Frommern concentration camp

The concentration camp Frommern , or KZ Frommern for short , was a subsidiary camp of the Natzweiler-Struthof concentration camp (as an administrative main camp). It was located below the Albtrauf to the west of Frommern , today a district of Balingen , directly on the Tübingen – Sigmaringen railway line south of Balingen. The Frommern concentration camp was one of a series of seven camps which, under the code name desert, had the goal of extracting crude oil from bitumen .

prehistory

Bituminous rock was discovered in the Posidonia slate area in the Black Jura , but it was not considered to be mineable. Due to the worsening supply situation, the German Reich began to work intensively from mid-1943 to work out methods of using raw material sources available in Germany. After the defeat of Stalingrad , but also the bombing of the Leuna hydrogenation works in the summer of 1944, this search for possible sources of crude oil was accelerated. Using forced labor , attempts were also made in the Frommern concentration camp to set up an operational plant that could deliver crude oil within a very short time.

Different plans existed, in Frommern a smoldering process was used that used a Swiss oven . The attempts were successful. Other procedures were tested in other camps.

Quarries were located in the immediate vicinity of the camp, in which the inmates quarried bituminous rock. After the crushing, also done by slave labor, it had to be carbonized. Smoldering gases escaped here. These were condensed and digested after purification by distillation . The smoldering oils were then collected in basins, where they were prepared for removal.

The decision to build plants for the extraction of smoldering oil was made within the framework of the Geilenberg program , which was developed by Edmund Geilenberg in the Berlin Reich Ministry for Armaments and Ammunition . Freiherr von Krüdener was responsible for the “Desert Company” .

The Todt Organization was responsible for setting up the plant in Frommern . This was also the responsibility of the Deutsche Bergwerks- und Hüttenbau Gesellschaft mbH.

The works were operated by the "Deutsche Ölschieferforschungs-Gesellschaft" (DÖLF) and the Deutsche Schieferölgesellschaft mbH .

The concentration camp forced laborers were made available by the SS at a cost of four to five Reichsmarks per day.

History of the camp

The concentration camp was established on March 1, 1944 and dissolved on April 13, 1945. Documents from October 31, 1944 show that 179 concentration camp prisoners were interned in the Frommern concentration camp.

The Frommern concentration camp initially consisted of three barracks, the number of which was increased to five in March 1945. These were surrounded by barbed wire fences. The forced laborers were monitored by the SS. Survivors describe the food in the camp as extremely poor.

In the first phase of the camp, the prisoners only built the civil engineering structures for the oil shale plant. After they were completed, they were also used to mine the slate. On average, one tonne of smoldering oil could be obtained from 35 tons of slate.

Unlike in many other concentration camps, the treatment of the prisoners is said to have been relatively good. Eight deaths have been documented between January and March, three of which were exhausted forced laborers and five were killed in a bomb attack.

According to statements by civilian workers in the camp, the forced laborers were provided with extremely poor supplies, but there were never any executions.

The camp was closed on December 12th and 13th. April 1945, when 64 prisoners began a death march to the Dachau concentration camp .

In 2014, two memorial steles were set up at the Schiefersee as a reminder.