trotzdem da! 
Photo: Friedrich Rugen. Sandbostel Camp Memorial
The transfer of power to the National Socialist German Labour Party (NSDAP) under Adolf Hitler in 1933 marked the beginning of the establishment of a dictatorship in the German Reich. The pseudo-scientific assertion that there were human “races” and the associated denigration of so-called inferior peoples did not originate in the Nazi era, but it formed the ideological basis for the disenfranchisement and murder of people on a massive scale. The Nazi state began to persecute those who did not conform to an ideologically defined German “Volksgemeinschaft” (ethnic community). These targeted groups included Jews, Sinti, and Roma, as well as queer and disabled people and those stigmatised as “asocial”.
The SA and SS set up the first concentration camps as early as 1933, in which they interned mainly political opponents and later also other persecutees and forced them to work. The Nazis launched their war of aggression and extermination with the German Wehrmacht’s invasion of Poland on 1 September 1939; the Second World War began, and with it the deportation of prisoners of war and forced labourers. Starting in 1941, the SS set up extermination camps, above all in occupied Poland, where Jews in particular were systematically murdered.
The National Socialist People’s Welfare Organisation (NSV) set up an aid organisation to support pregnant women and young mothers who were considered “Aryan”.
Federal Archives
The Nazi regime reinforced the gender-specific distribution of roles and assigned German women the function of housewife and mother. They were expected to have as many children as possible and raise them in accordance with Nazi ideology. To achieve this, the regime resorted to measures such as providing family support, but this only benefited families who were considered part of the “ethnic community”.
During the course of the Second World War, more and more men were drafted into the Wehrmacht. This led to a labour shortage in the German Reich. Therefore, contrary to their role as ascribed in the propaganda, German women—preferably those who were unmarried and childless—were deployed as workers.
The women wear a patch labelled “OST” (East) on their clothing. This was mandatory for forced labourers from the Soviet Union to make them easy to recognise and as a sign of exclusion.
Photo: unknown. Memorial Research and Education Centre, Moscow
Tens of thousands of colonial soldiers of African and Asian origin also became German prisoners of war. To prevent their contact with the population, they were not deployed to work in the German Reich.
Photo: unknown. Luckenwalde Heimatmuseum
Contrary to the provisions of the International Geneva Convention, the Wehrmacht discriminated in its handling of prisoners of war. How they were treated was determined not only by National Socialist racial ideology but also by foreign policy factors and the course of the war. Eastern European prisoners of war had to live and work under worse conditions than their Western European counterparts.
Polish and Soviet forced labourers were interned in secure camps often located away from urban areas. They were only allowed to leave for work. Western European forced labourers were sometimes housed in barracks or buildings in the villages and towns. Prisoners of war and forced agricultural labourers often lived on farms and therefore had greater freedom of movement. Western European prisoners of war were sometimes allowed to leave their accommodations on their own.
On 8 March 1940, six months after the German attack on Poland, the decrees created special rights to discriminate against and economically exploit Polish forced labourers.
Lower Austrian Provincial Archives
Photo: Friedrich Rugen. Sandbostel Camp Memorial
Tens of thousands of colonial soldiers of African and Asian origin also became German prisoners of war. To prevent their contact with the population, they were not deployed to work in the German Reich.
Photo: unknown. Luckenwalde Heimatmuseum
