Barrack Wilhelmine

Memorial logo

Entrance area of the memorial (2012)

The documentation and learning place Baracke Wilhelmine ( proper spelling exclusively small: documentation and learning place barracke wilhelmine ; also called memorial place Baracke Wilhelmine or barrack Wilhelmine for short ) is a museum in Schwanewede in the Lower Saxon district of Osterholz . It is located in a historic Barack buildings from the era of National Socialism and is Schwaneweder village Neuenkirchen on the grounds of a former NS - labor camp , near the Valentin submarine pens at the Unterweser.

The exhibition project, which opened in 2007/2008 and has been continuously expanded since then, documents the eventful history of the site - as a labor camp, naval hospital, Protestant hospital in Neuenkirchen and, most recently, army barracks - from the Nazi era to the present. The Wilhelmine barrack is also a memorial to the forced laborers of the Nazi labor camp and the victims of the Farge concentration camp and the construction of the Valentin submarine bunker in Bremen - Rekum . A separate exhibition area deals with the topic of " Lebensborn ". The homeland association Heimatfreunde Neuenkirchen e. V. , which has its seat in Schwanewede-Neuenkirchen.

The barrack building has been a listed building since 2006 .

Location and name

The memorial is located in Neuenkirchener Heide on the site of the Bundeswehr's Weser-Geest barracks, which was dissolved in 2004, and what is now the Weser-Geest industrial park , directly on the access road. The address is An der Kaserne 122 .

The name of the barrack with the first name " Wilhelmine " goes back to the time of National Socialism. Female first names were assigned to the barracks of the labor camp in alphabetical order. The 23rd barrack was given a female first name with the first letter “ W ” (23rd position of the Latin alphabet ).

history

During the Nazi era, the Farge / Schwanewede area was dominated by naval armaments and forced labor . The construction of three major military construction projects for the Navy - two large tank farms and the “Valentin” submarine bunker - required a large number of workers and personnel; at times up to 12,000 people were employed here at the same time. This led to a total of seven camps in the Rekum / Farge and Neuenkirchen / Schwanewede region. While before the Second World War mainly German workers from remote areas and volunteers recruited abroad had to be accommodated, further foreign foreign workers were added after the war began . In the course of the war, mainly forced laborers were deployed on the major construction sites, such as Gestapo prisoners, prisoners of war , forced laborers and concentration camp prisoners . The resulting " camp landscape" included, among other things, the Marine Community Camp II, the Farge Labor Education Camp , the Farge concentration camp (a satellite camp of the Neuengamme concentration camp ) and the Marine Community Camp I, in which soldiers from the Marine Replacement Department were housed.

The Wilhelmine barrack was part of Marine Community Camp II, which was built in 1939 for the construction of the Farge Navy tank farm and which, among other things, served to accommodate workers from the Todt Organization and personnel from the naval construction department. The underground bunkered marine tank farm "Farge", which was actually located in the area of the then still independent community of Neuenkirchen, was designed for a planned final capacity of 1.7 million cubic meters. It should complement the WiFo tank farm Bremen-Farge , which was built from 1935 in the Rekumer Heide on the Rekumer municipality by the Economic Research Association (Wifo) and which is an underground large tank farm with a capacity of approx. 300,000 cubic meters. The WiFo tank farm was gradually put into operation from 1941 and completed by 1943; the facility still exists today. Work on the naval tank farm, however, was largely stopped in 1941 when, after the German occupation of France, most of the naval units had been relocated to the French Atlantic coast and there was therefore no longer any urgent need for the second large tank farm.

The Marine Community Camp II and thus also the Wilhelmine barracks were then used in the course of the construction of the Valentin submarine bunker, with its construction in the spring of 1943 in Rekum, which had belonged to the Free Hanseatic City of Bremen since 1939, together with Farge and other former Osterholz communities , started. The free-standing bunker was one of the world's largest bunker yards, in which submarines of the type XXI were to be assembled from elsewhere prefabricated sections . The construction management for the submarine bunker was located in the Wilhelmine barrack, but it was not completed due to bombing and the approaching end of the war. Construction work stopped in March 1945.

At the end of the war, the Wilhelmine barrack was initially used as a naval hospital and later used as part of the Evangelical Hospital in Neuenkirchen, before the Bundeswehr took over the area as barracks.

The barrack building

Corridor area (seen from the entrance)

Introductory room with a model of the former Marine Community Camp II

Room "Construction of the Valentin submarine bunker "

"Camp landscape" room with a large aerial photo from 1945

"Evangelisches Hospital Neuenkirchen" room

Memorial room (altar and benches come from the former hospital church)

Part of the exhibition area on the subject of " Lebensborn "

Documents and exhibits in the "Lebensborn" exhibition area

Mother and child statue in the "Lebensborn" exhibition area

The Wilhelmine barrack, built in 1939, is a massive barrack . The single-storey building with no basement consists of masonry and plastered outer and inner walls with a gently sloping gable roof . The roof construction consists of nail trusses , the roof is covered with fiber cement corrugated sheets.

