Explosives factory in Hessisch Lichtenau

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The explosives factory Hessisch Lichtenau was in the era of National Socialism north from 1936 the small town of Hessisch Lichtenau in the former Prussian province of Hesse-Nassau built explosives factory . It was built on behalf of and for the account of the German Armed Forces using a disguised state financing and administration system (→  Montan scheme ), while the actual operation was in the hands of Gesellschaft mbH for the recycling of chemical products (recycling chemistry) as a subsidiary of Dynamit AG (DAG ) lay.

The cover name of the explosives factory was Friedland . The factory's facilities and buildings, which were not destroyed in the Second World War, developed into today's Hirschhagen industrial area in the city of Hessisch Lichtenau after 1945 .

History and choice of location

The explosives factory was built against the background of the armament of the Wehrmacht, which began in 1935 as a result of the so-called seizure of power by the National Socialists on January 30, 1933. In order to be able to meet the massive ammunition requirements of the Wehrmacht in the event of war, the production capacities in the powder and explosives sector, which were restricted by the Peace Treaty of Versailles , had to be significantly expanded. In consultation between the Heereswaffenamt and the private explosives manufacturers, a number of camouflaged "shadow factories" began to be built, which should only start production in the event of mobilization or war. What all these plants had in common was the remote location in rural areas, the loosened up and sometimes bunkered construction and camouflage measures.

The small town of Hessisch Lichtenau , which had around 3,000 inhabitants in the mid-1930s, was located in an originally agricultural region and until then had only two larger industrial companies (a weaving mill and a cigar factory). The owners of these two companies were, by the way, Jewish , whose companies fell victim to the so-called Aryanization in 1938 .

In 1935, locations for new explosives factories to be built were established throughout the German Reich . The choice of location Hessisch Lichtenau took place under the influence of Julius Goebel, NSDAP - district leader in the district Witzenhausen and since the Nazi Gleichschaltung mayor of Hessisch Lichtenau. Goebel hoped that the construction of the plant would create new work and income opportunities for the residents of the city and its surroundings. According to his own statements, shortly after the reintroduction of compulsory military service on March 16, 1935, he had turned to military services to have a formation of the new Wehrmacht transferred to the local city .

The selected site was located in the state forest of Hessisch Lichtenau, around three kilometers north of the city. It belonged to the districts of Hessisch Lichtenau, Fürstenhagen and Friedrichsbrück . After the construction of the explosives factory, the municipal boundaries were redefined and the entire area of ​​the city of Hessisch Lichtenau was added in order to obtain a uniform area under local law. From the point of view of the planners, the location offered several advantages such as the possibility of camouflaging against the view of airmen due to the location in a mixed forest area, the proximity to lignite mines for energy supply and the labor pool in rural areas. In autumn 1935 the planning was finally completed.

Structure and infrastructure

The construction of the explosives factory in Hessisch Lichtenau began in 1936 by Dynamit-Aktien-Gesellschaft, formerly Alfred Nobel & Co. (DAG for short) from Troisdorf on behalf of the Army High Command (OKH). According to the mining scheme functioned in the possession of the Army Ordnance Office located collecting society for mining industry GmbH (short: Montan ) officially as the owner, which the location of the mbH chemical for recycling products (abbreviated Verwertchemie ) leased as a 100% subsidiary of DAG . Construction of the plant began in 1936. On June 1, 1938, it was put into operation as the second explosives factory for recycling chemistry. In the secret site plan of the Reich Office for Economic Development , the factory was listed under the code name Friedland as one of 87 production facilities for explosives, warfare agents and powder that existed at the beginning of 1939. The facilities on the site are shown in detail in a factory plan from that time.

The explosives factory in Hessisch Lichtenau comprised a total area of ​​233 hectares fenced with barbed wire and 399 factory buildings. In addition to the approximately 17 km long works railway network with its own station on the Walburg – Großalmerode West railway line, there was an extensive paved road and path network. The design of the building took into account the possibility of explosion accidents as well as enemy aerial reconnaissance and can be regarded as typical for all explosives factories built during the Nazi era. The factories were built according to standardized plans as reinforced concrete structures or in reinforced concrete frame construction and were partly surrounded by earth walls that reached to the roof ridge. The connecting corridors between the individual buildings were also given an earth cover. The flat roofs were planted. This gave the impression of an underground facility, which is still widespread today. In fact, however, it was about above-ground structures, while only the pipeline networks (electricity, water, sewer) were laid underground.

