History of the Schlieben-Berga Subcamp

1938

The Leipzig-based armaments group HASAG (Hugo Schneider AG) began purchasing land in Schlieben/Berga and set up a testing ground (firing range) on which newly developed munitions were tested.

1939 to 1944

Work in the production facilities was initially carried out by forced labourers and prisoners of war from India and Russia, and from July 1944 onwards by concentration camp prisoners. The site covered 504 hectares. In February 1944, up to 888 people were employed at the factory.

1942

With the development of the Panzerfaust by Dr Langweiler, a major expansion of production facilities began.

1944

On 21 June 1944, senior SS officers from Buchenwald, including Commandant Pister, inspected the site. The purpose was to establish a concentration camp in Schlieben-Berga, since the Reich Minister for Armaments, Speer, had classified the Panzerfaust as essential to the war effort. This launched the campaign known as “Aktion Hochlauf Panzerfaust” (“Panzerfaust ramp-up action”). From this point on, the company had unrestricted access to concentration camp prisoners.

On 19 July 1944, 998 female concentration camp prisoners were transferred from Ravensbrück concentration camp. Most were Sinti and Roma women, later joined by French resistance fighters and Belgian women. The women were housed in the stone barracks of the forced labourers, in a specially fenced-off area. The Sinti and Roma women worked mainly in the kitchen, the French women in the powder-filling plant.

On 15 August 1944, 1,387 Jewish concentration camp prisoners arrived from Buchenwald. They had all come from the HASAG plant at Skarżysko-Kamienna, which had to be evacuated. With the arrival of the men, the number of women was reduced to around 250. The men were housed in a wooden barrack camp.

Because the camp had been built so hastily, there were hardly any sanitary facilities.

To meet the demand of producing one million Panzerfäuste a month, the company imposed an extreme piecework system on the concentration camp prisoners. Bonuses were paid to civilian foremen when targets were exceeded. The prisoners were treated as mere commodities. Maltreatment, hunger, illness and industrial accidents claimed countless victims.

217 victims are documented by name, but this figure does not include prisoners no longer fit for work who were deported to Buchenwald or Auschwitz. The surviving transport lists show a constant turnover of prisoners.

On the night of 11 to 12 October 1944, a severe explosion occurred in the foundry area, killing 96 Jewish prisoners. Whether this was sabotage or an accident remains unknown. Large parts of the factory were destroyed. Reconstruction began immediately, and Panzerfaust production resumed after just three days – in the open air and in tents. Additional contingents of prisoners were requisitioned for the rebuilding work. The already murderous pace of work was intensified further, claiming still more victims. Survivors described the period after the explosion, until the camp’s dissolution, as the “hell of Schlieben”.

1945

In early April 1945, two prisoner transports left the camp bound for Theresienstadt. The number of victims on these transports is not known to us.

On 21 April 1945, the roughly 130 prisoners still remaining were liberated by the Red Army.

Over the course of nine months, some 5,000 prisoners passed through Schlieben-Berga, the third-largest of the 136 subcamps of Buchenwald concentration camp.