War, Coal, and Forced Labor: Assessing the Impact of Prisoner-of-War Employment on Coal Mine Productivity in World War I Germany

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-29
Author(s):  
Tobias A. Jopp
Keyword(s):  
World War I ◽  
Prisoners Of War ◽  
Forced Labor ◽  
World War ◽  
Prisoner Of War ◽  
Work Incentive ◽  
Annual Productivity ◽  
Combining Data ◽  
Productivity Decline ◽  
The Impact

This paper assesses the causal relationship between POW assignments and labor productivity for a vital sector of the German World War I economy, namely coal mining. Prisoners of war (POWs) provided significant labor. Combining data on all Ruhr mines with a treatment-effects approach, I find that POW employment alone accounted for 36 percent of the average POW-employing mine’s annual productivity decline over wartime. Estimates also suggest that the representative POW’s productivity averaged 32 percent of the representative regular miner’s productivity and that POWs’ contribution to wartime coal output amounted to 3.9 percent. Violence did not serve as a powerful work incentive.

scholarly journals Everyday Life of German Prisoners of War in the Russian Empire during World War I (on the basis of personal documents)

2020 ◽  
pp. 67-75
Author(s):  
С.Р. Повалишникова ◽  
О.В. Захарова
Keyword(s):  
World War I ◽  
Everyday Life ◽  
Present Article ◽  
Russian Empire ◽  
Prisoners Of War ◽  
Eastern Siberia ◽  
World War ◽  
Prisoner Of War ◽  
The Russian Empire ◽  
Russian Research

Основной массив современных отечественных исследований направлен на изучение положения русских военнопленных в годы Первой мировой войны. В настоящей статье сделана попытка проанализировать бытовые условия содержания военнопленных, находившихся на территории Российской империи. Эти условия во многом зависели от звания и национальности пленных. В статье делается акцент на источники личного происхождения. Особое внимание уделяется воспоминаниям немецкого генерала Э. Людендорфа, немецкого журналиста А. Курта и находившегося в Восточной Сибири немецкого военнопленного Э. Двингера. The vast majority of modern Russian research is aimed at the investigation of the position of Russian prisoners of war during World War I. The present article attempts to analyze the conditions of everyday life of German prisoners of war who lived in the Russian Empire during World War I. The conditions largely depended on the rank and nationality of prisoners of war. The article analyzes personal documents. It focuses on memoirs written by E. Ludensdorff (German general), A. Kurt (German journalist), who lived in Eastern Siberia, and E. Dwinger (German prisoner of war).

scholarly journals Archival Silences as Historical Sources. Reconsidering Sound Recordings of Prisoners of War (1915-1918) from the Berlin Lautarchiv

2018 ◽  
Vol 7 (3) ◽  
pp. 46-60
Author(s):  
Britta Lange
Keyword(s):  
World War I ◽  
Ethnic Groups ◽  
Prisoners Of War ◽  
The State ◽  
World War ◽  
Historical Sources ◽  
Prisoner Of War ◽  
Sound Recordings ◽  
The World

This article aims to consider not only sound recordings of speech samples as historical sources, but also the absence of words and the content hereof: silences in speech. Its focus are sound recordings made by prisoners in German camps during World War I, today kept in the Lautarchiv (Sound Archive) of the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin (http://www.lautarchiv.hu-berlin.de/). The World War I recordings comprise one of the archive’s three founding collections. The fi rst contains voice portraits of illustrious fi gures such as Kaiser Wilhelm II and Paul von Hindenburg, the recordings of which began during the war in connection with the autograph collection of Ludwig Darmstaedter. The second collection is made up of voice portraits of people who were not well-known or prominent individuals, but exemplary speakers of particular languages and dialects. Between 1915 and 1918, in German prisoner of war camps, the state-funded Königlich Preußische Phonographische Kommission (Royal Prussian Phonographic Commission) produced sound recordings of a range of languages, dialects and ethnic groups for the purposes of linguistic and musicological research.

War, Revolution, and Nation-Making in Lithuania, 1914-1923

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tomas Balkelis
Keyword(s):  
World War I ◽  
Local Population ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
Prisoners Of War ◽  
Nation State ◽  
World War ◽  
Different Types ◽  
Modes Of Thought ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The Great War

This book explores how war made the Lithuanian state and shaped society from the onset of the Great War in 1914 to the last waves of violence in 1923. As the very notion of an independent Lithuania was constructed during the war, violence became an essential part of the formation of Lithuanian state, nation, and identity. War was much more than simply the historical context in which the tectonic change from empire to nation state took place. It transformed people, policies, institutions, and modes of thought in ways that would continue to shape the nation for decades after the conflict subsided. By telling the story of the post-World War I conflict in Lithuania, the book focuses on the juncture between soldiers and civilians rather than the strategies and acts of politicians, generals, or diplomats. Its two main themes are the impact of military, social, and cultural mobilizations on the local population, and different types of violence that were so characteristic of the region throughout the period. The actors in this story are people displaced by war and mobilized for war: refugees, veterans, volunteers, peasant conscripts, prisoners of war, paramilitary fighters, and others who took to guns, not diplomacy, to assert their power. The book tells the story of how their lives were changed by war and how they shaped the society that emerged after war.

