Gross-Treis concentration camp

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Memorial stone on the cemetery in Treis

The Bruttig-Treis concentration camp was a satellite camp of the Natzweiler-Struthof concentration camp . It was laid out in 1944 to carry out tunnel work to expand an underground production facility. The camp existed between March 10th and September 14th, 1944.

initial situation

Location of the route and tunnel, map from 1940

There was an unused railway tunnel between the Rhineland-Palatinate towns of Bruttig and Treis , which was originally intended to shorten the bend of the Moselle near Cochem for a planned railway line . However, this route was never built; instead, mushrooms were grown in the tunnel for years . Due to the worsening military situation, the leadership of the Nazi regime decided to expand the tunnel and accommodate war-important industries in the bomb-proof structure. Robert Bosch GmbH was supposed to build an underground factory for spark plugs and other electronic accessories for the aircraft industry under the cover name WIDU GmbH . The overall project was given the code names Zeisig and A7 .

It was planned to create a usable area of ​​21,000 m² in the 2.8 kilometer long tunnel tube. SS- General Hans Kammler , who was largely responsible for the implementation of this project, planned to process 550 tons of construction iron, 275 tons of machine iron and 1500 tons of cement as well as 200,000 bricks here . The construction costs were estimated at 3.5 million Reichsmarks . The engineer Remagen from the architectural office Heese in Berlin was commissioned with the work . The construction contract went to the Fix company from Dernau .

Due to the worsening war situation and the resulting labor shortage, the Nazi regime decided to use concentration camp forced laborers for the construction work . The project was under the control of the SS, which had set up their local headquarters in neighboring Cochem. SS-Hauptsturmführer Gerrit Oldeboershuis , who was only called Oldenburg, was in command ; SS-Untersturmführer Karl-Heinz Burckhardt was his deputy . In total, the headquarters in Cochem had 18 SS members.

It was not intended from the outset to use the prisoners in production. This was reserved for Bosch skilled workers and foreign forced laborers . The prisoners were to be used mainly in the construction sector, i.e. for the expansion of the tunnel, the construction of the ancillary facilities, the access roads and the actual camp complexes in Treis and Bruttig. Some were also used for loading work at the Cochem train station.

start of building

On March 10, 1944, 300 prisoners from the Alsatian concentration camp Natzweiler-Struthof arrived in Cochem in cell cars . Most of them were French prisoners, but Belgians, Dutch, Luxembourgers, Norwegians, Russians, Poles, Ukrainians, Greeks, Italians, Spaniards and some Reich Germans were also sent to Bruttig. According to witness statements, they crossed the bridge to Cond in long columns and under the observation of almost all citizens of Cochem .

When the prisoners arrived in Bruttig, it turned out that no preparations had been made. For this reason, an empty inn was requisitioned, fitted with a barbed wire fence and the concentration camp inmates locked up there. However, the building was only sufficient for half of the concentration camp prisoners, the remaining 150 people crossed the mountain to Treis the following day, where they were quartered in a similar manner. According to official reports, this marked the beginning of the Bruttig-Treis sub-concentration camp. Some of the people were deployed to set up a camp complex in both places on the embankment in the outskirts. These were completed in April and the prisoners moved there from the makeshift arrangements.

The satellite camp reached its highest total occupancy on July 24, 1944 with 1527 prisoners. In total, more than 2,000 prisoners were assigned to the Bruttig-Treis camp.

Storage situation

The work took place in the tunnel under inhumane conditions. Especially in the first phase, the forced laborers waded in waist-deep mud and freed the tunnel from the remains of the former mushroom cultivation. Lacking spare clothes, they had to sleep in the prisoner's wet uniform at night.

The hard-working inmates were fed only a thin soup. Attempts to get a second ration were punished with beating. In order not to starve to death, the camp inmates ate grass and snails. “One snail per day extends life by one day” was a motto given by one of the inmates.

Due to the poor diet, dysentery broke out in the camp . This weakened the prisoners in addition to the hard work. At the same time, the SS provided them with only one bucket for faeces per night , which could only be emptied once in the morning.

NN prisoners

The SS made a mistake in the selection of prisoners in the Natzweiler-Struthof concentration camp. They had sent NN prisoners to Bruttig. "NN" as an abbreviation for " night and fog " indicates that no one should find out about their whereabouts. This group includes, for example, resistance fighters. If they were not murdered immediately after their arrival, they were subjected to terrible harassment. Such prisoners were not allowed to be sent to subcamps.

