Warehouse brothel

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Camp brothels were between 1942 and 1945 in ten Nazi concentration camps set up and should male prisoners as an incentive used to overtime.

The historian Robert Sommer estimates that 210 women were forced into prostitution in the brothels of German concentration and extermination camps; this has been proven by name for 174 women.

history

The idea of ​​setting up camp brothels goes back to a visit by Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler to the Mauthausen concentration camp and the surrounding quarries. According to his ideas, the total exploitation of labor by male concentration camp prisoners should be forced through the introduction of gratuities. Privileged male prisoners should be allowed to visit the “special building” - according to the SS language rule for these brothel barracks .

"I think it is necessary, however, that the hard-working prisoners should be fed women in brothels in the freest form."

- Heinrich Himmler : 1942

That this should happen at the expense of the sex forced laborers was part of the idea from the beginning: "The sexual exploitation of women should be a natural incentive for male prisoners."

On the orders of Heinrich Himmler , the first of ten prisoner brothels was built in Mauthausen in June 1942. For this purpose, women from the prisoner category “anti- social ” were “assigned” who had not integrated themselves into the Nazi state and, for example, rejected the Association of German Girls . Furthermore, women who had prostituted themselves and who had not complied with the conditions imposed on them were also considered to be "anti-social". Many of these women who were forced into prostitution came from the Ravensbrück women concentration camp . If women contracted a sexually transmitted disease , they were made available for medical trials. Pregnant women have had a forced abortion .

The camp brothel in Auschwitz I was set up in June 1943 at Himmler's behest in Block 24a (currently the seat of the Museum Archive ). The SS had previously rejected the plan to build a brothel barrack (building project 93) behind Block 11 . It opened in October 1943 and was intended to reward privileged prison functionaries . The SS guards were not allowed to visit; they visited a brothel in the city of Auschwitz. The SS selected over 60 German, Polish and Ukrainian women in the women's camp in Auschwitz II-Birkenau for the two brothel detachments in Auschwitz I and Auschwitz III-Monowitz . The camp brothel existed until a few days before the evacuation from Auschwitz.

From 1943, there was a camp brothel for prisoners within the protective custody camp in Buchenwald as a “means of stimulating higher performance”. For this purpose, 16 female prisoners from the Ravensbrück concentration camp were brought to Buchenwald in July 1943 and forced into prostitution .

On May 11, 1944, a brothel was opened in the Dachau concentration camp , and six women from Ravensbrück arrived. It was in connection with Oswald Pohl's regulations to reward exceptional work performed by prisoners and thus to increase them. It was dissolved again towards the end of the year.

The bonus system

The concentration camps were not just prison camps, but above all labor camps, which had to support the German war economy significantly. The prisoners were cheap labor and were shamelessly exploited. From 1940 onwards there was a severe shortage of skilled workers in companies that were important to the SS, which was to be remedied with prisoners. These were rewarded with the award of bonus coupons, which made detention easier. However, the vast majority of prisoners did not have access to such positions and therefore also no bonus certificates and privileges. National Socialist racial ideology played an important role here; Jewish prisoners had no access to a higher class in the camp society. Only better off prisoners or those with relationships with them were even included in the bonus system. In May 1943, a “service regulation for the granting of concessions to prisoners” was introduced in the entire concentration camp system. In it, male prisoners with higher work performance were allowed to wear a military haircut, the allocation of cigarettes, a higher frequency of letters, purchases in the canteen and visit to the brothel.

“Forced sex labor was part of a gratuity system designed to remove the fundamental contradiction between work and survival and to maximize the exploitation of inmates. The bonus system, including the camp brothels, has been an integral part of the forced labor camp since 1943, as well as its machinery of exploitation and murder, and thus an inherent part of the National Socialist reign of terror. "   