The Protection of Women in International Humanitarian Law

1985 ◽  
Vol 25 (249) ◽  
pp. 337-363 ◽  
Author(s):  
Françoise Krill
Keyword(s):  
World War I ◽  
Geneva Convention ◽  
Legal Protection ◽  
Prisoners Of War ◽  
International Humanitarian Law ◽  
Humanitarian Law ◽  
World War ◽  
The Hague ◽  
Special Protection

Since the number of women who actually participated in war was insignificant until the outbreak of World War I, the need for special protection for them was not felt prior to that time. This does not imply however that women had previously lacked any protection. From the birth of international humanitarian law, they had had the same general legal protection as men. If they were wounded, women were protected by the provisions of the 1864 Geneva Convention for the Amelioration of the Condition of the Wounded in Armies in the Field; if they became prisoners of war, they benefited from the Regulations annexed to the Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907 on the Laws and Customs of War on Land.

Life conditions of Turkish prisoners on nargin island during the first world war

2021 ◽  
Vol 69 (08) ◽  
pp. 7-14
Author(s):  
Джамиля Яшар гызы Рустамова ◽  
Keyword(s):  
World War I ◽  
Caspian Sea ◽  
First World War ◽  
Prisoners Of War ◽  
World War ◽  
The Caspian Sea ◽  
The Caucasus ◽  
The First World War ◽  
The Right ◽  
First World

The article is dedicated to the matter of Turkish prisoners on the Nargin Island in the Caspian Sea during the First World War. According to approximate computations, there were about 50-60 thousand people of Turkish captives in Russia. Some of them were sent to Baku because of the close location to the Caucasus Front and from there they were sent to the Nargin Island in the Caspian Sea. As time showed it was not the right choise. The Island had no decent conditions for living and turned the life of prisoners into the hell camp. Hastily built barracks contravene meet elementary standards, were poorly heated and by the end of the war they were not heated at all, water supply was unsatisfactory, sometimes water was not brought to the prisoner's several days. Bread was given in 100 grams per person per day, and then this rate redused by half. Knowing the plight of the prisoners, many citizens of Baku as well as the Baku Muslim Charitable Society and other charitable societies provided moral and material support to prisoners, they often went to the camp, brought food, clothes, medicines Key words: World War I, prisoners of war, Nargin Island, refugees, incarceration conditions, starvation, charity

The Great War of the Postcards

2021 ◽  
Vol 88 (3) ◽  
pp. 525-568
Author(s):  
Johann Strauss
Keyword(s):  
Middle East ◽  
World War I ◽  
Great War ◽  
World War ◽  
The Balkans ◽  
Book Illustrations ◽  
Characteristic Features ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The Great War

This article examines the functions and the significance of picture postcards during World War I, with particular reference to the war in the Ottoman Lands and the Balkans, or involving the Turkish Army in Galicia. After the principal types of Kriegspostkarten – sentimental, humorous, propaganda, and artistic postcards (Künstlerpostkarten) – have been presented, the different theatres of war (Balkans, Galicia, Middle East) and their characteristic features as they are reflected on postcards are dealt with. The piece also includes aspects such as the influence of Orientalism, the problem of fake views, and the significance and the impact of photographic postcards, portraits, and photo cards. The role of postcards in book illustrations is demonstrated using a typical example (F. C. Endres, Die Türkei (1916)). The specific features of a collection of postcards left by a German soldier who served in Turkey, Syria, and Iraq during World War I will be presented at the end of this article.

From Multi-Industry Planning to Keynesian Planning: Gardiner Means, the American Keynesians, and National Economic Planning at the National Resources Committee

1990 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 186-212 ◽  
Author(s):  
Frederic S. Lee
Keyword(s):  
World War I ◽  
Economic Planning ◽  
World War ◽  
National Planning ◽  
National Economic ◽  
Basic Characteristics ◽  
American Society ◽  
Industry Planning ◽  
The Impact ◽  
American Economy

In recent years we have witnessed a revival of interest in the National Resources Committee (NRC) and its work on national planning. The research shows that the roots of national planning at the NRC are found in the Progressive Era, when individuals sought, through city, regional, and economic planning, to bring order to American society, in the government's management of the economy during World War I, and in Hoover's attempt at macromanagement of the economy. The research also shows that national economic planning, as distinct from other forms of planning, was an important component of the committee's work. In regard to this, researchers have acknowledged that Gardiner Means, as director of the Industrial Section of the Industrial Committee and author of The Structure of the American Economy, Part I: Basic Characteristics, was an important and outspoken advocate of economic planning within the NRC, but they have been less clear as to his specific contributions to economic planning. Moreover, the researchers have not extensively investigated the NRC position toward national economic planning, the economic models from which national economic plans would be developed, and the impact of the Keynesian revolution on the NRC approach to national economic planning. These omissions are not surprising inasmuch as neither Warken's (1979) nor Clawson's (1981) general coverage of the NRC provided much more than a brief and superficial description of the Industrial Section and a listing of its most important publications. Kalish (1963), on the other hand, discussed Means and the Industrial Section in more depth but in such a disjointed manner that it is impossible to grasp the movement toward economic planning that took place in the NRC and the important role Means played in the process. Finally, neither Chapman's (1981 and 1983) nor Jeffries's (1987) discussions of the impact of the Keynesian revolution on the activities of the NRC dealt specifically with its impact on Means's work on economic planning.

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