Remembrance Trail "Unternehmen Wüste"

The main focus of the project was the reappraisal and valorisation of the historical heritage: the existing relics of oil shale mining from the NS era.

When the fuel supply collapsed during the war in 1944, new sources of oil had to be found. The "Wüste" company was founded. This was the code name of an industrial program of the Nazi Socialists with the aim of producing aviation fuel from oil shale. Ten Wüste plants were built along the Tübingen - Rottweil railway line. Plants 7 and 8 were located in the immediate vicinity of today's SchieferErlebnis park site in Dormettingen.

The "Unternehmen Wüste" memorial trail leads to the sites of these two plants and is part of the overall SchieferErlebnis Dormettingen project. Where wild bushes spread out today, the Wüste-Werk 8 once stood. A narrow path leads right into the middle of a large group of bushes, in which a "memorial" in the form of an octagonal space has been created in an abstract form. The octagonal shape is based on the oil containers that once existed. The path continues to a brick building, the substation of the former Wüste-plant 7. This building houses an exhibition about the fate of the concentration camp prisoners in the Wüste camps as well as the history of the community of Dormettingen in in this period.

The project was funded through the LEADER program of the European Union.