Abstract
In capitalist contexts, penalty seeks to turn citizens into “productive” members of society. This is particularly visible in political systems that rely on forced labor, where the painful logic of punishment merges political subjugation with economic exploitation. Recent archaeological research on a former Nazi forced labor camp at Tempelhof airfield in Berlin underscores how an increasing reliance on unfree labor in the manufacture of German military aircrafts during the Second World War went hand in hand with the transition to a Fordist mode of production. While the material necessities of the arms industry did not bring about forced labor, the shift to assembly line work surfaces as consistent with the politico-economic requirements of the National Socialist regime.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Agamben, G. (1998). Homo Sacer: Sovereign Power and Bare Life, Stanford University Press, Stanford.
Allen, M. T. (2004). The business of genocide. In Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies (ed.), Forced and Slave Labor in Nazi-Dominated Europe: Symposium Presentations, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington, DC, pp. 9–19.
Assatzk, M. (2012). Die Nutzung des Tempelhofer Feldes in der Zeit des deutschen Nationalsozialismus (1933–1945). In Berliner Geschichtswerkstatt (ed.), Kein Ort der Freiheit—Das Tempelhofer Feld 1933–1945: Konzentrationslager—Luftwaffenstützpunkt—Rüstungszentrum. Beiträge zur gedenkpolitischen Debatte über den Flughafen Tempelhof, Bunter Hund, Berlin, pp. 11–19.
Benz, W., and Distel, B. (eds.) (2006). Der Ort des Terrors: Geschichte der nationalsozialistischen Konzentrationslager. Band 4: Flossenbürg – Mauthausen – Ravensbrück, C.H. Beck, Munich.
Bernbeck, R., Pollock, S., Trenner, J., Starzmann, M. T., Collins, E., and Davidovic, A. (2012). Die Ausgrabungen auf dem Tempelhofer Flugfeld 2012: Bericht an das Landesdenkmalamt Berlin. Unpublished excavation report, Berlin.
Blackmon, D. A. (2009). Slavery by Another Name, Anchor, New York.
Budrass, L., Scherner, J., and Streb, J. (2010). Fixed-price contracts, learning, and outsourcing: explaining the continuous growth of output and labour productivity in the German aircraft industry during the second world War. Economic History Review 63: 107–136.
Casella, E. C. (2009). On the enigma of incarceration: philosophical approaches to confinement in the modern era. In Beisaw, A. M., and Gibb, J. G. (eds.), The Archaeology of Institutional Life, University of Alabama Press, Tuscaloosa, pp. 17–32.
Casella, E. C. (2011). Lockdown: on the materiality of confinement. In Moshenska, G., and Myers, A. (eds.), Archaeologies of Internment, Springer, New York, pp. 285–295.
De Cunzo, L. A. (2006). Exploring the institution: reform, confinement, social change. In Silliman, S. W., and Hall, M. (eds.), Historical Archaeology, Blackwell, Malden, pp. 167–189.
De Giorgi, A. (2012). Punishment and political economy. In Sparks, R., and Simon, J. (eds.), Handbook of Punishment and Society, Sage, London, pp. 40–59.
Deuta-Werke. (2005). 100 Jahre Deuta – Geschwindigkeit messen und beeinflussen. Deuta-Werke GmbH. <http://www.deuta.com/uploads/media/Deuta_Festschrift_D_END1.pdf>
Foucault, M. (1995). Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. Vintage, New York.
Friedlander, H. (1995). The Origins of Nazi Genocide: From Euthanasia to the Final Solution, University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill.
Garman, J. C. (1999). Detention Castles of Stone and Steel: An Historical Archaeology of the First Rhode Island State Prison, 1838–1878. Doctoral dissertation, University of Massachusetts, Amherst.
Gluckstein, D. (1999). The Nazis, Capitalism, and the Working Class, Haymarket, Chicago.
Goffman, E. (1961). Asylums: Essays on the Social Situation of Mental Patients and other Inmates, Anchor, New York.
