Fort VII in Poznan

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The Fort VII in Poznan ( Polish Fort VII w Poznaniu ; there also with the addition of "extermination" - Fort VII w Poznaniu [obóz zagłady]) is a part of the fortress poses and was in the time Nazi from Sicherheitsdienst and later Run by the Secret State Police as a police prison and transit camp and briefly referred to as the Poznan concentration camp .

In a casemate of Fort VII, several psychiatric patients were murdered by carbon monoxide in a "test gassing" in the second half of October or even before October 9, 1939 . Heinrich Himmler had the mode of action of this gasification method demonstrated to him on December 12th or 13th, 1939. A little later the killing centers of Aktion T4 also used this gas.

Organization of the camp

Fort VII as "Poznan concentration camp"

Fort VII belonged as "Fort Colomb" to the Prussian fortification system of the 19th century that surrounded the city of Posen ( Fortress Posen ). It was secured by a deep ditch and high rampart, which was also reinforced by an iron fence and wire barriers. The casemates were accessible from a large courtyard.

The existence of the camp is documented from October 10, 1939, initially under the name " Security Police , Chief of Einsatzgruppe VI , Posen Concentration Camp". SS-Untersturmführer Herbert Lange was the first leader responsible for a few days . Fourteen days later, the occupied "Military District Posen" was placed under civil administration as Reichsgau Posen - called Reichsgau Wartheland from the end of January 1940 . Reich governor was Arthur Greiser .

SS-Hauptsturmführer Hans Weibrecht was the second head of the camp from October 16, 1939 to October 15, 1941. He was appointed commander of the “Posen Concentration Camp” and was supposed to organize it according to the model of Reich German concentration camps with corresponding camp regulations. However, this camp was never part of the camp system of the inspector of the concentration camps or of the SS main economic and administrative office . Formally, Weibrecht signed as “Secret State Police. Poznan State Police Station. Transitional Camp - Fort VII ”. SS-Hauptsturmführer Kühndel and SS-Obersturmführer Hans Walter are named as additional commanders .

Transitional camp

In the occupied Warthegau , Poles were arrested for the smallest offenses. The death penalty was pronounced disproportionately often. Fort VII was primarily intended as a transition or transit camp to another prison or concentration camp. In the beginning there were isolated layoffs. Fort VII was also the place of execution; However, mass executions - such as the shooting of 70 Polish students on November 7, 1939 - were carried out far from the camp.

Estimates of the number of those executed and those who died under adverse conditions in the camp are uncertain. Probably 10,000 to 15,000 people perished in Fort VII. Only 479 victims are known by name.

Extermination site

Casemate 17, which served as a gas chamber in 1939

Presumably in mid-October 1939, an unknown number of people were first carried out "test gassings" in a provisional gas chamber at Fort VII , the iron door of which, at least initially, had no seal. August Becker from the Forensic Institute of the Security Police was probably present, who in January 1940 supervised the test gassings in the Nazi killing center in Brandenburg as part of the T4 campaign . The Reichsführer SS Heinrich Himmler, in whose entourage Paul Werner was probably also , attended a gassing operation as an observer on December 12 or 13, 1939.

The murders were carried out using carbon monoxide (CO) gas, which was introduced from steel cylinders. It cannot be ruled out that the disinfestation agent Zyklon B was also used in a “test gasification” .

The gas chamber at Fort VII was only used in November and December 1939. It is estimated that up to 400 mentally ill people were gassed with carbon monoxide at Fort VII in Poznan, including 27 patients from the department for the mentally ill at Poznan City Hospital.

Further patients from the Provincial Insane Sanatorium in Owinsk (Polish: Zakład Psychiatryczny w Owińskach) in Treskau / Owinsk were murdered in a first camouflaged gas truck using carbon monoxide gas from steel cylinders.

Interpretations

The murder of institutional patients in Fort VII in Posen was carried out by members of Einsatzgruppe VI under Erich Naumann ; these acted completely independently of the apparatus of Aktion T4. According to Volker Rieß, the initiative for the murder of mentally ill people came from the chiefs of the civil administration and the Gauleiter Franz Schwede-Coburg , Albert Forster and Arthur Greiser , who contacted Himmler either directly or through higher SS and police leaders , who after approval provided by Adolf Hitler staff. Ernst Klee proves that Robert Schulz , head of the Gau self-administration and at the same time the health department at Reichsstatthalter Greiser, issued powers of attorney for gas truck murders.

Polish historians show that the institutions continued to be used as SS barracks, for German sick people or as welfare homes for Germans. Volker Rieß considers the interpretation to be exaggerated that “ultimately all the murders of the sick in 1939/40 in the occupied east” are justified by the space required for resettlers or for SS replacement units. In addition to rational considerations of utility, it was about ideologically justified “racial land consolidation”.

literature

  • Volker Rieß: The beginnings of the annihilation of 'life unworthy of life' in the Reichsgauen of Danzig-West Prussia and Wartheland 1939/40. Frankfurt / M. 1995 (= Diss. 1993), ISBN 3-631-47784-8 .
  • Volker Rieß: Central and decentralized radicalization. The killings of 'unworthy life' in the annexed western and northern Polish areas 1939–1941. In: Klaus-Michael Mallmann / Bogdan Musial (ed.): Genesis des Genozids - Poland 1939–1941. Darmstadt 2004, ISBN 3-534-18096-8 , pp. 127-144.
  • Zdzislaw Jaroszewski (ed.): The murder of the mentally ill in Poland 1939–1945 / Zaglada chorych psychicznie w Polsce 1939–1945. (bilingual) Warsaw 1993, ISBN 978-3-926200-94-5 .

