Sachsenhausen concentration camp

Columns of prisoners in front of the camp gate to the "protective custody camp" Sachsenhausen (photo from the Nazi era)

Inmates in 1938

Sachsenhausen concentration camp

Sachsenhausen concentration camp in Germany

The Sachsenhausen concentration camp , full title Sachsenhausen concentration camp , official abbreviation KL Sachsenhausen , was a National Socialist German concentration camp established from 1936 . It was located in the Sandhausen district of the city of Oranienburg north of Berlin . However, it is neither spatially nor temporally identical to the Oranienburg concentration camp , which existed in Oranienburg near the city center from 1933 to 1934.

Due to its proximity to Berlin and thus also to the Gestapo headquarters in Prinz-Albrecht-Strasse , the Sachsenhausen concentration camp had a special role in the concentration camp system. A large SS contingent was stationed here. The camp served as a training location for concentration camp commanders and security personnel in the entire Nazi sphere of influence (similar to the Dachau concentration camp ). A total of about 200,000 prisoners were deported to Sachsenhausen , only about 140,000 of them were registered. In August 1941, a shot in the neck was set up in which around 13,000 to 18,000 Soviet prisoners of war were murdered. A total of tens of thousands of prisoners are said to have been murdered.

Today the Sachsenhausen Memorial and Museum is located on the site of the former concentration camp. The facility sees itself as a place of remembrance and learning as well as a modern contemporary history museum . It follows a decentralized overall concept in order to make the history tangible for the visitor in the authentic places. In various exhibitions, the concrete history of the respective historical location is linked as a central idea with a further thematic representation.

overview

Aerial view of the camp (taken in 1943 by the British Royal Air Force )

Reconstructed fence system (2001)

"Protective Custody Camp"

The Sachsenhausen concentration camp was built in mid-summer 1936 on the orders of Heinrich Himmler by prisoners from the disbanded camps Esterwegen , Berlin-Columbia and Lichtenburg . Although it was named after the then independent municipality of Sachsenhausen to the northwest , the concentration camp was located in the area of ​​the Sandhausen district of the city of Oranienburg .

The Sachsenhausen concentration camp played a special role among the National Socialist concentration camps. It was the first large concentration camp complex planned by an SS architect. To this end, Himmler commissioned Bernhard Kuiper to build a “completely modern, modern and at any time expandable” warehouse with Sachsenhausen. The SS architect designed an equilateral triangle in the area of ​​which he housed the prisoner camp, the commandant's office and the SS troop camp. The architecture of the prisoner camp followed a "geometry of total terror" {{Citation needed|date=August 2020|reason=Wer wird zitiert?}}. From watchtower A, a single machine gun should be able to reach the 68 prisoner barracks grouped in four rings around the semicircular roll call area. The warehouse was constructed on the model of a panoptic system. However, contrary to Himmler's expectations, the model soon proved to be not expandable at will and was therefore not transferred to other camps.

Sachsenhausen exercise camp

Entrance gate with the cynical slogan Work makes you free, which is common for concentration camps . Behind it is the roll call square, in the background the memorial.

On the premises of the protective custody camp there was also one of the three training camps run by the Schutzstaffel, where not only the training of future SS guards who were deployed in other concentration camps after their "training", but also the pre- and post-military training of relatives of the General SS .

Since 1938 the SS office "Inspector of the Concentration Camps and Leader of the SS-Totenkopfstandarten" was located there, which emerged from the renaming of the ICL in 1937 and which was responsible for the central administration of all concentration camps within the so-called Greater German Reich .

Subcamp

→ Main article : List of satellite camps of Sachsenhausen concentration camp

In about 100 satellite camps , prisoners performed forced labor , mainly in the armaments industry. In the summer of 1945 the area of ​​the former Sachsenhausen concentration camp served as a temporary hospital for former prisoners and other victims of the war who were unable to return home due to their state of health.

Use after 1945

From August 1945, the grounds of the Sachsenhausen concentration camp were used by the Soviet Military Administration (SMAD) as special camp No. 7 . In this Soviet prison camp, social democrats, Nazi functionaries of the lower and middle levels, members of the Wehrmacht , young people under “ werewolf suspicions”, opponents of the new political order and in some cases completely arbitrarily arrested were interned. The GDR closed the camp, renamed Special Camp No. 1 in 1948, as the last of the special camps in 1950. The barracked people's police took over the site in the same year and used part of it as barracks.

In 1961 the Sachsenhausen National Remembrance Center was opened and later expanded several times. Today, as a memorial and museum in Sachsenhausen, it is one of the memorials of national and international importance in Germany .

Since 2006, the Brandenburg Police College has been using part of the former SS troop camp of the camp complex.

history

Prisoners at roll call in February 1940 (SS propaganda photo)

Crematorium ovens damaged in a demolition in 1953

The Sachsenhausen concentration camp was established in the summer of 1936 by prisoners from the Emsland camps . This construction phase was meticulously documented in a photo album of the commandant Karl Otto Koch discovered many years later .

