The Question of the Polish Forced Labourer during and
in the Aftermath ofWorld War II: The Example of the Warthegau
Forced Labourers
by Jeanne Dingell, dingell@zedat.fu-berlin.de Copyright
1998, All Rights Reserved. Please contact the author if you have
any questions.
[Olga's note: These Poles were also Ukrainians]
sThe question of the Polish forced labourers, who were used by
German industry in the Second World War, is, in view of the political
changes in Eastern Europe, an urgent challenge for historians
and lawyers. While this question was not ignored by the Allies
following the war, it became increasingly unimportant in the
wrangle between the Super Powers for Germany and in the wake
of the Cold War.
In Post War Germany and in the West, the question of the compensation
and rehabilitation of these "displaced persons" became
less and less importan tas the threat in the East became more
real. The successful integration ofthe Federal Republic of Germany
into the West was of prime interest to the United States and its
Allied Partners in the early Fifties. Konrad Adenauer, in his capacity
as Prime Minister and Foreign Minister of the Federal Republic
of Germany, was able to persuade the Western Allies and Germany's
creditors responsible for the Federal Republic's reparations-debts
at the Paris Conference on the German War Debt of l951 that Germany's
compensation and reparation commitments must be held to a minimum.
In order to prevent a repetition of the German reparations-disaster
of theTwenties and Thirties, and to ensure the successful integration
of the Federal Republic into the West, certain restraining measures
had to be taken in order to secure the financial stability of the
emerging new country. Certain groups of Nazi-victims were to be
excluded from direct compensation through the German Government.
At best, these victims could hope for some sort of compensation
through the German reparations payments to their home country.
In the case of the Poles, this was to take place through the Germans
reparations to the Soviet Union, as agreed upon at the Potsdam
Agreements of l945.
Neither the Polish (non-jewish as well as Jewish) forced labourers
of World War II, nor any of the other numerous victims of Nazi
War Crimes in Poland received any sort of adequate compensation
through these reparations agreements. There are a number
of reasons for this, not the least of which is that Poland never
received any sort of reparation payments as such: The Soviet Union
arranged to share their part of the German reparation payments
with Poland through a complicated system of trade and exchange
payments. The truth of the matter is that the Polish Nation never
received any concrete reparations payments and that
individual victims of Nazi terror never received any sort of real
compensation for the injustice that was done to them. The only
exceptionto this rule is the case of the Polish victims of Dr.
Mengele's pseudo-medical experiments. This group of victims
is entitled through separate agreements to a pension through the
German Government.
The question of Polish forced labourers in World
War II is a question which continues to nag at the German conscience
and will probably remain the basis for a hopeless fight for justice
on the part of these victims ofNazi-terror who still live.
The group of Polish forced labourers with which I am familiar with
come from the Gau Wartheland, one
of four administrative districts which the Nazis cut out of the
part of Western Poland which they annected in l939.The "Warthegau",
as many Nazis referred to this district, was a Nazi creation with
little or no bearing on the historical realities of the region.
It was to become an experimental laboratory, where the economic,
cultural and social supremacy of the German people would inevitably
lead to the extermination of all other indigenous peoples in the
region (most Poles and all Jews).
In a complicated system of burocratically determined ethniticity,Volksdeutsche (Germans
by descent, but not by citizenship) were to be segregated from
the rest of the population. Jews were to be crowded into local
and then consolidated regional gettos. Following the Wannsee Conference
(January 20, l942), the Nazis planned the industrial murder of
these and all other European Jews en masse. The
Poles were to be used as an inexhaustible source of slave labour for
the colonisation of this and other regions of Poland and were then
to be eventually exterminated. Germans from all parts of Eastern
and Western Europe were to be brought into take their place in
the biggest colonisation project ever planned inEurope.
