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Organization Schmelt

Dienststelle Schmelt
German concentration camp located south of the town of Gross-Rosen in Lower Silesia (Poland) where Schmelt camps operated within a larger network of Nazi forced labor camps
Nickname	Schmelt Camps
Formation	October 1940, first camps established in 1941
Founder	SS Heinrich Himmler
Dissolved	Mid-1943 - 1944
Purpose	Jewish Forced Labor Camps - part of the Holocaust and Final Solution
Headquarters	Sosnowiec, Poland
Origins	Organization Schmelt was established and lead by Nazi Germany during World War II to expropriate Jewish labor
Region	Upper Silesia, Lower Silesia and the Sudetenland.
Methods	50,000 Jewish forced laborers in over 160 camps
Special Plenipotentiary of the SS-Reichsführer, Chief Police Commander for Labor of Non-German Nationals in Upper Silesia	Albrecht Schmelt
Key people	Ober-Inspektor Hanschild, Heinrich Lindner, Fridrich Kuczynski , Bruno Ludwig, Hauptsturmführer Knoll
Affiliations	Generalegovernement, Reichsautonbahn

Organization Schmelt - also known as Dienststelle Schmelt or Schmelt camps - was a Nazi organization established in 1941 that built networks of forced labor camps that mainly employed Jewish prisoners in Upper Silesia, Lower Silesia and the Sudetenland. It was primarily managed and led by the “Special Representative of the Reichsführer-SS for the Foreign National Labor Task in Upper Silesia” and SS Brigade Leader Albrecht Schmelt. Throughout its brief history, Organization Schmelt managed several large scale industrial projects, such as the Reichautobahn (RAB) and rearmament production. Until mid-1943, when most of its economic objectives were met, many Schmelt camps were integrated into larger concentration and extermination camp systems as part of the acceleration of the Holocaust and Final Solution.

Origins and background

An important aspect of the origins of Organization Schmelt was the Third Reich’s Jewish resettlement policies to the East. On October 8 1939, Nazi Germany annexed several pieces of Polish territory, including Upper Silesia, an area known to be rich in coal, zinc mines, and the center of Polish industry. By September 1940, SS-Reichführer Heinrich Himmler, who was responsible for managing Jewish ethnic cleansing policies in annexed territories, had to ensure that ethnic cleansing still took place while maintaining ongoing industrial production in the eastern Upper Silesia region. Therefore, his solution was to create a “unique institution” to manage the Jewish ghetto labor in east Upper Silesia through the creation of Organizational Schmelt. Organization Schmelt is regarded as an “unusual forced-labor agency” because of its paradoxical role in the broader context of the Nazis' policies to resolve the Jewish question. On one hand, it was part of the Nazi machinery of annihilation, but on the other, it delayed the Final Solution somewhat by exploiting and expropriating Jewish labor.

At its core, Organization Schmelt was an autonomous entity that did not answer to the SS and Upper Silesia police commanders. This was mainly because Himmler aimed to establish a new economic organization that was wholly autonomous from other Nazi entities inaugurated to exploit Jewish populations during this period. Organization Schmelt was primarily composed of a large range of employment sites, varying from labor camps, ghetto workshops run by Organization Schmelt and labor battalions. The exact date of the establishment of Schmelt camps is still not determined. However, historical records indicate that the first Schmelt camp was established prior to October 31, 1941. After its establishment, Albert Schmelt assigned the routine management of the organization to Ober-Inspektor Hanschild, who was the director of the Political Department as well as Schmelt’s direct assistant. Other leading officers who managed the organization’s internal and external affairs included: Heinrich Lindner, Fridrich Kuczynski , Bruno Ludwig, and Hauptsturmführer Knoll. Schmelt camps were originally established with the intent that they would exist for a short period of time. However, due to the continuous delays in the deportation of Jews and the high demand for labor, Schmelt camps operated beyond their initial timeline.

