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Italy and Germany were in close co-operation over a period of years.There were several reasons for this. One was the basic jealousy ofan independent government of its prerogatives over its own nationals andin controlling strategic defense work within its own domain. Anotherreason was the fact that recruitment for war production work in Germanywas considered more imperative than recruitment for the OT.(One qualification which should be made to the above statement is thefact that it appears that at the present time there are a number ofItalians in Germany working for the OT In industrial .plants. Theirnumber may aaount to 100,000), When the Badoglio government withdrewfrom the Axis and declared war on Germany, non-Fascist Italians wereimpressed locally by tha Army for erecting defense work as prisoners orhostages of war rather than as compulsory 0T labour. Fascist Italiansin German controlled Italy on the other hand were in a position tovolunteer for the 0T as one way of complying with the Fascio government f »Labour Service Regulations. This they did all the more readilyin-as-much as 0T pay scales were by far higher than anything offered "byItalian concerns and individual employers. Next to the concentrationsin Italy, notably in the Alps, Italian personnel was most numerousalong the French Mediterranean coast and in the CHERBOURG and CALAISarea. Except for personnel of the Italian divisions at one timestationed in the French Riveria, and enrolled in the 0T, the preponderantage groups of Italians in the 0T are below 21 and over 40. It ispossible that some volunteer Italians in the 0T In France are stilli n such beleaguered garrisons as IA ROCHELLE and LORIENT: more probablyhowever, the larger number has been evacuated into Germany.(g)Spaniards in the 0T178 "ins-urgentsPand "Repxtblicans ".The Spaniards in 0T were in a somewhat similar political position tothe Italians. TJhere were two basic Spanish groups: RepublicanSpaniards ranging in political conviction from mild Republicanism boAnarchism and grouped by the Germans under the headings of Rotspanier(Red Spaniards)| pro-Franco Spaniards who joined the 0T for personaland economic reasons. T*he first group consisted of three sub-groups;Republican Civil War soldiers interned in France and fallen in theGerman hands; those who had escaped from the internment camps and hadtaken up residence in France; and finally those who had accepteddeportation from Spanish Jails to feed Germany's industrial manpowerneeds, as the lesser of two evils. As far as the political status ofSpaniards residing in France was concerned, subjects of neutral nationsobviously were not liable for compulsory labour, A Spanish resident inFrance might, however, be forcibly inducted throu^i lack of proper paperswhich he had been unable to obtain from the Spanish consulates in France.Convoys of Spanish workers arrived at 0T centres continuously during 1943and the first half of 1944. Subsequently a large number of themdeserted.When the French authorities in the spring of 1944 combed SouthernFrance for manpower for German essential industries., including the 0T,tbsy had speeific orders to earmark for transport to Germany Spaniardswho had no adequate papers in their possession. OT's needs were,however, not ignored; part of the shortage of tunnelling specialistsincluding "sand-hogs" was met by allotting Art urianBand other Spanishminers to the organization. Some of these Zwangsarbeiter are stil lon Alderney Isle at present. Similarly "Rotspanier* (loyalistSpaniards) were allotted to the 0T-H3CK as motor vehicle drivers.Inasmuch as • regulations did not permit the employment of arenasarbeiterin tte* NSKK and Rotspanier were of Zwangsarbeiter status, the term ofRotspanier for this type of personnel was replaced by Transportspanier.Next to the Belgians, Dutch, and Danes, the Spanish personnel hadprobably the highest proportion of military age groups. It is apractical. ' certainty that the Germans did not succeed in evacuatingmore than a minor fraction of Spaniards out of France after D-day.-178­