Figure 1.--A problem for any country going to war is labor. Men are needed for the military which means that agriculture and industry will be adversely affected, impairing the war evomnomy. America and Britain solved this problem by bringing women into the work force. This German propaganda photograph shows Germany doing the same. The press caption read, "German Women Report for Factory Work: German women arriving with their children to start their day's work at a factory. They are filling the places in industry of the thousands of men who are now engaged in military service. As in Soviet Russia the women can leave their children in kindergartens during working hours." The photograph was dated February 10, 1940. The caption is curious because unlike NAZI Germany, the Soviet Union avoided war with Britain and France, although it was a NAZI ally. Employing women was not a sollution for the German labor shortage. Women were already employed employed in the labor force to a much greater rxtent than America and Britain. The NAZI military victories would be the sollution, the use of POWs and various forms of slaved and forced lbor from the ovvupied countries.
Labor was a major concern for Hitler and the NAZIs. The massive unemployment as a result of the Great Depression was a primary reason that the NAZIs were able to win over voters and ultimately seize power. German industrial labor at the time did not have a right-wing orientation, but rather a left-wing orientation, voting for Socialists and Communists. Some desperate unemployed workers voted for the NAZIs and Communist votes increased as well. Most of this came from the Soicialist Party (SPD) which had been the dominant German political party. Workers retained their socialist outlook which was a problem for Hitler and the NAZIs. Their answer was to take ove the free labor movement and controling labor through the Deutsche Arbeitsfront (DAF). The NAZIs did succeed in reducing unemployment anf this was a focal point of Goebbels propganda machine which hid certain sttoicical slight oif hand by no longer including female unemployment. This was accomplished through a massive combintion of defecit spending to finance rearmment, the Reich Labor Service (RAD) to take youth out of the job market, military conscription, amd other prigrams, ultimately the War. While the NAZIs reduced unemployment what they did not do was to increase worker wages in real terms such as clothing, housing, and diet. This of course because Germny's production was being directed at military spending not at workers' well being. With the advent of World War II, labor became a problem as so many workers were conscripted. America and Britain solved the problemn by bringing women into the workforce, but this sollution was less availble to the NAZIs. Despite NAZI propahanda about Kinder, Küche, Kirche (Children, Kitchen, Church), women already were a very substantial part of the German workforce. Thus women could not have the massive impact it did in the Allied countries and NAZI ideology did not favor this sollution. Even before launching World War II with his ally Stalin, Hitler had the sollution. The concentration camps opened by the SS in Germany provided slave labor. Hitler had occupied Czechoslovakia (March 1939), meaning that captive people could be use to replace German workers conscripted into the military. Czechoslovakia of course was only the beginning. Beginning with Poland a huge swath of Europe fell to NAZI control. When his advisers complain of a labor shhortage, Hitler would fly into a tirade, demanding that since they controlled most of Europe, there could be no labor shortage. The NAZIs would slove the labor shortage by various forms of slave and forced labor. The SS concentration camp system in the Reich was massively expanded in the occupied countries. POWs also added to the labor pool, although more thsn a nillion Soviet POWs were allowed to di from starvtion and exposure before the realities of war change NAZI policy. The Jews were a potential sourcde of slave labor, but here the orders were to kill rather than use them. Hitler appointed Ernst 'Fritz', Gauleiter of Thuringia, to be the General Plenipotentiary for Labour Deployment (March 1942). He would commit terrible atrocities in obtaining workers and transporting them to the Reich. Speer cooperated closely with him, but managed to cover up his involvement at the rime of the Nuremburg trials.
Labor was a major concern for Hitler and the NAZIs. In the prosperous economic climate of the late-1920s,even the monarchist People's Party joined in a coalition with the three main republican parties. The NAZIs were still unable to muster much political success in 1928. They won only 12 Reichstag seats. The Party was, however, growing and were very well organized. The massive unemployment as a result of the Great Depression was a primary reason that the NAZIs were able to win over voters and ultimately seize power. NAZI membership stood at only 108,000 in 1928. German unemployment had reached 6 million people at the time that Hitler was appointd chancellor.
Political Orientation
German industrial labor at the time did not have a right-wing orientation, but rather a left-wing orientation, voting for Socialists and Communists. Some desperate unemployed workers voted for the NAZIs and Communist votes increased as well. Most of this came from the Soicialist Party (SPD) which had been the dominant German political party.
German workers retained their socialist outlook which was a problem for Hitler and the NAZIs. Their answer was to take ove the free labor movement and controling labor through the Deutsche Arbeitsfront (DAF). The NAZIs did succeed in reducing unemployment anf this was a focal point of Goebbels propganda machine which hid certain statistical slight of hand by no longer including female unemployment in the data. The reduction in unemployment was accomplished through a massive combination of defecit spending to finance rearmment, the Reich Labor Service (RAD) to take youth out of the job market, military conscription, other programs, and of coirse ultimately the War. While the NAZIs reduced unemployment what they did not do was to increase worker wages in real terms such as material advances in clothing, housing, and diet. This of course was because Germany's production was being directed at military spending not at workers' well being.
