Companion volume to the exhibition

The exhibition tells the whole story of National Socialist forced labor and its post-1945 consequences for the first time. It shows that forced labor was a mass phenomenon: during World War II, a workforce of twenty million performed involuntary labor for National Socialist Germany almost all over Europe. It moreover sheds light on the fact that, from the beginning, forced labor was an integral part of the NS state's racist social order: the propagated "people's community" and forced labor performed by the outsiders were two sides of the same coin.

This volume documents the main aspects of the exhibition an presents numerous hitherto unknown historical photos and documents. Several accompanying articles offer more in-depth insight into current research of the history of National Socialist forced labor.