Portal on Forced Labour in the National Socialist State

Straight after the liberation of concentration camps prisoners and forced labourers by the Allies they were given special care by the Allied Authorities and the Rescue Organisation of the United Nations (UNRRA) being victims of the National Socialists. Those, who did not return to their home countries within shortly were given the status of displaced persons (DPs). However, the general state of emergency in Germany did not allow for a substantial betterment of this particular group of people who was accommodated in camps.

The American military administration was the first to introduce a bill of compensation in 1949, which was put into force in April still – prior to the founding of the Federal Republic of Germany. However, only those National Socialist victims were entitled to claim compensation who had been persecuted for their opposition to the NS regime, for their race or religious belief. And there were certain restrictions as to their abode.

According to this, none of those who had opposed to the German occupying forces in their home countries or who had been exploited as prisoners of war or who had been abducted into forced labour could expect any kind of compensation. However, the exclusion of that group of people was done deliberately. The Americans could assume that appropriate resolutions about the compensation of foreign NS victims would be made in future negotiations. This is why only the German victims were to be considered as a first step, who otherwise were likely to fall through the cracks of the anticipated network of compensation schemes.