White buses rescue operation

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White buses of the Swedish Red Cross in 1945, presumably near their field camp in Friedrichsruh
Swedish Red Cross employees in front of their buses

Starting in March 1945, around 15,000 mostly Norwegian and Danish prisoners from German concentration camps were brought to safety in Scandinavia by white buses , vehicles painted white and marked with a red cross under the Swedish flag . The Vice-President of the Swedish Red Cross, Folke Bernadotte , had personally agreed these humanitarian rescue operations with Walter Schellenberg and Heinrich Himmler from March 1945 .

background

Monument to F. Bernadotte

Several thousand opponents of the Nazi German occupiers were deported from Norway and Denmark to German concentration camps during the Second World War . In view of the growing threat from fighting on German territory and the uncertainty surrounding the fate of the prisoners, the Norwegian diplomat Niels Christian Ditleff suggested to the Swedish Foreign Ministry in November 1944 that Sweden, as a neutral state, initiate a rescue operation led by the Red Cross.

Count Folke Bernadotte was entrusted with the negotiations about a possible rescue operation and later also with the implementation. In February 1945 he got in touch with Joachim von Ribbentrop , Ernst Kaltenbrunner and the head of the SD foreign intelligence service , Walter Schellenberg. On February 19, 1945 he met Heinrich Himmler in Hohenlychen . Himmler, who sought contacts with the Western Allies through neutral persons and institutions and sought a separate armistice, refused to release prisoners, but agreed to bring the Scandinavian political prisoners together in the Neuengamme camp near Hamburg and have them looked after by the Swedish Red Cross. However, the German side did not provide any vehicles, fuel or personnel for these secret transports. The transports should be organized by the Swedes.

Norwegian nationals

Soon after the occupation of Norway , functionaries of workers' parties, resistance fighters and escape helpers were arrested, sentenced by Wehrmacht courts and some were sent to German prisons. From the end of 1942, able-bodied Norwegian prisoners were deported to German concentration camps for forced labor . The deportations ended after the German transport ship Westfalen was sunk on September 8, 1944. A total of around 10,000 Norwegian women and men were deported.

Of the 1,200 students arrested in November 1943, 640 were abducted; most of them in Buchenwald concentration camp . At least 2,500 Norwegians were imprisoned in Sachsenhausen concentration camp for a shorter or longer period. More than 100 Norwegian women were transferred to the Ravensbrück concentration camp . Of the 767 Norwegian Jews deported to Auschwitz , only 28 men survived. Of the 504 so-called night and fog prisoners who were secretly taken to the Natzweiler-Struthof concentration camp and later transferred to Dachau , 341 survived.

From Hamburg, the seaman's pastors Arne Berge and Conrad Vogt-Svendsen looked after Danish and Norwegian prisoners in German penal institutions. The information collected by them and their helper Hiltgunt Zassenhaus enabled 735 prisoners to be involved in the rescue operation.

Danish nationals

From September 1943 to March 1945 almost 6100 Danes were deported to Germany. In October 1943 480 Jews and 150 communists were deported to Theresienstadt or Stutthof . By January 1944, around 170 people were brought to the Sachsenhausen and Ravensbrück concentration camps without trial . A police prison camp , the so-called internment camp Frøslev , operated by the German security police and established on Danish territory , was intended to avert further deportations . Of the 8,000 interned there, however, 1,600 people were deported to Germany, contrary to what had been agreed. In addition to resistance fighters and political prisoners, around 2,000 police officers were also deported . A few months later, these were recognized as civilian prisoners of war. People convicted of high sentences by German military courts were sent to Germany to serve their sentences in penal institutions. As part of the preventive detention by the police , so-called "habitual criminals" were also deported from Denmark to German concentration camps.

The Danish Ministry of Social Affairs made every effort to find out the current location of the deportees, put them in touch with relatives, sent inspections to the camps and sent open or covert packages of food and clothing.

Rescue operations

Irrespective of the White Buses' campaign, Werner Best had already agreed to a limited return campaign at the insistence of Danish authorities. Det danske Hjælpekorps was able to bring home around 550 sick Danish prisoners and civil internees from December 4, 1944 to the end of February 1945.

Through tough negotiations with high-ranking National Socialist functionaries, the following Swedish rescue operation expanded from an initially only allowed reunification of Scandinavian political prisoners to the release of an unspecified number of sick Scandinavians to the release of other groups of prisoners as well.

Neuengamme assembly camp

On February 16, Folke Bernadotte's first trip to Berlin took place under the mediation of Felix Kersten , Himmler's personal physician, who lives in Stockholm . At the beginning, Bernadotte met the German Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop as well as Ernst Kaltenbrunner, Himmler's adjutant and head of the security service, and Walter Schellenberg, head of the German intelligence service abroad.

