[BRIEF NOTE] On IKEA's East German forced labour and globalization

[rfmcdonald]

The Deutsche Welle article's simple title of "East Germany relied on forced labour" has the signal flaw of seeming to communicate conventional wisdom when, in fact, it's communicating something come new to public attention: East Germany made use of forced labour to produce goods which could earn hard currency. It's interesting to note that East Germany, arguably the most developed economy of Soviet-bloc Europe, eagerly entered into the sorts of trade relationships with Western countries--low-end manufactures and agricultural exports--which would be typical of more peripheral countries. Also, that East Germany took part in globalization to such an extent, images of autarky aside.

The allegations against furniture maker Ikea that East German laborers for years toiled for the Swedish group started the ball rolling. On May 2, the Swedish television network SVT broadcast a report that gave former prisoners in East Germany, formally the German Democratic Republic, a chance to speak. They said that up until the fall of the Berlin Wall in late 1989, Ikea furniture was made in East German jails, including by political prisoners. It was forced labor in East Germany for a Western company. This was not an isolated case, but a common practice from which many West German companies also benefited. All prisoners in East Germany were obliged to work.

"Prisoners were made to do the hardest and dirtiest work, the work that nobody else wanted to do, under the worst conditions," said Steffen Alisch of Forschungsverbund SED-Staat, a research institute at the Free University of Berlin that investigates East Germany. He says threatening letters about forced labor were sent to Ikea as early as 1984.

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What is known is that forced labor was a fixture of the business plan of the GDR. In the mid-1980s, it was estimated that there were around 20,000 in prison. The prisoners represented "only" one percent of industrial production, but the government "didn't want to do without it," said Hildigund Neubert, who is in charge of Stasi files in the state of Thuringia, in an interview with DW. "When amnesties were granted on the GDR's national day, there were complaints from the ministries. They were afraid that without these workers, the economic plan could not be fulfilled."

For their work, the prisoners were given only a pittance. But Neubert says the responsibilities of individual Western firms are difficult to determine. He thinks it would therefore be a welcome move if the companies that profited from the dirty business of the slave laborers compensated by making donations to foundations in restitution.

It was common knowledge that Western goods were produced in the GDR. But the people in both German states knew only part of the story. Western companies benefited from the low wages in the GDR, while the West German government had a political interest in trade relations in pursuit of its policy of "change through rapprochement."

East Germany saw exports to the West as an opportunity to obtain the hard currency it increasingly needed. It had cooperation agreements with Sweden and Japan. "With [West] Germany, that would have been impossible," said Maria Haendcke-Hoppe-Arndt, an economist and former employee of the Stasi documentation authorities. East Germany wanted to avoid any official connection with West Germany.

[. . .]

"But there were still arrangements as to who should provide what and how," said journalist Anne Worst, who made "Eastern Products for the West," a comprehensive television documentary for German public broadcaster MDR. "An important meeting place was the Leipzig Trade Fair. There were plenty of salespeople."

Worst's research shows that 6,000 West German companies did business with the GDR. Among them were companies such as catalog merchants Quelle and Neckermann, shoe maker Salamander and cosmetics firm Beiersdorf, but also less-well-known firms such as battery maker Varta and spirits maker Underberg. As long as the Soviet Union supplied the fraternal socialist country with cheap oil, East Germany's exports of petroleum products were abundant, as were the exports of chemicals, machinery and textiles.

[. . .]

While textiles were the best-known export item from the GDR, they were by no means the most common, Worst said: "The GDR delivered an incredible number of foods to the West, whole sides of pork, fruit and vegetables, which were also partly in short supply in the GDR. When it came to fresh food, all of West Berlin was dependent on supplies from the GDR."