The complex, designed by SS architects on the drawing board as an ideal type of concentration camp, was intended to give architectural expression to the worldview of the SS and symbolically subject the prisoners to the absolute power of the SS. The prisoner camp was laid out in the shape of an isosceles triangle . All buildings were grouped symmetrically around the central axis and related to tower A, the seat of the SS camp leadership, on the center of the base line of the triangle. In front of this tower was the semicircular roll call square , which in turn was enclosed by four rings of fan-shaped barracks . The SS troop camp was set up around the continuation of the central axis beyond tower A and the camp road, in which the axiality and symmetry of the prisoner camp and the headquarters area continued. The 388 hectare SS complex in Oranienburg also included extensive housing estates for the higher SS ranks and their families, as well as the Klinkerwerk subcamp ( Lehnitz ; location of the penal companies and camp area "Isolation"; there were ten there from 1941 onwards) at the Lehnitzschleuse Prisoner barracks ).

Prisoner letter from Sachsenhausen concentration camp. In the early days only Germans were held captive

Between 1936 and 1945, more than 200,000 people from around 40 nations were imprisoned in Sachsenhausen concentration camp. Prisoners were initially political opponents of the Nazi regime, then in increasing numbers they were members of the groups declared by the Nazis to be racially and / or socially inferior ( Jews , homosexuals , " gypsies ", so-called " asocials ") who came to the regime mainly because of their Refusal of military service hated Jehovah's Witnesses and from 1939 increasingly citizens of the occupied states of Europe. Tens of thousands died from starvation, disease, forced labor and abuse. Others fell victim to systematic acts of extermination. At least 12,000 Soviet prisoners of war were murdered here in autumn 1941. The SS men involved were then given a vacation in Italy lasting several weeks. Other inmates died as a result of medical experiments . Among other things, they were inflicted with severe wound infections in order to test the effectiveness of drugs. Children were infected with hepatitis B in order to learn about changes in the liver.

The cell building was erected in 1936 as a T-shaped building which, with 80 cells for solitary confinement, dark arrest and mass accommodation, served as a camp prison and special prison for the Gestapo . In the courtyard of the cell building, which is isolated from the rest of the camp, an earth bunker and devices for " hanging on stakes " and the so-called "Bock" were used to carry out particularly brutal sentences.

The crematorium was located on the industrial yard, which was separated from the prisoner camp by the camp wall, and was used from autumn 1939. In 1942 the provisional crematorium was replaced by a new building with a crematorium and a gun in the neck , in which a gas chamber was set up in 1943 . In the 11 square meter room, a maximum of 60 people could be murdered at any one time. New gasification techniques were tried out in the gas chamber.

Vouchers could be redeemed in the canteen and in the camp brothel , which could be obtained in some of the workshops or as prison inmates.

In order to be able to accommodate new prisoners, in deviation from the “ideal plan”, the “small camp” was built as a barrack complex in the summer of 1938, in which most of the Jewish prisoners were housed until their deportation to Auschwitz in October 1942.

Shoe test track

On the shoe test track with different floor coverings laid out on the roll call square in 1940, prisoners of the shoe runner detachment had to test sole material for the German leather and shoe industry by marching up to 40 km a day.

From 1942 to 1945, up to 144 Jewish prisoners in the Sachsenhausen concentration camp were forced to forge foreign currencies, especially British pound notes , amounting to billions for Operation Bernhard . For this purpose, the “forgery workshop” was set up in two barracks in the so-called “small camp”.

On March 27, 1944, the SS discovered in the Sachsenhausen concentration camp that the prisoner Friedrich Büker was listening to the Moscow radio and distributing the news on leaflets. Thereupon a special department of the Reich Main Security Office tried with interrogations and informers to smash the international resistance organization in the camp. Although only one solidarity action by German communists could be proven within six months, 27 prisoners were supposed to be hanged in front of all camp inmates. However, for fear of unrest, the plan was changed and 24 German and three French prisoners were shot on the evening of October 11, 1944 after the roll call in "Station Z". 102 other prisoners were deported to Mauthausen concentration camp on October 20 .

Inspection of the concentration camp

Wilhelm Frick and Heinrich Himmler in Sachsenhausen concentration camp, 1936

As a model and training camp for the SS and a concentration camp in the immediate vicinity of the Reich capital, Sachsenhausen held a special position in the system of the National Socialist concentration camps. This was underlined when in 1938 the inspection of the concentration camps , the administrative center for all concentration camps in the German sphere of influence, was moved from Berlin to Oranienburg. In August 1938, the inspection of the concentration camps and the leadership of the SS death's head associations moved to a large staff building south of the Sachsenhausen concentration camp, which is known as the "T-building" because of its characteristic three-winged shape. The inspection was responsible for the living conditions of the inmates in the camp. In principle and on a case-by-case basis, it determined which camp the prisoners were to go to, what forced labor they had to do and what food ration they were given.

