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From the Warsaw Uprising to Frankfurt/Main. Polish concentration camp prisoners in the ‘Adlerwerke’ factories

The Adlerwerke with later concentration camp tower The prisoners were housed on the third and fourth storey of the corner tower. Photograph from 1925, seen from Weilburger Strasse. (detail)
©
Institut für Stadtgeschichte Frankfurt am Main, Werksarchiv Adlerwerke vorm. Heinrich Kleyer AG, W1-14/5649, Photo: n.n.

During the Warsaw Uprising in the summer of 1944, the Nazis deported around 60,000 Warsaw inhabitants to German concentration camps. 1,400 men from the city were taken to a satellite concentration camp that had been set up near the ‘Adlerwerke’ factories in Frankfurt/Main, where they were put to work as forced labourers. To date, there are only 150 known survivors of this murderous campaign.

A contribution as part of the joint project with the German Institute of Polish Studies in Darmstadt: Lebenszeichen ⋮ Znaki Życia Polen und der Zweite Weltkrieg – Erinnerungsorte in Deutschland.

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  • Fig. 1: The Adlerwerke with later concentration camp tower - The prisoners were housed on the third and fourth storey of the corner tower. Photograph from 1925, seen from Weilburger Strasse.
  • Fig. 2: Armoured personnel carrier - The Adlerwerke built the chassis for these medium-sized armoured personnel carriers. Here design C, in Russia, August/September 1942.
  • Fig. 3: Application for prisoners, front side - At this point in time, the prisoners had already been assigned to the company. The “application” to the “Economics and Administration Head Office” (WVHA) in September 1944 was merely a formality.
  • Fig. 4: Application for prisoners, rear side - The commander of Natzweiler, Friedrich Hartjenstein, and Gerhard Maurer, who was in charge of the deployment of the labourers in the WVHA, confirm the use of the prisoners in the Adlerwerke with their signature.
  • Fig. 5: Transport list from Dachau - On 27/9/1944, the SS transferred 1,000 prisoners from Dachau to Frankfurt/Main. Since “Katzbach” fell within the admin. remit of the Natzweiler concentration camp, Frankfurt is not specifically named.
  • Fig. 6: Construction prisoners in “Katzbach” - On 3/10/1944, the SS produced an overview of all prisoners and made a note of their professions. In order to improve their chances of survival, many of them did not state their real professions.
  • Fig. 7: School identity card of Andrzej Branecki - Branecki was just 14 years old when he was deported to the “Katzbach” concentration camp.
  • Fig. 8: Zdzisław Bittner - Bittner was just 18 years old when he was brought to the “Katzbach” concentration camp. He was a lively, happy young man who liked sports and good company, as well as dancing and playing the guitar.
  • Fig. 9: Tadeusz Waszak - Graphic designer Tadeusz Waszak turned 25 in the Frankfurt concentration camp at the end of 1944. It is assumed that he died during the death march in the spring of 1945.
  • Fig. 10: Józef Bury with daughter Józefa in Warsaw in 1944 - He died on 15 March 1945 in Frankfurt.
  • Fig. 11: Bunk bed and prisoners - This drawing, which was made after the war by Zygmunt Świstak, evokes the atmosphere in the rooms where the prisoners were housed.
  • Fig. 12: Night shift in the Adlerwerke - The prisoners were divided up into day and night shifts. Most of them had to work at large individual machines. This drawing was made after the war.
  • Fig. 13: Air raid alarm - Świstak’s description of the scene: “[H]itting at [e]very turn of the stairs. Have to move quickly to the other side, to avoid being hit. We are never made to go to air raid shelters when we work.”
  • Fig. 14: Daily report, 13/2/1945 - The company documented the use of the prisoners in daily reports, which also gave information about deaths and prisoners who had escaped.
  • Fig. 15: Erich Franz, 1944 - The camp director, who came from Vienna, was born in 1914.
  • Fig. 16: Weekly report from 8–15 October 1944 - On 12 October, just six weeks or so after the camp was opened, 58 ill prisoners were sent back to Dachau.
