Organisation Todt (OT; ) was a civil and military engineering organisation in Nazi Germany from 1933 to 1945, named for its founder, Fritz Todt, an engineer and senior member of the Nazi Party. The organisation was responsible for a huge range of engineering projects both in Nazi Germany and in occupied territories from France to the Soviet Union during the Second World War. The organisation became notorious for using forced labour. From 1943 until 1945 during the late phase of the Third Reich, OT administered all construction of concentration camps to supply forced labour to industry.
There were more than 185,000 deaths of forced laborers on OT projects. Contrary to previous assumptions, research has revealed that death rates were high when the OT exercised a large degree of control over prisoners.
Overview
The history of the organisation can be divided into three phases. From 1933 to 1938, before the organisation existed, Fritz Todt's primary post was that of the General Inspector of German Roadways (Generalinspektor für das deutsche Straßenwesen) and his primary responsibility, the construction of the Autobahn network. He was able to draw on "conscripted" (i.e., compulsory) labour, from within Germany, through the Reich Labour Service (Reichsarbeitsdienst, RAD).
The second period lasted from 1938, when the Organisation Todt group proper was created, until February 1942, when Todt died in an aeroplane crash. After the invasion of Poland, Todt was named the Minister for Armaments and Munitions in 1940 (Reichsminister für Bewaffnung und Munition), and the projects of the OT became almost exclusively military. The huge increase in the demand for labour created by the various military and paramilitary projects was satisfied by a series of expansions of the laws concerning compulsory service, which ultimately obligated all Germans to arbitrarily determined (i.e., effectively unlimited) compulsory labour for the state: Zwangsarbeit.Verordnung zur Sicherstellung des Kräftebedarfs für Aufgaben von besonderer staatspolitischer Bedeutung of October 15, 1938 (Notdienstverordnung), RGBl. 1938 I, Nr. 170, S. 1441–43; Verordnung zur Sicherstellung des Kräftebedarfs für Aufgaben von besonderer staatspolitischer Bedeutung of February 13, 1939, RGBl. 1939 I, Nr. 25, S. 206f.; Gesetz über Sachleistungen für Reichsaufgaben (Reichsleistungsgesetz) of September 1, 1939, RGBl. 1939 I, Nr. 166, S. 1645–54. [RGBl = Reichsgesetzblatt, the official organ for he publication of laws.] For further background, see Die Ausweitung von Dienstpflichten im Nationalsozialismus , a working paper of the Forschungsprojekt Gemeinschaften, Humboldt University, Berlin, 1996–99. From 1938 to 1940, more than 1.75 million Germans were conscripted into labour service. From 1940 to 1942, Organisation Todt began its reliance on Gastarbeitnehmer ('guest workers'), Militärinternierte ('military internees'), Zivilarbeiter ('civilian workers'), Ostarbeiter ('Eastern workers'), and Hilfswillige ('volunteer') POW workers.
The third period lasted from 1942 until the end of the war in 1945, when Albert Speer succeeded Todt in office and the OT was absorbed into the renamed and expanded Reich Ministry of Armaments and War Production. Approximately 1.4 million labourers were in the service of the organisation. One per cent were Germans rejected from military service and 1.5% were concentration camp prisoners; the rest were prisoners of war and forced labourers from occupied countries. All were effectively treated as slaves and existed in the complete and arbitrary service of the totalitarian state. Many did not survive the work or the war.
Autobahn construction, 1933–1938
The autobahn concept had its beginnings in the efforts of a private consortium, the HaFraBa (Verein zur Vorbereitung der Autostraße Hansestädte-Frankfurt-Basel), initiated during 1926 for the purpose of building a high-speed highway between northern Germany and Basel, in Switzerland. While the idea did not originate with the Nazis, Adolf Hitler issued a decree establishing a Reichsautobahnen project for an entire network of highways, issued on 27 June 1933. He made it a vastly more ambitious public project and the responsibility was given to Fritz Todt as the newly named Inspector General of German Roadways.Gesetz über die Errichtung eines Unternehmens Reichsautobahnen Verfassungen.de, n.d.. "Law" is the literal translation of the German term, Gesetz, used in the text of this and other laws of the period. Given, however, that by this date legislative power had already been transferred to the executive (i.e., Hitler), primarily by means of the "authorisation law" of 23 March 1933 (Gesetz zur Behebung der Not von Volk und Reich), this, and all other legislation of the Third Reich, was effectively a purely executive order, i.e., a decree (Erlass).
By 1934, Todt had succeeded in elevating his office to near cabinet rank. Todt was an extremely capable administrator, and by 1938 the organisation had built more than of the roadway. The Autobahn project became one of the show pieces of the Nazi regime. In that period, Todt had also put together the administrative framework of what would become the Organisation Todt.