The network of sub-camps for war production

Prisoners were initially assigned to work in SS-owned workshops and in the factories of the industrial yard adjacent to the prisoner camp, where there were tailors, carpenters, locksmiths and electricians' workshops. Above all in the course of the massive use of forced labor by concentration camp prisoners in the armaments industry from 1942 onwards, more than 100 satellite camps and external commandos of the Sachsenhausen concentration camp were established near the armaments factories and at Berlin industrial companies such as Siemens , DEMAG tanks, Henschel-Werke Berlin , Daimler-Benz , IG Farben and AEG and BRABAG Schwarzheide . The term “external command” refers to the groups or columns of prisoners who had to march from the camp to a factory or other work, but then spent the night again in the main camp in the evening. This often happened over weeks and months. The composition of the group depended on the workload and the physical condition of the prisoners. Illness or an accident at work often amounted to a death sentence, because people unable to work were repeatedly transported to Auschwitz in collective transports.

Subcamps, on the other hand, were camps in which the inmates worked and also lived there. They were of different sizes and were part of the main camp and were also administered from there. They too were mainly used to “deliver” prisoners to production companies. Some of the accommodation took place directly on the factory premises, and some of the prisoners' columns marched from a satellite camp in a star shape to various factories in the area.

From May 1936 to May 1937, the Heinkel works in Oranienburg were built in Oranienburg-Annahof and Germendorf, as the main plant in Rostock-Marienehe was full. From March 1943 at the latest, there was also a satellite camp in this plant, in which up to 6,000 prisoners from the Sachsenhausen concentration camp had to work. The first camp manager was SS-Hauptsturmführer Johannes Hassebroek . In September 1944, the Sachsenhausen concentration camp took over the Velten subcamp from the Ravensbrück concentration camp. There women had to do forced labor for Ikaria / Veltener Maschinenbau and Havelschmelzwerk GmbH.

Clinker factory

→ Main article : Oranienburg clinker factory

Prisoners in the brickworks (1940)

The murder factory of the Sachsenhausen concentration camp was the clinker factory, a large brick factory with its own port at the Lehnitz lock . Bricks were produced here for Albert Speer's major building project in Berlin, the construction of the capital Germania . The prisoners themselves had to build a factory and port facility outside the main camp. A separate prisoner subcamp was added later.

From July to September 1942, almost all Rosa Winkel prisoners at the time fell victim to a targeted murder campaign by the SS. The former camp elder Harry Naujoks reports in his memoirs of the murder of 200 homosexuals and presumptuous officers . Former inmate Emil Buge noted the names of 89 inmates who were murdered during the six weeks.

The victim of the 1942 murder was commemorated on June 30, 2002 and August 26, 2007 with a temporary memorial made of 200 memorial stones.

Clergy in Sachsenhausen concentration camp

The political prisoners held included around 700 clergymen, including more than 600 Polish priests, bishops and two sub-deacons .

Up to 1941, 230 clergy were imprisoned in the Sachsenhausen cell, including Martin Niemöller from March 1938 to 1941 as Hitler's “personal prisoner” until he was transferred to the Dachau concentration camp, and from December 1939 to August 1940 the Jesuit father Rupert Mayer . Other known prisoners were Franz von Galen (1879–1961), Prussian member of the state parliament and brother of Clemens August Graf von Galen , Hw. Kazimierz Majdański , later Bishop of Szczecin-Kamien and Blessed Karl Leisner , then still a seminarian. In addition, there were temporarily Protestant resistance women from the Netherlands who had helped Jews in the Achterhoek region ; several thousand French Catholic laymen of the Resistance were temporarily imprisoned in Sachsenhausen.

Death marches and camp dissolution 1945

Memorial plaque in Nassenheide

The evacuation of the Sachsenhausen concentration camp by the SS began in the morning hours of April 21, 1945, when the Red Army was only a few kilometers away. 33,000 of the 36,000 remaining prisoners were marched in groups of 500 to the northwest.

Only the first columns received some food. Many prisoners who had to march between 20 and 40 kilometers per day died of exhaustion in the cold and damp weather or were shot by the SS. Employees of the International Committee of the Red Cross distributed food packages to the prisoners on the marches and thus saved many from starvation. Nevertheless, thousands of prisoners again died on the death marches after the camp was evacuated in April 1945.

Memorial for the victims of the death march southeast of Schwerin in Raben Steinfeld

In the Belower Wald, the municipal forest of Wittstock / Dosse , around 18,000 prisoners were brought together from April 23, 1945 and camped there until April 29, 1945 (see also the Death March Memorial in the Belower Forest ). The surviving prisoners then reached the area between Parchim and Schwerin by different routes , where they, meanwhile abandoned by their SS guards, met units of the Red Army and the US Army.

