Beendorf concentration camp
The Beendorf concentration camp ("SS Labor Camp A3") near Beendorf near Helmstedt consisted of two satellite camps of the Neuengamme and Ravensbrück concentration camps . The prisoners had to work underground for the air forces in two shafts of salt mines to protect the production facilities from being bombed.
camp
From March 1944 a camp for male and from August another for female concentration camp prisoners was set up in order to work in two underground salt mines near Beendorf and Morsleben at a depth of 425 and 465 meters in production halls. Aircraft production important for the war was moved underground by the so-called Jägerstab formed for this purpose under the direction of SS-Obergruppenführer Hans Kammler to protect against bombing attacks. In August 1944, an additional 2,500 German, Soviet, Polish and French female concentration camp prisoners who came from the Ravensbrück concentration camp were used as forced laborers . The women in the concentration camp not only manufactured ammunition, but also parts for the Me 262 aircraft and for the V1 and V2 rockets . The prisoners worked twelve hours a day on machines for the Askania factory in Berlin and for the aviation equipment factory Hakenfelde GmbH , a subsidiary of Siemens. The underground shafts “Marie” near Beendorf and “Bartensleben” near Morsleben were given the code names “ Bulldogge ” and “ Iltis ”.
On April 10, 1945, both camps were evacuated in railway wagons via Magdeburg , Stendal and Wittenberge to the Wöbbelin concentration camp near Ludwigslust , where the men stayed until they were liberated by American forces on May 2, 1945. The women were transported on, with many dying of exhaustion, hunger and thirst, until they reached Hamburg around April 20. There they were distributed to the Hamburg satellite camps in Eidelstedt , Langenhorn , Sasel and Wandsbek . On May 1st, many women were able to reach Denmark or Sweden with the help of the Red Cross.
The commando leader SS-Obersturmführer Gerhard Poppenhagen received 15 years imprisonment in a military trial that took place in Hamburg from July to August 1946, the block and report leader Anton Brunken was sentenced to death and executed in early 1947, and the guard troop leader received a five-year prison sentence.
Memorials
About 100 concentration camp prisoners are buried in the Beendorfer cemetery. There is a memorial stone with an inscription and a memorial stone of the Fédération Internationale des Résistants . A memorial was inaugurated in the center of Beendorfer in the 1960s. In 1971 the Beendorfer school director set up an exhibition on the history of the sub-camp in the Beendorfer school. When a mass grave with the bodies of 53 Jewish women was discovered in Sülstorf , in the place where the women's train stopped for three days, in 1951 the Jewish state community of Mecklenburg erected a memorial there.
literature
- Björn Kooger: Helmstedt-Beendorf ("SS Labor Camp A3"). 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. 449 ff.
Web links
- Beendorf subcamp
- The "men's camp" Beendorf at www.kz-gedenkstaette-neuengamme.de
- The “women's camp” Beendorf at www.kz-gedenkstaette-neuengamme.de
Individual evidence
- ^ Federal Ministry of Justice : Directory of the concentration camps and their external commands in accordance with Section 42 (2) BEG No. 596, Helmstedt-Beendorf.
Coordinates: 52 ° 14 ′ 34 ″ N , 11 ° 5 ′ 7 ″ E