For the power supply, three lignite power plants with an installed capacity of 4,400, 3,000 and 1,200 kilowatts were built, which were supplied from a bunker, which in turn was directly connected to the Hirschberg colliery via a material cable car. The electricity generated was converted and distributed via 20 transformer stations. In addition, emergency power generators were available for the main building of the plant.

In order to ensure the enormous amount of water required for the production of explosives, five deep wells were drilled in the Losse valley , a cooling pond and two elevated tanks were built, and two pumping stations were built. The factory had one drinking water and two service water supply networks. Five separate sewer networks led the acidic sewage untreated into the Losse until 1941, before the neutralization plant (sewage treatment plant) was completed. The denitration and concentration plant for sulfuric acid and the acid splitting plant for oleum were used to manufacture and recover the chemicals required for production .

The actual core of the plant were the production groups for the explosives trinitrotoluene (TNT) and picric acid (TNP). The TNT production group consisted of 13 buildings ( toluene storage, acid mixing plant, mononitriding plant, mono- storage, binitriding, bi- storage, wash house I and II, drying, granulation, storage with dispatch, tri- intermediate storage ). The two picric acid production groups each consisted of a nitriding house, a wash house, two drying houses, a sieve house and an acid store. This explosive was then filled into tubes and compacted in 19 press buildings spread across the factory premises. A third production group for the explosive Nitropenta (PETN) was originally planned and construction work had already started. All work on the production buildings for Nitropenta was stopped in 1940 on the instructions of the Army Weapons Office. Nitropenta supplied by other factories was processed in Hessisch Lichtenau.

Some of the TNT produced in the factory was filled into aircraft bombs , shell casings and land mines that were delivered on site . The filling station east and filling station west , which were structurally identical (two casing stores each, one preparation building, one casting house, cooling channel and production building) were used for this. Garnet cases were also supplied by smaller companies such as Klein & Stiefel from Fulda.

Outside the actual factory premises, the confiscated buildings of the Hansa heavy weaving mill in Eschenstruth were set up in 1942 for the production and repair of special tools for recycling chemistry.

production

In the explosives factory in Hessisch Lichtenau the two explosives TNT (from 1938) and picric acid (from 1939) were produced until the end of March 1945, whereas the originally planned production of nitropenta did not take place. The highest production output of TNT was achieved in the 1942/43 financial year with 29,170 t. A total of 118,691 t of TNT and 5,608 t of picric acid were produced in the Hessisch Lichtenau plant. The Hessisch Lichtenau site thus achieved the second highest total TNT output of all recycling chemical plants, behind the Allendorf factory (125,131 t), but ahead of the Clausthal-Zellerfeld factory (105,357 t). Only the WASAG plant near Elsnig (142,750 t) and the dynamite factory Krümmel (157,044 t) achieved higher TNT production figures in Germany . In terms of the production of picric acid, Hessisch Lichtenau was only surpassed by the Dömitz plant (8,923 t), which is also operated by the recycling chemical industry .

Labor and warehouse

Number and origin of the workforce

According to contemporary information, around 3,800 workers were employed when the explosives plant was built between 1936 and 1938. These came not only from the near and far, but partly from the entire German Empire. A smaller part (700 to 800) of them were housed in private quarters, but for the most part in specially built barracks.

The workforce at the Hessisch Lichtenau explosives factory during its actual operation comprised a total of 4,472 people on December 31, 1944, 2,446 of them women. Of the workforce, 46.13% were German, but 53.87% were foreigners who had to work almost exclusively against their will in the plant and were treated very differently according to the racist criteria of the Nazi ideology . 739 foreign workers were classified as Eastern workers . The remaining foreigners who had to work in the factory included 790 to 1,000 female and mainly Jewish concentration camp prisoners from Hungary.

Living and working conditions

The foreign forced laborers in the explosives factories were subject to a large number of ordinances, decrees and laws that were intended to regulate everyday work and were monitored and rigorously enforced by plant security, police and warehouse management. The workers from Western Europe were generally treated better than those from Eastern Europe and in particular the concentration camp prisoners. In an investigation report on the Hessisch Lichtenau factory from 1947 it was noted: DAG is well known for its inhumane treatment, especially towards foreigners. "Offenses" were threatened with the report to the Gestapo and the admission to the labor education camp in Breitenau , only about 30 km away . The Jewish inmates of the Hessisch Lichtenau subcamp were in constant danger of being sent to Auschwitz and murdered there if they were found to be “unable to work” . At the end of October 1944, 206 of the women penned up there fell victim to a selection made on site by the SS and were deported back to Auschwitz to be murdered.

