Refugees,Welfare Organizations and Compulsory Labour in Postwar Austria

During the Second World War, Germany employed 13.5 million men, women and children as forced and slave labourers throughout Europe, including on Austrian territory. ¹ Compulsory labour in Austria did not end with the Allied occupation in the spring of 1945. Austria, like Germany, was divided into four zones, one for each Ally. Karl Renner, head of the provisional government, was intent on demonstrating ‘Austria's demarcation from Nazi Germany’. ² Though initially established under Soviet control and including communists, Renner and his successors wanted to align Austria with the West and avoid being absorbed into the developing Soviet bloc.

The Austrian federal government aspired to adopt the values of a liberal democracy but that did not prevent it from enacting a statute on what was effectively compulsory labour. The Arbeitspflichtgesetz (Labour Duty Law) imposed a duty on men and women residing in Austria to perform mainly manual work. A violation of the duty was punishable by a fine or the loss of ration cards. ³

The newly reborn Austria suffered from a severe shortage of labour. During the final stages of the war, Allied forces bombed buildings and infrastructure. In Vienna, the air raids caused damage to 28 per cent of the buildings. ⁴ Almost half the buildings in Salzburg were damaged including 7600 apartments. ⁵ In all major cities, rubble had to be cleared before construction could begin. The causes of the manpower shortage were the end of slave and forced labour, death and injury of Austrian soldiers in combat and the internment of over 156,000 Austrian men in prisoner of war camps. ⁶ The postwar legislation on compulsory labour aimed to meet the shortage and enable the reconstruction of Austria.

Compulsory labour applied to Austrians and aliens residing in the country on a permanent or temporary basis. In the years 1945 to 1948, one in every five individuals residing in Austria was displaced from his or her country of origin. They included 260,000 Germans who had settled in Austria after the Anschluss (Reichsdeutsche), Yugoslav and Hungarian collaborators with the Nazis and survivors of concentration camps and forced labour. Shortly after the war, two very different groups of foreigners entered Austria: the first comprised over 330,000 ethnic Germans (Volksdeutsche) who had been expelled from their homes in Eastern Europe and the second included between 225,000 and 250,000 Jews who sought to leave Europe but had nowhere to go. ⁷ During the Second World War, all members of the latter group had experienced trauma. Many had been slave or forced labourers. To what extent did the postwar compulsory labour requirement apply to individuals, Jews and non-Jews, who found temporary refuge in Austria?

Literature on the link between slave and forced labour in the Hitler era and more recent practices of foreign labour in Europe is limited. Ulrich Herbert was one of the earliest scholars to examine the issue. In his 1986 book, Geschichte der Ausländer: Beschäftigung in Deutschland 1880 bis 1980, he showed how West Germany viewed the use of forced labour between 1939 and 1945 as an exceptional, war-related case and highlighted the successor state's failure to connect this experience with the subsequent mass employment of foreigners by German companies. ⁸

In Austria, interest in forced labour began relatively recently. It was triggered by the 1990s litigation in the United States to compensate slave labour. Most literature on the Austrian experience focuses on the years of German rule. ⁹ Histories of Austria's occupation and the beginning of the Second Republic do not discuss compulsory labour or mention the subject only briefly. ¹⁰ An exception is Matthew P. Berg, who examined one aspect of the postwar era, namely compulsory labour as retribution for Austrian Nazism. ¹¹ The Austrian federal law was not limited to former perpetrators or members of the National Socialist Party.

This article traces the history of compulsory labour in Austria from 1945 to 1948 and highlights the gradual abandonment of nonvoluntary labour in a fledgling democracy. ¹² Interestingly, the local authorities in the western zones of Germany which suffered much greater war damage than its southern neighbour never obliged citizens to perform labour. The article also explores the question of the Austrian policy's application to refugees. The object is to provide a more nuanced understanding of the paradigm of Austria as a land of asylum.

The archives of the United Nations were the starting point for my research. Different departments of the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA), including the council, legal department and the teams that administered camps for displaced persons in Austria, referred to the issue of compulsory labour and whether refugees were subject to local legal requirements. Most of the available documents on daily life in the camps originated in the US zone of occupied Austria. To date, historians of postwar Austria have made minimal use of these archives. Minutes of the Austrian Cabinet and Parliament explain the background to adopting the federal law on compulsory labour. Other sources include archives of Jewish organizations engaged in welfare work in Austria that lobbied against the demand to apply the law to survivors of German concentration camps or exile in the Soviet Union.

