Bromberg Dynamit Nobel AG Factory also known as Bromberg DAG AG Factory or DAG Fabrik Bromberg was one of the largest arms factory of Dynamit Nobel during the Third Reich: covering , it was the second most extensive DAG factory at the time, after the Kombinat DAG Alfred Nobel Christianstadt. Operating from 1939 to 1945 in the south-eastern Bydgoszcz forest, DAG Fabrik Bromberg produced propellants and explosives and realized ammunition handloading.
The project included the construction of hundreds of kilometers of roads, railway sidings and thousands of various buildings. After 1945, some of the facilities have been adapted for state chemical enterprises. In 2004, an Industrial and Technological Park was created, covering part of the area, and in 2011, eight building have been converted (approx. 1% of the original factory domain) to comprise the Exploseum, a Museum of Armaments Works from the DAG Fabrik Bromberg together with an open-air museum about German industrial architecture from World War II with an underground tourist route.
Location and structure The factory ensemble was located and masked in the Bromberg forest, in the south-eastern part of today's Bydgoszcz. The factory area was approximately : for communication purposes, tens of kilometers of railway tracks, railway sidings and hundreds of kilometers of concrete slab roads were built. Today, Łęgnowska, Nowotoruńska, Hutnicza, Chemiczna streets and the internal road network of the former Zachem chemical plant run on the ancient DAG factory area. The afforestation and the distance from the city have preserved the facility during and after the war, thus keeping secret the location and the security of the chemical and explosives production activities carried out here.
The plant was divided into two parts, separated by the longitudinal running Upper Silesia-Gdynia coal main, along which the Germans built a second track.
The western part (, or cold waters), code name Torf (Peat) was dedicated for the production of gunpowder and its derivatives: NC-Betrieb produced nitrocellulose; POL-Betrieb for smokeless powder. Shooting and artillery tests could be realized on a ballistic test site, where each batch of manufactured explosives was assessed; NGL-Betrieb produced nitroglycerin, which, once mixed with nitrocellulose then dried gave powder dough.
The Eastern part (, ), code name Kohle (Coal) was intended for the production of blasting explosives to be incorporated into missiles, mines and bombs: TRI-Betrieb, production of nitro compounds and TNT; DI-B-Betrieb, production of dinitrobenzene, used in particular for missile propulsion (e.g. V1). A small firing range for blasting explosives was available on site; Füllstelle, ammunition handloading, including aerial bombs, artillery shells, land mines, sapper charges and small caliber ammunition; an unfinished area of the plant, manufacturing sulfuric acid was located on the south-eastern edge of the domain. The two main areas (Kaltwasser and Brahnau) were linked by one road, which ran on a viaduct over the coal main railroad near the station of Bydgoszcz-Żółwin, disused today. Three departments had the largest footprint in the area: POL-Betrieb, DI-B Betrieb and TRI-Betrieb.
Staff was accommodated in housing estates built on purpose, in the northern sector (near today's Kliniczna street) for engineers and in the eastern part for management staff. The latter has survived till this day, in Świetlicowa street (Awaryjne district). A barrack camp for forced workers had been also erected, in the vicinity of current Szpitalna and Hutnicza streets.
The southern portion of the DAG factory network was situated on a vast inland dune field. Such terrain had a beneficial effect on the set-up of factory buildings: small valleys separating sandy ridges ensured the isolation of the edifices, even in case of an accidental explosion. In addition, the dense pine forest provided an efficient masking. Nowadays, this region comprises the Protected Landscape Area of Toruń-Bydgoszcz Basin Dunes which has been under protection since 1991.
History The DAG Bromberg factory was established between 1939–1944 to support the expansion of the Nazi Germany war machine. The secret plant producing explosive and assembling ammunition, built by forced labor work, belonged to the Dynamit Aktiengesellschaft (DAG) (Dynamit Corporation), based in Troisdorf, Germany, nearby Bonn. DAG's roots go back to the 1860s: it has been established by Alfred Nobel, inventor of dynamite and smokeless powder, founder as well of the Nobel Prize.
Creation and growth of DAG
The history of the DAG company began in 1863, when Alfred Nobel developed a method of producing nitroglycerin on an industrial scale. In 1864, Nobel built the first factory in Vinterviken near Stockholm, and in 1865, it began its expansion into the European market. This year, the first dynamite plant was built in German Empire. By 1875, 14 factories were set up in 12 countries. In 1876, the company was transformed into a joint-stock company, which eventually took the name of Dynamit-Actien Gesellschaft vormals Alfred Nobel & Co. Hamburg (abbreviated as DAG). When Alfred Nobel died in 1896, DAG counted 93 factories worldwide.
After Nazis accessed power in 1933, an intense arm production happened, which, from 1935, took the form of a particularly significant expansion of bombing industry. Thus, most of the explosive and gunpowder of the Nazi war machine have been produced by DAG and Westfälisch-Anhaltische Sprengstoff-Actien-Gesellschaft (or WASAG) and their subsidiaries, such as DAG-Verwertchemie and WASAG-Deutsche Sprengchemie.
