Sprengstoff im Harz

by Jani Pietsch

Sprengstoff im Harz. Zur Normalität des Verbrechens: Zwangsarbeit in Clausthal-Zellerfeld. [Explosives in the Harz Mountains. On the normality of crime; forced labour in Clausthal-Zellerfeld] 248 pages, 60 illustrations, Edition Hentrich, Berlin 1998. Who is interested today in learning that 4 000 Russian and Polish forced labourers had to work in a ammunition factory in the forest of Clausthal-Zellerfeld filling anti-tank mines? While the threat posed to the drinking water supplies of Lower Saxony as a result of the contamination of the soil in this part of the Harz mountains is a hotly discussed political topic, the history of the people who were forced during the Second World War to work with highly toxic chemicals when making explosives and munitions is ignored. I am not concerned with showing how special such a place is, but rather how ordinary it is.