Extermination through labour (German: Vernichtung durch Arbeit) was a Nazi German World War II principle that regulated the aims and purposes of most of their labour and concentration camps. The rule demanded that the inmates of German WWII camps be forced to work for the German war industry with only basic tools and minimal food rations until totally exhausted. Then they were transferred to extermination centres throughout occupied Europe. Combatants Allies: Soviet Union, United Kingdom, France/Free France, United States, China, Canada, India, Australia, Poland, New Zealand, South Africa, Greece, and others Axis Powers: Germany, Italy, Japan, Bulgaria, Finland, Romania, Hungary, Burma, Slovakia Casualties Military dead: 17 million Civilian dead: 33 million Total dead: 50 million Military dead: 8... A labor camp is a simplified detention facility where inmates are engaged in forced labor. ... A concentration camp is a large detention centre created for political opponents, aliens, specific ethnic or religious groups, civilians of a critical war-zone, or other groups of people, often during a war. ...

In many sub-camps unrelated to the German war machine the principle was realised through pointless heavy work, most commonly digging ditches around the camp and then levelling them or excavating earth and transporting it on foot to the other side of the camp.