The site of this camp is now covered over by the present Salem College, Harlen, northwest of Uberlingen, near Aufkirche Strasse. The  camp served the armament factories at Uberlingen established by the Graf Zeppelin company and therefore can be considered part of the Uberlingen complex (see Uberlingen for more details). The tunnel complex inside the cliffs at Uberlingen still survives and can be visited with permission from the owner, Oswald Burger. The armaments factories in the area around Friedrichshafen, near the Lake of Constance, became a target for allied bombing, so they were moved into the tunnel complex. The most devastating of these raids hit Friedrichshafen on 28th April 1944, but the rock around Uberlingen is soft magnetite and can therefore withstand the force of explosions. The tunnels were built by a consortium of construction companies assembled by the 'Reich Ministry for Munitions and War Production.

 

The concentration camp consisted of 800 prisoners, of which around 175 died due to brutal treatment at the hands of the SS guards or the working conditions in the tunnel complex. The prisoners built the camp themselves in Autumn 1944. According to Oswald Burger in De Stollen (1999), the prisoners were mostly Italians, Poles, Russians, Czechs and Slovenes. Each prisoner was identified by a different coloured triangle sewn on to their prison costume. Political prisoners wore a red triangle, criminals wore green triangles and 'anti-socials' wore black triangles. The prisoners were supervised by 'kapos', who were also prisoners at the camp. Those prisoners who died were taken to the crematorium in Constance and the names of at least 70 are known from Registry Office records. Lack of coal subsequently prevented further cremations, so the remaining dead were buried in a small forest north of Uberlingen. In 1946, the French military government ordered the bodies to be exhumed, but identification was no longer possible so they were put into wooden coffins and buried at the holocaust cemetary at Birnau. There was a commemoration ceremony on April 6th 1946. A total of 97 people are buried there. 

 

Each year, the Ravensbruck branch of the Association for Victims of the Nazi Regime (VVN-Bda) holds a commemorative event at Birnau Cemetery, with local unions. For several years this event has also been attended by former inmates of the camp and former resistance fighters.

 

References:

 

Burger, Oswald (1999) De Stollen

Birnau Concentration Camp Cemetery leaflet Uberlingen Tunnel Concentration Camp