In addition to the constant abuse and the poor living conditions in the camps, especially for the Eastern European forced laborers, there was also the dangerous and unhealthy work in the factory. Daily handling of the toxic substances used in the manufacture and processing of explosives not only caused discoloration of the skin and hair, but repeated deaths from damage to the liver and lungs. Due to the explosive nature of the explosives, there was always the risk of being killed in an explosion. Six major explosion accidents are documented on the factory premises, which resulted in deaths. The most devastating were the two explosions in the filling station West on April 10, 1943 and March 31, 1944 with 63 and 71 deaths, respectively.

Settlements and camps

A whole complex of ten barracks and a settlement was built in the vicinity of Hessisch Lichtenau, Fürstenhagen and Eschenstruth to accommodate the workers and forced laborers as well as those involved in building the factory. They were:

  • Fürstenhagen settlement for middle and senior employees of the factory and their families with 15 three-story apartment buildings in half-timbered construction. The houses of the settlement have been preserved and are now part of a residential area of Fürstenhagen.
  • Waldhof camp for up to 1,500 German labor maids of the Reich Labor Service (RAD), built 1939–1942 as a “model camp ” with 50 permanent accommodation houses. During the war, individual groups of foreign workers from Western European countries, especially France, lived in the southern part of the settlement. The houses have been preserved and now form the Waldhof settlement , while the camp's community house is now used by a retirement home.
  • Lenoirstift camp in the former orphanage of the same name near Fürstenhagen, for male and, from 1941, additional female German employees of the plant, also included the plant hospital. The buildings are still there.
  • Camp Herzog (officially on- call camp Hess. Lichtenau ), occupied with up to 1,200 people, until 1942 exclusively German workers, then also "Western workers" from France and the Netherlands, towards the end of the war also Polish forced laborers. The camp consisted of 22 solidly built houses, which today belong to the residential area Hessisch Lichtenau West .
  • Camp Teichhof , built in early 1940 for German conscripts , from 1941 occupied with up to 1,000 RAD members in 22 barracks who were busy with construction work. Today there is an orthopedic clinic on the camp site, construction of which began in 1949. In the early years she still used the former camp barracks.
  • Friedrichsbrück camp , built in early 1940 as a “makeshift camp ” for around 350 construction workers, later occupied by the RAD. After 1945 the camp was initially used as accommodation for refugees and displaced persons and was later demolished.
  • Camp Föhren , originally built in 1939 for German workers, from 1943 onwards with up to 300 to 500 Ukrainian female forced laborers, some of whom were still children. The living conditions in the camp were considered particularly bad. Today there are no structural traces left.
  • Camp Esche , built in 1939 and designed for up to 1,000 workers. In the beginning construction workers and later also German workers were housed in the camp. From 1942, workers from the tool factory in Eschenstruth, as well as Ukrainian forced laborers and Soviet prisoners of war, were housed separately from one another.
  • Steinbach camp with 6 barracks, which were built in 1943 for up to 300 workers from the Eschenstruth factory. The barracks in the Esche and Steinbach camps were dismantled after the end of the war and rebuilt in Volkmarsen as part of a refugee camp.
  • Lager Vereinshaus (also Lager Süd ), originally designed for up to 700 people with 23 buildings, mainly wooden barracks. The camp was originally designed to accommodate construction workers. It was later occupied by French factory workers alongside German and foreign construction workers. In the summer of 1944 part of the camp was separated and fenced with barbed wire. From the beginning of August 1944, this part of the camp formed a subcamp of the Buchenwald concentration camp , into which between 790 and 1,000 mainly Jewish women from Hungary were crammed. These had previously been selected in Auschwitz concentration camp. In the post-war years, the barracks served various purposes. In one part there were classrooms of the municipal high school until the 1950s. Today there is a primary school on the former site of the camp.

The explosives factory after 1945

Demilitarization and dismantling

The explosives factory Hessisch Lichtenau produced until March 29, 1945, three days before American troops moved into Hessisch Lichtenau on April 2, 1945. In the first days and weeks after the American occupation of the city, the unguarded factory was repeatedly looted.

The factory facilities were confiscated by the American military government, which on January 19, 1946, ordered the government of Greater Hesse to shut down the factory, provide suitable facilities for reparation purposes and destroy all parts of the facility that could only be used for war purposes. As part of the demilitarization and dismantling work, 148 buildings were destroyed and made unusable, some of them by explosions. Furthermore, the earth walls around the factory buildings and the camouflage on the roofs were removed.

