Groups

During the period of Nazi rule, around 13 million people were forced to work in Germany. The largest group of these were the 8.4 million civilian men, women and children from the occupied territories, followed by 4.6 million prisoners of war and 1.7 million concentration camp prisoners.

Forced labour as a disciplinary, exclusionary and persecution measure

Various groups of people were forced to work in Nazi Germany even before the Second World War began. This earlier form of forced labour was closely linked to Nazi ideology, which divided people not only into superior and inferior, but also into useful and useless. Women and men deemed “Aryan” under the Nuremberg Laws were expected to serve the state by producing as many children as possible and subordinating themselves to the aggressive militaristic demands. Those who, in the Nazis’ view, contributed nothing to the Volksgemeinschaft (“community of the People”) were forced to work. This was justified by the state as an educational measure.

As a result, from 1933 onwards, people whom the Nazis designated as antisocial were compelled to do forced labour. This term covered unhoused people, migrant workers, beggars, alcoholics, sex workers, the long-term unemployed, people who had been convicted of multiple crimes and many others, both men and women. What they all had in common was that they were marginalised and often poor.

In addition, the Nazis classified all members of the Sinti and Roma minority as antisocial. From 1936, they were forced to leave their homes and were interned, for example, in the Marzahn internment camp in Berlin, and from then on were made to work as forced labourers. In 1938, more than 10,000 people stigmatised as antisocial were deported to concentration camps in an operation known as Aktion Arbeitsscheu Reich (“Operation Workshy Reich”).

Jewish women and men were systematically deprived of their livelihoods from 1933 onwards. The list of occupations prohibited to them grew almost daily, their businesses were boycotted, and they were forced into unemployment en masse. The Nazis then used unemployment as a pretext for forcing Jewish women and men into forced labour from 1938 on. This was extended to the entire Jewish population from 1941. They worked in segregated groups, known as Segregated Labour Deployment, separated from workers classified as “Aryan”. From 1942, all Jewish women and men still living in Germany were deported to the occupied territories in Eastern Europe, where more than a hundred thousand of German Jews were murdered in specially built Nazi death camps.

Prisoners of war

The Geneva Conventions govern the treatment of prisoners of war (POWs) and are designed to protect them. It stipulates, for example, that prisoners of war may in principle be used for work, but that they may not be employed in the armaments industry or in dangerous jobs. Prisoners of war must also be paid if they work for private companies. These rules also applied during the Nazi period. However, the Germans observed them only for certain groups of (Western) soldiers. Large numbers of Soviet prisoners of war were forced to work in armaments production. Many were also stripped of their POW status, making it easier for the German economy to exploit them.

It is estimated that a total of around 4.6 million prisoners of war were forced to work in Germany. Depending on the country they came from, they had little or no say in their own living conditions and no control over working conditions.

Civilian forced labourers

Nearly 8.5 million civilians – men, women and children – were deported from the occupied countries of Europe and North Africa to Germany during the Second World War and forced to work there. A further 13 million or so were forced to work in the occupied territories themselves. These figures can only be approximated.

The living and working conditions of civilian forced labourers varied greatly, depending mainly on where they came from. Western Europeans had more individual freedom and more of a say in their own living conditions, while Poles and Eastern Europeans were confined to camps and were subject to racist legislation. None of the civilian forced labourers were allowed to leave their jobs if their own accord or to have any real say in their day-to-day working lives. They were made to work against their will, and coercive measures were used to enforce their compliance.

Prisoners in concentration camps

Concentration camps were one of the central instruments of Nazi rule. Political and religious opponents, “antisocials”, “homosexual offenders” (mostly gay men convicted under the German law that criminalized male homosexuality), Jews, Sinti and Roma could be imprisoned in concentration camps without trial for indefinite periods. Once the Second World War had begun, large numbers of real or perceived political opponents and resistance fighters from the occupied territories were also deported to concentration camps.

As long as concentration camps existed, prisoners were used for forced labour. Initially, the SS, who ran the camps, used forced labour mainly as an instrument of terror and punishment. This changed in 1942, when the continuing war meant that workers were urgently needed for arms production.

Concentration camp prisoners were increasingly used in the war economy. More and more small satellite camps were set up near factories, which could request and “hire” prisoners from the SS.

It is estimated that some 1.7 million concentration camp prisoners were used for forced labour. Concentration camp prisoners were completely deprived of any rights and had no say in their own living and working conditions. They are considered enslaved labourers today.

People incarcerated in jails, prisons and penal camps

Even before 1933, work was seen as a disciplinary measure in the prison system. From 1938, people convicted of a crime had to work in labour detachments, and were even deployed outside their prisons. With the outbreak of the war, the number of foreign prisoners increased. They were kept strictly separate from the German prisoners. From September 1944, nearly 90% of all incarcerated people were used as labourers in the armaments industry. They, too, had no say in their working conditions.

Further Reading:

Mark Spoerer. Zwangsarbeit unterm Hakenkreuz, Stuttgart/München, 2001.

Ulrich Herbert. Fremdarbeiter. Politik und Praxis des „Ausländer-Einsatzes“ in der Kriegswirtschaft des Dritten Reiches, Berlin/Bonn, 1985.