As democracy in Europe faltered, so did worker's rights. Nazi Germany used the workers of the countries it defeated as forced labour, and systematically worked dissenters and Jewish people to death. During the Cold War, in the West, social peace was bought by improving working conditions, while in the East, the worker supposedly so central to communism lost many basic rigths. There was renewed hope in the 70s that things would get better for workers, but it turned out to be a false dawn.