Place of Remembrance

An informational plaque titled "Memorial Site for Forced Labor at the Volkswagen Plant" displays a schematic representation of a building complex. — Plan of the exhibition

In the late 1920s, the vision of mass motorisation along American lines gains momentum in Germany. Many designers and engineers are working to make real the idea of a car for personal use that is available to broad swathes of the population. The National Socialists take up this idea and turn mass motorisation into a propaganda tool for their social utopian programme of government. In June 1934, Ferdinand Porsche is commissioned by the Reich Association of the German Automotive Industry (Reichsverband der Automobilindustrie) to develop a “Volkswagen”, a “people’s car”.

On 28 May 1937, the German Labour Front (Deutsche Arbeitsfront) founds the “Gesellschaft zur Vorbereitung des Deutschen Volkswagen mbH” (company for the preparation of the German people’s car). The opening of the Midland Canal in 1938, the existing rail connection and the central location at the heart of the then German Reich all feed into the decision to go ahead with the ambitious project of building the largest automobile factory in the world at this location. Construction begins in February 1938 and the laying of the corner stone takes place on 26 May 1938. The company, renamed Volkswagenwerk GmbH on 16 September 1938, builds its main plant in what is now Wolfsburg, while the outlying plant is established in Braunschweig. Vehicle production is scheduled to start in autumn 1939. But with the outbreak of World War II on 1 September 1939, the then Volkswagenwerk GmbH becomes part of the German armaments industry, and series production of the civilian version remains a dream. Instead, workers, mainly foreign forced labourers, are tasked with producing military vehicles and other armaments.

During the construction of the plant, shelters are provided in accordance with the provisions of the Air Raid Protection Act. In these air raid shelters, German employees as well as forced laborers find protection during bombing raids during World War II. This measure serves less to provide welfare than to preserve their ability to work.

In one of these air-raid shelters, where former forced laborers survived bombing raids on the newly built factory, an exhibition is set up in 1995 on the initiative of the works council of Volkswagen trainees. At this historic site in Hall 1, the revised permanent exhibition "Memorial to Forced Labor on the Volkswagen Factory Site" opens on December 17, 1999.

Beschädigte Bunkerwand in der Erinnerungsstätte — Bunker wall in the shelter damaged by an American bomber crash

The Exhibition Rooms

Room 1 – The “Volkswagen” Project

Transportband zum Symbolisieren der modernen Fabrik — The conveyor belt is the symbol of the modern factory.

Ferdinand Porsche submits a “memorandum concerning the construction of a German People’s Car” to the Reich Ministry of Transport on 17 January 1934. The “fully-fledged utility car” is said to offer space for four adults, have “normal dimensions but a relatively low weight” and allow a “motorway-proof” continuous speed of 100 km/h. The Reich Ministry of Transport demands a purchase price of no more than 1000 reichsmarks.

To produce the car, a “Nazi model plant” is built on the Midland Canal near Fallersleben for the mass production of up to 1.5 million vehicles a year. Shortages of resources and labour make it difficult to build the factory, so foreign workers are drafted in from mid-1938. The newly founded company of the German Labour Front also lacks a core workforce to start up the plant.

With the outbreak of the Second World War, the ambitious plans to build the world's largest and most modern automobile factory, and with it the "Volkswagen" project, are threatened with failure. The mass motorization of the German people propagated by the National Socialists through the series production of the KdF car remains an illusion. Following the demands of the war economy and armaments interests, the company carries out orders from outside the industry. The Volkswagen factory takes on the repair of aircraft components and produces, among other things, wooden drop containers as well as anti-tank mines and bazookas.

With 300 Polish women assigned by the Lower Saxony Labor Office in June 1940 and deployed in the construction of wooden drop containers, which are classified as essential to the war effort, the first forced laborers from the countries occupied by the German Wehrmacht arrive at the plant.

Fotos zur Aufbauphase vom Werk — Photos and documents show the construction phase of the plant and production.