Regulations and Working Hours
German workers had a genrally left-wing orientatioin. Socialist parties were thus influential in Imperial Germany and pushed labor friendly legislation (late-19th century). Chancellor Bismarck essentially invented the welfare state to address the needs of workers. There were, however, limits on pay amnd working consitiins bcause German undustry was not as effucient as American induistry. This is the orimary reason ythat European workers, inluding Germans, emigrated to America in sucn large numbers. After World War I, the socialist Social Deocratic Party backed by workers became the Weimar Republic's primary most imortant political party. As a result, the Reichstag passed labor friendly legilation. The basic work week was set at 40 hours, although there were a range of exceptions. German manufacturing workers before the Depression set in averaged vabout 46 hours a week (1929). Germany because it was such a major exporter was especially hard hot by the Depression. Average hours dropped to only 41 hours (1941). This of course was workers actually working. Unneployment by this time had reached staggering numbers. Hitler seized power (1933), more than anything because of the unemployment problem. After initial efforts to destabli hed a dictatorshio, inclising taking contro mof the Trade Unioin Movement, Hitler addressed the unemployment problem. This wwas at first throiugh massive defecit spending, primarily to rearm Germany. The NAZIs adopted a new Labor Code (July 26, 1934). The work day was set at 8 hours workday and a the workweek at 48 hours, meaning a full day of work on Saturday. The massiuve arms spending rapidly reduced unemployment as well as military conscription and the Reichsarbeitsdienst, Reich Labor Service-RAD (1935). Germany sas on a limited war footing by 1935, especially considering arms expeditures. This is why Germany did spo well in th first 2 years of the War. Thet were preapred, Britain and France was not. Hitler did not put Germany on a full war footing. Hitler's war policies were in large mneasure determined by the World War I experience when civilian morale broke before the Armny at the front. Hitler was determined to prevent this by keeping the civilian ecomomt better supplied than in World War I. The NAZI regime, primarily through Görings Four Year Plan, conrolled labor, raw materials, wages, prices, and hours of work. The Germans began exoeriencing labor shortages even before the War. NAZI officials As early as the middle of 1937, Germany was beginning to suffer from a labor shortage which was not confined merely to skilled mechanics or specialized industries but was becoming general. The Nazi Government authorized the 1934 labor code extending the hours of work up to 60 a week as needed, although 'the normal workday shall not exceed eight hours' (April 30, 1938). [Lee] Given the left-wing oprientation of German workers, many were not all that pleased with the NAZIs from the beginning. The idea of a 60-day week did not appeal to the many workers (Spring 1938). The DAF attempted to squash persistant rumors that a 10 hour or even 12 hour day in he offing. The DAF insisted that the 8 hour day would be maintained as a 'general principle', because experience had ,ade it clear thatnitbis the most efficient workperiod time for laborors of whatever ages. [Of course no such consideratioin wsould be made with the slave lsbvor Germny was about to adopt.] Work dat shows that the average hours of labor in manufacturing was still only 47 a week (mid-1939). [Lee] This shows that rally long hours had not been introduced, at least on an extensive scale.
Developing Labor Shortage
With the advent of World War II, labor became a problem as so many workers were conscripted. America and Britain solved the problemn by bringing women into the workforce, but this sollution was less availble to the NAZIs. Despite NAZI propaganda about Kinder, Küche, Kirche (Children, Kitchen, Church), women already were a very substantial part of the German workforce. Thus women could not have the massive impact it did in the Allied countries and NAZI ideology did not
favor this sollution. Much larger numbers of German women were active in the economy thn either America or Britain. They were not working in factories but un Germany's highly inefficent peasant agiculture, small unmechanized family farms. In fact more than a third of the German work force was female in 1939 and about half of Germn women (age 16-60 years) were economically active. [Tooze, p. 238.] Peasant agriculture was not all of the female labor picture. Large numbers of of German women worked in major cities like Berlin. [Tooze, p. 359.]
