Labor education camp

Nazi labor camp in Geyer (1933)

During the time of National Socialism, prison camps were officially designated as labor education camps (AEL) , which primarily served to discipline and re-educate people who think differently, political opponents and the long-term unemployed. They were established by the Secret State Police from 1940 , often in financial cooperation with companies that benefited from forced labor . By the end of the Second World War there were around 200 of these camps in the German Reich and the occupied territories, 500,000 people passed through these camps, mostly with a temporary stay.

The term labor education camp

There was also a separate AEL for women. Examples of this are the Fehrbellin labor education camp , the Jenbach labor education camp for the Heinkel works or in the city of Salzburg for an army clothing store. Other AELs, such as Oberlanzendorf , had their own women's departments. Some places of detention expressly designated as "labor education camps" by those responsible had different backgrounds than those of an explicit Gestapo labor education camp. The goal was re-education through work. For example, a camp in the Innviertel organized by the DAF Oberdonau in consultation with the Gauleiter , where from June 1940 to January 1941 locals and individual Czechs designated as “unwilling to work” in official German were used by SA guards as part of a drainage project. On the other hand, the "real" AEL - namely those custody sites characterized by Gabriele Lotfi as "Gestapo concentration camps", in the later phases primarily intended for foreigners - were sometimes also referred to as "labor prison camps " (according to the HGW's own AEL Hallendorf near Salzgitter-Watenstedt to 1941), as a “punishment camp” (see documents for Eisenerz and Graz), or as a “reception and work education camp”, so camp stamp of the camp Reichenau (AEL Innsbruck-Reichenau) . However, there was also there in the notes of other authorities about registrations or de-registrations, if registered, mostly of "prison camp", for example a notification from Bludenz: "last apartment: prison camp Reichenau".

The undifferentiated use of various designations and their expression in documents results in an inaccurate use of language, which often leads to social disputes if the Gestapo labor camps are intentionally or unintentionally trivialized as prison camps. There is a large discrepancy between the outward appearance of normality and names and documents on the one hand, and reality, as it is evident, often underpinned by medical reports, in descriptions of post-war processes through to applications for forced labor payments. In the case of the AEL Kraut near Seeboden , for example, the beneficiary company has registered at least some of the AEL prisoners deployed by it, mainly Slovenes, with the insurance company. It is significant that prisoners were only given release documents in a few special cases; even more significant is that in many cases hospital stays can be proven afterwards.

Prisoners of the labor education camp

The AEL Frankfurt am Main-Heddernheim memorial

Local police officers could briefly assign people to an AEL, for example because of “non-fulfillment of their duty to work”. According to a circular issued by Reichsführer SS Heinrich Himmler on December 15, 1942, makeshift labor education camps under the supervision of the state police control centers were set up in the larger companies in which there was no AEL, in which the prisoners were guarded by members of the works security. There were also corresponding punitive units of a smaller size, in some cases even of a mobile type.

To clarify the dimensions and background: In the Linz employment office district (comprising around half of the Reichsgau Upper Danube) in November 1943, 31 percent of all employees were “foreign” (42% for men). They were indispensable for the “ war economy ” of that time - and at the same time constantly exposed to the risk of being punished in some form if they did not follow orders in the desired form. Admission to an AEL was only one of several possible penalties. Lotfi estimates that "during the war one in twenty foreign civilian workers in the German Reich was affected by AEL detention". There were regional and temporal differences, as some Gestapo offices set up an AEL rather late, for example Linz-Schörgenhub only in spring 1943, in this case with the Reichsbahn as the main beneficiary of the forced labor - and, as usual, with the regional Gestapo as the financial beneficiary of the "Rented" prisoners. There, the Reichsbahn paid six Reichsmarks per person and day, compared to around 50 pfennigs of its own costs for the Linz Gestapo, with some of the net profit going to the Reich Security Main Office in Berlin ( see Rafetseder 2001). As with the concentration camps, economic interests must have played a not insignificant role.

A total of around two-thirds of the prisoners at the AEL were foreign forced laborers who had been abducted from the war-occupied countries and who had attempted to flee or were accused of insubordination, "loitering" or sabotage. There were also " Reichsdeutsche " there whose self-will should be broken or disciplined.

