This list includescorporations and their documented collaboration in the implementation ofthe Holocaust,forced labour and otherGerman war crimes.
 |
| Company | Year established | Place of origin | Activity |
|---|---|---|---|
| Accumulatoren-Fabrik AFA (laterBAE Batterien GmbH)[1][2] | 1890 | Hagen,Berlin-Oberschöneweide,Hannover (1938);Mühlhausen,Vienna,Poznań (1943) | Forced labour / slave labour. AFA used concentration camp prisoners in production. A "fluctuation" of 80 prisoners per month was planned as part of the "extermination through labour". |
| Adler (cars and motorcycle)[3][citation needed] | 1900 | Frankfurt | In 1944, the company applied to the SS Economic and Administrative Main Office for allocation of concentration camp prisoners. This was implemented, and the prisoners were housed on the premises of Plant I on Weilburger Straße. Between August 1944 and 24 March 1945, around 1,600 people were employed in the satellite camp of theNatzweiler-Struthof concentration camp, codenamed Katzbach. About a third of the concentration camp prisoners died inFrankfurt; more than 700 were taken to other camps because they were too weak to work, so that ultimately only a small proportion of those locked up in the Adler works survived. On 24 March 1945, around 350 prisoners were driven on a death march to theBuchenwald concentration camp viaHanau,Schluechtern,Fulda, andHünfeld.[4] |
| AEG | 1883 | Germany | DuringWorld War II, theAllgemeine Elektricitäts-Gesellschaft AG used large numbers offorced labourers as well asconcentration camp prisoners, under inhuman conditions of work.[5][6][7] |
| Allianz | 1890 | Berlin, Germany | Provided insurance for facilities and workers at concentration camps.[8] |
| Associated Press | 1846 | New York, United States | Censorship and cooperation with Nazi Germany.[9] |
| Astrawerke AG (ASTRA)[10] | 1921 | Chemnitz | Astra produced military hardware, utilizingforced labor from 500 female inmates of theFlossenbürg concentration camp. |
| Audi (Auto Union)[11] | 1910 | Zwickau, Germany | The company employed forced labour at a large scale during World War II.[11] Among others it exploited slave labour atLeitmeritz concentration camp. According to a 2014 report commissioned by the company, Auto Union bore "moral responsibility" for the 4,500 deaths that occurred at Leitmeritz.[12] |
| Baccarat[13] | 1764 | Baccarat, France | Produced propaganda items for Nazi State andVichy Collaborating State. |
| Bahlsen[14] | 1889 | Hannover, Germany | Employed about 800 forced labourers between 1940 and 1945. |
| BASF[15][16] | 1865 | Ludwigshafen, Germany | Collaborated with Degussa AG – nowEvonik Industries – andIG Farben – to produce sodas used inZyklon B – utilized in concentration camps to commit mass murder. For example, BASF, leader of the chemical branch of IG Farben, built a chemical factory at the IG Farben factory in Auschwitz III-Monowitz, called "IG Auschwitz". It was the largest chemical factory in the world at that time. IG Farben became notorious through its production ofZyklon-B, the lethal gas used for the mass murder of Jews and other prisoners in Germanextermination camps during the Holocaust. |
| Bayer[15][17] | 1863 | Barmen, Germany | Forced labour and medical experimentation in concentration camps,[18] production of chemicals and pharmaceuticals supplies of Nazi Germany. |
| BMW[15][19][20] | 1916 | Munich, Germany | Forced labour from concentration camps[21] |
| Chase National Bank[22][23][24] | 1877 | Manhattan, New York State, USA | Assisted in the sale of Nazi war bonds (Rückwanderer Marks) to German Americans. |
| Carl Zeiss AG[25] | 1846 | Oberkochen,Jena,Wetzlar,Mainz,Berlin | After initial conflicts with the Nazis, the company took part in the rearmament of the Wehrmacht in the 1930s and sponsored the so-called race research at the University of Jena (Optic Jena).[26] During World War II, the Zeiss company employed thousands of forced labourers, for example at the main site inJena and in the various production sites and associated companies.[27][28] (quoted from German Wikipedia:de:Carl Zeiss (Unternehmen)). As part of Naziforced labour program, Zeiss used forced labour, includingpersecution of Jews and other minorities during World War II.[29][30] |
| Continental AG | 1871 | Hanover, Germany | Continental was a major "pillar of the Nazi armaments and war economy", including spreading Nazi propaganda and employing ca. 10,000 forced labourers and concentration camp detainees under harsh and inhuman conditions. One example fromSachsenhausen concentration camp involved forcing camp prisoners to test new rubber shoe soles by walking up to 25 miles per day. If prisoners slowed down or fell, they risked being shot dead.[31] |
| Commerzbank[32] | 1937 | Frankfurt,Hamburg,Reichsgau Posen | Involved in financing theAuschwitz concentration camp, and also in co-financing of theLitzmannstadt Ghetto, as an "independent economic entity". ThePoznań branch of the bank opened an account with theDeutsche Waffen- und Munitionsfabriken (DWM), and was agreed early on as a provisional trustee for theWagon and Arms Factory Zaklady H. Cegielski in Poznań, thus participating indirectly inextermination through labour.[32] ThroughAryanization of the property of Jews displaced or murdered during the Holocaust Commerzbank participated and benefited mostly through brokerage commissions. From 1940 to 1944, Commerzbank opened several subsidiaries in countries occupied by theGerman Reich, including theNetherlands,Belgium,Estonia andLatvia. Towards the end of the war, the bank's headquarters moved toHamburg. In contrast to the reports on Deutsche Bank, Dresdner Bank, and IG Farben, the OMGUS report by the American occupation forces on Commerzbank in the first post-war years has not yet been published.[33] |
| Degussa AG (nowEvonik Industries)[34][35][15] | 1843 | Frankfurt, Germany | Zyklon B pesticide production used for executions ingas chambers. One of its subsidiaries, the firmDeutsche Gesellschaft für Schädlingsbekämpfung—shortened toDegesch—sold Zyklon B to both theGerman Army and theSchutzstaffel (SS) for use in industrial style murder.[36] |
| Dehomag (former subsidiary ofIBM)[37][page needed][38][39] | 1896 | Germany | Provided data computers for theGestapo state police notably for arrests. |
| Deutsch-Amerikanische Petroleum Gesellschaft (DAPG)[40] – nowEsso/ExxonMobil | 1890 | Bremen,Hamburg | TheDeutsch-Amerikanische Petroleum Gesellschaft, also known asGerman-American Petroleum Company, was a Germanpetroleum company that was a subsidiary ofStandard Oil and was founded in 1890.[41] At the beginning of the 20th century, the petroleum was sold under the brandDAPOL. In 1904, the Standard Oil Company took a 50 percent stake in the company and moved the company's headquarters to Hamburg.[42] In 1935, the German-American Petroleum Company was the market leader in Germany among the Big Five petrol station chains. The DAPG operated a refinery inBremen,Berlin,Cologne andRegensburg. Furthermore, from 1938 onwards there were holdings in Hydrierwerke Pölitz AG inPölitz nearStettin (together withIG Farben and Rhenania-Ossag). In addition, a subcamp of theStutthof concentration camp was located in Pölitz. Oil production in the Reich expanded significantly during World War II, especially in the occupied countries. Production rose from around 900,000 t to almost 2 m t in 1944. The number of people employed in oil production grew from less than 6,000 in 1939 to more than 20,000 in 1944. These included many forced laborers and prisoners of war fromPoland, Ukraine and the Soviet Union. In October 1944, the composition of the workforce at theDEA AG was as follows: 17,064 Germans, 5,511 forced laborers and 4,372 prisoners of war. In the occupied areas of theGeneral Government in Poland the living conditions of the workers, who were deported, disenfranchised and terrorized, were particularly oppressive and degrading.[40] |
