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Old 30th October 2018, 21:39
Bruce Dennis Bruce Dennis is offline
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Underground factories for Junkers aero-engines.

"SECRET A.D.I.(K) Report No.151/1944
THE FOLLOWING INFORMATION HAS BEEN OBTAINED FROM P/W
AS THE STATEMENTS HAVE NOT AS YET BEEN VERIFIED, NO
MENTION OF THEM SHOULD BE MADE IN INTELLIGENCE
SUMMARIES OF COMMANDS OR LOWER FORMATIONS, NOR SHOULD
THEY BE ACCEPTED UNTIL COMMENTED ON AIR MINISTRY
INTELLIGENCE SUMMARIES OR SPECIAL COMMUNICATIONS.

UNDERGROUND FACTORIES - NIEDERSACHSWERFEN AREA
(July 1944)
1. The following information on underground factories in the
Niedersachswerfen area was obtained from the Dutchman, who was
the subject of A.P/W.I.U. (2nd T.A.F.) 3/1945. Representatives
of A.I.2(a) and A.C.I.U. were present at the interrogation and
due thanks are rendered for their co-operation.
2. According to informant's story he began to work for the
Germans in January 1942, when he was employed as a labourer by
the 0.T. in connection with the electrical installations on
Lorient airfield. Thanks to diligent work, spare-time study,
judicious bribery and his self-assertive nature, he claims to
have risen rapidly in the world and to have acquired something
of a reputation both as an electrical engineer and as a reliable
satellite of the Germans.
3. After working as a foreman electrician on the Dutch coastal
defence works between Flushing and Den Helder, he was given the
task of supervising the installation of electrical equipment at
the Vught concentration camp. Finally, he asserts that at the
beginning of 1944 he obtained employment on the staff of S.S.
Gruppenführer und Generalleutnant der Waffen S.S. Dr. Ing
Kammler (see A.D.I.(K) 522/1944), who was entrusted with the
task of constructing important secret underground aircraft and
armament factories.
4. According to informant's account, Kammler placed him in
charge of the Abteilung Energieversorgung of Amt C.III of his
staff, which was charged with supervising the provision of
electric power to underground factories in course of
construction under the aegis of the S.S.
5. In this capacity, informant stated that in June 1944 he was
sent to Niedersachswerfen to arrange for the provision of
electric current to a number of underground sites which the S.S.
proposed to construct in the area, but at the end of six weeks
he was called away to undertake similar work at other projects
at Litomerice (Leitmeritz), Czechoslovakia, which will be dealt
with in a separate report.
6. It was apparently intended that he should return to Niedersachswerfen
on 1st December 1944 but before that date he had
decided, for motives best known to himself, to desert the S.S.,
and in due course he arrived inside the Allied lines.
7. As the well-known underground factory at Niedersachswerfen
itself was already working at the time of informant's visit, it
did not fall within his province and he only entered it on one
occasion. His information on this factory was therefore
disappointingly meagre, but he was able to make some general
remarks on the Niedersachswerfen complex as a whole which,
although based on impressions gathered during a short stay,
sound reasonably plausible.
8. As regards the function of the already native
Niedersachswerfen plant informant could not enlarge upon
existing knowledge. He was aware that Junkers were installed and
thought they were making "the turbine for the V.1 and V.2".
General.
9. According to informant, no less than seven underground
factories were projected by the S.S. in the Niedersachswerfen
area, and the project as a whole was known as Bauvorhaben X.
10. These sites comprised the already active factory at
Niedersachswerfen, the Woffleben site which was numbered B.3.
and on which construction work had already started by Ju1y 1944,
another site some 800 yards to the North West of the Woffleben
one to which the code name "Nie" had been allotted, and four
other projected sites numbered B.8, 3.9, B.11 and B.12 of which
informant pinpointed two.
11. It was pointed out that the letter 'B' stood for
Bauvorhaben and that in theory the number indicated the original
order of priority in which it was intended that construction
work should be undertaken.
12. Informant stated that all seven sites in the area were
destined to be occupied by Junkers and that all the plans were
drawn up by Ing. Spott, the chief construction engineer of the
parent Junkers works at Dessau. The factories, however, formed
independent units in that there were no underground connections
between the various sites.
13. The scheme was carried out under the supervision of S.S.
Sonderinspektion II, who were responsible for the provision of
labour and materials and, of course, security precautions, but
the actual construction work was in charge of the "Wifo"
organisation, a fact which may explain rumours which have
connected the Niedersachswerfen project with P.O.L. storage and
or production.
14. The S.S., however, provided technicians to assist in the
construction cork and they also installed their own agents, such
as informant, in order to exercise a general supervision and to
keep an eye on developments. There was said to be continual
friction between Junkers, who desired the best possible
standards of accommodation, and the S.S., who insisted that the
utmost economy must be exercised in every respect.
15. According to the planned schedule, the six new factories
were to be ready for occupation by February 1945 but in
informant's opinion they would not be able commence work before
July at the earliest, chiefly owing to the difficulty of
obtaining transformers.
16. In July 1944 the original Niedersachswerfen factory was of
course in operation, and construction work had started at
Woffleben, where informant thought that work had begun on two
tunnels, and possibly also at the site 800 yards to the North
West of Woffleben.
17. In August 1944 the underground sites at Litomerice were
given priority over the projects of the Niedersachswerfen area,
but informant did not know whether this was on account of the
urgency of the activity to be accommodated at Litomerice or
because of the greater rapidity with which these latter
projects, which largely occupied existing workings, could be
pushed forward.
Niedersachswerfen.
18. As P/W had only been inside the Niedersachswerfen complex
on one occasion he could only give a very general and not
particularly reliable impression of its internal layout. He
confirmed a previous informant's statement that the workings
consisted of two main tunnels serving a number of workshops, but
thought that the workings, though quite level, were not
straight, and that the standard gauge railway line did not run
into the tunnels.
19. He had noted that the entrances were strengthened with
concrete reinforced by railway metals, and that inside the
galleries weak places were also reinforced with concrete for
distances of up to 100 metres in some cases. He could make no
statement on overburden.
20. Informant believed that in the floor of the galleries there
were a drainage channel one metre wide and another channel 75
cm. wide for the piping of the air conditioning system. Some of
the power cables were installed in third channel in the floor
and others, together with the wires for the lighting and the
telephone cables, were carried on iron supports along the walls
of the galleries.
21. Informant believed that a power supply of 600 kW was
required to run the air conditioning plant and that the capacity
of the Niedersachswerfen stand-by plant was insufficient for
this. He therefore believed that, if normal supplies could be
cut off, the air conditioning system would necessarily cease to
function and that the galleries would start to drip, with
disastrous results to the virtually irreplaceable machine tools.
Woffleben. (B.3).
22. In July 1944 the Woffleben site enjoyed the highest
priority of the six new projects envisaged in the Niedersachswerfen
area. At this date two entrances giving access to two
parallel main tunnels running roughly N.W. - S.E. through the
hill were said to have been started, and several subsidiary
galleries running off the main tunnels had also been commenced.
It was believed that considerable difficulty was being met with
on this project owing to underground springs and streams
encountered in the course of the excavations.
23. It was believed that when construction work was completed
the site would be taken over by Junkers for the manufacture of
aero-engines.

