Didactic development of the tunnel in Mittelbau-Dora

In a southern foothill of the Harz Mountains, the Kohnstein near Nordhausen in Germany, the Mittelbau-Dora concentration camp memorial documents a place of particularly cruel forced labor for the Nazi armaments industry. From 1943, concentration camp prisoners had to expand an existing tunnel system consisting of two driving tunnels and 46 transverse chambers into an underground factory – for the assembly of V2 rockets. For this purpose, an underground concentration camp was set up in the tunnels so that many prisoners no longer saw daylight. Murderous living and working conditions prevailed in the “Hell of Dora”. Thousands of people died here.
 
The Mittelbau-Dora concentration camp memorial commissioned GfG /Gruppe für Gestaltung and oblik identity design together to redesign the didactic approach of the historic tunnel system.

Our conviction: the tunnel is the exhibit. That’s why there should be no “exhibition”, no display cases in it. The aim is to make the tunnel itself “readable” and to enable visitors to understand how people had to live here and what happened. We achieve this through the guides’ narration, because the tunnel can only be visited on guided tours. The marking of contact points and the placement of subjective “highlights” (quotes and drawings by survivors) support these tours.

The clear design takes a step back so that you can follow the guides in their debate about this place. The bright yellow helps with orientation and better lighting makes more visible – and supports demystifying access. A newly developed ramp system improves accessibility and the coherence of the experience. The existing central model is expanded and further developed as a tactile element in order to understand the dimensions.
 
The climatic conditions and mining law requirements in the tunnel pose a particular challenge. All materials and processing used must be up to this, e.g. enameled lava stone as an information carrier.

Photos: Michel Iffländer (GfG/Gruppe für Gestaltung)