In the 1898 the German Army created a very large training ground here. In World War I it was the site of a large prisoner-of-war camp for Russian soldiers. After 1919, Polish Silesian insurgents were held in the camp. In 1941 the Bergmann Battalion and Nachtigall Battalion trained in Neuhammer. In World War II another POW camp Stalag VIII-E was built here, to house Polish and French prisoners. In 1942 they were replaced with Soviet prisoners, and the camp was placed under the administration of Stalag VIII-C near Żagań. At least 50,000 Soviet prisoners died here from disease, starvation and inhumane treatment, the last 200 of them killed as traitors after the war by the NKVD. A Red Army base until 1992, today it is the site of a Polish Army base, and since January 2017 also the NATO forces.