When the SS in Natzweiler-Struthof became aware of their mistake, the order was immediately sent to the satellite camp to send back all the NN prisoners there. This order reached the camp in early April 1944 and was carried out on April 8th. The transport of emaciated, soiled with excrement, partly naked and emaciated to skeletons, left the train station in Cochem . Of the 150 prisoners sent, 40 did not survive the first month.

Sadism and brutality towards prisoners

Witnesses report the extreme brutality of the SS towards the slave laborers. They describe that six French prisoners who had been captured were executed on Good Friday after a failed attempt to escape. Two of them were crucified that day, while the rest of the prisoners had to watch the slow death.

In addition, witnesses describe a favorite activity of the SS, hanging a tree, in which the person concerned is pulled up by his arms with his hands tied behind his back.

A common punishment e.g. B. for eating grass the flogging was on the beating box. The inmate had to count the number of strokes of the stick himself aloud. If he miscalculated, the punishment started all over again.

Witnesses say that it was a popular activity of the SS to throw wine bottles on the floor and let the prisoners run barefoot over the broken glass.

At the weekend there were SS celebrations in the “Hotel Wildburg”, at which prisoners were hanged for fun, while the behavior of the dying was made fun of. Prisoners were sent with a rope to the torture barracks in the Bruttiger camp, where they were forced to hang themselves.

Mass outbreak

At the end of April 1944 there was a mass escape of Russian prisoners. These were brought to the satellite camp on April 6, 1944, together with Polish concentration camp prisoners. Different data are available about the exact number of refugees. Camp records indicate 21 people, trial records indicate 60 inmates who fled. Eight refugees seem to have managed to escape, 13 were picked up in the vicinity. Witnesses describe that a captured prisoner was knocked down by an SS man with a spade handed to him by a local resident.

The mass outbreak led to a change in the camp management. Rudolf Beer was replaced by SS-Obersturmführer Walter Scheffe.

On June 20, 1944, all 13 prisoners were hanged by fellow inmates. They received a piece of bread as a reward.

Behavior of the population

The concentration camp prisoners should not have any contact with the civilian population. Nevertheless, it was always possible to get the forced laborers z. B. to give fruit or bread. This was deposited by the residents on stakes or walls, which the prison columns marched past every day. The behavior was not without danger, as the population was severely punished for it. In some cases, helpers became forced laborers.

Dissolution of the camp

Memorial stone in the cemetery in Bruttig

In June 1944 the camp management changed again. SS-Untersturmführer Heinrich Wicker took over this position. The brutality of the then 23-year-old even exceeded that of Walter Scheffe. Wicker held this position until the camp was evacuated in September 1944.

On September 14, 1944 the order was issued to evacuate the camp. The prisoners were transported to the freight station in Cochem on a truck loaded with 50 prisoners and an armed escort. On September 15, 1944, the prisoners had already been in the locked wagons for more than a day, the train took them to the Nordhausen concentration camp and from there to the Ellrich-Juliushütte camp in the southern Harz region .

After the end of the war, the camp buildings were used to temporarily accommodate forced laborers. Some were later used as residential, commercial or warehouse.

memorial

To this day, there is no memorial for the victims of the Bruttig-Treis satellite concentration camp. The last buildings of the camp in Treis were razed in the mid-1980s; a hardware store was built in their place . Memorial stones were erected in the cemeteries of Bruttig and von Treis . The regional association of the party Die Linke set up a working group at the end of 2010 with the aim of installing a memorial plaque at the Cochem train station.

literature

  • Ernst Heimes: shadow people. 2nd edition, Frankfurt 2005, ISBN 3-86099-449-2
  • Guido Pringnitz: Cover name: “Zeisig” , 1st edition, Kiel September 2016, documentation on the Treis-Bruttig tunnel, documentation on the Kochem-Bruttig-Treis satellite camp, Treiser Herz 2016, ISBN 9783000543784 , 408 pp.
  • Ernst Heimes: I've only ever seen the fence. Revised and expanded new edition, Rhein-Mosel-Verlag, Zell / Mosel 2019, ISBN 978-3-89801-412-0 .
  • Ernst Heimes: Before forgetting begins . Follow-up investigations into the Cochem satellite camp, Rhein-Mosel verlag, Zell / Mosel 2019, ISBN 978-3-89801-423-6

Web links

Commons : KZ Bruttig-Treis  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Bernd Kruse: KZ Bruttig-Treis, called KZ Cochem: work until death or destruction through work. In: The Democratic Socialist Rhineland-Palatinate . October 29, 2010, archived from the original on March 5, 2011 ; accessed on May 2, 2019 .

Coordinates: 50 ° 10 ′ 6 ″  N , 7 ° 17 ′ 25 ″  E