Börgermoor concentration camp

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Coordinates: 53 ° 1 ′ 3 ″  N , 7 ° 31 ′ 27 ″  E

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Börgermoor concentration camp​
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The Börgermoor concentration camp near today's community of Surwold , district of Börgermoor, was one of the first concentration camps , initially planned for 1,000 " protective prisoners ". In June 1933 the first prisoners were taken. It is one of the Emsland camps that were built by the National Socialists . From April 1934 it was a prison camp of the Reich Ministry of Justice .

1933/34

Press release about the establishment of the Börgermoor concentration camp, presumably from a Catholic press product, date questionable (probably end of June 1933)
Memorial stone and plaque at the entrance to the former Börgermoor concentration camp

In 1933 political prisoners were deported to Börgermoor, mainly from the industrial areas on the Rhine and Ruhr. The camp was located in the north of Surwold, a little above today's Bundesstraße 401 and was the first of the later Emsland camps . The guard was initially carried out by Osnabrück police officers, but from July 1933 they were replaced by guards from the SS group West. The SS carried out a strict regime in the camp, and complaints from the population meant that from the end of October 1933 the police were again guarding the camp, who for the most part recruited the guards from SA members. The prisoners built the Börgermoor and Esterwegen concentration camps and were involved in the cultivation of the bog.

Shortly before Christmas 1933, many prisoners were released after they had to sign to keep quiet about life in the camp.

1934 to 1945

Service letter from the prisoner camp I -Börgermoor dated March 28, 1936

In May 1934 Börgermoor was placed under the Reich Ministry of Justice as a "prisoner camp" .
The composition of the prisoners changed; the prisoners were charged with offenses such as “aggravated theft”, “embezzlement” and “fraud”. This also included homosexuals . The political prisoners were concentrated in Camp II Aschendorfermoor from 1937 . From 1940, soldiers convicted by the Wehrmacht were increasingly added. After 1942 at the latest, the proportion of those mainly convicted by a military court was well over 50%.

In May 1937 the capacity was expanded to 1,500 prisoners. At the beginning of the war, Börgermoor also became a prison for "military prisoners" who had been imprisoned for desertion , "unauthorized removal" or " disruptive military force ". The prisoners were used in agriculture and the armaments industry and had to sort used materials.

The following are known of deportations from Börgermoor:

  • In 1941 the camp transferred prisoners for work detachments in Norway ;
  • in October 1943 for the " Kdo X " in Calais , France;
  • in January and April 1944 also for the "Kdo X" in Samer , France.

The following are known of deportations to Börgermoor:

  • on May 20, 1944 1,300 mostly German prisoners, of which almost 600 were "military prisoners";
  • in March / April 1944: temporary transfer of 920 "NN" prisoners from the Esterwegen prison camp (NN: "Night and Fog"), resistance fighters from France , Belgium and the Netherlands who organized acts of espionage and sabotage, strikes and other actions had carried out, see also Night and Fog Decree );
  • from the late summer of 1944 onwards some Luxembourgish “war perpetrators” ;
  • since January 1945 an additional 400 remand prisoners from military courts.

On April 10, 1945, the camp administration drove the prisoners along with prisoners from the Esterwegen camp on a death march . About 700 prisoners and 400 detainees on remand had to march to Collinghorst . After an overnight stay in Völlenerkönigsfehn , the survivors reached Aschendorfermoor on April 11, 1945 . Very little is known about the death toll in the camp and during the death march. The civil number of deaths is 237.

After 1945

The concentration camp manager Wilhelm Rohde for the period between April 1938 and February 1941 was sentenced to fifteen years in prison by the Berlin Regional Court in 1950 ; the sentence was overturned in 1959.

Until the mid-1960s, the camp was used as a prison under the name "Prison Emsland, Börgermoor Department". It was later demolished. Information boards at the site remind of the past there today.

The bog soldiers

The famous song Die Moorsoldaten was written in the Börgermoor concentration camp. The songwriters were the miner Johann Esser and the actor and director Wolfgang Langhoff , the music was provided by the commercial clerk Rudi Goguel . The song was performed on August 27, 1933 at an event entitled "Zirkus Konzentrazani" by 16 prisoners, former members of the Solingen workers' choir, and shortly afterwards banned by the SS camp administration. Nevertheless, the song was secretly circulated by the inmates; It became known beyond Börgermoor through released prisoners or those who were transferred to other camps. The International Brigades sang it during the Spanish Civil War , and in France it became a song of the Resistance under the title “Chant des Marais” .

