Forgotten Horrors: The Nazi sub-camp system

The subcamp located in Altenburg was established on 1 st August 1944 and   served the private company Hugo-Schneider AG (HASAG), which was the third largest employer of forced labour in Germany after Farben and Goring Werke. Its company director, Paul Budin, was a high-status member of the Nazi party. There were two subcamps – one for male prisoners, the other for females. The subcamps serving HASAG throughout Germany were all established in the summer of 1944 and all of them were administered by Buchenwald. HASAG deliberately requested female prisoners rather than men, because they paid less to the SS for women and also women tended to die in greater numbers. In 1945, Paul Budin blew up the company head office in Leipzig in April 1945 and is presumed to have died in the explosion, along with his wife, which has led to this incident being considered a suicide. The first transport of prisoners from Ravensbruck consisted of 850 female prisoners, consisting of 727 Poles, 108 Soviet...

    Allendorf subcamp, also named Münchmühle camp after the nearby mill on the Münchbach, was located on the former Reichstrasse from Kirchhain to Neustadt, 2 kilometres (1.2 miles) southwest of Allendorf. It was constructed in early 1940 and consisted of 26 barracks, accommodating civilian forced labour, prisoners of war and units of the Reich Labour Service (RAD). The camp served as a subcamp of Buchenwald from August 1944 until the end of March 1945, due to 1,000 female prisoners transferred there from Auschwitz, after which it was evacuated. The management of the Allendorf (now Stadtallendorf) armaments factory requested prisoners to bolster declining numbers of civilian forced labour, POWs and criminals, in order to continue meeting arms orders. A discussion was held on 6 th June 1944 between the commander of Buchenwald and the managing director of the Allendorfer Verwertchemie, Ringleb, during which it was decided that female prisoners should be assigned to earthmovin...