Results of the Slave Labor Program
Nazi Conspiracy & Aggression Volume I
Chapter X
The hordes of displaced persons in Germany today reflect the extent to which the Nazi conspirators' labor program succeeded. The best available Allied and German data reveal that as of January 1945 approximately 4,795,000 foreign civilian workers had been put to work for the German war effort in the old Reich, among them slave laborers of more than 14 different nationalities. An affidavit executed by Edward L. Deuss, an economic analyst, contains the following statistical summation: [Page 894]
"APPROXIMATE NUMBER OF FOREIGNERS PUT TO WORK FOR THE GERMAN
WAR EFFORT IN THE OLD REICH [Status January 1945]
Nationality Workers P/W's Politicals Total
------------------------------------------------------------
Russians 1,900,000 600,000 11,000 2,500,000 764,000 750,000 1,525,000
Poles 851,000 60,000 911,000 Italians 227,000 400,000 627,000
Dutch 274,000 2,300 277,000 Belgians 183,000 63,000 8,900 254,000
Yugoslavs 230,000 230,000 Czechoslovaks 140,000 140,000
Balts 130,000 130,000 Greeks 15,000 15,000
Luxembourgers 14,000 1,000 15,000
Hungarians 10,000 10,000
Rumanians 5,000 5,000 Bulgarians 2,000 2,000
Others 50,000 50,000
------------------------------------------------------------
Totals 4,795,000 1,873,000 23,200 6,691,000
"Note: Of the estimated 6,691,000 approximately 2,000,000 civilian foreigners
and 245,000 prisoners of war were employed directly in the manufacture of
armaments and munitions (end products or components) on the 31 December
1944, according to Speer Minister tabulations. The highest number of prisoners
of war so employed was 400,000 in June 1944, the decrease to December 1944
being accounted for in part by a change in status from prisoners to civilian
workers. A figure of 2,070,000 Russians uncovered in the American, British
and French zones, given in 'Displaced Persons Report No. 43,' of the Combined
Displaced Persons' Executive, c/o G-6 Division, USFET, 30 September 1945
was increased by 430,000 to allow for Russians estimated to have been found
on German territory conquered by the Red Army." *******
"The designation 'Politicals' at the head of the third column in the table should be taken to mean persons who upon being uncovered in Germany by the Allied forces asserted that they [Page 895] were arrested in their native countries for subversive activities against the Nazis, and were transported to Germany for incarceration. The figures do not include racial or religious deportees, nor persons imprisoned for crimes allegedly committed in Germany ***." (2520-PS)
Only a small proportion of the foreign workers brought to Germany were volunteers. At the 1 March 1944 meeting of the Central Planning Board, Sauckel made clear the vast scale of slavery. He stated: "*** Out of five million foreign workers who arrived in Germany, not even 200,000 came voluntarily." (R-124)
A Teacher's Guide to the Holocaust
Produced by the Florida Center for Instructional Technology,
College of Education, University of South Florida © 2005.