusian, Russian and Ukrainian territories, voluntary recruitment played only a very minor role. People in Poland only allowed themselves to be deceived still by German promises at the start of the war, but the brutal reality of forced labour soon became public knowledge and the number of volunteers sank to practically zero. In the occupied territories of the Soviet Union entire village communities, including old and young people, were deported for forced labour.

“Come with us to Germany!” written on a house, undated, Warsaw © Stadtarchiv München, DE-1992-FS-WKII-KB-001

Violent deportations

In March 1942, Adolf Hitler appointed Fritz Sauckel as General Plenipotentiary for Labour Deployment (GBA).

The primary purpose of this newly created office was to bring the labour needed by the German war economy to Germany. Sauckel was given far-reaching powers and a sphere of influence that extended into the furthest corners of occupied Europe. He could also utilise armed units such as the police and the Wehrmacht. Violence escalated against the civilian population in the occupied territories. Under Sauckel, around 7.5 million people were “recruited” for forced labour. It meant nothing other than that people were captured in everyday situations, for example, after visiting a church, in marketplaces or cinemas, and deported to Germany.

Recruitment and Conscription