Neuengamme concentration camp

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Aerial photograph of the British Army on April 16, 1945

The concentration camp (KZ) Neuengamme in Hamburg-Neuengamme was a National Socialist German concentration camp . It was initially set up in 1938 as a satellite camp of the Sachsenhausen concentration camp and expanded into an independent camp by 1940. The Neuengamme camp had at least 86 satellite camps that extended as far as the Danish border. The prisoners had to do forced labor for the SS- owned brickworks located on the premises , in the armaments industry and in the construction of military facilities ( Friesenwall ) .

Of the up to 1945 there about 100,000 prisoners from Germany detained (9% of prisoners) and the occupied countries (91%) died at least 50,000 as a result of inhuman working and living conditions , by murders (as were about 1,942 in two murders Soviet prisoners of war with killed by the Zyklon B gas ) and during the camp clearance ( death marches ).

The SS began shortly before the war ended dissolve the Neuengamme concentration camp and send the prisoners on transport. Many of the exhausted prisoners died on the way. On May 3, 1945, almost 7,000 of them lost their lives on the Cap Arcona and the Thielbek in a bombing of these ships. On May 4, 1945, British troops found the concentration camp cleared.

History of the Neuengamme concentration camp

Creation of the concentration camp

Memorial at the former concentration camp
Redesign of the former main camp

In 1938, the SS company Deutsche Erd- und Steinwerke GmbH started purchase negotiations with the city of Hamburg for a 50-hectare site in Neuengamme. There was a brick factory that had been closed for years and areas that were suitable for the extraction of clay . The contracting parties agreed to build a concentration camp financed by the city and to deliver 20 million bricks a year for the redesign of the banks of the Elbe. On December 12, 1938, the brick factory started operating with 100 prisoners from the Sachsenhausen concentration camp . They were guarded by 40 SS men from Buchenwald concentration camp .

A few months after the start of the war, the Neuengamme concentration camp began to be expanded into an independent concentration camp.

After the inspection by Heinrich Himmler in January 1940, the production of bricks for the Führerbauten on the banks of the Elbe was determined to be the most important task of the camp. For this purpose, a larger brick factory was to be built on the site, a rail connection, a branch canal to the Doven Elbe , a new harbor basin and the Dove Elbe widened downstream.

From the spring of 1940 the Neuengamme concentration camp was an independent concentration camp. The prisoners, driven by the SS, had to build a new camp. At the end of the year, 2900 prisoners were already working on the construction of the concentration camp. In addition, prisoners were also divided into the “Dove Elbe” and “Klinkerwerk” work details. The first clay pits were uncovered.

By the end of the year, 430 dead prisoners had been recorded.

1941

Thanks to newly assigned prisoners, the inmates of the camp had a good overview of current war events. The apparently unstoppable advance of the Wehrmacht on all fronts and the poor working and living conditions increasingly wore the prisoners down. In 1941 all commandos had to work twelve hours and the sentence was increased.

The first Polish prisoners were assigned to work in the camp office. In April 1002 prisoners from the Auschwitz concentration camp were transferred to Neuengamme. On September 24th, the first Belgians (280 men from Fort Huy ) and on December 19, the first Dutch (270 men from Amersfoort concentration camp ), communists and members of other left-wing parties arrived in Neuengamme. The newcomers could hardly offer any physical resistance to the living conditions in the concentration camp, so that many of them died of exhaustion after just a few months. Few of them were used for lighter work and were able to eke out their lives as paramedics in the construction office or in the prison area.

A prisoner orchestra consisting of 20 people was established in the summer .

In August, 43 Soviet officers were shot dead at the sewage treatment plant the night they arrived. They had been transferred to Neuengamme from a prisoner-of-war camp in the Lüneburg Heath. Contrary to the provisions of the Hague Convention , almost 1,000 Soviet prisoners of war were brought to Neuengamme concentration camp in October. They were isolated in a separate and overcrowded barrack. These prisoners of war were murdered mainly by starvation.

In November and December, transports of Belgian and Dutch prisoners came again to the concentration camp. The infirmary, like the whole camp, was overburdened, and as a result a typhus epidemic spread . In the course of 1941 434 prisoners were recorded dead.

1942

As a result of the epidemic that broke out in 1941 , the entire camp was quarantined . In the first six weeks, the camp administration did not take any noteworthy steps to overcome the epidemic. The shower room and delousing facility were later completed. After the prisoners had sealed the barracks with paper, the rooms were fumigated with Zyklon B. It was not until the shower and delousing systems were put into operation at the end of March 1942 that the epidemic, which killed around 1,000 prisoners, was contained.

Between 1941 and the beginning of 1942, the first killing of unfit prisoners using phenol injections began . This method was first used by Rottenführer Bahr and SS-Unterscharführer Breuning in the Soviet prisoner-of-war camp. The SS doctor Nommensen selected all the prisoners no longer needed for the Dachau concentration camp . Under the pretext of performing an X-ray examination, the inmates were ordered to the infirmary and killed.

From April 1942, 500 Neuengammer prisoners were transferred to build the Arbeitsdorf concentration camp; the camp commandant Martin Gottfried Weiß initially ran the Neuengamme and Arbeitsdorf concentration camps in personal union.

