Forced labor in Nazi concentration camps
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Organization
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Personnel | ||||
Prisoners
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Forced labour was an important and ubiquitous aspect of the
Origins
Traditionally, prisoners were often deployed in
The
Building materials
The initiative for the foundation of SS companies dealing in building materials from concentration camps originated in 1937 with regional SS officials in Thuringia, especially the state's Interior Minister Hellmuth Gommlich .[10][11] German Earth and Stone Works (DEST) was an SS-owned company founded on 29 April 1938 for the exploitation of prisoner labor in the concentration camps for the production of building materials.[3][12] Soon organized under the SS Main Economic and Administrative Office (SS-WVHA), DEST had four main priorities for developing the economy of concentration camps: stone quarrying, brick production, street construction (soon shelved), and the acquisition of other enterprises for the above purposes. Although technically a private enterprise, its members were also, as SS officers, accountable to the SS hierarchy.[13] Throughout DEST's history, Nazi architect Albert Speer's office for the reconstruction of Berlin (GBI) was the most significant investor and customer of DEST's products, signing various contracts large and small for building materials. Before World War II, DEST's quarries were profitable, while its brickworks operated at a loss. By the beginning of the war, four of the six concentration camps were producing or preparing to produce building materials.[14] The production of building materials continued to expand until 1942, and the SS scaled back on building materials in 1943–1944 in order to focus on arms production.[15]
Brickworks
Bricks were the SS's entrance into the construction industry, justified by the demand for bricks by the GBI for the
In August 1938, the SS acquired a brickyard in
Quarries
Workshops
From the late 1930s, workshops were started in the concentration camps where prisoners were forced to produce various products.[31] SS Commercial Operations of Dachau produced clothing, shoes, and carpentry for the nearby SS troop training center. They were under the indirect control of the SS finance apparatus led by Oswald Pohl and August Frank until transferred directly to the training department in late 1935.[27] Miscellaneous ventures in the late 1930s included a bakery in Sachsenhausen which was to produce 100,000 loaves a day for the camp and the Waffen-SS.[32] In May 1939, the SS company German Equipment Works (DAW) was set up to oversee the concentration camp workshops. In 1940–1941, the variety of items produced was reduced, such that the workshops focused on supplying furniture to the SS and to resettled ethnic Germans. At the end of 1941, the company had plants in Dachau, Sachsenhausen, Buchenwald, and Auschwitz. A different company, Gesellschaft für Textil und Lederverwertung, oversaw the concentration camp workshops that supplied the SS with clothing.[33]
Construction
From the earliest days of the camp system, prisoners were employed in constructing and expanding camp infrastructure to reduce costs.[1][3]
Municipal projects
The contract between DEST and the city of Hamburg also provided for the use of Neuengamme prisoners to work on
Ideas of using concentration camp prisoners for mobile construction brigades dated to 1941, when the idea was first proposed by the SS-WVHA to develop Nazi-occupied Eastern Europe.
Generalplan Ost
Nazi plans for the colonization of Eastern Europe, known as
War industries
After the outbreak of war in September 1939, the SS was exempted from the need to convert its concentration camp industries to the war economy; SS planners expected a quick end to the war.[19] In the second half of 1941, military setbacks on the Eastern Front, led to increased prioritization of war production, placed under Speer's authority as the newly appointed head of the Reich Ministry of Armaments and War Production. In early 1942, Fritz Sauckel was given the task of recruiting forced labor to expand war production.[38] As late as February 1942, the SS was not focused on the armaments issue, but it soon realized that it might lose control of prisoners to other Nazi agencies, spurring action.