In 1939–1945, Third Reich numbered a total of 80 explosive factories (32 of which belonged to DAG-Verwertchemie), 27 warfare factories and 241 ammunition production plants. While until 1939, most of the facilities were located only west of Oder river, after the outbreak of the war, plants expanded also east of Oder. In 1944, DAG produced a quarter of the total production of military assets of the Third Reich, with its most productive facilities in Allendorf near Marburg, Hessisch Lichtenau, Krümmel and Clausthal-Zellerfeld. The largest in terms of acreage were the factories in Bydgoszcz and in Krzystkowice near Nowogród Bobrzański. On current Polish territory, one can also mentioned the remains of a Deutsche Sprengchemie, which comprised 2500 employees, in Zasieki.
All necessary investments were carried out with the highest confidentiality, allowing the factories to be referred to by the locals as producing chocolate, praline, cake or textile.
Construction of the Bromberg DAG factories The Wehrmacht Supreme Military Command had issued, as early as September 1939, a staff order intending to identify places in the Polish annexed territories where to build gunpowder and explosives factories. Three areas were pre-selected: Gorzów Wielkopolski, Poznań and Bydgoszcz. The latter was picked up as having excellent masking conditions in the forest, being close to Vistula river and to railway lines (coal main line Silesia-Gdynia, railway Berlin-Kaliningrad). The work began soon after the occupation of Bydgoszcz by the German army in September 1939, in the forest near Łęgnowo suburb, with measuring and preparatory works. In November 1939, a 35-km long fence was installed, covering roughly a forest area of . The size of the planned project required two DAG construction offices to be established: Bauleitung I (western part) and Bauleitung II (eastern part). Construction and assembly works started in full swing in 1940, and two years later the first explosives and ammunition were produced. By the end of 1944, the industrial estate encompassed 1500 buildings, 360 km of roads and 40 km of railway tracks. A newly erected railway station (Bydgoszcz Emilianowo) played a pivotal role in the production sustainment process.
The comprehensive construction program included production, warehouse and workshop buildings, bunkers, laboratories, Fire Brigade facilities, outpatient clinics, administrative and social buildings, guardhouses, surveillance edifices, housing estates (for executives) and barracks camps (for forced laborers). The project incorporated underground and overhead utilities. Underground networks consisted of: industrial waterworks; drinking water supply (25 wells delved); three separate sewage networks (acid, post-production and neutral); high and low voltage cabling; telephone and emergency signaling systems. Surface pipelines were dedicated for: steam distribution; condensate and hot water; compressed air; concentrated mineral acids and hydrocarbons chemically treated.
As far as energy supply was concerned, two combined heat and power plants and two boiler houses were constructed in 1940. Boiler rooms were to supply the lines of denitration and nitric acid concentration with high-pressure steam and also to heat the production buildings. The largest plant (EC III) was equipped with 3 turbine sets. These units were fueled by coal, delivered using a ramp and unloaded via a system of winches; they operated continuously until January 1945.
The spatial organisation of the plant resulted from efforts to minimize the consequences of explosion. Each stage of the production process was taking place in separate, usually small, buildings and the movements between them were realized by means of surface (roads) and underground (tunnels) systems. The buildings were located at different heights from one another and openings were never lined up. This arrangement prevented chain reactions and possible destruction of technological lines in the event of a disruption at any of the production stages. In addition, lines were duplicated so as to increase the likelihood of keeping production up in the occurrence breakdowns. Staff could use multi-branches escape tunnels equipped with bunkers. For safety goals, plants were scattered over a large area and masked by earth embankment.
Camouflage was enhanced by planting trees on roofs, painting facilities khaki (including roads and railways) and by using forest roads as communication lines. In spring 1944, a wooden, night-lit mock-up factory was even erected, located 2 to 3 km south of the real plant, in order to confuse allied pilots during air raids. As a matter of fact, only one raid took place on July 23, 1944, without causing major damage.
In order to reduce the effects of a possible explosion, two types of buildings were built: light edifices (mainly warehouses) and bunkers. Light buildings were made of bricks and surrounded by earth embankments: in case of an explosion, the entire blast was directed upwards. On the other hand, bunker-type buildings, used when explosion risk was assessed as high, consisted of quadrilateral edifices with three walls and a thick reinforced concrete ceiling. In this case, the architectural concept directed the blast to the fourth side, i.e. an exhaust wall made of wood and glass, the debris being blocked by the earth embankment located behind. Such reinforced buildings could withstand the burst of the shock wave and not fall apart.
As for the protection and safety of the project, additional efforts were deployed, such as: sectorizing factory network accesses to identified employees; detailed plant regulations; badges; personal searches to prevent cigarettes, matches and metal objects; fences and gates guarded day and night. Plant security, employee control and fire service were supervised by the company guards (). Their responsibilities included as well banning any contacts between Germans and foreign workers. Eventually, some incidents occurred, especially on May 21, 1943, at the bomb filling station and on January 12, 1944, in the NGL zone.