The severest punishment is confinement in a educational work camp. The maximum length of punishment here is 6 months. Such camps are in all District Commissariats, sometimes installed as mobile camps and made available to the Organization TODT. In the camps, all beatings and all corporal punishment are forbidden altogether, out of principle.
Coordination of Utilization of Labor and Food.
The work is carried out in groups, as in the group piecework. In case of full work performance, the convicts receive Armed Forces rations, diluted three times. If the group of ten men produce in their work performance only 50% of the quota, their food is diluted six times, and they receive 50% less bread. The results are marvelous. The amount of punishment decreases constantly, work performance increases, the morale of the workers is good, considering the circumstances.
Bonus System.
The Bonus system proves itself in case of the Eastern workers, industrial workers as well as farmers. Thus in the District Dniepropetrovsk, especially good results were achieved in the delivery of sunflowers, when 1 kg oil was made available to the farmer for every 100 kg of seeds delivered.
An especially attractive bonus is the distribution of tobacco. In several districts, the tobacco, allocated to certain armament and/or war economic plants, is distributed equally up to 90% to the workers, whereas the remaining 10% * * *
V. Salary, Money, Market—Price Problem
The salaries which are being paid at the present time in the Eastern area are so low, in comparison to the general market prices, that they are of absolutely no value: Actually, in the entire section, there exists no salary problem at all, but merely a food problem. It is impossible to raise the salaries in order to thereby make it possible for the workers to purchase the most essential consumer goods. There is enough money. The reporter experienced repeatedly that for example, porters, unskilled laborers, etc., were in possession of such amounts of money as no German General possessed. A raise of salaries would only constitute a swelling of the circulation of a medium of exchange and a further price increase.
Comparison with the Japanese Experience in China.
In the entire Eastern Area, prices are being paid today for food and consumer goods which are actually inflationary. The reporter, who before the war, in 1939 had the assignment to conduct the same investigations on the Chinese-Japanese battle front, today in the Eastern area can only determine that the German administration is repeating the same mistakes which Japan had previously exercised in the occupied Chinese territory.