Berlin at War (28 page)

the city – the direction from which most of its inhabitants would be

arriving.

unwelcome strangers

119

Broadly rectangular, with a total area of over 100,000 square metres,

the camp at Wilhelmshagen was conceived as two mirror-image enclo-

sures, divided by the roadway linking the rail siding with a nearby

road. Each side of the camp would consist of ten single-storey wooden

barrack blocks – each for around 240 inhabitants – as well as admin-

istrative buildings, a hospital block and sanitary facilities. It housed

around five thousand people.3

Arriving at the camp, it is likely that some of the labourers initially

felt relief. Many of them had been en route for days, with stops at

other transit camps along the way. For some, especially those from

Poland or the Soviet Union who tended to be transported in goods

wagons, the camp at least offered the possibility of a wash and some

brief rest. This was certainly the attitude expressed by one labourer,

Kazimiera Czarnecka, who recalled that in the barrack blocks, ‘there

were wooden bunk beds, no mattress, but clean. We lay down, still

in the same clothes that we had arrived in . . . Finally, we could wash

our sticky hands and faces.’4

Any tentative optimism quickly vanished, however, when the labourers

were processed. The procedure was one that few of them would ever

forget. Some are sober in their recollections. ‘We were led to a large

clearing’, recalled young Polish labourer Irena Pawlak, ‘all around us

stood many trees and large barrack blocks. There we had to parade and

photographs were taken of us for the
Arbeitskarten
[identity cards].

Everyone was given a number on their chest. I was number 3379.’5 Others

found the experience more difficult. Aleksandra Reniszewska described

it in the following uncompromising terms:

The worst part was when all the women were herded together in a

barrack. Our clothes and underwear were taken to be deloused, and we

had to stand, naked, on the concrete floor. Photographs were taken of

us and numbers were distributed, which were necessary for registration

in the office. Then we had to stand, legs apart with heads lowered, over

a drain, whilst the male guards . . . poured a stinking, greasy liquid on

all parts of our bodies with hair; allegedly it was to protect against lice.

Then they poured cold and hot water over us and laughed at us.

It was, she said, the most ‘humiliating and degrading’ experience of

her life.6

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berlin at war

There were other privations to follow. One Polish labourer

complained that the guards at the camp were all Ukrainians and that

they would beat the workers with whips. Others protested that they

were treated ‘worse than dogs’.7 Overcrowding was endemic. Though

the camp was designed to house and process nearly five thousand

inmates, it was quickly operating well beyond that capacity. The lucky,

or more forceful, inmates could find themselves a place in the barracks,

but the remainder had to make do with whatever space they could

find. ‘We were like cattle in a paddock’, one recalled; ‘you couldn’t

escape, you didn’t know where to go. Day and night we sat on our

cases, on the ground, or leant on trees. There was no room to move.’8

Food, too, was limited, primarily for the simple reason that the

rationing system for labourers was dependent upon the type and the

severity of the work that they had been assigned, and, as the labourers

at Wilhelmshagen had not yet been assigned a job, they technically

did not ‘qualify’ for any rations. Some inmates recalled a regular – if

insufficient – distribution of bread, ersatz coffee and watery soup;

others found any sort of nourishment extremely hard to come by.

Czech Vojte˘ch Fiala complained that he spent two days and three

nights at Wilhelmshagen ‘without any food at all . . . and without even

the opportunity to quench [his] thirst’.9

Thankfully, therefore, the average stay for a labourer in Wilhelmshagen

was less than a week. According to official instructions, the camp was

intended to enable a ‘swift and orderly registration of arriving labourers’

in which each transport would be dealt with within 2–4 days.10 Once

passed fit for work and registered, new arrivals would quickly be allo-

cated a workplace and another camp elsewhere in the city. If a labourer

had a particular skill – welding, perhaps, or carpentry – this would be

taken into account. Heavy labour, meanwhile, would usually be assigned

to young men, but beyond that the selections were made more or less

at random.

Every morning at roll-call, lists of names were read out and those

called up were ordered to present themselves, with their belong-

ings, for transfer. Generally a representative of the employer would

then arrive to accompany them to their new place of work. Larger

groups would be accompanied by a detachment of police or

gendarmes.

Businesses of all sizes could avail themselves of Wilhelmshagen’s

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121

labour pool. Smaller businesses and tradesmen were often invited to

come to the camp in person to make a selection. The circumstances

were akin to a slave market. One coal merchant who needed help

after one of his employees had been called up for the Wehrmacht was

informed by the authorities that a transport from Poland was arriving

the following day. ‘If you can use a Pole’, he was told, ‘come and

choose one.’11

Whether individually, or in long, bedraggled columns, the labourers

that passed out through the gates of Wilhelmshagen were entering a

new and frightening world. The vast majority of them had never been

away from their home country before; many had never even ventured

beyond their own home town. Berlin – with its wide boulevards, public

transport systems, its huge factories, parks and architecture – must

have made both a fascinating and terrifying impression.

