Forced Labour Battalions in German-Occupied Lithuania 1916–1918: The Phenomenon and its Context

Abstract

Forced labour battalions, and, in general, the phenomenon of forced labour in German-occupied territories during the First World War must be understood and evaluated inseparably from both the overall context of that era and the fundamental principles advocated by Wilhelmine Germany regarding the international community and its stance and objectives in the ongoing war. The states involved in the war, including Germany, were bound by the 1907 Hague Convention on the civilians of the opposing side, which they had signed and ratified. However, at the outbreak of the war, this Hague Convention was practically the only international legal document regulating the status of civilians in wartime conditions; moreover, it was too abstract and incomplete. This provided an opportunity for Germany, which harboured indisputably aggressive war aims, to cleverly and cynically exploit the convention for its own interests.
To administer Lithuania and other lands formerly controlled by Tsarist Russia and occupied by Germany, the Germans established a special Ober Ost entity in September 1915, which was an exceptionally strict, repressive, and exploitative in its nature. The architects of this entity, generals Paul von Hindenburg and Erich Ludendorff, pursued a policy that was notably independent of and unapproved even by the central government in Berlin, effectively creating a ‘state within a state’ with a bureaucratically precise and militaristic exploitative system. This large-scale coercive system was primarily intended to harness the local inhabitants of the region in various ways. Forced labour was planned as one of the elements of subjugation, which was also reflected in the ‘Administrative Statute’ – a kind of Ober Ost constitution – issued by the military administration in June 1916. The occupiers even declared that their ‘Statute’ was supposedly a natural and necessary completion of the postulates of the Hague Convention and that local residents were employed under it, albeit against their will, for their own benefit.
Emphasising rationality, the Germans first began collecting statistical data from various spheres to argue for their decisions. They were particularly interested in local labour force reserves, employment, and the possibility of directing them toward economic projects vital for war aims. After data analysis, the situation in individual Ober Ost regions was assessed as highly varied, leading the administration to conceive the idea of forming mobile groups of local workers and deploying them in the most urgent work areas. Thus, from early 1916, formations of forcibly mobilised local civilians – the so-called ‘columns’ – appeared in occupied Lithuania. They were primarily used for road and railway construction and reconstruction, as well as in agriculture and forestry.
However, the protracted war and Germany’s strategic and economic problems in it led to the appointment of Hindenburg and Ludendorff as supreme commanders of the entire German army in August 1916. Upon assuming their posts, they brought with them all the experiences and practices tested in Ober Ost, implementing them throughout the country. As the German economy suffered from a growing shortage of workers, the military command began implementing compulsory labour for civilians in occupied territories. Compared to the aforementioned ‘columns’, this time the aim was establishing forced removal of the mobilised workers from their places of residence, i.e., de facto deportations. Thus, from 3 October 1916, with Ludendorff’s relevant decree, the term ‘civilian labour battalions’ became prevalent in public discourse regarding forced labour. Officially, mobilisation into these battalions was aimed at individuals allegedly evading work and the unemployed who refused to voluntarily accept employment under German-defined conditions. It primarily targeted urban societal structures, whereas the Ober Ost lands were predominantly agrarian. Therefore, since there was an objective lack of candidates for labour battalions, the authorities resorted to the most primitive solution: organising indiscriminate round-ups of people.
Data indicate that a total of five labour battalions were formed in Ober Ost, each intended to gather up to 2000 people, mostly unskilled labourers. Their living and working conditions were truly abysmal; their status was akin to that of prisoners. Cold, hunger, beatings, and humiliation became their daily reality. The absence of basic medical assistance led to a high mortality rate among them. Soon after the battalions were established, German institutions observed growing dissatisfaction among the local population, but the initiators and proponents of these measures refused to consider any changes to the adopted strategy. Nevertheless, changes became inevitable during 1917. The Germans, who were planning legal separation of Lithuania from Russia, needed to gain at least minimal favour from the Lithuanian public. Thus, in July 1917, Ludendorff instructed the administration to prepare for the abolition of forced labour battalions, and the official announcement was made during the famous Vilnius Conference in September 1917.
In reality, however, the Germans had no intention of abandoning forced labour as such; they were merely seeking the most suitable disguise for it. Thus, from December 1917, the former battalions became ‘volunteer labour battalions’ (their members’ wages were raised, but they had to sign documents agreeing to ‘voluntarily’ continued work). At the same time, there emerged ‘penal battalions’, and anyone who displeased the Germans were liable to be sent there, even without a formal hearing. The Council of Lithuania repeatedly appealed to the occupation administration, demanding an end to the arbitrary actions concerning forced labour and an improvement of the living and working conditions of those forcibly employed. However, all those efforts yielded practically no results. Only in November 1918, with the end of the First World War and the revolution in Germany, did the situation begin to change fundamentally.