From June 3, 1942, on instructions from Gerhard Maurer , the prisoners also had to work on Sunday mornings, so that only Sunday afternoons were free. In order to increase labor productivity, the SS Economic and Administrative Main Office (SS-WVHA) ordered a significant reduction in mortality in the camps. At first, all inmates received more food. As of September, a whole industrial complex of the following companies was built next to the warehouse:

  • Jastram , naval equipment, especially engines and torpedoes
  • Messap, production of time fuses
  • Walther-Werke , manufacture of automatic rifles

At the end of June 1942, the 348 survivors of the 1,000 Soviet prisoners of war were transferred to the Sachsenhausen concentration camp. From June to September 1942, 700 incapable of work prisoners were transferred to the Dachau concentration camp. In the second half of the year, 6,800 prisoners from concentration camps and the Gestapo were brought to Neuengamme. In the autumn of 1942 the Jewish prisoners were transferred to the Auschwitz concentration camp.

On September 1, Max Pauly , a merchant, replaced camp commandant Martin Gottfried Weiß, who was posted to the Dachau concentration camp. This change was accompanied by a change in the function of the Neuengamme concentration camp. The production of the G 43 self-loading rifle , which could only begin in full in 1944, was prepared in the industrial complex being built next to the warehouse . This included the production preparation for the construction of the P 38 pistol, which could already begin in the spring of 1943. Equipment such as camouflage nets and cartridge boxes were manufactured in the barrack complex by the SS's own " German Equipment Works ". In the endeavor to have armaments manufactured by prisoners, the situation was eased to a certain extent, but this did not have a positive effect due to the deterioration in the food situation.

In October 1942 the detention bunker was converted into a provisional gas chamber ; For this purpose, the windows were provided with steel panels, six insertion tubes were embedded in the roof and a fan was installed. Shortly afterwards 197 Soviet prisoners of war - some severely disabled - were murdered with Zyklon B. Four weeks later, another 251 injured prisoners of war were gassed.

With further prisoner transports, the number of inmates was increased to 10,000 towards the end of 1942. In the course of 1942 3140 dead prisoners were recorded with around 13,400 admission numbers.

1943

At the beginning of 1943 the Walther works were ready for occupancy and the production of pistols and rifle parts began. With the completion of the branch canal for supplying the clinker factory and the creation of a loading station with a railroad connection in the warehouse, the transport connections required for operation have been improved. More and more concentration camp prisoners were used for forced labor outside the camp. They were increasingly housed in specially set up external camps, for example during the construction work on the Valentin submarine bunker . In July 1943, prisoners were first used to clear rubble.

In the course of 1943 around 11,300 prisoners from concentration camps and the Gestapo were admitted to Neuengamme. About 25,700 instruction numbers were recorded. In August 1943, around 9,500 prisoners were under the camp administration, around 2,700 of them in satellite camps. Towards the end of 1943 the camp doctor found 3,991 dead.

1944

The military defeats of the German Wehrmacht and the associated deterioration in the supply situation for the German population led to a significant deterioration in living conditions in the main camp and the overcrowded satellite camps. In the course of 1944 around 25,000 prisoners from 28 nations were deported to the Neuengamme concentration camp or the satellite camps . This included 589 men from the Dutch putti , almost all of whom died in Neuengamme.

Between January and March 1944, around 1,000 exhausted prisoners were transferred to the Majdanek concentration camp . After that, around 500 exhausted prisoners were transferred to the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in exchange for prisoners fit for work .

During the invasion of Normandy, thousands of French prisoners came from the Royallieu concentration camp near Compiègne to the Neuengamme concentration camp. At the end of June 1944, 1,030 Latvians came to the camp.

In order to damage German arms production and thus the German troops, there were increasing acts of sabotage . Increasingly more prisoners saw a chance of survival in fleeing. The prisoners captured were taken to the Neuengamme concentration camp and hanged on the roll call square that evening . The SS hanged at the end of the year 360 condemned by courts Prisoner of the bunker .

After the camp administration had set up a camp brothel at Pentecost 1944 , a library with around 800 books for the prisoners followed at Christmas 1944 . In August 1944, more than 659 prisoners were brought to Neuengamme as part of the grating action , many of whom were executed.

In the course of 1944 around 44,000 prisoners from concentration camps and the Gestapo were sent to Neuengamme and from there to the satellite camps. In addition, in 1944, including the satellite camps, around 8,000 deaths were recorded out of a population of around 48,800.

1945

Sick Polish prisoner receives medicine from German Red Cross members in the Hanover-Ahlem satellite camp

At the beginning of 1945 about 49,000 prisoners were registered for the entire camp, the proportion of women was about 10,000. The main camp alone was about three times overcrowded with 12,000 prisoners. The Neuengamme camp as a whole was operated by 2,211 SS members. Including the satellite camps, at least 9,000 deaths were recorded from January 1945 until the camp was cleared.

