 Female forced laborer wearing anOst-Arbeiter badge at the former SS OstiArbeitslager nearŁódź, Poland, January 1945 | |
| Company type | Corporation |
|---|---|
| Industry | Manufacturing |
| Founded | General Government, Poland (March 1943 (1943-03)) |
| Defunct | March 1944 (1944-03) |
| Headquarters | |
Key people | SS-Obersturmführer Max Horn SS-GruppenführerOdilo Globocnik |
| Owner | SS |
Number of employees | 17,000 forced laborers (peak)[1] |
OstindustrieGmbH ("East Industry", abbreviated asOsti) was one of many industrial projects set up by theNazi GermanSchutzstaffel (SS) usingJewish and Polish forced labor duringWorld War II. Founded in March 1943 inGerman-occupied Poland, Osti operated confiscatedJewish andPolish prewar industrial enterprises, including foundries, textile plants, quarries andglassworks. Osti was headed bySS-Obersturmführer Max Horn, who was subordinated directly toObergruppenführerOswald Pohl of theSS Main Economic and Administrative Office.[2] At its height, some 16,000 Jews and 1,000 Poles worked for the company, interned in a network of labor and concentration camps in theLublin District of the semi-colonialGeneral Government territory.[1][2]
SS-GruppenführerOdilo Globocnik hoped to makeOstindustrie into an armaments company, but gave up the idea to pursueOperation Reinhard instead.[3] The company was dissolved ahead of theSovietcounter-offensive of 1944.[1][2][3] The entire slave-labor workforce of Osti was exterminated in the process of the company's dissolution, during the deadliest phase ofthe Holocaust in Poland.[4]
By 16 May 1943, theSS Ostindustrie GmbH controlled several factories and workshops across Poland, grouped into five activeWerke.[5] These included a glassworks inWołomin (Werk I), a turf factory in Dorohucza (Werk II), a broom and brush factory in Lublin (Werk III), workshops inBliżyn,Radom, andTomaszów (Werk IV), andSplitwerk – a grouping which comprised a shoe factory, tailoring factory, carpentry and joinery at theBudzynArbeitslager, a turf factory in Radom and an iron foundry in Lublin (Werk V). Several additionalWerke were under construction at that time, including vehicle spare parts factories, theTrawnikiArbeitslager (Werk VI), earth and stone works in Lublin (Werk VII), a medical sanitary ware factory (Werk VIII), various slave-labor workshops inLemberg, and thePoniatowaArbeitslager (later transferred toTöbbens).[6] By mid-1943, Globocnik projected the labor force of Osti to include some 45,000 Jews from a network of parallel camps with the main branch atMajdanek concentration camp; however, the physical infrastructure in the region was insufficient for such numbers.[7][8]
Max Horn believed that Jewish forced labor was the way of the future, but his plans were halted by theWarsaw andBiałystok ghetto uprisings, the latter of which occurred where theOstindustrie textile and armament factories were scheduled for relocation.[7][9][10] In the wake of the uprisings, and with the war on the Eastern Front increasingly turning against Germany, the SS decided to eliminate Poland's remaining Jewish forced laborers to prevent further unrest. On 3 November 1943, Osti's workforce was liquidated in its entirety in the course ofAktion Erntefest, the single largest German massacre of Jews in the entire war, with approximately 43,000 victims acrossDistrict Lublin being shot in fake anti-tank trenches.[11] Subsequently, Horn complained in a report to Globocnik about the outcome ofAktion Erntefest; he stated that it had made Osti "completely valueless through the withdrawal [sic] of Jewish labor".[12] The company became officially defunct in March 1944.[1]
=HLSL Item No.: 4035
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