The study analyzes the prerequisites, planning, and implementation of the closed labor deployment of Austrian Jews from 1938 to 1945. The political, social, and economic causes are systematically described for the first time, as well as its scope and course. Due to the massive impoverishment of the Jewish population, the Austrian labor administration had already employed hundreds of Jewish unemployed individuals in separate construction crews in the autumn of 1938. This deployment served as a model for the entire German Reich. The closed labor deployment was a fundamental element of the persecution strategy introduced by the Nazi leadership after the November pogrom, which combined forced expulsion with the strict separation of any Jews unable to emigrate from Nazi society. Initially, unemployed Jews registered with the labor offices were recruited, and later.