Barthold company

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Barthold company locations in Silesia
HJ-Bann 38 in the special train to Neumittelwalde

Company Barthold (also spelled Bartold) was the code name for the construction of partial defense lines in the Second World War from August 1944 in the greater Breslau area , Silesia . The focus was on the area around Namslau and Groß Wartenberg .

Building the line of defense

At best, the line consisted of a five-meter-wide, three-meter-deep, wedge-shaped anti-tank trench , a double Flanders fence (a barbed wire barbed wire) and, about 80 meters behind, a man-deep trench with machine gun nests.

Since the line of defense, as eyewitnesses reported, was neither defended nor the passageways blown up, the Red Army could not be stopped.

organization

Organization Todt (OT) took over the organization of these measures . The civilian population, the Hitler Youth (HJ) and groups of the Association of German Girls were obliged to build the facilities . Forced laborers from Poland, the so-called Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia , Russia and Italy (e.g. in the vicinity of the places Militsch and Sulau) were also used to build the plants .

Use of the HJ ban 38 Grafschaft Glatz

At the end of August 1944, the HJ-Bann 38 with about 500 boys and a group of the Association of German Girls were obliged to jump and take a special train to Neumittelwalde , Groß Wartenberg . Their place of work was the village of Distelwitz (today: Dzieslawice). The accommodation was in a barn on the manor of Curland . The food was provided by the "Hermann Göring Aid Train". The cooks were committed Dutch . The division into smaller self-catering groups resulted in better food, but also in trouble with the residents, as they were robbed. The boys called this "organizing". The excavation work on a distance of approx. 1000 meters was carried out exclusively with a spade, shovel and pickaxe.

The name Barthold

The name "Barthold" is probably borrowed from the book title "Vogt Bartold [sic]". As the author Hans Venatier writes, it was a fictional character who brought settlers to Silesia in the 13th century. Vogt Bartold is only to be understood as "... the personification of an idea."

literature

  1. ^ Gisela Autenrieth, Charlotte Negendank; Bernd Autenrieth: Difficult years - end of war and escape . Books on Demand, Norderstedt 2019, ISBN 978-3-7481-1991-3 , pp. 12 ( limited preview in the Google book search): “From the 5th grade, i.e. the fifteen year olds, the boys had to go to the jump, .... The girls of the same age were used to cook. Some of the young people found that quite interesting. ... It's different with my mother. From the company she also had to go to the jump, ... "
  2. ↑ Hans Venatier : Vogt Bartold: The great train to d. East . Schwarzhäupter-Verlag, Leipzig 1939, DNB  576760021 (various editions up to the end of the 2nd World War; new edition Düsseldorf 1957).

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