Boelcke Barracks (Nordhausen)

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The Boelcke barracks in Nordhausen is a former air force barracks , which served various purposes over the course of its existence.

During the Second World War , the area was used by various Nazi institutions to accommodate prisoners. From January to early April 1945 alone, over 3,000 people died in the Mittelbau subcamp set up here .

history

Construction and use by the Air Force

The barracks in Nordhausen was built for the Luftwaffe in the mid-1930s and named after Oswald Boelcke . The extensive area was equipped with accommodation buildings, vehicle hangars and large hangars and was located in the southeastern area of ​​the city. The air base served primarily as a training and test site, and an aircraft yard was also in operation here at times. Until the summer of 1944, the facility housed an air news school for the Wehrmacht.

Prison camp during the Second World War

During the Second World War, the area was used by various institutions of the Nazi state to accommodate prisoners. At the end of the war there was a camp for forced laborers , a subcamp of the Mittelbau concentration camp and a Gestapo prison in the immediate vicinity .

Forced labor camp

Since 1943, around 200 Soviet and French workers from the company MABAG (Maschinen- und Apparatebau AG) were housed in five wooden barracks on the barracks site.

In the early summer of 1944, Junkers Flugzeug- und Motorenwerke set up a "foreign labor camp" for 6,000 foreign forced laborers who had to assemble jet engines for Junkers in the northern part of the tunnel system in Kohnstein in the crew quarters of the Boelcke barracks that had been cleared by the air force .

Gestapo prison

Since autumn 1944, was in the building at the detention barracks entrance Gestapo - prison , where not only " foreign workers " but also prisoners from the Mittelbau were detained.

In addition to the prison, the Gestapo set up a "special camp" in the barracks, to which foreign civil workers from the vicinity of Nordhausen who were accused of "strolling about work" or other offenses were sent.

Subcamp of the Mittelbau concentration camp

In January 1945 the SS set up a satellite camp of the Mittelbau concentration camp in the barracks . Initially, prisoners were to be accommodated in the camp who had to do forced labor at companies in the city of Nordhausen. The camp for male concentration camp prisoners existed from January 8, 1945 to April 11, 1945.

From February 1945 the SS used the Boelcke barracks as a central sick and death camp for the Mittelbau concentration camp, to which terminally ill prisoners who were no longer able to work were deported. Two empty garage halls served as accommodation for the prisoners. There were no beds or washing facilities; the sick and dying prisoners lay on the concrete floor and were largely left to their own devices. From January to early April 1945, over 3,000 people died in the subcamp. The Boelcke barracks were also partially destroyed by British bombing raids on Nordhausen on April 3 and 4, 1945 , killing 1,300 concentration camp prisoners. On April 11, 1945, members of the US Army liberated the Boelcke-Kaserne satellite camp and found several hundred exhausted survivors and over 1,300 corpses already decaying.

Use after the Second World War

After the end of the war and the liberation of the surviving prisoners from the satellite camp, the Boelcke barracks were not used for any further military purposes. The hangars for the aircraft were demolished soon after the war ended. In the 1960s, new buildings were built on the site and the area was used for the settlement of industrial companies.

Todays situation

Apart from three garage halls, little can be seen of the former Boelcke barracks today. A memorial stone at the entrance to the former camp site has been commemorating the victims of the satellite camp since 1974. In 2004 it was supplemented by a notice board.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. a b c d e f g h i Regine Heubaum, Nordhausen under National Socialism - A historical guide: Boelcke-Kaserne , published on behalf of the Buchenwald and Mittelbau-Dora Memorials Foundation and in cooperation with the Nordhausen youth welfare organization. V. (online) , accessed April 25, 2017
  2. Federal Ministry of Justice : Directory of the concentration camps and their external commandos in accordance with Section 42 (2) BEG , Ser. No. 1071, Nordhausen / Saxony-Anhalt, Boelcke-Kaserne, Dora-Mittelbau, January 8, 1945 to April 11, 1945
  3. ^ Jens-Christian Wagner: Production of death: The Mittelbau-Dora concentration camp. Göttingen 2001, pp. 185f.
  4. ^ Jens-Christian Wagner: Production of death: The Mittelbau-Dora concentration camp. Göttingen 2001, p. 495f.


Coordinates: 51 ° 29 ′ 30 ″  N , 10 ° 48 ′ 31 ″  E