European Holocaust Memorial in Landsberg

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Erdbaracken Kaufering IV (Hurlach). Photo from April 28, 1945 after the liberation by the US Army.

The European Holocaust Memorial in Landsberg am Lech contains the last remains of the largest satellite camp complex of the Dachau concentration camp ; including six ruins of clay tube barracks and the last traces of concentration camp earth huts. From an administrative point of view, it belonged to the satellite camps of the Dachau concentration camp near Munich. The camp commandant for the concentration camp complex of Landsberg / Kaufering (11 concentration camps) was deployed directly in Berlin. At the suggestion of Franz Josef Strauss, Anton Posset and the " Bürgerervereinigung Landsberg im 20. Century " were able to convince the patron Alexander Moksel to provide the financial means for the acquisition of part of the former concentration camp site of the concentration camp command Kaufering VII then put in a dignified state. The other, overgrown and neglected part of the site is owned by the city of Landsberg. It was leveled and filled. In 2009 the memorial was transferred from the 20th Century Landsberg Citizens' Association to the European Holocaust Memorial Foundation, which has since then successfully implemented the professional conservation of the building and ground monuments on the former Kaufering VII concentration camp.

As part of the Wood Pigeon armaments project, three gigantic semi-underground bunkers for the aircraft production of the Messerschmitt Me 262 jet fighter were to be built in the Frauenwald in Landsberg. From June 18, 1944, Lithuanian and Hungarian Jews were used to build. As more and more prisoners - including those from disbanded camps - were transferred, many other nationalities were later represented. A total of about 30,000 prisoners passed through the camps by the end of April 1945, including 4,200 women and 850 children. According to estimates from the early post-war period, at least 14,500 prisoners perished in just ten months from hunger, epidemics, executions, transfer to Auschwitz-Birkenau and on a death march .

Subcamp of the Dachau concentration camp under the name Kaufering Command

Georeferencing Map with all coordinates of the subcamp section of the Dachau concentration camp under the name Kaufering Command : OSM

Kaufering was the eponymous train station of the Lechfeldbahn from Munich.

Part of the war important aircraft production

The use of the prisoners in the wood pigeon armaments project for the aircraft production of the jet fighter Me 262 was planned after the destruction of Augsburg and its aircraft factories by allied bomber groups. About 40 km away, the construction of semi-underground, bombproof large bunkers began. This was not only the workaround in Augsburg, but after the heavy losses from Allied bombing raids in numerous parts of the Reich, Hitler ordered the entire armaments industry to be moved underground in 1944. The newly developed type of jet-powered Messerschmitt-Jäger Me 262 was to be installed around Landsberg . Three identical structures were planned, but only the bunker with the code name eingut II in today's Welfen barracks could be realized. The vault was designed as a bomb-proof protective dome for the actual assembly halls and had a length of 240 m, a width of 83 m and a height of 30 meters. Its dome was made of reinforced concrete three meters thick. Underneath was a five-story reinforced concrete building for the factory. During construction, an embankment of 210,000 cubic meters of gravel was used instead of the usual formwork made of wood and metal. After the concrete ceiling had been poured, this gravel was removed again using manual labor and tilting lorries ( 48 ° 4 ′ 11.8 ″  N , 10 ° 49 ′ 34.8 ″  E ).

The prisoners were used without consideration for life or limb. The allocation of food was inadequate. According to the report of the War Crimes Investigation Commission under Captain Barnet and the trial documents from the great Dachau trial, the 11 concentration camps in Landsberg / Kaufering were the worst in Bavaria in terms of inhumane accommodation, food and the high death rate. The prisoners called these camps "cold crematoria".

The controversial number of victims

How many of the Jewish concentration camp prisoners around Landsberg and Kaufering were murdered is not known in the sense of on record and is documented there. There are two controversial numbers. In April 1949, the Advocate General of the Bavarian State Office for Reparation, Auerbach, tried to determine the number of Jewish concentration camp prisoners murdered in the concentration camp commandos of Kaufering and Landsberg. In the Landsberg Official Gazette and in the Landsberger Nachrichten , citizens of the city and the Landsberg district and former concentration camp inmates were called upon to “provide information about those who died in the Landsberg district”. Then Auerbach created a report entitled “Compilation of the camp strengths and death rates of the camps around Landsberg”, which was sent to the city of Landsberg on April 23, 1949. As a result, 44,457 concentration camp prisoners were murdered in the eleven concentration camps of Landsberg and Kaufering in ten months. Among them are "4,000 dead who were shot, slain and died of weakness on the death march in town and district". These numbers supposedly generated a surge of indignation and horror in Landsberg. A commission made up of the then Lord Mayor Ludwig Thoma, District Administrator Otto Gerbl, the representative of the Jewish Committee Abraham Pelmann, the representative of the Bavarian aid organization Curt Klemann and the editor and former NSDAP member Paul Winkelmayer came to a counterestimation . They agreed on the above figure of 14,500 dead. According to this quasi “official estimate”, which is still valid today and was also included in the standard work “Der Ort des Terrors”, not a single concentration camp prisoner would have perished during the evacuation of the satellite camps and on the death marches.

