In the administrative district of Munich alone, a total of 13,500 foreign civilian labourers and prisoners of war performed forced labour during the Second World War. Based partly on previously unpublished material, the authors examine the so-called 'Ausländereinsatz' (use of foreigners) in the administrative district of Munich: recruitment by force abroad, the living conditions of the forced labourers in the Munich district, and their relations to the local population. To this end, documents from the federal archive as well as from state and communal archives, interviews with contemporary witnesses and letters of former forced labourers were evaluated. This documentation of numerous individual destinies demonstrates in exemplary fashion, the forms adopted by forced labour during the Second World War.