Count Folke Bernadotte had all Scandinavian prisoners collected in Neuengamme and began their return home from March 15, 1945. On March 24, 1945, the SS began to clear the satellite camps. An estimated 20,000 prisoners were taken to reception camps such as Bergen-Belsen , main camp XB in Sandbostel or Wöbbelin . Many thousands of prisoners died of starvation. On April 8, 1945, the British military bombed a prisoner train, killing around 2,000 prisoners. Members of the 9th US Army liberated 3,000 women from the Salzwedel camp on April 14, 1945 . On April 19, 1945, the main administration issued an order to clear the main camp. This was followed by the transport of 20 Jewish children to be murdered at the Bullenhuser Damm school in Hamburg-Rothenburgsort.

In the period between April 20 and 26, 1945, around 9,000 prisoners were loaded to Lübeck and onto the ships Cap Arcona , Thielbek and Elmenhorst . The sinking of the Cap Arcona in front of Neustadt on May 3, 1945 claimed about 7,100 deaths, including 6,600 prisoners.

The Neuengamme concentration camp was evacuated from the last 600 to 700 prisoners towards the end of April 1945, all files were destroyed and the camp partially dismantled and cleared up. The last prisoners were transferred to the Dirlewanger SS special unit . On May 2, 1945, British troops found the concentration camp empty.

The last prisoners were liberated in Flensburg on May 10, 1945 .

Accommodation

The prisoners had to sleep in simple wooden structures, often two prisoners in one bed; the picture shows such an accommodation in the subcamp Wöbbelin

Standard SS wooden barracks were used as prisoner blocks . They were 50 m by 8 m in size. From 1941 onwards they were equipped with three-story bed structures, lockers, tables and benches. One block was intended for around 300 prisoners. In the later years of the war, however, up to 600 prisoners were often housed in them.

The wooden barracks were temporary and should be replaced by stone structures. This plan was implemented for the two outer prisoner blocks in 1943/1944. Around 700 prisoners were held in them.

In the first two years the buildings were only equipped with hand pumps . Despite the installation of a sewer system, the sanitary situation remained completely inadequate. There were only 20 washing facilities for hundreds of inmates.

Working conditions in the main camp

living conditions

The clothing consisted of striped pants, jackets and hats, which had to be worn all year round in all weather conditions. There was no protective clothing. The diet consisted of water, malt coffee, bread, porridge and soup. The prisoners had to greet the guards: stand at attention, take off their hats. Life was threatened by beatings, hard work, hunger, illness, poor sanitary conditions and executions.

Work assignments

In addition to the expansion of the camp, the prisoners were assigned to large work details , from 1942 mostly for the brickworks or for the companies Jastram-Werke , Messap and Walther . By Kapos they were forced to work in all weather conditions often using beatings.

The construction command had to take care of the maintenance and further expansion of the concentration camp.

The Dove Elbe canal at the Neuengamme Concentration Camp Memorial in Hamburg-Bergedorf

The "Elbe Command" with several thousand prisoners dug a canal into the Dove Elbe . The prisoners also had to widen the river to make it navigable up to the concentration camp. Today there are garden plots on the heaped up excavation. In the clay pits in the camp complex and in the surrounding area, the prisoners, next to the Elbe command, had the lowest life expectancy. In the early days of Neuengamme Concentration Camp, the clinker works command consisted of construction teams who had to build the halls and production facilities. About 50 prisoners were used to operate the facilities later.

With the establishment of Messap, Walther and Jastram in 1942 , prisoners were deployed in armaments factories.

In the external commandos, prisoners were deployed in smaller factories, to support large building projects and, after the bombing of Hamburg, to clear up duds and rubble.

The subcamps

Towards the end of the war in March 1945, according to the last inventory report of the main camp, three times as many prisoners were imprisoned in the Neuengamme subcamps than in the main camp, which was completely overcrowded with 14,000 prisoners. The approximately 90 sub-camp extended as far north Ladelund on the border with Denmark, in the east to Wittenberg , west to Meppen and south to Bad Sassendorf .

The following satellite camps within Hamburg belonged to the main camp of Neuengamme concentration camp:

Men's camp

Old gatehouse - today the Fuhlsbüttel Concentration Camp Memorial (KolaFu)
Hamburg-Finkenwerder
In October 1944, more than 600 prisoners from the Soviet Union, Poland, Belgium, France and Denmark were housed on the premises of the Deutsche Werft in Hamburg-Finkenwerder , where they worked in shipbuilding as welders, locksmiths and electricians, as well as cleaning up the premises.
Hamburg-Fuhlsbüttel
From October 26, 1944 to February 15, 1945, the Fuhlsbüttel satellite camp for more than 1,300 prisoners was set up in a part of the Fuhlsbüttel prison, in which tens of thousands of opponents of the Nazi regime had been imprisoned since 1933 .
Hamburg-Hammerbrook (Spaldingstrasse)
From October 1944, around 2,000 concentration camp prisoners of various nationalities were housed on seven floors in the rear building of an office complex in the Hamburg-Hammerbrook satellite camp at Spaldingstrasse 156/158.
Hamburg-Hammerbrook (Bomb Search Command)
From mid-1944, around 35 concentration camp prisoners were housed in an elementary school on Brackdamm in Hamburg-Hammerbrook, whose job it was to search for and defuse bomb blind people without any training.
Hamburg-Hammerbrook (2nd SS Construction Brigade)
The main location of the second SS construction brigade was relocated from Bremen to Hamburg on August 7, 1943 after the Allied bombing. There, concentration camp inmates were used in SS construction brigades to clean up, recover corpses and remove bombs.
Memorial in Hamburg-Schnelsen for the murder of 20 children and 28 concentration camp inmates at Bullenhuser Damm
Hamburg-Rothenburgsort
Between November 1944 and April 11, 1945 there was a subcamp on Bullenhuser Damm with around 600 prisoners.
Hamburg-Steinwerder (Stülckenwerder)
In November 1944, a satellite camp for 250 Hungarian Jews was set up on the Stülckenwerft site. Germans and Dutch were used as kapos .
Hamburg-Veddel
From June 1944, around 1,500 female prisoners were brought to the Dessauer Ufer subcamp, and immediately afterwards from September 1944 around 2,000 male prisoners . As part of the Geilenberg program to secure the destroyed mineral oil industry, they had to do construction and clearing work at the water works, breweries, mineral oil companies and the Reichsbahn.
Wittmoor
From April to October 1933 was in Wittmoor , near the former town Glashütte (Norderstedt since 1970), with the concentration camp Wittmoor the first Nazi concentration camp in Hamburg. The first 140 prisoners came there on March 31, 1933, and were housed in the building of a peat processing factory, which was fenced off with barbed wire.

