Stempeda subcamp

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The Stempeda satellite camp in Stempeda was a satellite camp of the Mittelbau concentration camp that was used from January 1945 to April 4, 1945 for around 700 male concentration camp prisoners (end of January 1945). This subcamp of the Mittelbau camp complex was run by the camp SS under the name “B4”, the name of an SS command staff located there.

Function of the camp and prisoners

As early as August 1944, more than 300 prisoners from the Rottleberode subcamp had to do forced labor on the construction site of the SS command staff B4 to expand the tunnel . Up to 14,000 m² of space was to be excavated for the planned underground weapons production in the form of three main and seven cross tunnels. In January 1945, stone concentration camp barracks near the site were completed and around 400 Jewish prisoners transferred from the Rottleberode subcamp were also occupied. Due to the inhumane living and working conditions, this subcamp was feared among the prisoners. The Jewish prisoners in particular were subjected to severe abuse by the German camp staff and prisoner functionaries . At least 50 prisoners died during the camp, but probably more. The camp leader was SS-Unterscharfuhrer Hermann Lamp , who had previously been deputy camp leader in the Rottleberode satellite camp.

Final phase of the Stempeda subcamp

From April 4th to 5th, 1945, the Stempeda and Rottleberode satellite camps were evacuated along with a total of around 1,500 prisoners. About 400 prisoners were "evacuated" by train and on death marches under camp leader Erhard Brauny . At Gardelegen , this group of prisoners met with prisoners from other evacuation transports. Since the evacuation march could not be continued due to the near front, more than a thousand prisoners were burned alive in the Isenschnibber barn in Gardelegen on April 13, 1945 on the orders of NSDAP district leader Gerhard Thiele .

The other group with around 1,100 prisoners was evacuated by train and on death marches under the responsibility of Lamp via the Sachsenhausen concentration camp in a north-west direction. Only a few inmates survived these hardships.

post war period

The camp, which was used as refugee accommodation for a long time after the war, is still partly inhabited today.

literature

  • Jens-Christian Wagner (ed.): Mittelbau-Dora Concentration Camp 1943-1945 Accompanying volume for the permanent exhibition in the Mittelbau-Dora Concentration Camp Memorial. Wallstein, Göttingen 2007, ISBN 978-3-8353-0118-4 .
  • Jens Christian Wagner: Rottleberode subcamp. 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 .
  • Jens-Christian Wagner: Production of Death. The Mittelbau-Dora concentration camp . Wallstein Verlag, Göttingen 2001, ISBN 3-89244-439-0 .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Jens-Christian Wagner (Ed.): Mittelbau-Dora Concentration Camp 1943-1945 . Göttingen 2007, p. 200f.
  2. ^ A b Jens Christian Wagner: Rottleberode satellite camp. In: Wolfgang Benz , Barbara Distel (eds.): The Place of Terror - History of the National Socialist Concentration Camps , Volume 7. Munich 2008, pp. 334f.


Coordinates: 51 ° 31 ′ 39 ″  N , 10 ° 55 ′ 15 ″  E