Reasons and procedures for a "briefing"

The “labor education camp” threatened: “Anyone who quits work, incites other workers, leaves the workplace without authorization”. The Gestapo often reacted arbitrarily to reports and denunciations from employers and authorities and made use of the instrument of "temporary protective custody" by arranging for an AEL. This arbitrariness is described, for example, with the consignments by the Vienna Gestapo to Oberlanzendorf. A source covering the first half of 1944 gives reasons for imprisonment, for example, “by order of ...” various Gestapo officers without any factual justification. The mere suspicion of a crime is also documented as a reason for admission. In addition, the actual reasons for imprisonment within the meaning of the law are listed. A comparison of these with the descriptions of those affected reveals discrepancies.

Often those who were not in power did not understand a word of what they were accused of in the German language, and decades later they wondered why they were actually imprisoned there. Naturally, “breach of employment contract” (i.e. attempted escape) is mentioned particularly frequently, but also “dubious possession of a car tire”, “favoring prisoners of war”, “insulting a German worker”, “insulting the Führer”, “begging”, “theft”, "Cheeky behavior", "disturbing the peace at night", "not wearing the Eastern badge ", "sabotage", "cruelty to animals", "exchanging cigarettes for bread tokens", "spreading worrying rumors", "tracking the front movements of the Red Army" etc. Same offenses could have different consequences for different nationalities or at the discretion of local managers; for example, “unauthorized possession of weapons” could lead to AEL imprisonment, prolonged imprisonment or even imprisonment in a concentration camp.

The order for "briefing" was mostly made without legal proceedings and without announcing the length of detention, although there were also express judgments on "AEL" or "penal camps" (which were then listed as a deterrent in companies or in company newspapers - the former, for example in the case of the Eisenwerke Oberdonau , the latter in the case of the Enzesfelder Metallwerke, where the “denounced” Czechs and French came to the AEL for similar offenses, while only fines were imposed on locals). The length of imprisonment was nominally usually limited so that the prisoners would soon be available again at work that was important for the war effort. The much-cited limit of eight weeks or 56 days, however, was irrelevant in practice. Two or three weeks were often enough to ruin the health of those affected (so that some companies refrained from further admitting people to the AEL); Occasionally there is also evidence of a special barracks where those affected should be "able to work" again in a week or two; in general, however, medical care there was at best inadequate, often nonexistent. In the case of applications for forced labor payment, however, there are also a number of cases of longer incarceration, in some cases six months or even longer. Arbitrariness on the part of those responsible locally or the business interests of certain companies often set the length of stay. For example, a company involved in the construction of the Versetalsperre near Lüdenscheid apparently successfully requested that the term of detention at the AEL Hunswinkel “be extended to at least three months so that the prisoners no longer change so often during the new construction season from spring to December 1941” (according to Lotfi ).

Labor education camp as internment camp, police prison

In different phases, individual AELs also had other functions than those specified "officially". Innsbruck-Reichenau, for example, also served as an internment camp for North African-Italian families who were persecuted on the basis of the Nuremberg Race Laws; Vienna- Oberlanzendorf was initially the “re-education camp” of the municipality of Vienna for “asocial” locals, at times a transit camp, for example for Serbian slave laborers, or briefly for Hungarian victims of the Nuremberg race laws; Linz-Schörgenhub was at the same time an internment camp for political (Nobel) prisoners in a separate barrack, who were in no way treated "like a concentration camp"; for these special “AEL” inmates, the term “AEL prisoner” is actually misleading.

In addition, in Schörgenhub, for example, but also in many other AEL, the character of an “extended police prison” or “police camp” was given at times, especially after the air war-related destruction of inner-city prisons, with the complete transfer of survivors to an AEL, such as in the case of two prisons in Linz. The Munich police solved their space problem from around the beginning of 1944 by installing “an additional, separate police detention department” in the complex of the Dachau concentration camp, “in which, above all, the numerous“ Eastern workers ”who had been arrested in the course of raids and major police operations , were brought in ”(according to Andreas Heusler 1998) - no wonder that an“ AEL Dachau ”is postulated several times in applications to the Austrian Reconciliation Fund. This designation is a thorn in the side of all historians who strictly categorize - such as "SS detention sites" and "Gestapo detention sites" - but the particular unpredictability of instances of the Nazi era is also evident in formal matters (especially with the subject of " Forced labor ”also because there were fluid boundaries and close connections between formally“ regular authorities ”and more irregular instances or arbitrarily decision- making persons and groups of persons; Ernst Fraenkel's “ dual state ”theory is confirmed in this many times).