Women's camp

Hamburg-Eidelstedt
On September 27, 1944, the subcamp Hamburg-Eidelstedt was established in an existing barrack camp on Friedrichshulder Weg . There, 500 Hungarian and Czech Jewish women were used for clearing and construction work in Hamburg on behalf of the city.
Hamburg-Langenhorn
In mid-September 1944, around 500 predominantly Lithuanian as well as Polish, Czech and Hungarian Jewish women reached the Hamburg-Langenhorn satellite camp located at Ochsenzoll . There were 250 prisoners classified as criminals by the SS as well as Sinti and Roma from the Ravensbrück concentration camp .
Memorial stone women's subcamp Neugraben
Hamburg-Neugraben
On September 13, 1944 at Falkenbergsweg in Hausbruch Hamburg the concentration camp Neugraben built with 500 Czech Jewish women. They came from the Auschwitz-Birkenau extermination camp .

→ Main article: Neugraben subcamp

Hamburg-Sasel
From September 13, 1944, 500 mostly Polish Jews were imprisoned in the Hamburg-Sasel subcamp at the Mellingburg lock. They were deported to Hamburg via the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp and were initially held there for four weeks in the Dessauer Ufer (Veddel) satellite camp and then housed in Hamburg-Sasel .
Hamburg-Steinwerder (Blohm & Voss)
On October 9, 1944, a satellite camp for 600 prisoners was set up on the Blohm & Voss shipyard in the port of Hamburg. They were used in submarine construction.
Hamburg low stack
On February 8, 1945, around 500 Czech Jewish women from the Hamburg-Neugraben subcamp were housed in a barracks camp on the grounds of the Diago Werke on Andreas-Meyer-Strasse in Hamburg-Tiefstack .
Hamburg-Veddel
In mid-July 1944, the Neuengamme concentration camp's first sub-camp for women was set up in a warehouse on the Dessau shore in the port of Hamburg . The first 1,000 Hungarian and Czech Jewish women were selected for work in Hamburg in the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp at the beginning of July 1944. 500 more followed until they were transferred to the Sasel satellite camp in September 1944.
Hamburg-Wandsbek
With a transport from the concentration camp nearly 500 women for forced labor came in June 1944 in Hamburg works of Lübeck Drägerwerke in the sub-camp camp Hamburg-Wandsbek .

Medical trials

SS doctor Kurt Heissmeyer carried out tuberculosis experiments on prisoners in the Neuengamme concentration camp . On the night of April 20-21, 1945 - a few days before the end of the war - 20 Jewish children were murdered in the basement of the school on Bullenhuser Damm in Hamburg-Rothenburgsort , a building that had been used as a satellite camp since October 1944. The children between the ages of five and twelve, half boys and half girls, were brought from Auschwitz to Neuengamme in November 1944 , requested by the SS doctor Kurt Heissmeyer. After he had already carried out human experiments on Soviet prisoners of war, the children were infected with tuberculosis. Tissue samples were then taken from them to develop a vaccine. In order to get rid of the witnesses to this crime, SS-Obergruppenführer Oswald Pohl from Berlin ordered that the Heißmeyer department be "dissolved". In the basement of the school, the children were injected with morphine by the camp doctor Alfred Trzebinski . In order to destroy any evidence that the children had been tested for tuberculosis, the children were hanged and then burned in a school near the Neuengamme concentration camp with the complicity of Arnold Strippels and Johann Frahms . Their four carers and around 24 Soviet prisoners of war were killed with the children. This act was intended to cover up any evidence of the human experiments from the already advancing British troops.

Warehouse staff

Camp commandant rank Period
Walter Eisfeld SS-Sturmbannführer February 1940 - March 1940
Martin Gottfried Weiss SS-Obersturmbannführer April 1940 - August 1942
Max Pauly SS standard leader September 1942 - May 1945
Protective custody camp leader rank Period
Wilhelm Schitli SS-Hauptsturmführer April 1940 - September 1942
Albert Lütkemeyer SS-Hauptsturmführer October 1942 - March 1944
Anton Thumann SS-Obersturmführer April 1944 - May 1945

After the Neuengamme concentration camp was established as an independent concentration camp, the administration was subordinate to the camp commandant.

