Explosives Factory Allendorf und Herrenwald

The "Sprengstoffwerke Allendorf und Herrenwald" were two explosives production plants. They were established during the National Socialism in Herrenwald, in the Allendorf area (today Stadtallendorf) in the then Prussian municipality of Marburg. The founding took place on commission and at the expense of the German Wehrmacht. This was done through a corrupt financing and management system ("Montan Schema"), while the actual company was in the hands of the community "m.b.H." , as a subsidiary of Dynamit AG (DAG) or the "Westfälisch-Anhaltischen Sprengstoff-Actien-Gesellschaft (WASAG).

The collective name for the Factory Allendorf for the processing chemicals or DAG was Barbara I. The collective name for the neighboring work Herrenwald of the WASAG was Barbera II. The buildings of the two factories, which remained intact in World War II, formed the basis for the development of the village of Allendorf until the present city of Stadtallendorf in the municipality of Marburg-Biedenkopf in Hesse.

Already during the establishment of both plants, a number of employees were required that far exceeded the employees potential of the region. From 1939 Allendorf was important for the job placement in the Provincial Employment Office in the Hesse region. The majority of the employees had already moved to Allendorf before the start of the war, in the ways of conscription. In 1941 about 17,000 people were involved in the construction of the factories. This also included the members of the Reichsarbeitsdienst, or RAD. Of these, about 10,000 employees were employed in the ways of the factory expansion between 1941 and 1945.

In keeping both the factories of both companies working, predominantly involuntary staff worked from 22 different nations. These people were treated according to the racist criteria of the NS ideology. On 31 December 1944, 4,982 people worked in the Allendorf processing chemistry factory. In the WASAG factory Herrenwald there were 1,758. Of the total of 6,740 employees of both factories, 42% were female. But 57% of the employees at the Herrenwald factory were German. In Allendorf only 38% of the staff were German.
The foreign forced laborers came from Belgium, France, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Yugoslavia and Poland. Also 2,000 so-called "Ostarbeiter" from the Soviet Union were employed at the factory. Of these "Ostarbeiter" 70 were minors and 123 died from the effects of malnutrition, abuse and heavy work. On August 19, 1944, a transport of about 1,000 mainly Jewish women from Hungary arrived in Allendorf. They had previously been selected in Auschwitz concentration camp.

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Source

• Text: Eva Fiolet
• Photos: CarstenE, via Wikimedia Commons
• Wikipedia - Sprengstoffwerke Allendorf und Herrenwald