Subcamp Schillstrasse

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The pedestal made of brick by Sigrid Sigurdsson in the foreground and the wall design with numerous panels

The Schillstrasse subcamp in Braunschweig was established on November 5, 1944 as a subcamp of the Neuengamme concentration camp . This sub-camp of the SS was also known as Büssing-NAG / Schillstrasse camp after the company for which around 2000 concentration camp prisoners initially had to do forced labor in the armaments production of the Braunschweiger Automobilwerke Büssing-NAG . In March 1945 the concentration camp was closed because production in the Büssing works had to be stopped due to bomb damage. The prisoners were transferred to other concentration camps.

The Schill Memorial , which was erected in 1837 as a burial place for Major Ferdinand von Schill and some of his officers, is located on the former camp site and at the current memorial . In 1809 Ferdinand von Schill led a failed attempt at revolt against the Napoleonic occupation. In 1955 the Schilldenkmal was re-consecrated and was then intended to commemorate the fallen Braunschweig soldiers of the Second World War .

Until the memorial was erected, the official memorial event of the Volksbund Deutsche Kriegsgräberfürsorge (VDK) and the city of Braunschweig at the Schilldenkmal took place on the day of national mourning. Representatives of the city, the popular parties, the armed forces and traditional associations of former troops laid wreaths there.

In 1994 and 1995 there were clashes between the participants of the official memorial event at the Schilldenkmal and participants in a memorial event held at the same place and at the same time by anti-fascist groups for the victims of the subcamp.

These disputes ultimately led to the city building the memorial site of the Schillstrasse satellite camp and relocating the official memorial event to the main cemetery.

Creation of the camp

Depiction of the camp as a blackboard at the Schillstrasse memorial

Since around 1942 the Büssing works requested forced labor from various government agencies for use in armaments production. First, u. a. the penitentiary Wolfenbüttel prisoners for this purpose. However, their number was not sufficient to ensure the production of trucks for the Büssing factory and aircraft engines, which Büssing manufactured from 1935 under license from Daimler-Benz in the Lower Saxony Motor Works (NIEMO) in Braunschweig-Querum.

In the spring of 1944 the forcibly induced influx of foreign civilian workers in the Third Reich "dried up", and the economy close to the regime began to consider using the potential of the prisoners in the concentration camps. Numerous well-known companies, such as Büssing NVA , submitted applications for the allocation of prisoners, which had to be submitted to the SS Economic Administration Main Office. The SS-Standartenführer Gerhard Maurer and Maurer's superior, the SS-Gruppenführer Richard Glücks , and Oswald Pohl were responsible .

If the allocation of prisoners was approved, employees of the economic administration office and the responsible camp commandant checked the project with regard to suitability. Particular attention was paid to the appropriate fencing and the "risk" of contacting civil workers. If the requirements were met by the company making the application, the main camp was instructed to assign a number of concentration camp prisoners and to keep this number constant.

The companies could choose among the prisoners themselves. Büssing also submitted an application, which was approved, and in September 1944 two employees of Büssing-NAG, the engineer Pfänder and the commercial clerk Scholmeyer, traveled to Auschwitz to select 1,000 to 1,200 prisoners with experience in the metal industry. Most of the men selected came from the Jewish ghetto in Łódź . The prisoners were then taken to Braunschweig in several transports. One part was initially taken to the Vechelde subcamp in Vechelde , the other to the Schillstrasse camp . Before that, 126 prisoners were brought from the Neuengamme main camp to Braunschweig to set up the Schillstrasse camp there. Among the 126 prisoners were 74 French resistance fighters, 42 Russians, Latvians, Estonians, eight Germans and two Poles. Four barracks were built to house the prisoners and one for the SS guards . According to current regulations, each barrack should accommodate 312 people. First 25 and later 50 guards came to the living quarters of the SS guards. The camp was completed on November 5, 1944, and the camp commandant Max Kirstein took over with SS leader Rolfs in the camp clerk's room , who was already his representative in the Vechelde subcamp , Heinrich Sebrantke , SS squad leader Robert Nordmann (responsible for food supply) , SS man Gerjet Backer , SS riflemen Hermann Schier and August Sonntag , SS Sturmmann L. Sagell and SS Oberscharführer Paul Braszeszwewitz were in command in the Schillstrasse concentration camp, which was subordinate to the Neuengamme concentration camp.