Between June 1945 and January 1946 the plant was the seat of the Allied Ministerial Collecting Center (MCC) for the evaluation of administrative files of the Reich government. The former workers' camps were initially partially used to accommodate German prisoners of war and civilian internees , before they became the temporary home for Jewish Displaced Persons (DPs) from Eastern Europe until 1949 . Subsequently, the camps served as accommodation for expellees and refugees from the eastern German regions and the Sudetenland, which were separated off as a result of the Potsdam Agreement .

industrial area

Comparable to other displaced communities in the area of ​​the western occupation zones and the Federal Republic of Germany , which was founded in 1949, the site of the former Hessisch Lichtenau explosives factory developed under the new name Hirschhagen into a civil industrial area in which new businesses were founded primarily by refugees and displaced persons were. From 1951, the former factory premises became the property of the federally owned Industrieverwaltungsgesellschaft mbH as the legal successor to Montan . A targeted development of the site towards an industrial focus, as in Stadtallendorf , was not initiated. Until 1960, the lignite loading station in Fürstenhagen was still used by the Hirschberg lignite mine. The delivery there was accomplished by a material ropeway. Today a number of companies are located in Hirschhagen, which currently employ around 600 people. Hirschhagen is not a pure industrial and commercial area. On November 15, 2011 it had 172 inhabitants, more than a few smaller “regular” districts of Hessisch Lichtenau.

Armaments legacy

Due to the introduction of untreated wastewater into the Losse in the first three years of operation, which was not completely removed after the neutralization plant was put into operation, until the end of the war it was a smelly, brownish yellow stream, the water of which decomposed all (power) mills and where no life could be seen . After 1945, large parts of the soil and groundwater in Hirschhagen were contaminated by the deposition of residues from the production of explosives. The remoteness of the industrial area also favored the settlement of environmentally harmful industrial companies. The impetus for a comprehensive redevelopment of the site was only given in 1984 by a diploma thesis at the University of Kassel . The systematic exploration of the site was followed by the ongoing groundwater remediation from 1989, and between 1997 and 2009 the soil remediation. At a cost of around 105 million euros, around 200,000 t of polluted soil was disposed of. The renovation was carried out on behalf of the State of Hesse, which took over the financing.

Historical processing

Parallel to the preoccupation with the Hirschhagen old armament, the public discussion of the history of the explosives factory began in 1984 with a publication on the Hessisch Lichtenau satellite camp. This was followed by the establishment of a history workshop and the erection of a memorial stone for the inmates of the satellite camp in 1986, combined with two meetings of former forced laborers in Hessisch Lichtenau. However, the planned construction of a memorial, comparable to the DIZ Stadtallendorf, could not be realized due to the closure of the history workshop. In 2010 the Hirschhagen theme trail with information boards was opened through the site of the former explosives factory. Guided tours are offered there.

