Langer Gang Memorial

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Langer Gang Memorial
Row of graves from the end of the war

The Langer Gang memorial is an architectural monument in Schwarzenbach an der Saale that commemorates the victims of National Socialism .

The memorial is located in the immediate vicinity of the train station. It commemorates the victims of the Helmbrechts subcamp of the Flossenbürg concentration camp , in particular the death march from Helmbrechts to Volary . Many of the women involved in the march died on the way. The building that now serves as a memorial was one of the quarters. In 1999, Ludwig Mertel processed, among other things, recordings from the American military authorities into documentation. The memorial was opened in 2004 and is looked after by the Association against Forgetting . It is open on the first Sunday of each month and by prior arrangement.

The Helmbrechts satellite camp was evacuated on April 13, 1945 because of the approaching American troops. 1170 women and girls reached Schwarzenbach an der Saale that evening. The march via Rehau, Neuhausen , Zwodau to Volary cost at least 147 women their lives. They died of exhaustion, illness or were murdered by the guards. After a distance of 200 kilometers, the march was stopped by the Americans on May 4, 1945 in Volary.

The six women who died in the village are buried in the Schwarzenbach an der Saale cemetery.They do not have their own tombstone, but it is known that the graves are in the row of tombstones from the time the war ended. The row of graves is at the far edge of the cemetery next to the undertaker's house. There is also the grave of a forced laborer and the grave of KPD member Hans Grüner, who survived ten years at Dachau and Mauthausen concentration camps but died in April 1946.

The camp leader was SS Untererscharführer Alois Dörr , who exercised brutal rule. In 1969 he had to answer for murder in 217 cases before the jury court in Hof . During the death march alone, 59 prisoners died on his orders or were shot himself. He was sentenced to life imprisonment, but was released in 1979 due to a pardon from the Bavarian Prime Minister Alfons Goppel .

literature

  • Daniel Jonah Goldhagen: Hitler's willing executors . Siedler Verlag, 1996. S. 389ff.
  • Lisa Hain: The appearance of normality - forms of memory of former subcamps of the Flossenbürg concentration camp . In: Archive for the history of Upper Franconia , 97th volume. Bayreuth 2017. pp. 342-345.
  • Ekkehard Hübschmann : The Helmbrechts subcamp and the death march to Wallern and Prachatitz . In: history across . Journal of the history workshops in Bavaria, issue 13, 2006. p. 35.
  • Ekkehard Hübschmann: The memorial and memorial "Langer Gang" . In: history across . Journal of the history workshops in Bavaria, issue 13, 2006. p. 63.
  • Klaus Rauh: Helmbrechts - satellite camp of the Flossenbürg concentration camp . Technical work at the Gymnasium Münchberg , 1994. Also in: Miscellanea curiensia. Report of the North Upper Franconian Association for Nature, History and Regional Studies eV Hof 2003. P. 117–149.
  • Harald Werder: 30 square meters of history . In: Department Hofer Land . Frankenpost, Hof January 6, 2009 ( PDF [accessed December 29, 2009]).

Web links

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

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ District Association of Upper Franconia of the Volksbund Deutsche Kriegsgräberfürsorge eV (ed.): War graves in Upper Franconia . Bayreuth 1985. p. 31.
  2. ↑ Peter Engelbrecht: The war is over. Spring 1945 in Upper Franconia . Späthling, Weißenstadt 2015, ISBN 978-3-942668-23-1 , pp. 82 .
  3. ↑ Peter Engelbrecht, op. Cit. , P. 84

Coordinates: 50 ° 13 '17.3 "  N , 11 ° 56' 8.4"  E