Germany put thousands of forced laborers and prisoners of war to work on Kraftwerk Vogelsang from April 1943. It was one of five such power plants designed to help the country’s war effort.

Some 900 prisoners from a camp at nearby Fürstenberg (Oder) toiled every day to build the power plant commissioned by Albert Speer. The prisoners were malnourished and beaten. Many died.

Construction was halted in January 1945 and Soviet troops stormed the plant a month later, fighting off German soldiers’ many attempts to retake it. Scars from their fierce battles still line the walls.

Kraftwerk Vogelsang never went into operation. After winning the war, the Red Army dismantled what it could to take back to the Soviet Union. The shell and its 100-meter towers are all that remain.

Read about Kraftwerk Vogelsang.

Music: "There Is Movement In The Depths" by  Dramón + Muqdisho, from their album Difference and Repetition.