Bernadotte then conducted negotiations with Heinrich Himmler with the aim of repatriating the Scandinavian prisoners on February 19 in Hohenlychen, a place with a first-class sanatorium in the middle of the Mark Brandenburg region. The request that all Danish and Norwegian inmates be brought to safe Sweden and interned there was refused. The alternative proposal, previously developed by Norwegian and Danish embassy staff, to bring the Scandinavian prisoners together in a Red Cross expedition in the German concentration camp Neuengamme, was approved by Himmler.

Swedish Red Cross buses in Hässleholm before departure

During the next two weeks, preparations began for the first rescue operation, in which, if possible, all Scandinavian prisoners were to be concentrated in a special section of Neuengamme that had previously been cleared and were to be well cared for there.

The Swedish Red Cross did not have sufficient transport. The Swedish government provided military buses. On March 8, 1945, a column of 75 vehicles - 36 of them buses - and around 250 helpers were ready for embarkation in Hässleholm . To protect against air raids, all vehicles were painted white and given the Red Cross symbol. Friedrichsruh , the seat of the Bismarck family, served as the logistics base for the transport troops . It wasn't until March 24 that the merger campaign got underway. At the end of March 1945, around half of the Scandinavians from various main and satellite camps had arrived in Neuengamme . This camp was completely overcrowded and could no longer accommodate anyone. On March 27 and 28, 1945, the White Buses therefore carried almost 2,000 French, Russian and Polish prisoners from Neuengamme to satellite camps near Hanover and Salzgitter. These prisoners were in a visibly worse condition than the Scandinavians.

Ambulance

White bus with Danish Jews from Theresienstadt in Haderslev , April 1945

On April 2, Bernadotte met with Himmler and Schellenberg in Hohenlychen and received approval that 1,500 Danish police officers were allowed to travel to the Danish internment camp, and all women and all sick Scandinavians to Sweden. Since almost all concentration camp inmates suffered from illnesses, a dam was broken with such a broadly interpretable formulation. On April 9, the first ambulance left Neuengamme to the quarantine station in Padborg, Denmark . Danish vehicles have already been used for these transports. In further discussions with the head of the Reich Security Main Office Ernst Kaltenbrunner and Walter Schellenberg, Bernadotte managed on April 15 that 423 Danish Jews, whose fate had not been agreed beforehand, were also allowed to leave the Theresienstadt ghetto .

Eviction of the Scandinavian camp

A little later, plans to clear the Neuengamme concentration camp became acute. In view of the approaching Allies, the Hamburg Gauleiter Karl Kaufmann tried to have all prisoners removed from his sphere of influence. Now the "Scandinavian camp " in Neuengamme should be evacuated immediately, by April 21 at the latest. The transport for around 4,200 people had to be organized within a very short period of time. The Danes also provided 124 vehicles, which were painted white and marked with the Danish flag. In Denmark, the former prisoners were initially housed in the Frøslev internment camp or in the camp near Horsens .

Inclusion of other groups

Prisoners in Ravensbrück awaiting their rescue by the Swedish Red Cross

During negotiations on April 15, Himmler allowed all women from the Ravensbrück concentration camp to be brought to Sweden. The International Red Cross supported this evacuation with a freight train. Around 7,000 women, mostly from France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, the Czech Republic and Poland, were brought to safety. 1607 of them were Jewish. On April 30, 1945, all concentration camp prisoners of French nationality and some Belgians and Dutch were brought to the coast in time from Cap Arcona and transported with the white buses of the Swedish Red Cross to two steamers, which transferred them to Trelleborg .

Humanitarian rescue operations continued beyond the surrender of the German armed forces and enabled the swift repatriation of other former prisoners via Sweden to their respective home countries.

historiography

For a long time, the view of events was shaped by the person-centered portrayal of Count Folke Bernadotte, who describes him as a heroic and self-sacrificing lone fighter and makes his decisions appear to be without alternative. But there was also criticism in Sweden because Bernadotte had acted as a witness for Walter Schellenberg in the run-up to the Wilhelmstrasse trial . In addition, he was accused of anti-Semitism and failed or hesitant attempts to rescue Jewish prisoners. In 1998 another debate broke out about Bernadotte's conduct of the negotiations, alleging that he shared the racial ideology of the National Socialists and that he only tried to save non-Jewish Scandinavians. The historian Sune Persson rejected this view as unfounded. At the same time, it was noticed that other aid networks for prisoners and a large number of other people were involved in these rescue efforts. Several Norwegian helpers were honored for their commitment.

