The ruins of the colossal secret explosives factory of the Third Reich in Krzystkowice

To feed its military machinery, the Third Reich built a network of large weapons and explosives factories.

Semipalatinsk, a top secret site that withstood 456 Soviet atomic tests
Chilling ruins: the remains of the Berghof, the Hitler's house in the Bavarian Alps

One of them was the Alfred Nobel Dynamit Aktien-Gesellschaft (Alfred Nobel Dynamite Joint-Stock Company), commonly known as DAG Alfred Nobel. This factory was built near the German town of Christianstadt, which became part of Poland in 1945, its current name being Krzystkowice, in the Lubusz Voivodeship.

The construction of this factory began in 1939 in the utmost secrecy. This plant was used to manufacture explosives and ammunition, although the details of its production are currently unknown, as no documentation has been preserved on it. The factory, managed by the German company IG Farben, occupied an area of ​​35 square kilometers, and its extension was conveniently camouflaged with trees to avoid Allied bombings.

This plant, which was under strict guard, employed many slave labourers from the nearby Gross Rosen concentration camp. These prisoners faced very dangerous work, not only because of accidental explosions, but also because of the use of toxic and corrosive substances. In 1945, in response to the advance of the Red Army, the Germans dismantled part of its facilities. The Soviets eventually dismantled much of what remained, before handing the facility over to the Polish Army in 1948. Today, only the impressive ruins of this plant remain, which have become a tourist attraction in this part of western Poland.

The Polish channel Urbex History has published an interesting video today exploring these ruins (if your command of the Polish language is as good as mine, I recommend activating the automatic subtitles in English in the bottom bar of the player):

You can see some screenshots from this video here. We start with an aerial view of the area where this factory was located.

The factory's methanol tank. At the top of this article you can see a zenithal image of this tank.

The building where nitrocellulose was manufactured. The roof was covered with earth to camouflage it from possible air attacks, and trees have finally grown over the building.

One of the factory's wastewater tanks. You can see more open-air tanks in the video.