Farge concentration camp

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U-boat bunker Valentin seen from the Weser

The Farge concentration camp was a satellite camp of the Neuengamme concentration camp . It existed from October 1943 to April 10, 1945, according to other sources from July 1, 1943 to April 8, 1945. The inmates of this camp built the Valentin submarine bunker about four kilometers away . The concentration camp was in the Neuenkirchener Heide between the villages of Schwanewede , Lüssum , Farge , Rekum and Neuenkirchen in what is now the state of Lower Saxony .

Many prisoners were accommodated in an unfinished fuel bunker that had been built for the Neuenkirchen marine oil depot. The roof had been camouflaged by filling it with sand. On top of this bunker ceiling, additional barracks were built for the kitchen, toilet, sick bay, for other prisoners and for the administration of the camp. The living conditions in this round bunker were extremely bad. The guard was carried out by marines from the marine community camp.

history

The memorial in front of the bunker symbolizes the suffering and death of the prisoners who had to do heavy forced labor on the bunker construction site. It stands on the former route of the Farge-Schwanewede naval railway .

The prisoners for the camp came from different concentration camps. They should build a submarine bunker for the Navy. Work began in 1943. In Rekum, a bunker was to be built under the name Valentin to protect a submarine shipyard from air raids and to have direct access to the Weser . The bunker is 426 meters long and almost 100 meters wide. The complex was built by around 10,000 concentration camp prisoners and forced laborers who worked for numerous of the more than 100 companies involved (including Wayss & Freytag , Hermann Möller (Wilhelmshaven), Lenz-Bau, Robert Kögel (Cologne), August Reiners, Gottfried Stehnke (Osterholz -Scharmbeck), Siemens-Schuckert Werke AG, Kieserling, Grün & Bilfinger, Gottlieb Tesch (Berlin), Krupp AG (Rheinhausen), Dyckerhoff & Widmann (Hamburg), Carl Duve (Bremen-Farge), Gebrüder Neumann (north), Habermann & Cluckes (Berlin)) had to work. The construction companies paid according to wage groups. Foremen received an hourly wage of 1.29 RM, foremen received 1.05 RM, skilled workers 0.95 RM, unskilled workers 0.73 RM, prisoners of war 0.49 RM. The so-called “concentration camp unskilled workers” (actually they were SS slaves) did not receive any wages. Instead, the companies paid 4.50 RM for the daily work of a “concentration camp unskilled worker” to the SS camp authorities. By lending out the concentration camp prisoners, the SS generated considerable income, most of which flowed to the higher-level concentration camp administration and ultimately to the SS Economic and Administrative Main Office ( SS-WVHA ). On site, the camp management used for catering, guarding, accommodation, etc. of the prisoners only about 1/3 of the income. 0.70 RM was deducted daily from the prisoners and the staff of the camp as boarding money and booked as income by the concentration camp, see illustration.

Income and expenses of a concentration camp with 400 prisoners, compiled by the SS in Bremen in 1944

A barrack camp of its own was set up in October 1943, which was subordinated to the main camp in Neuengamme . A transport with 3,000 prisoners arrived from the Neuengamme main camp , making it one of the largest subcamps. Most of the prisoners came from France , the Soviet Union and Poland . The prisoner camp was about four kilometers away from the bunker construction site in what is now the municipality of Schwanewede . The prisoners' living conditions were inhumane, which is why many prisoners died of starvation , malnutrition or exhaustion. Numerous prisoners were killed by the SS . Although the number was probably much higher, only 553 fatalities are known from this period, because the SS destroyed many documents at the end of the war in order to cover up their crimes. Work on the bunker was stopped after heavy bombing at the end of March 1945.

The Farge camp was designated as a collective camp for all external concentration camps in the Bremen area . The first marches reached the camp on April 7th. The prisoners from the Schützenhof , Bahrsplate and Riespott camps were collected here, which meant that around 5,000 prisoners were housed there.

The camp was evacuated by the SS on April 10th and the prisoners were distributed to other camps. Some were forced to march to the Sandbostel reception camp ( death march) , all the sick were crammed into trains and deported to Bergen-Belsen . However, the train never reached the camp and ended in Bremervörde . All prisoners who had survived the hardship were evacuated to Sandbostel . In some cases, however, prisoners were also brought back to the main camp in Neuengamme via Winsen / Luhe .

The commandant of the camp was from 1944 Hauptsturmführer of the reserve of the Waffen-SS Ulrich Wahl.

literature

Web links

Footnotes

  1. ↑ Time Traces. (pdf) The exhibitions. Neuengamme Concentration Camp Memorial. Edition Temmen, 2005, accessed on March 28, 2018 .
  2. ^ Directory of the concentration camps and their external commands in accordance with Section 42 (2) BEG
  3. ↑ Marine community camp on Denkort-bunker-valentin.de ( Memento of the original from October 13, 2016 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.  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.denkort-bunker-valentin.de
  4. ^ The workers' camps at the tank farms in Bremen-Farge & Schwanewede ( Memento from March 27, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) on the website Relicts in Lower Saxony and Bremen
  5. ↑ For historical reasons, the bunker is often assigned to Farge . However, it is located in the Bremer district of Rekum . the city map: The bunker is in Rekum ( memento of the original from March 5, 2016 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. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / maps.bremen.de
  6. ↑ Business relationships with satellite camps of Neuengamme concentration camp. Retrieved July 24, 2018 .
  7. ↑ State Archives Bremen Sign. 4,64 / 6-376
  8. ↑ z. B. monthly 40,000 RM with income of 70,500 RM, which a concentration camp with "400 in action (n) concentration camp prisoners working 10 hours a RM -.60 in 25 days" earned (Kreisarchiv Osterholz, Archiv Meiners , Sign. J 26)

Coordinates: 53 ° 13 ′ 2 ″  N , 8 ° 32 ′ 0 ″  E