Camp and work

After the transports in mid-September, mid-October and on November 9, 1944, around 1200 prisoners were housed in the concentration camp. The inmates were deployed in two daily shifts. They had to sleep in 3-story beds. The inmates were woken up at 4 a.m., harassed by appeals and alleged offenses, and they were beaten. To get to work, they had to walk 1.2 kilometers and were deployed in the machine repair department and in the so-called "diesel bunker". There they had to work on machine housings, and their clothes, which still came from the Auschwitz camp, were completely oily and dirty from the work they had to do. There were no clothes to change or clothes washing facilities. The prisoners had no warm clothes, and some of the concentration camp clothes were so dirty that their stripes were no longer visible.
During their 12-hour working hours, they had a 30-minute break to eat, which consisted of a warm soup. The soup in bowls was knocked out of their hands if they had not finished eating, including distribution, within the given time. The food was prepared in the kitchen of the Büssing company and handed out by prison functionaries. Camp commandant Kirstein changed this, his SS guards served the food themselves and apparently stole some of the food allocated for the prisoners. This has been proven, for example, in the Vechelde subcamp belonging to the Schillstrasse camp.

The prisoners' health was already poor upon arrival; At the end of 1944, 8 to 10 people died every day from diarrhea , typhus and tuberculosis . There were doctors among the prisoners, but without appropriate medicine and medical equipment they could do little to counteract it. The death rate meant that at the beginning of January a representative of Neuengamme concentration camp had 200 sick prisoners transferred to Watenstedt concentration camp . It is estimated that between 400 and 500 prisoner bodies were transported to Salzgitter and another 80 to the Braunschweig crematorium.

Dissolution of the concentration camp

Wall design at the Schillstrasse memorial

As of March 26, 1945, the remaining prisoners had to leave the camp on Schillstrasse because the Büssing works were destroyed by a bomb attack, and were briefly imprisoned in the Watenstedt / Leinde concentration camp in Leinde . On April 7th and 8th, they left Watenstedt in open railroad cars and were to be transported to Neuengamme concentration camp . The train drove them towards Stendal and stopped in Uchtspringe , where 66 dead prisoners were removed from the train and buried in a mass grave. After a six-day odyssey, they arrived at the Ravensbrück concentration camp . On April 24, the few survivors were to be brought to Hamburg by the SS , the train was bombed and had to return. They were taken to the Wöbbelin concentration camp by truck on April 27, 1945 and liberated there by the 82nd Airborne Division on May 2, 1945 .

On April 12, 1945, the city ​​of Braunschweig was handed over to units of the 30th US Infantry Division. There was no longer any indication of the former concentration camp. The prisoners of war now housed there were released. Production at Büssing-NAG was resumed on April 15, and three days later the military government granted permission to resume production.

Compensation for slave labor

In 1948 the former forced laborer Adolf Diamant hired a lawyer from Israel to sue Büssing-NAG for compensation for the work he had done. The Büssing-NAG certified that Diamant had done forced labor, but he was not hired or requested, his work had been "ordered" by government agencies. As a result, Büssing-NAG refused to pay him retrospectively. On June 20, 1965, the local court in Braunschweig finally sentenced Büssing-NAG to pay back wages of DM 177.80. In 1977 the concentration camp was included in the annex to the Federal Compensation Act (BEG).