Overview of the brothels

concentration camp built dissolved building Location (with coordinates) current condition photo
Mauthausen June 11, 1942 ? Barrack 1,
converted		 at the roll call square opposite the laundry restored Federal archive picture 192-349, Mauthausen concentration camp, camp brothel.jpg
Gusen Autumn 1942 ? own construction at the roll call square next to the Jourhaus private residence Bundesarchiv Bild 192-174, Mauthausen concentration camp, Gusen camp brothel.jpg
Flossenbürg July 1943 Liberation April 23, 1945 own construction on the edge of the camp behind the arrest block destroyed, foundations recognizable .
Beech forest July 16, 1943 Liberation April 11, 1945 own building between the sick barrack and the small camp destroyed, remains of foundations, memorial plaque .
Auschwitz main camp October 1943 January 1945,
a few days before the evacuation		 Block 24a
(1st floor of Block 24),
adapted		 left hand of the camp gate Museum archive, peepholes
for surveillance by the SS in the doors		 Work-auschwitz04.jpg
Auschwitz-Monowitz Fall 1943 . . between the prisoner's kitchen and the nursery destroyed .
Dachau May 11, 1944 Late 1944 own building
(block 170a or 31)		 in the northeast corner of the main camp destroyed .
Neuengamme May 28, 1944 . own building outside the prison camp, separated by a fence destroyed, remains of foundations, memorial plaque .
Sachsenhausen August 1944 . own building Cultivation next to the pathology in the sick bay . .
Mittelbau-Dora Early 1945 . . north of the roll call area destroyed, remains of foundations, memorial plaque Doramittelbordell.jpg

The women

It has been proven that 180, but probably between 200 and 220 women were locked up in the ten camp brothels. Most of the women were Germans who had been deported to a concentration camp as " anti-social " and continued to be referred to as such by the SS. Others were Polish , Ukrainian , Belarusian , Romnija and Sintize . There were never any Jewish women in the camp brothels.

Selection and notification

The women who had to do forced sex labor in the Buchenwald, Dachau, Dora-Mittelbau, Flossenbürg, Gusen, Mauthausen, Neuengamme and Sachsenhausen concentration camps were prisoners in the Ravensbrück women's concentration camp. Female prisoners from Auschwitz-Birkenau had to do forced sex labor in the camp brothels of the Auschwitz concentration camp.

Initially, the SS in Ravensbrück tried to get women to “volunteer” with the false pretense of being released from prison after six months of brothel service. The historian Christa Paul writes about the supposed "voluntariness" in the camp brothels:

“With the term 'voluntariness', [...] it should be noted that the 'voluntary' report to work in a prisoner brothel is an expression that describes a forced decision. [...] the term 'voluntariness' [has] no relevance in relation to prisoners in concentration camps in which the rule of the SS was absolute. "(Christa Paul, 1994, p. 33)

Later women were selected from whom the character of the service was withheld. The SS selected prisoners who were imprisoned as prostitutes . However, the prostitution grounds do not indicate whether the women were actually engaged in sex work prior to their imprisonment.

According to Sommer, this happened for three reasons:

  1. Whenever possible, the SS selected skilled workers for all of their work details.
  2. The SS expected less resistance from these women.
  3. The SS wanted to create the belief among brothel goers that women would do this work voluntarily.

With the emergence of new camp brothels, more women had to be selected. Since the number of women imprisoned as prostitutes was no longer sufficient, the SS resorted to women imprisoned as "anti-social" or "criminals". Later women were also selected from the prisoner group of political prisoners, especially so-called "bed politicians". The National Socialists referred to women as "bed politicians" who were accused of having a relationship with foreign forced laborers, for example.

The contemporary witness, who appears under the pseudonyms Magdalena Walter, Margarethe Walter, Frau W., M. Walter, MW, Frau B. or Maria W., reports in the documentation These cursed hours in the evening. The prisoner brothels in the concentration camp from their selection by the SS in the Ravensbrück concentration camp and the subsequent medical examinations. First of all, the women in the sick barracks were “nursed”, got more food and received medical care. Only then did the transport to the various camp brothels of the men's concentration camps take place.

The brothel visitors

The brothel visitors were initially only prison functionaries . It was not until 1943, after the bonus system was introduced, that other prisoners were also able to visit the brothel. SS men were not allowed to visit the camp brothel. The SS used the city brothels. The exception were Ukrainian SS guards, for whom special brothels were sometimes built. Jewish prisoners and Soviet prisoners of war were never allowed to visit the brothel. Initially, the brothels were well attended by inmates who could physically afford it. Later, however, the number of visitors dropped rapidly. Many political prisoners refused to visit such a brothel for moral reasons. For most prisoners, the camp brothel was insignificant in the daily struggle for survival and was perceived as a grotesque facility.

The visitors can be roughly divided into three groups. There were regular visitors, physically fit enough and with sufficient chances of survival to seek bragging rights. Then there were the sporadic visitors who sought interpersonal contact with a woman. It must be borne in mind that prisoners who had been in concentration camps since the beginning of the Nazi regime had not seen a woman for up to 10 years. In some cases there were even emotional relationships that developed between the prisoners and forced prostitutes, despite strict prohibitions on the part of the SS. The last group of visitors are the one-time visitors. It was about men who were extremely close to death and wanted to experience physical contact with a woman for the last time. It has also been proven that virgins who were aware of their low chances of survival wanted to engage in sexual contact with a woman for the first and last time.   

