Between 1997 and 2001, a broad media campaign occurred in Germany reporting about the widespread use of so-called forced laborers in Germany during the Third Reich period. These people were brought into the German Reich from German-occupied territories allegedly against their free will, and it is claimed that these persons were exploited and treated inhumanely. These media reports followed the general historiographic pattern as it was imposed by the victorious powers of World War II. Germany’s biggest weekly newsmagazine Der Spiegel, for example, adopted this position most emphatically and supported the claims made by certain lobby groups that Germany ought to pay huge amounts of money to compensate the alleged foreign ‘working slaves.’ It is significant that hardly any newspaper reported about the millions of Germans who, after the war, were forced to work for the victorious powers abroad. Apparently, the utmost pitiful working and living conditions of these unpaid German slaves were not even worth mentioning.

Continue reading →