Other "penal camps"

AEL must not be confused with “real” or even alleged training centers such as vocational training centers, retraining camps, etc. It is highly recommended not to use the full name for the concentration camp-like persecution sites, but only the abbreviation “AEL”, the full term “labor education camp” - similar to the so-called “penal camps” of the Nazi era - but at most in quotation marks or with additions such as "so-called". The terminological “retraining camps” for locals who were affected by the Nuremberg Race Laws, which are sometimes also seen as “AEL”, represent a problem of their own. Even if there was not always concentration camp transfer there, but also often emigration, many accounts show that even there we can usually speak of concentration camp similarities.

Formal court judgments on “prison camps” were often not followed by AEL detention, but by forced labor in prisons like Göllersdorf or Suben (both at that time nominally “workhouses”, also with political prisoners, but within the scope of the formally regular judicial system). It usually took a long time: in the case of a Salzburg verdict on “three months prison camp”, a Pole ended up in the AEL-Innsbruck-Reichenau, with a Linz verdict on “six months prison camp” another Pole was then in Göllersdorf (the places of execution are missing normally in the judgments, then become apparent in the reconciliation fund files). This often resulted in transfers between detention centers of different types and in areas that were often far apart, as a comparison of corresponding cases within the framework of the reconciliation fund shows (where various AELs outside of today's Austria also play a role). Judgments about “eight years in prison” had nothing to do with AEL of course (such a judgment led to imprisonment in prisons in Linz, Rawitsch and Suben). Combinations of AEL, judicial detention center and concentration camp can be detected in a wide variety of forms, although in retrospect those affected no longer know exactly where they were now being used for forced labor by which authority or for which company. In particular, people in SS uniform could play a role there, even if the prison was by no means nominally subordinate to the "Reichsführer SS".

At the same time, many “normal” judicial detention centers had special satellite camps that were definitely AEL-like (or in some respects more like concentration camps), at least sometimes later referred to as “AEL” by those affected, and often also could have had to do with AEL or outside concentration camps in various ways. These things also belong in the context of the forced labor payments with the AEL to the complex “other detention centers” - meaning concentration camp-like places of forced labor that were not part of the actual concentration camp structure. More about the previously practically unknown prison satellite camps soon in a publication by the reconciliation fund historian.

Conditions of detention

Prisoners were very often exposed to concentration camp- like conditions, as is shown by many descriptions in applications for forced labor payments (very high number of deaths, very frequent physical injuries and psychological trauma). According to Ernst Kaltenbrunner's much-quoted statement, “working and living conditions” in the AEL were “generally tougher than in a concentration camp”. The close connection with the concentration camp system (despite the different agencies Gestapo and SS) is also shown by the fact that AEL groups occasionally worked right next to the concentration camp external commandos (for example in a factory hall of the Nibelungenwerke St. Valentin). As mentioned, there was also an AEL at times in the context of the Dachau concentration camp, as was the case in the Groß-Rosen concentration camp in Silesia .

The close interlinking, at least occasionally, can also be seen in the fact that a group of Polish resistance fighters from a Silesian Gestapo prison was first transferred for a few days to the Mauthausen concentration camp and from there to the AEL Schörgenhub, which at the time apparently cooperated closely with the concentration camp. This cooperation often also affected the guards, which were provided by the SS in some AELs (for example Berlin-Wuhlheide, from where at least one prisoner was later in the Steyr-Münichholz subcamp ; the sequence was first AEL, then KZ, for example the second Escape attempt, often before; cases of two, occasionally even three AEL detention can be proven, whereby the successful indication of false names when being caught could also play a role). Various descriptions indicate that at that time, at least locally in labels etc., the concentration camp term was deliberately used (probably for intimidation purposes, especially during this, as was often proven by the Linz Gestapo or other authorities at the time, apparently deliberately the incorrect ", But using the" sharper "designation" KZ "instead of the otherwise rather" correct "designation" KL "). That, too, was one of the reasons why many ex-prisoners with unambiguous, contemporary AEL documents (d) firmly believed throughout their lives that they had been in a concentration camp subcamp.

At the end of the war, these prisoners were also exposed to end-of-war crimes in many places , such as death marches. Before the end of the war, some of the prisoners of the AEL Oberlanzendorf were driven on a death march towards Mauthausen concentration camp. As with the concentration camp personnel (albeit to a much lesser extent), there were also lawsuits against AEL guards after the war. Proof or substantiation of forced labor in such detention centers was generally a reason for the same high payments as for actual concentration camp forced labor both at the German Foundation EVZ and (at AEL on what is now Austrian territory) at the Austrian Reconciliation Fund.

