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miRS-tonpon - Sturmpanzer.com

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and supervisors. The foreign workers <strong>com</strong>pose the OT labour armywhich performs the actual work on OT construction projects, and<strong>com</strong>prise about 8($ of all OT personnel. Prom the standpoint ofOT administration, they are not properly speaking "OT personnel";they merely "work for the OT" and accordingly wear an armband withthe inscription "Arbeitet fttr OT". Moreover they are bound to theOT in various forms, ranging from local labour contracted to theOT on a voluntary basis and permitted to go home nightly, toforced labour permanently restricted to their own camp and not entitledeven to a day of rest. A number of Russian women classifiedby the Germans as partisans and conmunists, amounting it isestimated to a few thousand, was included in the latter group.Inasmuch as it is onerous, in many instances, to make the distinctionreferred to above, the term "OT personnel", for the purposes of thishandbook, can be presumed also to include the category Auslandischebi5) Women.OT female personnel have been listed in the appropriatefunctional groups: Nachrichtenhelferinnen (Telephone, telegraph,teletype operators, messengers, etc.); female clerks-in OT administrativeoffices and in firm offices; female menial help in kitchen,camps, etc. Those in the last group were natives, mostly local,whose relationship to the OT is somewhat tenuous. Certainly nodisciplinary measures were taken against those who took informalleave. Special quarters for women were, however, available in OTcamps and centres.b) Construction Personnel*and Camps.i) Supervisory Field Staffs.U6. Under Normal Conditions.The NCO runs the OT just as much as, if not more than, he maybe said to run the regular aimy. However, in the process ofbe<strong>com</strong>ing 8($ foreign in respect to its personnel (as opposed to thevirtually 100^ German <strong>com</strong>position in May 193^) > the <strong>com</strong>position ofthe NCO cadre underwent a similar change in nationality, althoughto a much smaller proportion than the rest of the organisation*Before the shortage of manpower upset its plans, .Apt Bau-OTZplanned to control the daily routine of its manual labour byplacing fl"n or as much oontrol as possible in the hands of Germans.(This statement should not be interpreted as implying that, hadGermany ended the war victoriously, the OT would not have effecteda working arrangement in occupied territory which would have delegateda measure of control to collaborationist elements, Fhat ismeant is that in being confronted with what was believed to be atemporary military situation, the OT had no definite political orsocial policy, except to get as much work performed in as short aperiod as possible. The policy adopted during the first two yearsin occupied territories (1940-42) when supervision and securitywas predominately in German hands, was, on the whole, brutal;later when Geiman personnel was withdrawn and the need for foreignmanpower became imperative, attempts were made at pacification andappeasement. By spring 1944, official regulations for the treatmentof foreign workers had assumed sane humane characteristics. Howeffectively these regulations were carried out by petty officialsin charge is another story).at The conditions in the West are taken as standard, and mostreferences in this section are made to EGW (Einsatzgruppe West).

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