Wilhelmshaven concentration camp
The Wilhelmshaven concentration camp (also called Alter Banter Weg camp ) was a concentration camp in Wilhelmshaven during the Nazi era . It existed from September 17, 1944 to April 5, 1945 and was a satellite camp of the Neuengamme concentration camp . The concentration camp prisoners were deployed to work for the navy shipyard and to clean-up work in Wilhelmshaven. At least 234 prisoners died in the short time it existed.
location
The camp site is on the "Alten Banter Weg" in today's Wilhelmshaven district of Bant and is located between the Ems-Jade Canal and the Oldenburg – Wilhelmshaven railway line .
history
On September 17, 1944, the Neuengamme satellite camp was established. For this purpose, part of a residential barracks camp that had existed since 1938/1939 was fenced in with barbed wire and surrounded with watchtowers. Around 1,000 male concentration camp prisoners from Neuengamme concentration camp, mainly French, were relocated to the new satellite camp and had to work there under the most difficult conditions for the naval shipyard in Wilhelmshaven. They were also used to clean up after the Allied bombing raids.
According to various sources, between 1,129 and 2,000 prisoners were held during the camp's existence, including members of the French Resistance , Hungarian Jews, as well as Polish, Russian, Danish, Italian, Belgian, Yugoslav, German and Czechoslovak prisoners, many of whom were also resistance fighters . The prisoners were housed in only four barracks and were crammed together under adverse conditions. The prisoners had to work from early in the morning until late at night, and their diet was completely inadequate.
“The most difficult thing is the morning. We have to get up at 3.15 a.m., make our beds, that is, pile up the straw from our straw mats and wrap it with a woolen blanket and fold it up so that a square is created. The room needs to be swept and mopped and after we have had a cup we need to be ready for roll call, which takes place at 4:00 a.m. This drink passed the stomach quickly and around 7:00 am the hunger became noticeable. Our eyes are constantly fixed on the wall clock and as soon as the gong sounds, everything flows to the meeting place, where the soup is distributed. There is an indescribable crush there, everyone wants to be among the first to be served, but one is careful not to stand on the side, because there one is often hit by blows. [...] As soon as the soup is swallowed (that is done quickly with water with beets and a piece of potato here and there), we go back to our machines in the hope that the bread hour will come soon. "
The death rate was correspondingly high. The dead were buried in a grave field in the Aldenburg cemetery. Shortly after the arrival of the concentration camp prisoners, additional burial areas had to be made available at the Aldenburg cemetery. 234 deaths were registered in the Neuengamme concentration camp's death register for the Wilhelmshaven satellite camp. The actual death toll is likely to have been greater.
Shortly before the end of the Second World War , the Alter Banter Weg camp was closed by the SS . On April 3, 1945, around 400 sick concentration camp prisoners were initially loaded into train wagons and transported away. The train reached Lüneburg train station on April 7 , where the Allied bombing raid on the city struck the train and killed at least 256 prisoners. The uninjured survivors were transported to the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp , while up to 80 injured prisoners stayed in Lüneburg, where they were shot by their guards on April 11, 1945 on the orders of the then 36-year-old Danish transport leader, SS man Gustav Alfred Jepsen were. Their bodies were buried in the forest the next day. In Lüneburg today the memorial in the zoo commemorates this atrocity.
On April 5, another 600 or so concentration camp prisoners left the Alter Banter Weg satellite camp, some on foot and some by train. The destination was the Sandbostel reception camp near Bremervörde , where the last concentration camp prisoners did not arrive until April 18, 1945. After unrest in the camp, some of the concentration camp prisoners were driven on again and ended up on the coal freighter "Olga Siemers" anchored on the Elbe via Stade . The "Olga Siemers" brought the concentration camp prisoners through the Kiel Canal to Kiel and then from there across the Baltic Sea to Flensburg . There, the concentration camp prisoners were brought on board the tug “Rheinfels”, where they were liberated by British troops on May 10, 1945.
Warehouse organization
The first camp commandant was the former Wehrmacht officer Otto Thümmel, who, however , was relieved of his duties and transferred after a visit to the satellite camp by the commandant of the Neuengamme concentration camp, Max Pauly . He was followed by SS-Unterscharfuhrer Rudolf Günther, who, however, was replaced after a few days at the request of the Navy, as it insisted on a former officer as camp leader. Other camp commanders were SS-Obersturmführer Arnold Büscher and Schwanke.
French SS men were responsible for guarding the concentration camp prisoners for the first two months.
“After our arrival, I was amazed to see how French was spoken in the watchtowers. It was SS men who were talking, but not just any SS men, but "French"! "
In mid-December 1944, the French SS men came to the front and were replaced by 200 German naval artillerymen.
