Forced labor in Nazi concentration camps
Forced labor was an important and ubiquitous aspect of the Nazi concentration camps which operated in Nazi Germany and German-occupied Europe between 1933 and 1945. It was the harshest part of a larger system of forced labor in Nazi Germany.
Origins
Traditionally, prisoners have often been deployed at penal labor performing unskilled work. During the first years of Nazi Germany's existence, unemployment was high and forced labor in the concentration camps was presented as re-education through labor and means of punishing offenders. Nazi propaganda idolized work, which stood in contrast to the view of work as punishment. Prisoners in the early camps were forced to perform economically valueless but strenuous tasks, such as farming on moorland. Other prisoners had to work on constructing and expanding the camps. German state governments complained at being required to pay the upkeep of the camps, which was eventually taken over by the SS with costs reduced by forcing inmates to work. At Dachau, two streams of labor developed, one for punishing but less economically valuable labor, while a parallel system of workshops developed where prisoners performed economically valuable labor in much better conditions. The Four Year Plan of 1936 led to a shortage of labor, as free workers were diverted to projects related to German rearmament.By the end of 1937, full employment was reached outside the camps, and in particular there was a shortage of labor for construction work. A significant increase of the use of prisoner labor for productive tasks resulted in 1937 and 1938. SS chief Heinrich Himmler also used the labor shortage as a reason to expand the concentration camp system in the prewar period, despite other Nazi leaders such as Hermann Göring disagreeing with the expansion. The businesses were initially overseen by the Personal Staff Reichsführer-SS office. In 1938, mass roundups of so-called "anti-socials" brought another 10,000 prisoners into the camps. The desire to exclude these people from the German national community was complementary to the goal of exploiting their labor. Hard labor was a fundamental component of the concentration camp system and an aspect in the daily life of prisoners.
Building materials
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. Soon organized under the SS Main Economic and Administrative Office, DEST had four main priorities for developing the economy of concentration camps: stone quarrying, brick production, street construction, 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. Throughout DEST's history, Nazi architect Albert Speer's office for the reconstruction of Berlin 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. 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.Brickworks
Bricks were the SS's entrance into the construction industry, justified by the demand for bricks by the GBI for the Führerbauten, as private industry was only able to fill 18 percent of the GBI's demanded 2 billion bricks annually. On 1 July 1938, SS chief Heinrich Himmler and Speer came to an agreement by which the GBI promised to buy 120 million bricks annually for the next ten years, with the SS receiving an advance payment of 9.5 million Reichsmarks. This granted DEST the funding it needed to invest in the concentration camp industries. A ceremony on 6 July marked the ground-breaking on what was planned to be the world's largest brickworks, from Sachsenhausen concentration camp. Construction of a brickworks in Buchenwald also began during mid-1938. Delivery of bricks was supposed to start in October, but that did not occur due to problems with the Sachsenhausen brickworks, and the GBI renegotiated the contract to pay less than the 9 million Reichsmarks promised.In August 1938, the SS acquired a brickyard in Hamburg, which would be the site of Neuengamme concentration camp, founded in 1940. The bricks from Neuengamme were contracted for by the city of Hamburg for use in Nazi construction projects. Bricks were an important building material due to the Four Year Plan's restrictions on the use of iron. Except for Neuengamme, whose clay deposits were superior, the concentration camp brick production was not of high enough quality for use in façades and were instead used for structure. The SS brick industry was not as successful or economically productive as the quarries.
Quarries
and Mauthausen were established in 1938, their sites specifically chosen for their proximity to granite quarries whose stone was to be used for monumental Nazi architecture projects. Natzweiler and Gross-Rosen were also established near quarries in 1940. In 1941, DEST established Oranienburg II, a stone processesing facility near Sachsenhausen where prisoners cut stone for Nazi building projects in Berlin. Stonemason programs were established at Flossenbürg, Gross-Rosen and Natzweiler, for selected inmates to learn stonecraft from civilian experts. Those who passed the course enjoyed better treatment. Stone from the concentration camp quarries was used for construction of the camp, the Reichsautobahn, and various SS military projects, but later on it was destined for the monumental German Stadium project and the Nazi party rally grounds in Nuremberg. Of the prewar concentration camps, Flossenbürg was the one that was most significant and consistent in producing income for DEST. For example, it produced of stone in 1939, almost three-quarters of the total production that year. The largest buyer of Flossenbürg granite was Albert Speer's office for the reconstruction of Berlin. Within this project the largest and most significant orders were for Wilhelm Kreis' Soldiers' Hall project, beginning in 1940. Increasing amounts of stone were used for road building; 15% in 1939 but 60% the next year. In the quarries, prisoners labored in particularly brutal conditions, causing many deaths.Workshops
From the late 1930s, workshops were started in the concentration camps where prisoners were forced to produce various products. In May 1939, the SS company German Equipment Works was set up to oversee them. 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.Construction
From the earliest days of the camp system, prisoners were employed in constructing and expanding camp infrastructure to reduce costs.Muncipial projects
The contract between DEST and the city of Hamburg also provided for the use of Neuengamme prisoners to work on levees and canals.Beginning in late 1942, SS construction brigades were set up in larger German cities to clear the debris left behind by strategic bombing in World War II. This deployment was initiated by local bureaucrats who demanded prisoner labor to repair their cities. German historian Karola Fings notes that the demand "points to general acceptance of the concentration camps", and that the prisoners in these brigades lived and worked in plain sight of the German population.
