page_title: AEG
section_title: The Nazi era and World War II
hierarchical_section_title: AEG / History / The Nazi era and World War II
caption_attribution_description: Mémorial sur le site des camps Bahnhofslager et Judenlager - Blechhammer
context_page_description: Allgemeine Elektricitäts-Gesellschaft AG was a German producer of electrical equipment founded as the Deutsche Edison-Gesellschaft für angewandte Elektricität in 1883 in Berlin by Emil Rathenau. After World War II its headquarters moved to Frankfurt am Main.
  In 1967 AEG joined with its subsidiary Telefunken AG creating Allgemeine Elektricitäts-Gesellschaft AEG-Telefunken. In 1985 Daimler-Benz purchased the AEG-Telefunken Aktiengesellschaft, which was renamed to AEG Aktiengesellschaft and wholly integrated the company in 1996 into Daimler-Benz AG. The remains of AEG became part of Adtranz and Deutsche Aerospace.
  After acquiring the AEG household subsidiary AEG Hausgeräte GmbH in 1994, in 2005 Electrolux obtained the rights to the brand name AEG, which it now uses on some of its products. The AEG name is also licensed to various brand partners under the Electrolux Global Brand Licensing program.
context_section_description: AEG donated 60,000 Reichsmarks to the Nazi party after the Secret Meeting of 20 February 1933 at which the twin goals of complete power and national rearmament were explained by Hitler. They joined with other large companies such as IG Farben, Thyssen and Krupp in their support of the Nazis, especially in promoting re-armament of the Wehrmacht, Luftwaffe, and Kriegsmarine. During the war itself, they were to use large numbers of forced labourers as well as concentration camp prisoners, under inhuman conditions of work. 
  AEG worked extensively with the Nazi party in Poland. AEG was forced to relinquish Kabelwerk Krakow, a cable manufacturing plant, to the Nazi party. Kabelwerk Krakow was located in Krakow-Plaszow and used forced Jewish labor manufacturing cables from 1942–1944. In 1943, AEG began to relocate goods and evacuate workers. Goods were relocated to various places, including Berlin and Sudetenland. When installing electric and lighting systems for the Waffen-SS training grounds in Dębica, AEG used forced labor from Jews placed in the Pustkow labor camp located in Southeastern Poland.
  During World War II, an AEG factory near Riga used female slave labour. AEG were also contracted for the production of electrical equipment at Auschwitz concentration camp.
  AEG used slave labour from Camp No. 36 at the new sub-camp of Auschwitz III and also known as Monowitz, called "Arbeitslager Blechhammer". Most of them would die in 1945 during the death marches and finally in Buchenwald.
  AEG was a major supplier of grips found on World War 2 P38 pistols manufactured by Walther Arms, Mauser, as well as on the early wartime Spreewerk P38s.
  In an effort to express regret for their use of Jewish slave labor in World War II, AEG teamed up with Rheinmetall, Siemens, Krupp, and I G Farben to pay DEM75 million in reparations to the Jewish Claims Conference.
caption: Memorial plaque for Polish forced labourers at AEG in Blechhammer camp near Auschwitz
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