As Chief of Staff of the 2nd Army, Tresckow signed an order on 28 June 1944 to abduct Polish and Ukrainian children in the so-called Heu-Aktion (Hay Action). Between 40,000 and 50,000 Polish and Ukrainian children aged 10 to 14 were kidnapped for Nazi Germany's forced labour programme. The order read in part "In operations against gangs, any boys and girls taken between ages 10 and 13 who are physically healthy, and whose parents either cannot be located or who, as persons unable to work, are to be sent to the area earmarked for remaining families (the dregs are to be sent to the Reich)."