SS-Berghaus Sudelfeld subcamp
During the National Socialist era , the SS built a mountain hut on the Sudelfeld near Bayrischzell in Upper Bavaria as a rest home for its members. A satellite camp of the Dachau concentration camp was located here between 1940 and 1945 . The main building is currently used as a youth hostel . A garage building or later a barrack was used for the prison camp.
Construction of the SS mountain house on Sudelfeld
Planning for the construction of the SS Berghaus began probably towards the end of 1936. In a preferred location above Bayrischzell, an SS holiday home was built from 1937 onwards. The building complex of the SS Berghaus am Sudelfeld, which is about 1150 meters above sea level, is on the southern slope of a foothill of the Wendelstein , 350 meters above sea level and about 5 kilometers by road from Bayrischzell on the Deutsche Alpine road that leads from there to Niederaudorf in the Inn Valley. About 50 meters below, on a somewhat flatter piece of terrain, there is the Larcheralm, which was later acquired by the SS, and at the junction of the access road from the top of the pass, the garage that is built into the steep mountain slope and belongs to the SS Berghaus. Most of the buildings mentioned are still in their original condition.
The building permit procedure did not run in the sense of the technical department in the Miesbach district office, since the "SS administration chief", SS group leader Oswald Pohl , representing the client, referred to as the "administrative office SS" in Munich, issued a letter of approval from the "general inspector for the German Roads ", Fritz Todt , viewed the access road as a general permit for the construction of the building and only submitted the building plans pro forma. After reassurance from the State Ministry of the Interior in Munich, the district office repeatedly requested a architecture plan because it did not agree with the design of the building and called for a down-to-earth construction with a continuous roof ridge. Regardless of this, construction was probably started by a pioneer train from the SS Junker School from neighboring Bad Tölz, and construction continued without proper approval. In the end, however, the Miesbach district office apparently had to give way in view of the political situation, since a higher authority recommended "nothing more to do with the matter and let it rest completely". So until now the building is a tolerated "black building".
While the main building was built by the SS on its own and completed in mid-1938, prisoners from the Dachau concentration camp were used to build the access road at the same time and, from 1940, to construct ancillary buildings, as well as to maintain the structure and manage the alpine pasture that was later bought. According to the ITS list, this satellite camp of the Dachau concentration camp existed from June 22, 1940 to April 25, 1945.
In the ITS list at the Sudelfeld external command, in addition to the designation “SS-Berghaus”, “Air Force Planning Center” is also given, and below that for the type of work: “Construction of a test facility for the representative for high-frequency research”. However, this refers to a secret command that was previously believed to have been lost, called Sudelfeld - Luftwaffe some distance from the Berghaus.
Numerical strength and composition of the command
The strength of this external unit depended on the workload and the season; it was increased or dismantled as needed and varied between 15 in winter and 150 in summer. The increased deployment of prisoners began in 1941, and the highest attendance figures of around 150 are recorded for the summers of 1941, 1942 and 1943. Throughout the years, a core team, mostly Jehovah's Witnesses (“Bible Students”) stayed with the SS Berghaus, the number of which gradually decreased to around 20 from around 50 until the end of the war. This can also be explained by the fact that the former SS-Berghaus convalescent home became a military hospital in the last years of the war.
A lively exchange took place between the Dachau camp and its SS-Berghaus Sudelfeld external command, depending on the need for skilled workers and depending on the seasonal workload. The Poles made up a large proportion, then Germans, Russians, Czechs and Yugoslavs. Significantly, among the German prisoners, those from the ranks of Jehovah's Witnesses were preferred, as they were considered reliable and hardworking and also refused any attempt to flee for reasons of faith. Some of them were even given positions of trust, such as one as a "caretaker".
Accommodation of the prisoners
At the time the paved access road to the Berghaus was being built, the prisoners were taken to the construction site by bus on Mondays and back to the Dachau main camp on Saturdays, around 1937 and 1938; During the working week they were probably housed in an alpine hut or in the garage, which is still located right at the junction from the Alpine road at the far end of the parking lot. In November 1940 this was still used as a prisoner accommodation.
It was not until the middle of 1941 that a permanent barrack was set up next to the access road to the SS Berghaus with the help of the prisoners. This was made of wood and about 90 square meters. It had a common room and a bedroom with three-story beds with straw sacks. The barracks were surrounded by barbed wire, and the guard was next to it. In times of high occupancy rates, the prisoners were also housed in the farm buildings.
Guarding and treating prisoners
The prisoners were guarded by SS men in a constantly changing line-up. The number also fluctuated between 4 and 12 men, depending on requirements. The commanders of the guards changed just as often. Compared to the number of prisoners to be guarded, the surprising thing is the small number of guards, with whom a thoroughly human relationship sometimes developed. Many prisoners were able to move freely in the confined space without being accompanied by SS men. This was primarily true of the majority of the core team, which consisted of Jehovah's Witnesses. The treatment of the prisoners by the guards at the SS-Berghaus external command was better than at the Dachau main camp, as much of the prisoners' work was often done in public areas and the guards therefore had to hold back.
But even here there was a certain prisoner hierarchy, which the Poles defeated harassed while working and and the Reich Germans were still best treated. Ten prisoners, both German and Polish, stated unanimously that they had never witnessed fatal abuse or murders. In later years the food that came from the Dachau main camp was also adequate.
Work of the inmates
The prisoners were used for minor construction work in the vicinity of the SS mountain house, as well as for its further expansion and maintenance. From 1940 the Hotel Alpenrose in Bayrischzell was taken over by the SS and used as a hospital. Here, too, prisoners were used to take care of it.
