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File:Project Riese - map.PNG|thumb|right|435px|Project Riese. Click on the location for a diagram of underground tunnels. rect 82 49 87 54 Complex Książ rect 172 249 177 254 The air raid shelter in Głuszyca rect 242 220 247 225 Complex Jugowice rect 236 236 241 241 Complex Włodarz rect 205 248 210 253 Complex Soboń rect 261 242 266 247 Complex Rzeczka rect 235 272 240 277 Complex Osówka rect 283 302 288 307 Complex Sokolec desc none Riese (:ˈʁiːzə) (German for "giant") is the code name for a construction project of Nazi Germany in 1943–45, consisting of seven underground structures located in the Owl Mountains and Książ Castle in Lower Silesia, previously Germany, now a territory of Poland. None of them were finished; all are in different states of completion with only a small percentage of tunnels reinforced by concrete. The purpose of the project remains uncertain because of lack of documentation. Some sources suggest that all the structures were part of the Führer Headquarters; according to others, it was a combination of HQ and arms industry but comparison to similar facilities can indicate that only the castle was adapted as an HQ or other official residence and the tunnels in the Owl Mountains were planned as a network of underground factories. The construction work was done by forced labourers, POWs, and prisoners of concentration camps, and many lost their lives mostly as a result of disease and malnutrition. == History == In the presence of the increasing Allied air raids Nazi Germany relocated a large part of its strategic armaments production into safer regions including the District of Sudetenland. Plans to protect critical infrastructure also involved transfer of the arms factories to underground bunkers and construction of the air-raid shelters for government officials. In September 1943, Minister of Armaments and War Production Albert Speer and the senior management of Organisation Todt started talks on the Project Riese. As a result, the Schlesische Industriegemeinschaft AG (Silesian Industrial Company) was created to conduct construction work. In November collective camps (''Gemeinschaftslager'') were established for forced labourers, mainly from the Soviet Union and Poland, POWs from Italy, the Soviet Union, and later Poland as an aftermath of the Warsaw Uprising (List of camps). A network of roads, bridges, and narrow gauge railways was created to connect excavation sites with the nearby railway stations. Prisoners were reloading building materials, cutting trees, digging reservoirs and drainage ditches. Small dams were built across streams to create water supplies and sewage systems. Later the rocks of the mountains were drilled and blasted with explosives and the resulting caverns were reinforced by concrete and steel. For this purpose mining specialists were employed, mostly Germans, Italians, Ukrainians, and Czechs but the most dangerous and exhausting work was done by prisoners. The progress of digging tunnels was slow because the structure of the Owl Mountains consists of hard gneiss. Most of the similar facilities were bored in soft sandstone but harder, more stable rocks gave the advantage of total protection from Allied air raids and possibility of building 12 m high underground halls with volume of 6,000 m3. In December 1943, a typhus epidemic occurred amongst the prisoners. They were held in unhygienic conditions, exhausted and starving. As a result, construction slowed down significantly. There were at least five collective camps and unknown number of forced labourers and POWs worked for the project, some until the end of the war. It is also undetermined how many prisoners lost their lives. In April 1944, dissatisfied with the progress of the project, Adolf Hitler decided to hand over the supervision of construction to the Organisation Todt and assign prisoners of concentration camps to work. They were deployed in thirteen labour camps (''Arbeitslager, AL''), some in the vicinity of the tunnels. The network of these camps has been named Arbeitslager Riese (List of camps) and was part of the Gross-Rosen concentration camp. The administration of AL Riese and the camp commander, ''SS-Hauptsturmführer'' Albert Lütkemeyer, were located in AL Wüstegiersdorf. From December 1944 to January 1945 the prisoners were guarded by 853 SS troops. According to incomplete data, at least 13,000 prisoners worked for the project, most of them were transferred from the Auschwitz concentration camp. The documents allow identification of 8,995 prisoners. All of them were Jews, about seventy per cent from Hungary, the rest from Poland, Greece, Romania, Czechoslovakia, the Netherlands, Belgium, and Germany. Mortality was very high because of disease, malnutrition, exhaustion, dangerous underground works, and the treatment of prisoners by German guards. Many exhausted prisoners were sent back to the Auschwitz concentration camp. The deportation of 857 prisoners is documented as well as 14 executions after failed escape attempts. An estimated total of 5,000 victims lost their lives. At the end of 1944, another typhus epidemic occurred amongst the prisoners. Because the front line of the war was approaching, evacuation of the camps begun in February 1945, however in a few places work might have been conducted even at the end of April. Some prisoners were left behind, mostly badly ill, until the Red Army arrived in the area in May 1945. Project Riese was abandoned at the initial stage of construction and only 9 km (25,000 m2, 100,000 m3) of tunnels were dug out. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Project Riese」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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