Room 2 – The Expansion of Armaments Production and the Systematic Development of Forced Labour

Ausstellung Tür Kübelwagen Typ 82 — Armaments production includes military vehicle variants. A door from the type 82 Kübelwagen is to be seen in the exhibition.

The forced labourers are initially temporary workers on temporary armaments projects. The start-up of production of the Kübelwagen, the military version of the Volkswagen Beetle, and the Schwimmwagen, a four-wheel drive amphibious vehicle, as well as the manufacture of bunker stoves and, above all, air armaments, contribute to the company’s development. Having accepted large orders for armaments in the summer of 1941, forced labourers, both prisoners of war and civilian workers, are increasingly used to maintain production.

Volkswagenwerk GmbH is one of the first companies to use Soviet prisoners of war, starting in October 1941. Already weak from their ordeals, they are forced to take on physically heavy and dirty work, and many perish. The largest group of foreigners are the “Eastern workers” from Poland and the Soviet Union. The civilians, most of whom were deported with massive use of force, are subjected to numerous acts of racial discrimination.

Anordnung von Tafeln in Ausstellung — The arrangement of the panels reflects the segregation of the forced labourers in production and the accommodation in the camps.

After the fall of Benito Mussolini in the fall of 1943, Italian military internees from prisoner-of-war camps in the German Reich also arrive at the factory, where they are treated and supplied on an equal footing with Soviet prisoners of war. From the spring of 1943, the Volkswagen factory also recruits French and Dutch students who are forced to work as prisoners of war or civilian laborers. In terms of pay, care and housing, the civilian workers from the western territories are privileged among the foreign workers in accordance with National Socialist racial ideology. Because of their language skills and technical qualifications, they take on key tasks among the German management personnel.

11,334 people from various countries of origin made up the majority of the total workforce of 17,365 on April 30, 1944. During the Second World War, around 20,000 people perform forced labor at what was then Volkswagenwerk GmbH. Among them are around 5,000 concentration camp prisoners.

The Nazi dictatorship has a far-reaching impact on the company through the Gestapo. The company's own plant security is the most important instrument for surveillance and punishment. Sentries and patrols control not only the factory premises, but also the camps and the surrounding area in order to punish nonconformity, alleged sabotage or refusal to work. The catalog of punitive and arbitrary measures is long: corporal punishment or deprivation of food are just as much a part of it as are the admissions to Penal Camp 18, located near the plant site, or the dreaded Labor Education Camp 21 near Salzgitter.

Fotos zum Umgang mit Säuglingen und Kleinkindern — Photos and eyewitness’s testimonies document the way foreign babies and small children were treated.

Among the deported "Eastern workers" are pregnant women, who are only deported to their homeland until December 1942 due to the permanent labor shortage.

Despite bans on contact and threats of coercive measures, children are born in the camps.

Initially, they are housed with their mothers in a barracks near the camps and, from June 1944, in the so-called nursing home for foreign children in Rühen. A few days after birth, the babies are separated from their mothers, who are immediately put back to work. By the end of the war, 365 children die as a result of neglect and inadequate nutrition.

Room 3 – Concentration Camp Prisoners

Wand zur Verdeutlichung der Abgrenzung — The concentration camp prisoners experience isolation and intimidation. The wall clarifies the demarcation.

The massive expansion of the German war economy necessitates even greater exploitation of the labour of prisoners from concentration camps. Thus, in January 1942, the management of the Volkswagen factory and Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler agree to use prisoners to complete the construction of the light metal foundry, which had been lying dormant since October 1939. The foundry is to be used for the plant’s own production of aluminium cast parts for armaments requirements and the manufacture of components for the civilian version of the KdF saloon after the war. To this end, the “Arbeitsdorf” concentration camp is set up on the factory premises in April 1942 as the first independent company concentration camp. Prisoners from Neuengamme, Sachsenhausen and Buchenwald concentration camps perform heavy construction work and are guarded by SS men and dog patrols. Due to a lack of urgency for the war economy, the “Arbeitsdorf” concentration camp is dissolved in October 1942 and the prisoners are sent to Sachsenhausen.

