Plaue concentration camp

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The Plaue concentration camp was the first concentration camp of the Nazi regime in the Free State of Saxony . It was set up in a gym in Plaue on March 9, 1933 and existed until June 10, 1933.

history

Due to the numerous arrests of political opponents of the National Socialists in the first days of March 1933, the prisons of Oederan and Augustusburg were so overcrowded that the gym in Plaue had to be used. On April 8, 1933, about 170 prisoners were interned, including socialists, communists and Jews. They had to do agricultural work outside of the camp. Everyday life was characterized by abuse, harassment and physical humiliation. The guards found it particularly amusing to cut swastikas or strips into the prisoners' hair with secateurs. One of the prisoners was Rudolf Mäthe, political director of the KPD sub-district of Flöha . In the Flöhaer Tageblatt on April 5, 1933, an appeal appeared in which Mäthe "declared his exit from the KPD" and called on all Communists and KPD voters to "renounce the party."

The Plaue concentration camp was closed on June 10, 1933 after around 600 prisoners had passed through the camp in the past three months. At the time of the dissolution there were still 37 prisoners in Plaue. They were transferred to Colditz , Augustusburg Castle or Sachsenburg Castle , where they were used for the renovation work for the Reich Youth Leader School in Augustusburg and the Gauführer School of the Nazi Women’s Association (in Sachsenburg).

In Flöha-Plaue, a memorial at the gym reminds of the people imprisoned in the camp here in 1933.

literature

  • Wolfgang Benz , Barbara Distel (ed.): The place of terror . History of the National Socialist Concentration Camps. Volume 2: Early camp, Dachau, Emsland camp. CH Beck, Munich 2005, ISBN 3-406-52962-3 , pp. 189-190.
  • Carina Baganz: Education for the "Volksgemeinschaft"? The early concentration camps in Saxony 1933 / 34–37 , Berlin 2005.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Sachsenburg Concentration Camp (1933–1937) Sächsische Gedenkstätten Foundation, p. 264
  2. ↑ Sachsenburg Memorial

Coordinates: 50 ° 50 ′ 54.7 "  N , 13 ° 4 ′ 43.7"  E