Gruner, W. (2004). Jewish forced labor as a basic element of Nazi persecution: Germany, Austria, and the occupied Polish territories (1938–1943). In Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies (ed.), Forced and Slave Labor in Nazi-Dominated Europe: Symposium Presentations, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington, DC, pp. 35–47.
Hayes, P. (2004). Forced and slave labor: the state of the field. In Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies (ed.), Forced and Slave Labor in Nazi-Dominated Europe: Symposium Presentations, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington, DC, pp. 1–7.
Heisig, M. (2012). Die “Weser” Flugzeugbau GmbH auf dem Flughafen Tempelhof – Rüstungsproduktion und Zwangsarbeit für den Krieg
”. In Berliner Geschichtswerkstatt (ed.), Kein Ort der Freiheit – Das Tempelhofer Feld 1933–1945: Konzentrationslager – Luftwaffenstützpunkt – Rüstungszentrum. Beiträge zur gedenkpolitischen Debatte über den Flughafen Tempelh of Bunter Hund, Berlin, pp. 41–59.Irmer, T. (2012). NS-Zwangsarbeit in der Rüstungsproduktion in Berlin. In Berliner Geschichtswerkstatt (ed.), Kein Ort der Freiheit – Das Tempelhofer Feld 1933–1945: Konzentrationslager – Luftwaffenstützpunkt – Rüstungszentrum. Beiträge zur gedenkpolitischen Debatte über den Flughafen Tempelhof, Bunter Hund, Berlin, pp. 31–39.
Jaskot, P. B. (2004). Cultural policy and political oppression: Nazi architecture and the development of SS forced labor concentration camps. In Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies (ed.), Forced and Slave Labor in Nazi-Dominated Europe: Symposium Presentations, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington, DC, pp. 21–33.
Knigge, V., Lüttgenau, R. G., and J.-C. Wagner. (eds.) (2010). Zwangsarbeit: Die Deutschen, die Zwangsarbeiter und der Krieg. Druckhaus Gera GmbH, Weimar.
Lichtenstein, A. (1996). Twice the Work of Free Labor: The Political Economy of Convict Labor in the New South. Verso, London.
Mah, A. (2012). Industrial Ruination, Community, and Place: Landscapes and Legacies of Urban Decline, Toronto University Press, Toronto.
Malachowa, M. I. (2005). Transkript in deutscher Übersetzung zum Interview mit Malachowa (geb. Schulgina), Marija Iwanowna, 08.09.2005/10.09.2005. Online-Archiv “Zwangsarbeit 1939-1945”/Teilsammlung Russland – Universität Woronesch (Archiv-ID ZA345). <http://www.zwangsarbeit-archiv.de>
Mbembe, A. (2003). Necropolitics. Public Culture 15: 11–40.
Michałowska, S. (1997). Letter from Stanisława Michałowska to Gisela Wenzel, Łódź, 16.12.1997. Dokumentationszentrum NS-Zwangsarbeit Berlin-Schöneweide, Sammlung Berliner Geschichtswerkstatt (Brief P467).
Morris, N., and Rothman, D. J. (1995). Introduction. In Morris, N., and Rothman, D. J. (eds.), The Oxford History of the Prison: The Practice of Punishment in Western Society, Oxford University Press, Oxford, pp. vii–xiv.
Myers, A., and Moshenska, G. (2014). Confinement and detention in political and social archaeology. In Smith, C. (ed.), Encyclopedia of Global Archaeology, Springer, New York, pp. 1623–1633.
O’Brien, P. (1995). The prison on the continent: Europe, 1865–1965. In Morris, N., and Rothman, D. J. (eds.), The Oxford History of the Prison: The Practice of Punishment in Western Society, Oxford University Press, Oxford, pp. 178–201.
Pagenstecher, C. (2010). “We were treated like slaves”: remembering forced labor for Nazi Germany. In Mackenthun, G. and Hörmann, R. (eds.), Human Bondage in the Cultural Contact Zone: Transdisciplinary Perspectives on Slavery and Its Discourses, Waxmann, Münster, pp. 275–291.