During the Second World War, almost one million foreigners, men, women and children, entered or were deported to Austria to serve as forced or slave labourers. According to Nazi statistics, approximately 580,000 forced labourers worked in Austria in the autumn of 1944. They came from the Soviet Union, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Hungary, France, Belgium, the Netherlands and Italy. In addition, many of the 182,000 prisoners of war held in Austria at the end of 1944 were compelled to perform forced labour. Nazi figures did not include 65,000 Hungarian Jews, 64,000 inmates of concentration camps and 150,000 Austrian Roma and Sinti employed as slave labourers. ¹³ Figure 1 shows the number of foreign forced/slave labourers in Austria in 1944.

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Figure 1.

Number of foreign forced/slave labourers in Austria in 1944.

A racial hierarchy determined the type and conditions of this work. Jews were at the bottom of the scale, forced to perform strenuous physical work in mines and armament factories in inhumane conditions. For example, an inmate of the Mauthausen camp in Upper Austria described how he had to ‘pick up a piece of rock, you know, carry it up […] maybe like 50 stories, dump it, drop it’. ¹⁴ Simon Wiesenthal, another prisoner in Mauthausen, said that anyone who complained was either beaten or pushed 50 metres down the quarry to his death. ¹⁵ Non-Jewish men and women from Western and Eastern Europe worked in agriculture and private households. They were higher up the scale and received comparatively better treatment but many of them also did not survive the internment and forced labour.

In postwar Austria, the four victorious Allied forces recruited locals to perform compulsory labour as part of the occupation regime. Of course, they did not follow the Nazi regime in working them to death. Nevertheless, coercion was an integral part in both instances. An early example was in Vienna where Soviet troops stationed at the corners of congested streets detained pedestrians and ordered them to perform manual labour. The main tasks of the detained locals were the removal of rubble and the construction of roads and bridges. ¹⁶ To address the arbitrariness of the acts of Soviet troops, the mayor of Vienna, Theodor Körner, issued a decree that ‘introduced a critical measure of order’. This local initiative did not end random detentions but they did become less frequent. Similarly, in Salzburg in the US zone of Austria, the mayor issued a decree with the approval of the US occupying forces that all unemployed males over the age of 18 were required to report to the Labour Office for work. ¹⁷

On 27 April 1945, two weeks before the German defeat, Renner, the Social Democrat leader, set up a tripartite provisional state government in Vienna under the aegis of the Soviet occupying power. Subsequently, the Parliament (Nationalrat) unanimously elected him president. Soviet forces initially controlled Vienna single-handedly but later divided the city into four zones, one for each Ally. The national elections in November, just six and a half months after the German defeat, reinforced the new government's legitimacy, while also dramatically weakening the communist party. The new chancellor, Leopold Figl of the conservative People's Party and his ministers promoted the idea of a democratic Austria liberated from the shackles of German National Socialism. They emphasized the complete detachment of the new regime from its recent past. ¹⁸ Although all Nazi laws were ostensibly annulled, in practice the government was reluctant to abandon some measures introduced by the German government after the Anschluss.

The Austrian Cabinet, in one of its first meetings, discussed the introduction of compulsory labour in the context of adjusting to a democratic regime. On 22 January 1946, Figl announced the need to realign the local population to democracy and reconstruction. To do this required an energetic step forward on the part of the youth. Figl added that adolescents aged between 14 and 18 should not be allowed to hang around and run riot: ‘Only when we see a real will amongst the population, starting with the youth, to reconstruct Austria, will we be surer of freedom and the independence of our country’. ¹⁹ One participant at the meeting, Foreign Minister Karl Gruber (also of the People's Party), warned against compulsory labour organizations with uniforms, clearly an oblique reference to the recent past. His fellow party member, Dr. Felix Hurdes, explained how compulsory labour would provide an opportunity to influence young people. He added that it was important not to follow the National Socialist paradigm and proposed guidance instead of enacting legislation. ²⁰ None of the participants objected to the concept and no other participant supported the idea of guidance. Instead, the Cabinet instructed the ministers of justice, trade and education to draft a bill regulating compulsory labour.

The Austrian Parliament debated the government bill on compulsory labour in a session held on 15 February 1946. Friedrich Hillegeist of the Socialist Party submitted the bill on behalf of the government and explained how the proposal differed from Nazi forced labour. In his words ‘any comparison with the draconian provisions and dictatorial treatment of Nazi labour duty law is totally unjustified’. ²¹ He added that to differentiate the two practices, each of the provisions in the bill was intended to protect the ‘obligated persons’. They included the requirement that the work should match the physical attributes of the recruited labourer and be performed only in the vicinity of their residence. Also, compensation would be paid according to a fixed rate. The name of the bill also signalled a new beginning: the Federal Law on Securing the Workforce Required for Reconstruction (the Labour Duty Law) in German Arbeitspflichtgesetz. Clearly, this was a much better sounding name than a law on forced labour (Zwangsarbeitgesetz).

