Work at the Porta Labor Camps

Job List

Reinhold Blanke-Bohne wrote a completed his dissertation on the Nazi SS labor camps at Porta Westfalica in 1984. There were many different commands that inmates were assigned to; they switched commands often for various reasons. Reinhold Blanke-Bohne has a list of 26 different commands; not all of them were in existence at the same time.

Some of the jobs at the labor camp in Porta Westfalica:

  1. Höhle 1 (= unteres System im Jakobsberg);
  2. Höhle 2 (= oberes System im Jakobsberg); (Beide Kommandos hatten mehrere Unterkommandos)
  3. Denkmalstollen
  4. Heserstollen
  5. Häverstädter Stollen (ebenfalls mit Unterkommandos)
  6. Stollenkippe (= oberes System im Jakobsberg)
  7. Betonwerk Weber (siehe Teil 4.6)
  8. Verschiedene Baukommandos für Erdarbeiten , Zement­transport und Mischung , Klinkerbau- und Transport, Betonbau (Betriebe: OT Einsatzgruppe Philipp Holzmann, ARGE Herford u.a.)
  9. Brunnenbaukommando
  10. Betonkolonne
  11. Kommando Kiesgrube
  12. Kommando Uhde
  13. Kommando Edeleanu
  14. Kommando Saupe und Hielke
  15. Kommando Be- und Entwässerung
  16. Kommando Barackenbau
  17. Verschiedene Transportkommandos
  18. Waldarbeiterkommando
  19. Kommando Büscher
  20. Kommando Maschinenbau
  21. Kommando Hammerwerke
  22. Kommando Baumgarten
  23. Gleisbau Walther
  24. Kommando SS Haus.
  25. Lagerkommando
  26. Kommando Badeheizer.

And English translations (Better, more accurate suggestions are welcome. Just add a comment to this post.)

  1. Large tunnel or cave one (the lower tunnel system in Jakobsberg)
  2. Cave Two or Phillip works (Upper tunnel system in Jakobsberg)
  3. Memorial gallery
  4. Weser tunnel
  5. Häverstedter gallery
  6. gallery dump
  7. Weber Concrete works
  8. Various’ construction for earthworks
  9. well construction command
  10. concrete column
  11. Command gravel pit
  12. command Uhde
  13. command Edeleanu
  14. Command Saupe and Mielke
  15. Command irrigation and drainage
  16. Barrack construction command
  17. Various Transport Command
  18. Forest workers command
  19. Command Büscher
  20. machine construction command
  21. Command hammer works
  22. Command Baumgarten
  23. track construction Walther
  24. Command SS-house
  25. camp command
  26. Command bath heater
Monument in Porta Westfalica to the former laborers.
Monument in Porta Westfalica to the former laborers.

Technical Notes

I have a copy of Reinhold Blanke-Bohne due to the extreme generosity of several individuals. Foremost is Wolfgang Walter from Minden who had a copy of the dissertation he allowed to be copied. Second is Dr. Gerhard Franke who had the copies made and sent them to me while I was in Berlin. And third, is Dirk Volkening at Kopiertechnik who made the copies. He actually scanned them to PDF files, which is even better than paper copies. I then opened the PDF in Adobe Acrobat Pro and converted it to a searchable document (Open the Text tool, select the Recognize Text menu, and click the “In This File” option; may be different in your version of Adobe Acrobat Pro).

Making a PDF searchable in Adobe.
Making a PDF searchable in Adobe.

Another option is to upload the PDF to your Google Docs.

First make sure the upload settings are set to automatically convert the document on upload, or at least ask you on each upload. When you view the PDF document in Google Docs, rather than Google Drive Viewer, you will have a searchable text page after each image page.

 

Last modified: January 8, 2014

3 comments

  1. David Jeremy says:

    I served as a Major with British Army in Minden in 1978/79 at St Georges Barracks, Mindenerheide
    I Had many contact in the local community and as a German Speaker , made many local German Friends with mutual interests. I know the the area well.

    Regarding the TUNNELS and CAMPS, I have another, family, interest, involving the Jewish ( & there) workers who were there during WW2.

    My wife was a descendant of a Dutch Jewish family (ZEELANDER), her Grandfather having moved to UK in 1897, married a Belgian Catholic, and whose children were brought up a Catholics, her father, then on, marrying an English Protestant (CofE) became a British national and a Protestant in 1934. Complicated! My wife and I were both born in 1936.

    The majority of the larger Zeelander Family remained in Holland and , inevitably, most were subsumed in the Holocaust with but a few survivors. We had met one or two who had survived, liberated fro Belsen in 1945. this Mother and Daughter ( a youg teenager)had spent time in the Minden complex, both marching daily to the Tunnels for “work”. Later they were”evacuated” in the dface of the advancing Allies, winding up in Belsen.

    We tried to find out more but it was very difficult even in the 70s to finf out much, other than to see the main entrance gate near the Weser. We actiually had our a Caravan on the opposite side of the river.

    This evening, I have even realised that I took part in a Shutzenfestr Rifle shoot at Barkausen , invited by a loca .. almost winning their Crown .. it would have been embarrassing! The range appears to have been built into and upper tunnel!

    Hence my interest. I have continued our research into the “lost” tribe of Zeelanders with some success. I have found more, related, survivors in US and Australia, with whom I have shared information.

    Well done on all this. I spent many year in total in Germany from 1957 to 1984 and later working as a civilian in Germany and UK. My home is in Devon, England.

    • ammon says:

      David, thank you very much for sharing. Learning these individual stories is one of the big reasons for putting this information on the Web.

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