Hildesheim subcamp

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The Hildesheim satellite camp was an external unit of the Neuengamme concentration camp . It was created to repair the damage caused by an Allied air raid on February 22, 1945 and existed from March 2, 1945 to March 26, 1945.

The marshalling yard in Hildesheim was completely destroyed by the bombing. A few days after the bombing in Neuengamme, the SS therefore sent 500 Jewish concentration camp prisoners, most of them from Hungary , to the city. They were locked in two halls on the first floor of the Hildesheim town hall (the converted Dominican church ), where they had to spend the night on a 30 cm thick layer of straw. The command leader was Hauptsturmführer Otto Thümmel , who had come to the SS from the Wehrmacht and who had already headed several satellite camps and commandos.

The prisoners in the town hall were guarded by a small SS guard. On their way to the freight yard, which ran right through the city center, and at work, they were supervised by members of the Hildesheim Volkssturm , who mistreated the prisoners several times.

The inmates were assigned eleven hours a day, including Saturday and Sunday, to clean up the station premises. Since railway wagons were destroyed in the bombings, there was, in addition to the risk of injury from sharp-edged objects and exploding duds, the chance of getting something edible out of the bombed railway wagons. However, most of the prisoners were so weak that they could not work and had to go to the sick bay. When another air raid on Hildesheim took place on March 22nd, the town hall was destroyed in addition to the main and freight depot. As a result, the camp, which had meanwhile been set up outdoors, was disbanded. About 200 to 250 prisoners reached the Stöcken satellite camp in Hanover after a three-day walk , which was also subordinate to the Neuengamme concentration camp. Eventually they were transferred to the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, where they were liberated by British troops in mid-April .

War crimes

Command leader Thümmel was sentenced to five years imprisonment for his crimes in the Wilhelmshaven satellite camp. In the case of the Volkssturm in Hildesheim, which was assigned to guard, the Volkssturmmann Heinrich Dettmer stood out for his particular brutality. He was sentenced to five years imprisonment by the Hanover Military Court in August 1946.

literature

  • Marc Buggeln: Hildesheim. In: Wolfgang Benz , Barbara Distel (eds.): The place of terror . History of the National Socialist Concentration Camps. Volume 5: Hinzert, Auschwitz, Neuengamme. CH Beck, Munich 2007, ISBN 978-3-406-52965-8 , p. 453 ff.
  • Kathrin Clausing: The camp on the doorstep - concentration camp inmates in the Hildesheim subcamp. In: Hildesheim yearbook for the city and monastery of Hildesheim. Vol. 76, 2004, ISSN  0944-3045 , pp. 165-186.

Web links

Coordinates: 52 ° 9 ′ 25.2 ″  N , 9 ° 56 ′ 38.4 ″  E