On April 22nd and 23rd, Soviet and Polish troops reached the main camp. Around 3,000 sick people, doctors and nurses were released. In the weeks that followed, at least 300 former prisoners died as a result of their imprisonment in the concentration camp. They were buried in six mass graves on the camp wall in the area of ​​the infirmary.

The liberated prisoners were housed in two barracks in Schwerin with prisoners from the Ravensbrück women's concentration camp and the Wöbbelin subcamp of the Neuengamme concentration camp . Most Western European prisoners were able to return to their home countries in May, while prisoners from Eastern Europe often had to endure an examination in repatriation camps.

On behalf of the Extraordinary State Commission set up by the Supreme Soviet in Moscow to investigate crimes of the Nazi regime, Soviet forensic doctors carried out exhumations on the mass graves; the expert group was led by the head of the Scientific Research Institute for Forensic Medicine (NISM) at the People's Commissariat for Health of the USSR, Viktor Prosorowski , who testified in 1946 as a witness at the Nuremberg trial of the main war criminals .

Known inmates

(persons marked with † did not survive the Nazi regime)

• Karl Abel , KPD and trade union functionary, member of parliament, minister
• Robert Abshagen , KPD functionary and resistance fighter †
• Julius Adler , KPD member of the Reichstag † in Bergen-Belsen
• Gyula Alpári , Hungarian communist and journalist †
• Ernst Angel , poet, writer, filmmaker, psychologist
• Rosebery d'Arguto , composer and conductor †
• Rudi Arndt , KJVD , Jew, † (in Buchenwald)
• Otto Auerswald , KPD functionary
• Paul Balzereit , Country Director of Jehovah's Witnesses until 1935
• Bernhard Bästlein , editor, Member of the Bundestag and resistance fighter †
• Stepan Bandera , Ukrainian nationalist
• Heinrich Bartsch , KPD functionary, camp elder †
• Jurek Becker , author of the book Jakob the Liar
• Sigismund Payne Best , British secret service agent
• Ernst Heinrich Bethge , educator and writer, SPD member †
• August Berger , SPD politician, city councilor of Apolda until 1933 †
• Alexander Ludwig Birkenmajer , Polish science historian, philosopher and librarian
• Hasso von Boehmer , Lieutenant Colonel i. G., member of the resistance from July 20, 1944, executed in Plötzensee †
• Hermann Boian , Jehovah's Witness, opponent of the war, murdered on January 22, 1940 †
• Erich Boltze , communist resistance fighter †
• Randolph von Breidbach-Bürresheim , lawyer and member of the German resistance from July 20, 1944 †
• Rudolf Breitscheid , SPD politician †
• Lorenz Breunig , railway worker and SPD functionary †
• Michael Brink (Emil Piepke), Catholic publicist and resistance fighter
• Gustav Bruhn , KPD politician and resistance fighter †
• Taras Bulba-Borovets , head of the Ukrainian nationalists
• Adolf Burger , printer and author of the book Des Teufels Werkstatt
• Juliusz Bursche , Protestant clergyman, regional bishop of Poland †
• Otto Busdorf , detective
• August Dickmann , Jehovah's Witness and first conscientious objector to be executed at the beginning of World War II †
• Hans von Dohnanyi , German lawyer and resistance fighter, executed in Sachsenhausen †
• Jakow (Jascha) Jughashvili , son of Stalin ; † April 14, 1943
• Heinrich Düker , psychologist
• Hans Kurt Eisner , son of the murdered Bavarian Prime Minister Kurt Eisner , murdered in Buchenwald concentration camp †
• Fritz Elsas , DDP politician; † January 4, 1945
• Georg Elser , Hitler assassin. Hitler's personal prisoner. Later moved to Dachau and murdered there †
• Lothar Erdmann , trade unionist †
• Wilhelm Ernst , Protestant pastor, ornithologist and cultural historian †
• Erich Flatau (1879–1946), local politician (SPD) and trade unionist
• Heinrich Fleißner , politician (USPD / SPD / SED) and police chief in Leipzig
• Konrad Franke , Jehovah's Witness, later branch overseer of Jehovah's Witnesses Germany
• Paul Friedländer , Professor of Classical Philology
• Erich Frost , Jehovah's Witness, head of the underground activities of Jehovah's Witnesses in Germany from 1936
• Ludwig Fürst , Jewish lawyer
• Ernst Fürstenberg , communist resistance fighter †
• Franz von Galen (1879–1961), member of the state parliament and brother of Clemens August Graf von Galen , bishop and later cardinal of Münster
• Einar Gerhardsen , Norwegian politician
• Erna Gersinski , KPD functionary
• Erwin Geschonneck , actor
• Herbert Ludwig Wilhelm Göring , banker, general advisor in the Reich Ministry of Economics
• Pierre Gouffault , President of the International Sachsenhausen Committee
• William Grover-Williams , British-French racing car driver and resistance fighter †
• Ernst Grube , worker athlete and member of the KPD †
• Hans Grundig , German painter and graphic artist
• Friedrich Guttstadt , Reich Economic Judge, ev. †