After the Second World War

After the Second World War , the state-built camp brothels were taboo and hushed up. After the war, almost all women did not tell about having been forced to work in a camp brothel. Possibly due to their earlier classification as “ anti-social ” and / or the incorrect assessment of their predicament, both German states refused to recognize their victim status after the war.

The forced sex workers were still stigmatized after 1945. In addition, a testimony by a former sex worker could have sounded like an accusation from other inmates. This shows how perfidious the SS brothel system worked, since it forced the brothel visitors into a position of complicity. At the same time, the prisoners viewed the forced sex laborers as accomplices because of the better accommodation and nutrition. This could be another reason for their silence after 1945. Another reason could be a kind of intersectionality of the trauma , as the women not only survived the concentration camp, but also sexualised violence . Talking about these is still difficult worldwide today and can lead to retraumatisation, as shown, for example, by statistics on reported rapes.

They were mostly unknown to the public, which is also due to a lack of a victims' association only for them, in which they could have exchanged ideas and encouraged each other, and were only discussed by scientists since the 1990s. Finding survivors was then very difficult for the research, which is why there are only a few eyewitness accounts from former sex workers.

Until the 1990s, those affected were not considered victims of National Socialism and received no compensation.

Movies

literature

Prostitution under National Socialism

  • Christa Paul: forced prostitution. State-built brothels under National Socialism. Edition Hentrich, Berlin 1994, ISBN 3-89468-141-1 .
  • Gabriele Czarnorwski: Women - State - Medicine. Aspects of body politics in National Socialism. In: Women between selection and extinction. Contributions to feminist theory and practice. Cologne 1985, No. 14, ISSN  0722-0189 .

Brothels in Concentration Camps - Monographs

  • Baris Alakus, Katharina Kniefacz, Robert Vorberg: Forced Sex Labor in National Socialist Concentration Camps. Mandelbaum, Vienna 2006, ISBN 3-85476-205-4 .
  • Robert Sommer: The concentration camp brothel. Sexual forced labor in National Socialist concentration camps. Schöningh, Paderborn 2009, ISBN 978-3-506-76524-6 .