Incorporation of the IKL into the
Petrochemicals
The Buna factory at
Aircraft
By early 1941,
Weapons
V-weapons
Forced labor and genocide
Concentration camp prisoners worked under harsher conditions than Ostarbeiters and other foreign forced laborers.[citation needed] At its height at the end of the war, concentration camp labor made up 3 percent of the labor force in Germany, remaining a quantitatively marginal element of the economy of Nazi Germany.[45]
Although earlier historians of the concentration camps described forced labor as part of Nazi extermination processes (
On the whole, one could essentially say that “extermination through labor” was practiced throughout the entire concentration camp system, particularly during the second half of 1942. Yet the particularly high mortality rates of the year 1942 can only be attributed to a limited extent to deliberate plans devised by the SS to murder certain inmates or groups of prisoners.[49]
He also argues that in the concentration camp system was only genocidal for its Jewish and Romani prisoners since the number of prisoners of other nationalities was too small in relation to the total population.[50]
Role of private companies
The involvement of private companies in the concentration camps increased with two pilot projects beginning in early 1941: a few hundred prisoners from Auschwitz were leased to IG Farben and 300 Mauthausen prisoners to Steyr-Daimler-Puch. Both companies used prisoner labor to compensate for labor shortages, and initially employed prisoners only in unskilled and construction work. Through this arrangement, the SS retained control of the prisoners while obtaining material benefits: IG Farben provided materials for the construction of Auschwitz, while Steyr-Daimler-Puch offered cheaper weapons to the Waffen-SS. The companies complained that long transport of prisoners to work and arbitrary mistreatment from the SS reduced their productivity. Employment of prisoners by private companies was marginal until the end of 1941.[51]
Until the end of 1942, the SS companies paid 30 pfennig per prisoner per day while private employers paid three and four Reichsmarks. This price included the clothing and food of prisoners as well as SS guard details, but the companies had to pay for accommodation and medical care. Therefore, they had a significant effect on conditions in the camps. Prisoners did not receive any of this money,[52] which was paid into state coffers.[citation needed] The per diem cost encouraged employers to push for to extend m the working day as much as possible, which increased the mortality rate.[52] Employees of private firms were in charge of monitoring prisoners' work performance and telling kapos which prisoners to beat. Sometimes physical punishments were meted out onsite, while at other times it was delayed until the prisoners returned to the subcamp. Most employees did not object to this role.[53]
Private companies that used prisoner labor always took the initiative and were not coerced by the SS. Subcamps were established when companies submitted an application to the WVHA; if their purpose was considered high-priority enough, WVHA inspectors would examine the site for accommodation and security. Then a transport of prisoners and guards would arrive from the main camp. As the war progressed, allocation of prisoner labor was increasingly performed by the Ministry of Armaments rather than the WVHA, and from October 1944 applications for prisoner labor were submitted directly to the Ministry of Armaments.[54]
Although both the state and private enterprise reaped profits from concentration camp labor, historians debate who profited most. The employment of concentration camp prisoners for manufacturing was more economically favorable than construction work, which might be profitable if worn-out prisoners were promptly replaced by fresh ones. Employers had an economic incentive to speed up the replacement process.
Three of the
Slavery analogy
Historians do not agree whether forced labor in concentration camps was a form of
Notes
- ^ Ulrich Greifelt, head of Himmler's office of the Four Year Plan, stated: "Given the strains on the labour market, National Socialist work discipline dictated the forcible seizure and employment of all persons unwilling to adapt to the working life of the nation, i.e. work-shy and asocial individuals who are just vegetating . . . Well over 10,000 asocials are currently undergoing re-education in the concentration camps, which are admirably suited to the purpose."[9]
References
Citations
- ^ a b c d e f g Fings 2008, p. 220.
- ^ Wagner 2009, p. 130.
- ^ a b c d e Orth 2009, p. 185.
- ^ Buggeln 2014, pp. 12–13.
- ^ a b Buggeln 2014, p. 13.
- ^ Longerich 2011, p. 260.
- ^ Wachsmann 2009, pp. 24–25.
- ^ Orth 2009, pp. 185–186.
- ^ a b c Fings 2008, p. 221.
- ^ Jaskot 2002, p. 21.
- ^ Allen 2002, p. 58.
- ^ Jaskot 2002, p. 22.
- ^ Jaskot 2002, pp. 22–23.
- ^ Jaskot 2002, pp. 24–25.
