Publié le April 26, 2021 | Updated on April 26, 2021

Fabian Lemmes : Working in Hitler's Europe

The Organisation Todt in France and Italy 1940-1945

Anyone who asks about forced labour in Hitler's Europe must also talk about the Organisation Todt (OT). As the major construction organisation of the Nazi state, it carried out war-related work in all German-occupied territories and used local labour and companies on a large scale.

How did this mobilisation succeed?
How did incentives relate to coercion, what were the working and living conditions?
Fabian Lemmes answers these questions for occupied France and occupied Italy. OT meant hundreds of thousands of forced labour, but often also the choice of the lesser evil.
The author shows that this extensive mobilisation would not have been possible without the collaboration of domestic administrations and companies, and that it functioned quite well despite the alleged administrative chaos in the Nazi ‘polycracy’.

  • Sources
    Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht Verlage - zur Startseite wechseln
  • Author(s)
    Fabian Lemmes is Junior Professor of European History at Ruhr University Bochum (Germany). He was a 2019-2020 Fellow at the Collegium de Lyon