Rheingau vineyards used slaves in WW2
A new study commissioned by one of the Rheingau’s leading estates has examined the largely overlooked use of slave labour by the German wine industry during the Second World War.
The Hessian state winemaker Kloster Eberbach commissioned historian Sebastian Koch to look into the use of slave labour in the vineyards during the period of Nazi rule from 1933-45.
Koch found that French, Polish and Russian prisoners were used as slave labour across the Rheingau region, joined by Italian soldiers after 1943 when Italy joined the Allied cause.
Although often housed in labour camps and occasionally at wine estates, it appears the conditions the workers were kept in were at least relatively “humane”, compared to those endured by salve labourers in other industries.
Koch told The Times: “I found no records of death from execution, mishandling, poor hygiene or undernourishment”.
Although it is likely slave labour was used in other German wine regions, the scope of Koch’s research centred solely on the Rheingau
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As he continued, it is no surprise that slave labour was employed in the German wine industry at the time because nearly every aspect of Nazi Germany’s agricultural and industrial efforts relied heavily on slave labour.
People from nearly every occupied territory alongside Russian prisoners of war and Jews, over 10 million in total, were forced into working in fields and factories by the Nazi state as it increasingly struggled to wage its war against the Western Powers and Soviet Union. By 1944, a quarter of the workforce in Germany itself was composed of forced labourers.
Ironically, this use of slave labour and the cruel and wasteful use of human life and expertise likely conspired to make the Nazi war effort far less effective and productive than it might otherwise have been.
How many slave labourers were employed in German vineyards or the fate of many of them is not well-known but it remains an important, if dark, chapter in the history of German viticulture and one worth examining further.
As far as slave labour was concerned I imagine this was a ‘good’ allocation compared to the lot of many unfortunate prisoners.
Useful information but is it not perhaps time to ‘move on’? War is not a pretty business and the allies had some skeletons in their cupboard too!
No, iits not a time to move on. If your country wasn’t destroyed, family killed, property lost you won’t understand. Move on… Only ignorant can express such ideas.
My father was a slave labor in a German vineyard. I am interested in finding out where he might have worked in Whitefield and its location. My father informed me that he was treated very well. He wants to asked me if I were to go back to Germany if I would look up the owner at the time and tell his children or grandchildren that that individual the owner treated him well. Does anyone know how I can find out where he might have been a slave labor at, it’s facility and location.
There is much more to the story. One being, saving many many Jews from extinction.Currently I am in the process of writing a book and would appreciate any information that anyone may have thank you. And God bless