In the debate that followed, representatives of all three political parties, the Socialist Party, the People's Party and the Communist Party, agreed on the need for compulsory labour. Ferdinand Geisslinger of the People's Party declared that the law ‘strongly reminds us of Nazi ideas’ but supported it on the grounds that the youth sleeps in the day, drinks at night and refuses to assist in building a better world from Nazi ruins. He added that the new law should apply to everyone sabotaging the new Austria, including riffraff and black marketeers. ²² Franz Honner of the Community Party explained that communists did not oppose compulsory work for people who frequented bars and shirkers. ²³ Wilhelmine Moik, the Socialist Party member, justified the bill on the grounds that it was an emergency measure in extraordinary circumstances although she admitted that it limited the freedom of workers and employees. ²⁴ At the end of the debate, Honner submitted a motion for the compulsion to be limited to former members of the Nazi Party. The House rejected the motion and adopted the original bill unanimously.

The Arbeitspflichtgesetz came into force on 25 July 1946. It opened with a statement on the need to recruit all persons able to work for employment by public and private bodies in construction and food supply to the public. The obligation applied to everyone residing in Austria, both on a permanent and temporary basis. Men were subject from the age of 16 to 55 and women from the age of 16 to 40 (section 1). There were a number of exemptions, such as pregnant women, mothers of children under 16, clergy and foreigners exempted by state treaties or the decision of the Allied forces. In addition, the age thresholds for former Nazis were higher – men were required to work until 60 and women until 50. The maximum term of compulsory labour was six months, with the possibility of an extension for a further six months in the case of an urgent need (section 9). Violating the labour duty was punishable by a fine or, more effectively, by the loss of ration cards (section 14). The statute applied initially until the end of the 1946 calendar year but was later extended to 1947 and 1948.

At the war's end, approximately 1.65 million aliens found themselves in ‘liberated’ Austria, together with six million Austrians. They came from many countries and different backgrounds. ²⁵ The Allies proposed a single solution for the displaced persons, namely repatriation. UNRRA was charged with performing this task. Within one year, it had repatriated 700,000 foreigners, including most of the Reich Germans, from Austria. ²⁶ Jewish refugees, ethnic Germans who hoped to settle in Austria and other aliens, such as former collaborators who feared trials and executions in their homelands, did not fit in with Allied plans. They refused to leave Austria. In one month alone (August 1946), 36,704 Jews arrived in Vienna. Figure 2 shows a monthly breakdown of this wave of refugees. They came mainly from Poland but also from Hungary, Czechoslovakia and Romania. ²⁷

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Figure 2.

Number of Jews who e-ntered Austria from January to October 1946.

Many refugees, Jews and non-Jews, viewed Austria as a stepping stone to a new life far from Europe. Strict quotas in the United States, Canada, Australia, the United Kingdom and British-administered Palestine thwarted these plans. Instead, they found themselves trapped in Austria for months and years, subject to the authority of the occupying military forces and UNRRA.

The treatment of the aliens depended on their location. One organization, first UNRRA and after its liquidation, the International Refugee Organization (IRO), was responsible for the welfare of displaced persons. However, the policies differed considerably between the four occupied zones.

The Soviets advocated both repatriation of refugees and compulsory labour. Consequently, refugees who crossed the border into Austria after the war, Jews and non-Jews, avoided lengthy stays in Vienna, Lower Austria or Burgenland and continued westwards to the territories controlled by the more liberal occupying forces. Of the Western Allies, the French were the most stringent on the issue of labour. All aliens in the provinces of Tyrol and Vorarlberg controlled by France (as in the French zone of Germany) were required to work. The French General Commandant of the military government issued an order in December 1945 stipulating that displaced persons who refused to work would be denied access to food and accommodation. ²⁸ According to Laure Humbert, it was unthinkable for French administrators to support a ‘group of idle people incapable of participating in the reconstruction of their homeland’ when French workers at home were required to participate in the ‘battle of production’. ²⁹ There were no exceptions or exemptions from the rule.

