Forced labor in the Nazi state

As a German defence company, we feel a special responsibility to contribute to the culture of remembrance and commemoration in the context of the Second World War. We have thoroughly examined and documented our role and our transgressions during the Nazi era. The historical documents on forced labor that we have compiled are available for researchers and interested parties in the Düsseldorf City Archives and in the Rheinmetall Central Archives. In the course of these reappraisal projects, various memorials were also erected in the Düsseldorf districts of Derendorf and Grafenberg, not far from the Rheinmetall headquarters, to commemorate the injustices of the Nazi era. At the production site in Unterlüß, a memorial was also set up to educate people about the inhumane living conditions of forced laborers during the Nazi era. In addition, we were able to enable former forced laborers from Poland to visit the former premises of Rheinmetall-Borsig AG in collaboration with the Düsseldorf Memorial Centre oder Museum.

From 1924 to 1956, Rheinmetall-Borsig AG was majority-owned by the German state and came under the extensive control of the National Socialist regime during the Third Reich, which was at times expressed in its affiliation with the Hermann Göring Group.

From the early 1930s, Rheinmetall-Borsig AG was involved in the massive rearmament of the German armed forces. The German arms industry also contributed to the prolongation of the Second World War through the mass production of weapons and ammunition of all types and calibres, and their use on the various fronts in the east and West. Rheinmetall-Borsig was involved in the occupation policy in countries such as the Netherlands, France and Poland by taking over operating facilities.

This also included the mass use of forced laborers, both of deported people from the countries occupied by the Wehrmacht in Western and Eastern Europe and of prisoners of war, especially from the Soviet Union. German and foreign Jewish concentration camp inmates were also forced to work under degrading conditions at Rheinmetall-Borsig AG's plants, with many of them dying as a result.

The history of forced labor at Rheinmetall-Borsig has been presented in a chapter of the book marking Rheinmetall's 125th anniversary in 2014. The corresponding chapter is available to download here.