Woffleben West ("Nie").
24 The project 800 yards North West of the Woffleben workings
and designated by the code name "Nie" was the last of the
Niedersachswerfen sites on the official priority list but,
strangely enough in July 1944 it was the only site besides
Woffleben on which construction activity appeared likely to
begin in the immediate future.
25. One entrance only was planned, and this was to be located
at the south-western corner of the hill. This entrance was to
give access to the main tunnels running the length of the hill,
and these tunnels were to be connected by a network of some 40
or 50 cross-galleries. A servicing gallery was to run round the
whole site in order to facilitate transport; the workshops were
to be arranged to give a production flow running northwards from
the entrance, the finished articles being collected at the
northern end of the site and brought round to the entrance by
the servicing gallery.
26. This factory also was earmarked for Junkers, but informant
had no reliable information as to the purpose for which it would
be utilised. In July 1944 instructions were given to extend the
existing power cables as far as this site, so that construction
work could be commenced.

Ilfeld.
27. Besides the above-mentioned sites, another underground
Junkers factory was planned in the hills a short distance to the
West of the village of Ilfeld some two miles North of
Niedersachswerfen. The entrance was to be in the vicinity of
110360 GSGS 4416 Sheet Q5, and this was to serve a complex of
galleries arranged on the conventional grid pattern. In July
1944 construction work had not begun but a small group of
contractors' huts had been put up near the proposed entrance.

Appenrode.
28. Although informant knew that a total of seven underground
factories was envisaged, the only other projected site which he
was able to identify was in a hill between the villages of
Appenrode and Ilfeld and to the North of the road connecting the
two. It was understood that the entrance would be located in the
neighbourhood of 087361.
29. In July 1944 two contractors' huts had been put up on the
site but at that date construction work had not been started and
power cables had not been brought up to the area.

Power Supplies.
30. Informant alleged that in July 1944 all power supplies both
for the already active Niedersachswerfen factory and for
construction work at the other sites was supplied exclusively by
the 110 kV line from the Bleicherode power station. At the new
sites the 110 kV line was to be led directly into the tunnels
and the transformers intended to serve the factory machinery
were to be installed inside the workings, and informant
understood that this system was already obtained at the

