SS construction brigade

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The total of five SS construction brigades were mobile concentration camp commandos at the time of National Socialism , which were deployed during the Second World War from autumn 1942, mainly after Allied bombings, for construction and clean-up work and for the recovery of corpses in destroyed German cities. In addition to the SS construction brigades, eight SS railway construction brigades were formed from autumn 1944, each with around 500 concentration camp prisoners (concentration camp on rails) , who were housed in railway trains and were mainly used in track construction. A total of around 20,000 prisoners were deployed in the SS construction and railway construction brigades. The death rate in the individual SS construction brigades varied widely and ranged from a few people to a third of the number of prisoners. With the establishment of the SS construction brigades and SS railway construction brigades, the concentration camp system was not only expanded considerably, but concentration camp prisoners were also used en masse in public spaces for the first time .

The SS construction brigades and SS railway construction brigades were subordinate to the Head of Office Group C in the SS Economic and Administrative Main Office (SS-WVHA), Hans Kammler , who had also suggested setting up mobile prisoner work commands. The deployment of these construction brigades took place in close coordination with Armaments Minister Albert Speer . Kammler delegated the management of the SS construction and railway brigades to Gerhard Weigel , who was appointed inspector of all SS construction brigades in October 1944. From the beginning of January 1945, all SS construction brigades and SS railway construction brigades were organizationally affiliated with the Sachsenhausen concentration camp .

SS Construction Brigade I

In October 1942, SS Construction Brigade I of 1,000 concentration camp prisoners was set up in Sachsenhausen concentration camp. Of the 1,000 concentration camp inmates, 600 in Düsseldorf and 400 in Duisburg had to clear rubble on behalf of the respective city ​​administration .

At the beginning of March 1943, the 1,000 prisoners of SS Construction Brigade I were transferred to the Sylt camp on the channel island of Alderney . There, the prisoners now subordinate to the Neuengamme concentration camp had to build fortifications on behalf of the High Command of the Wehrmacht and the Todt Organization due to a feared Allied invasion. On June 24, 1944, the prisoners of SS Construction Brigade I from Alderney were taken to the mainland and had to set up rocket launching systems on the Belgian-French border.

In September 1944 550 prisoners of SS Construction Brigade I were transferred to Rehungen to carry out infrastructure work for the SS . In Hohlstedt an additional branch of the main camp Rehungen was set up for 200 to 300 prisoners, where the prisoners had to carry out track construction work for the Deutsche Reichsbahn . From September to the end of October 1944, the SS construction brigade was subordinate to the Buchenwald concentration camp and then to the Mittelbau concentration camp . Between 5 and 7 April 1945, the prisoners were from Rehungen together with those from Hohlstedt from the advancing Allies in a roundabout way in a sub-camp of Mauthausen spent where it by members of the on 5 May 1945 US Army were freed .

SS Construction Brigade II

In October 1942, the SS Construction Brigade II of 1,000 concentration camp prisoners was set up in Neuengamme concentration camp. Of the 1,000 concentration camp inmates, 750 inmates in Bremen and 250 in Osnabrück had to clear rubble, recover corpses and defuse bombs on behalf of the respective city administration . Another branch of the SS Construction Brigade II, which comprised 175 concentration camp prisoners, existed from spring 1943 to November 1943 in Wilhelmshaven . Between August 7, 1943 and April 1944, up to 930 prisoners carried out clearing and rescue work in Hamburg at the request of the local police chief. In mid-April 1944, SS Construction Brigade II was relocated to Berlin for construction and clean-up work . In this context, the subordination of the Neuengamme concentration camp to the Sachsenhausen concentration camp changed.

SS Construction Brigade III

SS Construction Brigade III was set up in September 1942. Between September 1942 and May 1944, up to 1000 concentration camp prisoners had to carry out construction and clearing work, mainly in the Cologne exhibition center , but also in the branches in Düsseldorf, Dortmund and Bergisch Gladbach .

At the beginning of May 1944, the prisoners of SS Construction Brigade III were transferred to Wieda and later to its sub-camps in Nüxei , Mackenrode and Osterhagen . On behalf of the SS-guide rod B13 about 300 prisoners in the newly established led sub-camp Wieda track construction works for the helmets Valley Railway through. Around 300 prisoners each had to do track, clearing and earthworks in the subcamps in Nüxei, Osterhagen and Mackenrode. Until the end of October 1944, SS Building Brigade III was subordinate to the Buchenwald concentration camp and then to the Mittelbau concentration camp . On April 6, 1945, the prisoners from the Mackenrode, Nüxei and Osterhagen concentration camps were driven to the Wieda concentration camp on foot. From there all prisoners had to march together on April 7, 1945 across the Harz Mountains. After an evacuation transport by train to the Altmark and another death march on foot to Gardelegen , most of the massacre in the Isenschnibber field barn on April 13, 1945, together with other concentration camp inmates from other evacuated concentration camps, were imprisoned and burned.

SS Construction Brigade IV

In August 1943, Building Brigade IV from Buchenwald arrived in Wuppertal and set up the Königshöher Weg subcamp there. By May 1944, around 600 prisoners from SS Construction Brigade IV were deployed in Wuppertal on behalf of the local city administration for clean-up work, corpses, etc.