Today's facility

The current system was built by Anton Posset and the Landsberg Citizens' Association in the 20th century over the course of 30 years on their own and only with financial support from donations. Every single one of the memorial stones donated by European heads of state to the deported and murdered Jews from their countries describes in its own way the meaning of the memory of the loss of the Jewish part of the respective nation. Twelve granite steles stand in a central position - the former roll call area - opposite those that represent the eleven concentration camps of the Kaufering concentration camp and the Landsberg concentration camp on the Penzing air base. At the same time they symbolize the twelve tribes of Israel . In the east of this ensemble, a memorial stone for the American and French liberators warns “Never again”. In the west, the citizens' association erected a stone in memory of the Jewish victims, as neither Federal President Herzog nor his successor Rau were prepared to donate a German memorial stone.

The central memorial site is completed by four small stones, dedicated to the victims of the concentration camp Kaufering VII known by name and the specific encounters with their children, as well as the 471 nameless victims of the last documented transport of prisoners from the camp to Auschwitz on October 25, 1944 are. These elements are not only related to each other, but also in the historical context of the structural remains of the clay tube barracks, the uncovered foundations of functional barracks and the formations of the former concentration camp earth huts emerging from the ground.

At the entrance to the former concentration camp, an information board shows the historical context of the camp in the entire Kaufering concentration camp command. A historical dump truck stands for the dehumanizing compulsory labor that the Jewish prisoners had to do as work slaves.

On the basis of a feasibility study carried out in 2010 , the European Holocaust Memorial Foundation, founded and managed by Anton Posset , began the architectural monuments on the former Kaufering VII concentration camp in 2014 in cooperation with the Bavarian State Office for Monument Preservation, in particular the three still fully preserved To preserve clay tube barracks. The monuments on the former concentration camp Kaufering VII have meanwhile been rated as structures of national importance. They “shape the cultural heritage of the Federal Republic of Germany ”.

The preservation of the three intact barracks was carried out with funds from the Bavarian State Ministry for Education and Culture, Science and Art , the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and Media based on a resolution of the German Bundestag - Special Program IV, the Bavarian State Office for Monument Preservation (BLfD), the Germans Foundation for Monument Protection with the help of Lottery GlücksSpirale , the Bavarian State Foundation , the district of Upper Bavaria and funded by the European Holocaust Memorial Foundation eV.

During the conservation work in Camp VII of the former Landsberg-Kaufering subcamp complex, signatures of Jewish prisoners were discovered in March 2015.

At the end of the conservation work on the former Kaufering VII concentration camp, the Bavarian Chamber of Engineers and the Bavarian State Office for Monument Preservation honored the commitment of the European Holocaust Memorial Foundation with the Bavarian Monument Preservation Prize 2016 in gold. The jury's reasoning: "The value of this memorial is particularly due to the efforts to give an important document from a concentration camp subcamp a future as unchanged as possible. The solution found, to secure the partly damaged pottery pipes only from the outside, is to be emphasized The courageous approach in the conservative treatment of the clay pipes and the coordination of all measures between the planners and the restorer represent an outstanding achievement. "

As a necessary addition to the European Holocaust memorial with the historical monuments of the former concentration camp Kaufering VII, the construction of a documentation center as a "place of information, remembrance and encounter" in front of the former concentration camp Kaufering VII was discussed for the first time in 2012. This initiative by the European Holocaust Memorial Foundation finally caused the Bavarian Memorials Foundation to commission a feasibility study for a documentation location for the former Kaufering satellite camp complex in 2015, which was presented in autumn 2016.

Pictures from Kaufering VII

  • Information sign at the parking lot

  • Memorial in winter 2015

  • Residential barracks

  • Residential barrack interior view

  • Info on clay tube construction

  • Clay pipe roof foundation

  • The clay pipe roof collapsed

  • Clay tube in detail

The goal: a stone from each country

Anton Posset and the Landsberg Citizens' Association in the 20th Century approached all European presidents with the request to donate a memorial stone in memory of the victims from the respective country. This idea arose back in 1993 after the original design could not be realized due to numerous opposition and a lack of financial support. The citizens' association headed by Anton Posset wrote to a total of 15 European presidents. In the course of time, a European monument against totalitarianism and violence should emerge, which makes the European dimension of the Holocaust clear. With the exception of the German Federal Presidents Herzog and Rau, the citizens' association has not yet received any refusals. On the contrary: the presidents, royal and princely houses contacted all reacted positively. An answer from Italy and Greece has not yet been received. Eleven heads of state accepted the requests.

