61340 Vorabseiten_e - Unabhängige Expertenkommission Schweiz

4.9 The Use of Prisoners of War and Forced Labour
in Swiss Subsidiaries
Switzerland was affected in two ways by the forced labour of people declared
«alien to the own ethnic group» («fremdvölkisch») who were relocated to
Germany: firstly, the practice of forced labour was also used in the German
subsidiaries of Swiss companies, 1 and secondly, many of the prisoners of war
and forced labourers working in Southern Germany attempted to escape what
were often inhuman living and working conditions by fleeing to Switzerland.
In this section we therefore intend to look primarily at Swiss subsidiary
companies close to the border.
By using the forced labour of foreign civilians, prisoners of war and concentration
camp prisoners, the Nazi regime breached several international treaties:
Article 52 of the Hague Land Warfare Convention of 1907 stipulated that
services provided by the communities or inhabitants of an occupied region
could be called upon only to meet the needs of the occupying forces. 2 As regards
soldiers who had been taken prisoner, the «Convention on the treatment of
prisoners of war» of 1929, 3 signed by both Germany and Switzerland, contained
an agreement that prisoners of war could in principle be called upon to work
(Art. 27), but stipulated that they must not be used for hard or dangerous work,
or work to serve the war effort (Art. 29, 31 and 32). In August 1945, the Allies
classified «deportation to slave labour» 4 as a war crime.
However, criminal proceedings were limited almost exclusively to the
immediate post-war period, in other words under the regime of the occupying
powers. After the establishment of the Federal Republic of Germany, the main
question was that of compensation for former forced labourers to be paid by the
companies concerned or by the German state. Although Swiss subsidiaries had
also used forced labour, this was only raised as a charge in the class action suit
against the major Swiss banks, insurance companies and industrial enterprises
in connection with the assets of Holocaust victims, so that the settlement agreed
between the major Swiss banks and the plaintiffs also treated former forced
labourers working for Swiss subsidiaries as being entitled to claim. 5 The extent
to which forced labourers working for Swiss subsidiaries are to receive compensation
out of the settlement figure of 1.25 billion US dollars had, however, not
yet been established at the time this text was written. At the level of international
law, the Swiss subsidiaries cannot be held responsible since they, as
private companies, cannot as a matter of principle be the subjects of injustice
under international law. Nor can Switzerland be held liable under international
law, since the forced labourers were employed only within the German Reich
and the territories governed by it.
311