Camp Marcus W. Orr
The Camp Marcus W. Orr , somewhat misleading as storage Glasbach called, was one of the United States Army decorated Austrian internment . It was not located in Glasenbach , but to the left (west) of the Salzach and south of the city center and the Alpine settlement of Salzburg near today's Ginzkeyplatz, Hans-Webersdorfer- and Karl-Emminger-Strasse.
The name Marcus W. Orr goes back to the last US soldier of the "42nd Rainbow Infantry Division" who was seriously wounded in World War II. He was seriously injured in combat operations in Bavaria and was dependent on a wheelchair. After the war, he studied history at Yale and later became a professor at Memphis State University . Orr died in Memphis, Tennessee in 1990.
history
The area of the later camp was purchased by the German Wehrmacht in December 1940 from the Reich Treasury. In 1941 the construction of makeshift shelters and several motor vehicle and pioneer boat halls for the Gebirgsjäger replacement battalion 82 began. However, the work was carried out to a very limited extent due to the development of the war.
In autumn 1945 the US Army converted the facilities into the "Camp W. Marcus Orr" and there collected inmates from several smaller camps in Upper Austria and the SS camp in Hallein (end of 1946). Initially, the camp also served as a Wehrmacht discharge point, where former German soldiers were checked for their Nazi past. According to the “ automatic arrest regulations ”, not only NSDAP members (e.g. Franz Langoth , Heinrichsequence , Eduard Pernkopf , Walter Hellmich ) but also sympathizers of the NSDAP, even those without NSDAP membership, were to be detained. In addition to ordinary soldiers, leading Nazi members ( Albert Kesselring , Lothar Rendulic ) and war criminals (e.g. Walter Reder , Franz Stangl , Anton Burger ) were housed here.
There were between 6,000 and 8,000 inmates in the camp, including up to 500 women. Up to the dissolution and handover to the Austrian authorities in August 1947, around 30,000 people were imprisoned here. The maximum number of internees was reached in January 1947 with 8051 men and women.
On October 15, 1946, General Dwight D. Eisenhower visited the camp.
At the end of 1946, the American guards were replaced by the Austrian gendarmerie. Well known in camp life is St. Joseph's Day 1947 (March 19), on which there was a riot with an exchange of fire on the occasion of an imminent transfer of prisoners to Dachau for Nazi trials in Compound VII. This could be ended by the use of firearms by the Austrian gendarmerie. But there were also extensive concessions by Colonel Wooten. As a result, the former SS-Sturmbannführer Felix Rinner was appointed camp manager, the obligation to greet people was abolished, the barbed wire fences were partially removed, and the Austrian prisoners were made subject to Austrian law. It was also enforced that the time spent in the camp should be offset against a possible prison sentence. In addition, prisoner trips from Glasenbach and visits with American escorts took place.
From the spring of 1947 the prisoners were continuously handed over to the Austrian authorities for further prosecution according to the prohibition or war crimes law (around 400 people) or for their release. On August 5, 1947, the internment camp, which was officially closed on August 1, 1947, was handed over to the Austrian Interior Minister Oskar Helmer by Major General Harry J. Collins as part of a ceremony . The last internees left the camp on January 6, 1948. A group of 21 war criminals who were still under the supervision of the American authorities were transferred to the Salzburg Regional Court. But it was not until September 9, 1953 that the American armed forces stationed in Austria ( USFA ) finally cleared the Glasenbach camp, in which they had been renting a fenced-in area for storage purposes since the end of 1947. After that, the barracks served as refugee camps until the 1950s.
Camp life
The camp was divided into various subdivisions, so-called compounds, which were separated by barbed wire fences. Compounds Ia and Ib were intended for war criminals, II and III for internees in general, IV was a prison camp, V was the celebrity camp, VI was intended for women, and VII was primarily intended for members of the SS .
Right from the start, the detainees were given a security service (camp police). The compounds were also free to choose leaders (barracks leaders). From the rank of train conductor there was additional catering. Violations of internal camp discipline were also regulated internally. This created structures that were diametrically opposed to the idea of re-education . Also denazification efforts were not actively made, but these were limited to interviews and filling out questionnaires to heavy loaded filter out.
The internees were evidently well looked after at the time when the Austrian civilian population was starving: in addition to the surrounding farmers, relatives also brought significant amounts of food and alcohol into the camp. This led to protests by the Salzburg concentration camp association . There was also continuous contact between the camp inmates and the outside world. In addition, the US Counterintelligence Corps (CIC) employed former National Socialists as civilian employees, which further intensified the exchange of letters. There were also attempts to escape and actual escapes (e.g. in 1947 by Anton Burger , the Nazi camp commandant of the Theresienstadt ghetto , on the occasion of his imminent extradition to Czechoslovakia)
A number of leisure activities were offered: There was a choir made up of members of the Salzburg Liedertafel , the guild of Glasenbach stone cutters, who were artistically active, also came into being, two films were shown every week, lectures, courses and theater were permitted.
Political references
Some of the prisoners joined together in 1957 after their release to form a Glasenbach charity, which held up a glorifying memory of their imprisonment through joint activities (federal meeting, publication of the notifications of the Glasenbach charity ). This association is classified by the DÖW as right-wing extremist.
Some of the former inmates of the camp, the "Glasenbachers", are considered to be the founders of the right-wing Third Camp in Austrian politics after the Second World War ( Association of Independents , later: Freedom Party of Austria ).
The last structural remains of the camp consist of a few halls that are now used commercially by various landowners. In one of them, a furniture store sells garden furniture in summer. In 2016 the last barracks disappeared in favor of a modern development; structurally, nothing today reminds of the former warehouse.
literature
- Wilhelm Svoboda: The Salzburg internment camp Camp Marcus W. Orr - a critical digression. In: Hans Bayr et al. (Ed.): Salzburg 1945 - 1955. Destruction and reconstruction. Salzburger Museum Carolino Augusteum, Salzburg 1995, ISBN 3-901014-43-8 , pp. 121-132.
- Oskar Dohle, Peter Eigelsberger: Camp Marcus W. Orr - "Glasenbach" as an internment camp after 1945. Upper Austrian Provincial Archives, Linz 2009, ISBN 3-900313-98-9 .
Individual evidence
- ^ Marcus W. Orr Center for the Humanities
- ↑ Documentation archive of the Austrian Resistance: Welfare Association of the Glasenbacher ( Memento of the original from January 20, 2016 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.
Web links
- Glasenbach camp. in the Salzburgwiki
Coordinates: 47 ° 46 ′ 29.5 ″ N , 13 ° 4 ′ 14.5 ″ E