Cemeteries in the region

Georeferencing Map with all the coordinates of the section cemeteries anywhere in a region : OSM
The concentration camp cemetery on the Schwabhausen railway line - one of three memorial stones for the 130 victims of Nazi rule

Existing burial sites and cemeteries of the victims:

See also

literature

  • Anton Posset , Manfred Deiler, Michael Strasas for the Landsberg Citizens' Association in the 20th Century : The annihilation of the Jews in the “Ringeltaube” armaments project. The Kaufering / Landsberg concentration camp command in 1944/1945 . Special issues Landsberger Zeitgeschichte No. 4. ISBN 3-9803775-3-9 (1994)
  • Anton Posset , Manfred Deiler, Michael Strasas, Wolfgang Habel for the Landsberg Citizens' Association in the 20th Century : Death March and Liberation - Landsberg in April 1945: The end of the Holocaust in Bavaria. Special issues Landsberger Zeitgeschichte No. 2 (1993). ISBN 3-9803775-1-2
  • Alois Epple: Türkheim concentration camp. The Dachau subcamp Kaufering VI. Laurel publishing house. Bielefeld 2009, ISBN 978-3-938969-07-6
  • Edith Raim: The Dachau concentration camp external commandos Kaufering and Mühldorf - armaments buildings and forced labor in the last year of the war 1944–45 . Dissertation, Landsberg 1992.

Reports and essays on the historical background

  • From the interviews by Anton Posset , Wolfgang Habel, Gaby Matthees, Edith Raim, Michael Strasas and Manfred Deiler - compiled by Manfred Deiler: Reports from contemporary witnesses from the Kaufering concentration camp command
  • Ladislaus Ervin-Deutsch: slave labor in Kaufering. In: Dachauer Hefte 2 (1986), pp. 109–111 ( online ( memento of November 24, 2009 in the Internet Archive )).
  • Landsberg Citizens' Association in the 20th Century: From Hitler's fortress imprisonment to War Crimes Prison N ° 1: The Landsberg Prison in the Mirror of History ISBN 3-9803775-0-4
  • Citizens' Association Landsberg in the 20th Century: Death March and Liberation - Landsberg in April 1945: The End of the Holocaust in Bavaria ISBN 3-9803775-1-2
  • Landsberg Citizens' Association in the 20th Century: The National Socialist Place of Pilgrimage "Landsberg: 1933–1937: The" Hitler City "becomes the" City of Youth " ISBN 3-9803775-2-0
  • Landsberg citizens' association in the 20th century: The Kaufering concentration camp command 1944/45: The extermination of the Jews in the "Ringeltaube" armaments project ISBN 3-9803775-3-9
  • Landsberg Citizens' Association in the 20th Century: The Landsberg SS Labor Camp 1944/45: French resistance fighters in the German concentration camp ISBN 3-9803775-4-7
  • Landsberg Citizens' Association in the 20th Century: Landsberg 1945–1950: The Jewish New Beginning after the Shoah - The future came from the Landsberg DP camp ISBN 3-9803775-5-5
  • Barbara Fenner: It could happen anywhere. Landsberg's difficult contemporary history. Barbara Fenner Verlag, Landsberg 1995, ISBN 3-9804362-0-9 .
  • Barbara Fenner: We make a concentration camp visible . Catalog for the school exhibition about camp XI of the largest external command of the former Dachau concentration camp in the bunker of the Welfenkaserne Landsberg, Barbara Fenner Verlag, Hofstetten 2000, ISBN 3-9804362-1-7 .
  • Barbara Fenner: Learning from history: emotions, historical awareness and topic-centered interaction (TCI) using the example of the Kaufering / Landsberg satellite camp . Wißner, Augsburg 2014, ISBN 978-3-95786-006-4 ( Dissertation University of Augsburg 2012, 298 pages).
  • Annette Brinkmann u. a. (Ed.): Learning from history. Projects on National Socialism and the Holocaust in Schools and Youth Work , ARCult Media, Bonn 2000, ISBN 3-930395-23-1 (multimedia package : CD-ROM with accompanying book ; also for lesson preparation . The CD-ROM is out of print. )
    • Most of the information on the CD-ROM can be found on this website: landsberger-zeitgeschichte.de or buergervereinigung-landsberg.de

a) Manfred Deiler:

b) Anton Posset:

c) Michael Strasas:

d) Franz Xaver Rößle:

e) Hermann Kriegl

Movie

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ http://www.buergervereinigung-landsberg.de/umganggeschichte/stadtlandsberg/Posset/BriefStrauss.pdf
  2. ↑ Wolfgang Benz , Barbara Distel (ed.): The place of terror . History of the National Socialist Concentration Camps. Volume 2: Early camp, Dachau, Emsland camp. CH Beck, Munich 2005, ISBN 3-406-52962-3 , p. 363.
  3. ↑ Wolfgang Benz, Barbara Distel: The Place of Terror, Volume 2: Early camp, Dachau, Emsland camp . Munich 2005, p. 370.
  4. ↑ Albert Fuchs , report: On July 14th we drive to Landsberg am Lech: In the SS labor camp Landsberg am Lech. There are 350 of us, about 330 of them are French ... - formerly clerks in the SS labor camp in Landsberg. The professor of German studies describes the concentration camp imprisonment. First publication of the article in the version from 1995 in: Landsberg in the 20th Century - Themed Issues on Landsberg Contemporary History - Volume 5 : The Landsberg SS Labor Camp 1944/45: French Resistance Fighters in the German KZ ISBN 3-9803775-4-7 (Anton Posset )
  5. ↑ Wolfgang Benz, Barbara Distel: The Place of Terror, Volume 2: Early camp, Dachau, Emsland camp. Munich 2005, ISBN 3-406-52962-3 , p. 370.
  6. ^ Announcement about the delivery of 1020 prisoners to the Auschwitz concentration camp on October 25, 1944 from the concentration camps Kaufering I, II, III, IV and VII from the Anton Posset archive
  7. ^ Concentration camp satellite camp near Landsberg: Bunkers are being repaired. Augsburger-Allgemeine from April 24, 2014.
  8. ↑ Repair work on the first clay tube accommodation started. ( Memento of the original from December 11, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Bavarian State Office for Monument Preservation, April 24, 2014.  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.blfd.bayern.de
  9. ↑ Of national importance: Federal Republic participates in the maintenance of the former satellite camp. Augsburger-Allgemeine from May 18, 2013.
  10. ↑ Applications BKM, Monument Protection Special Program IV in connection with the decision of May 9, 2014; AZ: G44 - B 181130 / CB
  11. ^ Manfred Deiler: Clay tube vault barracks (Fusée Céramique) in the former Kaufering VII concentration camp in Landsberg am Lech; In the appendix with a contribution by Dr. Sebastian Storz on ancient construction methods for vault structures made of clay tubes - Landsberger Geschichtsblätter 2016
  12. ↑ http://www.augsburger-allgemeine.de/landsberg/Unterschriften-von-juedischen-Haeftlingen-entdeck-Wir-waren-alle-wie-elektrisiert-id33400312.html Discovered signatures of Jewish prisoners: “We were all electrified " . Augsburger-Allgemeine from March 17, 2015
  13. ↑ http://www.augsburger-allgemeine.de/landsberg/Die-mutige-Vorgehensweise-wird-belnahm-id39096412.html The courageous approach is rewarded: The European Holocaust Memorial's preservation award receives the Bavarian Monument Preservation Prize. In: Augsburger Allgemeine from September 17, 2016.
  14. ^ "News" section on the website of the European Holocaust Memorial Foundation .
  15. ↑ http://www.landsberger-zeitgeschichte.de/Doku2.htm Exposé on a documentation and visitor center for the concentration camp complex Kaufering / Landsberg - presentation of the various modules - Manfred Deiler: 2012
  16. ↑ http://www.landsberger-zeitgeschichte.de/PDF/2013-06.13%20LT%20Machbarkeitsstudie%20DokuZ.pdf A place of learning and remembrance . Landsberger Tagblatt dated June 13, 2013
  17. ↑ http://www.landsberger-zeitgeschichte.de/PDF/2016-00-00%20Machbarkeitsstudie.pdf Feasibility study for a documentation location for the former Kaufering satellite camp complex
  18. ↑ http://www.landsberger-zeitgeschichte.de/Planungen.htm The latest developments and planning for the documentation location of the Kaufering subcamp complex
  19. ↑ History and memory in dialogue. Website of the Landsberg Citizens' Association in the 20th Century, accessed September 25, 2018.
  20. ↑ http://www.buergervereinigung-landsberg.de/publikation/heft4.htm
  21. ↑ http://www.buergervereinigung-landsberg.de/publikation/heft2.htm
  22. ↑ http://www.buergervereinigung-landsberg.de/kriegsverbrecher/Hingerichten.pdf

Coordinates: 48 ° 1 ′ 48.5 ″  N , 10 ° 51 ′ 9 ″  E