Overview of labor education camps 1940–45

Today's country, state, area	Reported to the Gestapo	place	Beneficial Companies	product	Other info
France		many changing places	Organization Todt	Siegfried Line
German Empire		many changing places	Organization Todt	Reichsautobahn
Schleswig-Holstein		Labor education camp Nordmark near Kiel on the Russee	Holsten brewery, Land- und See-Leichtbau GmbH, concrete construction company Ohle & Lovisa, Nordland fish factory	Gravel pit, bunker construction	Plaque
Hamburg		AEL Long Morning , Blumensand / Hohe Schaar, Hamburg-Wilhelmsburg	Howaldtswerke Hamburg (shipyard and machine factory), HC Stülcken Sohn (shipyard, machine factory and boiler forge), electricity and port construction (administration for trade, shipping and commerce), Hamburgische Electricitäts-Werke (HEW), Deutsche Erdöl-AG Erdölwerke , Rhenania Ossag Mineralölwerke AG , Romag , Röhren- und Maschinenfabrik, Harburg, Shell AG , mineral oil company, Oelwerke Julius Schindler GmbH	Shipbuilding, port and oil industries	Plaque
Bremen		Bremen-Farge naval camp , most recently Rekumer Heide		Construction of submarine bunkers	Relocated several times from 1943
Bremen / Lower Saxony	Bremen	Farge labor education camp		Construction of submarine bunkers
Lower Saxony	Braunschweig	Labor Education Camp Hallendorf ( Salzgitter )	Reichswerke Hermann Göring
Lower Saxony	Osnabrück	Hasbergen / Ohrbeck in the district of Osnabrück	Klöckner Werke Georgsmarienhütte City of Osnabrück	steel Bomb clearance	Labor education camp and labor breeding camp "Augustaschacht Ohrbeck"
Lower Saxony		Liebenau near Nienburg on the Weser	Wolff & Co. and the subsidiary Eibia	Powder factory	1943 moved to AEL Lahde Memorial plaque AEL Liebenau
North Rhine-Westphalia	Aachen	Aachen- Burtscheid
North Rhine-Westphalia	Aachen, Gestapo chief criminal inspector Richard Bach	Eilendorf	EBV	Mining
North Rhine-Westphalia	Aachen, Gestapo chief criminal inspector Richard Bach	Hückelhoven	EBV , Sophia Jacoba mine	Mining
North Rhine-Westphalia	Aachen, Gestapo chief criminal inspector Richard Bach	Alsdorf	EBV , Anna mine	Mining
North Rhine-Westphalia	Cologne, until 1944 SS-Untersturmführer Meyer. From July 1944 SS-Oberscharführer Sassy	Mass storage Cologne , converted to AEL Köln Messe	Cologne , city center	Bomb clearance and armaments aid in the Ford works
North Rhine-Westphalia	Gestapo Hanover, senior government councilor and SS-Obersturmbannführer Johannes Rentsch	Labor education camp Lahde on the Weser with external command in Steinbergen	Prussian Electricity Corporation (PreussenElektra)	Construction of a hard coal power station and Petershagen barrage on the Weser in Petershagen	Memorial stone AEL Lahde
North Rhine-Westphalia	Dortmund, Düsseldorf, Cologne	Hunswinkel near Lüdenscheid	High Low	Ballast for track and road construction, construction of the Versetalsperre
North Rhine-Westphalia		Ahaus		Jute processing	"Labor camp for German loafers (AZL)"
North Rhine-Westphalia		Essen-Mülheim labor education camp	Essen / Mülheim Airport GmbH
Hesse		Work education camp Frankfurt-Heddernheim , with branches in Hirzenhain and Hundstadt	Breuer-Werke AG ( Buderus )	Shunting locomotive construction
Hesse		Affoldern
Rhineland-Palatinate
Saarland		Köllerbach- Etzenhofen	Röchling'sche iron and steel works
Bavaria		Allach	Bayerische Motoren Werke AG , porcelain manufacture
Bavaria		augsburg	Bayerische Motoren Werke AG
Bavaria	Nuremberg	Nuremberg Russenwiese until 1943	Maschinenfabrik Augsburg-Nürnberg		Relocated to Zirndorf in 1943 after being hit by a bomb
Baden-Württemberg		Oberndorf-Aistaig	Mauser-Werke AG ( Oberndorf am Neckar ), MAFELL machine factory ( Aistaig ), Buntweberei Sulz GmbH
Baden-Württemberg		Rudersberg
Baden-Württemberg		Knee to Hearthstone
Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania
Saxony-Anhalt		Spergau	Leuna works		June 29, 1944 completely destroyed in an air raid
Saxony		Zwickau	Basser KG	Aircraft repair plant
Thuringia		AEL Römhild with branch offices in Poppenhausen	City of Römhild	Basalt quarry
Brandenburg		AEL Fehrbellin		Flax and hemp deforestation	central women AEL near Berlin
Berlin		Berlin-Oberschöneweide	AEG	Arms production
Poland		Litzmannstadt labor education camp
Poland	Frankfurt (Oder)	Orblick labor education camp near Schwetig
Poland		AEL Rattwitz
Austria		Atzenbrugg	Moosbierbaum hydrogenation plant	Aviation fuel
Austria		Work education and gypsy detention camp St. Pantaleon-Weyer	Regulation of the Moosach
Czech Republic		plan	Agriculture, road construction, factory, peat cutting

