Portal on Forced Labour in the National Socialist State

German Bundestag, 1955

Source: Federal Archives, B 145 Bild-F002450-0003; Photograph: Unterberg, Rolf

In the interim agreement of the three Western Allies with Bonn dated 26^th May 1952, which only became effective in its amended version in 1955, the Federal Republic of Germany is obliged to "adopt legislation [...], forming the basis for compensation which is not less favourable than the legal provisions presently in force in the countries of the American zone." In September 1953 the Bundestag had already put this contractual obligation in force with the "Bundesentschädigungsgesetz".

The place of residence was the most important criterion for any compensation claims. Different key dates were set for different groups of people, on which these people were bound to have lived in Germany. To some extent, there were opening clauses, for example in some cases having been resident in any state of the Western world was sufficient.

At the end of the day various exemption and supplementary provisions did not change the fact in any way that victims of the National Socialism who had left Germany before 1952 or who had never resided in Germany had no chance of receiving any compensation payments. This affected mainly the Eastern European forced labourers, who returned to their home countries after the war and those forced labourers who had been deployed outside of the Reich. Even the amendment of the law in 1956 did not imply any changes. Two special resp. hardship funds of 1965 and 1980 provided a limited possibility for those persecuted from the Soviet Republics, who had emigrated to the West after 1^st October 1953. These were mainly Jewish emigrants.

In order to receive a compensation based on the "Bundesentschädigungsgesetz" not only geographical requirements had to be met. In addition, the reason for persecution had to meet the requirements of the law. According to them only those persons were entitled to receive compensation who had been persecuted by the National Socialist regime for their political opposition, their race, their belief or their nationality. Former forced labourers were not attributed to belong to this group of people. They could still not expect any compensation payments. Both the Federal Government and the Allies were well aware of this exclusion of millions of people.

Hermann Josef Abs, Head of the German Delegation on the settlement of German foreign debt is signing the London Debt Agreeement on 27th February 1953

Source: Deutsche Bank, Kultur und Gesellschaft Historisches Institut, Frankfurt am Main (GNU Free Documentation License)

The reason why former forced labourers were not taken into account in the compensation scheme was in the wording of the London Debt Agreement dated 27^th February 1953 or rather: in its interpretation. A key role for the entire future addressing of the compensation issue in the German legislation and jurisdiction therein was attributed to Article 5, section 2:

"A review of claims originating from World War II raised by states, who were at war with Germany or the territory of which was occupied by German forces, and the citizens of those states against the Reich and those bodies or persons [...] who acted by order of the Reich will be deferred until a final decision on the settlement of reparations has been made."

The Federal Government took this regulation in such way that the review and hence the settlement of such claims would take place following the signature of a peace agreement. Since at the same time it was denied that a war-related deployment of residents of occupied territories and of POWs was a typical National Socialist injustice, but was rather of the opinion that this was an occurence typically caused by a war, the compensation payments resulting from forced labour could be allocated to the reparation payments. Only in the 1990s a closer look at the conditions of the deployment led to a change in perception and answer to this question.