Bugspite und Seitenruder einer Flugbombe — The nose cone and side rudder of the Fi 103 flying bomb are work products of concentration camp prisoners.

Various orders for airborne armaments secure the Volkswagen company's existence.

Starting in January 1943, the plant also becomes the main supplier for the first 100 cells of the Fi 103 flying bomb, the so-called V1. In May 1944, plant engineer Arthur Schmiele selects 300 Hungarian Jews in the Auschwitz concentration camp to be trained as skilled metalworkers on the flying bomb assembly line at the main plant.

The men are to form the core workforce of the underground manufacturing and assembly plant in Tiercelet, France, known as the "KL-Betrieb," and to train other prisoners as laborers. These skilled workers are considered difficult to replace, so harassment remains the exception. After the SS-dominated Mittelwerk GmbH was awarded the main contract for large-scale production of the Fi 103, these concentration camp prisoners were transported to the Mittelbau-Dora concentration camp in October 1944. Many of them find their death there.

Tellermine und Panzerfaust in Ausstellung — Exhibits such as a land mine and a bazooka bear witness to armaments production.

In May 1944, 800 prisoners from Neuengamme concentration camp arrive at the Laagberg camp not far from the Volkswagen plant to build a barracks complex.

The concentration camp prisoners have to perform physically difficult excavation and construction work under adverse conditions.

They are subjected to arbitrary and harassing mistreatment by the commandants. The concentration camp under construction is secured with an electrified fence and watchtowers. On the factory premises, the prisoners are used for clearing rubble as a result of air raids by American forces and for loading work; the manufacture of armaments remains the exception for them.

Between July 1944 and January 1945, transports of female prisoners arrive at the Volkswagen plant from Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen, among other places. The women work at the plant mainly on the production line for anti-tank mines and anti-tank artillery shells; occasionally they are called upon to perform loading work and to remove debris. They are housed in the converted washrooms of Hall 1.

Forced labour, punishment and concentration camps on the factory premises and in the “city of the KdF car”.

Lageplan des Konzentrationslagers auf dem Werkgelände

Forced laborer camps
1 Foundry camp
3 Canal port camp
6 General camp
7 Camp for military convicts and prisoners of war
8 ”Eastern workers” camp
9 Reislingen camp
10 Laagberg camp
12 Hutted camp Hohenstein

Penal and concentration camps
2 KZ ”Arbeitsdorf” (Work Village)
4 Satellite concentration camp in Hall 1
11 Satellite concentration camp Laagberg
5 Penal camp 18

Room 4 – Dispersal of the Volkswagen Plant to Underground and Decentralized Locations

Foto von Ausstellung zu Schäden von Bombenangriffen auf VW Werk — Photos and drawings show damage from bombing raids on the Volkswagen plant and the relocation of production areas.

From mid-1943, Allied bombing raids on industrial targets of the German armaments industry increase in frequency, leading to the relocation of operational areas to provisional facilities, some of which are far away. The Volkswagen plant is also involved in the early underground relocations, which served to ensure production for air armaments and to protect the irreplaceable machinery from damage.

In March 1944, the Volkswagen plant is allocated production space at the Tiercelet iron ore mine in Lorraine. Due to the urgency of armaments deliveries, it is converted into an underground factory by forced labourers in just six months.

Sitzbänke links und rechts zur Verdeutlichung der Enge des Raums im Untertagebetrieb — The confinement of the space highlights the conditions in underground operations.

At the beginning of September 1944, however, the Tiercelet mine is abandoned in flight because of the Allied advance, so that production of the V1 and other armaments no longer takes place.

Other relocation plants are set up in Dernau, Eschershausen and Schönebeck, and the Volkswagen plant also outsources parts production, machinery and materials to the surrounding area.

The production of anti-tank mines and anti-tank missiles remains in the main plant, as do the assembly lines for the production of bucket cars, which are to be protected by relocating them from the hall to the base floor.

