Für das Erinnern
Overview: Organization and Workforce
Germany’s civil and military engineering group, the Organization Todt, planned and organized the project from their headquarters in Berlin. For reasons of secrecy, the project was called "Weingut I" and various Organization Todt offices in Ampfing, Mettenheim and in Ecksberg began handling local affairs in regards to the project. Various firms were hired among them Polensky & Zoellner.
Polensky & Zoellner, founded in 1880, specialized in the construction of towering and underground steel and cement projects. During the construction of the Innwerkkanal from 1919-1924 in Muehldorf, they funded the firm Zweigwerk Muehldorf. From 1933-1942, Polensky & Zoellner was heavily involved in the construction of Autobahns and obtained permission in 1935 to begin construction on the Innkraftwerk in Gars. Polensky & Zoellner also built the Großglockner Passstraße, worked on the Tauernkraftwerk Kaprun and put up many parts of the Deutschen Alpenstraße. At the beginning of World War II, Polensky & Zoellner was ordered into the occupied territories to begin construction on streets, bridges, fortresses, airfields, submarine bunkers, ports and various other structures needed by the German Army.
Polensky & Zoellner recalled 200 of its workers and equipment from various parts of occupied Europe to aid in the construction of the bunker. The division of Polensky & Zoellner that took care of the bunker was called Bautrupp 773. Manager of the "Weingut I" project was Polensky & Zoellner Chief engineer Gickeleiter. 70-80% of Polensky & Zoellner construction capacity was routed to aiding the fighter program. The firm was also ordered to expand the following train stations: Kraiburg, Ampfing and Jettenbach.
Strangely, there was no formal contract awarded to Polensky & Zoellner, despite the firm’s request for one. Polensky & Zoellner also sent a construction bill to the Organization Todt for 25,867,592 Reichsmark near the end of the war. The Organization Todt, however, refused to pay (probably due to the worsening war situation).
A project of this scale required a large workforce. At the beginning of 1942, the Germans had forcefully recruited millions of people from occupied territories to work as laborers in the German armament industry. The man in charge of this was Fritz Sauckel, Generalbevollmaechtigten fuer den Arbeitseinsatz. Alone the bunker in the Mettenheim would require at least 8,000 workers. The Organization Todt supplied the engineers, management and master chiefs while the majority of the 10,000 laborers were composed of prisoners of war and concentration camp inmates from Dachau.
To further mask the operation, the Organization Todt went as far and organized their tasks with the appropriate firms and the SS and even set their "payment". Concentration camp inmates were classified as Hilfsarbeiter (laborers) and were being "paid" 60 Pfennigs an hour. The payment of the inmates was to be done at the end of each month. In reality, the inmates never saw the money. Dr. Edith Raim, a respected researcher at the Institut fuer Zeitgeschichte in Munich, has mentioned the following facts:
"At the end of the war, prisoners of war had worked a total of 322,513 hours. They had cost the firm Polensky & Zoellner an estimated 193,507.80 Reichsmark. Concentration camp inmates worked a total of 2,831,974 hours and were supposed to receive 1,699,184.40 Reichsmark as payment, which never materialized."
The final responsibility for the decision to use slave labor lies with Heinrich Himmler, head of the SS and SS-Obergruppenfuehrer Pohl, head of the SS-WVHA (SS-Wirtschafts- und Verwaltungshauptamt). SS troops and Organization Todt employees guarded inmates on the grounds. Makeshift barracks and tents were created on site to house the prisoners. The camps Waldlager 1,2 and 3 were located near the state road Muehldorf-Werk Kraiburg and housed the forced laborers. The living spaces of concentration camp inmates were allocated to the concentration camps Mettenheim, Waldlager 5/6, Mittergars and Obertaufkirchen-Thalham. Russian prisoners-of-war were housed in barracks located in Mettenheim and in Ampfing.