Le S.T.O.
At once installed, occupying it thus made work on its account the French companies. After having taken a significant share of the industrial and agricultural production, the leaders of Reich requires the departure for Germany of the French workers. Vis-a-vis with the extent of the German losses on the face of the east, the mobilization of all the valid men, the needs for an all-out war, the needs for foreign labour are more significant.
From August 1940 at June 1942, between 60.000 and 150.000 volunteers leave to work in Germany. Their number being insufficient, Laval founds on June 22, 1942 « the Changing » , the principle consists in exchanging a prisoner who would return to France, against three French workmen who would leave for Germany. This initiative being also a failure, « service of obligatory work », known as « STO », is founded. It envisages the mobilization of all people born between 1920 and 1922. Between 400.000 and 450.000 young people are thus constrained to leave, all confused professions and social categories.
The French state is among the European states to only force its nationals to collaborate, and to provide such a significant percentage of labour. If one does not have reliable and complete statistics concerning the French workers left for Germany, one can estimate their number at 600.000 or 650.000. If one adds the French workers remained in France in the arms factories one obtains the figure, according to Jean Paul Cointet, of 3 million people.
After the defeat, Pétain affirms that it is necessary to pay for the last errors. This feeling of redemption is used to him to justify the forced departure of workers in Germany.
As of August 1940, occupying it called upon the volunteers and opens the first offices of recruitment. From August at June 1942, between 60.000 and 150.000 voluntary workmen leave to work in Germany. Attracted by contracts of advantageous employment, a great number is exiled for reasons of strict needs. Indeed, the wages drop, unemployment is then estimated at one 1 million, the working weeks account for 60 to 70 hours, and much of companies are forced to close because of the raw material shortages.
( The first workmen are shown in example by the German authorities and vichyssoises. Propaganda, through the diffusion of posters, texts and leaflets, puts forward the equation: « work = money = happiness ». Newspaper of May 23, 1941 )
In Germany, the requisition of the foreign labour is orchestrated during 3 years by Albert Speer and Fritz Sauckel. Albert Speer wish that French industry turn to the service of Reich by using the local labour. Fritz Sauckel, appointed police chief for the use of the labour, wants on the contrary to organize the deportation of the French labour in Germany.
In January 1942, the German army having to face unexpected resistance of Russia miss men. Requisitioning the last German workmen, it has more than ever need for foreign labour. The occupant multiplies the number of his own offices of recruitment, but the voluntary workmen are not enough numerous. Sauckel comes to Paris in May 1942, to require 350.000 French worker sending in Germany, in including 150.000 specialists. Laval makes up this requirement in a generous company: « the changing ».
..............................................
The changing is a project worked out by Scapini September 40, and then rejected by the Germans. Created to give satisfaction to Sauckel, while maintaining the fiction of voluntariate, the principle of the changing consists with to exchange a prisoner who would return to France, against three French workmen who would leave for Germany. The testimony of the Minister for Labour Hubert Lagardelle makes it possible to moderate this principle " Laval had agree to exchange a free worker against a prisoner... The refusal of German did not discourage the obstinacy of Laval which made accept an intermediate solution, which was to be only provisional: a release against three engagements. The exchange, was actually done, in a proportion of for seven."
The German services and the authorities of Vichy jointly install an apparatus of recruitment. Departmental commissions of information on the Changing are put place. The ministry for information undertakes one large propaganda campaign, by diffusing leaflets, posters and booklets. It requests the departure under the mode of the exchange, by accentuating familiarity with the workman who leaves and that which returns. The concept of voyage is associated with that of promise.
If, actually, this propaganda campaign is a true blackmail with the release of the prisoners, it calls upon generosity, within the meaning of the responsibility, and with solidarity. The current events show the station of Compiegne, high place of transit, decorated with the weapons with the marshal and accessible in brass bands them " happy recipients of the exchange ".
Vision of Cavanna, such as it exposes it in its novel " Russkoffs " is quite different from that of the current events: " At the beginning, the guy of the current events were there with their cameras, and also the journalists, but they did not advance far on the quay, then it was enough to hang some coaches of third class, reformed but nevertheless, in tail of train. The goods or cattle trucks would not be seen with the screen, with the good angle. Just before one makes us go up, the guy of the militia (...) had brought himself with pots of painting and had smeared in large white letters on the sides of the coaches: " the changing lives! ", " Pétain Lives! ", " Laval Lives! " ".
