Martha II concentration camp

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Martha II was the name of a concentration camp that was set up on September 3, 1944 on the eastern edge of the city ​​forest near Mühlhausen as an external command of the Buchenwald concentration camp . The name Martha is derived from the spelling alphabet for M for Mühlhausen. The concentration camp was integrated into a larger barracks settlement, which also housed foreign workers and SS guards. It is also known in the Mühlhausen population as "B-Lager am Stadtwald" .

Up to 696 female, Jewish prisoners between 15 and 33 years of age from Hungary and Poland were interned there and forced to work in the factory in the production halls of Gerätebau GmbH , a branch of the Ruhla clock factory Thiel and armaments supplier of the Wehrmacht, hidden in the forest . The work took place in three shifts around the clock. The women had to walk the 2.5 km long way there and back in the cold season. Most were barefoot and inadequately dressed. The catering is also described as inadequate. Many soon fell ill. In order to maintain the production of the plant, which is important for the war effort, the camp administration requested women's shoes. However, almost only unusable shoes were sent from the Buchenwald concentration camp. To distinguish the camp inmates from the foreign workers, they were marked with red on their backs.

The external command was dissolved in March 1945 and the remaining women were transferred to the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, where most of them starved to death or died of illness because the SS refused to provide them.

In January 2019, Bild-Zeitung and Thüringer Allgemeine reported on the plans of the city of Mühlhausen and an investor to house the "Bratwurst Museum" of the "Friends of Thuringian Bratwurst" on the site of the former satellite camp. The decision about the location was corrected shortly afterwards and another area was found for the settlement of the " 1st German Bratwurst Museum ".

In July 2019, on behalf of the city of Mühlhausen and the Mühlhausen History and Monument Preservation Association, a scientific project was started with the title: "Coming to terms with the history of forced labor and the exploitation of concentration camp prisoners during the time of National Socialism in Mühlhausen".

See also

literature

  • Frank Baranowski: The suppressed past. Arms production and forced labor in Northern Thuringia . Duderstadt, 2000, p. 192
  • Rolf Barthel: Against forgetting. Fascist crimes on the Eichsfeld and in Mühlhausen . Jena, 2004, p. 164
  • Frank Baranowski: Armaments production in the middle of Germany from 1923 to 1945 Rockstuhl Verlag, pp. 304-317, ISBN 978-3-86777-530-4

Coordinates: 51 ° 11 ′ 36.7 "  N , 10 ° 23 ′ 56.7"  E