Osthofen concentration camp

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Entrance to the former Osthofen concentration camp
Roll call square with a view of the adjacent residential area
Former bedrooms

The Osthofen concentration camp in Osthofen near Worms ( Rhineland-Palatinate ) existed from March 6, 1933 to July 1934 .

prehistory

On February 28, 1933, one day after the fire in the Reichstag , President Paul von Hindenburg issued the “ Ordinance on the Protection of People and State ”, which was intended to defend against “acts of violence that could endanger the Communist state”. It suspended many fundamental rights and made it possible for the National Socialists to take political opponents into " protective custody " without charge or evidence . The victims were primarily communists , which is why functionaries of this party were among the first inmates of the concentration camp in Osthofen . But were arrested Social Democrats , trade unionists and members of their affiliated organizations and the " Reichsbanner black-red-gold " and the " Iron Front ".

Even Jewish citizens were persecuted from the beginning - especially when a left belonged to political grouping. From mid-1933 onwards, members of the Center Party , Jews, Catholics, Seventh-day Adventists , actual or alleged separatists , Jehovah's Witnesses and other opponents of the regime were also targeted by the prosecution authorities.

Emergence

On May 1, 1933, the State Commissioner for Police in the People's State of Hesse , Werner Best , ordered the creation of a concentration camp for the People's State in Osthofen near Worms. A closed paper mill was selected for this. All those residents of Hesse who the police had arrested for political reasons and held for longer than a week were to be interned there. In fact, this concentration camp had existed since the beginning of March 1933, and the first prisoners were also admitted before the official opening. As early as March 6, individual prisoners from Osthofen themselves arrived at the concentration camp. The first larger transport with around 80 political “ prisoners ” had to walk from Worms to Osthofen under strict guard. The SS -Sturmbannführer Karl d'Angelo , who was born in Osthofen, was the honorary camp manager . The camp was initially guarded by SS and SA men from Worms and the surrounding area who had been appointed auxiliary police . In autumn 1933, the SA men were replaced by SS men from Darmstadt and Offenbach . Hans Gaier was described as a sadist by Christoph Weitz, an affected person and eyewitness, in his report on torture in the Gestapo prison in Worms and in the Osthofen concentration camp in 1933.

Former district court, Schwerdstrasse 18, Osthofen

With the establishment of the only early concentration camp of the People's State of Hesse, Werner Best had created one of the first regular state concentration camps in the German Reich and at the same time placed the fight against opponents of the Nazi regime under his newly created political state police. In contrast to other concentration camps such as Dachau , there were no deaths in the Osthofen concentration camp. In addition, the number of “protective prisoners” in Hesse was relatively low. However, they too suffered abuse, humiliation, illness, hard work, and poor sanitary conditions. At least 3,000 prisoners in total were in this concentration camp. The duration of detention was usually 4 to 6 weeks, in individual cases up to a year. For the execution of the "tightened arrest" the area of ​​a neighboring empty wood mill and at times also the district court prison in Osthofen were used. The prisoners who were housed in the "Alte Holzmühle", also known as Camp II, were strictly isolated from the outside world and their fellow prisoners, systematically terrorized and tortured. The diet consisted mainly of unseasoned thin soup and some bread.

The aim of the early concentration camps was to eliminate all political opposition and to intimidate the population, which was supported by extensive press reports. From May 1933 onwards, the regional press in the whole of Hessen reported in almost identical reports on the establishment of the Osthofen concentration camp. In the weeks that followed, you could read almost every day in the regional newspapers who had been arrested from the area and brought to Osthofen. The existence of this camp was therefore not hidden from any contemporary. The conditions there were played down in the reports. In many cases, however, they have certainly achieved their actual purpose of deterring the rest of the population. The most prominent prisoner was Carlo Mierendorff , whose imprisonment and mistreatment were published in the October 5, 1933 edition of the illegal newspaper " Der Rote Shocktrupp ".

Escapes

On April 28, 1933, Wilhelm Vogel managed to escape when he was supposed to wash the camp commandant Karl d'Angelo's car. He used an unobserved minute to jump onto a passing train.

With the help of fellow prisoners and his fiancée, Max Tschornicki managed to escape from the concentration camp on July 3, 1933. His escape had far-reaching consequences. Not only was the guarding of the concentration camp increased, a ban on visitors imposed and some prisoners severely punished, his family was also taken into “ protective custody ”. Tschornicki later described his experiences while emigrating in Paris to Anna Seghers , who used his descriptions for her novel The Seventh Cross , which she wrote between September 1938 and October 1939.

resolution

The end of the Osthofen camp came relatively quickly. In the fall of 1933, Best was deposed as state police chief. In May 1934, Heinrich Himmler , the Bavarian police chief and Reichsführer SS , commissioned the Dachau concentration camp commandant Theodor Eicke to take over, reorganize and unify the existing concentration camps. The Osthofen concentration camp was disbanded in July 1934 as one of the last early concentration camps. At that time, 84 people from Hessen were still in "protective custody".

Many former prisoners held back from political activities after their release in the hope that the Nazi dictatorship would only last a short time. Others fled into exile or fought against the fascist Franco regime in the Spanish Civil War . Many were observed by the Gestapo , repeatedly arrested and interrogated. Some later came to the concentration camps in Dachau , Buchenwald , Mauthausen , in Emsland or to the penal division 999 (officially "probation unit").

Reuse

The building was empty from the summer of 1934 and was foreclosed in October 1936. The Bühner couple purchased the site and relocated their company, the Hildebrand & Bühner GmbH furniture factory, there. Forced laborers were also used there from 1942 to 1945. After the company went bankrupt, the site and buildings were rented out. The tenants included a plastic recycling company and also a wine warehouse.

