Pfaffenwald camp

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Warehouse plan
signpost

The Pfaffenwald camp was a forced labor camp set up in 1938 for the construction of the Asbachtalbrücke as a "Reichsautobahnlager" (RAB camp) in the Asbachtal west of Beiershausen , a south-western district of Bad Hersfeld in the Hersfeld-Rotenburg district in North Hesse . From 1942 to spring 1945 it was used as a transit, death, birth and abortion camp for foreign forced laborers.

location

The camp was located in the district of Beiershausen in the Pfaffenwald forest north above the Heimersbach, a tributary of the Asbach , and south of the Asbachtalbrücke of today's federal motorway 4 between Kirchheim and Bad Hersfeld. From the asphalt forest road between Asbach and Kirchheim, about two kilometers from Asbach, in the so-called “Asbachgrund”, after crossing the Heimersbach, opposite the Milnrode castle ruins , a dirt road leads left into the Heimersbach valley. After about a hundred meters the path divides: the left branch continues into the Heimersbachtal, the right one climbs up into the forest and after about 200 m reaches a higher plateau, bordered by three intersecting forest paths and lined with bushes and trees. The only visible remains of the former camp are three concrete foundations, each 4 × 6 m in size, on which sanitary facilities once stood.

history

Reichsautobahnlager

Location of the former camp barracks
Foundation of a sanitary barrack
Remnants of the fence?

The RAB camp in Pfaffenwald was one of six RAB camps set up near Bad Hersfeld on behalf of the Reichsautobahndirektion Kassel for forced laborers employed in the construction of the autobahn. It was set up in the summer of 1938 on a plateau above the Heimersbachtal about 2.5 km west of Beiershausen with newly delivered wooden barracks and was designed for around 400 workers. A road paved with basalt stones led from Asbachgrund to the camp. The workers were housed in five sleeping barracks. For each worker there was a bed with a straw sack and a blanket, a lockable locker , a stool and eating utensils. The barracks were heated with stoves; the workers had to get the firewood from the forest. A sixth, larger barrack with the camp kitchen and wooden benches, tables and a stage at the end was the dining room and assembly room; “Colorful evenings” took place there. The warehouse supervisor's office and a store room were located in a porch of this barracks. The camp was connected to electricity, water and telephone lines. Toilets and washrooms were in three smaller barracks on concrete foundations above the residential barracks.

The workers housed in the camp were employed by the Hersfeld construction company Bolender in the construction of the Asbach valley bridge. The company rented the residential camp and also set up its own barracks, and was responsible for camp supervision, administration, room and board, as well as the payment of workers and camp personnel. The workers were initially compulsory unemployed from the Hersfeld area and from the Vogelsberg and the structurally weak areas of Neuhof and Schlüchtern . At the beginning of September 1938 there were workers from Austria and the Sudetenland and, from March 1939, Czechs who were forced to work. A group of skilled workers from Bavaria, who had previously been committed to building the Queralpenstrasse , also came to the Asbachtal in spring 1939. After most of the German workers had been withdrawn after the start of the war, the resulting labor shortage was made up in the winter of 1939 by Polish forced laborers. After the start of the western campaign , 50-100 French prisoners of war came from the main camp IX A ("Stalag IX A") in Trutzhain near Ziegenhain to the Pfaffenwald camp, where they - unlike all the other workers - were housed in a barracks fenced in with barbed wire were guarded by state riflemen during the construction work .

When the bridge construction work gradually came to an end from June 1941, the workers were gradually withdrawn. The Polish forced laborers stayed until February 1942, the French prisoners of war until March 1942. Some of the barracks were probably dismantled and taken to the Waldschänke camp in Zellersgrund, Bad Hersfeld, where forced laborers were housed in the Hersfeld armaments industry.

Transit, sick and death camps

In June 1942, a few months after the Reichsautobahn camp was closed, the Pfaffenwald camp was given a new function as a facility for the Kurhessen Gau Labor Office in Kassel and the Rhein-Main Gau Labor Office in Frankfurt. The Hersfeld employment office took over the management of the camp. The camp now served as a so-called transit camp, but also as a sick or death camp. Forced laborers from Poland and the Soviet Union were distributed to their locations from here or from the Kelsterbach transit camp ; some were also used by farmers in the area. Those who were unable to work or who were pregnant were taken to the Pfaffenwald “sick camp”, where only the rudimentary medical care was possible. The camp was therefore also a “death camp”, especially in the case of TB patients; if they did not die in the Pfaffenwald, they were transported to the Hadamar killing center and murdered there, as were inmates known as “mentally ill” .

