Schömberg concentration camp
The Schömberg Concentration Camp , or Schömberg concentration camp for short, was a satellite camp of the Natzweiler-Struthof concentration camp (as an administrative main camp). It was located on the western edge of the Swabian Alb near Schömberg in what is now the Zollernalb district . The Schömberg concentration camp was one of the seven camps operated by the Desert Company that had the purpose of extracting crude oil from oil shale , with Schömberg being called the Desert Factory 9 .
prehistory
It was known that a layer of slate , the so-called Posidonia slate (Lias epsilon) of the Black Jura contains bitumen . The extraction of crude oil was considered uneconomical, as the price for 1 liter of oil at the time was around 2 Reichspfennige, and its production from oil shale, even with the use of concentration camp forced laborers, was around 1.50 Reichsmarks. When, due to the defeat of Stalingrad and the bombing of the Leuna hydrogenation works , the prospect of alternative energy sources for the German Reich was shattered, there was an intense search for alternatives in Germany. For example, efforts were made to use the bitumen oil shale in the Swabian Alb in the Swabian Alb to extract smoldering oil as part of the project under the code name desert .
In order to be able to extract smoldering oil from oil shale, the Geilenberg workforce based in the Berlin Reich Ministry for Armaments and Ammunition decided to build a total of ten plants. Baron von Krüdener was responsible for this project, which was also called the mineral oil safety plan or the Geilenberg program. The Todt organization was responsible for setting up the plant in Schömberg . This was also the responsibility of the Deutsche Bergwerks- und Hüttenbau Gesellschaft mbH. The "Deutsche Ölschieferforschungs-Gesellschaft" (DÖLF) operated the oil shale plant together with the Deutsche Schieferölgesellschaft mbH. The concentration camp prisoners deployed in the camp were made available by the SS . This received 4-5 Reichsmarks per prisoner and working day.
The entire desert company supplied 1,500 tons of low-quality smoldering oil that could only be used in special engines.
History of the camp
The camp was established on December 16, 1943. It was located near the train station and for this reason was also known as the station concentration camp. Most prisoners of the Jewish faith were interned in the camp. Many came from Lithuania , the Warsaw Ghetto or Hungary . But there were also Sinti and Roma and active resistance fighters from Poland , Scandinavia and Western Europe. Up to 800 prisoners were transferred from the Natzweiler-Struthof and Auschwitz main camps. But prisoners were also brought to Schömberg from the other camps of the desert concentration camps Schörzingen , Frommern , Erzingen , Bisingen , Dautmergen and Dormettingen .
The Schömberg concentration camp had a special feature. Almost exclusively Luxembourg prisoners occupied the leading positions in the prisoner hierarchy, as they were able to speak German.
The first prisoners arrived from Natzweiler-Struthof at the end of 1943 and were interned in some of the existing barracks. The factory site was built right next to the warehouse.
Warehouse construction
The concentration camp consisted of four camp blocks. The warehouse , the bathroom, a cobbler's shop and the kitchen of the concentration camp were arranged around the roll call square . There was also an infirmary in the camp. The organization stipulated that 64 prisoners would work within the camp.
The barracks had windows, floors and a toilet, thanks to the camp elder Roger Hoffmann.
Warehouse management
SS- Hauptscharführer Josef Seuss was in command of the Schömberg concentration camp . At times he was also the superordinate commander of all desert concentration camps. Seuss was simply referred to as "zack zack" by the inmates. He was known to form “shoesless” commands despite the winter.
The elder of the camp was Roger Hoffmann. He tried to organize camp life without beatings and cruelty. Since he took office, the number of deaths has decreased significantly. Many prisoners said that his help made camp life only bearable.
Prisoners report the extreme brutality of Blockführer Gleich and Rapportführer Seith. There are statements by Hoffmann that say that both prisoners were locked in dog kennels with vicious animals and that prisoners were hanged in front of all the other inmates.
Situation of the prisoners
The situation in the camp was catastrophic because the inmates were not provided with soap or showers. Despite the extremely dirty work, the forced laborers were not given an opportunity to change their laundry. Vermin spread in the camp. Paper bandages were only given to the prisoners' senior management and were changed once a week.
Of tuberculosis diseased prisoners with syringes with formaldehyde were filled killed. It was reported that some prisoners did not return after going to the toilet.
The number of prisoners who died in the camp is not known, but it certainly exceeded a few hundred.
