Forced labor of Germans after World War II

[1][better source needed] Forced labor was also included in the final protocol of the Yalta conference[2] in January 1945, where it was assented to by UK Prime Minister Winston Churchill and US President Franklin D. Roosevelt.

The largest group of forced laborers in the Soviet Union consisted of several million German prisoners of war (POWs).

[14] Czech Deputy Premier Petr Mareš has in the past, in vain, tried to arrange compensation for ethnic Germans who were forcibly resettled or used as forced labor after the war.

[15] Contrary to Section IV of the Hague Convention of 1907, "The Laws and Customs of War on Land", the SHAEF "counter insurgency manual" included provisions for forced labor and hostage taking.

[24] In Norway, the last available casualty record, from August 29, 1945, shows that by that time a total of 275 German soldiers had been killed while clearing mines, while an additional 392 had been maimed.

This time many volunteered thanks to good pay, and death rates were much lower, possibly thanks in part to a deal permitting them medical treatment at Norwegian hospitals.

[29] A public debate ensued in the UK, where protests over the continued usage of German labourers raged in the British media and in the House of Commons.

[30] In 1947 the Ministry of Agriculture argued against rapid repatriation of working German prisoners, since by then they made up 25 percent of the land workforce, and they wanted to keep employing them into 1948.

[30] Faced with political difficulties in using foreign labor, the Ministry of Agriculture offered a compromise, in which German prisoners of war who volunteered were to be allowed to remain in Britain as free men.

[32] Tens of thousands of Axis prisoners of war including Germans were put to work in the United States in farms, mills and canneries.

According to the Office of Public Administration (part of Federal Ministry of the Interior), compensation for Germans used as forced labor after the war cannot be claimed in Germany since September 29, 1978, due to the statute of limitations.

Memorial at the border transit and release camp Moschendorf (1945–1957). The inscription states it was the door to freedom for hundreds of thousands of prisoners of war, civilian prisoners, and expellees.
The mother of a prisoner thanks Konrad Adenauer upon his return from Moscow, September 14, 1955. Adenauer had succeeded in concluding negotiations about the release to Germany, by the end of the year, of 15,000 German civilians and prisoners of war, more than a decade after the war with Germany had ended on May 8, 1945.
German soldier clearing a mine near Stavanger , Norway, August 1945