Sigmundsherberg prisoner of war camp
The Sigmundsherberg POW camp was one of the largest POW camps in the Danube Monarchy during the First World War .
planning
Originally, the press demanded that a camp for war refugees from Galicia and Hungary should be built at Sigmundsherberg in the Waldviertel ( Lower Austria ) as well as in Gmünd . The war ministry in Vienna decided differently for Sigmundsherberg and decided on June 11, 1915 to set up a prisoner of war camp . The camp should be designed for a capacity of 20,000 soldiers and 200 officers, and it should be possible to start occupancy on July 5th.
On June 14th, a commission visited the intended area. However, this was rejected in favor of a more conveniently located area, and on June 19, 1915, negotiations between the Austro-Hungarian War Ministry and the landowners began on a lease for an initial period of two years. However, there were disagreements about the amount of the lease. The Hungarian Bank and Trade Corporation took over the financing of the construction of the warehouse . The camp was to include 68 barracks for Austrian personnel and 326 barracks for prisoners of war. Due to the financing from Hungary, Hungarian workers and companies were also used.
The first plans for the camp were for 30,000 prisoners, but in August the ministry decided to increase it to 40,000.
Establishment
The first construction team consisted of Russian prisoners of war and had a strength of approx. 1,500 - 1,800 men. Local farmers were hired to transport materials. A rail connection for the camp, completed at the end of August 1915, made the transport work much easier. In 1916, the establishment of secondary lines within the camp premises began. The accommodation barracks were grouped into seven residential groups, which were fenced in again within the camp grounds. These residential groups with mostly 21 residential barracks had two kitchens, a dining room and a few additional buildings. In the spring of 1916, workshops and warehouses were ready, the road and water supply network was well developed, and the furnishing of the residential groups was completed.
business
Russian prisoners of war
With the completion of the prisoner-of-war camp ( KGL ) Sigmundsherberg, the Russian prisoners were transported to other camps (teams to Wieselburg and Spratzern , officers to Hart near Amstetten, Purgstall an der Erlauf and Mühling ). As early as April 1915, the Kingdom of Italy , with which Austria-Hungary and the German Empire had been allied since 1882 , switched sides and declared war on Austria-Hungary: from the Dolomites to the Isonzo a new front had formed and has been on it ever since several loss-making Italian offensives had been repulsed, and so there was also a need for a camp for Italian prisoners of war.
By June 9, 1916, the Sigmundsherberg camp was empty except for 140 Russians. These were assigned to maintenance work on the Franz-Josefs-Bahn between Gmünd and Sigmundsherberg, but should be replaced by Italians as soon as possible.
Italian prisoners of war
Simultaneously with the relocation of the Russians, transports from the Italian front also arrived. On June 18, the camp was full. On October 3, 1916, there were already 56,000 prisoners of war records.
Difficulties were caused by the large number of captured officers. In the KGL Sigmundsherberg there was only room for 450 officers. As these, unlike ordinary soldiers, were not housed in dormitories but in single rooms, there was soon a shortage of space in the officers' department. Additional quarters had to be built several times for newcomers. With the number of prisoners from Italy, the amount of mail and parcel traffic with their homeland increased and this brought the postal and censorship departments into serious distress. They also had to be reinforced several times.
In 1917 the situation in the camp began to worsen. In accordance with the general nutritional situation in the Danube Monarchy , the menu in Sigmundsherberg was mainly turnips . A one-sided diet that brought health problems with it. In the initial phase, the arriving Italian prisoners of war were still in good health, well fed and properly clothed. But the prisoners of the 12th Isonzo battle were starved, exhausted and poorly dressed men, mostly from the southern regions of the country.
Additional tasks assigned to the camp, such as running a package collection and sorting station, took up a lot of space, which was then lacking for the proper accommodation of the prisoners. The parcel collection and sorting center had the task of receiving, sorting and forwarding parcels for prisoners of war from Italy, Serbia , Romania , Montenegro and England and forwarding them to the corresponding prison camps or workplaces.
A barrack converted into a camp church, the establishment of a camp theater and course rooms (prisoners taught their comrades here) prevented a " camp fever ", but exacerbated the shortage of space in the barracks, which they tried to remedy in part with three-story bunk beds.
The increasing number of wounded or sick prisoners made an expansion of the camp hospital necessary, which again was at the expense of the general reception capacity of the camp.
During the warm months of the year, the camp management tried to reduce the number of prisoners in the camp by placing prisoners in remote jobs. A large number of Italian prisoners of war were involved in the construction of the Floridsdorfer Hochbahn in Vienna as construction workers. But with the onset of the cold season, the workers no longer needed for seasonal reasons often returned to their main camp undernourished.
