61340 Vorabseiten_e - Unabhängige Expertenkommission Schweiz

Fischer, the Aluminium-Walzwerke Singen, and the Aluminium GmbH in
Rheinfelden. 22 Responsibility for these conditions lay in the first instance with
the works management on site. Although the authorities determined the size of
the rations, the procurement, preparation and distribution of food was left to
the companies concerned. In fact, many businesses demanded an increase in food
rations or made their own attempts to obtain additional food for the forced
labourers. This appears to have been the case for example at the BBC subsidiary
Stotz-Kontakt, at Aluminium-Walzwerke Singen, and at Georg Fischer. But
there was little difference as regards discrimination and the under-nourishment
of Soviet workers: whilst workers from Western Europe ate together with the
German workforce and received the same rations, the Soviet forced labourers
were given separate and significantly worse meals.
Whilst the living and working conditions of forced labourers were heavily
dependent on the company in question, their pay was governed by standard
rules and rates throughout the Reich. The calculation was based on «rates of pay
for equivalent German workers», 23 but there were no social benefits, and
earnings were taxed so heavily that de facto the amount paid did not even come
close to what the German workers received. Even the German authorities were
aware that this system of payment did not provide any incentive to work hard,
and must even «give the impression of dreadful exploitation of workers». 24 In
June 1942, new rules were introduced to govern the system of payment for
«Eastern workers». The aim was to create incentives, but under no circumstances
to pay «Eastern workers» as much as German workers. In order to
prevent the latter from losing their jobs to the cheaper foreign labourers,
companies had to pay an «Eastern worker tax» to offset the difference between
the wages of the «Eastern workers» and those of German workers. Considerable
lump sums for food and other costs were deducted from the relatively low
wages. Allowances, bonuses and sick pay were still denied to the forced
labourers, and in many cases their wages were paid only in the form of «camp
money» («Lagergeld»), valid only on the factory and camp premises of the
company concerned. Prisoners of war also generally received only «camp
money», with their actual wages going to their «camp of origin» («Stammlager»).
The practice of employing forced labourers and prisoners of war was subject to
a complex set of contradictory regulations, which rather than remove the underlying
conflict between the needs of the war economy and ideological premises,
tended instead to be a reflection of it. In the absence of more detailed rules of
behaviour from the company management, it was basically left largely to the
discretion of the foremen, «works stewards» («Betriebsobmänner») and works
security teams to decide how to deal with the foreigners. In many German
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