Heilbronn camp
The Heilbronn camp was established in the spring of 1945 by the United States Army as a prisoner-of-war camp in an open field in the west of today's Heilbronn district of Böckingen . At first there were two separate camps in the immediate vicinity, but one of them was closed again at the end of July 1945. The other existed under different names and in a reduced size until May 1947 as a transit camp for prisoners of war. It was then handed over to German authorities who used it as an internment camp for civilian internees in the course of the denazification process until November 1947 . From 1948, the city and district of Heilbronn housed homeless people in some of the barracks of the camp that they had acquired and had not been demolished . The last residents of the camp settlement were only relocated to other apartments in 1961, and the last barracks were demolished by the end of the year. Today (as of 2008) the camp area is partly built over, but mostly arable land again.
At the time of their greatest expansion in the spring of 1945, both camps covered an area of around 270 hectares. At the end of May and beginning of June 1945 there were almost 140,000 prisoners of war on this area, almost three times the population of the city of Heilbronn at the time. A total of up to 350,000 prisoners passed through the Heilbronn camps by the end of 1945. The number of prisoners who subsequently passed through the remaining camp until May 1947 can no longer be precisely determined. An estimated total of up to two million prisoners who are said to have passed through the Heilbronn camps in the period from May 1945 to 1947 seems to be too high.
prehistory
In the final phase of World War II , the 7th US Army conquered large parts of southern Germany from March 1945, including Heilbronn from April 2 to 12. On May 5th, the defeated Army Group G of the Wehrmacht surrendered near Munich . During their rapid advance, the 7th US Army quickly fell into the hands of hundreds of thousands of German prisoners of war , who were passed on as quickly as possible to the American supply and supply units that were supposed to take care of them. At the beginning of the war, the US Army brought German prisoners of war to camps in the USA or Great Britain, and later to France. This was no longer practicable for hundreds of thousands of prisoners, and the high command of the US troops in Europe, ETOUSA ( European Theater of Operations United States Army ), ordered the establishment of prisoner-of-war camps (called transient enclosures ) on German soil on April 17 . For the rear area behind the battle lines (the Communications Zone ) of the 7th US Army, this task fell to the supply and supply unit CONAD ( Continental Advance Section Communications Zone ). CONAD set up four Prisoners of War Temporary Enclosures (PWTE), i.e. prisoner-of-war transit camps, including camps PWTE C-3 and PWTE C-4 in Heilbronn. PWTE C-1 and PWTE C-2 were located near Ludwigshafen . The ADSEC unit set up additional camps on the Rhine , also known as Rheinwiesenlager , with the designations PWTE A-…, which, analogous to CONAD, took on replenishment and supply tasks for other US combat units.
CONAD not only had to take care of the American combat troops and itself from the supply port of Marseille , but also had to look after the Allied prisoners of war freed from German camps, freed forced laborers and hundreds of thousands of German prisoners of war. Neither CONAD nor ADSEC had enough personnel to guard the prisoners of war. Therefore, in mid-April, the 106th US Infantry Division received the order to guard the POW camps, a unit that had suffered heavy losses in the Battle of the Bulge in December 1944 and had only been reinforced a few days earlier with newly arrived units from the USA. For the task of guarding, supplying and expanding over 20 prisoner-of-war camps spread over a distance of 440 kilometers, the division had neither enough material nor personnel, its organization was not geared towards the dispersed deployment of the individual divisional units. In addition, there was no clear division of competencies between the 106th US Infantry Division on the one hand and CONAD / ADSEC on the other.
Transport to Heilbronn
In the course of its advance from March, the 7th US Army initially set up extremely provisional intermediate camps ( cages ) in which they collected the German prisoners of war before they were transported to the camps maintained by CONAD. These camps often only existed for a few days, exceptionally also for a few weeks, and were set up in factory buildings, barracks and underpasses, but also on airfields, sports fields or open fields. Some were traversed by only a few thousand prisoners, others by tens of thousands; There were larger camps, for example, in Würzburg (throughput: around 25,000 prisoners), Crailsheim (29,000), Göppingen (55,000), Neu-Ulm (at least 165,000) or Salzburg (at least 28,000). Since the camps were only supposed to exist for a few days, they were not expanded; accordingly, they were primitive and often completely overcrowded. In some camps like Aalen , the prisoners had to stand at night because there was no space due to overcrowding.