Military trial
In 1947, seven defendants were convicted in connection with the atrocities in the Wilhelmshaven concentration camp in an Allied military trial in Hamburg . The Danish SS member Gustav Alfred Jepsen was sentenced to death for the crimes he committed in the Wilhelmshaven concentration camp and the events on the transport after the camp was closed and executed in Hameln . The department head of the Kriegsmarinewerft Gottfried Drossen, the former chief construction director of the mechanical engineering department Hans Horstmann and the camp commandant Rudolf Günther each received 15 years imprisonment, the first camp commandant Otto Thümmel five years imprisonment and the head of the camp administration Ernst Hoffmann four years imprisonment. One of the convicts was the camp chef, Hinrichs Sührig, a former prisoner who was employed as a kapo in the camp. He received 18 months in prison.
memorial
Since the early 1980s, the historic working group of the continued DGB Wilhelmshaven for a memorial , which eventually on a part of the camp on April 18, 1985 Age Banter way inaugurated was. The Kuhlmann company separated the 1700 square meter site for the memorial from its expansion site and donated it to the city. Previously, young people from Wilhelmshaven and other young people from four nations had uncovered the remains of the foundations of a barrack as part of a work camp . Around 350 citizens of all ages, the entire city council, high-ranking naval members and members of the French prisoner organization “Amicale de Neuengamme” took part in the inauguration of the memorial.
In addition to the remains of the foundations, two newer information boards , a memorial stone with the multilingual inscription "We never forget" and a symbolically planted blood-hanging beech remind of the concentration camp on the site of the memorial .
Another memorial is located in the Aldenburg cemetery in the Aldenburg district of Wilhelmshaven , where several hundred dead from the Wilhelmshaven concentration camp were buried.
Ground monument
In 1947 the entire 27 hectare camp site, including the area that was used as a concentration camp, came into the possession of the city of Wilhelmshaven. The barracks were demolished in the same year, so that today only remains of the foundations remain. The site was not used any further. Later the site was partially bought up by the Kuhlmann company, which built a hall on a section to the side of the actual concentration camp. Furthermore, the Kuhlmann company donated a small part of the area to the city, which in 1985 set up a memorial there at the suggestion of the historical working group of the DGB Wilhelmshaven.
The Kuhlmann site has belonged to the Nordfrost company in Schortens since 2000 . In the spring of 2011, Nordfrost had clearing measures carried out on its site next to the memorial , which led to protests from citizens against the work. So the area around the memorial came back into the focus of the responsible authorities. Despite a valid development plan for the site from 1983, the city of Wilhelmshaven, the Nordfrost company and the Lower Saxony State Office for Monument Preservation in Oldenburg agreed that development on the site was not possible. In the meantime, the concentration camp site has been included in the register of cultural monuments in Lower Saxony (Rüstringen FStNr. 241) and is protected as a ground monument.
literature
- Hartmut Büsing, Klaus Zegenhagen: One day we will happily say: Home, you are mine again! Concentration camps in Wilhelmshaven-Rüstringer and Wilhelmshavener im KZ (= series of workers and trade union movements in Rüstringen and Wilhelmshaven. Vol. 3, ISSN 0179-0366 ). Historical working group of the DGB, Wilhelmshaven 1987.
- Ulrich Räcker-Wellnitz: “The camp is more important than the wages!” Workers' accommodation in Wilhelmshaven 1933 to 1945 (= Wilhelmshaven Contributions to City and Cultural History. Vol. 1). Brune-Mettcker Druck- und Verlagsgesellschaft, Wilhelmshaven 2010, ISBN 978-3-941929-00-5 , pp. 47-51.
- City of Wilhelmshaven (ed.): Documentation of the Wilhelmshaven external command of the Neuengamme concentration camp. City of Wilhelmshaven, Wilhelmshaven 1986.
Web links
- Neuengamme Concentration Camp Memorial - Wilhelmshaven Concentration Camp Subcamp (Alter Banter Weg)
- Jana Esther Fries : A difficult monument - the “Alter Banter Weg” subcamp in Wilhelmshaven. In: Marschenrat to promote research in the coastal area of the North Sea. News. Issue 50, 2013, ISSN 0931-5373 , pp. 38-40, digital version (PDF; 3.8 MB) . ( Page no longer available , search in web archives )
- Frank Falla Archive: British in Wilhelmshaven Concentration Camp (in English)
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c d e f g Neuengamme Concentration Camp Memorial - Wilhelmshaven concentration camp subcamp (Alter Banter Weg) , accessed on June 21, 2017
- ↑ With the freight steamer "Olga Siemers" through the Kiel Canal and to Flensburg. (pdf) Neuengamme Concentration Camp Memorial, accessed on June 21, 2017 .
- ↑ Wilhelmshaven (Alter Banter Weg), newspaper article "Cruelty from the Wilhelmshavener KZ" from the Nordwestdeutsche Zeitung, 1947 ( 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. (PDF; 1.1 MB), accessed on November 10, 2013
- ↑ Werner Brune (Ed.): Wilhelmshavener Heimatlexikon. Volume 1: A - J. Brune, Wilhelmshaven 1986, p. 370.
- ^ City of Wilhelmshaven (ed.): Documentation of the Wilhelmshaven outside command of the Neuengamme concentration camp. 1986, pp. 71 and 72
- ^ A b Jana Esther Fries: A difficult memorial - the “Alter Banter Weg” subcamp in Wilhelmshaven. In: Marschenrat to promote research in the coastal area of the North Sea. News. Issue 50, 2013, ISSN 0931-5373 , pp. 38–40, here p. 40, digitized version (PDF; 3.8 MB) ( memento of the original from November 1, 2013 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. .
Coordinates: 53 ° 30 '54.9 " N , 8 ° 5' 12.8" E