Known inmates

literature

  • Kurt Buck: In search of the moor soldiers. Emslandlager 1933–1945 and the historical places today. 6th expanded edition. Documentation and Information Center (DIZ) Emslandlager, Papenburg 2008, ISBN 978-3-926277-16-9 .
  • Creutzenberg, Willi: In the Börgermoor concentration camp: Experiences of the Herdeck local politician Otto Stahl. In: DIZ-Nachrichten / Action Committee for a Documentation and Information Center Emslandlager eV - Papenburg. 1999, No. 21, pp. 42 - 44: Ill.
  • Henning Harpel: The Emsland Camps of the Third Reich. Forms and problems of active historical memory in the northern Emsland 1955–1993. In: Emsland history. 12, 2005, ISSN  0947-8582 , pp. 134-239.
  • Bernd Faulenbach , Andrea Kaltofen (ed.): Hell in the moor. The Emsland camps 1933–1945. Wallstein, Göttingen 2017, ISBN 978-3-8353-3137-2 .
  • Erich Kosthorst, Bernd Walter : Concentration and prison camps in the Third Reich. Example Emsland. Additional part: POW camp. Documentation and analysis of the relationship between the Nazi regime and the judiciary. With historical-critical introductory texts as well as statistical-quantitative surveys and evaluations of the prison system in labor camps. 3 volumes. Droste, Düsseldorf 1983, ISBN 3-7700-0638-0 .
  • Erich Kosthorst: The camps in Emsland under the Nazi regime 1933–1945. The task and meaning of historical memory. In: History in Science and Education. 6, 1984, ISSN  0016-9056 , pp. 365-379, esp. Pp. 372-373.
  • Wolfgang Langhoff : The moor soldiers. 13 months concentration camp. Non-political factual report. Schweizer Spiegel Verlag, Zurich 1935 (published in exile).
  • Dirk Lüerßen: We are the Moorsoldaten - The inmates of the early concentration camps in Emsland 1933 to 1936 , Dissertation University of Osnabrück, 2001 ( online ).
  • Willy Perk : Hell in the moor. On the history of the Emsland camps 1933–1945. 2nd improved edition. Röderberg-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1979, ISBN 3-87682-713-2 .
  • Reinhard Rolfes: Börger and the Second World War. In: Reinhard Rolfes (Ed.): Börger. History of the Hümmlingdorf. Natural space, history, present. Municipality of Börger, Börger 2005, ISBN 3-927099-94-5 , pp. 449-530.
  • Reinhard Rolfes: The Third Reich. From the takeover to the world war. In: Reinhard Rolfes (Ed.): Börger. History of the Hümmlingdorf. Natural space, history, present. Municipality of Börger, Börger 2005, ISBN 3-927099-94-5 , pp. 377-403.
  • Elke Suhr: The Emsland camps. The political and economic importance of the Emsland concentration and prison camps 1933–1945. Donat and Temmen, Bremen 1985, ISBN 3-924444-07-2 (also: Oldenburg, Univ., Diss., 1984).
  • LG Oldenburg, May 23, 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. 320 pp. 723–742 Shooting of Wehrmacht investigative prisoners housed in Emslandlager I (Börgermoor) during the evacuation march to Emslandlager II (Aschendorfermoor) because of exhaustion, attempted escape and alleged looting. Detainees picked up again were shot after they had escaped from Emsland Camp II

Exhibitions

Some objects from Börgermoor can be found in the Ernst Thälmann memorial in Hamburg in showcase 22.

The history of this and the other 14 Emslandlager is presented in the documentation and information center Emslandlager in the Esterwegen memorial .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Dirk Lüerßen: We are the Moorsoldaten , p. 40
  2. ↑ ND Archive: 02/15/1950: deny torturers Rohde. Retrieved August 27, 2018 .
  3. ^ LG Berlin, October 31, 1959 . In: Justice and Nazi crimes . Collection of German criminal judgments for Nazi homicidal crimes 1945–1966, Vol. XVI, edited by Irene Sagel-Grande, HH Fuchs, CF Rüter . Amsterdam: University Press, 1976, No. 484, pp. 77–151 Subject matter of the proceedings: Killing and mistreatment (sometimes resulting in death) of prisoners in the Börgermoor prison camp ( Memento of the original of February 6, 2017 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and not yet tested. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www1.jur.uva.nl
  4. ↑ Joachim Göres: Ins Moor, ins Moor: 80 years "Moorsoldatenlied" , Hannoversche Allgemeine Zeitung , 29 August 2013
  5. ^ The worker sportsman Wilhelm Pfannmüller. In: Our time. DKP , September 25, 2009, accessed April 9, 2015 .
  6. ^ Wilhelm Pfannmüller on the page www.barth-engelbart.de
  7. ^ The survivor in Ver.di publik October 2010 (PDF file, 1.1 MB)
  8. ^ Website of the Ernst Thälmann Memorial in Hamburg