| Deutsche Bank[15][43][44] | 1870 | Berlin, Germany | Provided construction loans forAuschwitz. TheKatowice branch of the bank also made loans to construction companies that were active in Auschwitz, building the IG Farben plant in the neighbourhood of the concentration camp. |
| Deutsche Bergwerks- und Hüttenbau[45] | Late 1800s | Germany | Mine and quarries. |
| Deutsche Luft Hansa (nowLufthansa) | 1926 | Berlin, Germany | Politically, the company leaders were linked to the risingNazi Party; an aircraft was made available toAdolf Hitler for his campaign for the1932 presidential election free of any charge. The Nazi party used footage of those flights for their propaganda efforts and gained an advantage in being able to hold events featuring Hitler in different places in far quicker succession than other parties which relied largely on rail transport.Erhard Milch, who had served as head of the airline since 1926, was appointed byHermann Göring to be head of theAviation Ministry when Hitler came to power in 1933;[46] Milch had been a member of the Nazi party since 1929, and was later convicted of war crimes.[47][48] According to a leading scholar of the history of German aviation, from this point, "Lufthansa served as a front organization for armament, which took place secretly until 1935 – it was an air force in disguise."[46] The historianNorman Longmate reported that during its peacetime flights in the 1930s, the airline had secretly photographed the entire British coastline as preparation for a possible invasion.[49] During World War II, Deutsche Luft Hansa employed more than 10,000 forced laborers, including many children, from occupied countries; forced Jewish labor was particularly used from 1940 to 1942.[50][51][52] Forced laborers were used to install and maintain radar systems and to assemble, repair, and maintain aircraft, including military aircraft.[53][52] Forced laborers were lodged in barracks run by Luft Hansa on the Tempelhof site and elsewhere in Berlin were surrounded by barbed wire and guarded by authorities with machine guns; sanitation in these camps, was poor, as was the level of medical care and nutrition.[53][52] In 2012, a team of archaeologists excavated the site of the camp run by Luft Hansa on Tempelhof airport.[53] |
| Deutsche Reichsbahn[54][55] | 1920–1945 | Berlin | Enabled the deportation of Jews to theNazi concentration camps. It made money from the mass transport of prisoners from all over Europe to the death camps. |
| Deutsche Erd- und Steinwerke GmbH (DEST)[56][57][58][59][60] | 1938 | Sankt Georgen an der Gusen,Mauthausen,Flossenbürg,Auschwitz | SS owned stone works and later, armaments manufacturer. Used slave labour. An SS-owned company created to procure and manufacture building materials for state construction projects in Nazi Germany. InGusenGusen II, a subcamp of Mauthausen, was built in 1944. DEST employed slave labor, most of whom were Jews, in the quarries. From 1943 it played a key role, helping the SS to enter some key war industries. Human labor was used cruelly, becoming one of the main tenets of war crime charges in theNuremberg Trials. (Copied content fromde:Deutsche Erd- und Steinwerke). |
| Dornier Flugzeugwerke[61] | 1914 | Friedrichshafen,Oberpfaffenhofen,Wismar,Lübeck | The company produced many designs for both the civil and military markets. At Dornier inMunich-Neuaubing, for example, there were more than 1,900 forced labourers. Dornier also exploited prisoners from the Dachau concentration camp at other production sites. |
| Dr. Oetker | 1891 | Bielefeld,Germany | Rudolf-August Oetker was an active member of the Waffen-SS of the Third Reich. The company supported the war effort by providing pudding mixes and munitions to German troops. The business used slave labour in some of its facilities. The Oetker Family is among those German families, who have profited most from their close relations to the Nazi-Regime. |
| Dresdner Bank[15][62][63] | 1872 | Dresden, Germany | Major stakeholder in the construction company forAuschwitz.[64] Dresdner Bank AG was a German bank and was based in Frankfurt. After the banking crisis in 1931 theGerman Reich owned 66% andDeutsche Golddiskontbank owned 22% of Dresdner Bank shares. Its deputy director wasHjalmar Schacht, Minister of Economy under Nazism.[citation needed] The bank was reprivatised in 1937. Dresdner Bank was known as the bank of choice for Heinrich Himmler'sSS.[65] The bank took part early on in Nazi Germany's confiscation of Jewish property and wealth.[65] In 1935, for example, as part of theAryanization of Jewish assets, it took over the long-established private bank Arnhold inDresden. The Dresdner Bank was also closely involved in theoccupation of Europe, essentially acting as the bank of theSS in Poland.[65] During World War II, Dresdner Bank controlled various banks in countries under German occupation. It took over the Bohemian Discount Bank inPrague, the Societatea Bancară Română inBucharest, the Handels- und Kreditbank inRiga, the Kontinentale Bank inBrussels, and Banque d'Athenes. It maintained majority control of the Croatian Landerbank and the Kommerzialbank inKraków and the Deutsche Handels- und Kreditbank inBratislava. It took over the French interests in the Hungarian General Bank and the Greek Credit Bank, and it founded the Handelstrust West N. V. inAmsterdam. It also controlled Banque Bulgare de Commerce inSofia and the Deutsche Orient-Bank inTurkey. |
| Eisenwerke Oberdonau[66][67] | 1938–1942 | Linz | A largesteel andiron producing company, a holding of several steel works in southernGermany. Created after theAnschluss of Austria, it formed the part of the so-calledReichswerke Hermann Göring AG cartel, the main supplier of steel and iron for the German war industry during World War II. It is also argued that it was the largest steel mill complex in Europe at that time.[66] The main steel factory inLinz[68] supplied its products to the nearby factories of tank hulls and turrets atSankt Valentin (so-calledNibelungenwerk).[69] Throughout the war, the company also ran two sub-camps of theMauthausen-Gusen concentration camp where it benefited from theslave labour of inmates held there. The "Eisenwerke Oberdonau" continued production from 1944 with thousands of concentration camp inmates. It was the production site in theLinz area, which almost exclusively produced with forced laborers.[67] Here prevailed the highest work pressure, the longest working hours and the highest proportion of foreigners.[70] |
| Erla Maschinenwerk[71] | 1934 | Leipzig | From March 1943 to April 1945, there was theLeipzig-Thekla subcamp of theBuchenwald concentration camp belonging to Erla. Also, further camps were set up by front companies at various outsourced production facilities such asFlöha ("Fortuna GmbH", fuselage construction) orMülsen St. Micheln ("Gross GmbH", wings). In 1944, the maximum of around 4,300 machines was reached with the use of forced laborers and "Eastern workers" and decentralized production. |
| Flick family[72][73][74][75][76][77] | 1927 | Berlin | The enterprises of convicted War criminalFriedrich Flick were instrumental in Nazi Germany's rearmament efforts. After the launching of the Second World War, Flick's companies employed an estimated 48,000 forced laborers in his coal mines, steel plants, and munitions works. It is estimated that some 80 percent of these workers may have perished within the framework of the Naziextermination through labour policy. |
| Flugmotorenwerke Ostmark[78][79] | 1941 | Wiener Neudorf,Maribor,Brno,Dubnica nad Váhom | Construction began on 25 July 1941. Within eight months, 7,900 workers, mostly forced laborers and prisoners of war, had completed the work. In November 1941, 15,000 workers were already employed to set up the three group plants, including 1,900 prisoners of war and at least 2,000 forced labourers. At the end of January 1942, inWiener Neudorf 8278 workers employed. On 4 August 1943, satellite camps of theMauthausen concentration camp were set up inGuntramsdorf andHinterbrühl. The camp inWiener Neudorf provided the workers for the company. |
