The shoe testing unit was a punishment detail in the former Sachsenhausen-Oranienburg concentration camp near Berlin, Germany. The facility was operated by the Nazi government between 1936 and 1945. It served as a training ground for other such camps and as a testing ground for “efficient” execution methods. Individuals who refused to work or were found guilty of a variety of “crimes” were sent here or to a similar camp. The shoe-testing unit at Sachsenhausen was set up in 1940, an extermination unit was built in 1942, and a gas chamber was added in 1943. Tens of thousands of internees died as a result of forced labor, hunger, disease, medical experiments or mistreatment, or were victims of systematic extermination by the Nazis.
Punishment Units at the Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp
Prisoners assigned to punishment units were assigned to one of three sections: (1) The currency counterfeiting detail, which produced fake British £5, £10, £20 and £50 notes, (2) the brickworks, which manufactured building blocks for Hitler’s vision for his model city, Germania, or (3) the shoe testing unit.
Purpose of the Shoe-testing Unit
During World War II, the Nazi government sought a substitute for leather, which was used in the manufacture of soles for military boots. Leather was rationed during the war, and alternatives were needed. That meant that prisoners were forced to test-march the resilience of soles made from various materials, such as rubber and a PVC-type compound. Prisoners assigned to the shoe-testing detail were made to walk an average of 25 miles per day, carrying 25-pound packs on their backs, to increase the stress placed on the soles made from various materials.
Shoe-testing Procedures
According to Norman Ohler’s Blitzed: Drugs in the Third Reich © 2017, the track was 2,300 feet long and consisted of 58% concrete road, 10% cinder, 12% loose sand, 8% mud (that was kept constantly under water), 4% chips, 4% coarsely graveled paths, and 4% cobbles. The various surfaces were to represent a cross-section of the roads German soldiers might have to walk on during military operations. Every six miles the soles were examined for wear. After a number of refinements, rubber soles were found to be able to withstand 1,800 miles, or a seventy-five-day march. Leather barely survived 600 miles. “Igelit,” a form of PVC, survived for more than 1,200 miles. About 20 people died on the track every day.
Part of the shoe-testing area at former Sachsenhausen-Oranienburg concentration camp. Photo © J. Elke Ertle, 2019, www.walled-in-berlin.com
Why would the German shoe industry participate in such experiments?
Part of the shoe-testing area can still be seen today. It is documented that well-known German shoe companies such as Salamander and Leiser, still in existence today, routinely sent their military boot prototypes to the camp for testing. My question when I visited the Sachsenhausen-Oranienburg memorial was why would the German shoe industry participate in such atrocious experimentation? The answer is straightforward. Money. The German Reich economics office allowed the production of leather substitute materials only after they had been successfully tested in Sachsenhausen. If a shoe companies wanted to sell its goods, it had to participate in the shoe-testing. Money was and is a powerful motivator anytime and anywhere. As I understand it, Hollywood cancelled the release of a planned documentary on what was happening to the Jews during the same period. However, when the Nazis threatened to confiscate Hollywood’s real estate holdings in Germany and to prohibit Hollywood from showing the totality of its movies in Germany, Hollywood cancelled the release. Showing the documentary would have meant giving up a lucrative market. Money talks.
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Walled-In is my story of growing up in Berlin during the Cold War. Juxtaposing the events that engulfed Berlin during the Berlin Blockade, the Berlin Airlift, the Berlin Wall and Kennedy’s Berlin visit with the struggle against my equally insurmountable parental walls, Walled-In is about freedom vs. conformity, conflict vs. harmony, domination vs. submission, loyalty vs. betrayal.