• Carl-Hans Graf von Hardenberg , landowner, politician, member of the resistance from July 20, 1944
• Willi Heidenreich , head of the Heidenreich resistance group , forester in Tharandt
• Clemens Högg , SPD member of the state parliament in Bavaria, chairman of the AWO Schwaben †
• Lambert Horn , KPD politician †
• Bayume Mohamed Husen , Swahili protection troop in German East Africa and later film actor †
• Franz Jacob , member of the Hamburg parliament and resistance fighter †
• Heinrich Jasper , SPD politician †
• Paul Kant , communist teacher who was banned from working in 1933, prisoner in the Brandenburg-Görden concentration camp and in Aschendorfer Moor, liberated by the Red Army on May 3, 1945 on the death march to Lübeck
• Robert Keller , French resistance fighter
• Wilhelm Kohl , SPD district administrator, Aachen district
• Aleksander Kulisiewicz , Polish journalist and singer
• Max Lademann , KPD politician †
• Paul Ludwig Landsberg , philosopher †
• Hans Salomon Landshut , Jewish doctor
• Francisco Largo Caballero , Spanish politician, prime minister and minister of war
• Julius Leber , SPD member of the Reichstag †
• Fritz Lewerentz , SPD member of the state parliament in Prussia †
• Max Liebster , Jew and Jehovah's Witness
• Paul Loch , resistance fighter †
• Rudolf Löhr , SPD politician from Braunschweig, transferred to the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp and murdered †
• Gerhard Löwenthal , journalist
• Hermann Lüdemann , SPD politician and resistance fighter
• Martin Luther , former Undersecretary of State in the Foreign Office, participant in the Wannsee Conference
• Georges Mandel , French politician †
• Rupert Mayer , Jesuit priest
• Georg Herzog zu Mecklenburg , political scientist
• Andrij Melnyk , Ukrainian nationalist
• Kurt Müller , KPD functionary
• Odd Nansen , Norwegian architect and philanthropist, son of Fridtjof Nansen
• Harry Naujoks , camp elder from November 1936
• Martin Niemöller , Protestant clergyman
• Robert Oelbermann , founder of the Nerother Wandervogel , transferred to the Dachau concentration camp †
• Oleg Olzhych , member of the Ukrainian Nationalists †
• Paul O'Montis , singer, parodist and cabaret artist †
• Arnulf Øverland , Norwegian poet ( not released despite requests from Sven Hedin )
• Bernhard Poether , Catholic priest †
• Karl Raddatz , KPD functionary
• Aleksander Rajchman , Polish mathematician †
• Hans Rothbarth , KPD functionary †
• Stefan Rowecki , Polish General in the Home Army †
• Heinrich Ruster , writer, political resistance activist †
• Gustl Sandtner , KPD functionary †
• Otto Scharfschwerdt , trade unionist and resistance fighter †
• Michael Schnabrich , SPD member of the Reichstag †
• Ernst Schneller , teacher and MPD member of the Reichstag †
• Ernst Schulte-Strathaus , book scientist, chief officer in the staff of Rudolf Hess
• Georg Schumann , resistance fighter †
• Kurt Schuschnigg , Austrian politician
• Wilhelm Schuster , ornithologist † (murdered in Sachsenhausen concentration camp)
• Paul Schwarze , German worker functionary and local politician †
• Didrik Arup Seip , Oslo philology professor and university director (released at the request of Sven Hedin at the turn of the year 1942/1943)
• Julius Seligsohn , lawyer
• Dr. Hellmut Späth , tree nursery owner †
• Siegmund Sredzki , communist resistance fighter †
• Viktor Stein , Austrian editor and politician (SdP), member of the National Council †
• Richard Henry Stevens , British intelligence officer
• Yaroslav Stetsko , Ukrainian nationalist
• Peter Suhrkamp , publisher
• Andrzej Szczypiorski , Polish writer
• Wolfgang Szepansky , communist resistance fighter, painter and author
• Mathias Thesen , KPD member of the Reichstag †
• Stanislaw Trabalski , politician (SPD, USPD, SED)
• Leo Trepp , the last surviving rabbi who already in the NS time had officiated
• Herbert Tschäpe , KJVD functionary and Spain fighter †
• Karl Veken , KPD functionary, later a writer
• Johannes Maria Verweyen , philosopher, transferred to the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp †
• Nikolaus Wasser , communist and resistance fighter
• Gustav Adolf Weigand , KPD functionary and first mayor of Penig after the Second World War
• Arnold Weiss-Rüthel , writer, satirist, dramaturge
• Friedrich Weißler , lawyer, member of the Confessing Church, head of the chancellery of the 2nd provisional church leadership †
• Bernhard Wicki , director (including Die Brücke (1959) )
• Richard Wilde , writer, editor and screenwriter †
• Albert Willimsky , German Roman Catholic priest, resistance fighter †
• Walter Winter , German Sinto ,
• Ernst Wittlief , political leader of a KPD resistance group, inmate number 89327
• Antonín Zápotocký , KSČ leader, later the second communist president of Czechoslovakia
• Erich Zeigner , lawyer and politician

