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)

The original plaintext version of this file is available via ftp.

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