| Ford[80][81] | 1903 | Dearborn, Michigan, USA | German subsidiaries engaged in vehicle and war production. Used slave/forced labor. Unclear whether parent company had any influence post-1939. Its founderHenry Ford was a virulent anti-Semite. |
| Forst- und Gutsverwaltung des Stiftes St. Lambrecht[82] | 1938 | Mariazell | After theAnschluß in May 1938, the St. Lambrecht Abbey (monastery) was confiscated by theNazi regime and administered bySS-Obersturmbannfuhrer Hubert Erhart. In theGau Bayerische Ostmark, 1942 renamedDonau-and Alpengaue, the nearbyMauthausen concentration camp, which became operational on 8 August 1938, served as a hub for the renting out of slave laborers to arms factories and, to a lesser extent, to agricultural concerns. Under the aegis of theSS Main Economic and Administrative Office, individuals from concentration camps, who were completely deprived of all rights, were "rented out" as were others to a number of arms factories in the Donau-and Alpengaue. Camps such asLannach with their relatively "easy" prison regime are at one extreme of this system in the Donau- and Alpengaue,Mauthausen concentration camp andGusen concentration camp, which practiced extermination through work, marked the other end of the scale. Of the 300,000 prisoners of war on Austrian soil, roughly 260,000 were utilized as forced laborers. Foreign workers and concentration camp prisoners were already used on the territory of the Reich even before the outbreak of World War II. On 13 May 1942, the first transport of around 90 concentration camp prisoners arrived fromDachau concentration camp, and the monastery became a satellite camp of Dachau concentration camp. About a year later, 30 Bible Students (Jehovah's Witnesses) arrived fromRavensbrück, for whom a second satellite camp was set up, since SS guidelines required that women and men be separated. From 20 November 1942, until the liberation in May 1945, the men's camp was under the control of theMauthausen concentration camp and thus became a satellite camp of theMauthausen concentration camp. This meant a worsening of the prison conditions, since being transported back to the main camp – Mauthausen was a level III "return undesirable" camp – meant certain death. The women's camp remained under the administration of theRavensbrück concentration camp until the founding of the women's camp in Mauthausen on 15 September 1944. In addition to working in forestry and agriculture, the imprisoned men had to build a settlement inSankt Lambrecht[83] |
| Gaubschat Fahrzeugwerke GmbH[84][85] | 1942 | Berlin | Manufacture / conversion of gas vans for extermination of Jews. By June 1942 the main producer ofgas vans. |
| Th. Goldschmidt AG[86][87] | 1911 | Berlin | With the monopolization of the market after the Great Depression in Central Europe, Th. Goldschmidt AG finally became the Aryanizer of competing Jewish companies.[88] During the Second World War, the Chemical factory Th. Goldschmidt AG held shares inDeutsche Gesellschaft für Schädlingsbekämpfung,Tesch & Stabenow, and inAmmendorf, a large factory owned byOrgacid [de] which manufactured the notoriousZyklon B and mustard gas respectively. (Note: The company is misspelled asGoldschmit in theJewish Virtual Library List of Major Companies Involved in the Concentration Camps) |
| Gustloff Werke[89] | 1933 | Weimar,Suhl,Hirtenberg | The Foundation ran the Gustloff Werke ("Gustloff Factories"), a group of businesses confiscated from their Jewish owners or partners. By 1938 it had been organized into five major branches. One of them was the Gustloff Werk Hirtenberg, also known asOtto Eberhardt Patronenfabrik, located inHirtenberg, Austria. The company usedforced labor during World War II from a sub-camp of theMauthausen-Gusen concentration camp.[89] |
| HASAG, Hugo Schneider Aktiengesellschaft Metallwarenfabrik[90][91] | 1863 | Leipzig | Nazi arms-manufacturing conglomerate with dozens of factories across German-occupied Europe using slave labour from concentration camps and ghettos on a massive scale. |
| Heinkel[92] | 1922 | Warnemünde,Rostock,Schwechat | Of the more than 55,000 Heinkel employees in 1945, around 17,000 were forced laborers and prisoners of war. Heinkel was a major user ofSachsenhausen concentration camp labour, using between 6,000 and 8,000 prisoners on theHeinkel He 177 Greif bomber. In the Heinkel plant inOranienburg, forced laborers and prisoners from theSachsenhausen concentration camp were used on a large scale, and in the Subcamp of theRavensbrück concentration camp, the largest concentration camp for women in the German Reich was built for forced laborers.[93] Thus the aircraft industry got even overstaffed with foreign workers. For example, in February 1942, the Nordmark state employment office transferred 360 aircraft manufacturers from occupiedKharkiv to the Heinkel-Werke inRostock. In a secret situation report from 1943, statements were made that "the large companies in Rostock are so full of foreigners that they cannot be fully employed". From the middle of 1943, the Heinkel factory in Rostock-Marienehe had a satellite camp of theRavensbrück concentration camp with 2,000 prisoners, said to have had a strength of 1,500 female prisoners still in January 1945, despite heavy losses from systematic bombing raids.[94] |
| Hoesch AG[15] | 1871 | Dortmund, Germany | Mines and steel productions. |
| Hofherr-Schrantz-Clayton-Shuttleworth AG[95] | 1842 | Vienna,Budapest,Prague,Kraków,Lvov | In 1905, Hofherr-Schrantz AG merged with the Clayton & Shuttleworth company thanks to a good deal. This is how these companies came to be a large manufacturing concern, which was called HSCS-LTD for short. TheVienna factory inFloridsdorf was appropriated in 1938 byHeinrich Lanz AG ofMannheim at the time of theAnschluss inAustria. In 1943, large parts of the production area were confiscated for armaments production. Accumulators for submarines and parts of theV2 rockets were built. The number of employees increased from 3,000 in 1905 to 10,478 in 1938. The workforce continued to grow until 1945, including forced labour.,[95][96][97] |
| Hugo Boss[98] | 1924. | Metzingen, Germany | Forced labour. Hugo Boss was personally an early supporter of Hitler and manufactured the SS uniform. Produced propaganda items for Nazi State andVichy Collaborating State. |
| Huta Hoch- und Tiefbau,[99][100][101] | 1942 | Katowice,German-occupied Poland | Participation in construction measures to set up the crematoria in the Auschwitz concentration camp.[99][100][101][102] |
| IBM[37] | 1911 | Armonk, New York, United States | Produced early computers utilized in the pursuit of the Holocaust byNazi Germany. Thanks to IBM's 2,000 punch card machines, the Nazis made 1.5 billion index cards, supporting the efficient management of prison, labor and extermination camps.[103][self-published source] |
| IG Farben[104][44] | 1925 | Frankfurt am Main, Germany | Main manufacturer of theZyklon B chemical forgas chambers. Moreover,extermination through labour on a large scale.IG Farben built a plant for the production of synthetic rubber near theAuschwitz concentration camp, in which almost 4,000 prisoners worked in December 1944. The mortality rate was enormous – in the years 1943 to 1945, about 23,000 of 35,000 forced laborers died. After the war, multiple company executives were convicted of war crimes at theIG Farben Trial. |