The barrack building was used by the German Armed Forces until 2004 and then acquired by the Schwanewede municipality, which donated the building in need of renovation to the Heimatfreunde Neuenkirchen e. V. , section “Memorial work”, made available for use. The association began in 2005 with renovation work in the interior as well as with a step-by-step establishment of the documentation and learning location and the construction of exhibitions.

As one of five remaining barracks of the former Marine Community Camp II, the Wilhelmine barrack, together with the barrack opposite, was placed under monument protection by the Osterholz district in 2006.

In 2009, extensive renovation and modernization measures were carried out. The building was repaired and energetically modernized , and the barrack was restored to its original exterior. Among other things, the barracks received a new roof and the windows and outer doors were renewed in accordance with the monument. The new windows were reconstructed as wooden windows according to the original lattice distribution based on a preserved historical window and used in the barrack. The exterior and entrance doors were also reproduced and installed based on the historical model. The measures were financially supported with EU funds from the LEADER budget of the Osterholz cultural landscape .

The documentation and learning location

tasks

The documentation and learning location Baracke Wilhelmine documents the history of the use of the site as a labor camp and by the Navy during the Nazi era, as a hospital in the post-war period and, most recently, as a military barracks in modern times. Closely related to this is the story of the work of concentration camp inmates, prisoners of war and forced labor in the construction of the Valentin submarine bunker. In addition, the Wilhelmine barracks deals with former Nazi sites in the district, such as the one established by the SS Organization Lebensborn e. V. operated Lebensborn home "Haus Friesland" in the nearby Hohehorst manor on Gut Hohehorst in Schwanewede- Löhnhorst and, in this context, also in general with the former "Lebensborn" of the SS.

Space

The Wilhelmine barracks has around 600 square meters of floor space. A total of 11 exhibition rooms as well as a seminar and lecture room for up to 80 people and a work and meeting room with up to 15 seats and a library are available. The additional space includes an office and archive room, a kitchen, a cloakroom with chair storage as well as toilet rooms and other ancillary rooms.

The seminar and lecture room is equipped with modern media technology. There is also a researchable internet workstation with printer and DSL connection as well as a copier with scanner.

exhibition

After the first exhibitions were organized in 2006 and 2007 together with or by the district archive of the Osterholz district, for example on the Day of the Open Monument , the first sections of the permanent exhibition were opened in 2008 and guided tours were organized. Since then, the various exhibition areas in the barrack have been gradually created or expanded, with the changes and extensions being understood by the sponsoring association as “work in progress” and made visible to visitors.

The memorial is currently (2012) showing the history of the use of the barrack building and the surrounding area in various, thematically delimited exhibition areas

the marine community camp II (1938-1945)
the Naval Hospital Neuenkirchen (1945–1947)
the Evangelical Hospital Neuenkirchen (1947–1962)
and the Weser-Geest barracks of the Bundeswehr (1963-2004).

The exhibition concept as well as the sequence and design of the exhibition rooms follow the “life cycle” of the barracks. The individual epochs are prepared and presented on the basis of original exhibits, models, special maps, construction plans and aerial photographs, historical photos and films as well as documented statements by contemporary witnesses. One focus is the forced labor that concentration camp prisoners, forced laborers and prisoners of war had to do during the Nazi era in the three major military construction projects in the region (WiFo tank farm Bremen-Farge, navy tank farm Farge and submarine bunker Valentin), and the related warehouses in Schwanewede, Neuenkirchen, Farge and Blumenthal.

In addition, former Nazi sites in the Osterholz district are documented. This includes, above all, the special exhibition area “Lebensborn - Ideology, Everyday Life, Traces”, which focuses on the former Lebensborn home in Schwanewede-Löhnhorst. It emerged from a special exhibition shown in 2008 and is the first and so far only permanent exhibition on the subject of "Lebensborn" in Germany.

Special exhibitions

Special themes from the memorial's area of responsibility are dealt with in special exhibitions or traveling exhibitions are shown. In addition, the Wilhelmine barracks shows and supervises corresponding exhibitions in cooperation with other institutions at other event locations in the area of the community of Schwanewede or the district of Osterholz, such as the Schwanewede town hall or the district building in Osterholz-Scharmbeck . The successful special exhibition on the subject of “Lebensborn” from 2008 was converted into a permanent exhibition in 2009 and has been supplemented several times since then.