The British forces, which controlled the provinces of Carinthia, Styria and a small part of Tyrol, imposed labour on refugees, with exceptions. In December 1945, the British military government enacted an ordinance requiring displaced persons to engage in available labour in the camps or with the military authorities. Alternatively, they could work for Austrian firms performing projects essential to the community. ³⁰ Refugees who had undergone persecution were not required to work.

In the American zone, namely the provinces of Upper Austria and Salzburg, compulsory labour for refugees was not the official policy. Nevertheless, many displaced persons, including Jews, worked inside and outside camps. One example is the camp for Jewish displaced persons at Bad Gastein, which housed between one thousand and two thousand refugees. In April 1946, 492 camp residents, men and women, worked in the camp, and the military government employed three individuals outside the camp. ³¹

The Allies’ labour policies were one of the factors that influenced the refugees’ choice of temporary residence. Another factor that contributed to the disproportionate number of displaced persons in the US zone of Austria (and Germany) was the relatively favourable attitude of the US military government, especially after the publication of the Harrison Report which resulted in improved accommodation and better living conditions. ³² In March 1947, 29,000 Jewish displaced persons (more than 90 per cent) lived in camps in the US zone of Austria, 2500 (7.8 per cent) in the British zone and 500 (1.5 per cent) in the French zone. ³³ The distribution of Jewish and non-Jewish refugees between the Western zones of occupied Germany, where the Allies applied the same policies, was similar: in September 1946, 402,961 refugees (Jews and non-Jews) lived in the US zone, compared to 259,222 in the British zone and 33,447 (less than 5 per cent) in the admittedly much smaller French zone. ³⁴

The Austrian Compulsory Labour Law specifically applied to persons living temporarily in the country. The motivation was to reduce the costs of the refugees’ presence and upkeep borne by the local authorities. Accordingly, the government imposed taxes, social insurance and a sum to cover their maintenance on the refugees’ earnings. The legal basis was German legislation introduced in Austria after the Nazi annexation, the Reichsversicherungsordnung (the Reich Insurance Order) that remained in force after the war. Deductions for maintenance costs included the sum of 1.2 Schillings per day for food for a working individual, 0.75 Schillings per day for food for a dependent, non-working wife and children and 0.3 Schillings per day for lodging. The maximum charge against a head of family was 90 Schillings per month or two-thirds of his monthly wage, whichever was lower. ³⁵

Alfred E. Davidson, the General Counsel of UNRRA, justified the Austrian position. In his view, the regulations on deductions were calculated to place the displaced persons on a more realistic economic basis, relieve the burden they put on the Austrian government as a ‘liberated’ country and simultaneously serve as a psychological inducement for repatriation. ³⁶ However, this explanation ignored the reason for the displacement of those ‘placing a burden’ on the government and the Austrian responsibility for the loss of their homes.

Shortly before the Austrian Compulsory Labour Law came into effect, UNRRA officials began to discuss its application to displaced persons. The Austrian government had asked the Allied forces to apply the Compulsory Labour Law to all refugees, not only former Nazis. According to a cable sent by an UNRRA official: ‘the statute has no express reference to DPs in camps though [the] Austrian Foreign Minister has requested of Allied Council it be so applied’. ³⁷ The official added that the US Forces Austria (USFA) penalty for refusal comply would be ejection from the camp with consequential liability to the penalties provided by statute, namely a fine of 5000 schillings or three months’ imprisonment. For persons deliberately refusing or deserting work, the labour office may curtail or withdraw food rations for up to four weeks.

The US military government requested the opinion of the organization's legal department on the Austrian government's request. In response, Dudley Ward, a barrister in the general counsel's office, wrote that UNRRA personnel would continue to encourage the acceptance of ‘useful public or private employment’ but would not take part in the coercion of any displaced person and would not remove a person who resisted from a camp. ³⁸ In a separate cable, Ward wrote:

My own view is that the application of law to DPs is reasonable and useful to DPs themselves and as long as nothing is done to hinder or delay repatriation,+ law should apply to all, not only those unwilling to return home. It should apply to all three zones.

