Forced labor in Nazi concentration camps
[citation needed] Prisoners in early camps were forced to perform economically valueless but strenuous tasks, such as farming on moorland (for example at Esterwegen).
[3] German state governments complained at being required to pay the upkeep of the camps, which was eventually taken over by the SS with costs reduced by forcing inmates to work.
[5] The Four Year Plan of 1936 led to a shortage of labor, as free workers were diverted to projects related to German rearmament.
[3] SS chief Heinrich Himmler also used the labor shortage as a reason to expand the concentration camp system in the prewar period, despite other Nazi leaders such as Hermann Göring disagreeing with the expansion.
[10][11] German Earth and Stone Works (DEST) was an SS-owned company founded on 29 April 1938 for the exploitation of prisoner labor in the concentration camps for the production of building materials.
[17][18] A ceremony on 6 July marked the ground-breaking on what was planned to be the world's largest brickworks, 2 kilometres (1.2 mi) from Sachsenhausen concentration camp.
[19] Delivery of bricks was supposed to start in October, but that did not occur due to problems with the Sachsenhausen brickworks, and the GBI renegotiated the contract to pay less than the 9 million Reichsmarks promised.
Except for Neuengamme, whose clay deposits were superior, the concentration camp brick production was not of high enough quality for use in façades and were instead used for structure.
[22] Flossenbürg and Mauthausen were established in 1938, their sites specifically chosen for their proximity to granite quarries whose stone was to be used for monumental Nazi architecture projects.
Stonemason programs were established at Flossenbürg, Gross-Rosen and Natzweiler, for selected inmates to learn stonecraft from civilian experts.
They were under the indirect control of the SS finance apparatus led by Oswald Pohl and August Frank until transferred directly to the training department in late 1935.
In 1940–1941, the variety of items produced was reduced, such that the workshops focused on supplying furniture to the SS and to resettled ethnic Germans.
A different company, Gesellschaft für Textil und Lederverwertung, oversaw the concentration camp workshops that supplied the SS with clothing.
[9] Deployment of forced labor to repair the damage was initiated by local bureaucrats; German historian Karola Fings notes that the demand "points to general acceptance of the concentration camps".
At the same time, he authorized the formation of SS construction brigades (German: SS-Baubrigaden), detachments of concentration camp prisoners who operated in bomb-damaged cities for clearing debris and repairing damaged buildings.
SS planner Konrad Meyer estimated that unfree labor would make the projects 20 percent cheaper after accounting for food and clothing for the prisoners.
[38] As late as February 1942, the SS was not focused on the armaments issue, but it soon realized that it might lose control of prisoners to other Nazi agencies, spurring action.
Incorporation of the IKL into the SS Main Economic and Administrative Office (SS-WVHA) in 1942 triggered substantial change in the camp system, as Oswald Pohl ordered that prisoners' labor be reoriented towards production and that time-consuming exercises such as roll calls be abandoned.
[41] The Buna factory at Monowitz (Auschwitz III) was originally built to produce synthetic rubber, in a deal negotiated by IG Farben in February 1940.
[46] According to historians Marc Buggeln and Jens-Christian Wagner, the phrase implies a premeditated intent to exterminate prisoners that did not exist.
Yet the particularly high mortality rates of the year 1942 can only be attributed to a limited extent to deliberate plans devised by the SS to murder certain inmates or groups of prisoners.
This price included the clothing and food of prisoners as well as SS guard details, but the companies had to pay for accommodation and medical care.
[citation needed] The per diem cost encouraged employers to push for to extend m the working day as much as possible, which increased the mortality rate.
[60] Historians do not agree whether forced labor in concentration camps was a form of slavery, an analogy made by survivors.
[62] Another important difference is that most slaveholders value the lives of the slaves, while the SS considered its prisoners expendable; systematic murder continued despite the labor shortage.