Exhibition title	Period of the exhibition	place of exhibition
"Lebensborn - Ideology, Everyday Life, Traces" - special exhibition (since 2009 as a permanent exhibition)	April 16, 2008 - end of 2008	Barrack Wilhelmine
“The Lebensborn e. V. “- Traveling exhibition of the District Youth Association (KJR) Ebersberg	05.12.2009 - 17.01.2010	Barrack Wilhelmine
“The Lebensborn e. V. "- touring exhibition of the KJR Ebersberg (in cooperation with the district of Osterholz)	October 24, 2011 - November 30, 2011	District building, Osterholz-Scharmbeck
“The Lebensborn e. V. “- traveling exhibition of the KJR Ebersberg	02.12.2011 - 18.01.2012	Barrack Wilhelmine
“The Lebensborn e. V. "- traveling exhibition of the KJR Ebersberg (in cooperation with the BGS; on the occasion of a book reading)	December 09, 2011	Meeting place (BGS), Schwanewede
“The Lebensborn e. V. "- traveling exhibition of the KJR Ebersberg (in cooperation with the community Schwanewede)	01/19/2012 - 02/15/2012	Town hall, Schwanewede
“In Ricordo” - photo exhibition by Yuri Materassi in collaboration with the documentation and learning location Baracke Wilhelmine; in memory of the former Italian military internee and forced laborer Elio Materassi (1922–2011) (in cooperation with the community of Schwanewede)	05.09.2013 - 11.10.2013	Town hall, Schwanewede
“In Ricordo” - photo exhibition by Yuri Materassi / traveling exhibition of the documentation and learning location Baracke Wilhelmine	02/01/2014 - 02/25/2014	DOKU Blumenthal , Bremen-Blumenthal (also organizer)

management

The head of the documentation and learning site is Harald Grote, who is the head of the “Memorial Work ” division at the sponsoring association Heimatfreunde Neuenkirchen . The memorial's volunteer management team includes a. also Wilfried Blumentritt (design, conception) and Björn Herrmann (media implementation, conception).

Publications

Since the beginning of the 2010s, the memorial has been working on the publication of a series of handouts for those interested in history that deal with specific individual topics of the documentation and exhibition program. So far, the following editions have been published, each of which was published by the documentation and learning location Baracke Wilhelmine:

The long way to Farge. The odyssey of the Italian military intern Elio Materassi (= handout for those interested in history , No. 1). Schwanewede-Neuenkirchen, December 2012 (content: excerpt from the German translation of the diary of the Italian military intern Elio Materassi (1922–2011), who was deported to Germany after the surrender of Italy on September 8, 1943 , there via several labor camps to the Heidkamp camp in Schwanewede came and had to do forced labor from October 1943 to May 1945 during the construction of the Valentin submarine bunker in Rekum ; with additions in the form of explanations of terms and brief information on the historical background).

The marine railway Farge – Rekum – Neuenkirchen / Schwanewede (= handout for those interested in history , No. 2). Schwanewede-Neuenkirchen, December 2012 (author: Peter-Michael Meiners; content: history of the Farge – Schwanewede naval railway ; with explanations of terms and background information).

Graves in the storage area of the Valentin bunker construction site (= handout for those interested in history , No. 3). Schwanewede-Neuenkirchen, December 2013 (author: Peter-Michael Meiners; content: grave sites in the former storage area of the Valentin submarine bunker yard and in the Lower Saxony / Bremen area; with documents, images and background information).

literature

Takeover and establishment of the 'Evang. Hospitals' Neunkirchen b. Bremen - Vegesack. In: Seventy-five years of the Birkenhof. Evang. Welfare and hospitals eV, Hanover - Kirchrode. 1954. pp. 46-50.
The Evangelical Hospital in Neuenkirchen [e. V.]. In: 80th annual report 1958/59 on the work of the Birkenhof. 1879 - 1959. Evangelical Welfare and Hospitals eV, Hanover - Kirchrode. 1959. pp. 30-32.
Gabriele Jannowitz-Heumann: Barrack "Wilhelmine" - "une baraque de souvenir". A barrack of the marine community camp in the storage system of the submarine bunker "Valentin" on the Neuenkirchener Heide. District archive of the district of Osterholz, Osterholz-Scharmbeck 2004 (= publication series of the district archive of Osterholz , volume 2).
District of Osterholz (Ed.): Focus on home. Home care initiatives and regional history introduce themselves. District of Osterholz, Osterholz-Scharmbeck 2009 (depositor documentation and learning location Baracke Wilhelmine ; online ) and Blickpunkt Heimat Einleger .
Gerhard Koopmann: In the shadow of the bunker. epubli , Berlin 2013, ISBN 978-3-8442-7565-0 (Collection of contemporary witness reports that have been edited literarily. It also includes reports by the “Lebensborn child” Hartmut Müller (1938–2012), whose fate is shown in the “Lebensborn” permanent exhibition the barrack Wilhelmine is shown.)

