Birkhahn subcamp
The Birkhahn subcamp was a subcamp of the Buchenwald concentration camp . It consisted of 1 August 1944 to the dissolution of the camp on March 31, 1945. The camp was located in later after Hall eingemeindeten place Mötzlich near the Goldbergs .
History of the satellite concentration camp
In 1917 one of the largest German military airfields was opened with the airfield Mötzig . The main plant of Siebel Flugzeugwerke was built on this site in 1934 .
The barracks on the Goldberg used for the subcamp were built in the 1930s for the Reich Labor Service as part of the construction of the motorway .
During the Second World War, mainly Junkers aircraft were built under license in the Siebel aircraft factory. From the summer of 1944, more than a thousand prisoners from Poland , Czechoslovakia , the Soviet Union , France , the Netherlands and other nations had to do forced labor in the Siebel factory in Halle .
On July 30, 1944, 525 prisoners were transported from Buchenwald to Halle and initially housed on the factory premises. After a heavy bombing raid on the plant on August 16, 1944, in which several production halls burned down and at least three prisoners were killed, the barracks on the Goldberg were converted into a concentration camp sub-camp. On September 2, a second transport from Buchenwald with 500 prisoners arrived in Halle. At the end of September 1944 the maximum number of 1025 prisoners was reached. There were 940 prisoners on November 1st and 637 on December 1st. At the beginning of January 1945, a second sub-camp was set up in Annaburg, where part of the Siebel-Werke was located. 100 prisoners from Halle came there. At the beginning of February 1945, the prisoners' work at the Siebel plant in Halle ended due to the massive drop in orders. After 530 prisoners were transported back to the Buchenwald concentration camp on March 9, 1945, only a few prisoners remained in Halle until the external camp was finally dissolved. The concentration camp external command in Annaburg was dissolved at the same time.
From the end of September 1944, the head of the concentration camp external command was SS-Hauptscharführer Franz Noll, his predecessor was SS-Unterscharführer Johann Plicht.
Work-up
The central office of the state justice administrations for the investigation of National Socialist crimes in Ludwigsburg investigated the hanging of two prisoners in the Birkhahn subcamp against its commandant at the time, SS-Unterscharfuhrer Johann Plicht. The investigators found eight survivors from the subcamp between 1969 and 1972. A survivor was able to draw up a sketch of the camp. Several former inmates testified to the two deaths. Another inmate is said to have been shot while trying to escape.
A processing of the Birkhahn satellite camp in Halle did not take place after the Second World War, in the GDR or in the Federal Republic until the beginning of the 2000s. In 2003, as part of an exhibition in the Halle City Museum , the history of the forced laborers and the warehouse in Halle was presented for the first time.
Research by the hobby historian Albert Osterloh, taken up by the journalist Nico Wingert, brought the forgotten subcamp in Halle near the city and its citizens back into consciousness in the spring of 2008. The city of Halle then stepped up the process and, in cooperation with the Zeit-Geschichte (n) association, initiated the development of a publication, the second edition of which has been available since 2012.
At the beginning of 2009, a memorial stone in the form of a sculpture was dedicated to the forced laborers in Halle's Frohe Zukunft district .
Today, on the site of the former satellite camp, on which there were at least six concentration camp barracks and accommodation for the guards at around 500 by 500 meters , there is fallow land and a building material storage area of the Halle road construction office.
literature
- Udo Grashoff : The forgotten camp: A documentation on the external command of the Buchenwald concentration camp in Halle / Saale 1944/45. Hasenverlag, Halle 2010, ISBN 978-3-939468-33-2
- Siebel-Flugzeugwerke Halle (1934–1946). Issue 9 (IG Aviation History in the Aviation Association of Saxony-Anhalt eV, n. D.).
- List of places of detention under the Reichsführer-SS (1933–1945): Concentration camps and their external commandos as well as other places of detention under the Reichsführer SS in Germany and German-occupied areas. Volume 1 (Arolson: The Tracing Service, 1979)
Documents
- Bundesarchiv NS 4, Records of the Buchenwald Concentration Camp, Volumes 8, 31, 54, 55, 176–185 and 196 (copies at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum under RG-14.023M)
- Transport lists of Archives Nationales (France) , Ministère des anciens combattants et victimes de guerre, Acc. 1998.A.0045, 7 and 16
Web links
- Terror under the swastika - places of remembrance in Lower Saxony and Saxony-Anhalt (PDF; 394 kB), a study commissioned by the Otto Brenner Foundation
- Christine van der Zanden: The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Encyclopedia of Camps and Ghettos, 1933–1945
- Forced labor - normal everyday life in Halle (Saale)
Individual evidence
- ↑ Udo Grashoff (Ed.): The forgotten camp. A documentation on the external commendation of the Buchenwald concentration camp in Halle / Saale in 1944/45. Hasenverlag, Halle 2011.
- ↑ Official website of Leipzig / Halle Airport ( Memento of the original from January 13, 2011 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. , Accessed November 28, 2011.
- ↑ The Place of Terror: History of the National Socialist Concentration Camps
- ↑ Investigation documents on AZ IV 429 / AR 1947/66.
- ^ Concentration camp Halle - The repressed past In: Stern.de of January 27, 2008.
Coordinates: 51 ° 30 ′ 15 ″ N , 12 ° 0 ′ 39 ″ E