Moreover, most
Zwangsarbeiter
came from countries recently defeated

and occupied by German forces. Some might have lost their fathers,

husbands or brothers in the fighting, or been forcibly torn from their

friends, their families and their home communities. Even those who had

come to Germany voluntarily tended to do so for reasons of economic

necessity rather than ideological sympathy. All foreign labourers, there-

fore, tended to view themselves as ‘working for the enemy’. As one of

them commented: ‘for us Germany was always something evil, and now

we had arrived in the centre of it . . . Little wonder then, that it was a

shock for which we were scarcely prepared.’12

For all their fears and antipathy, foreign labourers were to become the

very cornerstone of the German wartime economy. They served

almost every business in Berlin, from the largest industrial concerns

– such as Daimler-Benz, AEG and Bosch – down to the smallest inde-

pendent tradesman or shopkeeper. In the summer of 1943, the number

of foreign and forced labourers in Berlin topped 400,000, comprising

one in five of the capital’s total workforce.13 Siemens, for instance,

employed nearly 15,000 foreign labourers in the capital, housed in over

100 camps. German Railways employed a further 13,000, Speer’s Berlin

Building Inspectorate 10,000 and AEG, 9,000.14

The workers themselves came to the capital from across Europe.

Figures for the summer of 1944 show that about a quarter of them –

100,000 individuals – came from the areas of the USSR occupied or

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berlin at war

formerly occupied by German troops. A further 65,000 came from

occupied France, with over 30,000 coming from Belgium, and the same

number from Holland and Poland. Thus, one-third of all the foreign

labourers in the German capital came from western Europe. One-third

of them, too, were women.15

The quarters in which these workers were housed varied enor-

mously. A minority – those who were employed in small family

businesses – might find lodging within a family home (until this

practice was forbidden in 1942), or on business premises. The majority,

however, were housed in purpose-built barracks or converted ware-

houses. The largest camp in the Berlin area – housing over 2,500

labourers – was that attached to the Fritz Werner factory in

Tempelhof, which manufactured the Wehrmacht standard-issue

K-98k rifle. Only three other camps, however, housed over two

thousand labourers and the vast majority held barely a couple of

hundred. Thus the total number of barracks, camps and hostels for

foreign workers in the Berlin district was enormous; recent estimates

have pushed the total figure up close to 3,000.16 As the French former

forced labourer François Cavanna recalled:

At that time, Berlin was covered with wooden barracks. In even the

tiniest space in the capital, there were rows of brown, wooden blocks,

covered in roofing felt. Greater Berlin resembled a single camp, which

had been scattered between the sturdy buildings, the monuments, the

office blocks, the rail stations and the factories.17

Given the sheer variety of camps, conditions within them also

varied enormously, but there were at least some overarching guide-

lines from which generalisations can be drawn. Foreign and forced

labourers were not treated equally in Nazi Germany: crucial racial

distinctions affected the working and living conditions of the labourers

concerned. As a general rule, labourers from western Europe and the

Czech lands tended to be treated as employees rather than prisoners.

In 1943, the German government even produced a lavishly illustrated

book on the foreign labourers entitled
Europa arbeitet in Deutschland
,

– ‘Europe is working in Germany’ – which contained photographs of

cheerful workers enjoying their free time in writing letters, playing cards,

eating and drinking in clean, bright, well-appointed accommodation.18

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123

Surprisingly, perhaps, they were scenes that some labourers would

have recognised. One French worker who came to Berlin in the spring

of 1943 had initially been concerned that he would be interned in one

of the notorious concentration camps:

But we were soon reassured. It was not armed military personnel that

awaited us. We were welcomed by very polite civilians, and calmly

stepped off the train. There was nothing there that one could compare

to [. . .] the concentration camps. We were taken to whitewashed build-

ings that had obviously not yet been occupied. Nothing but cleanliness;

everything tipp topp! The sanitary facilities were brand new, and there

were showers with warm water.19

Though this experience may well have been exceptional, conditions

for many of the ‘westerners’ were nonetheless quite favourable. In

the average barracks, they were given a bunk and a wardrobe as well

as blankets, mess tins and cutlery. They worked a twelve-hour day,

but had free time at weekends and even a little money to spend. Many

enjoyed the sights of the city, or went to the cinema, the opera or

attended concerts.20 Some firms organised football tournaments with

teams made up from ‘their’ Czech or Dutch labourers.21 Under the

auspices of the German Labour Front and the social ‘Strength through

Joy’ organisation, cultural and educational programmes were also

offered and newspapers were produced in numerous languages,

including Croat, Dutch, Czech and French.22

Western labourers were also to be paid, according to a published scale,

and normally received a proportion of the regular wage offered to their

German equivalents. One Czech labourer, for instance, recalled earning

a third of the amount paid to his German colleagues.23 In addition, western

labourers were required to contribute to the German social insurance

system, which rendered them eligible for unemployment, sickness and

accident benefits.24 Most important, however, they were permitted ration

allowances that were broadly equivalent to those of a German labourer,

with a ‘normal’ consumer receiving 2,400 calories per day, while a ‘heavy

labourer’ would be allocated 3,600.25

Many of these rights and benefits were at best theoretical. Official

commitments to medical treatment and social security benefits for

foreign labourers were rarely honoured, while rationing allowances

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berlin at war

and pay often did not reach the stipulated levels. And it is doubtful

whether many foreign labourers had the energy, or the inclination, to

see the capital’s cultural offerings, engage in educational programmes

or play sport. Nonetheless, it is important to recognise that the ex -

perience for many of them was far removed from the horrors they

might have expected. Theirs was not necessarily a happy lot; it certainly

had its privations and its petty humiliations, but it was a long way

from the experience of the inmates of the concentration camp at

Sachsenhausen, just a few miles away to the north. As one labourer