| JAB Holding Company (owners ofKrispy Kreme,Insomnia Cookies andPret A Manger) | 1828 | Luxembourg City,Luxembourg | Profited fromforced labour duringWorld War II.[105] TheNew York Times reported that the two men who ran the family business in the 1930s and 1940s – Albert Reimann Sr. and his son Albert Reimann Jr. – actively participated in the abuse of their workers.[106] The German newspaperBild originally published the story, based on an interim report by an economic historian at LMU Munich, Paul Erker – who was hired by the Reimann family to investigate their involvement with theNazi Party.[107] The family's spokesman and a managing partner ofJAB Holding Company, which the Reimanns control – Peter Harf – toldDeutsche Welle, "Reimann Sr. and Reimann Jr. were guilty. The two businessmen have died, but they actually belonged in prison."[108] Erker's report concluded that Reimann Sr. and Reimann Jr. were virulent anti-Semites and keenly supported theNazi Party, with Reimann Sr. donating to theSS in 1931, two years beforeHitler was appointed chancellor of Germany.[108] In addition to employing forced laborers in their private villa, their industrial chemicals factory in Germany employed forced laborers including Nazi-deportees from Russia and Eastern Europe, as well asprisoners of war from France.[105] A third of their workforce, around 175 forced workers, produced items for the German army, states theAFP news agency.[109] As reported by theNew York Times, workers were beaten, and women were made to stand naked, and if they refused were sexually assaulted.[106] Director of theLeibniz Institute for Contemporary History, Andreas Wirsching, said that Reimann Sr. and Reimann Jr. were unusual in their direct participation in the abuse of workers. "It was very common for companies to use forced laborers—but it was not common for a company boss to be in direct and physical contact with these forced laborers," Wirsching said.[106] As reported byDeutsche Welle, due to the successors' findings about their family’s Nazi past, the Reimanns pledged to donate $11 million to institutions helping victims and families offorced labourers.[108] The report includes as statement from Harf to Bild saying "We were ashamed and white as sheets. There is nothing to gloss over. These crimes are disgusting."[107][110]JAB’s ownership of Kripsy Kreme in the United States caused controversy. Krispy Kreme's employees have reported that customers accuse them of "working for Nazis" and there were also threats to boycott Krispy Kreme.The Boston Globe published an article about it headlined, "I found out Nazi money is behind my favorite coffee. Should I keep drinking it?"[111] |
| Junkers Flugzeug- und Motorenwerke AG[112] | 1936 | Dessau | In addition to the main plant inDessau, which employed around 40,000 people at its peak, JFM operated factories inHalle (Saale),Gräfenhainichen andJüterbog. In the period that followed, further branches were opened, including the notoriousMittelbau-Dora concentration camp. The plants employed many forced laborers and concentration camp prisoners, mostly under inhumane conditions. From 1944 onwards, these included Belarusian youths who had been abducted in theHeuaktion.[112] But also before the start of theHeuaktion up to 6,000 young people were brought to Germany, mostly to the Junkers plants inDessau andCrimmitschau. Officially "volunteers", some of the young people arrived in the German Reich in transports put together by the employment offices. (Preceding text copied from German Wikipedia:de:Junkers Flugzeug- und Motorenwerke).Heuaktion, i.e. "hay harvest", (or "hay operation") was a World War IINazi German operation in which 40,000 to 50,000 Polish children aged 10 to 14 werekidnapped by German occupation forces and transported to Germany as slave labourers.[113] |
| Kodak | 1892 | Rochester, New York | Kodak's European subsidiaries continued to operate during the war. Kodak AG, the German subsidiary, was transferred to two trustees in 1941 to allow the company to continue operating in the event of war between Germany and the United States. The company produced film, fuses,triggers,detonators, and other material. Slave labor was employed at Kodak AG's Stuttgart and Berlin-Kopenick plants.[114] During the German occupation of France, Kodak-Pathé facilities in Severan and Vincennes were also used to support the German war effort.[115] Kodak continued to import goods to the United States purchased from Nazi Germany through neutral nations such as Switzerland. This practice was criticized by many American diplomats, but defended by others as more beneficial to the American war effort than detrimental. Kodak received no penalties during or after the war for collaboration.[114] |
| Kontinentale Öl | 1941 | Berlin | Kontinentale Öl was established on 27 March 1941 in Berlin with capital of 80 millionReichsmark (equivalent to 343 million 2021 euros).[116][117] The company had exclusive rights to trade oil products and to acquire oil assets inGerman-occupied territories. In addition to the occupied territories, it operated its subsidiaries also in Germany. For the oil production in the Caucasus region, the subsidiaryOst Öl GmbH (Ostöl) was founded in August 1941. The company purchased rigs, vehicles and other production equipment; however, except in Maikop, the oil fields in the Caucasus were never captured by theGerman Army. In July 1941,Baltische Öl GmbH was founded for theoil shale extraction in German-occupiedEstonia.[118] In August 1942,Karpathen Öl was established which took over oil assets inGalicia.[118] In 1944,Kontinentale Öl bore huge losses due to the German retreat and the associated loss of assets. Special units of the Wehrmacht were formed to take possession of the oil facilities, such as the Mineral Oil Command North, Mineral Oil Command South and the Mineral Oil Command K for the Caucasus. For the Baltic States there was the subsidiary Baltische Öl GmbH. In September 1943, the German occupying forces set up theKlooga concentration camp nearKlooga in German-occupied north-western Estonia. Up to 3,000 prisoners were housed in this work camp of theVaivara concentration camp. On 19 September 1944, the SS murdered around 2,500 of them before the Red Army marched into town.[119] The Baltische Öl GmbH employed forced labour and prisoners of war under unhuman conditions, notably in theVaivara concentration camp where: "Baltic Oil sees the only possibility of increasing the performance of prisoners of war in harsher treatment and intends, e.g. of the implementation of a starvation diet".[120] (Quoted from German Wikipedia:de:Kontinentale Öl) |
| Krupp[104][121][7] (now part ofThyssenKrupp) | 1811 | Essen, Germany | Zyklon Bgas chamber poison gas was produced by the company along with other companies. Thefamily business, known asFriedrich Krupp AG, was the largest company in Europe at the beginning of the 20th century, and was the premier weapons manufacturer for Germany in bothworld wars. During the time of theThird Reich, the Krupp company supported the Nazi regime andused slave labour, which was used by the Nazi Party to help carry out the Holocaust, with Krupp reaping the economic benefit. Krupp used almost 100,000 slave labourers, housed in poor conditions and many worked to death.[122] The company had a workshop near theAuschwitz concentration camp. Krupp used slave labor, both POWs and civilians from occupied countries, and Krupp representatives were sent to concentration camps to select laborers. Treatment of Slavic and Jewish slaves was particularly harsh, since they were consideredsub-human in Nazi Germany, and Jews were targeted for "extermination through labor". The number of slaves cannot be calculated due to constant fluctuation but is estimated at 100,000, at a time when the free employees of Krupp numbered 278,000. The highest number of Jewish slave laborers at any one time was about 25,000 in January 1943. In 1942–1943, Krupp built the Berthawerk factory (named for his mother), near theMarkstadt forced labour camp, for production of artilleryfuses. Jewish women were used as slave labor there, leased from theSS for 4 Marks a head per day. Later in 1943 it was taken over by Union Werke.[123] |