literature

  • Dieter Vaupel : The Hessisch Lichtenau external command of the Buchenwald concentration camp 1944/1945. A documentation (=  National Socialism in Northern Hesse. Vol. 8). University Library, Kassel 1984, ISBN 3-88122-211-1 .
  • Wolfram König, Ulrich Schneider: Explosives from Hirschhagen. Past and present of a munitions factory (=  National Socialism in North Hesse. Vol. 8). University Library, Kassel 1985, ISBN 3-88122-231-6 .
  • Gregor Espelage, Dieter Vaupel: 700 years of Hessisch Lichtenau. A complementary contribution to local history. Arms production in "Friedland". The factory Hessisch Lichtenau for the utilization of chemical products GmbH Published by the Hessisch Lichtenau history workshop, Hirschhagen. Ekopan, Witzenhausen 1989, ISBN 3-927080-06-3 .
  • Hirschhagen project group (ed.): Hirschhagen, explosives production in the "Third Reich". A guide to exploring the grounds of a former explosives factory. 2nd Edition. Comprehensive University of Kassel, Faculty 1 - Hirschhagen u. a., Kassel u. a. 1991, ISBN 3-88327-194-2 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ König / Schneider, Sprengstoff aus Hirschhagen, p. 29
  2. ↑ Louis Wolff cigar factory
  3. ^ Textile factory Fröhlich & Wolff
  4. ↑ a b History workshop , 700 years of Hessisch Lichtenau, p. 9
  5. ↑ Hirschhagen project group, guidelines, p. 13
  6. ↑ Quotation n .: Geschichtswerkstatt, 700 years Hessisch Lichtenau, p. 9
  7. ↑ König / Schneider, Sprengstoff from Hirschhagen, p. 36
  8. ↑ History workshop , 700 years of Hessisch Lichtenau, p. 10
  9. ↑ a b History Workshop , 700 Years of Hessisch Lichtenau, p. 11
  10. ↑ König / Schneider plant plan for recycling chemistry with the state secret marking (PDF; 832 kB)
  11. ↑ Hirschhagen project group, guidelines, p. 15
  12. ↑ König / Schneider, Sprengstoff from Hirschhagen, p. 39 ff
  13. ↑ König / Schneider, Sprengstoff from Hirschhagen, p. 42 ff
  14. ↑ König / Schneider, Sprengstoff from Hirschhagen, p. 69 f
  15. ↑ König / Schneider, Sprengstoff from Hirschhagen, p. 59 ff
  16. ↑ König / Schneider, Sprengstoff from Hirschhagen, p. 66 f
  17. ↑ Hirschhagen project group, guidelines, p. 38 ff
  18. ↑ König / Schneider, Sprengstoff aus Hirschhagen, p. 67
  19. ↑ König / Schneider, Sprengstoff from Hirschhagen, p. 64 f
  20. ↑ Hirschhagen project group, guidelines, p. 23 ff
  21. ↑ Georg Klein: Klein & Stiefel - A family company in the light of industrial history , in Gregor K. Stasch (ed.), Thomas Heiler , Georg Klein: Maschinenbau in Fulda: Klein & Stiefel 1905-1979 , ISBN 978-3-86568-067 -9 , p. 28
  22. ↑ König / Schneider, Sprengstoff from Hirschhagen, p. 45
  23. ↑ König / Schneider, Sprengstoff aus Hirschhagen, p. 63
  24. ↑ Hessian Ministry for the Environment, Rural Areas and Consumer Protection / HIM GmbH area remediation of contaminated sites (Ed.): Soil well done. The redevelopment of the old armaments site Stadtallendorf , Stadtallendorf 2005, p. 31
  25. ↑ Hirschhagen project group, guide, p. 21
  26. ↑ Vaupel, external command Hess. Lichtenau, p. 37
  27. ↑ Quotation n .: History workshop, 700 years of Hessisch Lichtenau, p. 21
  28. ↑ Vaupel, external command Hess. Lichtenau, p. 81
  29. ↑ History workshop , 700 years of Hessisch Lichtenau, p. 22
  30. ↑ Hirschhagen project group, guidelines, p. 33
  31. ↑ Hirschhagen project group, guide, p. 104
  32. ↑ Hirschhagen project group, guidelines, p. 90 ff
  33. ↑ Hirschhagen project group, guidelines, p. 97 f
  34. ↑ Hirschhagen project group, guidelines, p. 98 ff
  35. ↑ Hirschhagen project group, guidelines, p. 100 ff
  36. ↑ Hirschhagen project group, guidelines, p. 102
  37. ↑ Hirschhagen project group, guide, p. 102f
  38. ↑ a b Hirschhagen project group, guide, p. 103
  39. ↑ Vaupel, external command Hess. Lichtenau, p. 36 ff
  40. ↑ Hirschhagen project group, guidelines, p. 76 ff
  41. ^ König / Schneider, Sprengstoff aus Hirschhagen, p. 110
  42. ↑ König / Schneider, Sprengstoff aus Hirschhagen, p. 111
  43. ^ König / Schneider, Sprengstoff from Hirschhagen, p. 122
  44. ↑ König / Schneider, Sprengstoff from Hirschhagen, p. 113f
  45. ↑ König / Schneider, Sprengstoff from Hirschhagen, p. 126 ff
  46. ^ City of Hessisch Lichtenau - Hirschhagen industrial area
  47. ^ City of Hessisch Lichtenau - Facts & Figures
  48. ↑ Quotation n .: Hirschhagen Project Group, Guide, p. 51
  49. ↑ Hirschhagen project group, guidelines, p. 54 f
  50. ^ Regional council Kassel, contaminated sites / soil protection - Hirschhagen project ( Memento from November 9, 2013 in the web archive archive.today )
  51. ↑ Ulrich Schneider, Hirschhagen - a place of learning for extracurricular and school work , in: WerkstattGeschichte 3 1992, p. 61 ff
  52. ^ Hessian State Center for Political Education, Section III - Hessisch Lichtenau
  53. ^ City of Hessisch Lichtenau - Hirschhagen theme trail

Coordinates: 51 ° 13 ′ 30 ″  N , 9 ° 41 ′ 59 ″  E

This version was added to the list of articles worth reading on January 27, 2014 .