Generalplan Ost
Nazi plans for the colonization of Eastern Europe, known as Generalplan Ost, were planned to be completed with concentration camp labor. SS planner Konrad Meyer estimated that unfree labor would make the projects 20 percent cheaper after accounting for food and clothing for the prisoners. The desire to use concentration camp prisoners for Generalplan Ost-related construction demanded a significant increase in the prisoner population, and the establishment of Auschwitz II and Majdanek was announced for this purpose on 27 September 1941. Initially the new camps were planned to be populated by Soviet prisoners of war.Underground factories
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 also expected a quick end to the war. Incorporation of the IKL into the SS Main Economic and Administrative Office in 1942 triggered substantial change in the camp system, as Oswald Pohl ordered that prisoners' labor be reoriented towards production and that time consuming exercises such as roll calls be abandoned. Pohl also extended working hours to eleven hours a day, so that prisoners had to work 72 hours a week. Rations were reduced at the same time, such that mortality rates peaked with 75,545 prisoners dying between July and November 1942. As late as September 1942, of the 110,000 prisoners in the camp system, only 5 percent were employed in tasks that supported the armaments industry and just over 1 percent worked directly on armaments production. By the end of 1944, concentration camp prisoners supplied around 5 percent of the labor in Germany's armaments factories, at least 500,000 workers. Of these, 140,000 worked building underground factories, 130,000 were employed by Organization Todt, and 230,000 by private enterprise.Aircraft
By early 1941, Heinkel was building an annex to its factory in Oranienburg to employ prisoners of Sachsenhausen to build Heinkel He 177 bombers. The aircraft, however, was a technical failure due to impractical specifications.Petrochemicals
The Buna factory at Monowitz was origially built for the production of synthetic rubber, in a deal negotiated by IG Farben in February 1940. At least 610 million Reichsmarks were invested by the SS in the site. Although it never produced any rubber, by 1942 the SS switched the site towards methanol production, a high-priority war good used for the production of aircraft fuel and explosives. Monowitz and IG Farben's other sites in Upper Silesia—Heydebreck and Blechhammer —accounted for a significant percent of fuel production in 1944 and, according to the United States Strategic Bombing Survey, rescued the German war effort. At least 30,000 prisoners died at Monowitz.V-weapons
Forced labor and genocide
Compared to Ostarbeiters and other foreign forced laborers, concentration camp prisoners labored under harsher conditions. 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.Although earlier historians of the concentration camps described forced labor as part of Nazi extermination processes this thesis has been questioned by more recent historiography.
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.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 hiring SS guard details, but the companies had to pay for accommodation and medical care. Therefore, they had a significant effect on the conditions in the camps. Prisoners did not receive any of this money, which was paid into state coffers. The per diem cost encouraged employers to push for the extension of the working day as much as possible, which increased the mortality rate of prisoners.
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.
Although both the state and private enterprise reaped profits from concentration camp labor, historians continue to debate who profited the 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 this replacement process. Comprehensive documentation on the profitability and accounting of concentration camp labor is only available for a handful of projects. Universale Hoch und Tiefbau AG, the contractor hired by the German state to work on the Loibl tunnel connecting Austria with Slovenia, employed 800 prisoners of the Mauthausen subcamp. The company calculated that although prisoners were 40 percent less productive than free German workers, the prisoners cost less even after paying the SS guards and replacing the prisoners who were too weak to work. In order to recoup these profits, the state reduced the contracted price by 3.515 percent.
Three of the subsequent Nuremberg trials concerned crimes by companies in Nazi Germany, including the use of forced labor of concentration camp prisoners. In the Flick and IG Farben trials, the judges accepted the defendants' arguments of necessity in the use of forced labor. Business leaders denied responsibility for the use of forced labor and often claimed, incorrectly, that they had been forced to employ concentration camp labor by Nazi fiat, when in fact they had sought out these prisoners in order to increase profit and survive the war. Companies were reluctant to compensate survivors.