Blachownia Śląska

The Blechhammer ('') (nowadays Blachownia Śląska, district of the City of Kędzierzyn-Koźle) area was the location of Greater German Reich chemical plants, prisoner of war camps, and forced labor camps (). Labor camp prisoners began arriving as early as June 17, 1942, and in July 1944, 400–500 men were transferred from the Terezin family camp to Blechhammer. The mobile "pocket furnace" () crematorium was at Sławięcice.) and Bau und Arbeits Battalion (BAB, ) 21 was a mile from the Blechhammer oil plants and was not far from Kattowitz and Breslau. Blechhammer synthetic oil (aka synthetic fuel) production began April 1, 1944 with 4000 prisoners, with the slave labor camp holding these prisoners during April 1944, becoming a satellite camp of the dreaded Auschwitz extermination camp, as Arbeitslager Blechhammer.

==Chemical plants== Two plants in the area, Blechhammer North (south of Sławięcice) and Blechhammer South at Azoty ( from the labor camp) were nicknamed "Black Hammer" by Allied bomber aircrews. The facilities were approximately apart with each occupying a 3,000 × 5,000 ft (914 × 1524 m) area in open country. Similar to the Gelsenberg plant, the Blechhammer plants used bituminous coal from Upper Silesian Coal Basin in the Bergius process to synthesize Ersatz oil. In June 1944, the United States Army Air Forces considered Blechhammer one of the four "principal synthetic oil plants in Germany", and after the Fifteenth Air Force had dropped 7,082 tons (14,164,000 lbs; 6,424 tonnes) of bombs on Blechhammer, the Blechhammer plants were dismantled post-war by the Soviets.