Fir tree plant

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Building on the site of the Tanne plant (2007)

The Tanne plant , camouflaged as Tanne , is a former explosives factory on the eastern outskirts of Clausthal-Zellerfeld on the Middle Peacock Pond . It existed from 1935 to 1944 and was the third largest explosives and ammunition factory in the German Reich during the Nazi era . The plant was mainly used for the production of TNT , but bombs , mines and grenades were also filled in later years .

history

Wall inscription in a factory hall
Indoor shot
Buildings marked with "Retain" were not blown up
Former boiler house

In 1930 the last mines of the Upper Harz mining industry in Clausthal-Zellerfeld were shut down, as a result of which unemployment rose considerably. For Clausthal-Zellerfeld as the location of an armaments factory, the strategically favorable location in the middle of the German Reich, the at that time still good transport connections, the potential of highly qualified unemployed skilled workers as well as the good possibilities of camouflage against aircraft spoke in favor of Clausthal-Zellerfeld. Eight months after the seizure of power of the NSDAP there were the first plans in December 1933 and 1935, the 120-hectare site was by the Montan GmbH acquired a front company of the Army Ordnance Office .

The factory was built in the period from 1935 to 1938 for Gesellschaft mb H. for the recovery of chemical products ( Verwertchemie ), a subsidiary of Dynamit AG (DAG), which also operated other explosives plants . It was given the code name "Fir". Mainly filling powder 02 (m.p. 02) was produced, known as TNT . The monthly production reached about 2800 tons of TNT. The manufacturing code of the facility was "clt".

In addition to TNT production, there were facilities for filling grenade casings and bombs. These parts of the business were called "universal filling station" and "bomb filling station". The “universal filling station” had a capacity to process 3000 tons of TNT per month.

In June 1939, about three months before the outbreak of war, the explosives factory started production. In 1943/1944 the Tanne plant produced 28,000 tons, the largest amount of TNT in the Greater German Reich. Because of the privacy protection from the air, the camp management forbade cutting down trees, and only new spruce trees were allowed.

Later in the war, several accidents occurred at the plant, the most serious of which was the explosion of the nitration plant on June 6, 1940, in which 61 people died. The workers who were nearby at the time of the explosion were pushed through the chain link fences, making accurate identification impossible. All over Clausthal-Zellerfeld the windows burst and the stirring rod of the nitration plant flew almost two kilometers to the Klepperberg.

On October 7, 1944, 129 US Air Force bombers attacked the explosives factory, destroying 70 buildings. At least 88 people were killed, with most of the victims being among the forced laborers. Subsequently, TNT production did not start again until the end of the war, mainly because of the destroyed pipeline network. However, the bomb bottling continued until the occupation by the US Army in April 1945. On December 31, 1944, 590 Soviet female forced laborers were still working at the Tanne plant.

Manpower

The Tanne plant was initially built as a sleeper factory, which means that it was initially not put into operation after completion. Shortly before the outbreak of the Second World War , the production of explosives began. Because of the high demand for soldiers to be deployed at the front, about as many forced laborers were used in the plant as regular workers from 1942 onwards . These were either recruited abroad with promises or abducted. The key positions in the plant were held by Germans.

Around 1942, around 2,600 people were working in the factory, around half of whom were recruited from forced labor and prisoners of war . These foreign workers were housed in camps in the area. Well-known camps were:

  • Barrack camp at the peacock pond
  • Prisoner of War Labor Command 1354 ( Stalag XI B Fallingbostel)
  • Bauhofstrasse warehouse: 400 people
  • Bürgergarten camp: 100 people (nationality camp)
  • Zellerfeld Evangelical Parish Hall: 50 people (Soviet women)
  • Camp Schützenhaus Clausthal (Yugoslav citizens)
  • Warehouse Hausherzbergerstrasse / Hausherzbergerteich
  • Warehouse chemical recycling plant: 1200 people
  • Dynamit AG camp site management: 300 people
  • Ready camp: 650 people (location (former) Bundeswehr area (only for Germans))
  • "Russenlager" camp (located opposite the Bundeswehr area (only Soviet citizens and their women))
  • Camp prisoner of war camp (location fork Altenau / Sankt Andreasberg (for prisoners of war, except Soviet))
  • Camp Breslauerstraße (nationality camp)
  • Camp Former sports ground ("Russian camp")
Memorial stones on the "Russenfriedhof" west of the Middle Peacock Pond

The forced laborers did the most dangerous and unhealthy jobs. They filled the explosive device with the highly toxic TNT.