Especially during the hectic expansion of the underground operations, concentration camp prisoners and other forced laborers are used in a ruthless manner. Chaos, the rush of work and systematic undersupply claim numerous victims among them.

Fotos und selbstgefertigte Nationalflagge zur Befreiung — Photos and a home-made national flag document the days after the liberation.

On April 7, 1945, the SS gives the order to evacuate the two concentration camps.

The women from Hall 1 at the Volkswagen factory are taken in freight cars to Salzwedel and liberated by American troops on April 14, 1945.

The prisoners of the Laagberg camp are deported via Salzwedel to the Wöbbelin subcamp near Ludwigslust. By the time they are liberated by American soldiers on May 2, 1945, many of them die of disease, general physical deterioration and hunger. The remaining forced laborers of the main plant who remained in the town of the KdF car were liberated by American troops on April 11, 1945.

Room 5 – Remembrance

Those affected have their say: their statements illustrate how individually the experience is processed.

The conversations with those affected and more than 200 interviews conducted with former forced labourers support the company’s historical research and are part of the comprehensive reappraisal of forced labour at the former Volkswagenwerk GmbH.

The memories of contemporary witnesses are many-voiced. The ways in which people deal with their experiences and process them are as varied and individual as the people themselves. There is a growing need to talk about their experiences and to set an example against despotism and deprivation of rights.

The “Remembrance Room” gives a voice to those affected. The testimonies of forced labourers, prisoners of war and concentration camp inmates printed on glass give an idea of the extent and intensity of what they experienced. At a listening station, contemporary witnesses speak, in part in their respective national languages, about their experiences, which accompany and shape them throughout their lives.

The Listening Station Interviews

Jean Baudet on the beginning of his confrontation with his time as a forced laborer

“I can tell you that it was almost always on my mind. Even then, when we were there, we were already thinking about our fate. Why are we there? What for? What will happen to us? Later we dealt with it because we had memories. Family and friends urged us to tell what we had experienced. So we thought about those years again. And then, when life gradually resumed its normal course, when I went back to study and later built up my business with my father and grandfather, I was fully engaged in life, in building something new. And so, little by little, I filed those two years at Volkswagen away in a corner of my brain. I had completely forgotten about them. When people asked me about it, I could talk about it – that worked. But I didn’t talk about it anymore. I didn’t think about it anymore. It was finished, in the past. So I no longer thought about what had happened. Only later, when I retired, did I have contact with former forced labourers who had been in KdF. We talked about our memories, about the moments we shared together, about what had happened. Everyone has their memories, and those memories differ. And so we began to think again about what we had experienced. But this time deeper than before. Because we had learned some things, had learned what had really happened - not only at Volkswagen, but also throughout Germany. That led me to think about things I had repressed in my professional life.”

Jean Baudet How he started to deal with his time as a forced labourer

“The first thing I think of is: may nothing like this ever happen again! I would not want to see a second war. War is a huge calamity that can overtake a country - not just individual selected people, but the entire nation. I hope there will never be another war.”

Stanisław Latacz On the misfortune of experiencing a war

Stanisław Latacz über das Unglück, einen Krieg zu erleben

Sara Frenkel-Bass über die Entwicklung der Erinnerungskultur bei Volkswagen

“Volkswagen struggled with honest reappraisal and direct contact with former forced labourers until the 1980s. Today there is the exhibition and I and others are invited by Volkswagen to Wolfsburg. Many, many things have changed. The people here are very interested. And good companions on a difficult walk, such as to the graves.”

Sara Frenkel-Bass On the development of the culture of remembrance at Volkswagen

“Well actually little significance, I pushed that away. One example is that we lived together in Delft with five people who also lived in the room, in the same room in the barracks in the city of the KdF car, and that in the three years I was there I cannot remember that we ever talked about our time in Germany.”