The prisoners were brought from the intermediate camps to the PWTEs via an average of two or three intermediate stations. In order to be able to transport more prisoners with the scarce trucks, they often had to leave large parts of their equipment behind, forced by the Americans. The food on the multi-day transports was also completely inadequate, and fatal accidents occurred along the way. The hardships and inadequate care in the cages and during the transport meant that the prisoners arrived at the PWTEs "largely starved and exhausted".
The camps in Heilbronn were approached by the transports from Ulm, bypassing Stuttgart via the Geislinger Steige , Göppingen , Waiblingen , Backnang , Schwäbisch Hall and Weinsberg , located directly east of Heilbronn . The first prisoners arrived in Heilbronn at the end of April 1945. Since the PWTEs were not yet completed, the 7th US Army set up another temporary storage facility on the sports field of the VfR Heilbronn am Neckar, for which it states a passage of 6,874 prisoners. The chronicle of the city of Heilbronn indicates a capacity of 50,000 prisoners for this camp and an occupancy of "tens of thousands" of prisoners. Due to its provisional nature, there were no buildings or tents in the camp other than a tent for the guards; Food was only given once a day and was often not enough for all prisoners. Damp weather and a lack of sanitary facilities quickly led to catastrophic hygienic conditions. Several prisoners were shot trying to escape.
The Americans recruited work details from the prisoners at VfR-Platz to help set up the PWTEs west of Heilbronn. After its completion, the prisoners were driven from the VfR square to camp PWTE C-3 at a running pace and using sticks until May 6th, which at that time, like the provisional facility on the sports field, was a fenced area without accommodation or other facilities presented for the prisoners.
The PWTEs in Heilbronn
Both camps were located west of Böckingen on farmland on the edge of the settlement. The Großgartacher Straße (Reichsstraße 293, today Bundesstraße 293 ) leading past Großgartach (today the municipality of Leingarten ) and the Kraichgau Railway to Karlsruhe , which ran parallel to the street, separated the camps further south and north of it and cordoned off by barbed wire. PWTE C-4, which only existed until the end of July 1945, was south of the road and railway line. The actual camp began south of the Haselter settlement, which lies directly on the railway line and, like large parts of the Ernst Weinstein settlement (today Kreuzgrund settlement ), had been confiscated to accommodate American units. In the south the camp extended to today's Böckinger Westfriedhof, in the east to the vicinity of today's Ziegeleipark and in the west to the Scheinmelden / Bruhweg / Denninger Rain near the refuge. It had an area of around 125 hectares. If you include the living and accommodation areas of the Americans, it is even around 186 hectares.
PWTE C-3 was set up north of the road and railway line on the Trappenhöhe (today partly residential area Schanz ) above Böckingen. In this area, Kali Chemie AG began mining brine for salt production in 1908 and built over 20 drilling and winding towers, which were included in the camp for security and administrative purposes. The storage area adjoined the Kreuzgrund settlement to the west of Heidelberger Strasse and extended in the west to the sand pits of the then independent community of Frankenbach . Small parts of the camp were also within the boundaries of Großgartach. In the north, the camp extended to about the level of the Kreuzäcker / Hüttberg tank. PWTE C-3 had a total area of approximately 144 hectares. This made the Heilbronn POW camps the largest of all PWTEs including the Rhine meadow camps .
Camp C-3, designed for 100,000 prisoners, accepted the first prisoners on May 3, and C-4 on May 6 or 13. Due to great time pressure, both camps were put into operation as early as possible and therefore only consisted of barbed wire fences without any accommodation or sanitary facilities, which were only built afterwards. In this as in other areas (nutrition, medical care), the Americans violated central points of the Geneva Convention of 1929 , which was partly due to the external circumstances (poor supply situation and largely destroyed infrastructure in Germany in 1945) and the logistical and personnel overload of their units It was not possible otherwise, but it was also due to ETOUSA's fundamental decision to detain large numbers of prisoners of war in camps that were difficult to supply.
