Zwangsarbeit im Ersten Weltkrieg: Deutsche Arbeitskräftepolitik im besetzten Polen und Litauen, by Christian Westerhoff

Abstract

In this fascinating and detailed study, Christian Westerhoff investigates and compares regimes of voluntary and involuntary labour policy used by the German empire during the First World War in Eastern Europe—in particular in occupied Poland and Lithuania. These policies were driven by the radical new demands of ‘total war’, as experienced by all the fighting powers of the First World War, requiring the mobilisation of all available resources on the home front as well as from occupied areas. While the scandalous deportations of some 60,000 workers from Belgium for forced labour in Germany in 1916–17 are well known—and indeed had a disastrous impact on world opinion—the western areas of the Russian empire occupied by Germany at the start of the war present a far less familiar scene. The German military authorities argued that the Hague Land War Conventions gave them the duty of maintaining order in the seized territories, and that this legitimised the use of involuntary labour. The author notes correctly that previous historical literature has emphasised deportations and recruitment for labour in Germany, neglecting the important dimension of forced labour deployed in the occupied areas themselves.