I agree however [to an] exception at least for [the] time being of persecutees as inclusion may raise controversy…After some experience of working [,] question of persecutees could be reconsidered. ³⁹

The rationale for Ward's view was that ‘we are instructed to treat Austria as a liberated area’ unlike Germany viewed by the Allies as occupied territory. The basis for this distinction was the Allied Conference at Moscow in October 1943 which declared that Austria was the first free country to fall victim to Hitlerite aggression. ⁴⁰ Ward rejected the extension of compulsory labour to Germany since the latter remained enemy territory and ‘displaced persons may, with more reason, object to cooperation in its restoration’. ⁴¹

The British lawyer did not consider that from the perspective of victims of the Third Reich, contributing to the restoration of Austria was just as objectionable. Moreover, compulsory labour contradicted UNRRA's official policy. George Woodbridge, the organization's historian, later wrote that employment for displaced persons was voluntary but should be encouraged and stimulated by every possible means. ⁴²

On 11 June 1946, the question of compelling refugees to work arose at a meeting of the Central Committee of the UNRRA Council in Washington, DC. The US representative, Clinton Tyler Wood, explained that General Mark Clark, the American High Commissioner for Austria from 1945 to 1947, had asked for authority to apply the Austrian federal law to displaced persons in camps. Wood added that the army, not UNRRA, would exercise the coercion. ⁴³

The Soviet representative, Colonel I.P. Kramarenko, objected to the proposal. He reiterated his government's position that all displaced persons should be repatriated. In his view, the aliens were still under the influence of merciless propaganda and had not made up their minds about repatriation. Kramarenko added that the policy requiring the acceptance of employment and placing a displaced person outside UNRRA influence ‘would strengthen poisonous propaganda and influence this person to settle locally’. ⁴⁴ The Director General of UNRRA, Fiorello la Guardia, replied that the work requirement would expedite repatriation. The Australian representative asked, ‘why Austria?’ The participants were clearly unaware that the Austrian government was behind the original law. Moreover, it emerged that none of the participants had read the statute. The Director General explained that the Austrian experience would serve as an experiment and concluded that the real motive was ‘to get people to decide definitely to be repatriated’.

Subsequently, the Central Committee reviewed a resolution drafted by the US member on the employment of displaced persons in Austria. Wood explained that General Clark initiated the drafting of the resolution since he considered employment to be in the interests of the displaced persons themselves. According to the draft resolution:

Able-bodied displaced persons in Austria, other than persecuted groups and those who have elected to be repatriated, will be required to accept suitable employment under conditions no less favourable than those that applied to the local population.

Displaced persons already engaged in vocational training or whose services are required in connection with the administration of assembly centres need not be required to accept other employment.

Displaced persons who refuse to accept suitable employment shall cease to be eligible for UNRRA care, provided that if they agree to repatriation, they may be readmitted to assembly centres and cared for pending repatriation. ⁴⁵

When put to the vote, four members supported the resolution, the Soviet Union opposed it and Britain, Yugoslavia, Canada and France abstained.

UNRRA began the implementation of the resolution immediately after its adoption. On 19 June 1946, the secretariat sent a cable to the London office requesting that the member governments and the Director General issue the necessary instructions for the military authorities and the organization representatives in Austria to work out a policy for the application of compulsory labour to displaced persons. The secretariat stressed the importance of ensuring that the policy did not conflict with the encouragement of evacuation. ⁴⁶ On 1 October 1946, the Austrian legislation replaced the military orders in the American and British zones.

The UNRRA Mission requested compliance with the exemptions provided in the Central Committee resolution. ⁴⁷ The Manchester Guardian newspaper published an article on the new policy with the headline ‘Displaced Persons in Austria Encouraged to Work or Go Home’. The reporter, Francesca M. Wilson, described a recent visit to camps for displaced persons in Austria and the ‘drastic changes’ they were undergoing. Previously, work was voluntary for refugees, but after the issue of the military order, everyone had to work to pay for their board and lodging. Only Jews were exempt: ‘they suffered too much at the hands of the Austrians to be forced to work for them now’. ⁴⁸ The reporter interviewed the director of a camp of 1600 Polish Ukrainians, who said: ‘Of course it is right that they should work for their living but I am afraid they will be given the worst jobs’. He added that it was not easy for a newspaper editor to work in a blast furnace or for clerks to do heavy work. ⁴⁹ In January 1947, UNRRA officials in the British zone of Austria stated that the compulsory employment policy had little effect on the displaced persons from Yugoslavia living in the region since a ‘labour programme both in and out of camps was well established before the Austrian compulsory labour policy’. Similarly, the number of Yugoslavs accepting repatriation in the French zone due to the policy was negligible. ⁵⁰ Figure 3 is a graph prepared by a UNRRA official on the effect of compulsory labour on repatriation from Austria from March to November 1946. It shows a peak number of repatriated refugees in May, before the application of the Arbeitspflichtgesetz to displaced persons.

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Figure 3.

Effect of compulsory labour on repatriation from Austria, March–November, 1946.

