Construction of the military base
The "Wehrmacht" (German armed forces) established multiple troop training grounds in the 1930s. One of them was in Bergen.
The Bergen military training area covered over 280 square kilometres, making it the largest new construction project of its type. It was used for training armoured units. Two big barracks complexes designed for a total of 32,000 soldiers were built at the eastern and western edges of the expansive training grounds.
Thousands of workers were needed to construct these military bases. The builders were housed in camps of huts near the villages of Fallingbostel and Belsen. Up to 3,000 workers resided in around thirty huts in what was known as the Bergen-Belsen Army Construction Camp, which was set up in the forest to the south of the building site.
Once the military bases in Belsen and Fallingbostel were completed in 1938/39, the former workers’ huts largely stood empty; some were used for storage, while others were torn down. After Germany invaded Poland, the Wehrmacht used the site as a POW camp.