A large subcamp of Flossenbürg concentration camp was established in the small Bavarian town of Hersbruck in 1944. It burned to the ground on 19 April 1945. In the 1950s, the construction of residential buildings began on a section of the camp grounds. The crematorium and the Förrenbach SS penal camp, which had belonged to the larger camp, were flooded by a reservoir.
This was discovered decades later by the high school student Gerd Vanselow (1964 – 2019).