SS Bäckerei Oranienburg also known as Brotfabrik is an abandoned bread factory served for the for the Nazi regime during World War II. Built in 1939 by prisoners at Sachsenhausen Nazi concentration camp for the Deutsche Ausrüstungswerke (a defense contractor), this bakery supplied the camp as well as other SS units in Berlin and its surrounds.
Around 80 concentration camp prisoners worked at SS bakery, baking and then distributing the bread. The now-abandoned bakery played a role in German project, with prisoners forced to work and bake around 10,000 loaves a day.
Very soon production was ramped up after shift-work was introduced, working hours extended and two new ovens installed in SS bakery. Prisoners were supposed to keep them alive, and so at one stage they baked up to 40,000 loaves a day for their brethren, for the Mittelbau-Dora, Groß Rosen and Ravensbrück concentration camps. This meant that Nazi bread baking system could supply other concentration camps as well as SS units throughout Berlin.
The Soviets took over the factory after the war, keeping production going to feed sick and weak survivors of the liberated camp. After 1948, the SS bakery went to the Konsum-Großbäckerei Oranienburg that used the place as a bakery until 1991. After the reunification of Germany the bakery was closed.
In 1994, a fire destroyed parts of the abandoned bakery, and its interior never looked same after that. In October 2000, the Verwaltungsgericht Potsdam had plans of transforming the building into a monument, together with the former brick factory, but it didn’t happen. The site now remains completely abandoned.
The bakery is not the breathtaking sight it once was, but parts of the Nazi bread baking system can still be seen plastered on what remains of its interior. You can still find old ovens around the main building. Urbex explorers frequent the site and some of them claimed that its probably haunted.