In 2005, the privileged situation of the Scandinavian concentration camp prisoners was discussed and a moral dilemma was revealed: In order to make room for the Scandinavians in the Neuengamme camp, the "protection block" was cleared and around 2000 prisoners, some of them seriously ill, were taken with the help of the white buses brought to the subcamp. For many of them it meant death. Several authors rejected any criticism of the moral integrity of the action of the “White Buses”, emphasized the lack of alternatives and violently attacked the group of “black painters” - in particular the historian Ingrid Lomfors. Claudia Lenz juxtaposes the fundamental poles: on the one hand it is about scientific research and reassessment of the events, on the other hand it is about an inviolable role model of a heroic savior, in whom even a nuanced criticism is perceived as hostile.

It is now undisputed that the rescue operation was ultimately a Norwegian initiative under Swedish leadership, which was made possible through the cooperation of a large number of actors and organizers from Sweden, Norway and Denmark.

The Danish historian Therkel Stræde puts the rescue operation of the White Buses in a larger context and suggests a periodization:

  • 1st period (November 1944 to February 1945) during which sick Danish prisoners were brought back to Denmark on Danish transports.
  • Second period (second half of March 1945) in which the Swedish Red Cross brought Scandinavian prisoners together in Neuengamme.
  • 3rd period (beginning of April 1945 until shortly before the end of the war), which should be seen as a merger of Danish and Swedish actions.
  • 4th period (last days of April and first days of May) in which a large number of non-Scandinavian prisoners were rescued by Danish, Swedish and Swiss transports.

Actions and debates in Norway

The Norwegian organization Hvite busser til Auschwitz ('White Buses to Auschwitz') organizes bus trips to various European memorials. Under the heading Hvite Busser , the problem of school trips to Holocaust memorials is also addressed in Norway. A controversial debate in the Norwegian Aftenposten became known in 2010 with the participation of Odd-Bjørn Fure , the head of the Norwegian Center for Studies on the Holocaust and Religious Minorities. Among other things, it was about whether a realistic current picture of Germany would be conveyed and the specifically Norwegian prehistory sufficiently included. The question was how such school trips can be designed in a pedagogically meaningful way.

Commemoration

Memorial stone to the rescue operation at Kruså

A memorial stone and a sculpture by Folke Bernadotte remind of the rescue operation at the Kruså border crossing near Flensburg . Other monuments and street names after Folke Bernadotte in Scandinavia, Germany and Austria are an indirect reminder of the rescue operation.

See also

Well-known saviors

Known rescued

literature

  • Sune Persson: Last-minute rescue. Folke Bernadotte and the liberation of thousands of concentration camp prisoners through the "White Buses" campaign . Åke Svenson: The White Buses (1945) . Walter Schellenberg: Diary sketch »Trosa Memorandum« with an introduction by Stefan Scheil, Landt Verlag, Berlin 2011, ISBN 978-3-938844-19-9 .
  • Oliver von Wrochem : Scandinavia in World War II and the White Buses rescue operation . Neuengamme Concentration Camp Memorial. Metropol Verlag, Berlin 2012, ISBN 978-3-86331-060-8 ( review sehepunkte ).
  • Claudia Lenz: From Heroism to Moral Dilemma - The "White Buses" and their Interpretations after 1945. In: Help or Trade? Rescue efforts for victims of Nazi persecution (Articles on the History of National Socialist Persecution in Northern Germany, Issue 10). Bremen 2007, ISBN 978-3-86108-874-5 , pp. 68-80.
  • Henrik Skov Kristensen: The “White Buses” from the perspective of North Schleswig. The Swedish-Danish rescue operation for concentration camp prisoners in the spring of 1945 . In: Grenzfriedenshefte, 2016, No. 1, pp. 23–44 ( online ).

Movies

  • Magnus Gösta von Gertten (director), Lars Åberg (author): Harbor of Hope - Sweden and the Holocaust Victims . . Sweden, 75 min, 2012. Documentation of contemporary films from the arrival of the white buses in Malmo ( sender information , information of the production company - author Gertten has based the passenger lists of the individual in Sweden incoming ships people who were then children and young people from Archival images identified and located in Sweden, the USA and South Africa. Swedish and English title: Hoppets Hamn, Harbor of Hope. A meeting of survivors in 2005 in Malmö in connection with the buses is also mentioned).

