Salzgitter-Watenstedt concentration camp
At the Salzgitter-Watenstedt concentration camp , the SS held up to around 2,000 concentration camp prisoners in the immediate vicinity of the village of Leinde near Salzgitter-Watenstedt , who had to work in the Stahlwerke Braunschweig GmbH plant.
location
The camp was located to the west of today's Bundesstrasse 248 , north of the Leinder cemetery in the south and south of the railroad tracks that led from Immendorf to Immendorf-Südost station. The Braunschweig steelworks were located immediately to the west of the camp. The former warehouse is now an industrial area.
history
From 1941 to the spring of 1944, female and male Eastern workers as well as civilian foreign workers and prisoners of war were housed in this camp.
The camp was rebuilt with the participation of prisoners from the Salzgitter-Drütte concentration camp and prepared for concentration camp prisoners because the Wehrmacht had to meet a high demand for grenades, which were produced in the Braunschweig steelworks . Only the POW camp of the original camp remained and on May 27, 1944 the first prisoners from Neuengamme concentration camp were brought to the camp. Further transports of prisoners in June and August 1944 increased the number of prisoners to 2,000. On July 7th, the camp was expanded to include a concentration camp for women and 300 women were transported from the Ravensbrück concentration camp to Watenstedt on an initial transport , which was followed by other transports with women. At the end of March 1945, 729 women lived in the women's camp.
Everyday life in the camp and at work was characterized by violence, poor nutrition and completely inadequate clothing, hygiene and medical care. According to estimates, 20 to 30 prisoners died every day under these conditions, which were deliberately brought about.
The camp was used at the beginning of 1945 as a (death) camp for sick concentration camp prisoners from the Braunschweig area, in which at least 526 prisoners are known to have died. They were buried in the cemetery in Jammertal near Salzgitter-Lebenstedt . Towards the end of the Second World War, prisoners from the riding school and the Büssing concentration camp were brought from Braunschweig to Watenstedt, so that the number of originally 1,000 women and 2,000 men increased by 1,000, including around 800 men and 200 women.
On April 7, 1945, the camp was "cleared" by the SS. The trains stopped at the temporary train station in the camp. The sick came on a separate train. When the trains left, 70 dead were left on the platform. One transport can be tracked near Berlin until April 15 and another probably went to the Ravensbrück concentration camp, where the prisoners stayed until April 24/25. Some of the prisoners went on to the Wöbbelin concentration camp near Ludwigslust and a group of prisoners was liberated in the Malchow concentration camp . Camp leader was SS-Scharführer Peter Wiehagen .
Today there is a memorial for the victims of the satellite camp on the B 248 , approximately opposite the former entrance to the town.
See also
literature
- Elke Zacharias: Salzgitter-Watenstedt. In: Wolfgang Benz , Barbara Distel (eds.): The place of terror . History of the National Socialist Concentration Camps. Volume 5: Hinzert, Auschwitz, Neuengamme. CH Beck, Munich 2007, ISBN 978-3-406-52965-8 , p. 510 ff.
- Gudrun Pischke: Europe works for the Reichswerke. The National Socialist camp system in Salzgitter . Ed .: Archive of the City of Salzgitter (= Salzgitter Research . Volume 2 ). 1995, ISSN 0941-0864 , B. The people V. Prisoners and inmates, p. 281-289 .
Web links
- Watenstedt / Leinde concentration camp
- Publication of the Salzgitter Memorial ( Memento of September 27, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) (PDF file; 65 kB)
- www.ns-spurensuche.de
Coordinates: 52 ° 8 ′ 16 ″ N , 10 ° 25 ′ 59 ″ E