Gudendorf Memorial

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Gudendorf Memorial

The Gudendorf memorial ( Dithmarschen district , Schleswig-Holstein ) is intended to commemorate Soviet prisoners of war and forced laborers who perished in a camp here during the Second World War . The memorial is located within the Klev landscape protection area from Windbergen to St. Michaelisdonn .

history

Soviet prisoners of war arrived in Schleswig-Holstein in a deplorable condition because they were insufficiently fed. Shortly after the attack by Nazi Germany on the Soviet Union in 1941, a prison camp for Soviet prisoners of war was established in Gudendorf . Barracks that housed the Soviet prisoners of war were located on today's Schulstrasse on an area of ​​around one hectare. The warehouse belonged to the STALAG (main warehouse ) XA Schleswig . In addition, barracks were set up on the road to St. Michaelisdonn near Hindorf, which were supposed to serve as an "epidemic area". Part of the site also served as a military training camp.

In April 1944, the Stalag X Az "Extended Infirmary" , which had been in Kaltenkirchen-Heidkaten since 1941, was relocated to Gudendorf in the area of ​​what is now Schulstrasse for unfit and sick Soviet prisoners of war.

Little is known about the exact conditions under which the prisoners had to live and work. Gerhard Hoch had characterized the predecessor camp Heidkaten as a death camp. According to recent research, this can no longer be sustained. According to estimates from the 1950s, 3,000 Soviet prisoners of war are believed to have died in Gudendorf in 1944 and 1945. The historian Martin Gietzelt, on the other hand, was able to identify 46 deceased after an evaluation of the personal cards; he reckons with "less than a hundred deaths".

After the end of the war, the site served as a reception camp for young people from eastern Germany, as a reserve hospital and as a civilian facility for the Süderdithmarschen district hospital, before the first memorial site was set up in 1946.

layout

Gudendorf memorial / memorial detail

The memorial for the dead of Gudendorf and for another 228 deceased, who can be found in other camps and the like. a. from Eggebek had moved here, was built in 1960/61 on the initiative of the district of Süderdithmarschen by the Kiel landscape gardener Hans-Erik Brodersen and the sculptor Siegfried Assmann from Großhansdorf and replaced a smaller complex from 1946. It was completed in spring 1961.

In the center is a 11-meter-high concrete column, a bronze sculpture located in the recess that the dead boatman Charon is from Greek mythology, who with his boat a grieving mother with her dead son on the Acheron -flow to the input of Hades drives . The direction of travel of the boat leads directly to the visitors when they approach the memorial.

Burial grounds

The three symbolic grave fields with their stone rings are reminiscent of the camp fenced in with barbed wire. The first grave field is dedicated to the memory of the dead who lie in mass graves of the sand dunes that are not marked any further. The names of these dead are almost all unknown.

In 1961, 248 Soviet dead (prisoners of war and forced labor) were buried in the other two grave fields by relocating cemeteries in Schleswig-Holstein.

Commemoration

In 1983 a group of people from the anti-fascist and peace movements was founded, called Initiative Flowers for Gudendorf . Every year around May 8th, the initiative organizes a reminder and commemoration event at the Gudendorfer Ehrenfriedhof to commemorate the dead, the crimes of the Nazi regime and as a call for peace and international understanding.

swell

  1. ↑ Gerhard Hoch. Heidkaten extended infirmary. In: HOCH, Gerhard; SCHWARZ, Rolf (ed.): Deported to slave labor. Prisoners of war and forced laborers in Schleswig-Holstein. Alveslohe 1985.78; Hoch had in an unreleased
  2. ↑ Thomas Tschirner: "Small fish" -. The fate of Soviet prisoners of war in Schleswig-Holstein. A regional study based on personal cards of the Soviet prisoners of war who died in the "Extended Heidkaten Hospital". Examination work Kiel 2011, 55, 62-68. Online: http://www.zwangsarbeiter-sh.de/Erresult/Tschirner/Sowjetische%20Kriegsgefangene%20in%20S-H.pdf
  3. ↑ Uwe Danker , Astrid Schwabe: Schleswig-Holstein and National Socialism , Neumünster 2005, p. 139.
  4. ↑ Martin Gietzelt: The Gudendorf Memorial - From the difficulty to remember. In: Katja Köhr, Hauke ​​Petersen, Karl-Heinrich Pohl (eds.): Memorial sites and cultures of remembrance in Schleswig-Holstein. History, present, future. Berlin 2011, 81; Martin Gietzelt, The Gudendorf Memorial, “Dithmarschen”, New Research Results. Heide, issue 3/2004, 58-80; Martin Gietzelt: The camp and the Gudendorf memorial. Study on the state of research. In: Working group for research into National Socialism in Schleswig-Holstein e. V. (AKENS) (ed.). Critical approaches to National Socialism in Northern Germany. Festschrift for Gerhard Hoch on his 80th birthday on March 21, 2003. Information on Schleswig-Holstein Contemporary History 41/42 (2003) 330–353
  • Information sign at the entrance to the memorial
  • Dithmarschen magazine, issue 1/1996: Gudendorf: prison camp and memorial
  • Dithmarschen magazine, issue 3/2004: Martin Gietzelt: The Gudendorf Memorial. New research results

Web links

Commons : Gudendorf Memorial  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Coordinates: 54 ° 1 ′ 6.5 ″  N , 9 ° 6 ′ 17 ″  E