"Non-Germans" Under the Third Reich (43 page)

The elaboration and preparation of these regulations was in the hands of the Security Police (RSHA—Department 4—Secret State Police—Group D—Foreign Worker Desk), who collaborated closely with the offices of the Ministry of Labor and later that of the commissioner general for forced labor. A liaison officer of the commissioner general for forced labor at the office of the
Reichsführer
-SS coordinated the recruitment of the compulsory labor force, later the numerous raids to round up labor in the occupied territories, and later still the organization and surveillance of transportation to the Reich border, thus rendering the labor directorate an invaluable service,
³⁵
until finally the question of procuring labor became exclusively a “police matter.”
³⁶

This arrangement of the various responsibilities indicates that already the organization of foreign labor had ceased to be dependent on labor law or even on the usual demands of police order; it was now exclusively a matter of state security in the then-current sense of the term. Since the existence of this foreign labor force represented a threat to “state security,” it was logical that as a section of the Security Police the Gestapo should feel responsible for settling all matters concerning these people. Clearly, of course, matters of state security were only part of the question. In a circular order dated December 7, 1942, addressed to all Gestapo headquarters, the
Reichsführer
-SS and chief of the German police reiterated that the “defense against the risks of the recruitment of foreigners” was not only a matter of avoiding political danger to the Reich (terrorism, sabotage, etc.) but also of defense against “the risks for the racial continuity of the German people.”
³⁷
Seen in the light of this sweeping totalitarian definition of state security, the Reich administration, and especially the judicial administration, which was exhausted by the endless conflicts with the police, gradually came to tolerate the usurpation by the police of responsibility for foreign workers and finally even declare it to be justified.
³⁸

The various texts regulating the “conduct” of “non-German” workers in the Reich territory further illustrate the broad powers of the Gestapo, although they can in no way give a full picture of the discriminatory practices, which varied fitfully from one camp to another, one place to another, one factory to another, one economic sector to another and rather represented minimum regulations that had to be adhered to.

These texts show that, consonant with the racial connotations of state security already mentioned, the main interest of the Security Police was the relations between foreign workers and Germans. The regime feared nothing more than undesirable contacts between Germans and alien workers; those contacts had to be prevented at all costs. As early as March 1940, Himmler informed the office of the Führer’s deputy that in the event of sexual intercourse or “other immoral acts” between Germans and Polish workers, he had ordered the immediate arrest of the responsible Germans.
³⁹
Poles who had had sexual relations with German women were either executed (“special treatment”) or, if they proved to be capable of Germanization, committed to preventive detention, depending on the personal decision of the
Reichsführer
-SS and chief of the German police.
⁴⁰
If a Polish woman was involved, she was to be sent to a brothel.
⁴¹
Himmler further declared that such measures by no means implied a desire to “suppress the justified indignation of the German people at such shameful behavior”: he found public defamation (through “spontaneous reactions of indignation”) to be a powerful deterrent. He would have no compunction if in such cases “the hair of the German woman, say, was cropped in the presence of the girls of the village or she was led through the streets carrying a notice telling of her offence.” But defamation should “more or less stay within such limits.”
⁴²
Initially a general ban on sexual intercourse between Germans and all foreign workers was even decreed.
⁴³
As the labor shortage worsened, however, the terms of the ban were relaxed again by the circular order of December 7, 1942, referred to above, since for political reasons Italian workers and other foreigners coming from allied countries could not be included in it. This was also the case for the French, who were to be integrated as a nation in the “new Europe.” Thus, sexual intercourse with people of these nationalities remained merely “undesirable,” and intervention was envisaged only in the case of “intolerable conduct” (cohabitation, etc.), but externally this should under no circumstances appear to have any national or racial basis.
⁴⁴

In contrast, sexual relations between Germans and members of Eastern European nations were relentlessly prosecuted by the Gestapo on grounds of the “risks for the racial integrity of the German nation,” and as usual only two sanctions were applied: committal to a concentration camp if the foreign offender was capable of being Germanized, or execution (“special treatment”).
⁴⁵
Preventive detention was demanded in the case of German offenders. This concerned above all Polish workers,
⁴⁶
the first to arrive in the Reich, but also Polish prisoners of war, over whom hung the threat of committal to a concentration camp, at least provisionally.
⁴⁷
A leaflet on the “duties of civilian workers … of Polish nationality” confirmed explicitly that the death sentence would be meted out for the offense of sexual intercourse with persons of German blood.
⁴⁸
Russians (“Eastern workers”), Czechs, Serbs, and others later came to be included in this category, as will be discussed in detail later.
⁴⁹

The special regulations dealing with the conduct of the foreign workforce were amazingly similar to those concerning Jews, with the important difference that for political reasons they were not rendered public. They stated, in a word, that whatever was not explicitly permitted was forbidden. Though the regulations that followed nominally referred only to Polish workers, we may be sure that (through direct or analogous application or the addition of supplementary clauses) they were also used against other racially undesirable Eastern European workers, especially those coming from the Soviet Union.

In detail, the above-mentioned regulations forbade Polish workers to leave their place of domicile, to go out from their living quarters during the nightly curfew, or to use public transport, except locally, without authorization from the police. The police forces had instructions to bar Poles from German cultural, ecclesiastical, and social events and from frequenting German inns.
⁵⁰
The isolation of Polish workers and their deprivation of all information from outside was assured by a ban on the possession of radios by Poles and on the purchase of printed matter of all kinds, including German newspapers.
⁵¹
Himmler suggested other supplementary prohibitions, which were left to the discretion of the police and which precisely matched the anti-Jewish regulations (for example the barring of certain streets on weekends for Poles, establishing specific shopping hours for Poles, etc.).
⁵²
We do not know whether and to what extent these provisions were implemented by the local authorities.

