Forced Labor During the First World War

Foreign civilian workers and prisoners of war are employed in Germany’s agricultural and industrial sectors during the First World War. BASF also employs them at its factories in Ludwigshafen, Oppau and Merseburg to replace its drafted employees. Foreign workers at BASF consist of Polish civilians, deported Belgian civilians as well as Russian and Italian prisoners of war. Around the end of the war (1918), BASF’s workforce of 22,000 employees in Ludwigshafen, Oppau and Merseburg is made up of around 1,500 forced laborers. For Germany, it is believed that no more than 10 percent of the (dependent) workforce ever consisted of foreign workers, who were detained from returning to their home countries and forced to work in Germany.