Within the barbed wire fencing that encompasses the entire camp, rectangular areas called cages were again fenced off with barbed wire. C-3 initially consisted of 17 different sized cages in four rows; later, as the size of the camp decreased, their numbers decreased. Most of the cages were used to house the prisoners, others as depots, kitchens, camp hospitals, interrogation camps or American camp administration. The internal structure of C-4 is not exactly known, but it is said to have corresponded to that of C-3.
The camps were set up under great time pressure by American engineer units who were subordinate to CONAD. During the expansion, prisoners were also called in, initially from the camp on the VfR-Platz, later from C-3 and C-4 themselves, who had to erect the fences for the prisoners arriving after them. In addition to their own building materials, the Americans resorted to captured German material depots, which also supplied food and some of the necessary basic warehouse equipment. Extensive requisitions from public authorities and civilians provided other required items of all kinds. Civilians affected by requisitions could later claim compensation.
At the head of the camp was an American officer as the camp commandant, who was also responsible for the American administrative staff of the entire camp. The cages, which were used to house prisoners, also had a mixed American-German administration. An American officer was responsible as block commander for every two cages , and two other Americans were assigned to him. Each cage with up to 10,000 prisoners was under the command of an American NCO with an average of four American soldiers who monitored what was happening in the cage. A German self-administration was responsible for the concrete organization of everyday warehouse life in the cage. The Americans appointed a warehouse foreman for each cage , who could independently recruit a staff and organize the cage largely freely on the basis of general American guidelines. The warehouse masters and their staff, the permanent staff , were given preferential treatment. Inept selection of the permanent staff in some cages had a negative effect on the prisoners there. For example, in order not to appoint convinced National Socialists as camp master, in some cages preferential selection was made of prisoners who had somehow been punished in the Wehrmacht, which sometimes resulted in unsuitable permanent staff, abuse of power and corruption.
At the beginning there was no accommodation in C-3 and C-4 for the prisoners, exposed to wind and weather, who spent the night in the open air or, if still available, protected themselves with tarpaulins. Days of rain turned the camps into muddy deserts, soaked the prisoners' clothes and forced them to stand constantly; some prisoners also slept standing leaning against each other. Digging caves in the ground with cutlery etc. was allowed in some cages, but strictly forbidden in others. Temporary tents were erected from mid-May 1945, but it was not until the beginning of June that all prisoners were provided with at least primitive housing. Even these makeshift tents offered insufficient protection against rain. From autumn onwards, larger maisonette tents were gradually erected from more solid material, which could gradually also be heated with stoves.
The biggest problem in the camps was feeding the prisoners. Food was generally scarce in Germany in 1945, and the civilian population also had to get by on small rations. Initially, the prisoners were given American ready -made rations ( C-rations ), after the completion of the kitchen facilities in the cages, captured German supplies were used, and finally American food was delivered. Although the Americans did their best to ensure supplies, the prisoners were given extremely limited rations because of their large numbers. Overall, despite all efforts on the part of the American units on site, which tried to improve the food situation through extensive requisitions and the use of civilian facilities (including bakeries), the food was inadequate, especially in the first three months, in terms of quality and quantity, especially for the numerous prisoners, who arrived in Heilbronn already weakened after the rigors of the transport.
For medical care there was a poorly equipped hospital ( dispensary ) in each cage , in which captured German doctors and paramedics looked after the sick. In addition, there was a central camp hospital which, unlike the hospitals in the individual cages, was well equipped and had sufficiently qualified staff. Accordingly, the quality of medical care varied widely. Despite initially extremely poor general hygiene (muddy subsoil, omnipresent dirt, inadequate latrines, lack of washing water) there were no major epidemics, and a. through consistent delousing and the use of DDT .