Role of Albrecht Schmelt

Albrecht Schmelt

Albrecht Schmelt, born in Breslau in 1899, was raised as a farmer before attending school to become a mid-level official. After being appointed as both the Sonderbeauftragte des SS-Reichsführer (Special Plenipotentiary of the SS-Reichsführer) and the Chef de deutschen Polizei für fremdvölkischen Arbeitseinsatz in Oberschlesien (Police Commander for Labor of Non-German Nationals in Upper Silesia), Albrecht Schmelt had significant control over Jewish forced labor policies. Since he had served as the Chief of Policy in Breslau (a city well known for its Jewish population), Schmelt was well versed in the Nazi Party’s Jewish labor policies for several years leading up to the establishment of Organization Schmelt. When he was appointed as a government advisor in the Interior Affairs Department in 1933, Schmelt was able to make several important political connections, which eventually allowed him to progress up the Nazi ranks to the grade of Oberführer in the SS Security Service. It is these political connections and his newfound status that earned Schmelt the respect and trust of higher-ranking Nazi officials like Erich von dem Bach-Zelewski, who directly recommended Schmelt to Himmler for his leadership position in the newly founded Organization Schmelt. Moreover, through Heinrich Himmler and Reinhard Heydreich’s approval and election, Schmelt was able to exercise a considerable degree of autonomy in regard to managing the organization’s affairs and its vast array of forced labor. His new Upper Silesian agency had forty employees and its headquarters in Sosnowiec (from an initial staff of eight). His organization eventually intended to use Jews from eastern Upper Silesia as forced workers throughout the entire Wehrkreis VII (military district), often known as the SS Southeast Zone, which included all of Upper and Lower Silesia as well as some of the Sudetenland.Through his role in Organization Schmelt, Schmelt’s goal remained to fill inactive and less productive factories with unemployed Jewish workers in Upper Silesia. Although this goal was achieved by early 1943, when the organization’s operations had been profitable to the Nazi economy, Schmelt’s reputation and status within the SS declined with the liquidation of the organization. Schmelt, as it was revealed, had kept a large sum of money from the industrial development to himself and was unable to provide an explanation on how the money was used. (See more in Section “Dissolution and Legacy”).

Organizational history

From its establishment of the forced labor camps for Jews in 1940 to SS Chief Heinrich Himmler’s expansion of the construction of several more camps in March 1941, the number of forced Jewish laborers working for the Organization Schmelt grew from 1,500 to around 4,000 as the organization’s focus shifted towards longer-term, large scale industrial projects. From the beginning of its establishment, Organization Schmelt struggled to supervise a large area of such projects while maximizing outputs and simultaneously searching for more laborers to fulfill production quotas. Thus, by 1941, Schmelt had ordered the local police, the Zentrale, to assist in preparing lists, identifying potential labor candidates, and transporting them to the camps.

Map depicting Upper Silesia where the Schmelt camps were built.

Map depicting Lower Silesia

Some of the early notable industrial projects managed by Organization Schmelt include an anti-tank ditch along the eastern border frontiers facing the Red Army, the construction of the Gleiwitz Oppe In Highway and the Berlin-Breslau Katowice Highway. Given the shift in focus and growing importance of the Schmelt factories to the German army (for arms production), the Jewish labor movement continuously increased through the integration of Jews from both Silesia and the General Government. By early 1943, Schmelt had employed 50, 570 Jews in 140 labor camps. By mid-1943, during the liquidation phase of the ghettos and concentration camps, followed by the deportation of workers to extermination camps, many of these forced labor camps were subsumed into the newly established concentration camps like Auschwitz, Gross-Rosen, and Blechhammer. However, as early as November 1941, Schmelt began sending transports of laborers who could no longer sufficiently perform their duties to extermination camps. Only prisoners who provided essential support to armaments and ammunition factories remained in forced labor.  