Individual authorities proposed in addition quite senseless measures such as a general ban on smoking for Poles, or a ban on carrying pocket knives and matches. These were refused by Himmler because of the difficulty of supervising such prohibitions.
⁵³
After 1943, however, further restrictions were effected by regulations of the central police command, such as a prohibition on riding bicycles, using a telephone, owning a camera or photographs, and attending athletic events or health meetings. All postal communications were censored.
⁵⁴
Discriminatory practices were also frequent in the area of medical care and hospital visits (e.g., a prohibition on entering waiting rooms).
⁵⁵

Attending church services for Germans and religious instruction was also forbidden to Poles. However, the local police could issue authorizations to hold special services for Polish workers, the banning of which at any time “for general reasons or reasons connected with the labor service” could be used as a means of exerting pressure on them. In such services, which Poles were allowed to attend only once in a month, neither the Polish language nor Polish hymns were to be used.
⁵⁶
In line with these police instructions, the Reich minister for ecclesiastical affairs forbade Polish clergymen to conduct confessions in Polish. The only people permitted to hold church services were a small number of politically selected “visiting” German chaplains (
Wanderseelsorger
) (on no account Polish clergymen), who were admonished by their superiors to strictly observe all “collective regulations,” especially the ban on personal contact with Poles.
⁵⁷
In some provinces, however, the authorities felt constrained to permit the care of individual souls beyond the limits of the services, following the intervention of German entrepreneurs anxious to pacify the Poles, who were showing great unrest in the face of these religious restrictions, and to promote their working capacity.
⁵⁸

Finally, supervision in the workplace was carried out exclusively according to police criteria. Offenses relating to work discipline were punished in the most minor cases by flogging, which employers or managers had authority to do on the basis of an “unwritten principle.”
⁵⁹
Other offenses, as mentioned above, were not handled by the responsible authorities (the employee’s manager or the courts) but by the police, who issued a waring or assigned the offender to a “work training camp” or, in the most serious cases, to a concentration camp.
⁶⁰
There was the same usurpation of power by the police with regard to criminal offenses, which were not passed over to the courts but first to the Gestapo.
⁶¹
“Lightning actions,” that is to say, raids at the workplace by the Gestapo to catch “loafers,”
⁶²
completed this system of total supervision by the police. Secret instructions by the
Reichsführer
-SS and chief of the German police repeated the above-mentioned prohibitions and enjoined all police posts to ensure that Polish workers did not forget that they had come to the Reich “voluntarily.”
⁶³

As with Jewish workers, the principle of segregation was strictly implemented for these foreign workers, whose living accommodations always had to be separate from those for the German workers.
⁶⁴
Like Jewish workers, too, all foreign workers were obliged to wear a mark to distinguish them from other workers. Poles had to wear a visible letter
P
on their work clothes from March 1940 on, and those from the Occupied Soviet Territories (“Eastern workers”) the word
Ost
(east).
⁶⁵
The degree to which these measures were taken for granted by the police authorities is illustrated by the corresponding directives of the RSHA mentioned above, which explicitly prescribed that these distinctions were to be worn both inside and outside the plant but that other marks were prohibited in order to “avoid discrimination.”

In addition, Polish workers were subject to restrictions of food and clothing. Although the treatment of the Poles varied with the local conditions and was probably better in the rural areas than in the large industrial plants, the numerous reports by the administrative authorities and industrial managers (who cannot be suspected of pro-Polish sentiments) offer a devastating picture of the conditions under which Polish workers were kept, conditions that had a catastrophic impact on their health and productivity.
⁶⁶

Later (from 1943 on) all alien workers were classified into four groups in line with internal police instructions, so as to establish a better and more detailed distinction: Group 1, Germanic; Group 2, Non-Germanic from allied countries; Group 3, Non-Germanic under German control; Group 4, “eastern workers.” Detailed prescriptions were issued for every group.
⁶⁷
This differentiation is illustrated, for example, by the provisions of the directives of the chiefs of police that alien workers other than Poles and “eastern workers” could attend services for Germans and that the children of alien workers were admitted to primary schools, again with the exception of the children of Poles and “eastern workers.” These prohibitions were complemented by a policy of separating families,
⁶⁸
so as to reduce the birthrate, among Eastern European workers especially. Initially, in fact, the labor administration had favored keeping families together because they feared that social welfare would have to take responsibility for the unemployed family members who remained at home (e.g., in the General Government).

These prohibitions, together with a ban on all contacts with the German citizens around them, constituted a system of complete segregation of Eastern European workers not only from the social environment but also from their origins, their families, and their homeland. Thus, it is anything but surprising that the treatment of these workers by the police was generally in open contradiction to the official promises and principles of the labor authorities and National Socialist propaganda (“the most irreproachable, cleanest, and fairest principles”),
⁶⁹
casting considerable doubt upon them and thwarting attempts by local agencies and industries to improve workers’ conditions. Even less surprising are the reports from as early as 1940 that the motivation of foreign workers in Germany was very low.
⁷⁰
only in 1943, as the military situation increasingly deteriorated, did the authorities try to change their policy. The principles for the treatment of alien workers were modified: now it had become important to maintain and promote their working capacity by providing adequate clothing and food, improved accommodations, “fair treatment,” and access to cultural activities.
⁷¹
It is doubtful, however, that this change in policy was taken seriously by the administrative authorities and heads of industry, after the out-and-out repression of foreign workers for so many years.