Despite the poor supply situation and in some cases inadequate medical care, the prisoners of war in Heilbronn did not experience mass deaths any more than the civilian population, which was similarly poorly supplied with food. According to various sources, a total of 350 of more than 350,000 prisoners died in the two Heilbronn prisoner-of-war camps between 1945 and 1947, most of them in the first three months. As of August, only a few prisoners died. Most of the deceased were buried in the Böckingen cemetery, where their graves are still close together in the same section of the cemetery.
Various aid organizations took care of the prisoners. The International Committee of the Red Cross visited the camps regularly, made reports and raised grievances. The local Red Cross also got involved, collected donations, food and reading material and arranged contacts to the tracing service files of the Red Cross in Hamburg and Munich, which tried to inform prisoners and their relatives about their whereabouts. On the ecclesiastical side, Theodor Zimmermann (1893–1974), the Protestant parish priest of Böckingen, and the Austrian Jesuit priest Johann Planeta, who was himself a prisoner in camp C-4 and after his release as a Catholic camp priest in C- 3 worked. The Evangelical Church around Zimmermann organized numerous collections of food and everyday objects. Since the camps were initially not allowed to be entered, some of the donations were brought (against the regulations) by American medical officers to camp C-4, some were thrown over the camp fences, distributed to released prisoners or to prisoners on work assignments outside the camp. On August 6, 1945, the American chief doctor of C-3 officially approved the transport of relief supplies to camp C-3. In August 1945, on Zimmermann's initiative and at the suggestion of the American camp commandant, the Protestant church opened a convalescent home in Oberstenfeld , in which physically weakened discharged people could recover. Further homes in Großsachsenheim Castle and Ludwigsburg followed. The Catholic aid organization Caritas also organized collections, but was less successful in this than the Protestant Church. Camp pastor Planeta, on the other hand, was able to successfully release numerous prisoners belonging to special groups (clergy, sick, disabled, Sudeten Germans, Austrians, etc.). In addition to the aid organizations, private individuals also tried to help the prisoners by throwing letters or food over the fences, which was forbidden, but was tolerated by some guards. This resulted in arrests and fines or imprisonment.
In May 1945, the United States began to release prisoners of war. Preference was given to releasing members of professional groups who were needed in the reconstruction, including farm workers, miners and railroad workers. Older prisoners over 50, the long-term sick and disabled and other groups followed. In addition, however, prisoners were also transferred to France to work for several years, circumventing the Geneva Convention, many of which did not return until the end of the 1940s. It is not known how many prisoners from Heilbronn came to France in this way. In August 1945 the general release of prisoners from the American camps was ordered. C-4 had already been closed at the end of July 1945, and the number of prisoners in C-3 was now falling rapidly. The camp was downsized and first housed in Disarmed Enemy Forces Enclosure (D. E. F. E.) No. 10, then in Prisoner of War Enclosure (P. W. E.) No. 10 renamed.
Potential war criminals and other suspects were not released into civilian life, but instead transferred to civilian internment camps for denazification purposes. Due to an acute shortage of space in the existing internment camps in Ludwigsburg, Bruchsal and Ulm , 7,000 to 8,000 interned civilians were transferred to a cage in the Heilbronn camp in January 1946, which functioned as Civilian Internment Camp (CIC) 81. Due to mishaps and misunderstandings, the Heilbronn camp was in no way prepared for this crowd of internees; they could neither be adequately housed nor cared for. In addition, the internees were on average older than the prisoners and most of them came from camps with permanent buildings; Many of them were unable to cope with the hardships they were subjected to in the Heilbronn barracks camp in January 1946. The action ended in failure, after two weeks the internees were relocated and on March 12, 1946, CIC 81 was closed.