Other labor education camps:

AG	HM	N-Z
*	*	* Niederganingen
*	* Hägerwelle	* Niederbühl
*	*	* Oberlanzendorf
* Katowitz (locally within the Monowitz concentration camp )	* Heydebreck OS	* Oberleutensdorf
*	* Go to the concert	*
* Bad Eilsen	* Hönnetal	* Ohrbeck
* Bad Godesberg	* Hohenbruch	* Oldenburg
* Bentheim	* Hohensalza	* Ostrowo
* Berlin-Wuhlheide	*	* Peres-Bohlen
* Blachstädt	* Innsbruck-Reichenau	*
* Tin hammer	* Karlsruhe	* Radeberg
* Braz	* Kniebis-Ruhenstein	* Rattwitz
* Breitenau	* Cologne-Deutz	* Recklinghausen
*	* Cologne-Müngersdorf	* Reichenfeld
* Bridge village	* Crane field	* Reigersfeld
* Bonn	* Herb	* Rieneck ?
* Dortmund	* Lahde	*
* Eilendorf	* Leitzkau	* Rudersberg
* Essen-Königsstrasse	* Lenzingen	* Schörgenhub
* Essen-Mülheim	* Lippendorf
* Etzenhofen	* Liebenau	* Soldau
* Frauenburg	* Łódź	* Spergau
*	* Magdeburg	* St. Dionyses
* Gladbeck-Zweckel	* Marl sleeve	* St. Wendel
* Grodziec	* Mielau	* Unna
* Large berries	* Munich-Berg	* Unterlüß
* Groß-Kunzendorf	* Munich-Moosach	* Wild fields

literature

Thomas Albrich: A Gestapo concentration camp: The Reichenau labor education camp near Innsbruck . In: Klaus Eisterer (Ed.): Tyrol between dictatorship and democracy (1930–1950). Contributions for Rolf Steininger on his 60th birthday. Innsbruck u. a. 2002, pp. 77-113.

Berlin history workshop (ed.): Fehrbellin labor education camp. Forced laborers in the Gestapo prison camp. Berlin 2004. p. 162 (authors: Cord Pagenstecher, Daniela Geppert, Gabriele Layer-Jung, Gisela Wenzel); online (PDF; 1.1 MB).

Johannes Breit: The Innsbruck-Reichenau labor education camp and the post-war justice system . - ohne Ort (self-published) 2007, 72 pages, with CD (reports from the camp, 39:16); Revision of a private publication from 2006.

Andreas Heusler: Exploitation and Discipline. On the role of the Munich Special Court and the Munich Stapoleitstelle in the context of the National Socialist foreign worker policy. In: forum historiae iuris 1998. First European Internet journal for legal history, online (in it on the women's AEL Berg am Laim and the men's AEL Moosach)

Volker Issmer: The Ohrbeck labor education camp near Osnabrück . Steinbacher, Osnabrück 2000. 535 pp. ISBN 3-9805661-9-6 .

Gabriele Lotfi: Gestapo concentration camp. Labor education camp in the Third Reich. Stuttgart, Munich 2000. Frankfurt am Main: Fischer-Taschenbuch-Verl. 2003. 451 S. (Zugl .: Bochum, Univ., Dissertation 1998) ISBN 3-596-15134-1 .

Roland Maier: The labor education camps Kniebis-Ruhestein, Oberndorf-Aistaig and Rudersberg , in: Ingrid Bauz, Sigrid Brüggemann, Roland Maier (eds.): The Secret State Police in Württemberg and Hohenzollern. Stuttgart 2013: Schmetterling-Verl., ISBN 3-89657-138-9 , p. 143 ff.