Initially, the Autobahn project relied on the open labour market as a source of workers. Germany was at this time still recovering from the effects of the Great Depression and there was no shortage of available labour. As the economy recovered and the supply of labour became a more serious issue, the OT was able to draw on conscripted (i.e., compulsory) workers, from within Germany through the Reich Labour Service (RAD) from 1935. As per the law of 26 June 1935, all male Germans between the ages of 18 and 25 were required to perform six months of state service.Reichsarbeitsdienstgesetz During this period, the work was compensated, at a rate slightly greater than that of unemployment assistance. The working conditions of the labour force would change drastically for the worse over the course of the following ten years.Walter Brummer Zur Geschichte der Autobahn members.a1.net. for additional general background
Organisation "Todt", 1938–1942 The OT was not given an official name until Hitler bestowed one soon after coming to power in 1933.Showell, Jak P. Mallmann. Hitler's U-boat bases. Sutton Publishing, 2002. During 1938 Todt initiated the Organisation Todt proper as a consortium of administrative offices which Todt had established in the course of the Autobahn project, private companies as subcontractors and the primary source of technical engineering expertise, and the Labour Service as the source of manpower. He was appointed by Hitler as a plenipotentiary for labour for the second four-year plan, decreasing Göring's role. Investment in civil engineering work was reduced greatly.
Between 1939 and 1943, in contrast to the period from 1933 to 1938, fewer than of roadway were added to the Autobahn network. Emphasis shifted to military efforts. The first major project involved the Westwall (known in English as the Siegfried Line), built opposite the French Maginot Line and serving a similar purpose.One of the quasi-civil projects associated with the Westwall project was the construction of the Hunsrück Highway (Hunsrückhöhenstraße, largely coinciding with the B327 and B407 in contemporary Germany). Its southern end was near Trier, at the border with France and on the wall. The construction of the Hunsrück Highway forms the basis for the fifth chapter of Edgar Reitz' movie, Heimat (1984) and one of its main characters is a (fictional) engineer of the project. Correspondingly, Todt himself was named Reich Minister of Armaments and Munitions in 1940. In 1941, Todt and his organisation were further charged with a project even larger: construction of the Atlantic Wall, to fortify the coasts of occupied France, the occupied Netherlands, Belgium, Denmark, and Norway. Included with this project were fortifications on the British Channel Islands, which were occupied by Nazi Germany from 30 June 1940 to 9 May 1945. The only camps on British soil operated by the OT were on the Channel Islands; two of these OT camps were given to the management of the SS from March 1943, converting them into the Alderney concentration camps.
Fritz Todt died in an aeroplane crash on 8 February 1942, soon after a meeting with Hitler in East Prussia. Todt had become convinced that the war on the eastern front could not be won and thought himself independent enough to say as much to Hitler.Stefan Kuhn Fritz Todt Deutsches Historisches Museum online, 17. September 2015 (German) As a result, some speculation exists that Todt's death was a covert assassination, but this has never been substantiated.
Under Albert Speer, 1942–1945
Todt was succeeded by Albert Speer as Minister of Armaments and Munitions, and de facto manager of the Organisation Todt. Despite Todt's death, the OT continued to exist as an engineering organisation and was given more assignments. At the beginning of 1943, in addition to its continuing work on the Atlantic Wall, the organisation also undertook the construction of launch platforms in northern France for the V-1 flying bomb and V-2 rocket. During the summer of that year, German war efforts became increasingly defensive, and the organisation was directed to construct air-raid shelters, repair bombed buildings in German urban areas, and construct underground refineries and armaments factories, also termed Project Riese.
In 1943, the organisation was administratively incorporated into Albert Speer's Ministry of Armaments and War Production. Speer's concerns, in the context of an increasingly desperate Germany, in which all production had been severely affected by materials and manpower shortages and by Allied bombing, ranged over almost the whole of the German war-time economy. Speer managed to increase production significantly, at the cost of a vastly increased reliance on compulsory labour. This applied as well to the labour force of the OT.
OT contractors The OT was a co-operative effort of the German government and the German construction industry; the former supplied the manpower and the material, the latter supplied the technical know-how in the form of individual contractors (OT-Firmen) with their staff and equipment. Up to about 1942, the construction companies dominated the OT, but after Speer became its director, the government's control of the organisation increased through standardised contracts and uniform pay scales. The volunteer contracts with the OT were later augmented with compulsory contracts, forcing construction companies to work for the OT. The construction company contracted became a self-contained unit within the OT, composed of technical and administrative staff with the skill and equipment necessary to execute the construction tasks assigned to it. Smaller companies were hence combined to form an Arbeitsgemeinschaft.Handbook of Organisation Todt (1945). London: MIRS, vol. 1., # 54, 62. The organisation of OT contractors was standardised through instructions issued by Wirtschaftsgruppe Bauindustrie, the German construction industry association. Among the OT contractors were also construction companies in occupied Europe. French, Danish, and Norwegian companies contracted with German companies as sub-contractors for OT building projects.Handbook of Organisation Todt (1945). London: MIRS, vol. 1., # 55, 58.
There were several kinds of contracts between OT and OT contractors. The most important were: Cost reimbursement contract, where the materiel and labour was supplied by the company. It allowed a commission of 4½% as the profit of the contractor.