Project Riese
It consisted of seven underground structures in the Owl Mountains and Książ Castle in Lower Silesia, which was then Nazi Germany and is now Poland.
Some sources suggest that all the structures were part of the Führer Headquarters;[1][2][3] according to others, it was a combination of headquarters (HQ) and arms industry[4][5] but comparison to similar facilities indicates that only the castle was adapted as an HQ or other official residence, and the tunnels in the Owl Mountains were planned as a network of underground factories.
Due to increasing Allied air raids, Nazi Germany relocated a large part of its strategic armaments production into safer regions including Province of Lower Silesia.
[9][10][11] Plans to protect critical infrastructure also involved transfer of the arms factories to underground bunkers[12][13][14] and construction of air-raid shelters for government officials.
[15] In September 1943, Minister of Armaments and War Production Albert Speer and the senior management of Organisation Todt started talks on Project Riese.
[27] For this purpose mining specialists were employed, mostly Germans, Italians, Ukrainians and Czechs, but the most dangerous and exhausting work was done by prisoners.
[29][30][31] Most similar facilities were bored in soft sandstone[32] but harder, more stable rocks gave the advantage of total protection from Allied air raids and the possibility of building 12 m high underground halls with a volume of 6,000 m3.
[34][35][36] In at least five collective camps[37][38] an unknown number of forced labourers and POWs worked on the project, some until the end of the war.
In April 1944, dissatisfied with the progress of the project, Adolf Hitler decided to hand over the supervision of construction to the Organisation Todt and assign prisoners of concentration camps to work.
[48] All of them were Jews,[22] about seventy per cent from Hungary, the rest from Poland, Greece, Romania, Czechoslovakia, the Netherlands, Belgium, and Germany.
[49][50] Mortality was very high because of disease, malnutrition, exhaustion, dangerous underground work, and the treatment of prisoners by German guards.
[55][36] Because the front line of the war was approaching, evacuation of the camps began in February 1945, however in a few places work might have been conducted as late as the end of April.
Its last owner in the inter-war period was the Hochberg family, one of the wealthiest and most influential European dynasties, Hans Heinrich XV, Prince of Pless and his English wife, Mary-Theresa Olivia Cornwallis-West (Princess Daisy).
The castle, under the leadership of architect Hermann Giesler,[61][62] was first adapted to accommodate the management of the state-owned railways (Deutsche Reichsbahn) but in 1944 it became part of Project Riese.
The first is 15 m underground and was accessible from the fourth floor of the castle by a lift and a staircase from the cellar and also by an entrance from the gardens.
[73][74] The tunnel (80 m, 180 m2, 400 m3)[75][76] is reinforced by concrete and leads to an elevator shaft hidden 15 m under the courtyard, a connection between the first and the second level of the underground.
[86] Above ground are foundations of buildings and machinery, two reservoirs of water, a pumping station, and remains of a sewage treatment plant.
[38] Its prisoners were forced labourers, mainly from the Soviet Union, Poland and POWs from Italy, captured by the German army after the Italian armistice and switching sides.
Some sources suggest the camp might have been located on the slopes of Chłopska Mountain (German: Stenzelberg);[42] according to others, its existence is doubtful.
[117] About 3,000 concentration camp prisoners[118][119] lived in tents made of plywood, 3 m in diameter, 20 people in each one[120][121] and several barracks.
[126] The largest structure is a single-storey, concrete building (680 m2, 2,300 m3)[127] with walls 0.5 m thick and roof adapted for camouflage by vegetation (0.6 m).
It is collapsed in its initial part on the length of 83 m.[148] In 2013 it was explored when a shaft was dug from above, revealing 86 m of tunnel with mining equipment from 1945.
In 1943, it was purchased by the Nationalsozialistische Volkswohlfahrt (National Socialist People's Welfare) from the Böhm family as a result of their financial problems.
[154] At the beginning of 1944 the plans to transform it into a hospital were disrupted because the building was confiscated by military authorities and adapted as headquarters for the Industriegemeinschaft Schlesien (Silesian Industrial Company)[155][156] which, until then, occupied Haus Hermannshöhe in the nearby town of Bad Charlottenbrunn (Polish: Jedlina-Zdrój).
[158][159] The corporation was responsible for construction work and supervising all companies and local businesses taking part in the project on behalf of the Main Building Commission of the Ministry of Arms.
[170] In February 1945, because the front line of the war was approaching, OBL Riese evolved into headquarters of Front-OT X Brigade.
The town of Głuszyca (German: Wüstegiersdorf) and its vicinity was the location of many labour camps connected to Project Riese.
[21] In April 1944, AL Wüstegiersdorf was created[38] in the same location for prisoners of concentration camps, between 700 and 1,000 Jews from Hungary and Poland.
The camp occupied a closed textile factory of brothers Giersch 50°40′7″N 16°23′36″E / 50.66861°N 16.39333°E / 50.66861; 16.39333 (Gemeinschaftslager II Dörnhau) and was inhabited by forced labourers from Poland and the Soviet Union.
[21] In June 1944, AL Dörnhau was created in the same location for prisoners of concentration camps from Hungary, Poland, and Greece of Jewish origin.