  • Fig. 17: Gestapo file on Peter Stamm - The factory employee Peter Stamm had helped prisoners by giving them food and was arrested by the Gestapo.
  • Fig. 18: Death certificate of Kazimierz Głowacki - Registry Office III recorded all deaths among the prisoners in the Adlerwerke, here: Kazimierz Głowacki, who was shot by the SS guards on 13 February 1945.
  • Fig. 19: Cremation of prisoners - Letter by SS “Hauptscharführer” Erich Franz to the burial authorities in Frankfurt/Main, 24/10/1944
  • Fig. 20: Clearing the rubble - In this collage, Zygmunt Świstak depicts the dangerous work of clearing rubble after air raid attacks. If you were lucky, you might find morsels of food among the ruins.
  • Fig. 21: Ackermannwiese field with the Ackermann- und Bürgermeister-Grimm school in the background, 1926/27 - The school on Ackermannstrasse had sanitation facilities in the cellar, with showers and baths. The prisoners were brought there at least three times for a “delousing procedure”.
  • Fig. 22: Golub-Lebedenko-Platz - On 14/3/1945, Georgiy Lebedenko and Adam Golub were shot in front of neighbours after attempting to flee. Today, their memory is preserved on Golub-Lebedenko-Platz square in the district of Gallus.
  • Fig. 23: Map of the death march - The route marched by the prisoners from 24 March 1945 led through the Kinzigtal valley towards Fulda and then Hünfeld.
  • Fig. 24: A missing persons notice dated March 1948 - In the “Poszukiwania” (“Missing persons”) section of the “Wolni Ludzie” magazine, Danuta Kotomska is looking for her husband Kazimierz, who was taken to the Adlerwerke in September 1944.
  • Fig. 25: A missing persons notice dated 8 May 1947 - In the “Amerykańskie Biuro Informacji” section of the “Repatriant” magazine, Wiktoria Bittner is looking for her son Zdzisław, who was taken to the Adlerwerke in September 1944.
  • Fig. 26: Exhumations in Dörnigheim - In August 1945, ten victims of the death march were buried with dignity in the village of Dörnigheim on the orders of the American occupying authorities.
  • Fig. 27: The Świstak family, around 1932 - Zygmunt (*1924) is on the right. His mother died in 1944. His father Florian (*1890) and brother Tadeusz (*1923) did not survive the Adlerwerke concentration camp.
  • Fig. 28: Zygmunt Świstak in the main cemetery in Frankfurt, after 1998 - In 1988, he found the name of his brother on the grave site in the main cemetery in Frankfurt. He describes this day in the book “Die letzten Zeugen” (“The Last Witnesses”).
  • Fig. 29: Glass stela in the main cemetery, Frankfurt - In March 2025, a glass stela was erected showing the names of the prisoners who died in Frankfurt in alphabetic order.
  • Fig. 30: Six survivors in front of the Club Voltaire in Frankfurt/Main, 1997, invited by LAGG e.V. - Kajetan Kosiński (front, 2nd f.l.), Stanisław Madej (centre, with wife), Jan Kozłowski (5th f.r.), Heinz Meyer (rear, 5th f.l.), Andrzej Branecki (below traffic sign) & Ryszard Olek (next on the r.)
  • Fig. 31: Commemoration on the bank of the river Main, 19 March 2022 - More than 1,616 people from Frankfurt and the surrounding area gathered to remember the prisoners of the “Katzbach” concentration camp with hand-made placards.
  • Fig. 32: Commemoration on the bank of the river Main, 19 March 2022 - Many of those who gathered took the opportunity to find out more about the person whose name they represented.

From the Warsaw Uprising to Frankfurt/Main. Polish concentration camp prisoners in the ‘Adlerwerke’ factories
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The Adlerwerke with later concentration camp tower The prisoners were housed on the third and fourth storey of the corner tower.
The Adlerwerke with later concentration camp tower The prisoners were housed on the third and fourth storey of the corner tower. Photograph from 1925, seen from Weilburger Strasse. (detail)
©
Institut für Stadtgeschichte Frankfurt am Main, Werksarchiv Adlerwerke vorm. Heinrich Kleyer AG, W1-14/5649, Photo: n.n.