| Maggi (now owned byNestlé) | 1884 | Vevey, Switzerland | During World War II, the German branch of Maggi allowed itself to be coopted into Nazi politics.[124] In 1938 Maggi Berlin and in 1940 Maggi Singen were awarded the title of "National Socialist Model Company," after the company had already had it officially certified in 1935 that "all shareholders" as well as "all managing directors, authorized signatories, and authorized representatives were of Aryan descent."[125] Maggi received an exclusive supply contract for theWehrmacht, for which it even produced a special soup.[126] Two-thirds of Maggi production went directly or indirectly to the Wehrmacht during the war years. The company was dependent on foreign labor during these years. The number of forced laborers from Eastern Europe varied between 170 (end of 1943) and 48 (May 1945).[127] |
| Magirus Deutz[128] | 1866 | Ulm,Baden-Württemberg | Magirus, a renowned German truck manufacturer, was also involvement in World War II and the Holocaust by producing gas vans used for killing Jews. |
| Mercedes-Benz (as well as then-ownerDaimler-Benz)[15][129][130] | 1926 | Stuttgart, Germany | Although Daimler-Benz is best known for itsMercedes-Benz automobile brand, duringWorld War II, it also created a notable series of engines for Germanaircraft,tanks, andsubmarines. Its cars became the first choice of many Nazi, Fascist Italian, and Japanese officials includingHermann Göring,Adolf Hitler,Benito Mussolini andHirohito, who most notably used theMercedes-Benz 770 luxury car. Daimler also produced parts for German arms, most notably barrels forMauserKar98k rifles. DuringWorld War II, Daimler-Benz had over 60,000 concentration camp prisoners and other forced laborers to build machinery. After the war, Daimler admitted to its links and coordination with theNazi government. According to its own statement, in 1944, almost half of its 63,610 employees were forced labourers, prisoners of war, or concentration-camp detainees.[131] Another source quotes this figure at 46,000. The company later paid $12 million in reparations to the labourers' families.[132] |
| Merck Group[133] | 1933 | Darmstadt, Germany | Members of the Merck family supported Hitler and the Nazi party enthusiastically, helping to manufacture pharmaceuticals using Nazi slave labor. Some members of the family joined the SS and helped to purge the company ranks of Jewish employees. |
| Messerschmitt GmbH / AG,[134] | 1936 (GmbH), 1938 (AG) | Regensburg (GmbH),Augsburg (AG) | Aircraft production relied heavily on Slave labour, provided by inmates of the brutalKZ Gusen I and Gusen II camps, and by inmates from the nearbyMauthausen concentration camp. |
| Deutsche Erz- und Metall-Union GmbH (in short,Metall-Union or DEUMU)[135] | 1941 | Berlin,Salzgitter | Forerunner: Reichswerke AG for ore mining and ironworks "Hermann Göring", inSalzgitter, founded on 15 July 1937, with its headquarters inBerlin as a state-owned company. In June 1939, 33,000 workers worked in the area, including 10,000 foreigners (voluntary and involuntary labor migration). Among them 4,200 Italians, 2,500 Czechs, 700 Dutch, 750 Hungarians and 150 Yugoslavs, as confirmed by the Gestapo, Braunschweig, in 1939. The foreign workers, like the Italians, who were the largest group of foreigners at the time, were employed on the basis of intergovernmental recruitment contracts. The German workers were regarded as the 'core workforce', even if their share in 1941 was only 20 per cent. With the distinction between 'regular' and 'foreign workers', the Nazi racist hierarchy was to be maintained in everyday working life. Foreigners were regarded almost exclusively as unskilled workers. The vast majority was to be taken by means of pressure and reprisals. After the rapidinvasion of Poland for example, Polish prisoners of war and civilian workers were forced to work in Germany. In 1941 the 'Reichswerke' needed 16,000 workers. In March 1941 negotiations were under way to hire 4,000 Italians, 800 Dutch and Belgians, 100 French and 1,000–2,000 military prisoners and 2,000 Jews. Forced labor and terror were omnipresent in the Reichswerke industrialization area inSalzgitter and the surrounding area from 1941. Russian prisoners of war came to the Reichswerke in particular via theFallingbostel prisoner of war camp. On 22 April 1941, for example, the Reichswerke and the Fallingbostel camp concluded a contract for exactly 2,004 Russian prisoners of war.[135] |
| Miele | 1899 | Gütersloh,Northrine-Westphalia, Germany | Produced aerial torpedoes, mines, grenades for the German war effort, and employed forced labourers. It is estimated that by 1944, 95% of the company's revenue was derived from producing and selling armaments.[136][137] |
| Mittelwerk GmbH[138] | 1943 | NearNiedersachswerfen, on the southern slope of theKohnstein | Forced labour at theMittelbau-Dora concentration camp.[138] |
| Nederlandse Spoorwegen | 1940 | Netherlands | Between 1940 and 1945,NS transported over 100.000 Jewish people, Travellers and Romani people toconcentration camps in the Netherlands as ordered by the German occupier, which the German state also paid for. Many of these people were then transported onward to extermination camps.[139] |
| Oberilizmühle Elektrizitätswerk,[140][141] | 1939 | Salzweg | The city ofPassau bought the Oberilzmühle in 1939 for the construction of a new hydroelectric power station. In May 1942, the city had to hand over the project to the Arno-Fischer-Forschungsstätte (Arno Fischer Research Center), which wanted to build a so-called underwater power plant (i.e. a hydroelectric power station, the turbines and generators of which are arranged within a weir and flooded with water) under the direction of Arno Fischer. The construction work was carried out by prisoners who were forced to work in the satellite camp of theMauthausen concentration camp inPassau until the last days of the war.,[140][141] (the text refers to the German Wikipedia:de:Stausee Oberilzmühle) |
| Opel (a subsidiary ofStellantis) | 1862 | Rüsselsheim am Main,Hesse, Germany | Manufactured military vehicles including theOpel Blitz. Used slave/forced labor. |
| Österreichische Saurerwerke AG[142] | 1906, 1941–1945 | Simmering (Vienna), Wien-Simmering | Österreichische Saurerwerke AG was anAustrian commercial vehicle manufacturer inSimmering (Vienna), which manufactured trucks and buses from 1906 to 1969. During World War II, the Saurer works operated a branch of theMauthausen concentration camp on their premises inSimmering (Vienna). Factories were set up and forced laborers used in the former imperialSchloss Neugebäude.[143] Around 1,600 forced laborers are said to have been forced into the assembly of tank engines at Saurer.[144] This enabled the company to employ more than 5,000 labourers and expand its facilities. From the end of 1941, theSS converted Saurer trucks and used them asgas vans to murder Jews.[145] (quoted from German Wikipedia:de:Österreichische Saurerwerke).[84] |
| Opta Radio AG[146] | 1942 | Berlin,Leipzig | From 1939, Loewe mainly manufactured radio technology for the Luftwaffe. In order to get rid of the Jewish-looking name of the founders, the company name was changed in 1940 to Löwe Radio AG and, to completely erase all traces, to Opta Radio AG on 1 August 1942. In April 1941, Leipzig radio equipment construction was affiliated with the Berlin company as Löwe-Radio AG, Leipzig plant. In the same year, Löwe also took over the Peter Grassmann Metallwarenfabrik in Berlin. From 1 August 1942, the branch was called Opta Radio AG, Leipzig plant, analogous to the parent company. According to theAmerican Jewish Committee, during National Socialism the company employedforced laborers (quoted from the German Wikipedia:de:Loewe Technology) |
| Porsche[147] | 1931 | Stuttgart, Germany | Forced labour.[148]Ferdinand Porsche, a member of both theNazi Party and theSS, as managing director of theVolkswagen factory inWolfsburg, nearFallersleben, was responsible forextermination through labour in his companies. There were several fenced-in and guarded factories, and satellite concentration camps for forced laborers, who had to toil under terrible conditions, resulting in a heavy death toll.[149][150] |
