page_title: HASAG
section_title: Legacy
hierarchical_section_title: HASAG / Legacy
caption_attribution_description: Deutsch: Gedenkstätte mit Mahnmal am ehemaligen KZ-Außenlager Flößberg English: Memorial site at the former Nazi-era HASAG Werk Flößberg labor camp, just outside Flößberg, Germany
context_page_description: HASAG was a German metal goods manufacturer founded in 1863. Based in Leipzig, it grew from a small business making lamps and other small metal products by hand into a large factory and publicly traded company that sold its wares in several countries. During the Second World War, Hasag became a Nazi arms-manufacturing conglomerate with dozens of factories across German-occupied Europe using slave labour on a massive scale. Tens of thousands of Jews from Poland, and other prisoners, died producing munition for Hasag.
  It began making armaments during the First World War, a decision that ultimately increased the company's profitability. The loss of military business after the war resulted in dropping sales. HASAG struggled during the 1920s in the Weimar Republic. As the Nazi Party grew in influence and eventually came to power in 1933, growing militarism led to the company's return to small arms production under the new SS leadership. Following the invasion of Poland at the onset of World War II the company expanded to accommodate thousands of NS-Zwangsarbeiters from concentration camps and ghettos.
context_section_description: The former HASAG Werk Schlieben, also called Schlieben-Berga concentration camp, has an organization devoted to protecting its memory. Tours of the one-time labor camp are given and a number of former prisoners have returned for a visit, even from abroad. There is a memorial plaque at the site and there are plans for a monument.
  A new memorial for the 72 Polish and Hungarian Jews who perished at the HASAG Colditz labor camp was unveiled at the Colditz cemetery on March 30, 2007. An earlier memorial to the "Victims of Fascism" was unveiled in 1948 and renovated in 1975, when a red triangle was added to commemorate the political prisoners who died. In 1995, two plaques were added to include honor the memory of forced laborers and prisoners of war, as well. In unveiling the new memorial, the mayor of Colditz, Manfred Heinz, said that each generation must always remind the next of the past, that such events are never repeated. He also said that the memorial was not to be seen as just a reminder of the forced laborers of the past, rather as a rejection of extremism, as well.
  The Flößberg labor camp was razed after the war. Today, there is a gate marking the spot, though a local group is trying to raise money to erect a more extensive memorial. There is a prisoner cemetery with 38 prisoner graves on the grounds of the former camp, which the state of Saxony regional administration in Chemnitz had suggested should be moved to Borna. The proposal was opposed by Jewish and other groups and the regional administration backed off in November 2010. Now there are plans to fix up the graveyard and improve other parts of the site.
caption: Gate outside the former Flößberg labor camp
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