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48-599: Jägerstab played a key role in the exploitation of slave labour for the benefit of Germany's industry and its armed forces, the Wehrmacht . The task force supported the Luftwaffe 's Emergency Fighter Program , including the development of the "people's jet", Heinkel He 162 . The Jägerstab (Fighter Staff) was established on 1 March 1944 by the order of Albert Speer , the Minister of Armaments and War Production in

96-427: A ban on sexual relations between Germans and foreign workers . Repeated efforts were made to propagate Volkstum ('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

144-746: A direct result of forced labour under the Nazis. 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. 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

192-403: A forced labour fund paid out more than €4.37   billion to close to 1.7   million of then-living victims around the world (one-off payments of between €2,500 and €7,500). 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

240-689: A huge range of engineering projects both in pre- World War II Germany , and in 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. The history of the organization falls into three main phases: Millions of Jews were forced labourers in ghettos , before they were shipped off to extermination camps . The Nazis also operated concentration camps , some of which provided free forced labour for industrial and other jobs while others existed solely to exterminate their inmates . To mislead

288-509: A similar task force. On 1 August 1944, Speer reorganised the task force into the Rüstungsstab (Armament Staff) to apply the same model of operation to all top-priority armament programs. Karl Saur stayed on as chief of staff. The formation of the Rüstungsstab allowed Speer, for the first time, to consolidate key arms manufacturing projects for the three branches of the Wehrmacht under the authority of his ministry, further marginalising

336-536: The Reichskreditkassen shall be deferred until the final settlement of the problem of reparations. 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

384-594: The German war economy inside Nazi Germany during the war. The German need for slave labour grew to the point that even children were kidnapped as labor, in an operation called the Heu-Aktion . More than 2,000 German companies profited from slave labour during the Nazi era, including Deutsche Bank and Siemens . A class system was created amongst Fremdarbeiter ('foreign workers') brought to Germany to work for

432-920: The Hitler Cabinet , with support from Erhard Milch of the Reich Aviation Ministry . Its goal was to increase the production of fighter aircraft to counteract the Allied campaign of strategic bombing. Speer and Milch played a key role in directing the activities of the agency, however, the day-to-day operations were handled by Chief of Staff Karl Saur , the head of the Technical Office in the Armaments Ministry. The Jägerstab had been given extraordinary powers over labour, production and transportation resources. The task force immediately began implementing plans to expand

480-731: The Potsdam Agreements of 1945, the Poles were to receive 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

528-811: The Reich Ministry of Aviation . Several departments, including the once powerful Technical Office, were disbanded or transferred to the new task force. The organisation of the task force was further streamlined in October 1944, by combining Airframes Main Committee and Equipment Main Committee into the Aircraft Construction Main Committee under Karl Frydag. The committee in turn was subdivided into four key task forces: single-piston engine fighter aircraft; jet fighters; bombers and special aircraft. In this capacity, Frydag oversaw

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576-573: 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. The total number of forced labourers under Nazi rule who were still alive as of August 1999 was 2.3   million. The German Forced Labour Compensation Programme was established in 2000;

624-658: The governments-in-exile were formed by their citizens in other Allied countries . Some countries occupied by Nazi Germany were officially neutral. Others were former members of the Axis powers that were subsequently occupied by German forces, such as Finland and Hungary. Germany operated thousands of concentration camps in German-occupied Europe. The first camps were established in March 1933 immediately after Adolf Hitler became Chancellor of Germany . Following

672-774: The 1934 purge of the SA, the concentration camps were run exclusively by the SS via the Concentration Camps Inspectorate and later the SS Main Economic and Administrative Office. Initially, most prisoners were members of the Communist Party of Germany, but as time went on different groups were arrested, including "habitual criminals", " asocials ", and Jews. After the beginning of World War II , people from German-occupied Europe were imprisoned in

