Forced labourers in Nazi Germany : Deadly bureaucracy

A worker, in a heroic photographed from below, carries a large chip on the shoulder. "Europe works in Germany," is the headline to something less printed victory certainty is formulated: "Sauckel mobilizes the reserves of power". "Europe will win", announce gigantic letters across with a swastika flag-bedecked stage on the Fritz Sauckel, "the General Plenipotentiary for labor deployment", in 1943, in a speech at a Congress of the "German work front".

at this time, the German Wehrmacht subjugated half of Europe, but for the Subject, the reality was different than in the Propaganda. In the topography of terror photographs taken in a RAID for the recruitment of forced labourers in Belarus, hanging right next to it. Military vehicles drive on a factory or warehouse site, soldiers with steel helmet, and slung over his shoulder guns, control the identity cards of women and men. Fear is on the faces of the civilians.

Europe worked in Germany. However, not necessarily at his own request. Because of the conscription, the German war economy was in desperate need of new workers. In the occupied territories of the war had led to high unemployment and, therefore, many women and men signed up initially on a voluntary basis. That changed, as it became known, how miserable the living and working conditions in Germany. It is more drastic coercive measures are always followed. Almost eight million forced laborers died during the war into the German Reich. About twenty percent of all employees.

The exhibition "The Reich Ministry of labour 1933 -1945" in the topography of terror, shows the fullness with disturbing Material, the willingness of a bureaucracy in the service of national socialism. It emerged from the work of a Commission of historians, which explores since 2013, the history of the Ministry. Long the work had been taken to the Ministry as insignificant, rather weak authority. This picture, as the curator Swantje Greve, has been disproved by the research. Not only for rearmament and warfare, but also for the "creation of a racist national community" was the Ministry of labour is of great importance. Who was not part of this collective, became increasingly disenfranchised. The pursuit of "work-shy" stigmatized people belonged to. Jewish Insured were harassed in relation to pension benefits, they refused to sites about treatments for Lung disease. In 1940 the Ministry set the annuity payment to the deported Jews.

The authority, founded in 1918, was already in the Weimar Republic, to the super-Ministry has become responsible for employment mediation, labor law, social insurance, housing, and assistance for war victims. No other Department had a bigger budget, no more personnel. At the top of the Ministry of 1933 to 45 Franz Seldte, was not noticed, with knowledge of labour and social policy, but as the founder of the para-military steel helmet Federal government had stood firmly on the side of the anti-Democrats. The chemist lost in the course of his term of office, competencies of competitors, such as Robert Ley, the head of the "German labour front", a forced Association of trade unions and employers. Seldtes resignation, Hitler refused several times.

Many employees of the SPD or of the centre had been party-affiliated, to serve, the speaker of the Commission of historians of Alexander Nützenadel, loyal to the new rulers. Jewish officials such as the head of the Department Oscar Refuses, or is the former Director of the Imperial Institute for job placement Dorothea Hirschfeld lost their Posts. Hirschfeld survived the concentration camp of Theresienstadt. Sauckel, in 1942, the Supreme forced labor organizer and one of Seldtes against players that were two main divisions of the Ministry. Everywhere in Europe, recruited staff of the employment offices forced labourers in the Soviet Union, thousands of worked almost, in the so-called Generalgouvernement, the occupied Polish territories, more than 500.

escape to the partisans

One of the six chapters of the exhibition shows a case example of how you acted in the Ukraine. Immediately after the invasion of the labour was compulsory and an obligation to work for the rest of the population introduced. Only those who was registered at the employment offices, got food cards. As the advertising-commissions from the autumn of 1942 work, the use of rods were called was reflected in the fact semantically the aggravation of the Situation. Even children and young people were deported to Germany.

Some Ukrainians fled prior to recruitment and joined the partisans. "The business of advertising commissions' today is actually only a civilian patterning Commission, which is tasked to provide, under all circumstances, you Should be" judged Cajetan Graf von Spreti, who headed a Commission. The SA man from Freising participated in "anti-partisan actions". For his crimes in the Ukraine, he was never prosecuted. A wall-sized image shows forced laborers, the wait under the shield of "Kyiv-Hbf" for the evacuation. A German soldier shows you the way to the cattle cars. The scene is reminiscent oppressive to the deportations to the extermination camps. "Of the 350 000. a Ukrainian worker goes to Germany“, announced a poster, as if it were in the summer.

bureaucracy is complicated and bulky, an issue that can't be easy so to exhibit that arouses curiosity and pleasure for the Eyes satisfied. An organizational chart, prominently at the beginning of the Show is placed, shows the structure of the Reich labor Ministry and its subordinate authorities in eight of the nested columns as a panel painting from the teaching of mathematics. The angularity matches the architecture of the Reich labour Ministry, which was housed from 1934, in a modern steel-and-concrete building, which is today the seat of the German Federal Ministry for Economic cooperation at Berlin's Stresemann street.

Clearly, the exhibition in the biographies of the perpetrators, hangers-on, and Sacrifice, which are grouped together on the stelae. While Fritz Sauckel at the Nuremberg war condemned criminal process to death and was executed, and Franz Seldte died in 1947 in prison, were many, partly high-ranking protagonists of post-1945 their careers. Joseph Schneider, who had driven in the "protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia," the persecution of the Jews prior, served from 1954 as the first President of the Federal social court. But there were also forms of Opposition. Oskar Karstedt stood up for Jewish colleagues, Ludwig coin landed due to contacts with the resistance in detention. Remember your example, is a merit of the exhibition.

1.38 million visitors in 2018, the topography of terror, a record year

topography of terror reports, up to 8. October. Daily 10-20 H. The catalog costs 16 €