'Steiger' was a German programme designed to reduce the severe shortage of workers in the mining industry (15 July 1943 onward).

Male prisoners of war, captured partisans and deserters had hitherto been excluded from the mining industry, but on 15 July 1943 the Oberkommando der Wehrmacht ordered that this exclusion be lifted, and in the first stage of the resulting programme some 65,000 prisoners were thus made available to the industry.