Andreas Maislinger : Supplement to a local chronicle . "Labor education camp" and " gypsy detention camp " Weyer ( Innviertel ). In: Upper Austria-Austria in History and Literature with Geography, 32nd year, May – June / July – August 1988, Issue 3–4.

Petra Meyer: "The Heddernheim labor education camp, taking into account other labor camps, based on archival documents and reports from contemporary witnesses." Frankfurt am Main, June 1986, OCLC 75013158

Josef Prinz: Education for work - work as education? On the importance of work education in the National Socialist camp system using the example of Oberlanzendorf near Vienna. In: Concerns resistance. Journal of the Contemporary History Museum and the Ebensee Concentration Camp Memorial No. 73, June 2005, pp. 31–39; online (PDF, 363 kB), about 2008 ds. more detailed in the yearbook for regional studies of Lower Austria.

Hermann Rafetseder : “ Deployment of foreigners” during the Nazi regime using the example of the city of Linz. In: Fritz Mayrhofer and Walter Schuster (eds.): National Socialism in Linz, Volume 2. Linz 2001, 1107–1269, there on AEL v. a. 1193-1196.

Hermann Rafetseder: The "concentration camp of the Linz Gestapo". New sources within the framework of the Austrian Reconciliation Fund for the “Labor Education Camp” Schörgenhub. In: City Archives and City History. Research and Innovations. Festschrift for Fritz Mayrhofer on the completion of his 60th year. Ed .: Walter Schuster, Maximilian Schimböck, Anneliese Schweiger (Historical Yearbook of the City of Linz 2003/2004). Linz 2004, pp. 523-539. ISBN 3-900388-56-3 , online (PDF; 132 kB) in the OoeGeschichte.at forum (some points have been overtaken by the corresponding chapter in Rafetseder 2007)

Hermann Rafetseder: The fate of the Nazi forced labor. Findings on manifestations of the oppression and on the Nazi camp system from the work of the Austrian Reconciliation Fund. A documentation on behalf of the Future Fund of the Republic of Austria. Bremen 2014, 706 pp., ISBN 978-3-94469-028-5 ; Corrected print version of a text that remained unpublished in 2007 for data protection reasons, online (PDF) in the forum OoeGeschichte.at; therein v. a. Section 5: “AEL” - of “labor education camps”, “penal camps” and punitive detachments, pp. 421–508.

Gunnar Richter: "The Breitenau labor education camp (1940–1945): a contribution to the National Socialist camp system". Kassel, Univ., Diss., 2004. 649 pp.

Horst Schreiber : "The Reichenau Labor Education Camp"; in: Gabriele Rath / Andrea Sommerauer / Martha Verdorfer (eds.): Bozen - Innsbruck. Contemporary history tours. - Bozen 2000, pp. 143-147.

Andrea Tech: "Labor education camp in Northwest Germany 1940-1945". ( Bergen-Belsen- Schriften 6) Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2003. 331 pp. ISBN 3-525-35134-8 .

Matthias Wagner: "'Work sets you free' - forced labor in Lüdenscheid 1939–1945". Lüdenscheid 1997.

Volker Issmer: “Dutch people in the damned country”, Steinbacher Druck, 1998, ISBN 3-9805-6610-2 .

Karola Fings : "Cologne Exhibition Center - A subcamp in the center of the city", Emons Verlag Cologne, 1996, ISBN 3-924491-78-X .

Thomas Irmer: “Labor education camps in concentration camps”, in: Wolfgang Benz, Barbara Distel, Angelika Königseder (eds.): National Socialist Compulsory Camps. Structures and regions, perpetrators and victims, Dachau / Berlin: Verlag Dachauer Hefte / Metropol, 2011, pp. 67–80.

Web links

Gestapo detention centers and prisons
Information on labor education camps at the Lower Saxony Memorial Fund of the Lower Saxony Memorial Foundation
The labor education camp Hunswinkel / Lüdenscheid 1940–1945 ( Memento from May 7, 2005 in the Internet Archive )
The labor education camp (AEL) Fehrbellin - website of the Berlin history workshop
Lecture by Henri Braun at a conference in December 2001 : Henri Braun, President de l'Amicale des Rescapés of the Labor Education Camp (AEL). In: Bernard Garnier, Jean Quellien, avec la collaboration de Françoise Passera: La Main d'oeuvre francaise exploitée par le IIIe Reich. Colloque International, December 13-14-15 2001, Mémorial de la Paix à Caen. Caen, Center de Recherche d'Histoire Quantitative, 2003, ISBN 2-9519438-0-6