Soviet policy during and after WWII
Forced labor of Germans in the Soviet Union was considered by the Soviet Union to be part of German war reparations for the damage inflicted by Nazi Germany on the Soviet Union during the Axis-Soviet campaigns (1941–1945) of World War II. Soviet authorities deported German civilians from Germany and Eastern Europe to the USSR after World War II as forced laborers, while ethnic Germans living in the USSR were deported during World War II and conscripted for forced labor. German prisoners of war were also used as a source of forced labor during and after the war by the Soviet Union and by the Western Allies.
Nazi Germany had used forced labour of people in the occupied territories since the beginning of World War II. In 1940, it initiated Ostarbeiter, a massive project of enslaving the populations of Eastern European countries to use as forced labour in German factories and agricultural facilities. The Soviet government proposed the use of German labor as reparations in 1943, and raised the issue at the Yalta Conference in February 1945. The USSR began deporting ethnic Germans from the Balkans in late 1944, most of the surviving internees had returned by 1950. The NKVD took the lead role in the deportations via its department, the Chief Directorate for Prisoners of War and Internee Affairs (GUPVI).
Information about the forced labor of Germans in the Soviet Union was suppressed in the Eastern Bloc until after the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991. Before that, however, it was known in the West through accounts released in West Germany and recollections of the internees. Historians cite German accounts that cover the employment of German labor by the USSR. Statistics for the Soviet use of German civilian labor are divergent and contradictory. This article details the published statistical data from the West German Schieder commission of 1951–1961, the German Red Cross, the report of the German Federal Archives and a study by Gerhard Reichling (an employee of the Federal Statistical Office of Germany). Recently declassified statistical data from the Soviet archives on the use of German civilian labor in the Stalin era were published in the book "Against Their Will" (, 2001).
Disclosures from the Soviet archives.
Since the fall of the USSR the Soviet archives have been accessible to researchers. In 2001, the Russian scholar Pavel Polian published an account of the deportations during the Soviet era, "Against Their Will". Polian's study detailed the Soviet statistics on the employment of German civilian labor during the Stalin era.
In 1943, Ivan Maisky, the Soviet ambassador to the UK, was ordered by the Soviet government to form a task force on the issue of post-war reparations from Germany. Maisky's report of August 1944 proposed the employment of German civilian labor in the USSR as part of war reparations. At the Yalta Conference the Soviet Union made it clear to the Western Allies that they intended to employ German civilian labor as part of war reparations, at this time the U.S. and UK did not raise any objections to the Soviet use of German civilian labor.
By the summer of 1944, the Soviet forces had reached the Balkans that had ethnic German minorities. State Defense Committee Order 7161 of December 16, 1944 instructed to intern all able-bodied Germans of ages 17–45 (men) and 18-30 (women) residing within the territories of Romania (67,332 persons), Hungary (31,920 persons), Yugoslavia (12,579 persons), which were under the control of the Red Army. Consequently, 111,831 (61,375 men and 50,456 women) able-bodied adult ethnic Germans from Romania, Yugoslavia, and Hungary were deported for forced labor to the USSR.
During the 1945 military campaign in Poland, the Soviet Union interned suspected Nazi party members and government officials in camps in the Soviet-occupied areas east of the Oder-Neisse line. Persons held in these short-lived camps east of the line were subsequently transferred to NKVD special camps in the Soviet occupation zone of Germany or to the Soviet Union for forced labor. By May 1945 the NKVD had selected for deportation to the USSR 66,152 German civilians who were considered suspected Nazi party members and government officials, as well as 89,110 able-bodied adults (mostly men) for forced labor. In early 1947 the Soviets sent an additional 4,579 Germans from the Soviet occupation zone to the USSR as forced laborers.
The Soviets classified the civilians interned into two groups; the first Group A (205,520 persons) were "mobilized internees" who were able-bodied adults selected for labor; the second Group D (66,152 persons) "arrested internees" were Nazi party members, German government officials and suspected agents, and others considered a threat by the Soviets. Soviet records state that they repatriated 21,061 Polish citizens from labor camps which indicates that not all of the internees were ethnic Germans and some could have been ethnic Poles.
The Soviets sent about three-quarters of the laborers to the Donets Basin to work in the reconstruction of heavy industry and mines, and about 11% to the Urals' heavy industries. The workers were housed in concentration camps under armed guard. The working and living conditions were harsh and according to Soviet records about 24% of those interned died. Forced labor turned out to be inefficient and unprofitable since many of the women and older men were not able to perform heavy labor. Repatriation started as early as 1945 and almost all were released by 1950.
Ethnic German civilians interned by USSR - Soviet data from the Russian archives
Source of figures Pavel Polian-Against Their Will
Notes:
Thanks to the opening of Russian archives, the fates of some of these civilians are now known. By late 1996, the German Red Cross had received from Russia 199,000 records of deported German civilians who had either been repatriated or died in Soviet captivity. For example, the records of Pauline Gölner reveal that she was born in 1926 in Wolkendorf in Transylvania, was arrested on January 15, 1945, and sent to forced labor in the coal mines of Chanchenkowo (Ukraine). She died there on February 26, 1949, 23 years old.
There is currently an ongoing research program in collaboration between Russia and Germany.
Deportation and forced labor of Soviet Germans during WW2.