Despite everything the efforts made by the Vichy government, the changing is a failure. At the end of August 1942, between 47.000 and 60.000 workers, more forced than voluntary, left to work in Germany; while Sauckel had required 350.000 of them. It is then, which is founded the " service of obligatory work " called " STO ".
...........................................................
With the introduction of the STO, the Vichy government rocks in there the most extreme collaboration, by imposing the forced departure of a category of the population. If the changing had known to preserve the illusion of a reciprocity in collaboration and voluntariate, the definite STO on the contrary like a forced collaboration and without real counterpart. The law n°869 of September 4, 1942, relating to the use and the orientation of the labour, the obligatory conscription of all the old men from 18 imposes 50 years and to all the unmarried women from 21 to 35 years. As Jean-Paul Cointet underlines it " it is the first law on the STO ". In February 1943 the all-out war is declared, which requires an increase in production. Sauckel returns to Paris, and requires that a new quota of 250.000 men be dispatched for mid-March; in addition to the 240.000 constrained workmen to leave after September 4. The Vichy government knowing that the requisition of September could not have provided such a number of men, promulgates a new legislation.
The law of February 16, 1943 carrying institution of obligatory work the requisition imposes, for one two years duration, of all the young men between 1920 and 1922, i.e. old of 20, 21 and 22 years.
Whereas the departure of the young workers for Germany is imposed, the return of the prisoners of war ceases. The prisoners become « free workers » . This new statute hardly modifies their fate, since they are always constrained to work for the saving in war hitlérienne.(Journal of July 9, 1943)
The lists of the people necessary for the " STO " are stopped by the prefects. The mayors, charged to inform the files, use the cards of supply or have recourse to the denouncement. Threats and pressures are exerted on the families. Fines, going from 10.000 to 100.000 francs, are fixed at the beginning of June 1943 for whoever would help a refractory. Searchings and controls of font are exerted in Paris as of February. Wanting to reassure the population, propaganda shows the young workers eating with their hunger, and being rested in comfortable quarters. Actually, the workmen live in majority beside the factories or they are employed, in quarters very similar to stalags even if they are not surrounded by barbed wires. Piled up in small dormitories, they sleep on straw mattresses, work 12 hours per day, and are badly nourished. The majority of testimonys according to war evoke daily hunger and a constant tiredness.
Propaganda wants to make believe that the STO is the occasion to acquire professional competences or to exert its trade. Actually, the occupational qualifications are not often taken into account . Cavanna tells, in its novel " the " Ruskoffs ", that the French workmen made to Germany, are sent in centers of sorting or they are chosen by the German owners according to their physical capacities, and not of their professional competence.
The introduction of the STO devotes the rupture enters the mode of Vichy and the population . An increasing hostility is born, not only in the workmen but also at the peasants and the middle class, populations until supported by Vichy. Thus, As underlines it the historian H. Roderick Kedward " It is starting from the introduction of the STO that L ' one can start to go back internal collapse to Vichy. To send young French workmen to work in Germany was so much in contradiction with the currency: work, family, fatherland, that no attempt at justification was more credible "
Demonstrations burst in all France. Women lie down on the rails to prevent the trains leaving, while shouting " Not in Laval " " Not with the deportation ", while bombarding the representatives of rotted fruit Vichy.
majority of French becomes aware, with the introduction of the " STO ", economic and human plundering caused by the occupation. The " STO " also contributes to make rock a part the opinion in favour of resistance, who immediately catalogued the " STO " like a deportation. Some refractories with the STO, entered resistance. The account of Jean Guibal testifies some.
Sauckel, for this reason, was regarded ironically as the principal officer recruiter of the units of men of the maquis. The fight counters the STO also led the various currents of resistance to reinforce their means.
Conclusion
After the defeat of Germany, the forced workers arrive in France which already lived the release. Many knew difficult living conditions being completed by the experiment traumatisante bombardment of Germany. If Cavanna testifies that it was well accomodated by the French population with the release, some engaged as voluntary were shown in front of the civic rooms to have collaborated with Germany. Those quiavaient taken part in the changing were considered less suspect. Their engagement which can be compared to a gesture of solidarity. The men requisitioned by the STO do not have pasjamais regarded juridically as deportees. In 1951 it obtain the statute of PCT: " people contraintesau work ". But, living conditions in the camps, and forced lamigration of a category of population could justify obtaining the title of deportee. Many testimonys of former forced workers were published. They clarify a page of the history still remained very obscure.
