Internment camp Neuengamme

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For three years after the Second World War, the Neuengamme internment camp was an internment camp of the British Rhine Army in the British occupation zone for suspected war criminals, SS members, Nazi officials and incriminated state officials, especially from Hamburg and Schleswig-Holstein . The grounds and buildings of the former Neuengamme concentration camp were used for this internment camp in Hamburg-Neuengamme . From November 1945 the camp was officially named “No. 6 CIVILIAN INTERNMENT CAMP “(CIC 6).

DP and POW camps

Immediately after the arrival of the British Army in the evacuated Neuengamme concentration camp, parts of the largely intact camp were occupied for four weeks with displaced persons , mainly liberated Soviet forced laborers , for four weeks from May 9, 1945 . Other sections of the camp then served as prisoner-of-war camps for members of the Waffen SS . After the agreements on internment at the Potsdam Conference , the British military government set up an internment camp on this site in June 1945. At the end of May 1945 there were 10,000 people in the camp.

Establishment of the internment camp

From July 11, 1945, the Belgian 25th Fusilier Battalion and from November 3, 1945 the British military took over the guarding of the camp. The camp was officially named “No. 6 CIVILIAN INTERNMENT CAMP “. Persons who were automatically interned were members of the SS , Waffen-SS , SD , Gestapo , Nazi functionaries and suspected war criminals. Increasingly, incriminated state officials were interned.

The old abandoned brickworks and the former concentration camp site were used for the internment camp. There was room for around 200 internees each in the wooden barracks. In October 1945 around 8,000 people were interned in the camp. Another camp was set up in May 1946 to record and interrogate internees. Under increasingly better camp conditions (voluntary work, tolerable food supply), the internees were able to devote themselves to cultural activities with the support of state and church bodies. One of the most prominent prisoners was Friedrich Flick , who was sentenced to seven years in prison in the Nuremberg Flick Trial in 1947 . Suspected war criminals and members of the former concentration camp guards were detained in a separate camp. From the summer of 1947 about 4,400 of the interned members of the Nazi organizations declared criminal by the International Military Tribunal were indicted and denazified before the Hamburg-Bergedorf Chamber . Some less burdened people were amnestied .

Transit camp

From autumn 1946, in addition to the internment camp, there was also a transit camp for German families who had been expelled from Asian, African and European countries. Mostly they were missionaries and their families. In this only transit camp in the British zone of occupation , the newly arrived inmates were interrogated and checked for membership in the NSDAP / AO and for espionage activities. Most of the inmates were able to leave the camp a few days later after the inspection. Those who had belonged to the NSDAP / AO or who were suspected of spying were transferred to the Neuengamme internment camp. So were z. B. At the turn of the year 1946/47, civil internees who had been repatriated from India on two ships and who had lived in a tropical climate for years were housed under conditions that differed little from those of the previous administration. These civilians, some of whom had been in prison for seven years, were to be checked here.

End of the internment camp

On August 13, 1948, the “Civil Internment Camp No. 6 ”dissolved by the British military administration. The site was then handed over to the city of Hamburg. Later there were penal institutions from 1948 to 2006 and today the Neuengamme concentration camp memorial .

literature

  • Neuengamme Concentration Camp Memorial (ed.): The exhibitions. Edition Temmen, Bremen 2005, ISBN 3-86108-075-3 .
  • Hermann Kaienburg : The Neuengamme Concentration Camp 1938–1945. Ed .: Neuengamme Concentration Camp Memorial, Bonn 1997.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Detlef Garbe : A “modern” memorial? - The conception of the Neuengamme concentration camp memorial . In: Katja Köhr, Hauke ​​Petersen, Karl Heinrich Pohl (ed.): Memorials and cultures of remembrance in Schleswig-Holstein: history, present and future , Frank & Timme, Berlin 2011, ISBN 978-3-86596-280-5 , p 59 f.
  2. ↑ cf. Neuengamme Concentration Camp Memorial (ed.): The exhibitions , Bremen 2005, pp. 128–133.
  3. ^ A b Heiner Wember: Re-education in the camp. Internment and punishment of National Socialists in the British zone of occupation in Germany. In: Düsseldorf writings on the modern history of North Rhine-Westphalia , vol. 30. Essen 1991, p. 70ff. ISBN 3-88474-152-7
  4. ↑ a b Neuengamme Concentration Camp Memorial (ed.): The exhibitions , Bremen 2005, p. 133.
  5. ^ Neuengamme Concentration Camp Memorial (ed.): The exhibitions. Bremen 2005, p. 134.
  6. ↑ Paul v. Tucher: German Missions in British India Nationalism , Grafflham 1980 (self-published), chap. 17. Paul v. Tucher: German Missions in British India Nationalism , Grafflham 1980 (self-published), chap. 17: Neuengamme concentration camp (English)

Coordinates: 53 ° 25 ′ 50 ″  N , 10 ° 14 ′ 1 ″  E