[Full title: Waldwerk Kuno AG Werk I - Die Endmontage der Messerschmitt Me 262 und die Rolle des KZ-Aussenlagers Burgau - Fakten und Hintergründe zur NS-Rüstungsindustrie und Zwangsarbeit im ländlichen Schwaben] Martina Wenni-Auinger, Verlag Martina Wenni-Auinger, Burgau, Germany, 2022, ISBN 978-3-00-072621-7. Illustrated, hardcover, published in German.
Cover image © by Verlag Martina Wenni-Auinger, 2022.
In October 2020, this blog reviewed Alexander Kartschall's truly fascinating and important book Messerschmitt Me 262 - Geheime Produktionsstätten [Messerschmitt Me 262 - Secret Production Facilities]. The review noted, not least, Kartschall's willingness to examine not just the historical, technical and archaeological aspects of the topic, but also the crucially significant (and yet frequently ignored) subject matter of the slave labour system associated with German late war aircraft production.
In her new book Kuno AG Werk I, Martina Wenni-Auinger focuses on one of the aforementioned secret Me 262 production facilities, the forest assembly factory that lends the book its name, located near Burgau in Bavaria. By dedicating the entire book to this one facility, Wenni-Auinger is able to investigate both relevant history and operations in much greater detail, and the book's narrative by necessity seamlessly and meticulously interweaves information on Messerschmitt's company-internal machinations, the construction and operation of the forest facility and the affiliated Burgau concentration camp, the extensive use of slave labour, and many details regarding the Me 262.
Kuno AG Werk I is indeed a well-made and absorbingly detailed publication. Its full title translates to Forest Factory Kuno AG Werk I - the final assembly of the Messerschmitt Me 262 and the role of the auxiliary Burgau concentration camp - facts and background about the national-socialist armament industry and forced labour in rural Swabia. Given that the book's scope transcends the mere technological side of the topic at hand, it also presents extremely distressing and sombre facets. At a format of 30 x 21 cm and with 272 printed pages (containing, thankfully, a generous number of photos and illustrations, both in black/white and colour), it provides plenty of room for a thorough examination into all aspects affiliated with the Kuno facility still researchable today.
The author is a local historian in the very city of Burgau; she served as the head of the Burgau City Archive and of the Museum of the City of Burgau (where she curated an exhibition on the Kuno facility in 2017) and currently is the deputy mayor of Burgau. The book is based on extensive archive research and thus makes abundant use of primary sources. Intriguingly, numerous of the original contemporary documents consulted are also reproduced photographically in the book.
Kuno AG Werk I starts with a description of the late-war situation in Swabia, namely the political and governmental structure and its rather complex interplay with the Messerschmitt firm. The deficiencies, misuse and manipulation encountered in Messerschmitt's company-internal organization as described here are staggering. This introduction is followed by a look at specific efforts to disperse some of Messerschmitt's aircraft production to Burgau, resulting in the establishment of the Kuno Werk I.
But the book's most poignant and significant content is, in my view, the subsequent comprehensive section on the Burgau concentration camp, the facility that provided the slave labour force needed for the assembly of the Messerschmitt jet fighter. In this, Wenni-Auinger sheds light on the establishment and operation of the camp, on its Jewish inmates, on the harrowing conditions encountered by the inmates during excruciatingly long transport journeys to the camp in railroad freight wagons, and on details regarding the concentration camp guards and their utterly brutal conduct towards the slave labour inmates.
These 70-odd pages of the book are crucial, and, unsurprisingly, they are utterly distressing to read. Even the plain act of perusing the sample inmate inflow lists reproduced therein is devastating. Somewhat unusually for a book on the topic of German late-war aircraft production - and thus commendably - the author also attempts to transcend mere numbers and accounts by providing personal biographical details for a number of representative inmates, some of whom suffered agonizing deaths and some of whom survived against all odds.
Having thus established the traumatic reality endured by Kuno Werk I's slave labour workforce, Wenni-Auinger next describes the construction and operation of the factory, the significance of the adjacent Autobahn, and the forest assembly and nearby testing of the Me 262. Thankfully, this also includes a list of the Werknummern of the aircraft completed there. Wherever possible, this list is illustrated; unsurprisingly, this list is, due to the nature of events at the end of the war, vastly incomplete. The book further provides uncounted photos of the jet fighters found at this location, and it also includes an unexpected amount of technical details regarding the aircraft itself.
The narrative is concluded by an account of the arrival of US armed forces at Kuno Werk I as well as a look at the remnants of the factory as they can be found today. The final pages of the book are dedicated to a list of primary and secondary sources as well as abundant footnotes providing various further details, not least regarding the photos included.
In spite of minor nitpicks (some of the photos would have benefitted from an indication of the year they were taken, e.g. on page 208), Kuno AG Werk I is an extremely important effort to complete the history of the Messerschmitt Me 262. Martina Wenni-Auinger must also be commended for the extent of her research and her dedication to provide the reader with a frank and comprehensive account of the staggering human cost associated with the frantic German endeavour to stem the inevitably turning tide of the war by means of advanced aviation technology. Highly recommended.