Having accepted the principle of force, the Germans made use of two complementary methods: Legal constraint, consisting of promulgating laws regulating obligatory labor; and restraint in fact, consisting of taking necessary measures to oblige workers under penalty of grave sanctions to conform to the issued legislation.
The basis of the legislation on forced labor is the decree of 22 August 1942 of the Defendant Sauckel, who formulated the charter of forced recruiting in all the occupied countries.
In France, Sauckel got the so-called Government of Vichy to publish the law of 4 September 1942. This law effected the freezing of all manpower in industries and anticipated the possibility of a requisition of all Frenchmen who might be employed in any work useful to the enemy. All Frenchmen from 18 to 50 years of age, who did not have a job which occupied them more than 30 hours a week, had to prove that they were usefully employed to meet the needs of the country. A decree of 19 September 1942 and an enabling directive of 24 September regulated the various provisions of this announcement. The law of 4 September 1942 had been published by the so-called Government of Vichy, following strong pressure exercised by the occupation authorities. Specifically, Dr. Michel, Chief of the Administrative Staff of the German Military Command in France, wrote on 26 August 1942 a threatening letter to the Delegate General for Franco-German Economic Relations, requesting him that the law be published.
In 1943, Sauckel obtained from the de facto authority a directive under date of 2 February, stipulating a census of all male Frenchmen born between 1 January 1912 and 31 December 1921. He also obtained the passing of the law of 16 February, establishing the Bureau of Compulsory Labor for all young men from 20 to 22 years of age. On 9 April 1943, Gauleiter Sauckel requested the deportation of 120,000 workers for the month of May and another 100,000 for the month of June. To accomplish this, the so-called Government of Vichy proceeded to mobilize the entire military conscription class of 1942. On 15 January 1944 Sauckel requested the de facto French authorities to deliver 1 million men for the first 6 months of the year; and he caused the adoption of the regulation designated as the law of 1 February 1944, which extended the possibility of impressing all men from 16 to 60 years of age and women from the age of 18 to 45 for forced labor.
Similar measures were taken in all occupied countries.
In Norway, the German authorities imposed on the so-called Government of Quisling the publication of a law dated 3 February 1943, which established the compulsory registration of Norwegian citizens and prescribed their forced enrollment. In Belgium and in Holland, the Bureau of Compulsory Labor was organized directly by ordinances of the occupying power. In Belgium the ordinances were promulgated by the military command, and in Holland by the Defendant Seyss-Inquart, who was Reich Commissar for the occupied Netherland territories. In both of these countries the development of a compulsory labor policy followed the same pattern. Compulsory labor was at first required only within the occupied territories. It was soon extended in order to permit the deportation of workers to Germany. This was achieved, in the case of Holland, by the ordinance of 28 February 1941 and in Belgium by the ordinance of 6 March 1942 which established the principle of forced labor. The principle of deportation was formulated in Belgium by means of the ordinance of 6 October 1942, and in Holland by the ordinance of 23 March 1942.
In order to ensure the efficiency of these legal provisions, brutal compulsion was exercised in all countries; numerous round-ups in all large cities. For example, 50,000 persons were arrested in Rotterdam on 10 and 11 November 1944.
Even more serious than the forced labor of civilian population was the incorporation of laborers from occupied countries in the labor service of the Reich. This incorporation was not merely the conscription of laborers but the application of German legislation to the nationals of occupied countries.
In the face of the patriotic resistance of the workers of the different occupied countries, the important results which the German Labor Office had anticipated were far from being fulfilled. However, a large number of workers from the occupied countries were forced to work for the German war effort.
With regard to the Todt Organization, the laborers who were employed in the West in the construction of the Atlantic Wall totalled 248,000 at the end of March 1943. In the year 1942, 3,300,000 workers from occupied countries worked for Germany in their own country; among others, 300,000 of these were in Norway, 249,000 in Holland, 650,000 in France. The number of workers deported to Germany and coming from the occupied territories in the West increased in 1942 to the figure of 131,000 Belgians, 135,000 Frenchmen, 154,000 Hollanders. On 30 April 1943, 1,293,000 workmen, of whom 269,000 were women, from the occupied territories in the West were working for the German War Economy.