The administration was divided into the following areas:

The three camp commanders who had the camp until the end of the war were again subject to the inspection of the concentration camp , which was based in Oranienburg . They belonged to the skull associations.

According to Theodor Eicke's guidelines , brutal treatment of the prisoners by the guards was desired and rewarded. In addition to a barbed wire fence, which was electrified at night, there were SS guards who prevented attempts to escape with a firearm. The three to four guard companies in the Neuengammer satellite camps were later replaced by other guards such as customs and armed forces . The best-known members of the Waffen SS in the camp were Richard Baer , SS-Sturmbannführer , and the doctor Hans Klein, SS-Obersturmführer .

Victim

Sculpture “The Dying Prisoner” by Françoise Salmon in the Neuengamme Concentration Camp Memorial
5 + 5- Pf - special stamp of the GDR Post 1962 for René Blieck. The Belgian writer and lawyer was a prisoner in Neuengamme and died in the bombing of the Cap Arcona .

Today, the memorial can name 20,400 people who died in the main camp and the sub-camps before the evacuation. It is estimated that there were around 26,800 victims. During the evacuation, many prisoners fell victim to the chaos of war. In this case, around 17,000 deaths are assumed. From these reliable figures it can be deduced with certainty that 42,900 prisoners in Neuengamme did not survive.

This made the Neuengamme concentration camp the deadliest labor camp .

Known inmates

→ see category: Prisoner in Neuengamme concentration camp

Resistance fighters executed in Neuengamme concentration camp

→ See : Crimes of the final phase in Neuengamme concentration camp

Database of inmates and guards

The social democrat Hans Schwarz had been imprisoned in the Dachau concentration camp since 1938 and in the Neuengamme concentration camp from the end of October 1944 until the liberation on May 3, 1945. He created files of former prisoners and SS men (Hans-Schwarz-Archiv). The archive was continued by his partner Gertrud Meyer and passed on to the Research Center for Contemporary History in Hamburg and from there to the document house of the Neuengamme concentration camp with its memorial archive.

Of the approximately 100,000 prisoners, 44,000 are now known by name. Almost fifty percent of inquiries from relatives can be resolved in this way.

After the liberation, the former concentration camp Neuengamme became the internment camp “Civil Internment Camp No. 6 “set up. Of the approximately 7000 detainees, 3800 people are documented in the database.

The database contains 1,000 names of the 2,600 former SS men of the Neuengamme concentration camp with the satellite camps.

Evacuation and evacuation of the camp

According to Wöbbelin, prisoners evacuated after their liberation by the US Army on April 5, 1945

Towards the end of the war, the SS began to evacuate the camps near the front. From mid-1944, prisoners and production facilities were relocated to the interior of the Reich. The evacuation of the Neuengamme camp began on March 24, 1945 with the evacuation of the satellite camps in Emsland. At the beginning of April, the satellite camps in the Weser Uplands, in Wilhelmshaven , Hanover, Braunschweig, Salzgitter and finally on April 10, 1945 in Bremen were closed. The evacuation transports by rail took up to a week due to the effects of the war, and in some cases the prisoners were driven on on foot marches for days without adequate care. These death marches initially aimed at the main camp. 9,000 sick inmates from Neuengamme who were unable to travel were left with typhus and dysentery in the Sandbostel POW camp , 5,000 inmates were deported to Wöbbelin and 8,000 mostly female Jewish inmates came to Bergen-Belsen . Since all reception camps were overcrowded, there were finally around 14,000 prisoners in the main camp.

Evacuation of the main camp

After the evacuation of the Neuengamme concentration camp was already under way, 58 male and 13 female resistance fighters from the Fuhlsbüttel police prison were brought to the Neuengamme concentration camp for execution on the orders of the Higher SS and Police Leader Georg-Henning Graf von Bassewitz-Behr . With the participation of Thumann, they were hanged in the arrest bunker from April 21 to 23, 1945. After some of the doomed to defend themselves, Thumann threw a hand grenade through the cell window.

The children with whom SS doctor Kurt Heissmeyer had carried out tuberculosis tests were taken to the school on Bullenhuser Damm to be murdered.

The last 700 inmates in the camp had to remove the traces of the crimes in Neuengamme and left the camp between April 30 and May 2, 1945. This “ evacuation march ” under the direction of the protective custody camp leader Thumann and report leader Wilhelm Dreimann had its destination Flensburg. The Allied troops found no files or other traces that would indicate the use of the facilities. Only one inmate was found hiding in the village before the evacuation.

White buses

The Vice President of the Swedish Red Cross, Count Folke Bernadotte , had negotiated the SS-Reichsführer's approval to evacuate all Scandinavian prisoners from German concentration camps. The SS leadership hoped that their approval would provide more favorable starting conditions for armistice negotiations with the Western Allies . The Neuengamme camp was set as the collection point for the Scandinavian prisoners. Sick inmates were evacuated first. On April 20, 1945, over 4,000 Scandinavian prisoners were able to leave the Neuengamme camp on the white buses and be evacuated from Germany.