In the case of the "Warthegau", the governor in charge
(Artur Greiser) was faced with an extreme dilemma as to what
to do with the Polish population. On the one hand, it was not only
official Nazi dogma that this "Warthegau" was to become "German",
but his own personal goal that this district was to become ethnically German,
and, if possible, in the course of the war. On the other hand,
the Poles were a necessary part of the daily workforce. They
were necessary in the normal civilian production and they were
a necessary element in the Nazi colonisation projects throughout
the Warthegau.
(This included many different kinds of infrastructure improvement
projects: pavement and building of roads, construction of administrative
buildings, park planning and improvement, water works and canalisation,
rerouting of rivers, etc.) In addition, there was an increasing
tendency throughout the war for the German industrialists to
set up armaments factories in this and other "annected" parts
of Europe. It was thought, and to some extent rightly so, that
the Allies would be less likely to bomb factories in this region.
Poles were a necessary part of this war production work force,
especially after the advent of the Eastern Front in the Summer
of l94l and the German Declaration of War against the United
States on the llth of December l941.
As I have already mentioned, Governor Greiser was faced throughout
the course of World War II with an essential dilemma: On the one
hand he wanted to rid his district of unwanted Poles, in order to
realise his goal of a purely German Warthegau. On the
other hand he needed these people in order to keep the economy
on its feet. He, the bureaucrats under him and the local firms
who needed these Polish workers, were even forced l942-43 to compete
with firms in the "Altreich" (Germany in its borders
from l937) for these workers.
While more than 360,000 Poles from this "Warthegau" were
deported to other parts of Germany to do forced labour, many
more Poles were made to do forced labour in their home country
during World War II. How many is a question of definition: Who
is a forced labourer in a war situation? Are all native workers
in an occupied country "forced labourers"? Or are only
those who are deported forced labourers? How does one
define this concept? And how can one define this concept and still
do justice to the victims of these horrendous crimes to humanity
without overreaching the bounds of common sense? A reasonable educated
guess is that somewhere around 1 to l 1/2 million Poles in this "Warthegau",
above and beyond those who were deported, were engaged in some
sort of forced labour inthe course of the war. (The pre-war population
in the region that became the "Warthegau" was around
4 Million.)
In the Nurnberger Trials against the 25 chief Nazi War Criminals
, the prosecution emphasized that the deportation and use of "Fremdarbeiter" (foreign
workers) in the "Reichskriegeinsatz" (Nazi Work Programm)
was a violation of International Law, in particular of the Hague
Agreements concerning Land Warfare from l907. While the prosecution,
in their case against the defendants' crimes against humanity,
never tried to spare the Nazi War Criminals of their responsibility
for the deportation and slavery of foreign workers, they were
forced in the absence of a better legal basis to base their case
on the said Agreements from the Hague. Articles 46 and 52 of
the fourth Hague Agreements gave them the chance to presen tthe Reichskriegseinsatz as
an infringement of the occupying army against the rights of the
domestic population. The prosecution interpreted the Agreements
from the Hague as following: The occupying army, in this case
the Wehrmacht, had a right to require civilians in the occupied
lands (but only against proper payment for services provided)
to provide provisions for the occupying troops. Under no circumstances
were German authorities entitled to deport civilians to the Altreich‚ (Germany
in it's borders from l937) and require them to work in order
to help the war effort on theGerman home front and against their
native countries.
The real situation in which these ex-forced labourers found themselves
was, however, not rendered in the interpretation and representation
of the prosecution. While the hierarchy of the "Fremdvolkischen" (foreignpeoples)
and the living conditions of the imprisoned workers - plenty
of photos were presented the court as evidence - were aptly described,
the charges which were made in Nurnberg don't come close to doing
justice to the plight of these victims of Nazi treachery. These
people, the"P-Arbeiter" (Polish
Workers) and the Russian "Ostarbeiter" (Easternworkers)
were, despite the fact that they were legal alien workers in
the German Reich, paid taxes, social security, health insurance
dues and other disriminatory "Sonderabgaben" (special
taxes for racially discriminatedpeoples in the Third Reich),
under no circumstances normal workers, butrather inhumanly treated
slaves. They were given the chance to live through doing work
for the Third Reich. They received daily rations of on the average
600-800 Kcal. The fare was representative for concentrationcamps
in the Third Reich: substitute coffee once daily, a watery soup
with little or no meat, 750 Grams of black bread every three
days. And the German authorities and industrialists responsible
for this tragedy expected their slaves to work 6-7 days a week,
l0-l2 hours daily.
