Wittmoor concentration camp
Coordinates: 53 ° 41 ′ 54 ″ N , 10 ° 3 ′ 13 ″ E
The Wittmoor concentration camp was one of the first German concentration camps and existed from April 10, 1933 to October 1933.
history
On March 31, 1933, the establishment of one of the first Nazi concentration camps was ordered in the community of Glashütte (a district of Norderstedt since 1970 ). Political opponents of National Socialism - mostly members of the KPD (including the former member of the Bundestag Alfred Levy ), but also the SPD , the SAPD and Jehovah's Witnesses - as well as some homosexuals and transvestites were to be "re-educated" through hard work on the site of a disused peat utilization in nearby Wittmoor " become. On April 10, 1933, the first 20 prisoners were locked behind barbed wire. Their task was to make the derelict buildings makeshift. In September 1933 the camp had a maximum occupancy of 140 prisoners. The prisoners were used in peat extraction and peat cultivation.
The original plan was to accommodate 800 prisoners. The area was too small for that; the accommodations were also not winter-proof. The Reich Governor Karl Kaufmann allegedly treated the prisoners as "too lax". In fact, there were no significant attacks during the surveillance by police officers and auxiliary police officers. But the very existence of the camp already had an intimidating effect and it was popularly said: "Dear God, make me mute so that I don't come to Wittmoor!"
As part of the standardization of the concentration camp system under the leadership of the SS, the camp was closed by order of the Justice Senator Curt Rothenberger , completely evacuated on October 17, 1933 and the prisoners moved to the Hamburg-Fuhlsbüttel concentration camp ( Kola-Fu - Fuhlsbüttel correctional facility ).
Memorials
In 1986 the City of Hamburg (Hamburg-Walddörfer Local Committee) erected a memorial stone on the corner of Bilenbarg / Am Moor ( → Lage ) in memory of the prisoners ; In 1987 the city of Norderstedt followed with a memorial stone on Fuchsmoorweg ( → Lage ). Excerpts from the speech on the 40th anniversary of the end of the war in Europe and the National Socialist tyranny , which Richard von Weizsäcker gave to the German Bundestag on May 8, 1985, are engraved in this stone . The memorial events have also been taking place on the Fuchsmoorweg for years. The memorial plaque at the Wittmoor concentration camp memorial on Fuchsmoorweg in Glashütte has been vandalized several times, most recently in 2003.
Since 1999 the Norderstedt association "Chaverim - Friendship with Israel eV" (officially recognized cultural institution of the city of Norderstedt) has been asking for the Holocaust Remembrance Day on January 27th and on the anniversary of the Reichspogromnacht on November 9th at memorial times with wreath laying at the Wittmoor concentration camp memorial in the Fuchsmoorweg. With the participation of personalities from politics, city administration and society and the VVN , the association honors the six million European Jews murdered in the Holocaust of Nazi Germany and other victims of the regime, including Roma and Sinti and those politically persecuted. In addition, the Chaverim association initiated the planting of trees and flowers to commemorate the victims. To mark the 75th anniversary of the Wittmoor concentration camp, an information board was set up on March 31, 2008 at the concentration camp memorial on Fuchsmoorweg. In 2009, with the support of the city of Norderstedt, the Chaverim association erected a memorial stele with an inscription at the site of the former concentration camp on Bundesstraße 432 (Segeberger Chaussee 310, → Lage ).
Individual evidence
- ↑ Werner Jochmann : The establishment of the National Socialist rule in Hamburg. In: Landeszentrale für Pol. Education (ed.): Hamburg in the Third Reich. Hamburg 1998, ISBN 3-929728-42-7 , p. 48
- ↑ Norderstedter Zeitung; July 10, 2003
literature
- Willy Klawe: " Otherwise discipline and order prevail ..." - On the history of the Wittmoor concentration camp . Hamburg 1987, ISBN 3-87975-412-8 .
- Wolfgang Benz , Barbara Distel (ed.): Terror without a system. The first concentration camps under National Socialism 1933-1935 . Berlin 2001, ISBN 3-932482-61-1 .
- Willy Klawe: Hamburg-Wittmoor. In: Wolfgang Benz, Barbara Distel (eds.): The place of terror . History of the National Socialist Concentration Camps. Volume 2: Early camp, Dachau, Emsland camp. CH Beck, Munich 2005, ISBN 3-406-52962-3 , pp. 119-121.