Model of the former luxury liner Cap Arcona

Deportation to concentration camp ships

Luxury steamer Cap Arcona

Around 10,000 prisoners, who last remained in the main camp, were to be brought onto ships on April 26, 1945. The Hamburg Gauleiter Karl Kaufmann confiscated two passenger ships, the " Deutschland " and the luxury liner " Cap Arcona " as well as the two freighters SS Thielbek and Athens . More than 10,000 prisoners were loaded onto the ships and held captive in their hulls. The first prisoners soon died on board as a result of the catastrophic living conditions: there was no food, no drinking water or toilets.

On May 3, 1945, two of these ships were sunk in a British air raid based on false information that the ships were manned by SS soldiers and officers trying to flee to Norway. Around 6,400 of the 7,000 or so prisoners lost their lives.

Steam ships Olga Siemers and Rheinfels

The steam ships Olga Siemers and Rheinfels were used in April 1945 to transport concentration camp inmates from Neuengamme.

After the end of the war

Internment camp and transit camp

The second former penal institution (JVA) Vierlande
In the course of efforts to close the JVA Vierlande, this graffito was attached to the wall of the prison. The photo is in the permanent exhibition today.
Redesign on the former grounds of the JVA Vierlande

In May 1945, the camp was used for four weeks to accommodate displaced persons , mainly Soviet forced laborers, and then as a prisoner of war camp for a month. From summer 1945 to August 1948 it was an internment camp in which Nazi officials, SS leaders and incriminated state officials were held; from November 1945 under the official name Civil Internment Camp No. 6 (CIC 6).

From autumn 1946, next to the internment camp, there was a transit camp for German families who had been expelled from Asian, African and European countries.

Post-war processes

Between 1946 and 1948, over 120 members of the Neuengammer camp personnel had to answer before British military courts . The Neuengamme main trial took place from March 18 to May 13, 1946 before a British military tribunal in Hamburg's Curiohaus as part of the Curiohaus trials . 14 leading SS officers and guards of the Neuengamme concentration camp were charged. Eleven death sentences were pronounced, which were carried out by hanging on October 8, 1946 in the Hameln penitentiary . Max Pauly and Anton Thumann were among those executed . In seven subsequent trials, another 15 defendants had to answer for their crimes in the Neuengamme main camp. There were twelve death sentences, eight of which were confirmed and carried out (including Albert Lütkemeyer). In addition to Alfred Trzebinski, other people directly involved in the child murder were sentenced to death in a follow-up trial in July 1946 and executed in October 1946: Ewald Jauch and Johann Frahm . With regard to the murder of the 20 children, SS doctor Kurt Heissmeyer and SS Obersturmführer Arnold Strippel were charged, but they had not yet been found. Almost all trials that were carried out because of a crime in the Fuhlsbüttel concentration camp or in one of the satellite and sub-camps also took place in the Curiohaus.

Prisons and the beginning of the culture of remembrance

Information sign about the high-voltage fence of the Neuengamme concentration camp

After the camp area was returned to the City of Hamburg in 1948, a men's prison was set up there in September 1948, first in the brickworks and then in the former prisoner camp. Later, the former camp barracks and other buildings of the former concentration camp were gradually demolished and a new cell wing built. The clinker factory was leased.

On April 3, 1954, at the initiative of the Hamburg Regional Association of the VVN, former prisoners took away former prisoners at a ceremony next to the earth memorial of the former concentration camp, filled them in an urn and brought them with a small delegation to the liberation ceremony of the prisoners of the former Buchenwald concentration camp near Weimar.

In 1953 this memorial was installed as the first memorial plaque for former concentration camp inmates and in 1965 an official memorial plaque. Instead of the former nursery, fields were created. The brickworks were removed and apartments were built in its place. In 1970 a juvenile detention center was established on the site of the former concentration camp. Entering the former concentration camp area was no longer possible. Since 1981, work has been carried out to rededicate the concentration camp into a documentation and memorial site. A start was made with the construction of a documentation house, which was built on the site of the camp nursery. When the city of Hamburg decided to demolish the brickworks in the mid-1980s, massive protests were organized. In 1984 the remains of the concentration camp buildings were placed under monument protection. In 2003 the prison was relocated. The further correctional facility Vierlande , located on the site of the former clay pits , was relocated to Billwerder-Moorfleet in February 2006.

In the course of the redesign of the site in 2005, the foundations of the roll call area were exposed. It is the only part of the memorial that has been reconstructed. The debris from the demolished prison building was included in the design of the memorial in wire baskets as a marker for the location of the concentration camp buildings. The two stone accommodation blocks were converted into a study center and main museum.

Neuengamme Concentration Camp Memorial

The Neuengamme Concentration Camp Memorial has existed on the site of the concentration camp since 2005 as an exhibition, meeting and study center. From 1948 to 2006, the grounds and buildings were used by the City of Hamburg for the penal system with two prisons . An international memorial was built on the fringes in 1965 and an exhibition building in 1981. After the prisons were closed in 2003 and 2006, the concentration camp memorial was opened as a facility of the cultural authority of the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg at the address Jean-Dolidier-Weg 75 in Neuengamme , director is Detlef Garbe . Three other memorials in various Hamburg districts are affiliated with it , at places where the camps used to be outposts.