Depending on the size of the German firm which employed these
inmates of the German industry, their treatment varied. In general,
though, the larger the firm, the worse the treatment. The Arado -
Flugzeugwerke GmbH Out-Placement Works in Rathenow on the Havel
river near Berlin, for example, were nothing less than a concentration
camp. The some l0,000 workers in this armament factory had to
deal with not only hunger, overwork and the loss of any sort of
private sphere, but also with the spectrum of typical concentration
camp diseases: typhoid fever, tuberculosis and diphtheria. The
greater the level of rationalisation, the more important it was
for the workers to stay "healthy" and remain at their
work place. Sickness and failure to work meant a break in the chain
of production for the employing firm. For forced workers this meant
risking being replaced, handed over to the SS and at worse being
exterminated.
Following the war, the chance of these forced labourers from
the East receiving a just compensation were not good. In particular,
the events and decisions surrounding the "German Question" made
it difficult to speculate as to whether there would ever again
be the necessary geopolitical conditions necessary to approach
the question of the compensation of the forced labourers:
Even before the unconditional surrender of the German Wehrmacht
on the 8./9. May l945 in Karlshorst near Berlin, Stalin had made
his claims to Eastern Europe clear: The Soviet war booty was to
be not only the sovereignty over all lands east of the border set
by the secret protocol to the Hitler-Stalin Pact (August 23, l939)
regarding the borders of theThird Reich and the Soviet Union, but
also the betrayal of Poland and the rest of the lands east of of
the Soviet Zone of Occupation in Germany. The negotiations of the "Big
Three" in Yalta (February 4-ll, 1945) and in Potsdam (July
l7- August 2, l945) were the realisation of Stalin's goals:The
recognition of the Curzon Line as the eastern border of Poland,
aswell as the division of Germany in Zones of Occupation were
set down in the "Declaration of Freed Europe".
Shrewd observers of the time knew precisely how to interpret
thes historical events: The Division of Germany could only mean
the Division of Europe. Millions of people were to be left to
their fate under the Stalinists. The basis of an economic and
political dictatorship was created beyond the West German border.
Out of the ashes of the Second World War arose two Super Powers:
One of which, the Soviet Union, was to take the lead of the socialist
dictatorships. The western occupation Zones of Germany and Austria
were to return to the cradle of Capitalism. Their leaders were
to be formed through "Reeducation",
Lucky Strikes, U.S.Dollars, open markets and American troups.
The forced labourers about whom this paper is about, returned
to life in this divided world. Physically at ends, most of them
without any sort of contact to their immediate families, in a
foreign land and at the mercy of relief organisations, wanted
for the most part only to go home. This home was, unfortunately,
only a thing of the past and for many of them would only be a
reality in their ever lasting homesickness. Many of them were still
children, when the Nazis deported them to the "Altreich".
After their liberation from the work camps, they were looked after
appropriately for the first time in the Allied camps which were
set up for them after the war. The official Allied policy in regards
to these physically and psychologically damaged victims of Nazi
terror, was that they were to be treated for the worst of the abuse
to their persons and then be sent" home".
These displaced persons were expected to take up with their liveswhere
they left off.
Many of them returned to their previous homeland. Many returned
on foot, others with special trains and still others were at the
time of their liberation already at home, as they were enslaved
in their home country. Many of these displaced persons, however,
were more than aware of the political and economic changes that
were taking place in Eastern and Central Europe after the signing
of the Potsdam Agreements from August 2, 1945 and used their "displacement" as
an opportunity to emigrate. In particular the generation of Poles
and other Central Europeans, who received their socialisation
before the war, were more than aware of the danger in returning
to their home country.