The Austrian legislation and UNRRA resolution differed on the question of compulsory labour for Nazi victims. The former did not exclude persecutees from the obligation to work whereas the UNRRA resolution contained an express exemption for this group. The UNRRA Council discussed the justification for exempting persecutees. The Canadian representative asked whether the phrase ‘persecuted groups’ in the draft resolution had any precise definition and why an exception was being made in their favour. The General Counsel explained that the term was generally used and derived from a former UNRRA resolution. Wood, the US representative, added that it would be more difficult for a member of the persecuted groups to obtain employment and, therefore, hardship might result if they were brought under the general terms of the resolution. According to the estimates presented to the Council, one in five displaced persons in Austria may request exemption on this ground. An unnamed participant suggested that handling an exception of this magnitude might be difficult. ⁵¹ Nevertheless, the exemption for persecutees remained in the final draft of the resolution.

In practice, only the US military government recognized the special status of Nazi victims. All displaced persons in the zone, except political or religious persecutees, were subject to the Austrian Compulsory Labour Law. ⁵² The Soviet and French military governments did not recognize persecutees as a separate category entitled to an exemption from labour. The British also refused to exempt Nazi victims from the application of the Austrian Compulsory Labour Law but excluded refugees employed in displaced person camps or liable for imminent repatriation or settlement. ⁵³

The British were fully aware that their policy deviated from the UNRRA resolution. W.W. Cox, the legal adviser to the UNRRA Austrian Mission, wrote that the British policy was to apply the Austrian law to Jewish displaced persons in its zone. He added:

This is of course contrary to the Central Committee resolution forwarded to us in July which specifically exempted persecuted groups from approved subjection to law. The action is also contrary to agreement made by Col. Logan Gray in a meeting with representatives of this mission. He now explains, however, that instructions of Control Office oblige him not to exempt Jewish displaced persons from ‘any ordinances or regulations compelling displaced persons as a whole to accept reasonable employment.’ On the other hand, Col. Logan Gray considers it unlikely that Jewish displaced persons will be prosecuted by Austrian authorities for violation of law. ⁵⁴

The legal adviser added that, in practice, the military government had not prosecuted Jewish refugees for failing to work and was unlikely to do so.

In November 1946, UNRRA reported that 805 men were employed in the US zone with military units and other civil departments such as Special Services and hospitals. The UNRRA Labour Liaison Officer added that all military units would be screened to ascertain whether the refugees were actually employed, the kind of work they were doing, and the possibility of transferring and replacing younger men for older ones and those only fit for light work. ⁵⁵ Other places of employment included road and bridge construction (such as the Lueg Pass in Salzach) and house and railway line repairs. Unfortunately, the Salzburg State Archives do not have statistics on the number of refugees (or locals) employed in compulsory labour. ⁵⁶

Jewish refugees also worked, although theoretically exempted from the requirement. Employment was mainly inside the camps at workshops equipped by the Joint Distribution Committee (JDC), a New-York based welfare organization. The workshops produced clothes, shoes, hats, gloves and furniture for the refugees. The refugees also performed tasks connected to the operation of the camps, such as policing and jobs outside the camps. So, for example, in November 1946, ‘forty-eight workers and twelve volunteers’ from the camp for displaced persons at Parsch that housed Jewish inmates (the New Palestine Camp) worked on constructing the Kaprun Hydro-Electricity Plant. Nazi Germany had initiated the construction of the Kaprun plant by slave labourers and defeat delayed its completion. ⁵⁷ According to the UNRRA Labour Liaising Officer: ‘It is gratifying to know that all these men have been assigned to their respective trades with the result that they are a very happy group doing excellent work’. ⁵⁸

At the beginning of 1948, the US military government issued an order that rescinded the exclusion of Jewish refugees from the scope of the Austrian Compulsory Labour Law. The Jewish Central Committee of Displaced Persons in Linz protested strongly against the rescission. According to a report by the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, the committee was not opposed to the principle of Jewish refugees working in the Austrian economy but feared that the ruling would set a precedent for non-recognition of the ‘special privileges’ afforded to Jewish refugees. ⁵⁹