See also : Category: Prisoner in Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp

Perpetrator of the SS

Camp commanders

• July 1936 to July 1937: Karl Otto Koch , SS-Standartenführer
• August 1937 to July (?) 1938: Hans Helwig , ("goose general"). SS-Standartenführer / SS-Oberführer
• May (?) 1938 to September 1939: Hermann Baranowski ("Vierkant"), SS-Oberführer
• September 1939 to March 1940: Walter Eisfeld , SS-Sturmbannführer
• April 1940 to September 1942: Hans Loritz , SS-Oberführer (provisional from December 1939)
• September 1942 to April 22, 1945: Anton Kaindl , SS-Sturmbannführer

Other SS perpetrators in the camp

• Heinz Baumkötter , concentration camp doctor
• Eberhard Cohrs , SS Rottenführer guard team
• Kurt Eccarius , head of cell construction
• Gustav Sorge , report leader

Criminal proceedings against individual perpetrators

• Sachsenhausen Trial , proceedings before a Soviet military court in Berlin in 1947
• In the GDR, various follow-up trials took place against members of the SS guards at the Sachsenhausen concentration camp. B. against Arnold Zöllner, who in 1966 was sentenced to life imprisonment by the district court in Rostock for his actions in the camp .
• In 1960 Richard Bugdalle was tried for the murder of concentration camp prisoners by the Munich Regional Court .
• In the Federal Republic of Germany there were also various follow-up lawsuits against members of the security team. B. the Sachsenhausen trials in Cologne in the 1960s.

Sachsenhausen Memorial and Museum

The Sachsenhausen Memorial and Museum on the site of the former Sachsenhausen concentration camp has been responsible for exhibitions and research on the history of the camp since 1993 . The main focus of the institution's content ranges from the history of the Oranienburg concentration camp, various aspects of the history of the Sachsenhausen concentration camp to the Soviet special camp and the history of the memorial itself.

Movies

• No peace to the wicked. D 2011, directed by Mikko Linnemann , 40 minutes. The essay film contrasts the literary survival report of the former prisoner Leon Szalet with today's images and sounds of the places described.
• The counterfeiters . A / D 2007, director: Stefan Ruzowitzky , 95 minutes. With Karl Markovics . The film is based on the real story of the security service's largest counterfeiting campaignduring the Second World War, which took place under the code name Aktion Bernhard in Sachsenhausen concentration camp (D). On February 24, 2008, the film was awarded the Oscar - as an official Austrian entry in the category of best foreign film.
• A day. Report from a German concentration camp in 1939. FRG 1965, director: Egon Monk , 90 minutes. A film about everyday life in a concentration camp. It's about a fictional day. The plot is mainly based on the personal experiences of the former Sachsenhausen prisoner Gunter R. Lys (1907–1990).

See also

• International Sachsenhausen Committee
• List of concentration camps in the German Reich
• List of memorials for the victims of National Socialism

literature

Contemporary witnesses

• Harry Naujoks : My Life in Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp 1936–1942. Memories of the former camp elder. Edited by Ursel Hochmuth , edited by Martha Naujoks and the Sachsenhausen Committee for the FRG. Röderberg-Verlag, Cologne 1987. (also Pahl-Rugenstein Nachf., 1989, ISBN 3-89144-321-8 ).
• Aleksander Kulisiewicz : Address: Sachsenhausen. Literary snapshots from the concentration camp . Translation Bettina Eberspächer . Bleicher Verlag, Gerlingen 1997, ISBN 3-88350-731-8 .
• Inge Lammel , Günter Morsch : Sachsenhausen song book. Edition Hentrich, Berlin 2000, ISBN 3-89468-162-4 .
• Leon Szalet : Barrack 38. 237 days in the “Jewish blocks” of the Sachsenhausen concentration camp . Metropol Verlag, Berlin 2006, ISBN 978-3-938690-11-6 .
• Albert Christel: "Apocalypse of our days". Memories of the Sachsenhausen concentration camp. (edited and introduced by Manfred Ruppel and Lothar Wolfstetter). Materialis-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1987, ISBN 3-88535-113-7 .
• Emil Büge: 1470 Concentration Camp Secrets. Secret records from the Political Department of the Sachsenhausen concentration camp from November 1939 to April 1943. Metropol, Berlin 2010, ISBN 978-3-86331-001-1 .
• Heinrich Lienau: Twelve Years of Night. My way through the "millennial kingdom". Flensburg 1949 (documentation of the political prisoner and interpreter 1939–1945 in Sachsenhausen, ulrich-jochimsen.de ).