Recruitment of Jewish labourers

Map depicting Sudetenland where Schmelt camps were further established

The recruitment of Jewish labourers was a multi-faceted process that involved extensive cooperation between the Nazi leaders, German businessmen, and even Jewish politicians. Schmelt received special permission from such officials to transport Jews from Western Europe and select out the able-bodied, young, and healthier Jews to be taken to the camps. Initially, Jews were lured into working for labor camps through targeted advertisements that promised active benefits for volunteers and their families, such as good wages, new clothing, and the promise of being returned to their homes after a fixed period of work. The first transports in October 1940 included around 500 Jews each, which rapidly increased to 2,800 by the end of the year. Over time, the forced kidnapping of tens of thousands of Upper Silesian Jews was a major recruitment strategy for forced labor that is not well known. Since the late fall of 1941, the Schmelt office has been conducting systematic selections in the slave labor camps. However, the number of people hired in this manner quickly fell short of what was required to complete the armaments programs. Moreover, organized deportations from the cities in eastern Upper Silesia began in the early summer of 1942. Around November 1941, Jewish girls as young as 16 years of age were ordered into forced labor camps; over time, the lower and lower threshold for mandatory forced labor encouraged hiding among the Jewish population.  

Significance of the organization

Role in the Jewish forced-labor policy

Organization Schmelt, due to the strong direction of Albrecht Schmelt, eventually developed significant autonomy over the entire Nazi German forced labor movement. For instance, by its first year of operation in March 1941, “no business of a government agency was permitted to employ Jews without Schmelt's authorization." Its location in the Polish city of Sosnowiec was also an important indication of its autonomy and its growing economic self-sufficiency.

Economic role

Labor camps were intentionally located next to key industrial zones that focused on the extraction of raw materials and manufacturing; this allowed the overall Nazi economy to profit from the maximum possible exploitation of Jewish labor. The philosophy behind these camps was based on an “extermination through work” strategy, where the assumption was that the hard industrial-based labor in such camps combined with insufficient provisions of food and basic necessities would eventually lead to the degradation or ultimately the death of the most unfit Jews, whereas the more productive labourers would receive sufficient care to ensure their survival and their ongoing contribution to the economy. In Eastern Upper Silesia, Jews working for Organizational Schmelt were also prioritized by their ability to provide economic value to the Nazi economy, such that they were even hired by the regional Reichsautobahn (RAB) authorities. In this way, the economic profits and industrial benefits that forced labor provided, temporarily outweighed Nazi racism's aims of Jewish annihilation. Furthermore, Jews working in production shops, private companies, and even former Jewish businesses were forced to pass on a third of their earnings to the Schmelt Office, even after only being paid less than half of the wage of Aryan workers. Through economic expropriation and industrial exploitation of Jewish laborers, Organizational Schmelt and the work that it facilitated “cemented its status as an essential body that worked on behalf of the war industries (kriegiwchtiger Arbeitseinsatz)." In doing so, the organization also fulfilled Himmler's desire to “secure a profitable sphere of activity for the SS."

Main projects of the Schmelt camps

Locations and projects

Germany created at least 40 forced labor camps for Polish Jews between 1940 and 1943, the majority in Brandenburg, a small number in East Prussia, and a few in western Germany, with the exception of the Silesia camps, which were part of the Schmelt camp system.

Construction projects and the Polish Jews: Fuhrer Roads and the Autobahn

The “Führer Roads” were industrial projects built in Germany by the end of 1940 as a precursor to the Reich Autobahn Project (a highway system). Since 1942, many Polish Jews from the Old Reich's thirty Silesian Jewish forced labor camps and the twelve Brandenburg Jewish camps provided labor for Autobahn construction projects. In contrast to the German Jews in camps, the Polish Jews assigned to Autobahn projects only worked under group contract agreements that were established without their involvement; their net wages were equal to pennies; and their living conditions were dominated by oppressive regimes in camps.

