Officers camp VI B
The officers camp VI B ( Oflag VI B ) was an officer camp of the Wehrmacht between 1940 and 1945, in which over 2500 prisoners of war officers and NCOs of various nationalities were housed. It was near Dössel in what was then Warburg district of the Prussian province of Westphalia (and in what was then military district VI (Münster) ), today Höxter district , North Rhine-Westphalia .
The oflag during the war
In 1939 the Wehrmacht wanted to build a military airfield southwest of Dössel; However, this project was rejected in 1940 in order to use the workers 'quarters that had already been set up to convert it into an officers' camp. Between 1940 and 1942, mainly French people, later also British, were accommodated there. During the war, due to the provisions of the Geneva Convention that officers were not allowed to do forced labor, a special camp culture developed, as many officers were educated and creative. Among other things, the prisoners in the OFLAG maintained and looked after a camp university, their own symphony and chamber orchestra, a choir and a theater. Religious, sporting and cultural activities were also used and various holidays were celebrated. On Halloween 1941, the Scottish dance Reel of the 51st Division Halloween was officially shown for the first time in front of Major General Victor Fortune . The dance was developed by a Scottish prisoner of war to raise morale and is now one of the most popular Scottish dances worldwide. However, this did not mean a paradisiacal life for the captured officers, who were far from their families and homes during captivity.
From September 1942 until the liberation of the camp on April 1, 1945, mainly Polish prisoners of war , temporarily 2296 officers, 287 NCOs and men who served as orderlies were housed in the officers' camp. The Geneva Convention was no longer applied to these. In addition, Soviet forced laborers who had to work outside of the camp were interned.
On September 20, 1943, Polish prisoners tried to escape through a tunnel, but only ten people were able to escape. The remaining 37 and two helpers who remained in the camp were, among other things, escaped. a. executed in Buchenwald concentration camp . In December 1943 two more escape attempts were made. The refugees Jozef Dubciak and Lieutenant Boleslaw Sobolewski were also caught and executed.
On September 27, 1944, a British aerial bomb mistakenly hit the OFLAG instead of the targeted target at Nörde station, killing 90 prisoners who were later buried in the Dösseler cemetery. In the late part of the war, the food supply decreased dramatically.
On April 1, 1945, the camp was liberated by American troops.
The camp after 1945
After the liberation by the Americans in 1945, temporarily liberated forced laborers of various nationalities moved into the camp, but by 1948 most of the barracks were demolished.
The administration buildings and their nearby barracks remained and were used in two ways in the post-war period: on the one hand, the remaining buildings served as transit camps for refugees from the east, and on the other hand, the Belgian army and the German armed forces used them as barracks . The camp was now referred to as the Börde barracks and served among other things. a. the training of military drivers of the 2nd Panzer Grenadier Division (ZusatzKp StDst / MKF 2/2).
In 1980, on the 35th anniversary of the camp's liberation, former prisoners returned to the camp and the cemetery for the first time to commemorate them, bringing a picture of the Black Madonna of Czestochowa with a personal dedication by the Primate of Poland, Cardinal Wyszyński , as a gift .
When the guests visited the camp for the second time in 1984 on the 40th anniversary of the bombing, a memorial stone positioned at the former entrance with the inscription “Reconciliation - Peace - Freedom 1944–1984” was unveiled.
On November 2, 2015, the Polish Vice Consul Andrzej Dudziński and Mayor Michael Stickeln visited the memorial in the cemetery, both of whom commemorated the 131 Polish soldiers who perished in Dössel with a wreath.
The camp has been inhabited again for several decades. Asylum seekers from all over the world with temporary visas have their emergency accommodation there .
See also
literature
- Oflag VI B Dössel. Memories of Polish prisoners of war of officers camp VI B. Hermes, Warburg 1995 ( Warburger Schriften 14, ISSN 0344-9556 ).
- Horst-Dieter Krus : Rich cultural life and great human suffering behind barbed wire. Memories of the prisoner-of-war camp Oflag VI B Dössel near Warburg. In: Yearbook District Höxter. 1996 (1995), pp. 213-218, ZDB -ID 584557-9 .
- Alfred Schickel: "Thank God we didn't come to Katyn ..." , Polish officers prisoner of war in Germany. In: Forgotten contemporary history , Herbig materials on contemporary history. Munich / Berlin 1985, ISBN 3-548-33047-9 , p. 79.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b From the story of Oflag VI B Dössel. warburg.net, accessed December 9, 2013 .
- ↑ Michael Young: Reel of the 51st Division. September 1983, Retrieved November 25, 2013 .
- ↑ Josef Hagemann: Escape through an underground tunnel. The Polish prisoner of war camp Dössel near Warburg . In: Die Warte , 1987, No. 56, pp. 28-29
- ↑ Relict.com: 2nd Panzer Grenadier Division
- ↑ Dieter Scholz: City commemorates Polish officers , in: Neue Westfälische , Warburg, November 3, 2015
Coordinates: 51 ° 31 ′ 1.9 ″ N , 9 ° 9 ′ 6.2 ″ E