Pophanken, H. (2000). Gründung und Ausbau der “Weser”-Flugzeugbau GmbH 1933 bis 1939. Hauschild, Bremen.
Roy, A. (1998). The God of Small Things, HarperCollins, New York.
Rusche, G. and Kirchheimer, O. (1939 [2003]). Punishment and Social Structure. Transaction, New Brunswick, NJ.
Scherner, J. (2006). Industrial investment in Nazi Germany: the forgotten wartime boom. <http://economics.yale.edu/sites/default/files/files/WorkshopsSeminars/Economic-History/scherner-060329.pdf>
Schofield, J., Johnson, W. G., and Beck, C. M. (eds.) (2002). Matériel culture: The Archaeology of Twentieth-Century Conflict, Routledge, London.
Serafinowski, W. (2005). Transkript in deutscher Übersetzung zum Interview mit Serafinowski, Wacław, 27.05.2005. Online-Archiv “Zwangsarbeit 1939-1945”/Teilsammlung “Polen – Karta Warschau” (Archiv-ID ZA228). <http://www.zwangsarbeit-archiv.de>
Spoerer, M., and Fleischhacker, J. (2002a). The compensation of Nazi Germany’s forced labourers: demographic findings and political implications. Population Studies: A Journal of Demography 56(1): 5–21.
Spoerer, M., and Fleischhacker, J. (2002b). Forced laborers in Nazi Germany: categories, numbers, and survivors. Journal of Interdisciplinary History 33: 169–204.
Starzmann, M. T. (2014). Excavating tempelhof airfield: objects of memory and the politics of absence. Rethinking History 18(2): 211–229.
Uziel, D. (2006). Between industrial revolution and slavery: mass production in the German aviation industry in World War II. History and Technology 22(3): 277–300.
Wacquant, L. J. D. (2002). From slavery to mass incarceration: rethinking the “race question” in the US. New Left Review 13: 41–60.
Wacquant, L. J. D. (2009). Punishing the Poor: The Neoliberal Government of Social Insecurity, Duke University Press, Durham.
Weiss, L. (2011). Exceptional space: concentration camps and labor compounds in late nineteenth-century South Africa. In Moshenska, G., and Myers, A. (eds.), Archaeologies of Internment, Springer, New York, pp. 21–32.
Winzer, B. (2012). Der industriell-militärisch-wissenschaftliche Komplex im Nationalsozialismus: Das Beispiel der Luftfahrtforschung, in Berliner Geschichtswerkstatt (ed.), Kein Ort der Freiheit – Das Tempelhofer Feld 1933–1945: Konzentrationslager – Luftwaffenstützpunkt – Rüstungszentrum. Beiträge zur gedenkpolitischen Debatte über den Flughafen Tempelhof, Bunter Hund, Berlin, pp. 61–67.
Winzer, B. (2009) Arbeit für den Feind: Zwangsarbeit und Rüstungsproduktion im Flughafen Tempelhof.<http://www.thf33-45.de/thf_static/PDF/Arbeit_fuer_den_Feind.pdf>. Accessed 12 Jan 2015
Acknowledgments
This article grew out of a conference paper I presented in an inspiring session on “The distress of things: Materiality, agency, and ethics” organized by Rui Gomes Coelho at the 2013 Annual Meetings of the American Anthropological Association. Since then, the paper has indeed grown, dramatically changing shape and improving greatly, I believe, as a result of the careful readings offered by LouAnn Wurst, Ruth Van Dyke, and Beate Winzer. I thank them for their perceptive comments and criticisms. Beate Winzer has also drawn my attention to the letters from former forced laborers in the archives of the Berliner Geschichtswerkstatt. Thanks are due to Charles Orser as well as two reviewers for their suggestions and assistance in publishing this paper. Props to Adam Friedman, who did a final read of my text, fine-tuning it, and dealing with occasional language idiosyncrasies.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Starzmann, M.T. The Materiality of Forced Labor: An Archaeological Exploration of Punishment in Nazi Germany. Int J Histor Archaeol 19, 647–663 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10761-015-0302-9
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10761-015-0302-9