Dachau herb garden

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Decaying greenhouse
Main building of the former German Research Institute for Nutrition and Catering (DVA) , Dachau , Am Kräutergarten 4

The herb garden (command name: the plantation ) was part of the Dachau concentration camp , as a research institute for the use of plant-based active ingredients and organic-dynamic farming.

Concentration camp prisoners worked here as work slaves. The area served to supply the eastern front with vitamin C and active plant substances and was thus a building block for the planned war of aggression. After the start of the war, the Dachau herb garden was also part of the planning of the SS settlement policy of the Race and Settlement Main Office (RuSHA), set out in the General Plan East in Eastern Europe.

The activities from 1938 to 1945

Development

From May 1938, concentration camp prisoners had to drain the moor east of the Alte Römerstrasse and the Würm and build a large herb garden, including the associated commercial and administrative buildings. The area was as large as the entire Dachau East district is today. When it was completed in 1942, it was 148 hectares, the open spaces of which the SS cynically divided into the field names " Freiland I" and " Freiland II" .

Facilities

No savings were made for the buildings (farm buildings, watchtower, apartments, workshops, classrooms, library, laboratories, drying barn and tool shed), greenhouses, spice mill, apiary, composting plant, ornamental garden and necessary facilities and installations (heating, transformer and pump house) and a highly modern, industrial horticultural company set up at the time.

The core of the complex were two elongated gable roof buildings with a courtyard and a gate. Four 6 m wide and 30 m long greenhouses were built, as well as two 3 m wide and 50 m long greenhouses. The construction company was Mehlhorn from Saxony. Mehlhorn owned patents for the applied construction of the glass structures: Resistant, moisture-resistant American redwood ( Sequoia sempervirens ) was used for the supporting structure of the glazing . This enabled the metal base support structure to be thermally decoupled from the glass and wood outer skin in order to avoid structural damage that could occur because the outside temperature can differ significantly from the inside temperature of a greenhouse. There were separation locks in the glass houses to divide them into temperature zones. The concrete floor could also be tempered. For the water supply to the greenhouses there were water basins, the water supply of which could be tempered with heating lines. There was a living room and an air raid shelter. During the war, the buildings were partially expanded, but parts were not completed either. Between 1939 and 1940 around 1 million Reichsmarks were used.

The driving forces behind the research institute were Ernst Günther Schenck , who later became the "nutritional inspector of the Waffen-SS", and Rudolf Lucaß, the master horticulturalist.

Ideology and mission

According to the will of the " German Research Institute for Nutrition and Catering GmbH (DVA) " (headed by SS-Obersturmbannführer Heinrich Vogel), under the influence of the idea of self-sufficiency , Germany should be independent of medicines, drugs, spices and medicinal plants from the Be abroad. Her research assignment: Finding ways beyond the natural sciences that were suspected of being Jewish and developing models of how to improve German public health. In line with the Nazi ideology, the folkish and natural history ideas were to be bundled in a " German folk medicine ".

Inspired by the esoteric teachings of Rudolf Steiner , a National Socialist derivation of organic-dynamic agriculture (today one would say: organic agriculture ) was practiced. As part of the SS settlement policy , after a victory over the Soviet Union, the depopulated areas were to be settled by German farmers, whose cultivation methods were to be developed in the Dachau herb garden.

Based on the poor supply situation in World War I, the herb garden had an important military task: The gladioli grown in Dachau were pulverized and processed into vitamin C , and sent to the Eastern Front as parcels for soldiers of the Wehrmacht and the Waffen SS . A mixture of ground basil , thyme and savory served as a German pepper substitute. There was also the aim of developing "German drugs", possibly with the motive to strengthen the soldiers' willingness to fight.

The suffering of the slave laborers

The working conditions were grueling. The choice of terrain was extremely unfavorable: the wet, heavy peat soil was unsuitable for growing herbs. It had to be regrouped, drained and deacidified. When it rained, the inmates sank into the mud, in summer they stood in the blazing sun and worked their way on a ground that was as hard as concrete.

“Nobody will forget how the prisoners returned to the camps in the evening. Behind the column of exhausted, staggering people ten and more wheelbarrows were pushed with the dead and the dying. "

- Stanislav Zámečník (Czech historian and former concentration camp prisoner) :

Originally, mainly Jews , Sinti and Roma were forced to work here, but from 1942 onwards , mainly priests were called in on personal instructions from Reichsführer SS Heinrich Himmler .

From 1940 around 1,500 prisoners were forced to work in the herb garden, around 300 were deployed at the same time, and up to 1,000 workers were assumed on average over the entire day. For the summer of 1944, the SS counted 1,600 prisoners who were scheduled to work in the herb garden. Around 1/3 of them were employed in the buildings, 2/3 in the outdoor area. The numbers fluctuated considerably, however, because only a few workers were needed in the winter months, significantly more in spring and especially in summer and autumn, the peak values ​​were reached.

The use outside, especially in winter, was grueling. The prisoners only had a thin drill suit and coat. This offered little protection from the cold and if he got wet, the inmates had to go to bed with wet clothes because there were no clothes to change. The poor supply of food increased the suffering of the slave laborers. Stanislav Zámečník generally remembered the ineffective, inhumane organization of work by the SS in the outdoor area: from 1941 onwards, 400 to 500 prisoners were deployed on "Freiland II". The area could have been plowed by two horses in a few days. Instead, the area was dug up by hand with a spade.

