Politz Synthetic Oil Plant. Poland.

Constructed in 1937 in what was still Germany, this synthetic fuel manufacturing plant used high pressured hydrogenation processes to convert powdered lignite coal into liquid fuels. This included high-grade gasoline and aviation fuel. The process was called the Bergius process, named after its inventor and Nobel prize winner, Freidrich Bergius. The plant was jointly owned by IG Farben, Rhenania-Ossag, and a German subsidiary of Standard Oil. Throughout World War II, the plant also acted as a subcamp for the Stutthof, Sachsenhausen and Ravensbrück concentration camps, whose prisoners made up a majority of the plant’s labour force. Between 1933 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its allies established more than 44,000 camps . They used these sites for a range of purposes, including forced labour, detention of people classed as enemies of the state, and extermination. About 30,000 laborers were forced to work at Hydrierwerke Pölitz from 1939 to 1945. Around 13,000 died. The plant suffered from at least 12 major air raids (the last one involved 250 bombers). After the war, the site fell into the state of decay seen today. This was made even more complete when the Red Army overran the site. The Soviet army removed any surviving technical parts of the plant and sent them back to the USSR. Its difficult to understand the size of this plant as a lot of the buildings have been destroyed or overgrown. At its peak, the plant was producing a large amount of Germany’s liquid fuels. Without this plant and others like it , Germany’s initial success during WWII, particularly their invasion of Russia, would not have been possible. A Footnote.... I've found it difficult to put videos together due to technical issues with my editing software ( pinnacle studio which seems to have stopped producing updates or support ) so I'm trying to learn new software called Davinci resolve which isn't easy, but I'm sure that ill get the hang of it . So bare with me on other vids of which i have some fantastic places that I've been exploring throughout Europe. Thanks for watching.. Some content here in Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Police,... Great info on The Oil campaign from world war two https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil_cam... Traces of war is a brilliant web ( and app ) if you want to go exploring. Some more info on Politz here. https://www.tracesofwar.com/sights/54...