page_title: HASAG
section_title: Use of forced labor
hierarchical_section_title: HASAG / Use of forced labor
caption_attribution_description: Polski: Miejsce na tablicę upamiętniającą obóz pracy przymusowej Hasag-Pelcery dla Żydów podczas II wojny światowej. English: Plaque commemorating the Nazi forced-labor camp HASAG-Pelcery where Polish Jews were forced to work during World War II.
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: Initially, only "elite, especially reliable German workers" were allowed to work in the arms industry, but with the outbreak of World War II in 1939 and many men entering the Wehrmacht and Luftwaffe, workers became harder to find. An agreement was reached between the arms inspector and Friedrich-Wilhelm Krüger, the SS-Obergruppenführer of the General Government, allowing Jews to be used as workers.
  During the war, HASAG had factories in eight German cities and three Polish ones. Most of the workers were either forced laborers, primarily from eastern Europe, or prisoners from concentration camps. The forced laborers lived under heavy police surveillance in barracks near the factories. In 1942 and 1943, such labor camps were set up near all six of the factories in Poland. Few workers were there voluntarily and most of those were Germans in managerial positions. At the beginning of 1942, HASAG had 13,850 employees. They began bringing in Polish forced laborers in spring 1944, and in 1945, had eight Außenkommandos, first from Ravensbrück concentration camp and then from Buchenwald, setting up a labor subcamp next to every HASAG factory in Germany. At Birkenau, the mortality rate for an Außenkommando was officially calculated. It was three and a half months. There were 16,581 prisoners in these labor subcamps, including 10,557 women, both Jews and non-Jews and 4,025 Jewish men. The main factory in the Schönefeld quarter of Leipzig had 5,288 forced laborers, of whom, 5,067 were women.
  HASAG was able to use women to replace male workers because of automation and their machinery, also the company produced small and medium-sized arms. The company preferred to employ and exploit the prisoner labor available from numerous Nazi labor camps and maintained by the SS, and became the third largest user of forced laborers in Germany. HASAG employed more women than men because the SS charged less for women. They worked more quickly than men and were more adaptable; they also had a lower mortality rate.
  In 1944, Reichs Minister for Armaments and Munitions Albert Speer gave HASAG special authority under the title "Hochlauf (run-up, production boost) Panzerfaust", making the company the weapon's sole producer in Germany. This enabled HASAG to expand further. At one labor camp, HASAG Werk Schlieben, also called Schlieben-Berga concentration camp, 1.5 million Panzerfaust "Gretchen" guns per month were filled with explosives. The average life expectancy of a prisoner sent to work there was two months. In the early hours of October 12, 1944, an explosion occurred that killed 96 prison laborers. The cause of the explosion was never determined, whether it was sabotage, accident or a bomb.
  With the Soviet offensive in 1945, the situation in Poland became more dangerous for HASAG's factories. Operations were moved to Germany, establishing a number of smaller operations in different towns around Leipzig with good rail and road connections to the main factory in Leipzig. Labor camps were set up in Colditz, Delitzsch, Flößberg (in Frohburg), Grimma, Golzern and Borsdorf. Exact figures for the number of prison laborers are unknown, however, there were at least 718 prisoners, primarily Hungarian and Polish Jews at the labor camp in Colditz. The factory in Flößberg had at least 1,902 prisoners from Buchenwald and probably from Groß-Rosen concentration camp, as well. As at Colditz, Flößberg's slave laborers were primarily Hungarian and Polish Jews, but one-quarter to one-fifth were political prisoners from various countries in Europe.
  In 1945, thousands of prisoners were taken out of HASAG factories in a death march. In April 1945, with the Allies nearing the city, Budin blew up the company's main building and office building in Leipzig. He is assumed to have blown up his family and himself along with them. The company's files were never found and are assumed to have been burned.
caption: Memorial to Jewish forced laborers at labor camp HASAG-Pelcery in Częstochowa, Poland
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