720-1069: The French Republic [REDACTED]   French Tunisia [REDACTED] Military Administration in Belgium and Northern France [REDACTED] Military Administration in France [REDACTED] Reichskommissariat of Belgium and Northern France [REDACTED] Civil Administration of Luxembourg [REDACTED] Reichskommissariat of Belgium and Northern France [REDACTED] German-occupied territory of Montenegro [REDACTED] Independent State of Croatia [REDACTED] Independent State of Macedonia Provisional Government of Lithuania 23 June 1941 – 5 August 1941 [REDACTED] General Government administration [REDACTED] Reichskommissariat Ostland [REDACTED] Reichskommissariat Ukraine [REDACTED] Government of National Salvation [REDACTED] Military Administration in

768-463: 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   million of them). A small number objected to carrying out war work but the majority were found by

816-654: The German government to compensate forced labourers from the war period. As stated in the London Debt Agreement of 1953 : 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

864-538: The German subsidiaries of foreign firms, such as Fordwerke (a subsidiary of Ford Motor Company ) and Adam Opel AG (a subsidiary of General Motors ) 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 12   million forced labourers, most of whom were Eastern Europeans , were employed in

912-433: The German war industry with only basic tools and minimal food rations until totally exhausted. 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

960-471: The Germans to be willing and efficient workers. In the late summer of 1944, German records listed 7.6   million foreign civilian workers and prisoners of war 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

1008-602: 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

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1056-464: 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 Untermenschen ('sub-humans') populations. 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

1104-617: The Soviet Union, 1.6   million to Poland, 1.5   million to France, and 900,000 to Italy, along with 300,000 to 400,000 each to Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia, the Netherlands, Hungary, and Belgium. Hitler 's policy of Lebensraum ('room for living') strongly emphasized conquest of lands in the East, known as Generalplan Ost , and the exploitation of these lands to provide cheap goods and labour for Germany. Even before

1152-450: The concentration camps. About 1.65 million people were registered prisoners in the camps, of whom about a million died during their imprisonment. Most of the fatalities occurred during the second half of World War II, including at least 4.7 million Soviet prisoners who were registered as of January 1945. Following Allied military victories, the camps were gradually liberated in 1944 and 1945, although hundreds of thousands of prisoners died in

1200-683: The day-to-day development and production activities relating to the He 162 , the Volksjäger ("people's fighter"), as part of the Emergency Fighter Program . The task force continued the Jägerstab ' s work on the fighter aircraft, which by then were being produced in sufficient numbers. By the autumn of 1944, however, the Luftwaffe (air force) lacked trained pilots to operate them. In November 1944, Colonel Gordon Gollob , at

1248-577: The death marches. After the expansion of Nazi Germany, people from countries occupied by the Wehrmacht were targeted and detained in concentration camps. In Western Europe, arrests focused on resistance fighters and saboteurs, but in Eastern Europe arrests included mass roundups aimed at the implementation of Nazi population policy and the forced recruitment of workers. This led to a predominance of Eastern Europeans, especially Poles, who made up

1296-425: The forced labourers. German president Horst Koehler stated: 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. Final solution Parties German-occupied Europe German-occupied Europe (or Nazi-occupied Europe ) refers to

1344-434: 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). The Nazis issued

1392-534: 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 was a Nazi era civil and military engineering group in Nazi Germany, eponymously named for its founder Fritz Todt , an engineer and senior Nazi figure. The organization was responsible for

1440-440: 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 15   million men and women were forced labourers at one point during the war. Besides Jews, the harshest deportation and forced labor policies were applied to

1488-681: The majority of the population of some camps. The ethnicities of captured people were various other groups from other different nationalities were transferred to Auschwitz or sent to local concentration camps. The countries occupied included all, or most, of the following nations or territories: [REDACTED] Bailiwick of Jersey 1 July 1940 – 9 May 1945 (Jersey) [REDACTED] Second Czechoslovak Republic [REDACTED] Third Czechoslovak Republic [REDACTED] German Zone of Protection in Slovakia [REDACTED] Free France [REDACTED] Provisional Government of

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1536-763: 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 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. Prisoners of war and civilian "undesirables" were brought in from occupied territories. Millions of Jews, Slavs and other conquered peoples were used as slave labourers by German corporations including Thyssen , Krupp , IG Farben , Bosch , Daimler-Benz , Demag , Henschel , Junkers , Messerschmitt , Siemens , and Volkswagen , not to mention