The memorial is located on the 55 hectare historical site and includes, among other things, a main exhibition in a former prisoner block and a study center in the former SS garages, several buildings, building remains, foundations and reconstructions of former storage facilities, former production facilities, in particular the clinker factory and the Walther works, a harbor basin and a branch canal to the Doven Elbe , various memorials and monument groups as well as a house of remembrance . The terrain, which is a good one kilometer long and around 400 meters deep, is made accessible by a network of paths that can be followed in various circular routes with the help of audio guides.

Photo documents

Photos of the Neuengamme concentration camp were mainly taken on behalf of the camp SS. The camp photographer Josef Schmitt gave about a hundred photographs to the British in 1945. The concentration camp inmate Heinz Masset rescued further photographs from the Neuengamme concentration camp. These photographs are in the archive of the Neuengamme Concentration Camp Memorial.

See also

literature

  • Wolfgang Benz , Barbara Distel (ed.): The place of terror . History of the National Socialist Concentration Camps. 9 volumes (published until 2008: 8 volumes). CH Beck, Munich 2005–, ISBN 978-3-406-52960-3 (i. Dr .; table of contents ); Volume 5: Hinzert, Auschwitz, Neuengamme, ISBN 978-3-406-52965-8 .
  • Marc Buggeln: Work & Violence. The Neuengamme satellite camp system. Wallstein Verlag, Göttingen 2009 (Diss Uni Bremen 2008)
  • Marc Buggeln: The satellite camp system of the Neuengamme concentration camp. In: Sabine Moller, Miriam Rürup, Christel Trouvé (eds.): Completed chapters? On the history of the concentration camps and the Nazi trials. Tübingen 2002, pp. 15-27.
  • Hans Ellger: Forced Labor and Female Survival Strategies. The history of the women's subcamps of the Neuengamme concentration camp 1944/45. Metropol, Berlin 2007, ISBN 978-3-938690-48-2 .
  • Detlef Garbe (Ed., On behalf of the Neuengamme Concentration Camp Memorial, editor: Christine Eckel): Neuengamme Concentration Camp: History - Post-History - Remembrance. Catalog of exhibitions. Volume I: main exhibition; Volume II: Supplementary Exhibitions. Edition Temmen, Bremen 2014, ISBN 978-3-8378-4047-6 .
  • Detlef Garbe: Neuengamme in the concentration camp system. Studies on the history of events and reception. Metropol, Berlin 2015, ISBN 978-3-86331-220-6 .
  • Detlef Garbe, Carmen Lange (Ed.): Inmates between annihilation and liberation. The dissolution of the Neuengamme concentration camp and its satellite camps by the SS in spring 1945. Bremen 2005.
  • Prisoners in Neuengamme concentration camp. Persecution experiences, prisoner solidarity and national ties. A conference of the Neuengamme Concentration Camp Memorial in cooperation with the Friends of the Neuengamme Concentration Camp Memorial, the Amicale International Neuengamme Concentration Camp and the Research Center for Contemporary History in Hamburg. 1st - 3rd September 1998. Neuengamme Concentration Camp Memorial, Hamburg 1999.
  • Hermann Kaienburg: "... didn't let her sleep peacefully for nights." Neuengamme concentration camp and its neighbors. In: Dachauer Hefte. 12 (1996), pp. 34-57.
  • Hermann Kaienburg: "Destruction through work". The Neuengamme case. The economic efforts of the SS and their effects on the living conditions of the concentration camp prisoners. Bonn 1990.
  • Hermann Kaienburg: The Neuengamme Concentration Camp 1938–1945. Neuengamme Concentration Camp Memorial, Bonn 1997.
  • Resumes. Biographical interviews with survivors of the Neuengamme concentration camp. An archive finding aid. Neuengamme Concentration Camp Memorial, Hamburg 1994.
  • Arbeitsgemeinschaft Neuengamme e. V. (Ed.): "... that wasn't a walk in summer". The story of a survivors' association. Konkret Verlag, ISBN 978-3-89458-265-4 .

