HASAG

HASAG, also known as Hugo Schneider AG, was a German metal goods manufacturer founded in 1863 and based in Leipzig. It grew from a small business making lamps and other small metal products by hand into a large factory and publicly traded company that sold its wares in several countries. It began making armaments during the First World War, struggled during the 1920s in the Weimar Republic, and returned to small arms production under the new SS leadership after the Nazi Party came to power in 1933. During the Second World War it became a Nazi arms-manufacturing conglomerate with dozens of factories across German-occupied Europe using slave labour on a massive scale, and tens of thousands of Jews from Poland and other prisoners died producing munitions for it.