1584-887: The population, were governed by Germany or their allies and puppet states . It comprised an area of 3,300,000 km (1,300,000 sq mi). Outside of Europe, German forces controlled areas of North Africa , including Egypt , Libya , and Tunisia between 1940 and 1945. German military scientists established the Schatzgraber Weather Station as far north as Alexandra Land in Francis Joseph Land . Manned German weather stations also operated in North America included three in Greenland , Holzauge , Bassgeiger , and Edelweiss. German Kriegsmarine ships also operated in all oceans of

1632-472: The populations of Belarus, Ukraine, and Russia. By the end of the war, half of Belarus' population had been either killed or deported. The defeat of Nazi Germany in 1945 freed approximately 11   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   million civilians, in addition to Soviet POWs, for unfree labour in factories. Returning them home

1680-740: The ports of 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 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

1728-504: 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

1776-564: The sovereign countries of Europe which were wholly or partly militarily occupied and civil-occupied, including puppet governments , by the military forces and the government of Nazi Germany at various times between 1939 and 1945, during World War II , administered by the Nazi regime under the dictatorship of Adolf Hitler . The German Wehrmacht occupied European territory: In 1941, around 280 million people in Europe, more than half

1824-581: The time the leader of day fighters , noted that the air force lacked fuel to be able to train pilots. Speer acknowledged the problem in a December 1944 speech at a test facility, by teasing Adolf Galland , the Inspector of Fighters , with a joke that the Armaments industry had "won the first round" and that he fully expected the Luftwaffe to win the next. The Rüstungsstab assumed responsibilities for

1872-689: The underground transfer projects of the Jägerstab . In November 1944, 1.8 million square meters of underground space were ready for occupancy, encompassing over 1,000 spaces commissioned by the task force. According to the historian Marc Buggeln, the Rüstungsstab played a key role in maintaining and increasing production of fighter aircraft and V-2 rockets . Forced labour under German rule during World War II The use of slave and forced labour in Nazi Germany ( German : Zwangsarbeit ) and throughout German-occupied Europe during World War II took place on an unprecedented scale. It

1920-630: The use of slave labour in the aviation industry. The progress achieved through the work of the Jägerstab was seen as a success by the German authorities. The cooperation between the Reich Ministry of Aviation, the Ministry of Armaments and the SS proved especially productive. Although intended to function for only six months, already in late May Speer and Milch discussed with Goring the possibility of centralising all of Germany's arms manufacturing under

1968-517: The victims, at the entrances to a number of camps the lie 'work brings freedom' ( 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 rockets . 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

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2016-659: The war, Nazi Germany maintained a supply of slave labour . This practice started in the early days of labour camps for "unreliable elements" ( German : unzuverlässige Elemente ), such as homosexuals , criminals, political dissidents , communists , Jews , the homeless and anyone the regime wanted out of the way. During World War II the Nazis operated several categories of Arbeitslager (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

2064-710: The workers was regarded as dangerous, and targeted by pamphlet campaigns in 1940–1942. Soldiers in the Wehrmacht 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 alone, five such establishments were set up under military guard in September 1942, with over 20 rooms each. Alcohol

2112-487: The world throughout World War II. Several German-occupied countries initially entered World War II as Allies of the United Kingdom or the Soviet Union . Some were forced to surrender before the outbreak of the war such as Czechoslovakia; others like Poland (invaded on 1 September 1939) were conquered in battle and then occupied . In some cases, the legitimate governments went into exile , in other cases

2160-515: 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), Red Cross , and military operations provided food, clothing, shelter, and assistance in returning home. In all, 5.2   million foreign workers and POWs were repatriated to

2208-460: 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 12   million people from almost twenty European countries; about two thirds came from Central Europe and Eastern Europe . Many workers died as a result of their living conditions – extreme mistreatment, severe malnutrition and abuse were

2256-529: 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 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

2304-566: Was not allowed, unlike on the Western front, and the victims underwent genital checkups once a week. French workers at naval bases provided the Kriegsmarine with an essential workforce, thereby supporting Nazi Germany in the Battle of the Atlantic . By 1939, the Kriegsmarine 's planning had presumed that they had time to build up resources before the war started. When France fell and

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