Further use of the warehouse
In mid-1947 only a few hundred prisoners remained in camp PWE 10. The camp site was handed over to the Württemberg-Baden Ministry of Liberation on May 20, 1947, which used it as an internment camp under German management. The remaining 617 prisoners, most of them former SS members, were transferred to this camp as civilian internees. At the end of June 1947 the camp housed almost 2,000 internees, after which their number decreased continuously, at the end of September it was below 600, on November 11th it was still 285. After all the remaining internees had been transferred to other camps, the Heilbronn camp was renamed in November 1947 closed. In November the State Registration Office for Public Goods (StEG) took over the camp site and processed it. The furnishings were sold or made available to government agencies. Some of the remaining barracks were demolished, others sold. The city and district of Heilbronn acquired some barracks in which they housed homeless people. Extensive renovation work should make the run-down barracks habitable again. At the urging of the farmers, who owned the fields used to build the camp, the city of Heilbronn finally committed to demolishing the barracks, which a city representative in January 1961 had appalled as "downright dirt holes". The last residents, mostly eviction debtors, were relocated to city apartments, and by the end of 1961 the last remains of the camp had been removed. In the following years, the Schanz residential area was built on parts of the site . In addition to the graves in the Böckingen cemetery , only a memorial plaque in Böckingen reminds of the camp today.
References and comments
- ↑ Storage area estimated at 268.90 hectares; 329.78 hectares with American troop accommodation. According to Strauss (see literature), p. 118
- ↑ Cited for example by Alexander Renz: Chronicle of the City of Heilbronn. Volume VI: 1945–1951 (see literature), p. 7
- ↑ Strauss (see literature), p. 322
- ↑ a b Strauss (see literature), p. 105
- ↑ Strauss (see literature), pp. 108–110
- ↑ Strauss (see literature), p. 106
- ↑ Strauss (see literature), pp. 110–111
- ↑ Eyewitness report, quoted from Strauss (see literature), p. 111
- ↑ When the first prisoners arrived is not entirely clear, an eyewitness mentions April 20th. The date on which the interim storage facility went into operation is also not entirely clear; a report by the 7th US Army mentions April 23. The same report names April 26th as the date of the closure of the interim storage facility; eyewitnesses cite April 30th or May 6th. Strauss (see literature), pp. 112–113
- ↑ Alexander Renz: Chronicle of the city of Heilbronn. Volume VI: 1945–1951 (see literature), p. 4
- ↑ Alexander Renz: Chronicle of the city of Heilbronn. Volume VI: 1945–1951 (see literature), p. 7
- ↑ Strauss (see literature), p. 113
- ↑ Strauss (see literature), pp. 113–114
- ↑ a b Strauss (see literature), p. 114
- ↑ a b Paul Bäurle: After nine days the first bread again . sueddeutsche.de , May 10, 2005 (accessed November 11, 2010)
- ↑ Strauss (see literature), p. 115
- ↑ Alexander Renz: Chronicle of the city of Heilbronn. Volume VI: 1945–1951 (see literature), p. 7
- ↑ Strauss (see literature), p. 118
- ↑ Strauss (see literature), pp. 118–119
- ↑ Inconsistent information from various American units. Strauss (see literature), p. 115
- ↑ Strauss (see literature), p. 121
- ↑ Strauss (see literature), pp. 146–147
- ↑ Strauss (see literature), p. 165
- ↑ Strauss (see literature), pp. 177-185
- ↑ Strauss (see literature), p. 194
- ↑ Strauss (see literature), pp. 194–197
- ↑ Strauss (see literature), pp. 208–220
- ↑ Strauss (see literature), pp. 271–299
- ↑ Strauss (see literature), pp. 313-314
- ↑ quoted from Strauss (see literature), p. 437
literature
- Christof Strauss: Captivity and internment. The camps in Heilbronn-Böckingen 1945 to 1947 . Stadtarchiv Heilbronn, Heilbronn 1998, ISBN 3-928990-66-7 ( sources and research on the history of the city of Heilbronn . 10)
- Alexander Renz: Chronicle of the city of Heilbronn . Volume VI: 1945-1951. Heilbronn City Archives, Heilbronn 1995, ISBN 3-928990-55-1 ( Publications of the Heilbronn City Archives . Volume 34).
- Karl Geiger: Internment in the German Southwest , 3rd edition, Heilbronn 1977 (report by a former internee), pp. 5–20 (with a plan of the camp).
Web links
Coordinates: 49 ° 9 ′ 1 ″ N , 9 ° 10 ′ 15 ″ E