Web links

Commons : Fort VII in Poznan  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Description by Volker Rieß: The beginnings of the destruction of 'life unworthy of life' in the Reichsgauen of Danzig-West Prussia and Wartheland 1939/40. Frankfurt / M. 1995 (= Diss. 1993), ISBN 3-631-47784-8 , p. 290.
  2. ↑ Klaus Dörner names October 15, 1939 (in: Die ZEIT, No. 36 of September 1, 1989, page 65 ) - Zdzislaw Jaroszewski (Ed.): The murder of the mentally ill in Poland 1939–1945 . Warsaw 1993, ISBN 978-3-926200-94-5 dated p. 83 to “the beginning of the second half of October” - Volker Rieß: The beginnings of the destruction of 'life unworthy of living' ..., p. 304, writes “possibly still mandatory October 9th ".
  3. ↑ Date “Morning of October 13th” by Volker Riess: The beginnings of destruction 'life unworthy of life' ..., p. 306. - Date “12. December “from Peter Longerich: Heinrich Himmler. Biography. Munich 2008, ISBN 978-3-88680-859-5 , p. 446.
  4. ^ Ernst Klee: The dictionary of persons on the Third Reich. Update Edition Frankfurt / M. 2005, p. 660 / at deathcamps: Heilanstalt Owinska and Poznan Fort VII is given June / July 1940.
  5. ↑ Volker Rieß: The beginnings of the destruction of 'life unworthy of life' ..., p. 295/296.
  6. ↑ death camps: Owinska Sanatorium and Poznan Fort VII / SS guards in Fort VII (called on January 21, 2001)
  7. ↑ Michael Alberti: 'Parade ground of National Socialism' - Der Reichsgau Wartheland 1939–1941. In: Klaus-Michael Mallmann / Bogdan Musial (ed.): Genesis des Genozids - Poland 1939–1941. Darmstadt 2004, ISBN 3-534-18096-8 , p. 114.
  8. ↑ Volker Rieß: The beginnings of destruction 'life unworthy of life ..., p. 295/296.
  9. ↑ death camps: hospital Owinska and Poznan Fort VII (polling on February 3, 2011).
  10. ↑ Volker Rieß: The beginnings of the destruction 'life unworthy of life' ..., p. 304, states “possibly before October 9th”.
  11. ↑ While Volker Riess assumes Becker's presence in Fort VII as certain, Astrid Ley says “possibly with participation” : The beginning of the Nazi murder of the sick in Brandenburg an der Havel. In: Zeitschrift für Geschichtswwissenschaft 58 (2010), p. 327.
  12. ↑ Date December 13th by Volker Riess: The beginnings of the destruction 'life unworthy of life' ..., p. 306 / Date December 12th by Peter Longerich: Heinrich Himmler. Biography. Munich 2008, ISBN 978-3-88680-859-5 , p. 446.
  13. ↑ Formulation "is not excluded" in Michael Alberti: The persecution and extermination of Jews in Reichsgau Wartheland 1939–1945. Wiesbaden 2006, ISBN 3-447-05167-1 , p. 326. Presented as a fact by Volker Rieß: Central and decentralized radicalization. The killings of 'unworthy life' in the annexed western and northern Polish areas 1939–1941. In: Klaus-Michael Mallmann / Bogdan Musial (ed.): Genesis den Genozids - Poland 1939–1941. Darmstadt 2004, ISBN 3-534-18096-8 , p. 135.
  14. ↑ Volker Rieß: The beginnings of destruction 'life unworthy of life' ..., pp. 305–309.
  15. ↑ gelsenzentrum ( accessed on February 3, 2011) with reference to the original version: Tadeusz Nasierowski: In the Abyss of Death: The Extermination of the Mentally Ill in Poland During World War II . In: International Journal of Mental Health 35 (2006) H. 3, pp. 50-61 / "approximately 250 to 300 sick people" by Zdzislaw Jaroszewski (Ed.): The murder of the mentally ill in Poland 1939-1945 . Warsaw 1993, p. 83.
  16. ↑ Zdzislaw Jaroszewski (ed.): The murder of the mentally ill ... , p. 85.
  17. ^ Astrid Ley: The beginning of the Nazi murder in Brandenburg on the Havel. In: ZfG 64 (2010), p. 327 / also with Michael Alberti: 'Parade ground of National Socialism' - Der Reichsgau Wartheland 1939-1941. In: Klaus-Michael Mallmann / Bogdan Musial (ed.): Genesis den Genozids - Poland 1939–1941 . Darmstadt 2004, ISBN 3-534-18096-8 , p. 121.
  18. ↑ Volker Rieß: The beginnings of the destruction of 'life unworthy of life' ... , p. 358.
  19. ↑ Ernst Klee: 'Euthanasia' in the Third Reich. Complete revised Edition Frankfurt / M. 2010. ISBN 978-3-596-18674-7 , p. 111 / Personal data from Ernst Klee: Das Personenlexikon zum Third Reich. Actual Edition Frankfurt / M. 2005, ISBN 3-596-16048-0 , p. 569.
  20. ↑ Zdzislaw Jaroszewski (ed.): The murder of the mentally ill in Poland 1939 - 1945 / Zaglada chorych psychicznie w Polsce 1939 - 1945. Warsaw 1993, ISBN 978-3-926200-94-5 , pp. 15-17.
  21. ↑ Volker Rieß: Central and decentralized radicalization. The killings of 'unworthy life' in the annexed western and northern Polish areas 1939–1941 . In: Klaus-Michael Mallmann / Bogdan Musial (ed.): Genesis den Genozids - Poland 1939–1941 . Darmstadt 2004, ISBN 3-534-18096-8 , p. 139.


Coordinates: 52 ° 25 ′ 1 ″  N , 16 ° 52 ′ 5 ″  E