Web links

Commons : Baracke Wilhelmine - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Website - documentation and learning location barrack wilhelmine
Information on the documentation and learning location baracke wilhelmine on the website of the community of Schwanewede

Individual evidence

^ ^A ^b Lutz Rode: Monument protection for "Wilhelmine". Barracks secured at the industrial park. In: Die Norddeutsche of December 11, 2006, p. 7. *
↑ Information on the various camps in Bremen-Farge and Schwanewede on relict.com
↑ ^a ^b ^c ^d Naval armaments and forced labor in the Farge / Schwanewede area. In: Making History Aware. Memorial sites and culture of remembrance in Lower Saxony. Edited and published by: Lower Saxony Memorials Foundation in cooperation with the Association of Lower Saxony Memorials and Initiatives to Commemorate the Nazi Crimes , Celle 2009, pp. 70–72.
↑ ^a ^b ^c Documentation and learning location “Baracke Wilhelmine”: From the Nazi barrack camp to the hospital. The history of the marine community camp II and later marine hospital in Neuenkirchen (period 1935–1947). In: Heimat-Rundblick . No. 100, 1/2012 ( spring 2012 ). Druckerpresse-Verlag , ISSN 2191-4257 , pp. 26-27.
↑ ^a ^b Gabriela Keller: Barracks as a place of remembrance. Schwanewede gets a memorial. In: Weser-Kurier of January 5, 2007, p. 16. *
↑ ^a ^b Alexander Bösch: "Wilhelmine" becomes a documentation center. Preparations are in progress / contemporary witnesses urgently needed. In: Wümme-Zeitung of January 9, 2007, p. 2. *
↑ ^a ^b ^c project database → Baracke Wilhelmine . On: Website of the German Networking Agency for Rural Areas (DVS) in the Federal Office for Agriculture and Food (BLE) from May 26, 2011. Accessed on November 18, 2012.

^ ^A ^b Björn Herrmann: Documentation and learning location Baracke Wilhelmine: Special exhibition "Lebensborn". In: Making History Aware. Memorial sites and culture of remembrance in Lower Saxony. Edited and published by: Foundation of Lower Saxony Memorials in cooperation with the Interest Group of Lower Saxony Memorials and Initiatives to Remember the Nazi Crimes , Celle 2009, p. 73.

↑ (LR): Exhibition about Nazi sites in a district. In: Die Norddeutsche from September 9, 2006, p. 15. *

* Available online via the digital newspaper archive of Bremer Tageszeitungen AG (subject to a charge).

53.223418 8.542578Coordinates: 53 ° 13 '24.3 " N , 8 ° 32' 33.3" E

[NOR-11-12-2006-1] A ^b Lutz Rode: Monument protection for "Wilhelmine". Barracks secured at the industrial park. In: Die Norddeutsche of December 11, 2006, p. 7. *

[2] Information on the various camps in Bremen-Farge and Schwanewede on relict.com

[Stiftung-70-72-3] Naval armaments and forced labor in the Farge / Schwanewede area. In: Making History Aware. Memorial sites and culture of remembrance in Lower Saxony. Edited and published by: Lower Saxony Memorials Foundation in cooperation with the Association of Lower Saxony Memorials and Initiatives to Commemorate the Nazi Crimes , Celle 2009, pp. 70–72.

[HR-100-26-4] Documentation and learning location “Baracke Wilhelmine”: From the Nazi barrack camp to the hospital. The history of the marine community camp II and later marine hospital in Neuenkirchen (period 1935–1947). In: Heimat-Rundblick . No. 100, 1/2012 ( spring 2012 ). Druckerpresse-Verlag , ISSN 2191-4257 , pp. 26-27.

[WK-05-01-2007-5] Gabriela Keller: Barracks as a place of remembrance. Schwanewede gets a memorial. In: Weser-Kurier of January 5, 2007, p. 16. *

[WZ-09-01-2007-6] Alexander Bösch: "Wilhelmine" becomes a documentation center. Preparations are in progress / contemporary witnesses urgently needed. In: Wümme-Zeitung of January 9, 2007, p. 2. *

[DVS-7] project database → Baracke Wilhelmine . On: Website of the German Networking Agency for Rural Areas (DVS) in the Federal Office for Agriculture and Food (BLE) from May 26, 2011. Accessed on November 18, 2012.

[Stiftung-73-8] A ^b Björn Herrmann: Documentation and learning location Baracke Wilhelmine: Special exhibition "Lebensborn". In: Making History Aware. Memorial sites and culture of remembrance in Lower Saxony. Edited and published by: Foundation of Lower Saxony Memorials in cooperation with the Interest Group of Lower Saxony Memorials and Initiatives to Remember the Nazi Crimes , Celle 2009, p. 73.

[9] (LR): Exhibition about Nazi sites in a district. In: Die Norddeutsche from September 9, 2006, p. 15. *