| Puch[151][152] | 1899 | Graz, Thondorf | Puch was a manufacturing company located in Graz, Austria, producing automobiles, bicycles, mopeds, and motorcycles. It was a subsidiary of the largeSteyr-Daimler-Puch conglomerate. Steyr-Daimler-Puch was one of the companies known to have benefited from slave labor housed in theMauthausen – Gusen concentration camp system during World War II. Slave labour from the camp was used in a highly profitable system employed by 45 engineering and war-effort companies. Puch had an underground factory built atGusen concentration camp in 1943.[151] Stey-Daimler-Puch also employed concentration camp inmates in the Mauthausen sub-campsPeggau andAflenz nearLeibnitz.[153][152] From 17 August 1944, to 2 April 1945, a branch of theMauthausen concentration camp was also set up on an expropriated property of theVorau Abbey nearHinterberg. At the foot of the Peggauer Wand, a tunnel system was put into operation for the underground relocation of parts of the aircraft parts and tank production of the Thondorf plant of Steyr-Daimler-Puch AG nearGraz. (Quoted from German Wikipedia:de:Peggau) |
| Quandt family[73][154] | 1937 | Pritzwalk,Munich, Germany | Günther Quandt (1881-1954) was aWehrwirtschaftsführer; his industrial empire played a leading role in the war economy. Both Günther and his fatherHerbert Quandt were informed in detail about the working and living conditions of the forced laborers from the start. Günther Quandt even occasionally dealt personally with detailed questions of the work deployment. InReichsgau Posen in German-occupied Poland, there was a whole plant that had been built on the backs of more than 20,000 forced labourers, employed according to the Naziextermination through labour strategy.[155] |
| Reichsbank[156] | 1876 | Berlin | The Nazi German central bank, theReichsbank, benefited by the theft of the property of numerous governments invaded by the Germans, especially theirgold reserves and much personal property of the Third Reich's many victims, especially theJews. Personal possessions such as goldwedding rings were confiscated from prisoners, andgold teeth torn from dead bodies, and after cleaning, were deposited in the bank under the false-nameMax Heiliger accounts, and melted down asbullion. The defeat ofNazi Germany in May 1945 also resulted in the dissolution of the Reichsbank, along with other Reich ministries and institutions. The explanation of the disappearance of the Reichsbank reserves in 1945 was uncovered byBill Stanley Moss andAndrew Kennedy, in post-war Germany. In April and May 1945, the remaining reserves of the Reichsbank – gold (730 bars), cash (6 large sacks), and precious stones and metals such as platinum (25 sealed boxes) – were dispatched byWalther Funk[156] to be buried on the Klausenhof Mountain atEinsiedl inBavaria, where the final German resistance was to be concentrated. Similarly, theAbwehr cash reserves were hidden nearby inGarmisch-Partenkirchen. Shortly after the American forces overran the area, the reserves and money disappeared.[157] Funk would be tried and convicted ofwar crimes at theNuremberg trials, not least for receiving money and goods stolen from Jewish and other victims of theNazi concentration camps.Gold teeth extracted from the mouths of victims were found in 1945 in the vaults of the bank inBerlin. |
| Reichswerke Hermann Göring[158] | 1937 | Berlin, Germany | State-owned steelworks – slave labor. |
| Raxwerke[159][160] | 1942 | Wiener Neustadt | TheRaxwerke (alsoRax-Werke), founded on 5 May 1942, was a largeTender (rail) and armaments factory inWiener Neustadt inLower Austria during World War II and a subcamp of theMauthausen concentration camp. In order to set up theRaxwerke as quickly as possible, a large assembly hall for wagons that had been captured inKraljevo (Serbia), was dismantled and rebuild inWiener Neustadt. One year before, more than 1,700 residents ofKraljevo had been shot dead in front of and in this hall by the GermanWehrmacht as revenge for a partisan attack. This event was part of theKraljevo massacre andKragujevac massacre when 2,800 (Kraljevo) and additional 2,000 (Kragujevac) Serbs were murdered in repraisal.[159][161] In March 1943 the iron skeleton of the hall was completed and provided with high-current chargedbarbed wire. On 20 June 1943, the first transport of 500 prisoners fromMauthausen concentration camp arrived. In the summer the northern half was complete and at the beginning of August another 722 concentration camp prisoners followed. The prisoners were accommodated directly in the hall. Officially, the concentration camp subcamp was referred to asSS work camp Wiener Neustadt. Probably in the late afternoon of 30 March 1945, theSS guards began evacuating the Raxwerke concentration camp and sent the prisoners with 50–60 marines on the march to theSteyr-Münichholz subcamp, which many of the prisoners did not survive. (Quotes from German Wikipediade:Raxwerke) |
| Rheinmetall-Borsig[162][163] | 1889 | Düsseldorf-Derendorf | Numerous forced laborers worked in the plants. At theUnterlüß plant alone, around 5,000 foreign forced laborers and prisoners of war (approx. 2,500 Poles, 1,000 from the USSR, 500 Yugoslavs, 1,000 from other countries) were liberated by British troops at the end of the war. For a time, Hungarian Jews from a satellite camp of theBergen-Belsen concentration camp were also deployed there.[162] |
| Shell plc (Germany & Austria subsidiaries)[164] | 1902, 1938 | Düsseldorf,Floridsdorf (Vienna) | With the "Ordinance on the Treatment of Enemy Property" of January 1940, the Nazis placed the German subsidiary of the Dutch-British Shell, "Benzinwerke Rhenania GmbH", under forced administration. During the war, forced laborers had to work for the company, including between 1943 and 1945 in theLanger Morgen labor education camp under particularly bad conditions. Women had to do clean-up work for the company in Hamburg.[165] After thebombing of Hamburg in 1944, around 1,500 female prisoners from theNeuengamme concentration camp were deployed – including for the Rhenania. In September 1944, they were replaced by 2,000 male prisoners.[164] Approximately 1,385 forced laborers worked at oil refineries and petrochemical plants owned and operated by the Royal/Dutch Shell Group during the Second World War. These workers, largely civilians from Eastern Europe and the Low Countries of Western Europe, were compelled to work on the grounds of Shell's German and Austrian subsidiaries, Rhenania GmbH and Shell Austria AG, respectively. Deported from their home countries by force, these workers were housed in filthy barracks, and were denied freedom of movement and proper nutrition. For their work, which was contracted from theSS, the laborers received no pay from Shell or the German Government. Approximately 1,135 men and women labored on the grounds of Rhenania's oil refineries and petrochemical factories in northwestern Germany. 150 forced laborers worked at the Hamburg refinery between 1944 and 1945. They were housed at the nearby Concentration Camp 'Hamburg-Hafen' and worked under SS guard, cleaning debris from air raids, shoveling snow, felling trees, and performing maintenance work. Working conditions were marked by long working hours, poor diet, and physical strain at Rhenania. Additional locations which housed Rhenania forced laborers were: Civilian Work Camp, Homberg, 420 persons; Civilian Work Camp, Hamburg, 175 persons; Concentration Camp, Schwelm, 380 persons.[166] WhenAustria was annexed to Germany in 1938 by theAnschluss, the Austrian Shell companies were legally incorporated into the German group. During the war, the Shell refinery inFloridsdorf was part of the strategically important infrastructure. Although it was therefore increasingly the target of Allied bombing, it was able to keep production running until spring of 1945. This was made possible, among other things, by the use of around 250 Hungarian Jewish forced laborers who were held captive by theSS in aFloridsdorf forced labor camp for this purpose.[167][168][169] |