Web links

Commons : White Bus Rescue  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Simone Erpel: Norwegian women and men as prisoners . In: Oliver von Wrochem, Neuengamme Concentration Camp Memorial (ed.): Scandinavia in World War II and the White Buses rescue operation - events and memories. Berlin 2012, ISBN 978-3-86331-060-8 , p. 48f.
  2. ↑ Sune Persson: Last Minute Salvation. Folke Bernadotte and the liberation of thousands of concentration camp prisoners through the "White Buses" campaign (Swedish first edition 2002). Berlin 2011, ISBN 978-3-938844-19-9 , p. 254.
  3. ^ Henrik Skov Kristensen: Deportations from Denmark. In: Oliver von Wrochem, Neuengamme Concentration Camp Memorial (ed.): Scandinavia in World War II and the White Buses rescue operation - events and memories. Berlin 2012, ISBN 978-3-86331-060-8 , pp. 33-36.
  4. ↑ Hans Sode-Madsen: Danish police officers and border gendarmes in Neuengamme concentration camp - September 1944 to May 1945. In: Oliver von Wrochem, Neuengamme Concentration Camp Memorial (ed.): Scandinavia in World War II and the White Buses rescue operation - events and memories. Berlin 2012, ISBN 978-3-86331-060-8 , p. 67.
  5. ↑ Hans Sode-Madsen: Danish police officers and border gendarmes in Neuengamme concentration camp - September 1944 to May 1945. In: Oliver von Wrochem, Neuengamme Concentration Camp Memorial (ed.): Scandinavia in World War II and the White Buses rescue operation - events and memories. Berlin 2012, ISBN 978-3-86331-060-8 , p.
    65.Sune Persson: Rescue at the last moment. Folke Bernadotte and the liberation of thousands of concentration camp prisoners through the "White Buses" campaign . Berlin 2011, ISBN 978-3-938844-19-9 , p. 91.
  6. ↑ The Order under the Skull . In: Der Spiegel . No. 10 , 1967 ( online - Feb. 27, 1967 ).
  7. ↑ Katrin Himmler: The Himmler Brothers. S. Fischer Verlag, 2016, ISBN 978-3-104-90253-1 ( limited preview in Google book search).
  8. ↑ Sune Persson: Last Minute Salvation. Folke Bernadotte and the liberation of thousands of concentration camp prisoners through the "White Buses" campaign. Berlin 2011, ISBN 978-3-938844-19-9 , pp. 129-132.
  9. ↑ Ann Mari Fürstin von Bismarck was a classmate of Bernadotte. Sune Persson: Last-minute rescue. Folke Bernadotte and the liberation of thousands of concentration camp prisoners through the "White Buses" campaign . Berlin 2011, ISBN 978-3-938844-19-9 , p. 9.
  10. ^ Borgan Suchowiak: May 1945: The tragedy of the prisoners of Neuengamme. Reinbek / Hamburg 1985, ISBN 3-499-15537-0 , p. 138.
  11. ^ ZDFzeit: Royal Dynasties. The Bernadottes. Shown on ZDF from July 26, 2016, 8:15 p.m. - 9:00 p.m. (A short passage on Folke Bernadotte and footage of the white buses and white ships is shown.)
  12. ↑ Folke Bernadotte: The end. My negotiations in Germany in the spring of 1945 and their political consequences. Zurich / New York 1945.
  13. ↑ Claudia Lenz: From heroism to moral dilemma ... In: Help or trade? Rescue efforts for victims of Nazi persecution. Bremen 2007, ISBN 978-3-86108-874-5 , p. 70.
  14. ↑ Claudia Lenz: From heroism to moral dilemma ... In help or trade? Rescue efforts for victims of Nazi persecution. Bremen 2007, ISBN 978-3-86108-874-5 , pp. 70-72.
  15. ^ Jörg Wollenberg: Count Bernadotte's white buses. Criticism of the Swedish double game from March / April 1945. In: Informations zur Schleswig-Holstein contemporary history , issue 38 (October 2000).
  16. ↑ Claudia Lenz: From heroism to moral dilemma ... In: Help or trade? Rescue efforts for victims of Nazi persecution. Bremen 2007, ISBN 978-3-86108-874-5 , p. 76.
  17. ↑ Simone Erpel: Swiss and Swedish rescue efforts for the women imprisoned in the Ravensbrück concentration camp in 1945. In: Help or trade? Rescue efforts for victims of Nazi persecution. Bremen 2007, ISBN 978-3-86108-874-5 , p. 96 (with references).
  18. ^ According to Izabela A. Dahl: Reception of the 'White Buses' campaign in Germany. In: Oliver von Wrochem, Neuengamme Concentration Camp Memorial (ed.): Scandinavia in World War II and the White Buses rescue operation - events and memories. Berlin 2012, ISBN 978-3-86331-060-8 , p. 195.
  19. ↑ Website of the Foundation Hvite busser til Auschwitz
  20. ↑ HL-senteret - website of the center
  21. ↑ Med buss til Auschwitz ( Memento of the original from April 26, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , Odd-Bjørn Fure, Ledelsen i Hvite Busser oppfordres to å utvide and oppgradere sitt consept for travelers with skoleungdom, skriver Odd-Bjørn Fure. Can Hvite Busser continue å sluse skoleelever direct in drapsfabrikkene in Auschwitz uten kunnskap om den norske forhistorien til massedrapet? Aftenposten, April 24, 2010. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.aftenposten.no
  22. ↑ Flensburger Tageblatt : Series “Untergang in Raten”: German-Danish border: The return of tens of thousands of concentration camp prisoners , from: May 16, 2015; Retrieved on: May 15, 2017.