Polte ammunition factory

Lore & Background

The company began in 1873 as a metal foundry and fittings factory under Jürgens & Co., was taken over in 1885, and entered the commercial register in 1887 as Armaturenfabrik Polte. It remained a family business, owner-managed, until 1945. After Eugen Polte's death in 1911, his sons-in-law Martin Nathusius and Arnulf Freiherr von Gillern ran the works, expanding it into one of Germany's largest ammunition suppliers before and during the Second World War.

Polte operated under various names in catalogues and advertisements, including Polte metal goods factory, Polte fittings and machine factory, Polte machine tools, Polte aluminum factory, Polte fittings and water meter factories, Polte cartridge, ammunition machine and fittings factory, Polte fittings and cartridge factory, and Polte Munitions Factory. From 1913, C. Louis Strube AG of Magdeburg belonged to Polte-Werke. Starting in 1931, about a dozen other production facilities outside Magdeburg were taken over, built, or leased as branches or subsidiaries, including plants in Grüneberg, Ludwigshafen, Wolfenbüttel, Bad Lauterberg, and Magdeburg.

By 1945, Polte-Werke had grown into an armaments group with several subsidiaries and branches. At the end of the war, around 30,000 people worked in all its plants, about half in four Magdeburg factories. From June 1943 until the war's end, the company became known for mass employment of forced laborers and concentration camp prisoners, who by that time made up some 50% of the workforce. Subcamps housing these workers existed at the main Polte works in Magdeburg-Stadtfeld and at plants in Duderstadt, Genthin, Grüneberg, Seehausen, and Arnstadt.

Reader's Guide

Polte ammunition factory's significance lies in its dual legacy as a pioneering industrial employer and a wartime armaments giant that relied heavily on forced labor. Before the Second World War, it was internationally appreciated for engineering quality and was a pioneer in constructing sanitary and social facilities for employees, making it one of the most important employers in Magdeburg.

However, its wartime role transformed its reputation: from June 1943 until the end of the war, about half of its workforce consisted of concentration camp prisoners and forced laborers, who worked twelve-hour shifts under abusive conditions, with numerous deaths from malnutrition and disease. After the war, parts of the Polte-Werke that were not destroyed or taken as reparations by the Soviet occupying forces were merged into state-owned enterprises: VEB Schwerarmaturenwerk 'Erich Weinert' and later VEB Magdeburger Armaturenwerke 'Karl Marx'. The company's history thus encapsulates both the industrial strength of pre-war Germany and the moral catastrophe of the Nazi armaments economy.