Controversy over the forms of remembrance

The building of the Schillstraße Memorial (Invalidenhäuschen)

Since 1955, the official memorial event of the Volksbund Deutsche Kriegsgräberfürsorge and the city of Braunschweig has taken place at the Schilldenkmal, which is directly adjacent to the former camp site, on the day of national mourning . The fallen soldiers of the troops stationed in Braunschweig and the victims of war and tyranny were remembered. The concentration camp satellite camp was not remembered. In 1991, the "Initiative for the KZ-Außenkommando Schilldenkmal" put up a board with information about the concentration camp on the Schilldenkmal site. However, this was removed from the city. On the day of national mourning in 1994 and 1995, the “Antifascist Plenum” and the “Jugend Antifa Aktion” (JAA) organized a memorial event for the victims of the subcamp at the same place and at the same time as the official wreath-laying ceremony. There were physical clashes, police operations and subsequent legal proceedings.

These disputes finally led to the city council's decision in 1996 to advertise an artist competition to design a memorial. The official memorial event has been moved to the main cemetery .

Schillstrasse Concentration Camp Subcamp Memorial

Since May 2000, the "Memorial to the Braunschweig Schillstrasse subcamp", designed by the artist Sigrid Sigurdsson and erected by the city of Braunschweig, has been remembering what happened. In the Invalidenhäuschen (built in 1840 as a hostel for the administrator of the Schill monument) there is now a so-called open archive , for the creation of which various Brunswick citizens, organizations and parties with documents, experience reports, memories and research work on the history of the camp, but also on the dispute have contributed to the forms of remembrance since 1945. Texts from the open archive are placed on boards on walls on the site (see 2nd and 3rd illustration from above). On the former site of the concentration camp, which is now used by the Post AG, a neon sign with the warning: "The future has a long past" was placed.

Other previously known Nazi labor camps in Braunschweig

literature

  • Bernhild Vögel: Schillstrasse memorial. Materials for school and educational work. Edited by the Braunschweig youth ring. Braunschweig 1998, ISBN 3-9801592-3-X .
  • Karl Liedke: Braunschweig (Büssing) . 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. 357 ff.
  • Karl Liedke: Faces of Forced Labor. Poland in Braunschweig 1939–1945 . Other history working group, Braunschweig 1998, ISBN 3-929778-05-X .
  • Karl Liedke: The Schillstrasse concentration camp subcamp in Braunschweig 1944–1945 . Edited by the cultural institute of the city of Braunschweig. Appelhans, Braunschweig 2006, ISBN 3-937664-38-6 .
  • Karl Liedke: Destruction through work: Jews from Lodz at the Büssing-NAG in Braunschweig 1944–1945 . In: Gudrun Fiedler, Hans-Ulrich Ludewig: Forced Labor and War Economy in the State of Braunschweig 1939–1945 . Appelhans, Braunschweig 2003, ISBN 3-930292-78-5 .
  • Axel Richter: The Vechelde sub-command of the Neuengamme concentration camp. For the use of concentration camp prisoners in arms production . Ed .: Vechelde municipality . Vechelde 1985.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ It is located in Schillstrasse , which was only named around 1960, but nevertheless bordered on the older Schillstrasse , which existed until 1960, during its existence
  2. ↑ Directory of the concentration camps and their external commands in accordance with Section 42 (2) BEG , No. 165, Braunschweig, Büssing camp and Schilldenkmal
  3. ↑ Liedke: Destruction through work . P. 217.
  4. ↑ a b Liedke: Destruction through work . P. 218.
  5. ^ Liedke: Braunschweig (Büssing) . P. 357.
  6. ↑ Liedke: Destruction through work . P. 219.
  7. ↑ Liedke: Destruction through work . P. 220.
    For the individual SS rank designations see here .
  8. ↑ Liedke: Destruction through work . P. 226 ff.
  9. ↑ Liedke: Destruction through work . P. 228 f. and p. 231.
  10. ↑ Industrial warehouse at Schützenplatz
  11. ↑ online

Coordinates: 52 ° 15 ′ 24 ″  N , 10 ° 32 ′ 28 ″  E