Station 3: Eastern gate, Deutsche Ausrüstungswerke (DAW) armaments factory

In 1940, the SS set up a branch of the Deutsche Ausrüstungswerke (German Armaments Works) in the camp workshops to the east of the inmates’ camp. In the SS-owned factory, hundreds of inmates manufactured products ranging from shell casings to furniture for the Armed SS. In 1942, the SS had an armaments factory built on the road to Weimar – the so-called Blood Road. There they put thousands of inmates to work in arms production for the Gustloff-Werke and Mitteldeutsche Baugemeinschaft under the instruction and supervision of German civilian workers.

Camp commander Pister (center) and SS men with factory managers of the armaments factory. The men stand in front of a team of horses. In the background a bungalow. — 1/2

Camp commandant Pister (centre), his adjutant Schmidt (far left) with plant managers of the Gustloff-Werke on the factory premises in Buchenwald, 1943. Photo: SS Recognition Service

©Musée de la Résistance et de la Déportation, Besançon

The picture was taken in portrait and from an elevated position. In the centre is the fence that extends into the background of the photo. To the left of the barbed wire fence is a road on which lorries drive. To the right of the fence you can see a factory site on which railway tracks run. — 2/2

The fenced-in area of the Buchenwald Gustloff factory on "Blutstraße", 12 April 1944. Photo: Recognition Service of the SS

©Buchenwald Memorial

The operations managers were interested solely in smooth production processes. Nearly every day, they requested new inmates in exchange for those they considered unsuitable for the work at hand. On 8 November 1944, the factory manager of the Buchenwald Gustloff plant wrote to the SS:

“To Labour Detachment Officer SS-Hauptsturmführer Schwarz
C.C. Weimar-Buchenwald

Re: Inmate deployment
We request the immediate removal of inmate no. 48967, Charlier, from the labour detachment because of lack of discipline.

Gustloff-Werke
Fritz-Sauckel-Werk
Buchenwald Plant
Signed

Tänzer”³

The SS complied with the wishes of the factory management. They removed Henri Charlier, a family man from Jemeppe in Belgium, from the Gustloff-Werke labour detachment. He was initially assigned to the punitive detachment deployed in the nursery garden. A few days later the SS sent him to the Ellrich subcamp. Charlier was not able to withstand the conditions there for long. He died on 2 February 1945 at the age of just 35 years.

³ Letter from the management of the Buchenwald Gustloff plant to the labour
detachment officer of the Buchenwald concentration camp, 8 November 1944,
1.1.5.1/5322012/ITS Digital Archive, Arolsen Archive