Friedrichshafen subcamp

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The Friedrichshafen satellite camp was a satellite camp of the Dachau concentration camp and existed in Friedrichshafen from June 22, 1943 to September 26, 1944 . The individual parts of unit 4 , which are believed to have produced up to 1200 prisoners in the subcamp ; a missile that became known under the propaganda name "Retaliation Weapon 2" .

history

Station 8.7 of the Friedrichshafen history trail at the acceptance point in Raderach
Station 8.8 of the Friedrichshafen History Trail

Against the background of problems with the development of the unit 4 in the Peenemünde Army Research Center , Walter Dornberger , head of the missile department of the Army Armed Forces Office, and Wernher von Braun , technical director in Peenemünde, contacted Luftschiffbau Zeppelin in Friedrichshafen in September 1941 . From April 1942 there was a branch of the Army Research Institute in Friedrichshafen, which was supposed to coordinate the production of individual parts and the final assembly of the rocket in Friedrichshafen. From May 1942, a collection point was built near Oberraderach , today a district of Friedrichshafen, by German construction workers, prisoners of war and forced labor . To test the rocket motors, an oxygen system, three test stands, an electricity plant and a water pipe to neighboring Immenstaad were built . In August 1943, the Reichsführer of the SS, Heinrich Himmler , assumed responsibility for the A4 program. In the period that followed, concentration camp prisoners were increasingly used for rocket production.

As early as June 1943, an advance detachment of around 100 concentration camp prisoners had arrived in Friedrichshafen. The pre-detachment set up the satellite camp, for which part of the existing forced labor camp “Don” was delimited. Six accommodation barracks, a sanitary barrack and a barrack used as a kitchen and infirmary were built on the site directly next to the Zeppelin shipyard. The subcamp was secured with electrically charged barbed wire, floodlights and spotlights.

According to the Zeppelin-Werke annual report, there were 1,202 concentration camp prisoners in Friedrichshafen on December 31, 1943. Estimates of prisoners in post-war testimony range from 500 to 800 prisoners. A prisoner list from September 25, 1944 includes 762 prisoners, the majority of whom are Germans, Russians and Poles. The prisoners worked in the zeppelin factory producing rocket parts. Zeppelin concentration camp prisoners were employed exclusively in airship construction. The statement that the companies Zahnradfabrik AG, Balluf & Springer Aluminumwerk und Apparatebau, Reichsbahnausbesserungswerk, Maybach Motorenbau GmbH and Dornier Werke employed concentration camp prisoners, is based on an error in the closing note of the investigation files of April 13, 1973 against the camp leader Georg Grünberg of the concentration camp -Bearing back. What was overlooked in the final note was that in the ITS Arolsen publication the name CCKdo. of Dachau and CWC do not mean the same thing. Under CWC as a Civilian Workers Camp, the above were Companies listed in Arolsen, which means that they only operated camps for civilian workers. The concentration camp prisoners built a bunker for the SS guards, cleared away debris after air raids and defused duds . Up to 300 prisoners were taken to Raderach on the Teuringertal Railway and worked there on the inspection site. As punishment for special incidents in the subcamp, the prisoners had to march to Raderach on foot in wooden shoes.

The guards consisted of SS members; From September 1943, the camp leader was SS-Untersturmführer Georg Grünberg, who had previously headed the training company in Auschwitz for a year. Prisoners from the pre-detachment reported that they were initially well housed and adequately fed, which deteriorated after the camp was completed. The contact between two prisoners and female forced laborers in the adjoining camp ended with 20 blows of the stick each and their transfer to the Buchenwald concentration camp .

