Company Moll / Überland

The “Überland Unit” of the Organisation Todt (OT) was responsible for the construction site in Karya. The company name is short for “Ueberland public limited company for modern road building”, which was founded in Vienna in 1928. The company was founded by Dr Emmerich Granichstädten, Dr Rudolf Schalek, Dr Paul Leinkauf, Dr Gustav Teichner together with Leonhard Moll, the Munich-based building contractor. When Austria was incorporated into the German Reich in 1938, the Nazis expropriated the Austrian company Überland, and Moll’s four business partners were persecuted because they were Jews. Moll acquired the company shares for just 1 Reichsmark.

The National Socialist rulers made use of the services of Moll’s company. In June 1938, it carried out the demolition of the main synagogue in Munich on the personal orders of Adolf Hitler. During the Second World War, the company was incorporated into Organisation Todt, which carried out construction projects that were vital to the war effort and deployed forced labourers.

Engineer Hanns Rössler worked for Überland. As Haupttruppführer (chief troop leader) of the “Überland Unit” at Organisation Todt, he was in charge of the construction site in Karya. OT troop leader Josef Langmeier, general foreman at Moll, supervised the workers.

After 1945, Moll/Überland continued to operate as a construction company. Leonhard Moll developed several large and prestigious projects in Munich, including the sports venues at the Olympic site, industrial facilities for BMW, breweries and the police headquarters in Munich. In 2000, Leonhard Moll AG participated in the payments process to compensate forced labourers. Today, Leonhard Moll AG is part of the Moll Group and has further holdings in Germany and abroad.