Decision-makers and the press in pre-war Poland were more than
aware of the hegemonial threat that the Soviet Union for Poland
represented: For this reason, the Pilsudski-Government signed a
non-agression Treaty with Nazi-Germany l934. This treaty, otherwise
so inappropriate in the pre-war policies of Poland, expressed the
great fear which the generation of Post-Versailles Poland had of
Soviet-Russia and their French alliance.
Many of the ex-forced labourers decided to stay in Germany. Some
60,000 of them remained in post-war Germany. In addition, many
of these displaced persons emigrated from Europe after their liberation.
The U.S.Government, for example, well aware of the political changes
which were taking place in Europe, kept the immediate post-war
policy regarding quotas of immigrants from Eastern Europe at their
pre-war level, even ift his wasn't representative among the different
immigrating nations in the US quota system. The limit for Eastern
Europe was set at 20,000 immigrants per year from the respective
leading emigration countries. Nonetheless, this solution was a
difficult one, as the demand to immigrate was much greater than
the number spaces available. In particular, family members, who
were of age, were not automatically guaranteed the right to a ccompany
these immigrants.
The efforts of the many Eastern and Central European exile organisationsin
the U.S. and other immigration-countries could only ease the difficulties
these people had in integrating themselves in their new society:
During the war, they were forced to leave their homeland and go
to work for a totalitarian regime. After their liberation, they
were often incapable of finding themselves the right nitch in their
new country. The obvious difficulties that most of them had with
learning a new language was certainly nothing compared to the isolation
which many oft hem must have felt in their immigration experience.
Who can really say, what sort of psychological barriers these people
had to cross, in order to deal with a new language and culture?
What must have gone through thei rheads, the first time they saw
an American city or town? How difficult was it for them to get
their papers and lives in order?
Their immediate goals were certainly no different than those of
other post-war consumers: a regular income, an apartment or a house,
a car, the first television... For many of these ex-forced labourers,
the work they did for the Nazis was the only qualification they
had to find a job. Even after the war, they were to be reminded
of this dreadful war experience.
Many of these ex-forced labourers have since died. Often, the cause
of their deaths is directly related to their work experience under
the Third Reich. This is, of course, not always as easy to prove
as to suppose. And even if the damage to their person is determined
and documented duringtheir lifetime, they are not entitled to any
sort of compensation orindemnification by German law:
These non-Jewish displaced persons, who were forced labourers under
theThird Reich are categorised by the German Authorities in the
CompensationAgency (now the Referat V B of the Finance Ministry)
as national or atbest political, and not as racially disriminated
war victims. Inaddition, since they are foreigners who live outside
of the German"Kulturkreis" ("cultural circle"),
they are not entitled to a compensationor indemnification under
German national law, but are rather expected toturn to their
native countries, who have theoretically received reparationpayments
following the war. In the case of Poland, this is especiallyquestionable,
as Poland was theoretically granted reparations through theSoviet
Union in the Potsdamer Agreements. For practical purposes,however,
Poland received only goods and services from the Soviet Union,and
at prices based on hard currency and not at the usual East Bloc"Transfer
Ruble" prices.
An exception was made following the war for "NationalgeschÉdigte"("damaged
nationals"), who couldn't return home after the war: Therequirement
for this sort of indemnification, was that the person inquestion
was a political refugee as defined in the Geneva Convention fromJuly
28, l95l. These persons had to have been war victims, who wereunable
to return home on political grounds or because of the changingpolitical
situation in Eastern Europe. This category of war victim wasto
be indemnified by the German Government directly, because they
couldnot otherwise request help from their native countries.
