Hessental death march
The Hessental Death March was a death march by concentration camp prisoners as part of the evacuation of the Hessental and Kochendorf concentration camps in April 1945, which claimed numerous victims due to hunger, illness, exhaustion, mistreatment and murder.
When American troops had crossed the Rhine in April 1945 and advanced to northern Württemberg, preparations began for the evacuation of the concentration camp in the Schwäbisch Hall district of Hessental . After April 3, participants in the Death March from KZ Kochendorf arrived in the camp, the evacuation began on April 5 under the command of SS - Untersturmfiihrer Heinrich Wicker. The prisoners were first loaded into railroad cars that were attached to a passenger train to Crailsheim . However, in what is now the Schwäbisch Hall suburb of Sulzdorf , the latter got caught in an American low-flying attack that seriously damaged the locomotive. The total of about 700 prisoners were therefore herded on foot in two columns. 17 people fell victim to the air strike or were shot by the guards because they attempted to escape or were unable to march. Brutal mistreatment, arbitrary murders, executions of incapacitated prisoners, and deaths from starvation and exhaustion continued throughout the march and are supported by a wealth of eyewitness accounts. Individual prisoners managed to escape, and some tried to help witnesses of the event. The march led via Bühlertann and Rosenberg to Ellwangen (April 6). 27 prisoners left behind were shot on April 7th in the sand pit of Dalkingen . The march continued via Neunheim , where the SS murdered at least 23 prisoners, to Röhlingen , Zöbingen - where 42 dead remained - and Wallerstein to Nördlingen , from where the survivors were transported by train to Karlsfeld near Munich . On April 11, they were unloaded there and had to walk to the Allach subcamp of the Dachau concentration camp . They probably arrived here on April 14th and 15th, 1945. Some of the prisoners were deported further towards the Alps and were only released there on April 30th by the Americans. Estimates of the total number of victims vary between 50 and 300, the most likely number being 150 to 200. Heinrich Wicker was probably shot by US soldiers after Dachau was occupied. There are several monuments along the route to commemorate the victims of the death march.
Other death marches by concentration camp prisoners that touched the Schwäbisch Hall and Hohenlohe region were the Kochendorfer death march and the Neckarelzer death march .
literature
- Michael S. Koziol : Armaments, War and Slavery. The Schwäbisch Hall-Hessental Air Base and the Concentration Camp (Research from Württembergisch Franken, Vol. 27), Sigmaringen 1986, ISBN 3-7995-7626-6 .
- Folker Förtsch, Siegfried Hubele : Schwäbisch Hall-Hessental Concentration Camp Memorial, Schwäbisch Hall 2001 (available from the Hessental Concentration Camp Memorial eV initiative )
- Shot and buried. Memorial stone to the victims of the Hessental death march in Dalkingen 1945. Published by the State Center for Civic Education Baden-Württemberg, Stuttgart 1994.
Single receipts
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↑ Inscription on the monument near Rosenberg:
Hessental - Allach / Dachau
Death march of the concentration camp prisoners in April 1945 Hundreds of prisoners marched
on this road in the direction of Wallerstein and further towards the labor camps in Dachau and Allach. Many did not survive the hardships and torments.