A decades-long fight for remembrance
 

During the period immediately after the end of the war, the crimes committed against the concentration camp prisoners in the Adlerwerke were known among the people living in Frankfurt. However, in light of the general state of emergency in the destroyed city, they did not attract much attention. The “Frankfurter Rundschau” newspaper reported on the investigations and trials. After the war, the more than 500 prisoners interred in the main cemetery were reburied. In places along the death march route, such as Dörnigheim, where the bodies of prisoners who had been shot had been hastily covered over with earth, the Americans ordered the local population to exhume the dead and to bury them with dignity. During the exhumations in Dörnigheim, the local people even found two survivors who had returned to their place of suffering. (Fig. 26 . )

The grave site in the main cemetery became the most visible trace of the camp in the city. In the decades that followed the war, it was expanded several times with the addition of memorial structures.[1] In 1972, the ministry of internal affairs in Hessen had the site enclosed by stone panels, which showed the names of all those who had died in Frankfurt. It was here, in 1988, that Zygmunt Świstak found the grave of his brother, Tadeusz. (Figs. 27 . , 28 . ) In 2025, a glass stela was installed bearing engravings of the name of every prisoner who died in Frankfurt, in alphabetical order. (Fig. 29 . ) 

As is the case with many other places where crimes were committed by the National Socialists, the story of “Katzbach” concentration camp has begun to fade from memory over the years. During the 1980s, civil society groups began to draw attention to the events that occurred in the Adlerwerke and to campaign for public remembrance of the satellite concentration camp there. Ernst Kaiser and Michael Knorn headed research projects and established contact with survivors. In 1994, they published the first monograph about the camp. The workers’ council of the Adlerwerke, chaired by Lothar Reiniger, raised the subject internally at a council meeting. In 1993, the LAGG, Leben und Arbeiten in Griesheim und Gallus e.V. (the Living and Working in Griesheim and Gallus association) was founded. Today, it still promotes remembrance of the satellite concentration camp and organises visits for survivors. (Fig. 30 . ) In 1998, the association successfully contended a payment from the Dresdner Bank of 8,000 Deutschmarks to eleven survivors of whose existence was known at the time. As a large shareholder in the company at the time, the bank was found to have borne part of the responsibility for what happened.

At first, the city of Frankfurt/Main showed little interest in these initiatives. At times, the existence of the satellite concentration camp in the Adlerwerke was even called into doubt. However, since 2016, it has actively supported the creation of a memorial site there. In March 2022, the Geschichtsort Adlerwerke: Fabrik – Zwangsarbeit – Konzentrationslager was officially opened at the site on Kleyerstrasse where the crimes were committed. There, people now have an opportunity to closely study and reflect on the events in the Adlerwerke satellite concentration camp. The aim is to pass on knowledge about the past in order to create a better understanding of events in the present. The crimes are also remembered in public spaces in the city. In March 2022, in a campaign organised by the LAGG association, thousands of Frankfurters gathered along the banks of the Main river and commemorated each individual prisoner with hand-made placards. Many of them took the opportunity to examine the fate of the person whose name they were carrying more closely. (Fig. 31 . , 32 . ) In March 2025, to mark the 80th anniversary of the death march, numerous events were held in Frankfurt and in the communities along the death march route in commemoration of the events there.

 

Andrea Rudorff, July 2025

(The research project by Dr. Andrea Rudorff on “Katzbach” was held at the Fritz Bauer Institute in Frankfurt/Main from 2018 to 2020).

 

Literature:

Andrea Rudorff: Katzbach – Das KZ in der Stadt. Zwangsarbeit in den Adlerwerken Frankfurt am Main 1944/45, Göttingen 2021.

Ernst Kaiser and Michael Knorn: „Wir lebten und schliefen zwischen den Toten. Rüstungsproduktion, Zwangsarbeit und Vernichtung in den Frankfurter Adlerwerken“, Frankfurt am Main/New York, 1994.

Joanna Skibinska: Die letzten Zeugen. Gespräche mit Überlebenden des KZ-Außenlagers „Katzbach“ in den Adlerwerken in Frankfurt am Main, Frankfurt am Main/Hanau 2005.

Janusz Garlicki: Von der Wahrscheinlichkeit zu überleben. Aus dem Warschauer Aufstand ins KZ-Außenlager bei den Frankfurter Adlerwerken, Wiesbaden 2021.

https://geschichtsort-adlerwerke.de/ 

 

The Adlerwerke with later concentration camp tower The prisoners were housed on the third and fourth storey of the corner tower. Photograph from 1925, seen from Weilburger Strasse. (detail)
©
Institut für Stadtgeschichte Frankfurt am Main, Werksarchiv Adlerwerke vorm. Heinrich Kleyer AG, W1-14/5649, Photo: n.n.
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