The Wilhelm Gustloff Stiftung (Wilhelm Gustloff Foundation) was a state-owned trust set up by the government of

Nazi Germany Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was ...

in 1933. Named after

Wilhelm Gustloff Wilhelm Gustloff (30 January 1895 – 4 February 1936) was the founder of the Swiss NSDAP/AO (the Nazi Party organisation for German citizens living outside Germany) at Davos. He remained its leader from 1932 until he was assassinated in 193 ...

, a leader of the

Nazi Party The Nazi Party, officially the National Socialist German Workers' Party (german: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei or NSDAP), was a far-right politics, far-right political party in Germany active between 1920 and 1945 that crea ...

's Swiss branch who was later assassinated, it was funded by money and property confiscated from German Jews.

Overview

The Foundation ran the ''Gustloff Werke'' ("Gustloff Factories"), a group of businesses confiscated from their Jewish owners or partners. By 1938 it had been organized into five major branches.

Factories

Gustloff Werk Weimar was formerly ''Bautzener Waggon- und Maschinenfabrik AG'', a branch of Simson & Co. Suhl and was situated in

Weimar Weimar is a city in the state of Thuringia, Germany. It is located in Central Germany between Erfurt in the west and Jena in the east, approximately southwest of Leipzig, north of Nuremberg and west of Dresden. Together with the neighbouri ...

, Thüringen. The company originally made wagons and tools. Under the new management it expanded into making ammunition crates, ammunition trailers, light infantry mortars (50mm caliber), anti-tank artillery (50mm, 75mm and 88mm caliber), anti-aircraft cannon (20mm caliber), military vehicles, and machine tools. It also assembled complete

Kar98 The Karabiner 98 kurz (; "carbine 98 short"), often abbreviated Karabiner 98k, Kar98k or K98k and also sometimes incorrectly referred to as a K98 (a K98 is a Polish carbine and copy of the Kar98a), is a bolt-action rifle chambered for the 7.92×57 ...

Mauser rifles from component parts made by Gustloff Werk Suhl and subcontractors from Thuringia and Saxony (called the ''Sachsengruppe'', or "Saxon Group"). It was renamed ''Gustloff Werk Weimar (Fritz Sauckel Werk)'' after

Fritz Sauckel Ernst Friedrich Christoph "Fritz" Sauckel (27 October 1894 – 16 October 1946) was a German Nazi politician, ''Gauleiter'' of Gau Thuringia from 1927 and the General Plenipotentiary for Labour Deployment (''Arbeitseinsatz'') from March 1942 unti ...

, the ''

Gauleiter A ''Gauleiter'' () was a regional leader of the Nazi Party (NSDAP) who served as the head of a ''Administrative divisions of Nazi Germany, Gau'' or ''Reichsgau''. ''Gauleiter'' was the third-highest Ranks and insignia of the Nazi Party, rank in ...

'' and ''Reichsregent'' of Thüringen. Originally employing German laborers, wartime manpower demands allowed them to be replaced with forced and slave laborers. It ran Gustloff-Werke II, a satellite camp of

Buchenwald concentration camp Buchenwald (; literally 'beech forest') was a Nazi concentration camp established on hill near Weimar, Germany, in July 1937. It was one of the first and the largest of the concentration camps within Germany's 1937 borders. Many actual or su ...

that used slave labor to make G43 self-loading rifles. Gustloff Werk Suhl, or ''Waffenfabrik Suhl'', was formerly Simson & Co. Suhl, located in

Suhl Suhl () is a city in Thuringia, Germany, located SW of Erfurt, NE of Würzburg and N of Nuremberg. With its 37,000 inhabitants, it is the smallest of the six urban districts within Thuringia. Together with its northern neighbour-town Zella- ...

Thuringen Thuringia (; german: Thüringen ), officially the Free State of Thuringia ( ), is a state of central Germany, covering , the sixth smallest of the sixteen German states. It has a population of about 2.1 million. Erfurt is the capital and larg ...

. They made small arms, motorcycles, and bicycles and were the official arms manufacturer for the Weimar Republic. It was confiscated from the Simson family in 1936. In 1939 rifle production was shifted to ''Gustloff Werk Weimar'' so ''Waffenfabrik Suhl'' could concentrate on

MG34 The MG 34 (shortened from German: ''Maschinengewehr 34'', or "machine gun 34") is a German recoil-operated air-cooled general-purpose machine gun, first tested in 1929, introduced in 1934, and issued to units in 1936. It introduced an entirely ne ...

and

MG42 The MG 42 (shortened from German: ''Maschinengewehr 42'', or "machine gun 42") is a German recoil-operated air-cooled general-purpose machine gun used extensively by the Wehrmacht and the Waffen-SS during the second half of World War II. Enterin ...

machinegun production. All finished rifle parts and components were sold to the Army, who sent them to supply depots as spares. Gustloff Werk Hirtenberg (also known as ''

Otto Eberhardt Patronenfabrik Otto Eberhardt Patronenfabrik (English: "Otto Eberhardt Cartridge Factory") was a munitions company established in 1860. The company's ''Hirtenberger Patronen, Zündhütchen und Metallwarenfabrik'' (English: "cartridge, primer and metalware fab ...

'') was located in Hirtenberg, Austria. It was a cartridge manufacturer. The Nazi Party invested heavily in modernizing and expanding its facilities. Gustloff Werk Meuselwitz or ''Maschinenfabrik Meuselwitz'' was formerly ''Heymer & Pilz GmbH Maschinenfabriken'' situated in

Meuselwitz Meuselwitz () is a town in the Altenburger Land district, in Thuringia, Germany. It is situated 12 km northwest of Altenburg and 11 km east of Zeitz. History During World War II, a subcamp of the Buchenwald concentration camp operated ...

, Thuringen, Germany. It was a machine tool maker that had been founded in 1910 and was confiscated in 1939. Thüringen-haus, previously ''Zweigniederlassung'' (German > "Branch Office"), was situated in Berlin. This was the foreign sales office.

References

{{Authority control Germany in World War II Unfree labor during World War II Economy of Nazi Germany