The JDC joined the campaign against applying the Austrian law to Jewish refugees. A JDC official, Harold Trobe, frequently visited camps for displaced persons in Central Europe. He wrote a letter to the Preparatory Commission for the International Refugee Organization (PCIRO) on the need to recognize certain facts in this context. ⁶⁰ The purpose was to avoid ‘recrimination between Jewish refugees and the Austrian government, a state of affairs which everyone will agree must be avoided at all costs’. ⁶¹ Jews had received food and lodging free of charge since liberation. The exemption was based on the principle that these people had suffered due to ‘a series of events in which the Austrian people had played some role’. Trobe drew attention to the ‘inverse picture’ between the occupational distribution among Jewish refugees, merchants and clerks and the requirements for labour in Austria, agricultural work or reconstruction. Imposing the latter type of labour, ‘will be impossible and justly protested against by the Jews in view of the fact that the work will be similar to that which they themselves as concentration camp internees or their brothers and sisters were required to do as slave labourers under the Nazis’. ⁶² Trobe added that the usual incentive for doing unpleasant work did not occur in the case of Jews since they all intended to leave Austria as quickly as possible. In addition, earnings in Schillings could only be converted into foreign currency at the prohibitive black-market rate. Instead, Trobe proposed the placement of Jewish craftsmen in their trade and a careful selection of the employer or supervisor.

The PCIRO accepted these proposals. John S. Wood, Chief of the Mission for the IRO in Austria, sent a letter to Kurt Maisel, the Federal Minister for Social Administration, stating that the application of the law to Jews ‘appears to present certain problems to which we wish to draw your attention … to avoid embarrassing consequences’. ⁶³ Wood explained that the average Austrian had an incentive to work regardless of the type of work. This did not apply to Jews who wanted only to migrate to Palestine at the earliest opportunity. Moreover, Jews who had been ‘ruthlessly torn from normal life can be expected to view with reluctance temporary integration into the Austrian economy at the lowest labour level’. The Jews compared their situation with returning prisoners of war who fought against the Allies and now returned to work at the same levels as before their capture. The letter concluded with a threefold call for the Austrian government:

To issue a declaration against discrimination of Jews in employment;

To give priority to skilled workers in their crafts; and

To instruct labour officials to take the greatest of care in the assignment of Jews to ensure prospective employers did not harbour any prejudices.

The JDC headquarters also requested the intervention of the US State Department for recognition by UNRRA of the workshops in the camps as ‘bona fide places of employment’. ⁶⁴ In his reply, Charles E. Saltzman, the Assistant Secretary of State, stated that the workshops did not comply with Austrian labour laws. However, he excluded Jewish displaced persons from compulsory labour if they entered one of the following categories:

Displaced persons in assembly centres awaiting immediate repatriation or resettlement;

Displaced persons wholly employed in the administration of camps or who received no monetary compensation;

Displaced persons unable to work provided they had a certificate from the PCIRO assembly centre administration;

Full-time students and vocational trainees certified by the PCIRO assembly centre administration. ⁶⁵

These categories covered all the Jewish refugees. The JDC headquarters summarized the situation: ‘It seems that no further steps are necessary on this side of the water’. ⁶⁶

The compulsory labour requirement did not meet the expectations of the Austrian authorities or UNRRA. The federal government sought working hands to replace the foreign forced and slave labourers of the Nazi era. In practice, many of the displaced persons were already working in camps or for the military government before the Austrian law came into force. Therefore, they were exempt from the duty to remove rubble and perform construction work.

UNRRA viewed the labour requirement as a means to achieve the repatriation of all aliens. By the second half of 1946, forced repatriation to Eastern Europe had become politically unacceptable. The grant of a visa, not compulsory labour, was the factor that determined the length of the displaced persons’ stay in Austria. According to Keith Arthur Aickin, Assistant General Counsel of the United Nations, the effect of the Central Committee Resolution applying the Austrian Compulsory Labour Law was principally psychological – to encourage repatriation or discourage people from viewing the displaced person status as permanent and desirable. ⁶⁷ An UNRRA official named S.K. Jacobs rejected this view and reported to the Central Council that ‘no matter what spectacles you have on, it doesn’t look as if the compulsory labor law had any impressive overall effect on repatriation from Austria’. ⁶⁸

Thousands of refugees worked in a broad range of activities in the war aftermath, but poor management and inadequate equipment impeded the success of their integration into the labour market. In August 1946, a UNRRA official in the US zone complained of a lack of coordination between army authorities and the local labour office resulting in the receipt of very indefinite and conflicting orders on registering displaced persons for work. ⁶⁹ In another case, refugees complained that three groups of men worked on a single project for three firms and received different hours and pay. ⁷⁰ A shortage of boots also prevented refugees from working in construction work and industry. Refugees employed in constructing a bridge at the Lueg Pass criticized the payment of 90 Groschen per hour instead of 1.10 Schilling to which they thought they were entitled as well as the lack of boots. ⁷¹ The JDC warned against offering Jews only unskilled labour jobs at the lowest level constituting unfair discrimination and reminiscent of slave labour days. ⁷² Finally, the requirement to deduct a share of the refugee's earnings from their wages (the lower of 90 Schillings or 2/3 of the entire sum) to cover maintenance costs reduced the incentive to work. In at least one case, the local UNRRA official decided to cap the deduction at 18 Schillings per week. ⁷³