- ^ Jaskot 2002, p. 26.
- ^ Jaskot 2002, pp. 22, 28.
- ^ a b Jaskot 2002, p. 24.
- ^ a b Buggeln 2014, pp. 13–14.
- ^ a b Jaskot 2002, p. 25.
- ^ a b Buggeln 2014, p. 14.
- ^ a b Fings 2008, p. 219.
- ^ a b Jaskot 2002, p. 28.
- ^ Jaskot 2002, pp. 1, 28.
- ^ Jaskot 2002, p. 41.
- ^ Jaskot 2002, p. 1.
- ^ Jaskot 2002, pp. 108–109.
- ^ a b Allen 2002, p. 60.
- ^ Jaskot 2002, pp. 28, 41, 75.
- ^ Jaskot 2002, p. 75.
- ^ Jaskot 2002, pp. 41, 69, 75.
- ^ Wachsmann 2015, p. 212.
- ^ Allen 2002, p. 62.
- ^ Longerich 2011, pp. 482–483.
- ^ Fings 2008, p. 223.
- ^ a b Fings 2008, p. 217.
- ^ Fings 2008, pp. 222–223.
- ^ Tooze 2006, p. 473.
- ^ Buggeln 2014, p. 15.
- ^ Buggeln 2014, pp. 18–19.
- ^ Buggeln 2014, pp. 17–18.
- ^ Tooze 2006, p. 532.
- ^ Tooze 2006, p. 443.
- ^ Tooze 2006, pp. 445–446.
- ^ Tooze 2006, p. 448.
- ^ Buggeln 2008, p. 125.
- ^ Wagner 2009, p. 127.
- ^ Buggeln 2015, pp. 333, 359.
- ^ Buggeln 2014, p. 63.
- ^ Buggeln 2014, pp. 19–20.
- ^ Buggeln 2014, p. 64.
- ^ Orth 2009, p. 188.
- ^ a b Wagner 2009, p. 136.
- ^ Buggeln 2014, p. 245.
- ^ Wagner 2009, pp. 136–137.
- ^ Tooze 2006, p. 534.
- ^ Tooze 2006, pp. 534, 536.
- ^ Wiesen 2004, pp. 68.
- ^ Priemel 2012, pp. 181–182.
- ^ Wiesen 2004, p. 16.
- ^ Wiesen 2004, pp. 1, 3.
- ^ Buggeln 2008, pp. 102–103.
- ^ Buggeln 2008, p. 128.
- ^ a b Allen 2002, p. 222.
- ^ Wagner 2009, p. 138.
Sources
- Allen, Michael Thad (2002). ISBN 978-0-8078-2677-5.
- Buggeln, Marc (2008). "Were Concentration Camp Prisoners Slaves?: The Possibilities and Limits of Comparative History and Global Historical Perspectives". International Review of Social History. 53 (1): 101–129. .
- Buggeln, Marc (2014). ISBN 978-0-19-870797-4.
- Buggeln, Marc (2015). "Forced Labour in Nazi Concentration Camps". In De Vito, Christian Giuseppe; Lichtenstein, Alex (eds.). Global Convict Labour. BRILL. pp. 333–360. ISBN 978-90-04-28501-9.
- ISBN 978-0-19-160860-5.
- Jaskot, Paul B. (2002). The Architecture of Oppression: The SS, Forced Labor and the Nazi Monumental Building Economy. Routledge. ISBN 978-1-134-59461-0.
- ISBN 978-0-19-161989-2.
- ISBN 978-0-253-35328-3.
- ISBN 978-0-85745-532-1.
- ISBN 978-0-7139-9566-4.
- ISBN 978-0-7864-8879-7.
- ISBN 978-1-135-26322-5.
- Wachsmann, Nikolaus (2015). ISBN 978-0-374-11825-9.
- ISBN 978-1-135-26322-5.
- ISBN 978-0-8078-5543-0.
Further reading
- ISBN 978-3-322-97342-9.
External links
Media related to Forced labor in Nazi concentration camps at Wikimedia Commons