Italian Workers and the German War Economy in Hitler's "New European Order" Programme (1939-1945)

Abstract

Fascist Italy constituted during the Second World War one of the principal reservoirs of labor for the German war economy. Its specific role – midway between ally and occupied country – and the mass character, progressively coercive, of the recruitment of its workers have not yet been systematically analyzed in the historical literature.
This article analyzes the employment of Italian labor in the Reich between 1939 and 1945, distinguishing two phases: the alliance phase (1939-1943) marked by formally voluntary but increasingly coercive recruitment, and the occupation phase (1943-1945) following the armistice, marked by Sauckel's plan for one and a half million workers and its total failure.
The analysis draws on the Central State Archives in Rome (Commissariat for Emigration, police prefects' reports), Enzo Collotti's study on the German administration of occupied Italy, and publications of the Gramsci Institute.
The analysis shows that Germany obtained from Italy more labor than from any other occupied country, except the USSR, Poland, and France. Italy's role in Hitler's New Order program was essentially that of a satellite supplier of labor and agricultural products. Recruitment became increasingly coercive from 1941 onwards. After the armistice of September 1943, Sauckel's plan called for one and a half million workers; by April 1944 barely 25,000 had been dispatched. The failure of Nazi plans resulted from the combined resistance of the working class (strikes of 1943-44, refusal of conscription), the industrial patron class, and the armed resistance. The episode of Genoa, where the Germans managed to deport some 2,000 workers in June 1944, illustrated both the coercive character and the ultimate futility of the German program.