FORCE LABOR
Forced labor engaged in by Soviet prisoners of war often violated the 1929 Geneva Convention. For example, the convention forbids work in war industries.
In the Soviet Union
Without the labor of Soviet prisoners of war for military infrastructure in the German rear areas—building roads, bridges, airfields, and train depots, as well as converting the Soviet wider-gauge railway to the German standard—the German offensive would soon have failed.
In September 1941, Hermann Göring ordered the use of prisoners of war for mine clearing and in the construction of infrastructure to free up construction battalions. Many prisoners ran away because of the poor conditions in the camps, limiting forced labor assignments, and others died.
Particularly deadly assignments included road building projects, especially in eastern Galicia, fortification building on the eastern front, and mining in the Donets basin, authorized by Hitler in July 1942. Around 48,000 were assigned to this task but most never started their labor assignments and the remainder either perished from the conditions or had escaped by March 1943.
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