Rosslau concentration camp

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The Roßlau concentration camp existed from September 12, 1933 to July 31, 1934. It was the only early state concentration camp in the state of Anhalt . It was located in the former Volkshaus of the trade unions, Hauptstrasse 51, in Roßlau , today Dessau-Roßlau , Saxony-Anhalt . Before the SPD set up a people's house there after the First World War, the “Zur Goldenen Krone” inn was located on the property. The Volkshaus was confiscated and expropriated by the Anhalt Treasury in 1933.

Memorial stone in Roßlau

Purpose and establishment

The ostensible purpose pursued by the Anhalt State Ministry with the establishment of the Roßlau Concentration Camp was to relieve the Anhalt prisons, which had been chronically overcrowded since March 1933, with protective prisoners . At the beginning of September 1933, the Volkshaus was "prepared for a temporary concentration camp." The building formation that housed the concentration camp and mainly consisted of three interconnected parts has been preserved to this day almost in its original form. Immediately on the street is the first building, a two-story pitched-roof house that housed the camp commandant's and the guards' rooms. A sentry box was set up in front of the entrance to the house. To the right of the two-story house began the wooden fence that surrounded the entire area. In addition to security, it also served as a privacy screen, because the site is directly adjacent to the street. Barbed wire was installed on the crown of the wooden fence. At the rear, the house was connected to the former dance hall in which the concentration camp inmates were housed by an approximately eight-meter-long connecting passage. There were open spaces in front of, next to and behind the prisoners' dormitory and lounge. The area behind the hall building - around 30 meters by 40 meters - served as a roll call area. The right and rear borders of the camp were formed by a small river, the Rossel , and the left border by a farmer's property. This border was "secured" by the adjoining house, a wall and the farmer's stables. Between this border and the two-story house, the connecting corridor and the hall building, there was a small courtyard on which there were also buildings. At the far end of the concentration camp, above the river, were the farmer's vegetable lands. The concentration camp was in the middle of a residential area.

Installation

The Roßlauer KZ went into operation on September 12, 1933. The first inmates were prisoners in protection from the Dessau court prison. After it was put into operation, prisoners in particular came from the overcrowded court prisons to the Roßlau concentration camp. On October 1, 1933, the transfer of prisoners from Anhalt to Roßlau began in Oranienburg .

Subordination of the concentration camp

In Prussia, larger camps were subordinate to the Ministry of the Interior, smaller ones to the government or police presidents or the district administrators. In Anhalt, the Ministry of State placed the Roßlau concentration camp under the authority of the Dessau Chief Public Prosecutor Erich Lämmler . The subordination of the Roßlauer KZ to the judiciary is unusual. The Reich Ministry of Justice, together with the Reich Ministry of the Interior, tried to place responsibility for protective custody and concentration camps in the hands of the Reich Ministry of the Interior after the National Socialist "phase of seizure of power", but this attempt failed because the SS and Gestapo prevailed on this issue . Presumably Lämmler was entrusted with the supervision of the concentration camp because firstly the concentration camp Roßlau represented a kind of "alternative remand prison" and secondly the secret state police in Anhalt ( state police station Dessau ) did not yet exist - it was only founded on March 29, 1934.

Everyday detention / conditions of detention

The guards woke the inmates before 6 a.m. All men who were fit for work were divided into work detachments, which left the camp at 6 a.m. Only a few prisoners with craft trades and old or sick prisoners remained in the concentration camp. There was no company in the camp itself. There were several work detachments outside the concentration camp. The camp management even used inmates to “dig graves in the cemetery”. Smaller companies in Roßlau also employed the concentration camp inmates. After all the work details returned, an appeal was made on the roll call square. Afterwards, dinner was taken in the hall building, the prisoners' bedroom and lounge. Night was quiet no later than 10 p.m. During the night, interrogations often took place in the "interrogation room", which was only separated from the bedroom and lounge immediately by a thin wall. Words spoken aloud and abuse or screams could be heard. Sometimes the guards would order inmates to sing to drown out their comrades' screams of pain. Sometimes shots were fired to intimidate people.