Camp community

In 1972 a group of former prisoners joined together to form a camp community with the support of the Association of those persecuted by the Nazi regime / Bund der Antifaschisten . On May 27, 1972, a rally took place in front of the building of the former concentration camp. The prisoners wanted to remind them of what had happened there. This met with resistance from the local population, among others. Some of the prisoners were insulted as polluting the nest . According to the will of the population, the special past of the factory complex should be pushed aside as before. Only after a long struggle with the then owner was the camp community allowed to put a memorial plaque on the outer wall in 1978, barely visible to passers-by. The memorial plaque was 50 by 50 centimeters and made of bronze. The memorial plaque was unveiled on November 18, 1978.

The inscription on the plaque reads:

  • THE HESSIAN CONCENTRATION CAMP OSTHOFEN WAS HERE 1933-35
  • NEVER AGAIN!

Literary implementation

The author Anna Seghers , born in Mainz as Netty Reiling, created a literary memorial for the Osthofen concentration camp in her world-famous novel The Seventh Cross, which was written in exile in Paris and first published in Mexico in 1942 . Based on the newspaper and eyewitness accounts of emigrants, Anna Seghers tells the story of the flight of seven prisoners, only one of whom ended up in exile in the Netherlands . Using the example of the reactions of different population groups in her home in the Rhine-Hesse region, the author paints an authentic overall picture of society in the mid-1930s under the rule of the National Socialists. In the novel the camp is called "Westhofen" in a literary alienation and is a symbol for abuse and murder in concentration camps. In contrast to the novel, there were no deaths in the real Osthofen concentration camp.

memory

The support association Projekt Osthofen e. V., who has dedicated himself to memory work. There is also a documentation center there. One room is dedicated to Anna Seghers.

From April 16 to 29, 2018, the reading festival “Frankfurt reads a book” in the Frankfurt am Main and Mainz area was dedicated to Anna Seghers' novel “The Seventh Cross”, which also deals with the Osthofen camp. Robert Stadlober , Martin Wuttke , Petra Roth , Gudrun Landgrebe and Wilhelm von Sternburg read and discussed . There were also several trips to the Osthofen concentration camp memorial.

Teaching materials and literature

  • Angelika Arenz-Morch: The Osthofen concentration camp 1933/34 - An overview , In: Angelika Arenz-Morch, Stefan Heinz (ed.): Trade unionists in the Osthofen concentration camp 1933/34. Biographical manual (= trade unionists under National Socialism. Persecution - Resistance - Emigration , Vol. 8). Metropol, Berlin 2019, ISBN 978-3-86331-439-2 , pp. 11–51.
  • Ralph Erbar : The Osthofen concentration camp . In: Think! Monuments in class. Volume 1: General Monuments. Bad Kreuznach 1997, pp. 263-280 (information from the Pedagogical Center Rhineland-Palatinate 4/97). ISSN  0938-748X .
  • Paul Grünewald : Osthofen concentration camp. Materials on the history of an almost forgotten concentration camp , Röderberg-Verlag, 2nd edition, Frankfurt am Main 1983, ISBN 3-87682-709-4 .

Web links

Commons : Osthofen Memorial  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Karl Klemm, Volker Ochs, Giving names to the memory , DGB Region Südhessen, p. 31. Retrieved on January 11, 2020.
  2. ↑ Dennis Egginger-Gonzalez: The Red Assault Troop. An early left-wing socialist resistance group against National Socialism. Lukas Verlag, Berlin 2018, p. 676.
  3. ↑ Susanne Urban-Fahr and Angelika Arenz-Morch: The Osthofen Concentration Camp 1933/34 . Ed .: Förderverein Projekt Osthofen eV Osthofen 2000, p. 28 ( online [PDF; 196 kB ]).
  4. ^ Klaus Drobisch , Günther Wieland : System of the Nazi concentration camps. 1933-1939. Akademie-Verlag, Berlin 1993, ISBN 3-05-000823-7 . P. 163.
  5. ↑ Angelika Arenz-Morch, Martina Ruppert-Kelly: The Osthofen Concentration Camp Memorial . Ed .: State Center for Political Education Rhineland-Palatinate. Osthofen 2010, p. 11 ( political-bildung-rlp.de [PDF]).
  6. ↑ In Drobisch, July 5th is mentioned, on July 6th the escape report appeared in the “Mainzer Tageszeitung”. Drobisch, System of Nazi Concentration Camps , p. 163.
  7. ^ Sven Langhammer: Escape from concentration camps from 1933 to 1937 . In: Resistant ways (=  information no. 68 ). November 2008 ( resistance-1933-1945.de [PDF]).
  8. ^ Klaus Drobisch, Günther Wieland: The system of the Nazi concentration camps: 1933–1939 . Akademie Verlag, 1993, ISBN 978-3-05-000823-3 , pp. 169 .
  9. ↑ Wolfgang Benz (Ed.): Early camp. History of the National Socialist Concentration Camps. Volume 2. Beck, Munich 2005, ISBN 3-406-52962-3 . Pp. 181-184.
  10. ^ Bernhard Spies: Commentary , to: Anna Seghers: Werkausgabe. The seventh cross , construction, Berlin 2000, pp. 445–496.
  11. ^ Osthofen concentration camp - used as a factory building , accessed on August 13, 2019.
  12. ^ Osthofen Concentration Camp - First Commemoration , accessed on August 13, 2019.
  13. ↑ Marie-Sophie Adeoso: Where George Heisler escape began. The Osthofen concentration camp near Worms served Anna Seghers as a template for her novel "The Seventh Cross" / A visit . (With an interview with Wilhelm von Sternburg) In: Frankfurter Rundschau of April 16, 2018, pp. 32–33.

Coordinates: 49 ° 42 ′ 28.3 "  N , 8 ° 19 ′ 32.8"  E