Meuselwitz was a subcamp of Buchenwald which provided slave labor to the HASAG plant. HASAG was a privately owned company which was the third largest employer of slave labor after Farben and the Goring Werke. The company was run by Paul Budin, a highly placed member of the Nazi party. Beginning in the summer of 1944, labor camps were established next to each HASAG plant in Germany, all of which were sattelite camps of Buchenwald. As of January 31, 1945, the Meuselwitz plant employed 1,666 prisoners, of which 1,376 were women. The plant was engaged in the manufacture of small to medium sized munitions. More women were employed since HASAG paid the SS less for women than men. and also HASAG's experience was that women had a higher mortality rate than men. Paul Budin is assumed to have committed suicide with his wife, in April 1945, when he blew up the company's head office in Leipzig.
Below are thumbnails of the front and back of a postcard postmarked May, 14, 1943, from a prisoner named Prosek to Bohemia. The postcard is identified in Lordahl as Type Po3. Please click on the thumbnail to see the full image, and then click your back key or "Philatelic Materials" in the left frame to return.
Erik Lordahl, German Concentration Camps 1933-1945, History and Inmate Mail (2000). Referred to as Lordahl.
Feig, Hitlers Death Camps (1979)
Copyright © 2001 Edward Victor