miRS-tonpon - Sturmpanzer.com

Amt Bau-OTZ.The second ia the autonomous corporate WirtschaftsgruppeBauIndustrie (Eoonomio Group: Construction Industry)*This"Group" is represented in Amt Bau-OTZ "by a representative whois subject to directives from the latter. This liaison is the.link at highest level, between Amt Bau-OTZ and the constructionfirms in Germany, which, without being OT-firms, performsimilar work. Inasmuch as the OT has the right to conscriptfirms in case of emergency, the entire question of "OT-firms"and tt hon-OT-firms" in Germany, has by now become somewhatacademic. Apparently a rather fine dividing line separatesnon-OT-firms at present from those which contracted themselvesto theOT for service abroad and - more recently - forservice inside Germany. The former cannot be regarded asbeing at any time and in any respeot independent of the OT,because the OT now controls all the administrative agenciesfrom which these firms formerly had to accept directives as topriority construction, building permits and so forth. The 0T»moreover, now has at its disposal all construction facilitiesof the Armed Forces and the SS, comprising their administrativeagencies, establishments and equipment. On the other hand,these firms, for three main reasons, cannot be regarded asOT firms in the accepted sense of the word* One, their workis, relatively speaking, not of an emergency nature, and isperformed under comparatively safe conditions, on sitesprobably not beyond the Jurisdiction of their local labourcontrol office, and certainly not beyond that of theirGauarbeitsamt (District Labour Control Bureau)* Second, thefirm personnel, foreign and German, is paid not according tothe OT wage scales valid in the zones of operations, (Front-OT),but according to the industrial wage scales as fixed for theentire Reich. Thirdly, non-OT firms enter into individual contractswith the parties directly involved, rather than signuniform types of contracts with the OT. Finally, it must beadded that i t i s probable that al l personnel of these firms,except key personnel, can be called out for civilian defencework such as trench digging, by the Reichsrerteidigungskommissar(Reich Defence Commissioner)* OT firms proper are, on theother hand, active in the zones of operations or concentratedin rear areas which have suffered major air damage to vitalinstallations, in short* are Front-OT• These firms and theirpersonnel are considered military units not subject tocontrol by civilian labour authorities, or try Party Gauleiterin their capacity of Reich Defence Commissioners (a governmentfunction)•The third special agency which was attached to Amt Bauand is still attached to Amt Bau-OTZ is that of theReiohsbeauftragter fflr den Holzbau (Reich Deputy for TimberConstruction)* This offioe was created because of the acuteshortage of timber. Its mission is to assure the supply oftimber for OT's high priority programme*The three above-mentioned attached agencies constitute theparts of Amt Ban, which at the present time continue theirfunctions under Amt Bau-OTZ* Very littl e i s known concerning theorganic structure of the former Amt Bau itself, previous to itsmerger with OTZ> beyond the fact that i t contained an indeterminatenumber of Amtsgruppen (branches). At any rate, as a result of themerger some sections of the combined Amt Bau-OTZ have now been,designated Amtsgruppen, of which two have been so far identified:Amtsgruppe Bauplanung und Baueinsatz (Construction Planning andCommitment Branch) and Amtsgruppe Verwaltung und' Personal(Administration and Personnel Branch). Functionally, however, the- 3k ­