Baudienst


Baudienst, full name in German Baudienst im Generalgouvernement, was a forced labour organization created by Nazi Germany in the General Government territory of occupied Poland during World War II. Baudienst was subordinate to the Reichsarbeitsdienst.

Formation and activities

The Baudienst construction was formed 1 December 1940, originally in the Kraków District of the General Government, but it eventually expanded to all districts of the newly-formed region, except for the Warsaw District. The goal of Baudienst was to provide the Third Reich with a large pool of obligatory labour force.
Baudienst laborers were entitled to housing, food rations, working clothes, medical care and a wage of 1 złoty per day. Over time, conditions of work deteriorated, as laborers inhabited poor quality barracks, and food and clothing rations were slashed. Punished laborers were imprisoned in Liban working camp in Kraków.
Baudienst was to build and maintain infrastructure, and aid with agricultural tasks. The overall objective was not to build infrastructure for the Poles, but for the Germans. In some infamous cases, members of Baudienst were used to prepare graves for victims of German mass executions or to destroy Jewish houses and hiding places.
In the General Government, working was obligatory for any male Pole from 18 to 60 years old; later in the occupation this range extended to youth from 14 years old. Baudienst service itself was an obligatory service for Poles aged 21–22. Germans were aiming to have as may as 150,000 Baudienst members, in fact due to constant lack of volunteers and increasing desertions, Baudienst at its height reached less than a third of that number. There were almost no volunteers in Baudienst, in 1941 only 141 were recorded, in following years Germans stopped recording their numbers altogether.
Baudienst workers were under a contract to work at least initially 3 months, increased up to 6-7 months of work during the spring-summer period and eventually a minimum of a year.
In addition to the Polish Baudienst, Germans created similar Heimatdienst for the Ukrainians, and a similar one for the Goralenvolk. Volksdeutsche were immune from the service, and Polish Jews were already forced to labor in the ghettos and labor-concentration camps.