Many of the displaced persons, who would have otherwise qualified
as political refugees as defined by the Geneva Convention from l951,
had, however, in l953, at which point in time the "BundesentschÉdigungsgesetz"(BEG:
the German "Federal Compensation Law") became effective,
long since emigrated and taken on new citizenships. These ex-displaced
persons were no longer refugees, but rather had established new
lives in new countries.
The rest of the NationalgeschÉdigte,
as I have already mentioned, were to be compensated or indemnified
through their home countries. German reparations were to be the
basis of this compensation. The one exception to this policy, was,
as I have already mentioned, Polish non-Jewish victims of pseudo-medical
experiments, of the sort which Mengele did. They were compensated
1972, following Willy Brandt's visit to Poland, through a special
fund set up by the German Government as official successor-state
of the German Reich.
Some -- mostly Jewish or German -- ex-forced labourers received
a minimal one-time "Hilfe" ("help")
payment from the firm, for which they had worked. In order to receive
such an indemnification, they were required to waive all further
claims for compensation from the firm in question and from the
Federal Republic as the official successor-state of the GermanReich.
For the most part, the ex-forced labourers who came in question,
were concentration camp inmates in Auschwitz, who had not even
received a token wage for their slave labour. As German Citizens,
this was a violation of their civil rights. For the successor firms
of IG Farben (among others: Hoechst, Agfa, BASF, Bayer Leverkusen
and Dynamit Nobel), it was important to clear the way for their
participation in there armament of Germany in the framework of
the NATO and the western integration of Germany. The IG Farben
Auschwitz-works were undeniable. And following the case of Norbert
Wollheim vs. the successor firms of IGFarben, they were forced
to settle out of court for the some 4,000 victims who came in question.
The rest of the ex-forced labourers, some 10-12 million victims
of Nazi terror, were, as I have already mentioned, expected to
be compensated in the framework of reparation payments, which were
agreed upon in Potsdam and above all in the London Creditor Agreements
of l951. The successor states of the German Reich, the Federal
Republic of Germany and Austria, negotiated concrete reparation
and compensation sums with the western allies and their creditors,
which they agreed to pay under specific conditions. The Londoner
Agreements, were, in particular, a framework which the Federal
Republic used to keep the "Wiedergutmachung" (war
reparations, compensation, and indemnification payments) costs
down.
In the wake of the London Agreements, the People's Republic
of Poland announced in 1953 it's waiver of further claims of
reparations from the succesor states of the German Reich. This
was in accordance with the Soviet Union and the other East Bloc
countries, and was a move designed to protect the German Democratic
Republic from being forced to fufill furtherreparations claims.
(Up until then, reparations had been paid in kind through demontage.)
All Polish governments, including the socialist governments during
theperiod of the "Polska Rzeczpospolita Ludowa", have
never put the separateclaims of the individual ex-forced labourers
in question! The PolishGovernment recognises the rights of the
ex-forced labourers toindemnification for the work done with
minimal or no pay, for pensionswhich are now due, as well as the
compensation due these victims for thedeportation and abuse done
to them by their persecutors.
The Federal Republic and the German firms in question have in the
post-warperiod consistently refused to acknowledge these rights
of the ex-forcedlabourers and use the Londoner Agreements and the
BEG, which is based onthe terms of these agreements to justify
their refusal. Should one of the many ex-forced labourers, who
have taken this matter to a German court, win, it would mean a
precedence for further such cases...an avalanche of such cases
would have to be expected, and this at a time when the Federal
Republic is beginning to drown in the unexpected costs of the Reunification.
Even if only half or one quarter of the 10-12 million ex-forced
labourers still live, it would be very difficult for the Federa
lRepublic to satisfy all the claims that could be made.
