Civilian workers

The term “civilian workers” refers to the group of forced laborers who were not prisoners of war or concentration camp inmates. In total, more than 8.5 million foreign civilian workers were brought to the German Reich for “labor deployment” during the Nazi era. Around one third of them were women. The largest subgroups were 2.8 million “Eastern workers” and 1.6 million people from Poland. Among the deportees were many young people and children. They were employed by private companies, government agencies, farmers or families. While prisoners of war were under the control of the German Armed Forces and concentration camp inmates were under the control of the SS, the employment offices were responsible for the deployment of civilian workers. In the case of labor law offenses, the Gestapo could be called in.