By the spring of 1942, Reichsautobahn production shifted towards armament production following Schmelt’s “special order” (Sonderauftrag) to develop the armaments industry, which forced the relocation of many Jews from Upper Eastern Silesia to the Breslau construction headquarters. The Schmelt organization then organized the forced labor camps it operated to actively move laborers between cities in eastern Upper Silesia, the Autobahn camps, and other locations (Zwangsarbeitslager, or ZAL). The re-designation of the Autobahn camps as Zwangsarbeitslager symbolized a change: as a result, the inmates lost any and all wages, vacation, and mail privileges. Upon facing further labor shortages due to poor conditions, Schmelt received approval to round up an additional 10,000 Jews from the deportation trains in order to recruit laborers for his camp. By the end of 1942, the Schmelt system employed 8,188 non-Polish Jewish foreigners as forced laborers, most of whom were men. Below are some of the camps for the Reichsautobahn projects:

Reichsautobahn camps in Lower Silesia:

1. Altenhain
2. Faulbrueck
3. Graeditz
4. Hermannsdorf
5. Klein Mangersdorf
6. Klettendorf
7. Markstaedt - Fuenftei chen
8. Obernigk
9. Wiesau

Reichsautobahn camps in Upper Silesia:

1. Anhalt
2. Annaberg
3. Audenrode
4. Brande
5. Eichtal
6. Floessingen
7. Geppersdorf
8. Gogolin
9. Gross Sarne
10. Gruenheide
11. Johannsdorf
12. Lindenhain
13. Mechtal

Conditions within the Schmelt camps

Treatment of camp inmates

During the recruitment process, the Jews in Eastern Upper Silesia were coerced into forced labor with threats of harsh repressive measures, including punishment camps, the removal of food ration cards, or the deportation of entire families in order to replace those who had perished or been taken away. Once taken into Schmelt's camps, inmates recalled the administrators and supervisors for their sadistic and cruel punishments. During inspections of labor camps, one prominent inspector, Heinrich Linder, used to take part in beatings and shootings and allow his dog to scavenge for prisoners. Unsanitary conditions in camps often accelerated their prisoners' poor health: many workers died from exhaustion, sickness, or were even simply murdered on the spot. Although conditions in camps did improve in 1942 as laborers moved from large infrastructure projects to farm labor and arms manufacturing, the rise of infectious diseases rapidly increased their mortality rates. In addition to the death toll of over 50,000 Jewish laborers working in the camps, the death toll of Jews in Globocnick’s Lublin camps was over 40,000. Due to such high death tolls, Schmelt further accelerated recruitment efforts to add new labor forces. Operated to maximize the exploitation of Jewish forced labor from which the Nazis could profit; this in turn postponed aspects of the Final Solution, namely the Jewish ghettoization and deportation.

Gender segregation

The camps run by Organization Schmelt were often gender segregated, with women typically working indoors and men outdoors. Living conditions in Schmelt camps varied considerably depending on the officers overseeing the camps. Gender differences in living conditions were most pronounced in mixed-gender camps. Women, usually girls aged 16-18, worked in service-related roles such as textiles, laundry, sewing, and cleaning, whereas men worked on hard-labor industrial projects such as building the Reichsautobahn roads. Due to their sheltered indoor environments, they received suitable clothing and bedding, were permitted occasional hot showers, and received even higher daily food rations. These more favourable conditions factored into the higher prevalence of support networks and mutual assistance groups among women.

Mutual assistance groups

Despite the predominant portrayal of the Jewish slave laborers as soulless, faceless, and helpless victims, there was an aspect of strength, communal solidarity and friendship that has been sparsely studied: the existence of Mutual Assistance Groups (MAGs). Members of such groups demonstrated solidarity primarily through mechanisms that revolved around satisfying basic needs (such as the acquisition of valuable resources such as food) and fostering stronger, more intimate social connections. However, the longevity of such groups was certainly undermined by the grueling conditions in the camps, where factors like malnourishment, exhaustion, and feelings of paranoia and despair created the breeding grounds for competition among prisoners. In this way, the formation of such groups was only viable in camps with relatively predictable and steady settings. In such harsh conditions, some Jewish prisoners did find ways to improve their situation and increase their solidarity. Many engaged in black market activities to barter for food and other items like cigarettes. Simple forms of communication between prisoners and their relatives were allowed, such as through parcels or letters. Though the extent of participation and size of these mutual support groups are still uncertain, male testimonies from one of the largest forced labor camps, Markstädt, provide evidence of such networks.