The large influx of prisoners also ensured that disease prevention was on the verge of collapse and the risk of epidemics spreading .
In autumn 1917, temperatures had dropped earlier than usual and the heating season had begun. The camp administration was forced to save on heating materials, which was immediately noticeable in the draughty wooden barracks and caused or exacerbated illnesses in the weakened men. The death rate in the camp increased. From 1918, the dead had to be buried naked in their coffins due to a lack of clothing, their clothes were still used.
In January 1918 the Sigmundsherberg prisoner of war camp was overcrowded with around 7,000 men. Letters from the prisoners intercepted by the censorship center repeatedly focus on hunger, cold and death. The camp command urgently, but in vain, appealed to the War Ministry not to send any more prisoners of war. The requests not to move any more officers (who were better accommodated) to Sigmundsherberg also went unanswered. The Italian General Rocca imprisoned at KGL Sigmundsherberg and two staff officers drew attention to the situation of the prisoners in a joint letter to the Austrian Ministry of War. In its response, the War Ministry justified itself with the general distress and the behavior of the prisoners of war themselves ( vandalism ), but in a letter to the camp administration, the Ministry admitted that the complaints were justified . The performance of the warehouse administration was expressly appreciated in view of the general situation. The situation only improved in April 1918 when the prisoner transports (men and officers) planned for Sigmundsherberg were finally diverted to Braunau am Inn . In spite of this, the camp administration had around 120,000 prisoners in custody, of which around 100,000 were outside the camp. The exchange of invalids that began in March 1918 brought a further improvement in the situation. Invalid prisoners of war were either transported directly from Sigmundsherberg to Italy or brought to the KGL Mauthausen and from there, after a medical check-up, transported home.
The peace with Russia in early March 1918 brought a new situation. The removal of the Russian prisoners to their homeland freed up numerous jobs that were important for the war and, according to the War Ministry's decree (May 23, 1918), these should be filled with Italians. As a result of the implementation of this decree, there was a shortage of workable prisoners of war in the Sigmundsherberg camp.
Change of power
Austria-Hungary had been practically in disintegration since October 1918, and the devastating defeat in the Battle of Vittorio Veneto on October 28th accelerated this process dramatically. In KGL Sigmundsherberg the guards had begun still normal their service in the morning of November 1, but then leave their posts in large numbers and were secretly deserter become. This was only noticed by the camp management when the Italian prisoners of war formed a crowd and marched freely through the camp unhindered by guards. The Austrian camp commandant, Colonel Buresch, went to meet them, but all that remained for him was negotiations, since the desertion of the guards had deprived him of the opportunity to enforce his command.
The Italians then took command. Italian soldiers stood guard and Italian officers patrolled the surrounding villages in order to prevent any excesses by Italian soldiers. Although everything remained calm and there were no special incidents to be reported, the rumor arose that 12,000 soldiers from Italy had stormed the nearby town of Horn and laid it to rubble. In addition, some of the offices of the camp administration had been broken into and ransacked, and the telephone system had been damaged, but it could no longer be determined whether marauding Austrian soldiers or Italian prisoners were responsible. Reports of these events were only made to the War Department on November 2nd. But there they were so busy with the war and the armistice negotiations and the collapse of the monarchy that the calls for help from the camp commandant Buresch, who held the position together with his officers, “to protect Austrian interests” went unheard. Negotiations took place again, but Colonel Buresch was powerless without armed support. The entire camp administration was taken over by the Italians, who declared themselves free soldiers.
On November 3, the armistice with Italy was signed, which came into force on November 4, 1918. In a letter dated November 7th to the War Ministry, Colonel Buresch requested permission for the Austrian officers to leave the Sigmundsherberg prisoner of war camp, as their presence was useless under the prevailing circumstances. Besides, his officers were mostly concerned with their own business anyway and were no longer of great help to him. He appealed to the Italian commanding officer to stop the theft of food and other equipment by the Austrian civilian population. Colonel Buresch initially placed great hopes in the newly founded People's Army , but their members ignored him. Meanwhile, the transport of Italian soldiers to their homeland continued. Between November 4th and 8th, 800 officers and 15,000 soldiers left Sigmundsherberg for home. The declining number of Italians and the poorer guarding of the camp caused by it soon led to an increase in thefts by civilians. Colonel Buresch, who wavered between a sense of duty and resignation, requested soldiers from the War Department to guard the camp. If his request was not fulfilled, he would call in sick. The answer was a long time coming.