Following the "Quiet Revolution" in Poland and thereafter
in all other Eastern Bloc countries, the Polish and German Governments
signed two friendship treaties in l991 and held talks which were
the basis of the border agreements (preceeding the German Reunification)
from 1991. It was agreed among other things, that the German
Government would finance a foundation with 500 million DM paid
over a 3 year period in 3 payments, which would "help" the
Polish victims of Nazi terror who were still living. The foundation
was not supposed to "compensate" these victims, but rather
to "linder" the
misery these people had to live with. For the most part these
people receive a one-time payment of between 5 - 12 million Zloty (approximately
$300-500). (This means that an average Polish ex-forced labourer
- and only those still living in Poland -is entitled to a one-time "help"-payment
of around $700 for up to 5 1/2 years slave labour! ) The word "compensation" has
been intentionally avoided in order to prevent any sort of future
legal obligation to Nazi victims of this sort. These "help" payments
are the result of a political compromise between the Polish and
German Governments and should in no way,shape or form be interpreted
as a sort of "compensation".
In the last few years the criticism of this "help" funds
has taken a shar pturn: Following an investment scandal on the
part of the funds-management, the German Government and the German
press has put, with good reason, the management capability of the
Polish board of directors into question: The Warsaw District Attorney`s
Office is presently investigating charges of bad management practices
and possibly assisted orat tempted embezzelment on the part of
Bronislaw Wilk, Director of the Fundacja Polsko-Niemieckie Pojednanie.
Wilk deposited about $ 2,5 Million of the funds monies into an
account with a small private bank (not guaranteed by the State)
in Warsaw, the Bank for Energy-Development and Environmental Conservation,
Megabank SA. A party friend of Wilk's, Eugeniusz S., apparantly
forged Wilk's signature to use the Funds monies in the Mega Bank
account to guarantee loans to five different blind firms, all
of which belonged to Eugeniusz S. The firms and the bank which
loaned the money went bankrupt. The $2.5 Million disappeared. Eugeniusz
S.,the directors of the bank and one of their employees are now
being detained pending trial. And the district attorney's office
is also looking into Wilk's questionable investmentment practices.
The German Government and the German press has been following
the course of this drama with great interest. The accusations of
fraud and incompetence which are making the rounds in Warsaw diminish
the really important questions regarding this fonds: Why was so
little money paid into the fonds in the first place? (500 million
en DM divided by approximately 600,000 estimated victims entitled
to this "help"‚ leaves an average help of
less than 1,000 DM or $600 per victim. And there are many more
victims who do not qualify under the present very rigid stipulations.)
The real questions that need to be asked as to the size of the "help" per
victim are lost in the debate about the management of the fonds.
500 million deutsche mark is about 250 million dollars. The Americansgave
the Poles $600 Million following the transition to democracy. The
Germans have spent 1,000 billion German Marks on bettering the
infrastructure in East Germany and wiping away all signs of communism
in East Germany.
The interest group which represents these forced labourers, StowarzyszeniePoszkodowanych
przez III Rzeszy, have a suit going against the Federal Republic
of Germany in its capacity as successor state of the German Reichat
the International Court of Justice in the Haag. Their goal is
to try to force the German Government to pay them a pension
for the time that they paid into the German social insurance
funds. They believe that even if the firms and the German Government
refuse to pay them the salary which was kept from them for their
forced labour, that they should at least receive a pension,
as is the right of every German who worked and paid social insurance
dues during the Third Reich, for the time they paid into the
social insurance funds.
The question of Polish forced workers will probably remain an
unansweredand very difficult one in the relations between the
German and Polishpeoples. Even after the last Polish victim of
Nazi forced labour ceasesto draw his or her last breath, this
question will remain one of a number of open sores in the relations
between these two peoples.
Submitted by Alan Newark braveheart562002@yahoo.com 
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At the beginning of 1945, Soviet forces drove the retreating Germans
through the Polish lands. Caught in severe winter temperatures,
most resident German citizens fled, many too late due to restrictions
by their own government. An estimated 50,000 of the former German
residents perished, some from flight conditions, some from the
atrocities committed by conquering Soviet soldiers. The remaining
German population was expelled to Germany.[5]
