Was it forced labour that Italian workers continued to build the VW factory while German workers cemented the Westwall? Probably not, because they were recruited as volunteers. But certainly the transport of young Frenchmen to BMW as a substitute for their military service, which they could no longer do in occupied France.

Nevertheless, these were still the more harmless cases, because apparently they were able to move around relatively freely in Munich after work. It perhaps also shows that forced labourers were treated very differently. One can probably say that the more from the East, the worse they fared, of course the worst being concentration camp prisoners.

The decisive factor is the person with whom the forced labourer has to deal. We will talk about the so-called 'oppressors' later. However, they were also somehow dependent. If you let too much go by, which slowed down the work, it was their turn. And of course people from other countries had little interest, for example, in producing engines for aeroplanes that might threaten fellow countrymen.

The way to the concentration camp already mentioned, e.g. in Dachau, was not far, and that is not only meant geographically. So if the work was too slow or the absenteeism was unexcused, you might be punished by being transferred to a job at another company, but with the possibility of ending up with a more nasty oppressor.

That was not the best time for heroism in the Third Reich. But it is also important to mention that hardly any citizen could ignore the phenomenon of forced labourers, officially called 'foreign workers'. And then there were the striped-clad prisoners who were led to work under the strictest of guards. Dachau ultimately had 169 subcamps.

Strange conditions arose at work. For often there was also the language barrier. For the German foreman also had to bear his risks, the eastern front was looming. It was good if worker and oversees had made peace with each other to some extent. Then there was less likelihood of unfavourable work results. Obviously, many more incidents were called 'sabotage' than actually happened.

Higher up, the pressure was certainly not less, only the consequences different. When Director Popp was forced out of office, he was threatened with criminal proceedings at the same time. He probably had to live under this sword of Damocles until the end of the Nazi era. Max Friz was also replaced as head of aircraft engine development in Munich and 'punitively transferred' to Eisenach.

And then Allach. It must have been a huge subcamp. Just barracks, of course. We know from Ausschwitz/Birkenau that the time before the gas death must have been almost worse than the death itself. Slatted frames for five to six people, crammed closely together. Some people must have shied away from going outside to go to the toilet at night because of the possible cruelty of the Kapos. And someone in such a row had better not be sick.

And of course, with the food rations given, someone was almost always sick. In the extreme, they tell of clear soup and 200 grams of bread per day, although this soup probably didn't differ much from water. How does latent malnutrition affect the performance of work? If something happened, 'sabotage' was diagnosed and, although the Nazis also had jurisdiction, not infrequently executed directly.

And BMW was, after all, no longer just Milbertshofen, Allach and Eisenach, Vienna and Berlin-Spandau with branch plants in Zühlsdorf and Basdorf, but still conquered in Paris, Alsace, Poland, Denmark and Norway. And this despite the fact that they had only concentrated on air-cooled engines. Shortly before the liberation, it is said that about 10,000 prisoners were still being held in Allach.

Finally, a quote from the BMW book by Horst Mönnich (see also table above) describing a particularly cruel henchman:

'... that SS-Hauptscharführer E. had shot two Jewish prisoners, aged about sixty, with a pistol because they asked for lighter work;

that in the winter of 1943 he read the death sentence to ten prisoners who had stolen potatoes, before they were hanged in the camp under his supervision;

that he locked a Czech political prisoner, whom he caught writing a note, in a bunker for a long time, then left him standing next to the entrance gate in summer clothes for days despite the cold weather in rain and snow, finally dousing him with cold water from the hydrant and killing him,

mistreating a Polish prisoner who could not go to work because of exhaustion for days, then making him strip naked and doing the same to him as to the Czech;

that he hit prisoners in the head and killed them when they did not line up properly, shooting them down the line with his pistol [...].

that on E.'s orders three prisoners were hanged: a Russian who had picked up an apple, a Kapo from Hanover who had refused to beat prisoners and a Polish prisoner from Swierce, offence unknown;

that in the autumn of 1944 he hanged the entire staff of an annealing furnace, consisting of about a dozen French prisoners, for alleged sabotage;

also that he repeatedly tore a prisoner's cap off his head and threw it into the open field, where, when the prisoner tried to retrieve the cap, an SS man shot him (With a reward of money and recreational benefits: Shot on the run!).'