On November 11th, Colonel Buresch remained disappointed in his private quarters. He still wanted to stay in Sigmundsherberg in case he could still do something. A telephone message dated November 12, 1918 informed him that he would not have to leave Sigmundsherberg and would continue with the camp command. The Italian camp commandant, Colonel Menna, protested against this, who described himself as the "commanding colonel of the royal Italian detachment in Sigmundsherberg" because he could not allow the coexistence of two camp commands. But he could very well accept the presence of a representative of the Austrian government in Sigmundsherberg, as long as he recognized his authority and did not hinder him in the exercise of his activity.
The German-Austrian National Council recognized the former prisoners of war appointed as warring troops and even enabled a wireless connection with the Supreme Italian Army Command at Colonel Menna's request . The food available in the camp was viewed by the Italians as spoils of war. But they did not want to completely ignore the needy Austrian population, and so everything that could be dispensed with was donated to the Italian and Austrian Red Cross . In addition, it was investigated how many Italian soldiers were in Austrian hospitals in order to provide them with additional food. The camp began to trade in food from the stocks, and parts of the fencing were dismantled and sold. The 150 men of the Volkswehr were too few to stop these operations. However, Colonel Menna was now indignant from his soldiers. By insisting on staying in Sigmundsherberg as an Italian base, he delayed the transport of his men home. The picture was confusing for the Austrian authorities. Nevertheless, a liquidation squad was sent in December 1918 to prepare the liquidation of the camp. However, the Austrians had no access to the food - these, like the wood and coal stocks and other equipment in the camp, were considered Italian spoils of war. It was only gradually that the liquidation command under Major Novak succeeded in restricting Colonel Menna's activities and fulfilling the task set.
Austrian again
On January 2, 1919, the Austrians again took command of the Sigmundsherberg POW camp. Colonel Menna and his men left Sigmundsherberg on January 2nd and 3rd, 1919. Only three Italian officers remained who were to hand over the camp to the new Austrian camp commandant, Lieutenant Colonel Sieba. The loss of documents during the Italian command caused considerable difficulties, but within a month it was still possible to draw up an accurate inventory list and to make preparations for the property demobilization. The last Italians left Sigmundsherberg on February 14th and on February 20th, 1919 the camp was handed over to the main institute for property demobilization.
Inventory parts that had become useless were allocated to needy institutions. B. the equipment of slaughterhouses and cold stores as well as the bakery at hospitals in Vienna - or offered for sale. It was about small parts like nails and screws as well as whole barracks. The rubber tires for planes from the aviation arsenal were particularly popular with the population of the surrounding villages. These wheels were mostly used for wheelbarrows . At the end of 1919, the Sigmundsherberg prisoner of war camp in the Waldviertel was a closed chapter in history.
_Sigmundsherberg_Soldatenfriedhof.JPG)
Camp cemetery
The first nine deceased prisoners were buried in the local cemeteries of Rodingersdorf and Maigen near Sigmundsherberg. The specially built camp cemetery was already available for everyone else. According to the memorial stone, over 2,400 soldiers (2,363 Italians) were buried in the cemetery, which is now off the route of the Kaiser-Franz-Josephs-Bahn. There are also other numbers in circulation, roughly the same order of magnitude.
In 1917, Italian prisoners of war erected a monument in the form of a woman statue, which is dedicated to the deceased prisoners of war. After the war, a small chapel was built over this monument. Today the camp cemetery presents itself as a flat lawn with a few stone crosses, the chapel and the cemetery cross.
Aviator arsenal
Between February and March 1917, the aviation arsenal was built next to the Sigmundsherberg prisoner of war camp. Here, usable parts were to be removed from captured and shot down enemy aircraft and used in our own aircraft. The fittings and instruments were removed from the aircraft parts brought into the aviation arsenal and either repaired or - if this was not possible - recycled sorted by type of metal. Components that were not needed immediately were stored here.
literature
- Erwin Frank: Sigmundsherberg, the forgotten city . Author's brochure, with numerous photos from the Sigmundsherberg community, and excerpts of texts from Rudolf Koch's dissertation, 1981.
- Rudolf Koch: The Sigmundsherberg POW Camp 1915–1919 (= dissertations of the University of Vienna , Volume 151), Vienna 1981.
- Rudolf Koch: In the backyard of the war - the Sigmundsherberg prisoner of war camp . Partly zugl .: Wien, Univ., Diss., 1980. R. Koch, Klosterneuburg 2002, ISBN 3-85028-347-X .
Coordinates: 48 ° 42 ′ 0.9 ″ N , 15 ° 43 ′ 40.6 ″ E