Former Clinker Brickworks Oranienburg

Historic monuments and sites

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The world’s largest clinker brickworks was built to supply the large quantities of building materials required by General Building Inspector Albert Speer in 1938 for the gigantic projected renewal of Berlin to create the world capital Germania. In addition to the brickworks, a separate harbour at Lehnitz lock was established as well as a natural stone works.

Thousands of prisoners from the Sachsenhausen concentration camp had to do forced labour here. The Brickworks Penal Command was considered one of the most terrifying places ever to bear witness to the killing of human beings by other human beings. Every day, the SS drove up to 2,000 prisoners to the brickworks. On the way back, the prisoners carried carts with them that were loaded with the day’s casualties. From 1943 onwards the SS used the site for purpose of arms production. Up to 10,000 grenade blanks were annealed in the furnaces. Shortly before the end of the war, countless bodies of victims of the US Air Force bombing were buried in the bomb craters.

To this day, the remains of numerous victims can be found in the ground here and in the canal in front of the brickworks.

The site has been a listed monument since 1996. In 2000 an exhibition was opened under the title “Stones for Germania and Grenades for the Final Victory”. In December 2011, an open-air exhibition was opened at the Clinker Brickworks memorial site.

The exhibition documents the history and background of the site on a total surface area of approximately 700 square metres. 16 glass steles were installed for this purpose. The heart of the memorial is a 2 x 3 metre concrete relief which visitors can walk around and which illustrates the largely destroyed facilities of the clinker brickworks on a scale of 1:750.

The orientation of the walkway towards the north enables visitors to explore the historical site independently.