The ethnic German minority in the USSR was considered a security risk by the Soviet government and they were deported during the war in order to prevent their possible collaboration with the Nazi invaders. In August 1941 the Soviet government ordered ethnic Germans to be deported from the European USSR. By early 1942, 1,031,300 Germans had been banished to Central Asia and Siberia. During 1945 the Soviets deported to the special settlements an additional 203,796 Soviet ethnic Germans who had been resettled by Germany in Poland . During the war, shortages of food plagued the whole Soviet Union, especially within the special settlements. Life in the special settlements was harsh and severe; food was limited and the deported population was governed by strict regulations. According to data from the Soviet archives, 687,300 Germans remained alive in the special settlements by October 1945, and an additional 316,600 Soviet Germans served as labor conscripts during World War II in NKVD labor columns, later informally referred to as "labor army". Soviet Germans were not accepted in the regular armed forces but were employed instead as conscript labor. The labor army members followed camp-like regulations and received the GULAG rations.
In 1949, the German population in the special settlements was put at 1,035,701 by the NKVD. According to J. Otto Pohl 65,599 Germans perished in the special settlements; he believes that an additional 176,352 unaccounted for persons "probably died in the labor army". During the Stalin era the Soviet Germans continued to be confined to the special settlements under strict supervision. They were rehabilitated in 1955, but were not allowed to return to the European USSR until 1972. The Soviet German population grew despite the deportations and forced labor during the war: in the 1939 Soviet census the German population was 1.427 million; by 1959 it had increased to 1.619 million.
Schieder commission.
The West German government-sponsored Schieder commission during the 1950s documented the population transfer of Germans from East-Central Europe after World War II. The head of the commission was Theodor Schieder a rehabilitated former member of the Nazi party. In 1952, Schieder was chosen by the West German government to head the Commission that would document the fate of the Germans from Eastern Europe.
From 1953 to 1961, the Schieder commission made estimates of the numbers of German civilians who died in the expulsions and those deported to the USSR for forced labor. These estimates are still cited in current accounts of the expulsions and deportations.
The following is a summary of the figures published by the Schieder commission from 1953 to 1961 for forced labor only. The figures are rough estimates and are not based on an actual enumeration of the dead.
German Red Cross estimates.
The West German Search Service working with the German Red Cross attempted to trace German civilians deported to the USSR and estimate the approximate number who died. The results of these West German efforts to trace the fate of those deported was detailed in the study (lit. 'Looking for') by Kurt Böhme, published in 1965. The number of deported was derived by estimating the number of persons sent to the USSR, and was not based on an actual enumeration. The work of the German Search Service to trace the fates of civilians in eastern Europe was only partially successful. The figures for those deported and deaths were rough estimates and not always based on confirmed reports. As of 30 September 1964, the Search Service compiled information on 504,153 German civilians interned in the USSR (217,827 were still alive in 1964, 154,449 had returned home, 85,145 were reported missing, and 46,732 confirmed dead as forced laborers).
The figures from the German Red Cross are cited in some English language accounts of the German civilians deported to the USSR.
Forced labor of German civilians - estimate by German Red Cross in 1964
Source of figures: Kurt W. Böhme - "Gesucht wird - Die dramatische Geschichte des Suchdienstes" Süddeutscher Verlag, München 1965 Page 275
Notes:
These categories in the Red Cross figures for deportees are also listed above in the Russian archive statistics.
A. Reparations Deportees ("reparationsverschleppte") Ethnic German civilians conscripted for labor in the Soviet Union for damages caused by Germany during the war. Origin- Former eastern territories of Germany and Poland -233,000; Romania 80,000: Hungary 35,000 and Yugoslavia 27,000. Most of the survivors were released by 1950.
E. "Forced Service" ( "Zwangsverpflichtete") -In the latter part of 1946 6,000 skilled workers mostly from the Soviet occupation zone accompanied by 20,000 family members were conscripted for work in the USSR under contract for five years. They were held under favorable conditions they began to be released in 1950, the last returned home in 1958.
These categories in the Red Cross figures for deportees are not listed above in the Russian archive statistics.
B. Forced Labor in Kaliningrad Oblast- German civilians interned in the former East Prussia, most of the survivors were released by 1948.
C. "Forced Repatriation" and "Resettlers" ("Zwangrepatriierte"/"Vertragsumsiedler") Ethnic Germans from the USSR who had been resettled by Germany in Poland during the war. They were returned to the USSR.
D. Civilians held as POWs — The Soviets classified these persons as POWs and they were held in POW camps, they were ethnic Germans from the Former eastern territories of Germany and Poland.
F. Klaipėda (Memel) residents- Ethnic Germans who remained in Klaipedia after the war. They were deported into the USSR,
G. "Convicted POWs" (Strafgefangene) POWs convicted of war crimes and held in Soviet prisons. They were released by 1955.
German Federal Archive Report.
In 1969, the Federal West German government ordered a study of expulsion losses to be conducted by the German Federal Archives which was finished in 1974. The study estimated a total of 600,000 deaths caused by what they call 'crimes and inhumanites' in the eyes of West German law, including 200,000 in forced labor in the USSR. Their definition of crimes included confirmed deaths caused by military activity in the 1944-45 campaign as well as deliberate killings and estimated deaths due to forced labor. They maintained that report was only intended to provide historical documentation not as a basis for criminal charges in the future. However, in Poland and Czechoslovakia, during the Cold war, these charges were viewed as an attempt to seek