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Second only to the deportation of the Norwegian Jews, it is the fate of the foreign prisoners of war and forced laborers that creates the clearest connection between Norway and the extermination policy of the Nazi regime.
Photo: Riksarkivet PA 0276, Leiv Kreyberg's archive, photographer: unknown
Collaboration followed in Organization Todt's wake
The exhibition shows how numerous German and Norwegian construction companies made good money by working for the organisation. For German companies, and in some cases also for Norwegians, it happened that Organization Todt (OT, Hitler's construction organization) made prisoners of war available. The Wehrmacht (part of the German armed forces) was formally responsible for the prisoners, but in practice parts of the responsibility were delegated to the OT and their private collaborators. In this way, representatives of private construction companies, usually civilians, gained influence over matters that affected the prisoners' living conditions.
In the spring of 1942, OT established its own subdivision in Norway, Einsatzgruppe Wiking.
Among other things, the department was given responsibility for building the fortifications that made up the Norwegian part of the Atlantic Wall and a 1,200 kilometer extension of the Nordlandsbanen.
Photo: Riksarkivet PA 0276, Leiv Kreyberg's archive, photographer: unknown
Norway was probably the German-occupied country which, relative to its population, received the most prisoners of war and forced labour. During the war, over 130,000 people were forcibly sent to this country to work at German facilities. Despite the fact that the majority of those who perished on Norwegian soil during the war were not Norwegians, but foreign prisoners of war and forced labourers, their stories have to a small extent become part of our collective narrative about the war.
"No prisoner of war may be used for work for which he is physically unfit." Geneva Convention of 1929, extract from paragraph 29
Photo: Riksarkivet PA 0276, Leiv Kreyberg's archive, photographer: unknown
Forced labor has little place in our collective narratives about the war
From before, we knew little about the prisoners of war and even less about the civilian forced laborers who were on Norwegian soil. Nor have we known much about the leading developer on the German side, Organization Todt (OT). The exhibition, and the research project, of which it is a part, attempts to remedy this.
Organization Todt was a paramilitary construction organization that placed itself within a proud, German engineering tradition. Initially, OT recruited voluntary workers, but during the war years the organization became increasingly dependent on forcibly mobilized labour, both prisoners of war and civilian forced labour. While the POWs received brutal treatment, the civilian forced laborers had more livable conditions. They were entitled to a salary and basically certain social rights. Throughout the war, there were also those who more or less voluntarily enlisted in the OT.
Photo: Riksarkivet PA 0276, Leiv Kreyberg's archive, photographer: unknown
OT was a parastatal organization directly subordinate to Hitler and a tool for the Nazi regime's expansion plans. With Germany as the core area, a European "large space" was to be established under German control - das Grossraum. OT's giant constructions cast in concrete can be seen as material expressions of this policy. When Allied intelligence summarized the results of OT's activities in the spring of 1945, the conclusion was that the organization was behind "the most impressive building program since Roman times".
Forced labor is not a Nazi invention.
Unfree work in various forms has played an important role throughout European history. In the 19th century, the colonial powers used forced labor to build roads and railways in the conquered areas. During the First World War, prisoners of war were used for forced labor on both sides of the front. Nazism's racist view of humanity nevertheless contributed to forced labor during the Second World War taking on a scale and brutality that has no historical parallel. Towards the end of the war, foreign prisoners of war and forced laborers made up almost a quarter of the workforce in the Third Reich.
Photo: Riksarkivet PA 0276, Leiv Kreyberg's archive, photographer: unknown
About the exhibition
The exhibition, which opened at The Norwegian Museum of Science and Technology in February 2017, was developed within the framework of the research project. At the same time, the museum has endeavored to make room for other perspectives and approaches than the research project is based on. People with backgrounds from several different disciplines, fields and professional traditions have been involved in the work on the exhibition.
In addition to historians, the museum has collaborated with archaeologists, architects, historians of ideas, museologists and artists. The exhibition's design has been created in close collaboration with scenographers from the Academy of Performing Arts at Østfold University College. The work with the exhibition has always aimed to contribute to the development of methods that combine research, dissemination and administration tasks in new ways.
Right from the start, dissemination work has played a major role. The museum has organized debate meetings and workshops and contributed to a documentary film about forced labour. A year and a half before the exhibition's official opening, a smaller part of the exhibition was made available to the public. The ambition was to bring researchers, various interested parties and the general public into the exhibition, while it was still being prepared. In this way, the museum wanted to create engagement and publicity around the exhibition and its theme, while at the same time entering into a dynamic and binding dialogue with its surroundings.
Thanks to the Norwegian Technical University of Science and Technology, the Fritt Ord Foundation, the Statens Vegvesen and the Errinerrung, Veranwortung, Zukunft Foundation, who have supported the exhibition financially.
Project Manager