Brothels in Concentration Camps - Essays

  • Kerstin Engelhardt: Women in the Dachau concentration camp. In: Dachauer Hefte. Dachau 1998, 14, ISSN  0257-9472 .
  • Brigitte Halbmayr : “Special construction” work command. On the importance and function of brothels in the concentration camp. in: Dachauer Hefte. Dachau 2005, 21, ISSN  0257-9472 .
  • Peter Heigl: Forced prostitution in the Flossenbürg concentration camp brothel. In: history cross. Aschaffenburg 1998, 6.
  • Reinhild Kassing, Christa Paul: brothels in German concentration camps. In: K (r) ampfader. Kassel women's lesbian magazine. Kassel 1991, No. 1.
  • Hans-Peter Klausch: The warehouse brothel from Flossenbürg . In: Contributions to the history of the labor movement. Berlin 1992, No. 4, ISSN  0942-3060 .
  • Christa Schikorra: Prostitution of female prisoners as forced labor. On the situation of “anti-social” prisoners in the Ravensbrück women's concentration camp. In: Dachauer Hefte. Dachau 2000, 16, ISSN  0257-9472 .
  • Christa Schulz: Female inmates from Ravensbrück in the brothels of the men's concentration camps. In: Claus Füllberg-Stolberg u. a. (Ed.): Women in concentration camps. Bergen-Belsen Ravensbrück. Edition Temmen, Bremen 1994, ISBN 3-86108-237-3 .
  • Robert Sommer: The special construction. The establishment of brothels in the National Socialist concentration camps. Morrisville 2006, ISBN 1-84728-844-8 .
  • Robert Sommer: The prisoner brothels in the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp complex. Forced sex labor in the area of ​​tension between Nazi 'racial politics' and the fight against venereal diseases. in: Akim Jah, Christoph Kopke, Alexander Korb, Alexa Stiller (eds.): National Socialist Camps. New contributions to the history of persecution and extermination policy and to the theory and practice of memorial work . Münster 2006, ISBN 3-932577-55-8 .
  • Robert Sommer: “Special construction” and storage company. The importance of brothels in the concentration camps. in: Theresienstadt studies and documents. Prague 2007.
  • Christl Wickert : Taboo warehouse brothel. On dealing with forced prostitution after 1945. in: Insa Eschebach, Sigrid Jacobeit, Silke Wenk (eds.): Memory and gender. Interpretation patterns in representations of the National Socialist genocide. Campus, Frankfurt am Main / New York 2002, ISBN 3-593-37053-0 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e Cf. Robert Sommer, Das KZ-Bordell, Paderborn 2009, p. 245ff.
  2. ↑ a b c d e f g Robert Sommer in an interview with Franziska von Kempis: Himmler's concentration camp brothels - “The cursed hours in the evening” . In: Süddeutsche Zeitung , June 19, 2009. Accessed February 1, 2012.
  3. ^ Heinrich Himmler on the establishment of brothels in concentration camps, letter to Oswald Pohl dated March 23, 1942, Federal Archives of the Federal Republic of Germany , Sig. NS 19/2065.
  4. ↑ Robert Sommer: The prisoner brothels in the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp complex. Forced sex labor in the area of ​​tension between Nazi 'racial politics' and the fight against venereal diseases. In: Jah, Kopke, Korb, Stiller (ed.): National Socialist Camps. New contributions to the history of persecution and extermination policy and to the theory and practice of memorial work. Munster 2006.
  5. ^ Stanislav Zámečník: (Ed. Comité International de Dachau): That was Dachau. Luxembourg, 2002.
  6. ↑ Service regulation for the “granting of concessions to prisoners” of May 15, 1943, Federal Archives of the Federal Republic of Germany , Sig. NS 3/426.
  7. ↑ Note: short haircut instead of the otherwise shaved bald head
  8. ↑ Patted and consumed zeit.de from July 20, 2006, accessed on December 7, 2019.
  9. ^ The cursed hours Ella F. was a forced prostitute in the Flossenbürg concentration camp onetz.de from November 26, 2016, accessed on December 7, 2019.
  10. ↑ Buchenwald Memorial: Camp brothels - forced sex labor in Nazi concentration camps , accessed on September 1, 2013.
  11. ↑ Working materials for project days at the Buchenwald Memorial. P. 39.
  12. ↑ Working materials for project days at the Buchenwald Memorial. P. 40.
  13. ↑ Robert Sommer: The special construction. The establishment of brothels in National Socialist concentration camps , p. 46.
  14. ↑ Himmler and the concentration camp brothel from Neuengamme focus.de from December 1, 2019, accessed on December 7, 2019.
  15. ↑ Robert Sommer: Der Sonderbau , p. 92.
  16. ^ Robert Sommer: "Special construction" and storage company. The importance of brothels in the concentration camps. in: Theresienstadt studies and documents. 2006, p. 300, Prague 2007
  17. ↑ Paul, Christa .: forced prostitution: state-built brothels during National Socialism . 1st edition Edition Hentrich, Berlin 1994, ISBN 3-89468-141-1 .
  18. ↑ a b c d Marie Reich: Impossibility of witnessing. Forced sex labor in the prisoners' brothels in the Nazi concentration camps and their taboo status after 1945 . Frankfurt 2018 ( uni-frankfurt.de [PDF]).
  19. ^ A b Sommer, Robert: The concentration camp brothel: sexual forced labor in National Socialist concentration camps . F. Schöningh, Paderborn 2009, ISBN 978-3-506-76524-6 , p. 89 .
  20. ^ Hauke ​​Friederichs: Himmler as a pimp . In: Die Zeit , July 6, 2009. Retrieved January 28, 2012.
  21. ^ Hermann Langbein: People in Auschwitz. Europa, Vienna / Munich 1997, p. 598. ISBN 3-203-51243-2 .
  22. ↑ Christa Schikorra: Prostitution of female prisoners as forced labor. On the situation of “anti-social” prisoners in the Ravensbrück women's concentration camp. in: Dachauer Hefte. Dachau 2000, 16. ISSN  0257-9472 .
  23. ↑ Christl Wickert: Tabu camp brothel. On dealing with forced prostitution after 1945. in: Insa Eschebach, Sigrid Jacobeit, Silke Wenk (eds.): Memory and gender. Interpretation patterns in representations of the National Socialist genocide. Campus, Frankfurt am Main and New York 2002. ISBN 3-593-37053-0 .
  24. ↑ Helga Amesberger , Katrin Auer, Brigitte Halbmayr : Sexualized violence. Female experiences in Nazi concentration camps . Vienna 2004.
  25. ↑ Baris Alakus, Katharina Kniefacz, Robert Vorberg: Forced Sex Labor in National Socialist Concentration Camps. Vienna 2006, ISBN 3-85476-205-4 .
  26. ↑ Those cursed hours in the evening - prisoner brothels in the concentration camp . ( Memento of November 29, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Retrieved October 22, 2013.