- published: 09 Feb 2013
- views: 815
Allach porcelain (pronounced 'alak') was produced in Germany between 1935 and 1945.
Master of ceramics (potter) Franz Nagy had owned the land since 1925 that the Munich-Allach facility was built on. With his business partner, the porcelain artist Prof. Karl Diebitsch, he began the production of porcelain art. The porcelain factory Porzellan Manufaktur Allach was established as a private concern in 1935 in the small town of Allach, near Munich, Germany. In 1936 the factory was acquired by the SS. Heinrich Himmler, the leader of the SS who was known for his obsession with Aryan mysticism, saw the acquisition of a fine porcelain factory as a way to establish an industrial base for the production of works of art that would be representative, in Himmler's eyes, of truly Germanic culture. Allach porcelain was one of Himmler’s favorite projects and produced various figurines (soldiers, animals, etc.) to compete in the small but profitable German porcelain market.
High-ranking artists were locked into contract. The program of the factory included over 240 porcelain and ceramic models. As output at the Allach factory increased, the Nazis moved production to a new facility near the Dachau concentration camp. The fact that the factory might have been taking advantage of a pool of slave labor provided by the Dachau camp was strongly denied by the factory managers at the Nuremberg Trials. Initially intended as a temporary facility, Dachau remained the main location for fine porcelain manufacture even after the original factory in Allach was modernized and reopened in 1940. The factory in Allach was instead retrofitted for the production of ceramic products such as household pottery.