Abuse of inmates

In contrast to most of the early camps, no inmate was killed in the Roßlau concentration camp, but physical abuse and harassment were the order of the day. Prisoners report three types of abuse in particular:

The first was the so-called sport, also known as "circus". Newcomers in particular had to run, squat, jump or hop over tables and chairs until they collapsed from exhaustion. When the rubber truncheons or boot kicks of the guards could no longer move the inmates lying on the ground to continue, the others had to jump over them. Some of them were doused with cold water in winter until they got up again. In addition, the guards set up a "whimpering corridor" that was not visible to the general public, but was audible. Through this corridor, which was bordered on both sides by high boards, members of the guards, who formed a double row, drove in particular newly admitted prisoners and hit them with rubber truncheons, kicks and fists. The third type of abuse was the “jump garden”: the guards set up tables and chairs at certain intervals in an open area, over which the inmates had to jump. If they didn't make it, or if the camp commandant felt they weren't fast enough, he gave the guards the order to hit the prisoners with sticks and rubber truncheons. Not only members of the security team were involved in the abuse, but also a member of the Dessau Political Police: Hermann Röselmüller .

Number and gender of prisoners

The average occupancy of the Roßlau concentration camp was between 80 and 110 prisoners. The inmates were all men - with two exceptions: In January 1934, Elisabeth Seger was sent to the Roßlau concentration camp with her 1 year and 5 month old daughter Renate. It was the wife of the former SPD member of the Reichstag, Gerhart Seger from Dessau . On December 4, 1933, Seger managed to escape from the Oranienburg concentration camp and later to Czechoslovakia. Wife and daughter were imprisoned in the family. Mother and daughter were only released after a personal interview by an English parliamentarian in Berlin. The total number of inmates in the Roßlau concentration camp is currently unknown. According to previous estimates, a total of between 250 and 300 people were admitted to the Roßlau concentration camp.

Prisoner groups / nationalities

The Nazis imprisoned political opponents almost exclusively in the Roßlau concentration camp. Often they were communists, and to a lesser extent social democrats. The number of prisoners who were not assigned to any political group but who criticized the Nazi state in some form and who were therefore assumed to be politically opposed to the Nazi regime, members of right-wing conservative parties and organizations or even members of Nazi associations, is unclear . It must be assumed that the proportion of this group of inmates in the Roßlau concentration camp made up at least a quarter of all inmates. In addition, the Anhalt State Ministry used the Roßlau concentration camp for many communists and KPD sympathizers because of a lack of space in the court prisons as an "alternative remand prison". Here they sat weeks or months before their later trials (charges: preparation for high treason), both in protective custody and in pre-trial detention. Some even served regular prison sentences in the Roßlau concentration camp. Almost all of the inmates in the Roßlau concentration camp came from the state of Anhalt. Occasionally, however, people from the Prussian administrative district of Magdeburg also served imprisonment in Roßlau. Almost all of the prisoners in the concentration camp were Germans, including three Jews from Roßlau , Dessau and Bernburg . Two foreigners are also said to have been among the prisoners.

Camp commandant

The camp commandant of the Roßlau concentration camp was called Otto Marx , a 60-year-old Oberlandjäger , most recently a gendarmerie post in Mosigkau . In 1933, Marx was not a member of the NSDAP , the SS or the SA . He instructed and carried out physical abuse of inmates. It was not until 1948 that he was tracked down and arrested. The supervising public prosecutor for the implementation of criminal proceedings under SMAD order 201 at the Dessau Regional Court initiated an investigation into “continued crimes against humanity ”. Marx was classified as a "major criminal" under Control Council Directive No. 38. The camp commandant died shortly before he was sentenced in September 1948.

Guards

From the beginning, members of the SS provided the guards. The guards came from three regions: Dessau-Roßlau and surroundings, Zerbst and Aken (Elbe) and surroundings. So far the identification of 15 security guards has been successful.

Use after 1934

After the concentration camp was dissolved, the building complex was initially intended to be used "for residential purposes". This plan failed. From 1938 to the early 1990s, the former dance hall was used as a cinema. The building complex stands empty today and is left to decay. There is a memorial stone in front of the former sleeping and living room of the concentration camp prisoners.

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Alexander Sperk: Concentration Camp Roßlau - an inventory. Pp. 197-200.
  2. ↑ Alexander Sperk: Concentration Camp Roßlau - an inventory. P. 202f.

Coordinates: 51 ° 53 ′ 17.1 ″  N , 12 ° 15 ′ 10.4 ″  E