Liebenau

"This Saturday we joined a group of Ukrainian students and visited a former gun powder fabrication nearby. 'We' - this is Owlina, my family and a group of American university students with their German teacher, who came for their spring break to Nienburg (sister city of Las Cruces in New Mexico). There were two contemporary witnesses from the Ukraine (82 and 84 years old) with the group. That allowed them to visited large parts of the otherwise locked up area. We drove through the large production areal of 12 sq kilometers. Starting in 1939 the production plant was erected (by 3 to 4.000 workers) which was planned by Hitler to produce a large amount of powder for military use. From 1941 to 1945 more than 41.000 tons of gun-powder were produced there. Owlina was very impressed to see some of the old buildings."

"We learned that there were not many German workers at that time. The majority were prisoner's of war from the Soviet Union and forced labourers from many other nations. They lived under very poor conditions. Most of them already arrived in Liebenau under-nourished and sick. About 2.500 people died of mal-nutrition, illnesses, beatings or killings by the German Nazi regime. A group of young people nowadays research the history of the powder production plant, the "Pulverfabrik" http://www.japl.de/ . They found about 11.000 registration cards of the former work force."

"The man who initiated all this, Martin Guse, talked about the tragical fate of some individuals. See here (in German only) his website: http://www.martinguse.de/pulverfabrik/bio.htm There was this young man from the Netherlands, Pieter Koop. He was arrested for conterfeiting coupons for food rations. In February 1943 he was deported to Liebenau. It was hard for him to produced the gun powder and he flew. He was arrested and brought to the KZ Neuengamme. There he died in January 1944 of "tuberculosis" (as the papers said)."
"Owlina was very sad when she heared about all this. She could imagine the hard working conditions because she felt the cold and wet climate in the buildings.After the war the area was used by the British, the machines went to Czechowslovakia and France. In 1959 production of rockets and explosives started in Liebenau. In the early 1960s atomic weapons were stationed there (until 1992), guarded by German, Dutch and American troups. Military and chemical production continued until 1994 when the last company, the Dutch "Eurometaal" left the area. It was only until 1998 when one of the former forcest labourer came to Liebenau that the public began to take an interest in the history of the "Pulverfabrik". One goal of the non-profit group "Documentationsstelle Pulverfabrik" is to install a permament memorial. Owlina (and me) believes it is a very good idea!"