Dissolution and legacy

Given the increasing urgency of Nazi officials and Hitler himself to accelerate the Final Solution, Himmler was satisfied with the economic profitability of the camps' outputs and began the process of liquidation and deportation. From early-mid 1943, Himmler gave orders to shut down the labor camps and associated factories, as well as permanently dismantle the Organization Schmelt. Some of the factories' administration operations, particularly those working on rearmament projects, were also transferred into the newer Auschwitz and Gross-Rosen concentration camps. The last Jews were sent to be exterminated by January 1944. However, the process of liquidation, fully dismantling the camps, and transferring its operations to newer sets of concentration camps wasn’t fully achieved until mid-1944, by which time a majority of Eastern Upper Silesia's Jews had been exterminated. The dissolution of Organization Schmelt caused a career crisis for Albrecht Schmelt: in early 1944, he was ousted from Open In District's presidency, and his status in the SS declined until March 23rd, 1944, when he was officially suspended from all his duties within the SS.

Organization Schmelt, was an important precursor and prototype for new, more advanced networks of concentration camps and subcamps systems in occupied Poland. These advanced systems “represented a novelty,” because it created a system of labor camps that were distant from population centers and urban “shops” (ie., forced labor factories), allowing for the maximum exploitation of Jewish labor prior to further deportation or extermination.

See also

• The Holocaust
• Final Solution
• Cosel Transporten
• Nazi Germany
• Jewish Question
• Extermination through labour

Further reading

• Baron, Charles, « Ces camps dont on a oublié le nom : les Z.A.L. Camps de travaux forces pour Juifs en Haute et Basse Silesies », Le Monde Juif, 1983/2 (N° 110), p. 58-74. URL : https://www.cairn.info/revue-le-monde-juif-1983-2-page-58.htm
• Barth, Susanne. "Revisiting the "Cosel Period": A Fresh Perspective on the Stopping of Western Deportation Trains En Route to Auschwitz, 1942–1943." Shofar (West Lafayette, Ind.) 39, no. 2 (2021): 32-61.
• Heise, Bernard. The Greater German Reich and the Jews: Nazi Persecution Policies in the Annexed Territories, 1935-1945. Edited by Wolf Gruner and Jörg Osterloh. 1st ed. Berghahn Books, 2015. http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt9qd1cq.
• Konieczny, Alfred. “Organizacja Schmelt” i jej obozy pracy dla Żydów na Śląsku w latach 1940-1944. “Acta Univ. Wratislawiensis”. Studia nad Faszyzmem i Zbrodniami Hitlerowskimi, rok 1992, nr 15, s. 281-314. https://www.nli.org.il/en/articles/RAMBI990000644000705171/NLI
• Lehnstaedt, Stephan. "Coercion and Incentive: Jewish Ghetto Labor in East Upper Silesia." Holocaust and Genocide Studies 24, no. 3 (2010): 400-430.
• Rudorff, Andrea. Das Lagersystem der "Organisation Schmelt" in Schlesien, in: Benz, Wolfgang / Distel, Barbara (Hg.): Der Ort des Terrors. Die Geschichte der nationalsozialistischen Konzentrationslager. Bd. 9, München 2009, S. 154-160
• Steinbacher, Sybille. "Musterstadt" Auschwitz: Germanisierungspolitik Und Judenmord in Ostoberschlesien. Vol. Bd. 2.;Bd. 2;. München: K.G. Saur, 2000.