Piet Wit On the significance of his time as a forced labourer in the Volkswagen factory

Piet Wit über die Bedeutung der Zeit als Zwangsarbeiter im Volkswagenwerk

Sally Perel über den Beginn seiner Auseinandersetzung mit den Erlebnissen

“I actually started when I retired. I worked for quite a while, I was self-employed afterwards, I also always had to get up early to work and came home tired late at night. There was no time to deal with this past, it had to wait. It lay dormant in the belly. Like a .... but this story that you carry in your gut like that, over time it became, I would say, something explosive that had to come out. And that happened when I retired. I retired early because I had heart surgery in Tel Aviv, and that’s when I retired early. Yes, and suddenly you get up in the morning and you are not going to work! That was a turning point, so – what do you do now? And that’s when the first compulsion came: I’m going to deal with this past. And so gradually the memories returned more and more, mostly at night, and I wrote like that until the book came into being. It took about a year and a half. And, yes, and I felt really that the book was like therapy for me.”

Sally Perel On how he started to examine his experiences

“It was not easy, because on the one hand we were very happy to have survived these hard times, this war. But on the other, we had lost so many friends and family, so that was... sweet on the one hand and... how do you say? [Interviewer: Bitter] ...bitter on the other.”

Ornan Lev Ary On his inner conflict after his arrival in Israel

Ornan Lev Ary über seine innere Zerrissenheit nach seiner Ankunft in Israel

Room 6 – Confronting the History of the Volkswagen Factory in the Third Reich

Book cover of “Das Volkswagenwerk und seine Arbeiter im Dritten Reich” by Hans Mommsen and Manfred Grieger. The cover features a historical black-and-white photograph with an open Volkswagen Beetle and a crowd of people. The title is displayed in white text on a blue background. — In 1996, the study written by Prof. Dr. Hans Mommsen together with Dr. Manfred Grieger is published.

Some four decades after the end of the war, the topic of forced labour is attracting increased attention in the West German public sphere. In addition, the involvement of the then Volkswagenwerk GmbH in the National Socialist system requires the company to deal intensively with its early history. Awareness, engagement, remembrance and humanitarian support become key elements for the company in dealing with its history.

In 1986, on the initiative of the Works Council headed by Walter Hiller, then Chairman of the Central Works Council, the Board of Management of Volkswagen AG commissions a team of scholars under the direction of Prof. Dr. Hans Mommsen to prepare an independent research study on the history of the company. This is published in German in 1996 under the title “The Volkswagen Factory and its Workers in the Third Reich” (“Das Volkswagenwerk und seine Arbeiter im Dritten Reich”).

A group of people in gray work uniforms with blue accents are using shovels and rakes for an outdoor ground project. They are uncovering a rocky surface, surrounded by green grass and trees. — Volkswagen trainees during restoration work on the grounds of the former Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp.

In addition, Volkswagen AG adds a future-oriented element to historical research work.

Volkswagen promotes international youth encounters in Central and Eastern Europe, but also in Israel, and is actively involved in the International Youth Meeting Site (IJBS) in Oświęcim/Auschwitz.

In 1987, Volkswagen trainees take part in a seminar at the meeting place for the first time. From 1992 onwards, Polish apprentices and trainees from all Volkswagen plants not only deal with German history and its consequences there, but also contribute to the preservation of the Auschwitz concentration camp memorial during their stays of several weeks. Volkswagen managers and, from 2009, master craftsmen from the company will also be taking part in the "Auschwitz - Remembrance and Future" project from 2008 onwards.

Gedenkstein mit Blumen — The memorial stone on Südstraße at the Volkswagen plant in Wolfsburg is inaugurated on 9 October 1991.

In 1991, Volkswagen AG provides DM 12 million for social and international activities.

On the occasion of the presentation of the interim results of the research project, a memorial stone commemorating forced labor at the Volkswagen plant is unveiled on October 9 on the factory premises in Wolfsburg, at the Sector 2 entrance.

With the establishment of a Humanitarian Fund in 1998, the company provides individual humanitarian aid to those personally affected.

The establishment of the Group Archive also marks the opening of the permanent exhibition ”Place of Remembrance of Forced Labor in the Volkswagen Factory” at the Wolfsburg plant, which was revised in 1999 and has been open to Volkswagen employees and external visitors ever since.

