Founded in March 1943 in German-occupied Poland, Osti operated confiscated Jewish and Polish prewar industrial enterprises, including foundries, textile plants, quarries and glassworks.

[7][8] Max Horn believed that Jewish forced labor was the way of the future, but his plans were halted by the Warsaw and Białystok ghetto uprisings, the latter of which occurred where the Ostindustrie textile and armament factories were scheduled for relocation.

[7][9][10] In the wake of the uprisings, and with the war on the Eastern Front increasingly turning against Germany, the SS decided to eliminate Poland's remaining Jewish forced laborers to prevent further unrest.

On 3 November 1943, Osti's workforce was liquidated in its entirety in the course of Aktion Erntefest, the single largest German massacre of Jews in the entire war, with approximately 43,000 victims across District Lublin being shot in fake anti-tank trenches.

[11] Subsequently, Horn complained in a report to Globocnik about the outcome of Aktion Erntefest; he stated that it had made Osti "completely valueless through the withdrawal [sic] of Jewish labor".