Friedland
Hirschhagen is a district of Hessisch-Lichtenau and idyllically situated in Kaufunger Wald near Kassel, Germany. While exploring Hirschhagen you will notice the special, peculiar construction of many buildings and the ruins in the village. Structures made of reinforced concrete in frame construction with oversized pedestals and massive flat roofs. The overhanging flat roofs are often greened and overgrown with trees, some of them have jagged edges. From 1936 to 1945, the National Socialists built and operated one of the largest explosives and powder factories of the German Reich here in the uninhabited forest under the trivialising camouflage name "Friedland". During this time, approximately 135,000 tons of TNT (Trinitrotoluene) were produced in Hirschhagen. TNT is one of the most important military explosives and was mainly used for bombs and grenades during World War II. In 1944, more than 4,000 people worked in the plants, including forced labourers from concentration camps. Due to the location in the forest, surrounding earth walls around the buildings and the planted roofs with irregular shapes, the factory was difficult to see in aerial photographs. As a result, the plant was not destroyed by bombing during World War II. After the war, the Allied forces dismantled the factory and some buildings were blown up. Other houses were first used as shelters for displaced persons and then rebuilt for commercial and residential use. Virtually all the buildings in the village today were originally part of the ammunition factory, although this is not immediately apparent due to extensive changes. Over the past 30 years, extensive environmental remediation measures have been carried out to remove the old armaments contamination in the area. Today Hirschhagen has more than 200 inhabitants. A special form of the peaceful use of places of war production. At home in a former explosives factory. Like all inhabitants of Germany, the inhabitants of Hirschhagen have been living in peace for 74 years. Their houses and the idiosyncratic structure of the place with the always present past of the Second World War remind however of the horrors of armament production, war and forced labour.