A total of at least 800 prisoners were killed here between 1939 and 1945. Many who did not perish from hunger and exertion were shot by SS men because - forced by their guards - they had crossed an invisible boundary line. In the files, the cause of death was cynically noted as " suicide ".

Profitability of the research institute

The SS assumed that an industrial horticultural business of this size could not be run profitably by workers or the labor service. The plans therefore resulted in a settlement at the Dachau concentration camp, as slave laborers were available there, officially known as "manual labor". The SS officials did not care whether they were concentration camp inmates or prisoners of war in the future. From 1942 onwards, workers employed as unskilled workers were paid 60 Reichspfennig per day, and skilled workers up to three Reichsmarks. However, only on paper and for business documentation. The money was never paid out. Inhuman exploitation was the basic business model in Dachau.

Contacts with the population

At the back of the farm building, the SS had set up a sales point where residents from Dachau and the surrounding area could buy vegetables. The misery of the concentration camp prisoners, which later nobody wanted to know anything about - everyone could see it here. There were notable individual cases in which locals like Resi Huber, a resident of Dachau, secretly slipped the emaciated prisoners food and smuggled letters for them. However, SS guards were constantly present and violators were severely punished.

Use after dissolution

The site has been owned by the City of Dachau since 1957, but no appropriate use of the site as a place of remembrance has been found.

In the 1980s, most of the former agricultural area was converted into a new industrial area in the east (Schwarzer Graben). Only buildings and a small area with a few greenhouses remained. The herb garden, of which only an area the size of a football field is left between commercial buildings, was also a symbol of displacement, of not wanting to know. And that well beyond the post-war period until the 1990s. In the 1980s, the site was largely built on with retail, commercial and residential areas (Dachau Ost industrial area). The district office's motor vehicle registration office has its headquarters here. In 2015, the Dachau public utility decided to set up bus line 744 via the Dachau Ost industrial park with the final stop at "Kräutergarten" for better connections to the city.

The greenhouses, which have since fallen into disrepair, are now under monument protection, as are some of the adjacent buildings.

As of 2015, the buildings were mainly used by the city of Dachau for social housing and to accommodate the homeless and refugees. They are structurally in poor condition and have been temporarily secured by the City of Dachau. However, the city of Dachau has reactivated some of the greenhouses and smaller areas and is using this through the Dachau City Building Office, department "City Green, Environment and City Building Yard".

The concentration camp memorial and the association “For example Dachau” have long had plans to make the herb garden a permanent part of the memorial. In addition to the herb garden, the Dachau Leitenberg concentration camp cemetery and the Hebertshausen SS shooting range are also outside the actual area of ​​the Dachau concentration camp memorial site. The concentration camp memorial is striving for inclusion as a holistic solution.

The incumbent mayor and the citizens of Dachau are also interested in turning the area into a memorial. Representatives from the city, district and state had already promised their basic support in the 2000s. Many expert opinions and feasibility studies were carried out in order to initiate the use as an "exhibition center and training center". However, the city of Dachau and the state have not yet reached an agreement on sponsorship, ownership and costs.

On June 1 and 2, 2012, a meeting of monument conservationists, architects, memorial representatives and historians took place in Dachau to discuss future use. The assessments and suggestions were recorded in a book in 2014.

Web links

Commons : Herb Garden Dachau  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

literature

  • Gabriele Hammermann / Dirk Riedel (eds.): Renovation - Reconstruction - Redesign. On dealing with historical buildings in memorials , Göttingen 2014, ISBN 978-3-8353-1451-1

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e f g h Gregor Schiegl: Organic vegetables under the sign of the swastika. In: https://www.sueddeutsche.de/ . SZ Süddeutsche Zeitung, April 1, 2015, accessed on November 24, 2019 .
  2. ↑ a b c d Axel Will, Gabriele Hammermann and Dirk Riedel: Renovation - Reconstruction - Redesign. How to deal with historical buildings in memorials . Ed .: Axel Will and Gabriele Hammermann. Wallstein-Verlag, Göttingen 2014, ISBN 978-3-8353-1451-1 .
  3. ↑ a b c d e Dirk Riedel: Renovation - Reconstruction - Redesign. How to deal with historical buildings in memorials . Ed .: Gabriele Hammermann and Dirk Riedel. Wallstein-Verlag, Göttingen 2014, ISBN 978-3-8353-1451-1 , p. 10 .
  4. ^ Stanislav Zámečník: That was Dachau, p. 123, Frankfurt aM 2007
  5. ^ Stanislav Zámečník: That was Dachau . 3. Edition. Fischer Taschenbuch-Verlag, Frankfurt a. M. 2007, ISBN 978-3-596-17228-3 , pp. 120 .
  6. ↑ a b Dachau Concentration Camp Memorial Site: Statement by the Dachau Concentration Camp Memorial Site on the inquiry as to whether refugees are accommodated on the site of the memorial site. In: Dachau Concentration Camp Memorial Site. Dachau Concentration Camp Memorial, accessed on November 24, 2019 .
  7. ↑ a b Helmut Zeller: Endangered Place of Remembrance. In: https://www.sueddeutsche.de/ . SZ Süddeutsche Zeitung, November 27, 2013, accessed on November 24, 2019 .
  8. ^ Helmut Zeller: Polluted place. In: https://www.sueddeutsche.de/ . SZ Süddeutsche Zeitung, July 19, 2019, accessed on November 24, 2019 .
  9. ↑ Susanne Lettenbauer: Who sits in the glass house. In: DLF Deutschlandfunk. Deutschlandfunk Kultur, Studio 9, August 10, 2015, accessed on November 24, 2019 .