Aufgeklapptes Buch zur Geschichte der Zwangsarbeit bei VW — Publications on the history of forced labour at Volkswagen.

A respectful and appreciative cooperation develops from the trusting dialogue within the framework of the research for the history-related series of publications of Volkswagen AG, from the encounters with contemporary witnesses and their relatives.

With the publication of eyewitness accounts and contemporary documents, the history of forced labor at the former Volkswagenwerk GmbH becomes visible to the general public, as do individual life stories.

Gruppe ehemaliger Zwangsarbeiter — A group of former forced labourers on a guided tour of the Place of Remembrance.

Until well after the turn of the millennium, former forced laborers and also their family members come to Wolfsburg to visit the memorial and the Volkswagen plant.

They are present at the memorial events and wreath-laying ceremonies that have become established at the plant, in the city of Wolfsburg and in the surrounding area, to remind and remember and to stand up against forgetting. They repeatedly and relentlessly express their desire for respect and tolerance in society, for humanity and peace, in readings, with lectures and at special exhibitions in the Corporate Archives.

Contemporary witness Sally Perel sits at a lectern in front of some people who are also sitting and listening to him. — Dealing with history: contemporary witness Sally Perel with listeners in the forum of the Corporate Archives at the Wolfsburg plant.

As a sign of recognition for the lifetime achievements of former forced laborers, the Volkswagen vocational training programs at the Braunschweig, Emden, Hanover, Kassel, Salzgitter and Wolfsburg sites, together with the respective youth and trainee representatives of the Works Council, are repeatedly offering an award for respect and tolerance.

Volkswagen keeps the memory alive: The company actively and responsibly communicates its founding history and sees itself as responsible for continuing to remember the fate of forced laborers, commemorating the victims and standing up for respect, tolerance and diversity.

The Catalogue

Place of Remembrance of Forced Labor in the Volkswagen Factory

12/17/1999 Publication (New Edition 2017) ۔ A catalogue on the exhibition “Place of Remembrance of Forced Labor in the Volkswagen Factory” ۔ ISBN 978-3-93112-07-9

Visit the Place of Remembrance

Opening hours
The Place of Remembrance is located on the plant premises in Wolfsburg. Visits are by appointment from Monday to Friday. Guided tours are provided in German and English. Entrance is free.

Access
The Archives department and the exhibition are wheelchair accessible. Wheelchair users should inform us when booking the visit. Please access the plant via gate Sandkamp.

Booking
Volkswagen AG, Heritage
Corporate Archives
P.O. Box 1922, 38436 Wolfsburg, Germany
Tel.: +49 (0) 53 61 92 56 67
Email: history@volkswagen.de

Children
The permanent exhibition is not suitable for persons under 14 years of age.

Photographs
Photography is prohibited on the plant premises.

Directions
As the Place of Remembrance is located on the factory premises, a visit is only possible by prior appointment.
A guided tour of the exhibition begins in the forum of the Volkswagen AG Corporate. Archives, Südstraße, Entrance 2, first floor.
For inquiries please call +49 (0) 53 61 92 56 67.

Directions via plant access gate 17 (“Tor 17”)
Leave Wolfsburg main station through the main exit and turn right towards the Volkswagen office tower. After about 300 metres you will reach the tunnel entrance to gate 17. Go down the stairs, to the right along the corridor to the next staircase and finally go up again via two escalators. At the corridor’s end you will find gate 17, where you can sign in with plant security. From there, continue west along Südstraße towards the office tower. The Corporate Archives are located at entrance 2 on the first floor. We wish you a good journey.

Directions via plant access gate Sandkamp (“Tor Sandkamp”)
Parking is available to the left of the gate Sandkamp, which is located on Oststraße. To sign in, please contact the plant security staff. After leaving the reception, go down the stairs on the right and cross the park in the direction of the office tower. Once there, go around the building to the right and you will come to Südstraße, which you follow to entrance 2. The Corporate Archives are located at entrance 2 on the first floor. We wish you a good journey.