| Siemens[15][170][7] | 1847 | Kreuzberg, Berlin, Germany | Forced labour.[171] Trucks; possibly other production, such as trains.[citation needed] During the course of the war, production facilities were outsourced to all parts of Germany and the occupied territories, where Siemens also exploited large numbers of "foreign workers" and forced laborers (also known as "workers from the East"). From June 1942, Siemens & Halske had production barracks built in the immediate vicinity of the Ravensbrück women's concentration camp for armaments production.[172][173] In the camp the Werner factory for telephones (WWFG), radio (WWR) and measuring devices (WWM) were built. SSHauptscharführer Grabow was in charge of the camp. Moreover, Siemens produced inAuschwitz andLublin in occupied Poland withKZ prisoners rented from theSS.[174] (quotes from German Wikipedia:de:Siemens) |
| SNCF[175][176] | 1938 | Paris | German occupying forces in France requisitioned SNCF to transport nearly 77,000 Jews and other Holocaust victims to Naziextermination camps.[177][178] |
| Solvay GmbH[179] | 1880 | Bernburg,Osternienburg,Rheinberg | In 1883, Solvay & Cie started soda production theBernburg plant. All activities of Solvay & Cie. in Germany were combined in 1885 in the Deutsche Solvay-Werke Actiengesellschaft (DSW) based inBernburg. In the Solvayhall potash works near Bernburg, potash salt production began in 1890. In 1898, one of the first plants for chlor-alkali electrolysis in Germany went into operation inOsternienburg. In 1940, the Bernburg plant was placed underNazi regime forced administration as "enemy property". During theNazi regime, concentration camp prisoners were used, such as those from the earlyThuringian concentration camp atBuchenau.[179] |
| Steyr Arms[180] | 1864 | Steyr, Austria | Forced labour in theSteyr-Münichholz subcamp, production of weapons. |
| Steyr-Daimler-Puch[181] | 1864 | Steyr, Austria | Slave labor. |
| Stoewer | 1899 | Stettin, Germany (now Szczecin, Poland) | Used forced labour in its factory.[182] |
| Telefunken[183] | 1903 | Berlin,Łódź,Ulm | The Telefunken company was founded in 1903 with the aim of developing wireless telegraphy. At the end of the 1930s the total workforce of Telefunken was 23,500 employees, increasing to 40,000 during the course of World War II, including many forced labourers and "Eastern workers".(Quoted from German Wikipedia:de:Telefunken). From 1936, Telefunken specialized in production for military purposes. In 1941, Telefunken relocated part of its production lines toŁódź in occupied Poland. The city was chosen for several reasons: the distance from areas exposed to aerial bombardment and short lines of product delivery to military units at the eastern front. However, one of the most important reasons was the availability of an appropriate workforce. Already in 1942, Telefunken employed more than 2.000 workers in its two production plants in Łódź. The majority of the production workers were girls of ages 12 to 16. They were recruited for work partly under coercion, but partly, due to the labour conscription, to "volunteer" to work for Telefunken. This allowed them to remain at home and be exempted from forced relocation for work in Germany. With the approaching eastern front, Telefunken relocated its production to Ulm. In May 1944, Polish girls from Łódź were transferred to the new Telefunken plant in the fortress Wilhelmsburg, which was supposed to provide protection from aerial attacks. The living conditions in Ulm were characterized by unsuitable accommodation in the camps, scarcity of food, harassment, and punishment. The 'human material', as the forced labour was called in various documents of the management, i.e. 600 to 800 slave labourers in Wilhelmsburg, and another 600 girls from Łódź, located in a school building, was meant to be 'used' up to extinction.[183] |
| Topf and Sons[184] | 1878 | Erfurt, Germany | Designed, manufactured and installed crematoria for concentration and extermination camps. |
| Universale Hoch- und Tiefbau AG,[185] | 1939 | Vienna | The Universale Hoch- und Tiefbau AG was created in 1939 from the merger of the "Universale-Redlich & Berger" Bauaktiengesellschaft (founded in 1916) with the Austrian Real Estate AG (founded on 8 January 1932). Gross human rights violations were committed by the company during World War II, e.g. within the framework of the construction of theLobil Tunnel by command of the NaziGauleiter of Carinthia,Friedrich Rainer. The tunnel was to bypass the steep upper parts of the mountain road. It was a 1,570 metres (5,150 ft) long tunnel at 1,068 metres (3,504 ft) above sea level. Work was performed by the Universale Hoch- und Tiefbau, employing 660 civilian workers, several posted by theService du travail obligatoire ofVichy France, and 1,652 forced labourers supplied by contract with theSS. These prisoners were interned in two minor subcamps of theMauthausen-Gusen concentration camp, one on each side of the pass. They were put under the command of ObersturmführerJulius Ludolf, who served in Mauthausen since 1940 and was notorious for his excessive beatings. Under inhumane conditions, about 40 forced labourers died either from starvation and exhaustion, or were killed by mistreatment, work-related accidents and rockfalls. By August, Ludolf was removed from his post after the construction company complained about the number of inmates that became incapable of working due to beatings and torture. To keep the work force efficient, hundreds of injured or sick prisoners were sent back to the main camp, or if unable to be transported were executed on-site by camp physicianSigbert Ramsauer by petrol injection.[185][186] |
| Valentin submarine factory[187] | 1943 | Bremen-Farge | The Valentin submarine factory was a protectivebunker on theWeser River at theBremen suburb of Farge-Rekum, built to protect GermanU-boats during World War II. The factory was under construction from 1943 to March 1945 using forced labour. It was the largest fortified U-boat facility in Germany, and was second only to those built atBrest, France. The construction was planned and supervised by theOrganisation Todt. From the start of construction in the spring of 1943, construction management was carried out by the Agatz & Bock consortium, withErich Lackner and DeschimagAG Weser responsible for on-site management.[188] Most of the 10,000–12,000 people who built Valentin were slave workers, who lived in seven camps located between 3 and 8 kilometres (1.9 and 5.0 mi) from the bunker. Some were housed in the nearby Bremen-Farge concentration camp, the largest subcamp of theNeuengamme concentration camp complex, with 2,092 prisoners as of 25 March 1945.[187] The camp facility was erected close by at a large naval fuel oil storage facility; some prisoners were accommodated in an empty underground fuel tank. Among the labourers were mainly non–German concentration camp inmates (Fremdarbeiter) as well as Russian, Polish, and French prisoners of war, but also some German criminals and political prisoners. Around 1943, two large forced labor camps were set up inSchwanewede,Heidkamp I andHeidkamp II, with a total of 36 barracks for around 2,800 so-called "Eastern workers" and for Italian prisoners of war (Quoted from German Wikipedia:de:U-Boot-Bunker Valentin).[189] Work on the bunker took place around the clock, with personnel forced to work 12-hour shifts from 7 am to 7 pm. This resulted in a high death rate amongst the prisoners. However, the identity of only 553 victims, mostly Frenchmen, has been confirmed. The total number of deaths may be as high as 6,000 as the names of the Polish and Russian dead were not recorded. The worst work on the site was that of the so-called iron detachments (Eisenkommandos), responsible for the movement of iron and steel girders which were actually suicide squads.[187] |
