Porta Westfalica subcamp

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The memorial plaque for the Porta Westfalica satellite camp

The Porta Westfalica satellite camp was a satellite camp site of the Neuengamme concentration camp and consisted between March 1944 and April 1945 of two men's and two women's camps in today's districts of Barkhausen , Hausberge , Neesen and Vennebeck (at that time still independent municipalities in the Minden district ) East Westphalian town of Porta Westfalica in North Rhine-Westphalia .

history

In the Porta Westfalica , during the Second World War, so-called U-relocations of German industry were created in the old miner's tunnels to the left and right of the Weser . Production rooms were to be created there to better protect so-called war industries from Allied bombing.

A large part of the physically difficult expansion work was done by concentration camp inmates . Several satellite camps of the Neuengamme concentration camp were set up in the villages around Porta Westfalica. In the last months of the war, some prisoners were also used in the production that had started.

The Porta Westfalica satellite camp was managed by SS-Obersturmführer Hermann Wicklein, head of the base .

At the end of 2009 the association “Porta Westfalica Concentration Camp Memorial and Documentation Site” was founded.

The Porta

Machine hall of the relocated production facility DACHS 1

After the attacks on the German air force industry, the so-called Jägerstab was set up in 1944. This consisted of representatives from the War Ministry, the Wehrmacht, the armaments industry and the SS. Its task was to maximize the production of fighter aircraft and to protect the production facilities from attacks by the Allies. Following the example of the underground relocation of V-weapons production to the Kohnstein in the Harz Mountains, the relocation of production facilities underground was also planned here. In two respects decisive for the progress of the company was SS-Obergruppenführer Hans Kammler , who was entrusted with the construction management for the so-called U-relocations with their construction projects due to his position in the economic administration main office and the "successes" achieved at the expense of human life in the V2 relocation . SS Special Inspection I was established in Porta under the direction of SS-Sturmbannführer Dr. Bernhard von Glisczynski , she was responsible for a total of seven relocation projects.

The largest production area in Jakobsberg was allocated to the Ambi-Budd company from Berlin in order to set up a factory for aircraft parts. Shortly before completion, however, this was again reversed and Deurag-Nerag from Hanover was supposed to build a hydrogenation plant on a much larger area ( Dachs I ). This was related to the great damage to the German oil industry, which in turn was caused by large-scale Allied bombing raids in the summer of 1944.

Further production facilities were established in the upper tunnel system of Jakobsberg (Stöhr 1), below the Kaiser Wilhelm monument on the opposite side of the Weser (Stöhr 2), in the Weser tunnel near Dehme (toad) and in a tunnel system near Häverstädt / Dützen (silver fish) from Concentration camp prisoners expanded.

The extensions were carried out under the direction of SS Special Inspection I, but the practical implementation of the construction work was the responsibility of private companies that either already had experience with such large construction sites or were called in locally because of the spatial proximity.

While production was already taking place in the smaller tunnel systems at the end of the war, the Dachs I hydrogenation plant was only 90% completed.

Barkhausen

Hotel Kaiserhof

The first satellite camp of the Neuengamme concentration camp at Porta Westfalica was established in March 1944. On March 18, a transport of 250 prisoners from the Buchenwald concentration camp arrived. The camp was located in the ballroom of the Hotel Kaiserhof that had been confiscated by the SS . Around 1500 prisoners from 17 nations were housed here over the course of the year. These mainly worked on creating underground production facilities (underground relocation) for the armaments industry in Jakobsberg . The former hall was about 25 meters long, 15 meters wide and 5 meters high. It contained four-story rows of beds made of simple wooden frames and straw sacks, which quickly collapsed when subjected to heavy loads. One bed measured 1.80 × 0.70 meters and had to be occupied by 2 people. The building was fenced in with barbed wire and the windows were barred. The area was cordoned off by a chain of guards.

The housing conditions were inhuman in every way. The prisoners suffered from hunger, cold, catastrophic hygienic conditions, completely inadequate medical care and a brutal regime of guards and prison officials. Mostly heavy physical work had to be done in 12-hour shifts. Many of the prisoners, already weakened by malnutrition and disease, died. The treatment of the inmates was very brutal. They were beaten and kicked with iron bars and sticks to drive them to work, to punish them, or out of sheer arbitrariness. Some were killed in the beating. The camp was abandoned on April 1, 1945. The prisoners were brought to the Wöbbelin concentration camp via several intermediate stations , where the survivors were liberated on May 2, 1945. 74 Danish prisoners were released in March 1945 as part of the “Bernadotte Action” of the Swedish Red Cross.