The Austrian Compulsory Labour Law expired on 31 December 1948. By this time, many of the refugees had left. The first Displaced Persons Act adopted by the United States in 1948 and its subsequent amendment in 1950, combined with the establishment of the State of Israel, ended the temporary sojourn of many refugees in Austria. Others preferred to stay. Their skills and willingness to perform agricultural or manual labour influenced the Austrian naturalization policy. The Ministry of Interior rejected a campaign by the Jewish ultra-orthodox association, Agudas Israel, to ease the process for Jewish refugees on the grounds that there was no shortage of craftsmen and traders. By 1952, 150,000 ethnic Germans and 35,000 other non-German-speaking displaced persons had been naturalized (compared to 23 Jewish refugees). ⁷⁴ In the words of Tara Zahra: ‘the relatively healthy and well-fed Volksdeutsche, many of whom had been farmers in Eastern Europe, may have seemed more attractive candidates for Austrian citizenship than former forced labourers and concentration camp inmates’. ⁷⁵ Labour, chiefly physical, was no longer an obligation but instead a key to acquiring citizenship.

Mandatory labour was (and still is) an integral feature of authoritarian regimes and war. It is not usually associated with democracies and peacetime. The Austrian Compulsory Labour Law indicates the very gradual transition from war to peace and from an authoritarian state to a democratic regime.

The application of the compulsory labour requirement to refugees was one of a series of measures adopted by the federal government to whitewash the involvement of Austrians in the crimes of the Third Reich. Austrians played a disproportionate role in the persecution of Jews, Roma, Sinti and other minorities after the Anschluss. Although they only constituted 10 per cent of the Greater German population, Austrians filled almost half the critical positions in the Holocaust's command structure. ⁷⁶ At the war's end, the new federal government saw nothing incongruous in the imposition of forced labour on individuals who had lost their homes (and family members) due to Nazi persecution. Renner and Figl expected the same people who had undergone persecution to engage in strenuous physical labour for the reconstruction of Austria. The treatment of Holocaust victims compared unfavourably to that of released Austrian prisoners of war, former Wehrmacht soldiers and members of Nazi paramilitary units, who returned to their former work and status. In this context, it is interesting to note that Austria was one of the last European countries to join the 1930 International Labour Organization convention for the suppression of forced or compulsory labour. ⁷⁷

UNRRA's mission was to provide relief to the millions of individuals involuntarily moved from their homes during the Second World War and in its immediate aftermath. Applying the local compulsory labour requirement to refugees suggests that cooperation with the (reluctant) host country took precedence over relief for refugees. Moreover, both the military governments and welfare officials held disparaging views on the refugees. According to the French authorities, refugees were idle; for the Soviets, they were people who had not made up their minds on repatriation. The British applied the Austrian law to Jewish displaced persons in its zone contrary to the UNRRA resolution. Even the American mission eventually adopted the Austrian position. A report issued by UNRRA officials in the US zone described the ultimate aim of applying the Austrian law as preventing displaced persons in Austria from enjoying relief without making the same contribution to the country's recovery as Austrian nationals themselves. ⁷⁸ For those refugees who did perform physical labour, a lack of coordination and equipment combined with discrimination against foreigners prevented their integration into the Austrian labour market.

The Arbeitspflichtgesetz and the attempt to apply it to displaced persons contributed to the development of Austrian policy on refugees. During the Cold War, hundreds of thousands of men, women and children from authoritarian states in Eastern Europe crossed into Austria. The small but strategically situated state became a point of transit to a better life, usually elsewhere. Granting asylum to refugees was intended to increase the Second Republic's prestige and provide it with a role in global politics. ⁷⁹ The demand for compulsory labour in the postwar era and the expectation that victims of persecution by Austrians participate in reconstruction works are evidence of what Thomas Albrich has called an ‘asylum land against its will’. ⁸⁰

Labour remains an essential component of Austrian asylum. According to a 2022 report of the Asylum Information Database (AIDA) funded by the European Council of Refugees and Exiles in Austria, social support or minimum security for those who can work depends on their desire to use their own labour force. Benefits obtained by an employee who refuses appropriate labour may be diminished or, in rare circumstances, even completely revoked. ⁸¹