Historical representations

• Wolfgang Benz , Barbara Distel (ed.): The place of terror . History of the National Socialist Concentration Camps. Volume 3: Sachsenhausen, Buchenwald. CH Beck, Munich 2006, ISBN 3-406-52963-1 .
• Wolfgang Benz, Barbara Distel (eds.): Dachauer Hefte. Studies and documents on the history of the National Socialist concentration camps.
• Stephanie Bohra: crime scene Sachsenhausen. Prosecution of concentration camp crimes in the Federal Republic of Germany , Metropol, Berlin, 2019, ISBN 978-3-86331-460-6 .
• Adolf Burger : The devil's workshop. The counterfeiting workshop in Sachsenhausen concentration camp. Hentrich & Hentrich, Berlin 2004, ISBN 3-933471-80-X .
• Hans Coppi : Soviet prisoners of war in the Sachsenhausen concentration camp. In: Yearbook for Research on the History of the Labor Movement , Issue I / 2003.
• Gerhard Finn: Sachsenhausen 1936–1950. History of a camp. Westkreuz-Verlag, Berlin / Bonn 1988, ISBN 3-922131-60-3 .
• Hermann Kaienburg : The SS military and economic complex in the Sachsenhausen-Oranienburg concentration camp. (= Series of publications by the Brandenburg Memorials Foundation , Volume 16.) Metropol, Berlin 2006, ISBN 3-938690-03-8 .
• Dagmar Lieske: Inconvenient victims? “Professional criminals” as prisoners in Sachsenhausen concentration camp. Research contributions and materials from the Brandenburg Memorials Foundation , Volume 16. Metropol Verlag, Berlin 2016, ISBN 978-3-86331-297-8 .
• Siegfried Mielke : Trade unionist in the Oranienburg and Sachsenhausen concentration camps. Biographisches Handbuch Edition Hentrich and Metropol, Vol. 1–4, Berlin 2002–2013, ISBN 3-89468-268-X (Vol. 1), ISBN 3-89468-275-2 (Vol. 2), ISBN 3-89468 -280-9 (Vol. 3), ISBN 978-3-86331-148-3 (Vol. 4) [Vol. 2 and 3 ed. in connection with Günter Morsch , Vol. 4 ed. with Stefan Heinz with the assistance of Julia Pietsch].
• Günter Morsch (Ed.): Murder and mass murder in the Sachsenhausen concentration camp. Metropol, 2005, ISBN 3-936411-93-X .
• Günter Morsch, Susanne zur Nieden (ed.): Jewish prisoners in the Sachsenhausen concentration camp 1936 to 1945. Edition Hentrich, Berlin 2004, ISBN 3-89468-263-9 .
• Günter Morsch, Alfred Reckendrees (ed.): Liberation of the Sachsenhausen concentration camp 1945. Edition Hentrich, Berlin 1996, ISBN 3-89468-213-2 .
• Joachim Müller, Andreas Sternweiler (Ed.): Homosexual men in the Sachsenhausen concentration camp. Published by the Schwules Museum Berlin, Verlag rosa Winkel, Berlin 2000, ISBN 3-86149-097-8 .
• Florian Osuch: Flowers from the concentration camp. The "Operation Bernhard" counterfeit money campaign in the Sachsenhausen concentration camp. VSA-Verlag, Hamburg 2009, ISBN 978-3-89965-389-2 .
• Andrea Riedle: The members of the command staff in Sachsenhausen concentration camp. Social structure, official channels and biographical studies. Metropol, Berlin 2011, ISBN 978-3-86331-007-3 .
• Dirk Riedel: Vigilante and mass murderer in the service of the "Volksgemeinschaft": The concentration camp commandant Hans Loritz. Metropol, Berlin 2010, ISBN 3-940938-63-7 .
• Against forgetting. Everyday life in the Sachsenhausen concentration camp 1936–1945. CD-ROM, Oranienburg / Munich 2002/2003, ISBN 3-8032-1610-9 (also available from the Federal Agency for Civic Education).