Web links

Commons : Neuengamme Concentration Camp Memorial  - Album with pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Fritz Bringmann : Neuengamme concentration camp. Reports, reminders, documents. Reprint of the first edition published in 1981. August 1993.
  2. ^ Hermann Kaienburg: KZ imprisonment and race ideology. The significance of the National Socialist racial ideology for the treatment of prisoners in the Neuengamme concentration camp. In: Contributions to the history of the National Socialist persecution in Northern Germany. 1/1994, pp. 22-34.
  3. ^ A b c d e Hermann Kaienburg: The Neuengamme Concentration Camp 1938–1945. Neuengamme Concentration Camp Memorial, Bonn 1997, p. 310 f.
  4. ^ Kaienburg: The Neuengamme Concentration Camp 1938–1945. (see literature)
  5. ↑ a b Ulrich Bauche , Heinz Brüdigam , Ludwig Eiber, Wolfgang Wiedey (eds.): Work and Destruction. The Neuengamme concentration camp 1938–1945. Catalog for the permanent exhibition in the document house of the Neuengamme Concentration Camp Memorial. 2nd Edition. Hamburg 1991.
  6. ↑ Ulrike Jureit , Karin Orth : Survival Stories. Conversations with survivors of the Neuengamme concentration camp. With a contribution by Detlef Garbe , Hamburg 1994.
  7. ↑ Karin Orth: The Concentration Camp SS. Munich 2004, p. 181 f.
  8. ^ Hermann Kaienburg: The Neuengamme Concentration Camp 1938–1945. Neuengamme Concentration Camp Memorial, Bonn 1997, p. 312 f.
  9. ^ Detlev Garbe: Neuengamme concentration camp. In: Benz / Distel (ed.): The place of terror. (see literature), p. 328.
  10. ↑ Reimer Möller: The two 'Zyklon B' murders in the Neuengamme concentration camp in 1942. In: Günther Morsch, Bertrand Perz: New studies on National Socialist mass killings by poison gas. Berlin 2011, ISBN 978-3-940938-99-2 , pp. 288-293.
  11. ^ Hermann Kaienburg: The Neuengamme Concentration Camp 1938–1945. Neuengamme Concentration Camp Memorial, Bonn 1997, p. 315 f.
  12. ↑ Ruth Bondy: Better Luck Than Mind. Munich 2000.
  13. ^ A b Hermann Kaienburg: The Neuengamme Concentration Camp 1938–1945. Neuengamme Concentration Camp Memorial, Bonn 1997, p. 317.
  14. ↑ CVs. Biographical interviews with survivors of the Neuengamme concentration camp. An archive finding aid. Neuengamme Concentration Camp Memorial, Hamburg 1994.
  15. ^ Jørgen H. Barfod: Helvede har mange navne. København 1969.
  16. ^ Hermann Kaienburg: The Neuengamme Concentration Camp 1938–1945. Neuengamme Concentration Camp Memorial, Bonn 1997, p. 318.
  17. ^ Hermann Kaienburg: The Neuengamme Concentration Camp 1938–1945. Neuengamme Concentration Camp Memorial, Bonn 1997, p. 319.
  18. ↑ Heinz Schön: The Cap Arcona disaster. A documentation based on eyewitness reports. Stuttgart 1989.
  19. ↑ Jerzy Giergielewicz: Neuengamme terminus, Drütte subcamp . The journey of a 17-year-old from Warsaw through four concentration camps. ed. vd Neuengamme Concentration Camp Memorial and Drütte Concentration Camp Memorial and Documentation Center, Bremen 2002.
  20. ^ Bogdan Suchowiak: The tragedy of the prisoners of Neuengamme. P. 24 ff.
  21. ^ Secondary school class 8 of the Ratzeburg Community School: Neuengamme: A place against forgetting. In: Lübecker Nachrichten. November 25, 2010, part leisure / tips, SV
  22. ↑ Benz / Diestel: Places of Terror. P. 331 (see literature)
  23. ↑ http://www.kz-gedenkstaette-neuengamme.de/index.php?id=473 (link not available)
  24. ^ Dietrich Banse: The Uelzen subcamp of the Neuengamme concentration camp. A documentation. Suhlendorf 1990.
  25. ↑ Information about Hamburg on the page kz-gedenkstaette-neuengamme.de
  26. ^ Günter Schwarberg: Hanging twenty children takes a long time. In: Die Zeit , No. 15/2005.
  27. ^ A b Günther Schwarberg: Target of attack "Cap Arcona". Revised New edition, Göttingen 1998.
  28. ↑ Werner Borgsen, Klaus Volland: Stalag XB Sandbostel. On the history of a prisoner of war and concentration camp reception camp in Northern Germany 1939–1945. 3rd edition, Bremen 2003.
  29. ^ Hermann Kaienburg: The Neuengamme Concentration Camp 1938–1945. Neuengamme Concentration Camp Memorial, Bonn 1997, p. 278.
  30. ↑ Folke Bernadotte: The end. My negotiations in Germany in the spring of 1945 and their political consequences. Zurich 1945.
  31. ↑ Max Arthur: RAF pilots tricked into killing 10,000 camp survivors at end of war. In: www.independent.co.uk. October 16, 2000, accessed May 7, 2020 .
  32. ^ Neuengamme Concentration Camp Memorial (ed.): The exhibitions. Bremen 2005, p. 134.
  33. ^ Hermann Kaienburg: The Neuengamme Concentration Camp 1938–1945. Neuengamme Concentration Camp Memorial, Bonn 1997, p. 284 f.
  34. ^ Hermann Kaienburg: The Neuengamme Concentration Camp 1938–1945. Neuengamme Concentration Camp Memorial, Bonn 1997, p. 288.
  35. ↑ Heinz Koch, Udo Wohlfeld: The German beech forest committee. The period from 1945 to 1958 = "wanted 7". (= Series of publications by the history workshop Weimar-Apolda) Weimar 2010, p. 72.
  36. ↑ Klaus Witzeling: From the photo album of the monster. In: Hamburger Abendblatt. November 16, 2010, special supplement Museumswelt Hamburg, p. 17.

Coordinates: 53 ° 25 ′ 50 ″  N , 10 ° 14 ′ 1 ″  E

This version was added to the list of articles worth reading on November 12, 2008 .