Historical Research for Everyone? – Nazi Forced Labor as International Local History

The fact that foreign forced laborers were present in every German city and almost every village during World War II is rarely part of the local public consciousness today. Yet the history of the 13 million civilian forced laborers, prisoners of war, and concentration camp inmates is almost always much closer than one might think, whether in rural areas or in cities.¹ 

In particular, the Arolsen Archives, as well as other archives that are often accessible digitally, now provide nearly comprehensive access to lists of names and documents.² In Villingen-Schwenningen (Schwarzwald-Baar district), the Initiative on Nazi Forced Labor, founded in 2023, has made it its mission—using local examples and in collaboration with the Watch Industry Museum, the local heritage association, schools, the city archives, and volunteers—to research and raise awareness of the people, places, and routes of Nazi forced labor. So far, for the small industrial town of Schwenningen alone—which had a pre-war population of 20,000—over 3,300 names of forced laborers as well as hundreds of accommodation and work sites have been identified. During the two-year federally funded project “Local History International—On the Traces of Nazi Forced Labor in Villingen-Schwenningen” (2025–2026), numerous participatory formats were tested, particularly with students from local high schools and universities.³

This made clear the potential of uncovering Nazi forced labor in one’s own neighborhood, even when there is no local memorial and the proportion of the educated middle class in the population is small. The widespread nature of Nazi forced labor is a particularly significant topic in this context and is closely linked to questions of perpetration, racism, exploitation, and responsibility.

At the same time, a history of Nazi forced labor as “international local history” can also be understood more generally: When local history—with its diverse international connections—is rediscovered and focuses specifically on those people whose stories and perspectives have previously received no interest or attention, this goes hand in hand with an open, communicative process in which the population is addressed as broadly as possible and invited to contribute their own connections and their respective personal histories. Opening up local history as a space for exchange, participation, and individual perspectives is also relevant in light of the often overlooked significance of migration for local history—despite the fact that, for example, 46% of the population in Villingen-Schwenningen has a migration background.⁴ Traditional cultural offerings often cater only to a small portion of the population.

Project

How can the experiences and formats of the “Heimatgeschichte International” project be continued and further developed? In cooperation with Prof. Dr. Marianne Hirschberg (University of Kassel, Head of the Department of Disability, Inclusion, and Social Participation), educational and participatory formats for a follow-up project will be designed from mid-2026 through 2027. The goal is to prepare a larger application for third-party funding that will enable a project contributing to the transfer of experience. 

The focus is on making local history tangible as the “immediate” history of one’s own living environment, as well as a space for communication and exchange—a space that remains incomplete without the participation and involvement of the population, along with its diverse stories and perspectives.

The specific focus is still to be determined: For the Schwenningen district, further steps could be taken by involving relatives of former forced laborers or by broadening the perspective to include the experiences of guest workers, resettlers, and refugees—for example, through conducting interviews or organizing new storytelling cafés. It would also make sense to connect the knowledge about the several thousand labor detachments—in which prisoners of war from the Villingen Main Prisoner-of-War Camp (Stalag VB) in southwestern Germany were forced to work during World War II—to the numerous specific locations in towns and villages throughout the region. This would, on the one hand, bring to light an international local history that has largely been forgotten, and at the same time, within the regional network, it would facilitate formats for an exchange of experiences among local researchers.

Scope of Work: Design and preparation of a project featuring educational and participatory formats on international local history (as a follow-up project to “Heimatgeschichte International” on Nazi forced labor, primarily in Schwenningen)

Client: Prof. Dr. Marianne Hirschberg, University of Kassel, Head of the Department of Disability, Inclusion, and Social Participation

Implementation: Florian Kemmelmeier, Berlin, on behalf of the Initiative on Nazi Forced Labor in Schwenningen (member of LAGG Baden-Württemberg since 2024)

Duration: August 2026 – July 2027

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¹ During World War II, the number of foreign nationals averaged about one-sixth of the local prewar population. For further information on the quantitative scope of Nazi forced labor, see Mark Spoerer, Forced Labor Under the Swastika. Foreign Civilian Workers, Prisoners of War, and Detainees in the German Reich and Occupied Europe, 1939–1945, Stuttgart/Munich 2001, pp. 219–226. The permanent exhibition at the Documentation Center for Nazi Forced Labor in Berlin refers to the “ubiquity” of Nazi forced labor (catalog: Everyday Life under Forced Labor 1938–1945. Catalog accompanying the permanent exhibition of the same name, ed. by Christine Glauning and Andreas Nachama, Berlin 2013).

² The Arolsen Archives (https://arolsen-archives.org/) are the archives of the International Tracing Service in Bad Arolsen, Hesse, and hold the world’s largest collection of documents on victims of Nazi persecution. For research on Nazi forced labor, the document collections from the “Foreigners Search Operation” launched by the Allies in 1945 are particularly relevant.

³ The “Heimatgeschichte International” project was funded as part of the “Jugend erinnert vor Ort” program by the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media and the Foundation “Remembrance, Responsibility, and the Future.” Project outline in: Gedenkstättenrundbrief 219 (September 2025), p. 44. Current and past activities of the initiative, which has been a member of LAGG Baden-Württemberg since 2024, can be found on the website of the Watch Industry Museum: https://www.uhrenindustriemuseum.de/projekte/initiative-ns-zwangsarbeit.