War Time Measures
Hitler and Stalin launched World War II by invadin Poland (Septenber 1939). The NAZIs 2ays after the invasiin issued a decree establishing a war economy (Septemjber 3, 1939). The nre regulatiins gave NAZI authorites the power to suspend existing labor legislation as needed. Under the new regulkations, work hours were to be fixed taking into account the physical strain of the task and the physical condition of the workers—normally at 10 hours daily. In some occupations requiring merely long periods of attendance, working hours could be increased to as long as 16 hours a day. The bonus payments previoiusly paid for overtime, Sunday work, holiday work, and night work were to be suspended. They were to be calculated, but deposited in the National Treasury to help pay for the War. One source using German sources reported that war production fell off. There were also industrial accidents and work stoppages which concerned uthorities. [German Government] It is unknown if the problems resulted from exhaustion or if sabatoge was involved. The authorities apparently took 'stern actions', but we do not have details. Work stopages would have been easy to investigate. There was also limited steps to address worker concerns announced by key officials. First, Reich Marshal Göring, who Hitler had palced in cgarge of the economy through the Four Year Plans, revealed that it had been necessary to shift the the 8 hour day into a 10 hour day, this was to be as far as the Reich would go other than production of 'very urgent necessity' (November 2, 1939). Göring also stated that aince overtime wage rates for the 9th and 10th hours had been ended, the workers' taxes would be revised downward. And if workers had to do overtime beyond 10 hours a day, time and a quarter pay was being reestablished and would be paid to the worker. This would include similar overtime for Sunday, holiday, and night work. Reich Minister of Labor Ley indicated that that the war decrees were not intended to encourage worker overtime. Rather the preferred alternative was to hore more employees or 'other means'. [By other maeans Ley was feferring to slave and other forced workers obtained in the occupied countries beginning with Poland. Ley would be a major fifure in in the NAZI slave labor opertion.] In addition Ley indicated that 12 hour shifts were not to be routinly worked without permission unless a break of at least 2 hours was allowed. There was also an exception if the work primarily consisted of 'mere hours of presence.' Ley also revealed that the DAF inspectorate was nauthorized to order reductions in hours of work, not only with 'unfavorable' factory conditions, but also if the workers had to make unusual exertions beyond the factory (distances getting to work, transport issues, blackout measures, and time needed to make store purchases such as queues at food shops. Limitation on the hours worked still might be ordered for occupations or specific industrial areas if adequate labor was available. These concerns probably were a factor in Hitler's decision to reduce war orders after defeating and occupying France (June 1940). In additions, reservists were demobilized and returned to civilain jobs. As Hitler prepared for the climatic Barbarossa invasion of the vSoviet Union, resevests were called up, meaning war industries lost workers. And this time unlike the quick victories in Poland and the West there would be no return to civilan life. The Americans could follow developments in the German press as long as diplomatic relations existed with Germany. This became more difficult, after Pearl Harbor and Hitler's declaration of war (December 1941). Unconfirmed American inteligence reports indicated that after the disaster in the East before Moscow (December 1941), steps were taken to ramp up production. One report indicated that the workweek for employees in war plants was ibcreased to 70 or even 78 hours (Spring 1942) [Lee] While there was an immedite spike in production for about two months, fatigue apparently set in and production declined below levels with a 48 hour week [Lee]. Authorities apparently went back to the 10 hour day and the 60 hour week. Of course by this time the DAF was adminisdtering a vast slave and forced labor program. The SS administered productioin in the concentration camps. The DAF was heavily involved when the foreigners worked in German factories.
Even before launching World War II with his ally Stalin, Hitler had the sollution. The concentration czmps opened by the SS in Germny provided slave labor. Hitler than occupied Czechoslovakia (March 1939), meaning that occupied people coiuld be use to replace German workers conscripted into the military. Czechoslovakia of course was only the beginning. Beginning with Poland a huge swath of Europe fell to NAZI control. When his advisers complain of a labor shhortage, Hitler would fly into a tirade, demanding that since they controlled most of Europe, there could be no labor shortage. The NAZIs would slove the labor shortage by various forms of slave and forced labor. The SS concentration camp system in the Reich was massively expanded in the occupied countries. POWs also added to the labor pool, although more thsn a nillion Soviet POWs were allowed to di from starvtion and exposure before the realities of war change NAZI policy. The Jews were a potential sourcde of slave labor, but here the orders were to kill rather than use them. Hitler appointed Ernst 'Fritz', Gauleiter of Thuringia, to be the General Plenipotentiary for Labour Deployment (March 1942). He would commit terrible atrocities in obtaining workers and transporting them to the Reich. Speer cooperated closely with him, but managed to cover up his involvement at the rime of the Nurmburg trials.
Sources
German Government. "Six months of the War social policy,"Reichsarbeltsblatt (March 5, 1940).
Lee, K. "Hours of work in wartime," Editorial research reports 1942, Vol. 2 (1942). The new working hour regulatioins were to become January 1, 1939.
Speer, Albert. Inside the Third Reich (Avon, New York, 1970), 734p.
Tooze, Adam. The Wages of Destruction: The Making and Breaking of th Nazi Economy (Penguin Group: New York, 2007), 800p.