Workers had a 48-hour week that started at 9 a.m. on Monday and ended at 1 p.m. on Friday. Due to the constant handling of TNT, poisoning occurred which was poorly treated. For the workers who were previously trained in Cologne and Krümmel and were barely 20 years old, a brothel was set up in the plant, which was manned by a few female forced laborers.

Tanne plant today

View of part of the factory premises today. In addition to some ruins in the background, you can see a wooden shed in the foreground that houses the activated carbon system for treating contaminated seepage water and, behind it, parts of the foil seal of a buffer basin in which polluted water can be temporarily stored. In front of it is the water surface of the Middle Peacock Pond.

After the war, large parts of the factory were to be blown up by the Allies. However, most of the buildings still exist today, as many were made of so solid concrete that a complete demolition would have been too expensive and time-consuming.

Little consideration was given to the impact on the environment (air, water, soil) in the TNT production at the time. Old deposits are still stored on the factory premises today. In the meantime, several remedial measures have been carried out, but these are particularly difficult because new interventions should not mobilize currently stable pollutants . The renovations are also made more difficult because the old deposits are unknown in many places: There is only a small amount of documentation about the operation of the plant and especially about the whereabouts of the substances after 1945.

The former property owner, IVG Immobilien , built a buffer basin and an activated carbon system with which contaminated rainwater is to be stored and then fed to an activated carbon treatment. On the neighboring properties , the Middle and Lower Peacock Pond, the property owner of Lower Saxony State Forests removed almost all of the old deposits in 2011 and 2012. So far, however, the renovation of the entire site has only been partially successful. For the next few years, the installation of a second buffer tank system with another activated carbon system and the investigation of the neutralization sludge dumps at the Tanne plant, which are located in the urban area of ​​Clausthal, are planned. The largest of these landfills is hidden under the former TUS sports field between the streets of Kutschenweg and Am Ludwiger Graben.

Impairments to the environment go far beyond the factory premises and the neighboring areas. The sewer pipe extended to Osterode am Harz , where the sewage was "sunk" underground and continues to pollute the groundwater to this day .

On February 1, 2018, Halali Verwaltungs GmbH, based in Liebenau, took over the area from IVG Immobilien. Under the name “Forstgut Eickhof”, the fenced-in forest area of ​​the former Tanne plant is again used for forestry and hunting purposes, while individual buildings are rented out. A solar energy park is now to be built on the northern part of the site.

literature

  • Friedhart Knolle , Michael Braedt, Hansjörg Hörseljau, Frank Jacobs: The explosives factory "Tanne" in Clausthal-Zellerfeld. History and perspective of an old Harz armament. 3rd edition, Papierflieger , Clausthal-Zellerfeld 2004. ISBN 3-89720-124-0
  • Jani Pietsch: Explosives in the Harz Mountains: the normality of crime: Forced labor in Clausthal-Zellerfeld. (Explosives in the Harz Mountains. On the normality of crime; forced labor in Clausthal-Zellerfeld), 248 pages, 60 illustrations, Edition Hentrich, Berlin 1998. ISBN 3-89468-242-6
  • Friedhart Knolle, Michael Braedt, Hansjörg Hörseljau, Frank Jacobs, Christian-Alexander Wäldner: Cover name "Tanne" - an old Harz armament in Clausthal-Zellerfeld and Osterode am Harz - traces of Harz contemporary history Issue 7th 1st edition, Papierflieger Verlag GmbH, Clausthal- Zellerfeld 2020. ISBN 3-86948-696-1

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Braedt, Hörseljau, Jacobs, Knolle: The explosives factory "Tanne" in Clausthal-Zellerfeld , Papierflieger-Verlag, Clausthal-Zellerfeld, 1998
  2. ↑ Justus Teicke, The peacock ponds are rehabilitated - Removal of an old armament In: Unser Harz, Issue 11/2012, Oberharzer Druckerei und Verlag GmbH, Clausthal-Zellerfeld, 2012 PDF online
  3. ↑ Halali Verwaltungs GmbH has bought the area with old weapons and wants to manage it sustainably , eseltreiber.de, February 22, 2018
  4. ↑ Goslarsche Zeitung, GZ, GZ live Editor: The Tanne plant is to become a solar energy park | GZ Live. Retrieved July 29, 2020 .

Web links

Commons : Werk Tanne  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Coordinates: 51 ° 48 ′ 13 ″  N , 10 ° 22 ′ 0 ″  E