Subcamp

• Sepp Hahn, Helle Carola Gaertner-Scholle: Heinkelwerk branch. New Life Publishing House, Berlin 1963.
• Stephan Jegielka: The Genshagen satellite camp. Structure and perception of forced labor in an armaments factory 1944/45. Tectum, Structure, Marburg 2005, ISBN 3-8288-8895-X . (Study of a satellite camp of Sachsenhausen concentration camp)
• Thomas Irmer, Ulla Seeger: Remembering a "borrowed time". An initiative by students from Bad Wilsnack to commemorate the Jewish prisoners of the Glöwen satellite camp . 2nd edition, Berlin / Bad Wilsnack 2009.
• David Koser et al .: Oranienburg clinker works. In: Capital of the Holocaust. Places of National Socialist Racial Policy in Berlin. Stadtagentur , Berlin 2009, ISBN 978-3-9813154-0-0 , p. 218, location 99.
• Norbert Rohde : Historical military objects of the Oberhavel region, Volume 1: The Heinkel aircraft factory Oranienburg. Velten Verlag GmbH, Leegebruch 2006, ISBN 3-9811401-0-9 .

memorial

• Günter Morsch: From memory to monument. The history of the origin of the national reminder and memorial site Sachsenhausen. Edition Hentrich, Berlin 2001, ISBN 3-89468-185-3 .
• Memorial sites for the victims of National Socialism. A documentation. Federal Agency for Civic Education , Berlin 1999.
• The album of the concentration camp commandant . In: Berliner Zeitung , August 26, 2006

Web links

Commons : Sachsenhausen concentration camp  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Sachsenhausen Memorial and Museum
• Book of the dead of the Sachsenhausen concentration camp 1936–1945
• Lehnitz clinker works subcamp (with photos and overview)
• A photographic tour of the Sachsenhausen concentration camp
• The men with the pink angle - homosexuals in the Sachsenhausen concentration camp ( Memento from March 3, 2008 in the Internet Archive )
• The “satellite camp network” of the Ravensbrück and Sachsenhausen concentration camps
• The infirmary of the Sachsenhausen concentration camp - permanent exhibition (PDF)
• Suddenly they were part of the system . In: FAZ , May 13, 2016 (on the Sachsenhausen shoe test track)

Individual evidence

1. ^ ^{A b} Friedhelm Brennecke: "The SS felt welcome here". In: Oranienburger Generalanzeiger . May 30, 2014, accessed January 18, 2015 .  
2. ↑ E.g. from the Soviet Union , cf. Hans Coppi : Soviet prisoners of war in the Sachsenhausen concentration camp. In: Yearbook for research on the history of the labor movement . Issue I / 2003.
3. ^ Horst Seferens: Soviet prisoners of war in Sachsenhausen concentration camp 1941-1945 . In: Memorial circular . No. 104 , 2001, p. 38–40 ( gedenkstaettenforum.de [accessed November 9, 2016]).
4. ^ Günter Morsch, Bertrand Perz: New studies on National Socialist mass killings by poison gas. Historical meaning. Technical development. Revisionist denial . 2011, pp. 260-276.
5. ↑ Page no longer available , search in web archives: Memorial for the 27 German and French resistance fighters murdered on October 11, 1944, ed. from the international Sachsenhausen committee.
6. ↑ Norbert Rohde, pp. 128-137.
7. ↑ rosa-winkel.de ( Memento from March 29, 2013 in the Internet Archive )
8. ↑ ( page no longer available , search in web archives: Oranienburger Generalanzeiger, July 1, 2002 ) and ( page no longer available , search in web archives: memorial event 2007 )
9. ^ Günter Morsch, Astrid Ley: The Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp 1936–1945. Events and developments . 2013, p. 142.
10. ↑ Bol'šaja medicinskaja enciklopedija - Prozorovskij, Viktor Il'i č
11. ↑ Biography (PDF; 1.3 MB) In: Unser Blatt , No. 60, September 2015, p. 2.
12. ^ Gerhard Hoffmann: Antifascist Resistance in Frankfurt / Oder and Surroundings , 1999, p. 89.
13. ^ Friedrich Guttstadt. Retrieved June 21, 2018 . 
14. ^ Gerhard Hoffmann: Antifascist Resistance in Frankfurt / Oder and Surroundings , 1999, p. 68.
15. ^ Gerhard Hoffmann: Antifascist Resistance in Frankfurt / Oder and Surroundings , 1999, p. 69.
16. ^ Chronicle Sachsenhausen in the appendix to: Rudolf Wunderlich, Joachim S. Hohmann: Concentration camp Sachsenhausen near Oranienburg 1939 to 1944. Record of concentration camp inmate Rudolf Wunderlich. Lang, Frankfurt am Main 1997, ISBN 3-631-32212-7 , p. 103 f.
17. ↑ Dirk Riedel: law enforcement officers and mass murderers in the service of the "Volksgemeinschaft": the concentration camp commandant Hans Loritz. P. 224.
18. ↑ No peace to the wicked. Backfire Productions website, accessed May 9, 2015.
19. ↑ Review

This version was added to the list of articles worth reading on August 25, 2005 .

Coordinates: 52 ° 45 ′ 57 ″  N , 13 ° 15 ′ 51 ″  E