Function of the Camp

The Trostberg sub-camp (AL Trostberg) was established, like most National Socialist camps, for several reasons.

In addition to the intimidation and elimination of political opponents, the camp in Trostberg was set up above all to provide labour for the armaments industry.

The Schutzstaffel (SS) ran the concentration camps and therefore also had control of the camp prisoners. The prisoners were "rented out" to civilian employers for a daily fee. The fee paid was by no means given to the prisoners but went directly into the pockets of the SS. In the case of the Trostberg sub-camp it was above all the company Bayerische Motoren Werke (BMW), which at that time manufactured aircraft engines, that used the prisoners as forced labourers. But other companies based in the town as well as the town of Trostberg itself also "rented" the prisoners from the SS.

The camp in Trostberg was created as part of one of many relocation projects of the armaments industry. The AL Trostberg and the engine production in Trostberg can thus be traced back to the BMW plant in Allach near Munich. From 1937 onwards BMW manufactured engines at the Allach plant, among them the 801 aircraft engine, which was used as a universal power unit in both fighter and bomber aircraft of the German Luftwaffe. The increasing frequency of Allied air raids increasingly hampered production at the Allach plant. From 1944 parts of the production of the 801 engine were therefore relocated to other sites. In March 1944 part of the BMW Allach factory was relocated to a disused railway tunnel near Markirch (Sainte-Marie-aux-Mines) in Alsace. To provide the necessary labour force, a sub-camp was set up in Markirch. To this end, in addition to the machines, some of the men deployed at BMW in Allach and imprisoned in the AL Allach were brought to Markirch. As the Allies advanced ever closer, the camp and the production facility were closed again after just over six months in October 1944. The production of the 801 engine was now split up even further and distributed among numerous smaller factories. In order to provide labour, new sub-camps were established in the immediate vicinity of the new sites. One of these new sites was the small Upper Bavarian town of Trostberg. Via the Dachau main camp, many of the prisoners previously deployed as workers in Allach and then in Markirch were transferred to the AL Trostberg.

Background: The relocation of the BMW Allach plant – via Markirch (Sainte-Marie-aux-Mines) to Trostberg

The BMW factory in Allach was built in 1937 as a result of the armaments-economic expansion of BMW AG. From 1941 civilian forced labourers were compelled to work at the Allach plant, and from 1942 onwards concentration camp prisoners from the Dachau concentration camp were also deployed. At first they still returned to Dachau in the evenings, until finally in February 1943 a sub-camp of the Dachau concentration camp was set up in Allach. The AL Allach was intended to contribute to increasing the production of aircraft engines at the Allach plant by providing forced labour. After a bombing raid on Munich in March 1943, in which the BMW main plant Munich-Milbertshofen was severely damaged, the Allach plant took over the production of the 801 engine completely. The air-cooled twin-radial 801 aircraft engine was used as a universal power unit in both fighter and bomber aircraft of the Luftwaffe of the German Wehrmacht. Although the Allach plant was to be protected from air raids by bunkers and a stand of trees surrounding the factory halls, production at the Allach site came to a standstill more and more often with the increasing frequency of Allied air raids. The Reich Aviation Ministry (RLM) and BMW had therefore been planning various further measures to protect the Allach plant since 1943. These included, among other things, the construction of a large bunker in Allach as well as the relocation of parts of the production to various locations. In the spring of 1944 construction work also began on the tunnel system near Hersbruck (near Nuremberg) which later became known as the "Doggerwerke" (code name: Esche I). The project had been initiated by BMW and was carried out in cooperation with the SS. For the construction, 6,000 prisoners of the Flossenbürg sub-camp Hersbruck were deployed under inhumane conditions. After completion, the gigantic underground factory was to serve as the final relocation site of the BMW Allach plant.

As the completion of the "Doggerstollen" was still far off in the spring of 1944 and machines, tools and workers, and thus engine production in Allach, were endangered by the increasing frequency and severity of Allied air raids, part of the Allach production was relocated to Markirch (Sainte-Marie-aux-Mines) in Alsace. There was a railway tunnel in Markirch that had been closed since 1940 because of its proximity to occupied France. The almost 7 km long, 6 m high and just under 8 m wide tunnel was now to serve as a bunker for the production of BMW aircraft engines. To this end, not only were the dismantled machines transported from Allach to Markirch but also some of the prisoners already trained and previously deployed at BMW in Allach. The AL Markirch was opened in March 1944 with an advance detail of 26 prisoners; in August 1944 there were 1,857 men at the AL Markirch. Due to its geographical location, the Markirch sub-camp came under Natzweiler concentration camp; however, because of the connection to BMW, prisoners in the AL Markirch were mainly those previously assigned to the Dachau concentration camp. Some of the prisoners in Markirch had to extend the tunnel under the code name "A 9"; the other prisoners were deployed as forced labourers for BMW in the same tunnel under the cover name "Elsässische Spezial-Großkellerei" (Alsatian Special Large Cellar).

Not only the fact that all the machines did not arrive in Markirch until August 1944, but also the conditions in the tunnel, meant that no significant production ever took place at Markirch. While the tunnel was large, it was otherwise highly unsuitable for aircraft engine production: the humidity inside endangered both the machines and the manufactured engine parts through corrosion. The tunnel was poorly or not at all ventilated, heat dissipation did not work, and the power supply was so bad that short circuits occurred again and again. This resulted not only in lower production output, but above all in a further worsening of the prisoners' situation. Although they were now better protected from air raids, the conditions in the tunnel and the assignment to the construction detail "A 9" meant an enormous deterioration in the prisoners' living and working conditions. During the six months of the camp's existence, almost 200 prisoners died. Because of the low huts that could only be entered by crawling, the AL Markirch was given the name "dog kennel camp" by the prisoners; conditions in the camp were otherwise catastrophic.

Soon the front line moved ever closer to the camp and the production site at Markirch. From mid-September 1944 prisoners, machines and material were brought back into the centre of the "German Reich" as part of a relocation back. For the prisoners, however, this did not mean the end but a further continuation of their odyssey. People and material were loaded onto trains once again and now transported eastwards, away from the advancing Allies. An underground relocation, as desired by Berlin, was not to be thought of because of the lack of suitable tunnels, and so neither BMW nor the Reich Aviation Ministry (RLM) knew where the production was to be housed. While the prisoners, after the dissolution of the Markirch camp, came via the Natzweiler main camp back to the Dachau concentration camp or to the Neckar camps and the sub-camps of the "Wüste" (Desert) group, the wagons containing the machines were shunted back and forth on the railway network for weeks in permanent fear of air raids. Finally, BMW found suitable new sites at Kempten, Stephanskirchen, Blaichach and Trostberg, among which the production previously based at Markirch was divided. At the named places a BMW plant was thus created together with a sub-camp which served to supply the plant with forced labour.