As the center of the armaments industry of the National Socialist German Reich , Friedrichshafen was the target of Allied air raids, during which the concentration camp prisoners were not allowed to go to the air raid shelter. Seven out of eleven air raids on Friedrichshafen hit the satellite camp. An attack on April 27 and 28, 1944 destroyed a large part of the subcamp, and another on July 20 destroyed almost all of the city's industrial plants. The number of prisoners killed in Friedrichshafen is uncertain. 40 prisoners are known by name, 31 of whom died in the air raids. According to documents from the International Tracing Service of the Red Cross , the air strikes in April 89 and in July 72 prisoners died. According to other sources, at least 176 prisoners died as a result of the air strikes. According to reports from surviving inmates, there were attempts to escape during the attacks; two Polish prisoners are said to have escaped in April 1944; in the attack in July, two Russian prisoners were shot while trying to escape. During the later air raids, the concentration camp prisoners were guarded by dogs and held in a ravine near the satellite camp.

After the air raids, the production of rocket parts in Friedrichshafen came to a standstill. Some of the prisoners were apparently temporarily taken to a camp near Raderach near the collection point, which previously served as accommodation for prisoners of war and construction workers. Before that, they had been housed outdoors for two weeks in the grounds of the subcamp. The Friedrichshafen satellite camp was officially closed on September 25, 1944.

Some of the prisoners were transferred via the Buchenwald concentration camp to the Kleinbodungen subcamp of the Mittelbau-Dora concentration camp , where unit 4 was assembled underground or serviced in the Kleinbodungen subcamp. Other prisoners came to the Saulgau subcamp , which was created in August 1943 when armaments production was relocated from Friedrichshafen. Other prisoners were transferred to the Überlingen-Aufkirch satellite camp and were used there to build a tunnel system into which Friedrichshafen companies were to be relocated.

After the liberation , the temporarily repaired barracks of the subcamp were temporarily used by refugees and displaced persons. Later on, blocks of flats were built on the site for family members of the French garrison in Friedrichshafen, which are used as social housing after the French armed forces withdrew in 1992.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Christa Tholander: Friedrichshafen. In: Wolfgang Benz, Barbara Distel (eds.): The place of terror. History of the National Socialist Concentration Camps , Volume 2, Munich 2005, p. 328 f.
  2. ↑ Central office of the state justice administrations for the investigation of National Socialist crimes , Ludwigsburg - IV 410 AR-Z 25/71 -.
  3. ^ ITS Arolsen First Issue, Arolsen, July 1949, p. 187 and Volume II, Arolsen, April 1950, p. 27.
  4. ↑ Christa Tholander: Foreign workers 1939 to 1945. Foreign workers in the Zeppelin city of Friedrichshafen. Klartext, Essen 2001, ISBN 3-89861-017-9 , pp. 171, 175.
  5. ↑ a b http://www.keom.de/denkmal/suche_lager_anzeig.php?lager_id%5B%5D=372&submit.x=74&submit.y=3&submit=auswaehlen#texte/abk.html phis-dead link | date = 2018 -04 | archivebot = 2018-04-18 11:19:45 InternetArchiveBot | url = http: //www.keom.de/denkmal/suche_lager_anzeig.php? Lager_id% 5B% 5D = 372 & submit.x = 74 & submit.y = 3 & submit = select}} Entry on the Friedrichshafen subcamp near Germany - a memorial (link no longer available, January 3, 2012).
  6. ↑ Tholander, Friedrichshafen. , P. 329f.
  7. ↑ Tholander, foreign workers , S. 202nd
  8. ↑ position of the bearing Raderach according to the information in www.v2werk-oberraderach.de: 47 ° 41 '53.3 "  N , 9 ° 26' 9.5"  O
  9. ↑ Tholander, Friedrichshafen. , P. 330.
  10. ↑ Tholander, foreign workers , S. 175th
  11. ^ Jens Christian Wagner: Kleinbodungen satellite camp. In: Wolfgang Benz, Barbara Distel (eds.): The place of terror. History of the National Socialist Concentration Camps. Volume 7: Niederhagen / Wewelsburg, Lublin-Majdanek, Arbeitsdorf, Herzogenbusch (Vught), Bergen-Belsen, Mittelbau-Dora. CH Beck, Munich 2008, ISBN 978-3-406-52967-2 , p. 316 f.

Coordinates: 47 ° 39 ′ 40 ″  N , 9 ° 27 ′ 46 ″  E