Underground shift marble

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German armaments company underground

The National Socialists used the code name Project Marble to designate a tunnel system in the Styrian community of Peggau . As part of the so-called U relocation , the tunnels served to maintain the armaments production of the Steyr Daimler Puch -AG in the Graz-Thondorf plant protected from Allied bombing attacks. A satellite camp of the Mauthausen concentration camp was set up to procure the necessary labor .

Subcamp of the Mauthausen concentration camp

Entrance area of ​​the main gallery

When National Socialist armaments factories were more and more damaged by Allied bombing, attempts were made to maintain their production in tunnels within protective mountain walls. After a heavy bombing raid on the Graz-Thondorf plant of Steyr-Daimler-Puch AG on July 26, 1944, it was decided to relocate this plant to the Peggauer Wand . In the system of code names for secret Nazi objects , the name marble was assigned to the project . A satellite camp of the Mauthausen concentration camp was set up in Peggau-Hinterberg in order to attract workers .

Warehouse organization

A year earlier, a 5-hectare property belonging to the Vorau Abbey in Peggau / Hinterberg had already been expropriated. Around 10 wooden barracks were built behind a three meter high electrically charged barbed wire fence , which could be controlled from four watchtowers. The camp also had a kitchen, laundry, laundry barracks and infirmary as well as a separate area to accommodate the guards. On August 17, 1944, the first transport with 400 prisoners from Mauthausen arrived at the camp. In the longer term, the production of aircraft and truck components as well as parts for the VI Tiger armored car was planned, but the tunnels first had to be built. On average, there were between 700 and 800 prisoners in the camp at the same time, mostly political prisoners from Poland and the Soviet Union, but also French, Italians, Germans and Yugoslavs and a small group of Polish Jews. According to the transport lists, at least 1,400 people were brought to the camp in the eight months of its existence.

Dissolution of the camp

As of March 2, 1945, the camp was closed due to the advance of the Red Army , the prisoners were taken on foot to Bruck an der Mur and from there by train to Mauthausen. Before that, more than 200 prisoners from the Eisenerz camp had been transferred to Peggau. Before leaving, 15 sick prisoners were shot, another 31 died during the transport of "circulatory weakness" or were shot while trying to escape. Finally, on April 7, 820 inmates from Peggau arrived in Mauthausen. There are widely divergent information about the exact number of victims in the camp and in the tunnels. 129 of the victims are known by name; it can be assumed that the actual number is significantly higher.

Marble tunnel system

The necessary technological know-how for the project was provided by the Institute for Road Construction at the Graz University of Technology . The Institute for Strength of Materials developed newer pressure tests to examine the concrete used. The forced laborers were driven in columns every day the approx. Two kilometer long distance from the camp across the village of Peggau to the construction site. The population was forbidden to have any contact with the prisoners. The plan was to build eight or nine parallel tunnels (the information provided by contemporary witnesses vary), each approx. 75 meters long, 6 meters wide and 6 meters high (top of the vault) and connected by cross tunnels. 400 forced laborers each worked on the project in two 12-hour shifts. By March 1945 three of the tunnels had been completed and lined on the inside. It housed 1080 machine tools, on which 2820 workers from the Graz-Thondorf plant were employed. The remaining 5 or 6 tunnels remained in the shell.

Situation after the war

The roads leading to the tunnels are slowly growing

At the end of the Third Reich, the camp area again became the property of the Vorau monastery. This tore down most of the barracks and built a brick factory. A few remaining barracks served as emergency shelters until the 1950s. In 1960 the facility was completely removed, so that no structures of the camp itself can be seen above ground. In 1945 and 1946, 82 dead from the camp's mass graves were exhumed and reburied near the former site. In 1955 this collective grave was given a memorial stone, which was destroyed by neo-Nazis in 1983 and then rebuilt by the community. In 2005 the State of Styria announced a competition to redesign the memorial. Hartmut Skerbisch's winning design was officially unveiled in 2006. As far as is known, the names of the victims are now also listed at this memorial site. The tunnels are empty and officially inaccessible, one of them was used by Graz University of Technology in the past as an installation site for geophysical measuring devices. A growing road and extensive concrete structures still bear witness to the activities around the tunnels.

literature

  • Wolfgang Benz , Barbara Distel (ed.): The place of terror . History of the National Socialist Concentration Camps. Volume 4: Flossenbürg, Mauthausen, Ravensbrück. CH Beck, Munich 2006, ISBN 3-406-52964-X .
  • Anita Farkas: Collective memory and the need to remember in Styria. On the trail of the Aflenz, Peggau and Lind Castle concentration camps. Diploma thesis Alpen-Adria-Universität Klagenfurt / Celovec 2001.
  • Anita Farkas: Tell me who the dead are! Personalization of commemoration of victims using the example of Nazi victims in Peggau. Drava, Klagenfurt / Celovec 2002, ISBN 978-3-85435-396-6 .
  • Frederic Gümmer: The role of underground relocation in German arms production 1943–1945. Master's thesis at the Helmut Schmidt University Hamburg 2007.
  • Joachim Hainzl (2015): The Peggau / Hinterberg subcamp (PDF; 2.6 MB)

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Benz, Distel, Königseder 2006, p. 415.
  2. ↑ The figures for the number of barracks vary between 8 and 20, cf. Hainzl 2015, p. 5.
  3. ↑ a b Farkas 2002, p. 16.
  4. ↑ ( page no longer available , search in web archives: http://www.mauthausenmemorial.at/db/admin/de/show_aussenlagerb63a.html?caussenlager=29&carticle=427 ) quoted. at Hainzl 2015, p. 4.@1@ 2Template: Toter Link / www.mauthausenmemorial.at
  5. ↑ Farkas 2002, pp. 18f.
  6. ↑ See the list in Hainzl 2015, pp. 16–21.
  7. ↑ http://blatt.htu.tugraz.at/ Background / ?doc=peggau- marmor , accessed on July 12, 2018.
  8. ↑ Farkas 2002, p. 22f.
  9. ↑ Farkas 2002, p. 14.

Coordinates: 47 ° 11 ′ 53.7 "  N , 15 ° 21 ′ 34.4"  E