Hell Under the Mountains

Somewhere, under the hills and mountains of Lowers Silesia, lie seven underground complexes. The Project Reise network, built by Organisation Todt, comprise hundreds of kilometres of underground tunnels, bunkers and research facilities. Unseen from the air by the thick Silesian forests above them, and protected by the dense rock, thousands of slave labourers toiled with basic equipment to create the network, attached to the magnificent Baroque castle of Ksiaż, as either a research station or as one of several Fuhrer headquarters. 

Only a couple of the thousands of slave labourers who were forced to work on this project ever survived. 

The complexes are only partly explored, due to flooding and subsidence, but it's possible to visit several of them. This was my second visit, this time to the Rzeczka system.

The first time I visited the Osówka complex, with the HK's family , it took my breath away. There were the bootmarks of an SS soldier in concrete; here the chisels marks of the slave labourers in the rock; coal-scuttle helmets in rows; Mausers stacked and left for 70 years.  The constant temperature meant everything was remarkably well preseved.It may as well have been yesterday that the last SS troops left, having murdered those who had survived the hellish conditions to the end of the war.

The exact purpose of the complexes is not absolutely clear, but from the money, time and resources spent on them they were clearly a top construction priority for Nazi Germany.


We turn up fairly late on a cold autumn day and wait in a small adjacent cafe for the final tour of the day.

An MG 42 still resting at an entrance guard post. Extraordinary to think that troops once stood here, watching their captives marching in and out. Counting the hours til the end of their duty, counting perhaps the days to the end of the war. 

 Radio equipment. 

 The well preserved concrete re-bar and panelling.

 The fact that much of the systems are still largely unexplored means that every roped off tunnel has a foreboding quality. What lies around the corner?

 Everything you touch, stand on and see was created in the most hellish conditions imaginable, everything is stained with evil. 

Walking through the tunnels, the cold gradually seeps into your body until your toes and fingers become numb. Well-fed, nicely wrapped and soon to go the surface again, it's bearable. Unfed, exhausted dressed in rags and destined to die in a matter of weeks, deafened by the sound of drills and bloodied by the beatings of the Kapo, I cannot think of a lonelier, more horrible place to finish your life.

Some of those who had no choice in the matter. 

Fairly shambolically organised and un-English speaking friendly, the tours are run on the hour with reduced frequency in Winter. Together with a visit to the Ksiaż castle (which has its own tunnel tour  for around 40zl each) you can have a thoughtful, emotional afternoon out in this otherwise stunningly beautiful part of the country for half the price of a shirt.

For those who had their clothes, dignity and lives taken away from them to make these chilling places, it would be wrong not to.