| Vereinigte Stahlwerke[190] | 1926 | Düsseldorf | TheVereinigte Stahlwerke AG (VSt or Vestag,United Steelworks) was a German industrial conglomerate producingcoal,iron, andsteel in theinterbellum and during World War II. During the 1930s, VSt was one of the biggest German companies and, at times, also the largest steel producer in Europe. With up to about 250,000 workers, including forced labour, it produced about 40% of the steel and 20% of the coal produced in Germany.[191] The Vst became a major contributor in supplying materiel and munitions to the war effort.[192][190] |
| Filmfabrik Wolfen, producer of VISTRA fiber[193] | 1920 | Premnitz,Wolfen | ORWO Filmfabrik Wolfen (now Chemical Park Bitterfeld-Wolfen). The Wolfen factory was founded by AGFA (Aktien-Gesellschaft für Anilin-Fabrikation) in 1910. By 1925, with AGFA, now part of the industrial conglomerate I.G. Farben, Wolfen, was specialising in film production and the war production of 'VISTRA' synthetic fibre with forced labour.[193] |
| Volkswagen Group | 1937 | Berlin, Germany | Forced labour from concentration camps.[15][194] ProducedV-1 flying bomb[195] andKübelwagen military vehicles.[147] |
| Wintershall | 1894 | Kamen,Heringen,Völkenrode, Lützkendorf | Wintershall benefited extensively from expropriation inNazi Germany, the use of forced labourers and concentration camp internees.[196] August Rosterg, who led the company from theWorld War I to the end ofWorld War II, was politically committed to theNazi regime. He maintained close ties with theNSDAP elite and to the commander of theSS,Heinrich Himmler. Also, he was member of theFreundeskreis der Wirtschaft, the NSCircle of Friends of the Economy. Thus, Wintershall was fully integrated in the Nazi system and acted in accordance with its goals.[196] In the 1930s,Wintershall took over Naphthaindustrie und Tankanlagen AG (NITAG), renaming it NITAG Deutsche Treibstoffe AG in 1938.[197] NITAG had already beenAryanised by the time it was taken over, with the Jewish family Kahan no longer holding any shares in the company from 1932 at the latest. As a result, NITAG became the main sales subsidiary for mineral oil products alongsideMihag,Wiesöl andWintershall Mineralöl GmbH.[197] Forced labourers were increasingly used during World War II. 1,360 internees from theBuchenwald concentration camp and the subcamp Luetzkendorf (Wintershall AG) concentration camp had to work at Wintershall's Lützkendorf plant.[198][199] |
| Zeiss Ikon | 1846 | Jena,Dresden | During World War II,Dresden's Zeiss Ikon factory was the city's largest armaments factory, employing around 6,000 people, including many forced laborers from the areas occupied by Germany. AtZeiss Ikon there was also a 400-strong Jewish department. At the beginning of 1942, the plant management and theWehrmacht threatened to otherwise have to close the plant, initially partially successfully resisting the Gestapo's intended immediate deportation of the Jewish workforce to theRiga ghetto.[200] Only some of the Jews employed by the company were deported. In November 1942, the Jews still employed by Zeiss were herded together in theHellerberg Jewish camp on the northern outskirts of the city and three months later, after their workforce in the factory had been completely replaced by newly trained forced labourers, they were transported toAuschwitz concentration camp and murdered.[201] Zeiss used forced labour as part of Nazi Germany'sZwangsarbeiter program, including persecution of Jews and other minorities during World War II.[202][203] Satellite labour camps of theFlossenbürg concentration camp, e.g. at theSS Engineer's Barracks, were also used by Zeiss on a massive scale. Its prisoners were mostly Poles, Russians and Jews. Other camps was set up in October 1944 in the Goehle factory inDresden and Universelle factories (both women camps) and in the Reick factory of Zeiss Ikon AG.[204] In Berlin, the company operated 4 forced labor camps in the Goerzwerk and Filmwerk for at least 600 forced labourers, including Italian military internees and "Eastern workers".[205] The Goehle-Werk (also Goehlewerk) was built in 1940/41 as an ammunition manufacturing plant. Time fuses, incendiary shrapnel for anti-aircraft missiles and bomb fuses were manufactured. In addition to the prisoners from the concentration campsFlossenbrüge andRavensbrück, mainly unskilled forced laborers worked in the Goehle factory, most of whom came fromPoland and theSoviet Union. The living conditions of the workers were extremely harsh and cruel: their food was completely inadequate and their state of health consequently poor. (Quoted from German Wikipedia:de:Zeiss Ikon) |
| Zeitz –Braunkohle Benzin AG, (Brabag) | 1933 | Schwarzheide,Magdeburg,Böhlen | Braunkohle Benzin AG was a German firm, planned in 1933 and operating from 1934 until 1945, that distilled synthetic aviation fuel, diesel fuel, gasoline, lubricants, and paraffin wax from lignite. It was an industrial cartel firm closely supervised by the Nazi regime. Soon plants were built. In 1937, for example,Brabag completed the Brabag II facility inRuhland-Schwarzheide (the 4th Nazi GermanyFischer-Tropsch plant) to produce gasoline and diesel fuel from lignite coal. While it operated, it produced commodities vital to the German military forces before and during World War II. After substantial damage from strategic bombing, the firm and its remaining assets were dissolved at the end of the war.[206] As Germany deepened its commitment to World War II, Brabag's plants became vital elements of the war effort. Like other strategic firms under the Nazi regime,Brabag was assigned a significant quota of forced labour of conscripts from the occupied nations. One estimate counts 13,000 Nazi concentration camp laborers working forBrabag. Brabag plants were a target of theOil Campaign of World War II. Production of synthetic petroleum products had been severely damaged by the end of the war in 1945. At the beginning of theNazi regime in 1934/1935, political opponents from the workers' organizations and unwelcome critics of the regime inZeitz, the headquarters ofBrabag, were interned and mistreated in theGewandhaus, where theGestapo was based. From 1940Zeitz became a hospital town, in 1942 450 wounded were being treated. The city had to take in many "bombed out" families fromWest Germany,Hamburg andBerlin. During the Nazi dictatorship, the Wille forced labour subcamp was set up inRehmsdorf andGleina (both nearZeitz), which was subordinate to theBuchenwald concentration camp. From there, almost 10,000 concentration camp prisoners were used in the fourBrabag hydrogenation plants alone from the end of May to October 1944 to clean up the damage caused by the Allied bombing raids and thus restart production. Most of prisoners were Hungarian Jews, among themImre Kertész, who had to work at the Brabag factory inTröglitz. During the bombing raids on the hydrogenation plant, the concentration camp prisoners were not allowed to enter the protective systems (bunkers), because the protective systems were reserved for civilian employees and the guards only. This repeatedly claimed countless victims among the prisoners. (Quoted from German Wikipedia:de:Zeitz) |
| Zeppelin | 1900 | Friedrichshafen,Frankfurt | The headquarters of the Zeppelin Luftschifftechnik GmbH (ZLT) were located inFriedrichshafen. The company producing the airships, as well as subcontractors in Friedrichshafen, and indirectly the whole city through tax revenue, benefited from the exploitation of forced laborers. The companies benefited from the subtle disenfranchisement, discrimination and heteronomy that could be felt everywhere, in all facets of the work associated with forced labour.[207] After the beginning of theSecond World War,Göring ordered the scrapping of the remaining Zeppelin airships in March 1940, and on 6 May, the hangars inFrankfurt were also demolished.[citation needed] |
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