The Polish memorial in Menden – dedicated to the victims of forced labour under the National Socialist regime

Historical background
 

The spring of 1944 marked the beginning of a decisive phase in the aerial war, during which the Allies increasingly targeted and destroyed industrial complexes and armament production sites that were important to the National Socialist war effort. These systematic air attacks began with the “Big Week” from 20 to 25 February 1944, during which the Allied air offensive focused on crushing the German Luftwaffe.[1] These attacks increased in frequency and were expanded to include other industrial sites, such as facilities in the German fuel sector. On 12 May 1944, the US Air Force attacked multiple mineral oil industry sites, and further Allied attacks on oil refineries and hydrogenation plants followed shortly afterwards on 28 and 29 May as well as on 16 and 26 June.[2] These attacks had an impact on the entire course of the war. They caused such substantial damage to the National Socialist fuel sector that at times, production of aircraft fuel came to a complete standstill.[3] On 2 June 1944, in response to these devastating bombing raids, the order was given to set up a special committee, with Edmund Geilenberg, who at the time was a leading defence economy official, acting as general commissioner for emergency measures in the mineral oil industry.[4] In the programme he named after himself, Geilenberg took on the repair of important refinery plants and the decentralisation and relocation underground of fuel plants in regions that were less at risk of attack, much in the same way as had been done with the “Jägerstab” for aircraft production for the National Socialist Luftwaffe.[5] Since there were no oil wells in Germany, hydrogenation plants were built as part of the National Socialist war effort, which were able to produce fuel as a synthetic product using a complex process to liquefy coal. The first high-pressure hydrogenation plant designed to enable the resumption of fuel production was built in the Hönnetal valley in the Sauerland region, on the border between Hemer and Menden. Its codename was “Schwalbe I”, and it was situated in the former “Emil 1” open-cast quarry.[6]