There were various work details in the area of the Berghaus. One dealt with the construction of accommodation for the prisoners and the guards as well as the construction of farm buildings such as the expansion of the Larcheralm to its present-day form, the construction of the pigsty, the summer stables and the muli stalls as well as some buildings or barracks as a blacksmith's or carpentry shop, from which the latter years were later removed.
The prisoners' field of activity expanded when the Larcheralm became the property of the SS in 1942. A further focus of the prisoner deployment arose through the agricultural work on the Larcheralm for the purpose of self-sufficiency in the mountain house and the measures to improve the management and to increase the yield of agricultural production. The goal was the self-sufficiency of the SS-Berghaus through year-round use of agriculture. For this purpose, the pastures were converted into meadows so that hay could be obtained for winter feeding of the animals. The summer pastures were expanded to compensate. The area was leveled for this purpose. In order to be able to reach the cultivated areas with agricultural vehicles, access roads or narrow streets were built, the course of which can still be seen today under the sward. Good topsoil from other construction sites was applied to the meadows and the dung from the cattle was distributed over the areas by hand with primitive means. The positive result was that you could mow the grass twice a year and keep horses, cattle and pigs.
Liberation of the sub-camp
The US troops succeeded in liberating the Dachau concentration camp on April 29 and the war was drawing to a close.
On April 26, 1945, Bayrischzell was declared a hospital town and marked with barriers and Red Cross badges at the entrances to the town. The hospital management in the SS Berghaus did not want to cause any problems either. The American troops reached Bayrischzell on the afternoon of May 4, 1945, respected the handover of the community by the hospital doctor Renner and drove around the town on the Alpine road in the direction of Sudelfeld. As the tanks and military vehicles drove up the pass road, a platoon from a mountain company of the Wehrmacht blew up the top bridge of the alpine road in front of the pass. As a result, the Americans no longer felt bound by their agreement, and Bayrischzell was nevertheless occupied, houses were confiscated and soldiers and the military administration were billeted. That night, the bridge was makeshift repaired by engineers from the American army, and on May 5, 1945 the Americans reached Sudelfeld.
The Austrian Jehovah's Witnesses received a certificate from the American military administration stating that everyone on the way had to help them to get home. They said goodbye to their German comrades, took an SS truck and drove towards Salzburg on May 9, 1945. Shortly afterwards, the remaining Jehovah's Witnesses were also able to leave the SS Berghaus.
Post-war history of the Berghaus and the Larcheralm
At the end of the war and after the last remaining prisoners returned home, the Americans took over the Berghaus until 1947 or 1948. In 1948 it was managed by the Bavarian State Ministry of Finance and one year later, in 1949, the property and the building were given to the Free State Bavaria.
The Free State of Bavaria left the building to the Bavarian Youth Ring , which initially held meetings and conferences there and then used it for its actual purpose, the accommodation for youth groups and school classes. The house with 90 beds was largely renovated in 1967/68 and 1974. By the end of the 1970s, the operation became uneconomical; therefore it was returned to the state of Bavaria by the state board of the Bavarian Youth Association with the request that it continue to be used for youth work. Since then, the Bavarian State Association of the German Youth Hostel Association has continued to run the house as a youth hostel. The external building stock and parts of the interior are still in their original state.
After the end of the war, the Larcheralm area was also under the administration of the Bavarian State Ministry of Finance. A woman from Bayrischzell took care of the cattle that remained on the Alm and leased the Alm's premises in 1954. In the meantime, in April 1951, the premises were handed over to the Bavarian State Ministry for Food, Agriculture and Forests , which the Alm to the Zuchtverband Miesbach for experiments in alpine management. From then on, the meadows became more and more bushy due to insufficient care and lost their fertility. Some parts of the pastures were completely lost due to forest cover. In April 1955, however, the Alm was taken over by the Bavarian State Institute for Animal Breeding, which was then merged into the Bavarian State Institute for Agriculture in 2003. The “experimental stations” department in Poing / Grub still uses the alpine pasture area during the summer for grazing by young cattle. The massive buildings erected by the prisoners have largely been preserved.
memory
A plaque on the building, which is now used as a youth hostel, reminds of the existence of the SS-Berghaus subcamp on the Sudelfeld and the presence of the prisoners. It also contains an appeal against forgetting and a warning to show courage against injustice.
literature
- Johannes Wrobel: Sudelfeld (SS-Berghaus and Hotel "Alpenrose"), satellite camp of the Dachau concentration camp. In: Wolfgang Benz , Barbara Distel (eds.): The place of terror . History of the National Socialist Concentration Camps. Volume 2: Early camp, Dachau, Emsland camp. CH Beck, Munich 2005, ISBN 3-406-52962-3 .
- Erhard Klein: Jehovah's Witnesses in the Dachau concentration camp, historical background and experience reports. Verlag Mindt, Bielefeld 2001, ISBN 978-3-00-007407-3 .
- Erhard Klein: "SS-Berghaus Sudelfeld". SS-Berghaus, Larcher Alm and Hotel Alpenrose. A field detachment from the Dachau concentration camp. 2004.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Cf. the memoirs of the tenant Elisabeth Pöllinger, b. Scharmann: Dahoam is the most beautiful. A life under the Wendelstein. Bayrischzell 2007.
Coordinates: 47 ° 40 ′ 50.5 ″ N , 12 ° 1 ′ 55.4 ″ E