Niedersachswerfen factory.
31. It was intended that when other sites came into operation,
power would also be supplied by a new 110 kV line running from a
power station at Frose in the Magdeburg area to Woffleben, where
it would join the grid serving the underground factories in the
Niedersachswerfen district. As in the case of the existing line
from Bleicherode, the power was to be stepped down in the
Niedersachswerfen complexes to 20 kV and 6 kV in the first
instance.
32. According to informant's story, the power stations at
Bleicherode and Frose would therefore be the sole sources of
electricity supplies for the underground plants around
Niedersachswerfen. He explained that it was not intended to draw
on other sources partly on account of the load already carried
by other power stations and partly because of the acute shortage
of materials needed for the construction of transmission lines
which made it necessary to rely on generating stations located
reasonably near the factories.
33. The new line from Frose was said to be intended to run
South-West across country from Frose for about one third of its
length and thence almost due West to Woffleben. The most direct
route was chosen in order to effect the greatest possible
economies in cables and pylon.
34. In July 1944 the holes for the pylons had been excavated
and sufficient pylons were on hand at the Frose and for
completing about one quarter of the proposed line. In the
following month, however, some of those pylons were
requisitioned for the Litomerice projects, which in the meantime
had been given a higher priority, and some of the new pylons on
order were also later diverted to Litomerice.
35. The contract for supplying the pylons was held by the firm
of Seidl of Falkenstein (Vogland) who were said to be able to
deliver three daily.

Emergency Power Supplies.
36. Unfortunately informant did not claim to be conversant with
the emergency power supply system in the Niedersachswerfen
complex. He stated, however, that he understood that it
conformed to the general instructions on the subject issued by
Generalleutnant Kammler on 1st August 1944, and he had the
foresight to bring with him a photostat copy of the document in
question.
37. In his instructions Kammler draws the attention of his
Sonderinspektionen and S.S. Führungsstäbe to the fact that the
emergency power plants proposed by these bodies are of
excessively high capacity. He adds that as a measure of fuel
economy emergency plants are only to serve such appliances as
necessary for the safety of the personnel, i.e. lighting, water
supplies end air conditioning.
38. The two last-named systems are to be confined to the
absolutely necessary minimum and Kammler formally forbids the
connection of any normal equipment to emergency generators.
39. Future demands for emergency sets are to show the capacity
of the act divided into the requirements for lightening, water
supplies and air conditioning. The projected requirements for
lightning are to be cut down to the necessary minimum since, if
the normal supplies of power fail, normal activity will cease
ipso facto. For the same reason, good grounds are to be shown
for the maintenance of air conditioning and water supplies
during the period when normal power is cut off.

Railway Services.
40. The plans for the Niedersachswerfen complex of underground
factories provided for a now ring railway connecting E11rich,
Ilfeld and Nordhausen and serving the whole of the sites. For
the convenience of workers proceeding between their quarters and
their place of work as well as between the various factories, a
train was to be run every three minutes on this line.
41. In addition, a large marshalling yard was envisaged on both
sides of the village of Woffleben and on both sides of the
existing Nordhausen - Ellrich line.

Personnel.
42. Appendix I contains a list of some of the principal personalities
connected with the Niedersachswerfen complex of sites.
Construction work at Woffleben was being carried out by inmates
of the Buchenwald concentration camp under the supervision of
"Wifo" personnel.
43. When all the factories were in operation it was expected
that they would employ a total staff of some 45,000 workers. In
July 1944 some personnel was already billeted in Ellrich and
Nordhausen and it was rumoured that when the various sites came
into production these towns and the area surrounding them would
be evacuated to provide accommodation, especially for married
employees and their families.
A.D.I(K) and S.D. Felkin
U.S. Air Interrogation. Wing Commander
5th February, 1945.

APPENDIX. SECRET.
PERSONALITIES CONNECTED WITH UNDERGROUND ACTIVITY IN THE
NIEDERSACHSWERFEN AREA
S.S. Gruppenführer und Generalleutnant der Waffen S.S. Dr. Ing.
H. Kammler.
Entrusted by Himmler, in his capacity as the head of the
S.S. Wirtschaftsverwaltungs Hauptamt, with the execution of
the Deutsches Geheimbauprogramm, which comprised important
secret underground factories.
Head of the so-called Stab Kammler which was created for
this purpose (see A.D.I.(K) 522/1944).
S.S. Hauptsturmführer Dipl. Ing. Geissen.
Head of S.S. Sonderinspektion II, which was charged with
the supervision of construction work on the sites in the
Niedersachswerfen area.
S.S. Sturmbannführer Fleto.
Head of Amt C.III (Technische Fachgebiete) of the Stab
Kammler and in this capacity in charge of the technical
side of construction work.
Sturmbannführer Skowronneck.
Head of the Abteilung Maschinen of Amt C.III of the Stab
Kammler. A subordinate of Flote and responsible for the
provision of the necessary machinery.
Major Regierungsbaurat Dr. Dr. Ing. Trautvetter.
In charge of the section of the S.S. Wirtschaftsverwaltungs
Hauptamt responsible for the provision of materials.
Dr. Neu.
"Wifo" representative in charge of construction work in the
Niedersachswerfen district.
Ing. Schwatz.
Chief "Wifo" engineer at Niedersachswerfen.
Ing. Reinzhagen.
"Wifo" engineer in charge of the electric,
gas, heating and air conditioning equipment.
at Niedersachswerfen.
Ing. Spott.
Chief Junkers constructional engineer. Responsible for the
plans for all the Niedersachswerfen sites.
Dipl. Ing. Pönitsch.
Junkers constructional engineer responsible for
electricity, gas and similar supplies."
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