German workers' center
The German Workers' Center (DAZ) (until 1911 under the name Deutsche Feldarbeiterzentralstelle ) was an organization for the placement of seasonal agricultural workers . It had a monopoly for a long time . The organization existed from 1905 until the 1930s.
history
An organization for the recruitment, placement and employment of foreign workers was created in the legal form of an association under the name "German field workers central office". The suggestion came from the Prussian Ministry of Agriculture in order to displace commercial recruiters. Friedrich Wilhelm von dem Bussche-Ippenburg was the director and board member . In 1907, the organization received a monopoly on the hiring of Polish seasonal workers. Since 1911 the organization traded under the German Workers' Center.
Since 1909 there has been a compulsory legitimation for foreign workers. The DAZ issued the corresponding worker identification card. There were thirty-nine border offices before the First World War . There, for a fee, the workers received a worker identification card with their name and that of the employer. The cards had different colors depending on their nationality. The employees were tied to the employer for the season. In 1913, the association concluded an agreement with Prussia regarding the admission monopoly, initially for Polish immigrants and later for all workers from abroad.
During the First World War, the DAZ was also involved in the recruitment of workers in the occupied Generalgouvernement Warsaw and in Upper East . The boundaries between voluntary work and forced labor soon became blurred . The DAZ itself stated that it placed around 240,000 workers from former Russian Poland during the war. After their arrival in Germany, the recruited could not return and freedom of movement within Germany was restricted. After their employment contract expired, workers could also be threatened with imprisonment to sign a new contract. The DAZ opened around 29 recruiting offices in the General Government of Warsaw alone.
After the war, agricultural workers were recruited from now independent Poland. In 1922 the Reich Labor Administration issued the “Ordinance on the Recruitment and Placement of Foreign Agricultural Workers”. This further strengthened the DAZ's monopoly in this regard. This now took on more or less public law tasks. In this way, the association was able to check whether the recruited workers were complying with the restrictions on freedom of movement .
In 1923 the DAZ had a head office in Berlin with five departments and seventy employees under the director Freiherr von dem Bussche-Ippenburg. There were also fifteen regional offices , two regional branches, an exchange in Tilsit and eighteen border offices.
On January 23, 1933, the DAZ was withdrawn from its previous monopoly with the “Ordinance on Foreign Employees”. In 1935 its tasks were transferred to the Reichsanstalt für Arbeitsvermittlung und Arbeitslosenversicherung. At that time, there were still thirteen regional offices in Berlin, Breslau , Dortmund , Dresden , Frankfurt an der Oder , Güstrow , Halle an der Saale , Hanover , Cologne , Königsberg , Munich , Stettin and Stuttgart . In addition, there were fourteen regional branches in Braunschweig , Erfurt , Halberstadt , Hamburg , Heydebreck , Kreuzburg , Landsberg an der Warthe , Magdeburg , Neubrandenburg , Neumittelwalde , Oppeln , Ortelsburg , Rosenburg , Rosenberg and Stralsund . In addition, there were acceptance points assigned to the regional branch in Opole in Groß Strehlitz , Lonschnik , Ratibor and Hindenburg .
literature
- Ulrich Herbert : History of the policy on foreigners in Germany. Seasonal workers, forced laborers, guest workers, refugees . Beck, Munich 2001, ISBN 3-406-47477-2 .
- Jochen Oltmer: Migration in the 19th and 20th centuries (Encyclopedia of German History; Vol. 86). 2nd edition Oldenbourg Verlag, Munich 2013, ISBN 978-3-486-75520-6 .
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b Jochen Oltmer: Migration in the 19th and 20th centuries , p. 34.
- ↑ Ulrich Herbert: History of Foreigner Policy in Germany , p. 36.
- ↑ Ulrich Herbert: The history of foreigner policy in Germany , p. 95.
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^ Ulrich Herbert: Forced labor as a learning process. On the employment of foreign workers in West German industry during the First World War . In Archive for Social History , Vol. 14 (1984), p. 290, ISSN 0066-6505
Christian Westerhoff: Forced Labor in the First World War? In: Dieter Bingen , Peter Oliver Loew , Nikolaus Wolf (Hrsg.): Interest and conflict. On the political economy of German-Polish relations 1900–2007 (publications by the German Poland Institute ; vol. 25). Harrassowitz, Wiesbaden 2008, ISBN 978-3-447-05677-9 , p. 145.
