Deutsche Wirtschaftsbetriebe

Deutsche Wirtschaftsbetriebe, abbreviated DWB, was a project launched by Nazi Germany in World War II. Organised and managed by the Allgemeine SS, its aim was to profit from the use of slave labour extracted from the Nazi concentration camp inmates.
Holding company for SS industries
In July 1940, Oswald Pohl (acting on the advice of and ) set up DWB as a holding company for the majority of SS-owned enterprises in order to offset the profits of other SS companies with the losses of German Earth and Stone Works's unsuccessful brickworks at Oranienburg I (Sachsenhausen concentration camp), reducing the taxes due.
DWB was a holding company for more than 25 SS industries. Oswald Pohl, the head of the SS Main Economic and Administrative Office (known by its German initials as WVHA) was also the chief officer of DWB. Georg Lörner, another high WVHA official, was another incorporator. Through stock ownership DWB controlled a wide variety of enterprises, such as stone quarries, brick manufacturing plants, cement mills, pharmaceutical factories, real estate, housing, building materials, book printing and binding, porcelain and ceramics, mineral water and fruit juices, furniture, foodstuffs, and textiles and leather. Some of these businesses and properties had previously been seized or otherwise expropriated from their rightful owners.
The following companies were part of the holding (sorted in groups):
Group Construction materials, Ceramics und Porzellan
Deutschen Erd- und Steinwerke GmbH (DEST)
Ostindustrie GmbH (OSTI)
Pragobau AG
Golleschauer Portlandzementfabrik AG
Ostdeutschebaustoffwerke GmbH
Zettlitzer Kaolinwerke AG
Schlackenwerk Linz GmbH
Porzellanmanufaktur Allach
Porzellanfabrik Victoria GmbH
Tonwerke Großes Werder GmbH
Essin GmbH
Porag Porzellan-Radiatorenwerk GmbH
Bohemia Keramische Werke AG
Deutsche Torfverwertung GmbH
Klinker-Zement GmbH
Group Food and Beverages
Deutsche Lebensmittel GmbH
Selchwaren- und Konservenfabrik AG
Salami und Nahrungsmittelfabrik AG
Freudentaler Getränke GmbH
F. Kunerle ohG
Deutsche Versuchsanstalt für Ernährung und Verpflegung GmbH
Societä Anonima Prodotti Agricoli Vitaminici Apuania
Lesnoplod Orava Sojka a Spol
Mattoni (Mineralwasser)
Apollinaris (Mineralwasser)
Sudetenquell GmbH
Group Paper, Printing and Publishing
Papierfabrik Neudeck AG
SS-Druckschriftenversand GmbH
Forschungsanstalt für das Deutsche Buchwesen GmbH
Lumbeck-Gesellschaft für das deutsche Buchwesen mbH
SS-Vordruck-Verlag GmbH
Völkischer Kunstverlag GmbH
Großdeutscher Bilderdienst GmbH
Friedrich Franz Bauer GmbH
Deutsche Briefkasten-Reklame GmbH
Nordland-Verlag
Group Settlement and Infrastructure
Gesellschaft für technisch-wirtschaftliche Entwicklung mbH (Getewent)
Siedler Wirtschaftsgemeinschaft Zamosc GmbH
Allod Eigenheim-und Kleinsiedlungs GmbH
Erste Gemeinnützige Baugesellschaft für Kleinwohnungen GmbH
Haus-und Grundbesitz GmbH
Gemeinnützige Wohnungs- und Heimstättengesellschaft mbH (Dachau)
Group Textil and Glas
Gesellschaft für Textil- und Lederverwertung mbH (Texled)
Rheinahr-Glasfabrik GmbH
Group Furniture and Interior
Deutsches Sperrholz- und Fournierwerk GmbH
Verkaufsstelle Berliner Möbelwerkstätten eGmbH
Deutschen Ausrüstungswerke GmbH (DAW)
Deutsche Meisterwerkstätten GmbH
Deutsche Heimgestaltung GmbH
Deutsche Edelmöbel GmbH
Groupe other Enterprises
Gesellschaft für Seuchenbekämpfung mbH
Asid GmbH
Deutsche Heilmittel GmbH
Anton Loibl GmbH
Deutsche Schieferöl GmbH, siehe auch Unternehmen Wüste
Role in war crimes
After World War II, the surviving chief officers of WVHA were on trial for crimes against humanity in what became known as Pohl trial. Most of them were found guilty. Both Pohl and Georg Lörner were sentenced to death by hanging, although Lörner managed to get his sentence commuted to a prison term. The war crimes tribunal placed particular emphasis on the role the defendants had played in four DWB subsidiaries:
German Earth and Stone Works, known as DEST, which operated five granite quarries, six brick and tile plants, and a stone-cutting plant;
The Klinker-Zement, manufacturing brick and cinder block, fireproof products, ceramics, lime, and chalk. This company had large subsidiaries at Golleschau, Prague, Lvov, and Białystok;
Ostindustrie, or OSTI, organized in March 1943 and dissolved a year later, which, using forced Jewish labor operated all confiscated Jewish industries in German-occupied Poland, including foundries, textile plants, quarries, glass works, and others.
The German Equipment Works or DAW, which operated various industries in seven concentration camps.
DEST in particular became notorious for exploitation under brutal conditions of the labor of concentration camp inmates at Mauthausen-Gusen concentration camp in Austria.
Notes
Works cited
Further reading
Nicosia, Francis R., and Huener, Jonathan, Business and Industry in Nazi Germany, University of Vermont Center for Holocaust Studies Berghahn Books, 2004
Sofsky, Wolfgang, The order of terror : the concentration camp, Princeton University Press, 1996
Unfree labor during World War II
SS Main Economic and Administrative Office
Companies involved in the Holocaust