Despite the extremely harsh winter of 1944/45, there were no shoes for many prisoners, the prisoners were starving and often ate rubbish. For many, theft was the only way to survive. Corruption was common.
Despite inadequate care, the prisoners had to do extremely difficult physical labor. They were used to build barracks, to erect fences and roads. They were also involved in slate mining, laying light rail tracks or working in the sulfur plant. In addition, they were used when loading the railway wagons with stones, cement pipes or sand and gravel.
Typhus broke out in the camp and died of numerous prisoners.
A fellow inmate responsible for caring for the sick said in the Rastatt trial that there were between one and four deaths every day.
Dissolution of the camp
When the front drew nearer in the spring of 1945, the desert operation was discontinued and the camp was closed on April 17, 1945. The concentration camp inmates, who , according to Heinrich Himmler's orders , should not fall into the hands of the enemy alive, were evacuated to the Allach satellite camp in Dachau in coal transport wagons , but most of them were sent on death marches towards Upper Swabia and Upper Bavaria . On May 22, 1945 part of a column reached Ostrach , where the emaciated and often ill prisoners were abandoned by their guards and were freed. The Americans liberated other prisoners near Garmisch-Partenkirchen .
location
The camp was located in the southwest of Schömberg and bordered the Balingen – Rottweil railway line . Schömberg train station was about 600 meters from the camp entrance. With the exception of a few buildings around the train station, the nearest camp-independent settlements were over a kilometer away. Various residential and administrative buildings for the camp staff were built around the camp.
The entire warehouse complex was built over by a cement processing industrial company after the Second World War and is still used by various companies today. Apart from the barrack-like buildings along Wellendinger Straße and the railway connection, nothing reminds of the desert factory 9 today .
Concentration camp cemetery and memorial
After the end of the war, pits with mass graves were discovered in Schönhager Loch. In the 75 graves, between two and 53 corpses were buried per grave. After her exhumation , she was buried in a concentration camp cemetery of honor on the road connecting Schömberg and Dautmergen. 1777 dead from the desert concentration camps of Dautmergen, Dormettingen and Schömberg rest here.
A Dautmergen-Schömberg memorial opened in April 2008 commemorates the fate of the concentration camp inmates. The coordinates given above refer to them.
Evidence of the death march are various graves tended by students in the district of Ostrach in the direction of Pfullendorf, in which prisoners who died of exhaustion and hunger or who were shot by the SS guards are buried.
Individual evidence
- ↑ http://www.kreisgebiet.de/kreis-zollernalb/schoemberg.htm
- ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k l Archive link ( Memento of the original from June 26, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Michael Grandt: Enterprise "Desert" - Hitler's Last Hope . Silberburg-Verlag , Tübingen 2002, ISBN 3-87407-508-7 .
- ↑ a b c d http://www.freitag.de/autoren/der-freitag/biotop-des-dritten-reiches
- ↑ http://www.laehnemann.de/auschwitz/seite16.htm
- ↑ http://www.geschichte-mitteldeutschland.de/18.html
- ↑ https://docs.google.com/uc?export=download&id=0B9AZj5ZYb55Nb3lVU216QjhUWnlOQTJFTjl2blJqZw ( Memento from July 9, 2015 on WebCite )
- ↑ Archive link ( Memento of the original from October 20, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ http://www.planet-schule.de/wissenspool/bg0030/spuren_der_ns_zeit/wissen/das_unternehmen_wueste_zentrationslager_am_fusse_der_schwaebischen_alb.html ( page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ http://www.lias-epsilon.de/texte/grau-rot.html ( page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ http://www.projekte-regional.de/bilder/schriftenreihe2007.pdf
- ↑ a b c Gerhard Fetscher: Ostrach - death march of the concentration camp prisoners . In: Denkstättenkuratorium NS-Documentation Oberschwaben (ed.): Places of thought on Upper Swabian paths of remembrance in the districts of Lake Constance and Sigmaringen . 2012. p. 32.
- ↑ http://www.alemannia-judaica.de/schoemberg_kz_friedhof.htm
- ↑ http://nrwz-online.de/nrwz///v4/region/00020478/
- ↑ Josef Unger: The end of the war in 1945 in the Ostrachtal . In: Edwin Ernst Weber (Red.): From dictatorship to occupation. The end of the war in 1945 in the area of today's Sigmaringen district. The end of the war in the city of Pfullendorf and the surrounding area . Sigmaringen 1995, pp. 219-225.
Coordinates: 48 ° 13 '15.8 " N , 8 ° 45' 2.2" E