Summary 12 - Mobilisation of the workforce and the use of foreign labour

Question 1

Why was there a labour shortage when war broke out?

Answer 1

Many men were conscripted into the armed forces.

Question 2

What did Germany need to do at the beginning of the war in order to increase production?

Answer 2

• Use foreign labour
• Reduce the number of people who worked in non essential industries such as consumer industries

Question 3

Why did production levels not increase significantly at the beginning of the war?

Answer 3

• Full scale conscription of workers was not introduced in the first two years of the war
• Hitler was reluctant to mobilise women into the workforce due to contradictions with Volksgemineshcaft

Question 4

When was the full scale conscription of labour organised?

Answer 4

January 1943

Question 5

What was the impact of the ‘Decree for the Comprehensive Deployment of Men and Women for Reich Defence tasks?’

Answer 5

All men aged between 16 and 65 and women aged between 17 and 45 had to register for work.
Some small businesses were also closed to allow their workers to be reassigned to essential work.

Question 6

Between 1940 and 1942, where were foreign workers recruited from in order to work in German industry?

Answer 6

Foreign workers were recruited from occupied territories in the West to work in German industry.

Question 7

When did the Nazis begin to use prisoners of war as slave labour?

Answer 7

In October 1941

Question 8

How many foreign workers were employed in Germany in December 1941?

Answer 8

4 million

Question 9

After March 1942, who organised the allocation of foreign labour?

Answer 9

Fritz Sauckel

Question 10

Between 1942 and 1945, Sauckel organised the transportation of how many workers from Eastern Europe to Germany?

Answer 10

2.8 million

Question 11

In 1944, how many foreign workers were employed in German industry?

Answer 11

7 million

Question 12

In 1944, foreign workers accounted for what percentage of the workforce?

Answer 12

25%

Question 13

How many people in occupied countries worked for the Germans?

Answer 13

7 million

Question 14

Give three examples of large corporations who used foreign forced labour?

Answer 14

IG Farben
Thyssen
Krupp

Question 15

Describe the working conditions experienced by foreign workers?

Answer 15

Foreign workers faced extremely harsh conditions:
- Low wages
- Poor living conditions
- Harsh discipline
- Slave labour, certain people were not paid for their work and were on starvation rations

Question 16

How much were workers from Eastern Europe paid for their work?

Answer 16

Workers from Eastern Europe were paid half of the wages of German workers.

Question 17

Some people in concentration camps were forced to work. What tasks were they allocated?

Answer 17

Many were tasked with making clothes.

Question 18

Instead of paying the workers themselves, who would factory owners pay for the labour of camp workers?

Answer 18

The Nazis

Question 19

To what extent did the mobilisation of the workforce and the use of foreign labour solve Germany’s labour shortage?

Answer 19

Despite the mobilisation of all Germans after 1941 and the use of millions of foreign workers in Germany and millions more in the occupied territories, there were still shortages of skilled labour and natural resources such as oil.