Birth and abortion camps

In September 1942, a “maternity ward” for pregnant forced laborers was set up in the camp, officially referred to as an “auxiliary hospital”, but consisting only of a barrack that was in no way suitable for medical interventions. In this central birth and abortion camp for the Gau Labor Offices Kurhessen and Rhein-Main, deliveries and forced abortions were carried out until the 6th month. From September 1942 to March 1945, 750 births of Russian and Polish children and the deaths of 52 infants and their mothers were registered by the registry. However, the actual number of births is uncertain, as is the number of abortions made, the number of women who did not survive these procedures, and the number of infants who died soon after their birth. It can be assumed, however, that the number of abortions was significantly higher than the number of births, and there has been evidence of a high infant mortality rate.

Signpost to the Pfaffenwald cemetery of honor
Memorial cross in the cemetery
Memorial plaque at the cemetery

The End

The camp was closed at the end of March 1945 when the US Army captured the Hersfeld area. It then seems to have been partly burned down by the US Army and partly simply to have fallen into disrepair.

Pfaffenwald forest cemetery

Those who died in the camp were buried by the camp inmates themselves in a provisional cemetery in the forest of prospects in the Rothäckern. In 1958/59 soldiers of the Bundeswehr created a forest cemetery ( ⊙ ), which was completed in 1960/61 by the Hessian state government and the Volksbund Deutsche Kriegsgräberfürsorge and opened to the public on May 14, 1961.

Footnotes

  1. ↑ Camp Pfaffenwald .  TK 1: 25,000 In: Landesgeschichtliches Informationssystem Hessen (LAGIS).
  2. ↑ Please do not be fooled by the unclear signs in this area. The way to the warehouse is easily accessible. The entrance to the warehouse is about here ( ⊙ ).
  3. ↑ Hohlmann, pp. 15-17
  4. ↑ These were: RAB-Lager Walmeröder Grund, RAB-Lager Kirchheim, RAB-Lager Friedewald, RAB-Laqer Solms, RAB-Lager Pfaffenwald and RAB-Lager Helfersgrund. (Hohlmann, p. 31)
  5. ↑ Hohlmann, p. 46
  6. ↑ Hohlmann, pp. 47-48
  7. ↑ Hohlmann, p. 34
  8. ↑ Hohlmann, p. 51
  9. ↑ Bad Hersfeld, “Waldschänke” community camp. Topography of National Socialism in Hesse. In: Landesgeschichtliches Informationssystem Hessen (LAGIS).
  10. ↑ Otto Abbes: "The Waldschänke Camp", in: Mein Heimatland , Journal for History, Folklore and Local Studies, 1994, Volume 36, Nos. 9b, 10, 10a, 10b, 11 and 11b
  11. ^ A b Sachsenhausen, Landesarbeitsamt, Gauarbeitsamt Rhein-Main. Topography of National Socialism in Hesse. In: Landesgeschichtliches Informationssystem Hessen (LAGIS).
  12. ↑ Kelsterbach, "Transit Camp" with an auxiliary hospital. Topography of National Socialism in Hesse. In: Landesgeschichtliches Informationssystem Hessen (LAGIS).
  13. ↑ From September 1942 to March 1945, the responsible registry offices in Hersfeld and Kerspenhausen registered almost 400 deaths in the camp , mostly with pulmonary TB as the official cause of death. Hohlmann (p. 80) remarks that it is doubtful whether these statements correspond to the facts.
  14. ↑ a b Bad Hersfeld, "Transit Camp Pfaffenwald", sick camp. Topography of National Socialism in Hesse. In: Landesgeschichtliches Informationssystem Hessen (LAGIS).
  15. ↑ Hohlmann, pp. 81-83
  16. ↑ Hohlmann, p. 189
  17. ↑ Hohlmann, p. 196
  18. ↑ Between the forester's house Falkenbach in the south and the source of the Wolfsgraben in the north ( Electorate of Hesse 1840-1861 - 65. Niederaula. Historical maps. In: Landesgeschichtliches Informationssystem Hessen (LAGIS).).
  19. ↑ Hohlmann, p. 80
  20. ^ "The wooden cross in the forest", Die Zeit , December 18, 1958
  21. ^ Volksbund Deutsche Kriegsgräberfürsorge: Beiershausen "Pfaffenwald", forest cemetery
  22. ↑ "Worthy memory", in: Hersfelder Zeitung , December 9, 2013

literature

  • Susanne Hohlmann: Pfaffenwald: death and birth camps 1942–1945. National Socialism in North Hesse - Writings on regional contemporary history, Issue 2, Ed .: Gesamtthochschule Kassel, Kassel, 1984, ISBN 3-88122-171-9 . ( Digitized version )

Web links

Commons : Lager Pfaffenwald  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Coordinates: 50 ° 50 ′ 28.3 "  N , 9 ° 37 ′ 41"  E