Lerbeck / Neesen

Between September 1944 and April 1945 there was a concentration camp in the Neesen community that was subordinate to the Neuengamme concentration camp . The warehouse was built on the site of today's Weber concrete works. Until 1944, it produced almost exclusively for the special building projects in Porta Westfalica and the surrounding area. For the construction project in Jakobsberg, for example, the extremely high excavated tunnels had to be equipped with false ceilings made of reinforced concrete. The Weber company was commissioned with the production of these false ceilings, as the leading site manager for the SS construction project at the Porta, Government Councilor Wennign, considered Weber to be the most suitable for this assignment. The company Klöckner Flugmotorenbau GmbH, evacuated from Holland because of the threatening frontal situation, under the code name Company Bense & Co. BMW aircraft engines (type BMW 801 ), had them repaired by concentration camp inmates on the Weber site . The approximately 500 prisoners came from the Soviet Union, Poland, Czechoslovakia, France, Belgium, Holland, Greece, Yugoslavia and Denmark. About 300 of them had come from Auschwitz in December 1944 . On April 1, 1945, the concentration camp was evacuated due to the close proximity of the Allies and the prisoners were also transported to Wöbbelin in freight cars.

See also: Jakobsberg (Porta Westfalica)

Local mountains

From autumn 1944 to April 1945, predominantly Jews from Hungary and Holland who had already survived other concentration camps were interned in the camp on Hausberger Frettholzweg. From February 1945 they were used in the production of radio tubes for the ' Philips - Valvo -Röhrenwerke' in the hammer mills (camouflage name Stöhr 1). The prisoners came from the Auschwitz concentration camp, the Horneburg women's satellite camp of the Neuengamme concentration camp, and the Reichenbach women's satellite camp in the Owl Mountains of the Groß-Rosen concentration camp . From the beginning of October 1944 the company had prepared the upper tunnel of the Jakobsberg. With machines and production systems for the manufacture of Wehrmacht communications equipment, radio tubes and parts for controlling a remote control bomb were mainly produced. In March 1945 the camp was occupied by 967 women. In the medium term, the expansion for up to 4,000 inmates was planned. The women who were exposed to inhumane working and living conditions were taken by the z. Some of the female guards were badly mistreated. The camp was evacuated on April 1, 1945 and the prisoners sent via Bergen-Belsen and Beendorf towards Neuengamme. After a day-long journey, some of the women reached the Salzwedel satellite camp, while others reached the city of Hamburg. There they were liberated by US troops on April 14 and late April / early May. The death toll is still unknown.

Vennebeck

Little is known about the camp, which was set up in the Kohlmeier restaurant in Vennebeck in March 1945. Former prisoners report about 100 women who came to Vennebeck from the Ravensbrück concentration camp . These were imprisoned in the hall of the inn, but could no longer be forced to work due to the poor health of the prisoners and the rapidly approaching Allied troops. Deaths are also known here.

Web links

literature

  • Reinhold Blanke-Bohne: The underground relocation of armaments factories and the satellite camps of the Neuengamme concentration camp in Porta Westfalica, unpublished thesis on the social pedagogy course at the University of Bremen, Bremen 1984.
  • Reinhard Busch: On the history of the subcamps at Porta Westfalica; Concentration camp in National Socialist Germany.
  • Rainer Fröbe: "Destruction through work?" - Concentration camp prisoners in armaments factories at the Porta Westfalica in the last months of the Second World War in: Meynert, Joachim and Klönne, Arno (ed.): Displaced history. Persecution and extermination in East Westphalia 1933-1945 . AJZ-Verlag, Bielefeld 1991, ISBN 978-3-921680-55-1 .
  • Jørgen Kieler: Danish resistance against National Socialism. A contemporary witness reports on the history of the Danish resistance movement from 1940 to 1945 . Offizin-Verlag, Hannover 2011, ISBN 978-3-930345-70-0 .
  • Thomas Friedrich Lange: The concentration camps at Porta Westfalica, unpublished master's thesis in the history course at the University of Hanover, Minden 2006.
  • Jan-Erik Schulte: "Underground and armaments relocations - the Neuengamme satellite camps in Lengerich and at Porta Westfalica in: Schulte, Jan-Erik (Ed.): Concentration camps in the Rhineland and Westphalia 1933-1945. Between central control and regional initiative Schöningh, Paderborn 2005, ISBN 978-3-506-71743-6 .
  • Hamburg jury court, June 5, 1952 . In: Justice and Nazi crimes . Collection of German criminal convictions for Nazi homicides 1945–1966, Vol. VIII, edited by Adelheid L. Rüter-Ehlermann, HH Fuchs, CF Rüter . Amsterdam: University Press, 1972, No. 321 pp. 743–770 Strangulation, strangulation and mistreatment of female prisoners during the evacuation transport from KL Porta Westfalica to Hamburg-Eidelstedt

Individual evidence

  1. Mindener Tageblatt of January 15, 2010, accessed in October 2010
  2. cf. u. a. Fröbe, pp. 238-248, Kieler, pp. 270-314, Lange, pp. 91-98
  3. cf. u. a. Fröbe, p. 264 - p. 279, Lange, p. 106 - p. 111


Coordinates: 52 ° 14 ′ 46.6 "  N , 8 ° 54 ′ 43.5"  E