In mid-May 1944, SS Construction Brigade IV was relocated to Ellrich , where the prisoners were penned in the Bürgergarten restaurant in the newly established Ellrich-Bürgergarten satellite camp . In addition, the Ellrich-Juliushütte concentration camp , the largest subcamp of the Mittelbau concentration camp complex , had existed in Ellrich since the beginning of May 1944 . The Günzerode concentration camp was set up as a subsidiary camp of Ellrich-Bürgergarten at the beginning of September 1944 . In the two camps Ellrich-Bürgergarten and Günzerode, both of which were subordinate to the Mittelbau concentration camp, up to 950 prisoners each had to carry out track construction work for the Helmetalbahn. Between April 6 and 10, 1945, the camps were evacuated before the advancing Allies. Some of the prisoners were liberated by members of the US Army in mid-April 1945 after a death march near Güntersberge . A smaller group of around 350 prisoners was driven to Gardelegen and murdered there on April 13, 1945 in the massacre in the Isenschnibber field barn .

SS construction brigade V

From March 1944 to August 1944, the SS construction brigade V set up in Cologne was stationed in northern France. There were at least 14 satellite camps of the V. SS construction brigade stationed at the main Doullens site. The prisoners built systems for launching the A4 rocket on behalf of the Luftwaffe .

In the autumn of 1944, the prisoners of SS construction brigade V were distributed to SS construction brigades III and IV or they formed the basis of SS railway construction brigade V.

SS railway construction brigades

The SS railway construction brigades were set up with a strength of 504 prisoners from autumn 1944. The prisoners - as well as the SS guards - found accommodation in the construction trains, which consisted of up to 50 wagons. There were 24 to 40 concentration camp inmates in each of the wagons. The wagons for the prisoners, in contrast to those for the guards and prisoner functionaries, were only sparsely lit and moderately heated.

In addition to track construction work, the prisoners were also used to do heavy work in repairing destroyed train stations, etc. In order to protect the construction trains from attacks, some of them were accompanied by flak commandos.

SS designation Period Average number of prisoners / of
whom died 		Prisoner deployment Client evacuation Remarks
5th SS railway construction brigade October 8, 1944 - April 1945 about 500 men / k. A. Track construction, debris removal Reichsbahn, City Administration Osnabrück Evacuation in the direction of Flensburg , liberation on May 5, 1945 on the ship Apollo Subordinated to Mittelbau concentration camp from late October 1944 to January 1945, then to Sachsenhausen concentration camp
6th SS railway construction brigade, previously 1st SS railway construction brigade September 12, 1944 - April 8, 1945 500 men / k. A. Track construction, excavation work in Sangerhausen for telephone lines SS Evacuation by train, liberated on May 4, 1945 in Salzburg Subordinated to Mittelbau concentration camp from late October 1944 to January 1945, then to Sachsenhausen concentration camp
7th SS railway construction brigade, previously 2nd SS railway construction brigade September 19, 1944 - April 2, 1945 470 men / at least 12 Track repair SS Evacuation by train in early April in two transports towards Lake Constance and Bad Schussenried Subordinated initially to the Auschwitz concentration camp , at the beginning of October to the Buchenwald concentration camp, from the end of October 1944 to January 1945 to the Mittelbau concentration camp, then to the Sachsenhausen concentration camp
8th SS railway construction brigade November 20, 1944 - March 1945 504 men / approx. 20th Track repair, repair of a railway tunnel in Stuttgart SS Evacuation by train from mid-March 1945, liberation in Bergen on May 3, 1945 Subordinated initially to the Sachsenhausen concentration camp, from the end of November 1944 to January 1945 to the Mittelbau concentration camp, then to Sachsenhausen concentration camp
9th SS railway construction brigade was probably never set up
10th SS railway construction brigade December 1944 504 men from January 1945 track construction work in Offenburg Buchenwald concentration camp, subordinated to Sachsenhausen concentration camp in January 1945
11th SS railway construction brigade ( Bad Sassendorf ) February 8, 1945 - 4th / 5th April 1945 504 men / at least 33 Track construction work at the Soest train station, which was destroyed in 1944 German Reichsbahn Death march to Höxter , then transport to Sachsenhausen concentration camp, Dachau concentration camp , Ebensee concentration camp 1945 Subordinated to Sachsenhausen concentration camp
12th SS railway construction brigade December 24, 1944 - spring 1945 504 men / at least 11 until January 1945 track construction work on Lahnstein near Koblenz, then Bad Kreuznach , Gießen train station German Reichsbahn via Linz partly to the Ebensee concentration camp Sachsenhausen concentration camp
13th SS railway construction brigade January 18, 1945 - spring 1945 504 men Reichertshofen until January 1945 , then location near Limburg Reichsbahndirektion Erfurt Set up in Dachau concentration camp, subordinated to Sachsenhausen concentration camp

13th SS railway construction brigade

The 13th railway construction brigade was set up by the Dachau concentration camp in January 1945 and was last located in Limburg an der Lahn until March 1945 . Like all other construction brigades, it was formally subordinate to the Sachsenhausen concentration camp. Locations of the 13th construction brigade are documented at at least five different locations in Limburg an der Lahn, Villmar , Frankfurt, Koblenz and Fulda . The 504 men, concentration camp prisoners of various national origins, were assigned to the Reichsbahndirektion Erfurt, they were in a concentration camp on rails under desolate conditions and the like. a. interned in railway wagons in the area of ​​today's Limburg train station . Their task was in the context of the transport of the so-called retaliatory weapons , which were to be brought by rail from the Harz to the Western Front in the last phase of the war. After the bombing raids, the concentration camp prisoners deployed in the construction brigades had to "clear away the rubble and repair the rails" as quickly as possible. The prisoners were guarded by an SS command with the participation of older railroad workers. In the railway wagons, the prisoners were exposed to the bombing attacks without protection, and many died of hunger, exhaustion and a typhus epidemic . According to witness memories, many prisoners at the Limburg site were "shot at random". There were also shootings if the prisoners did not get out of cover in time after bombing. The SS storm man Johann Penkowski , who was dubbed a “submachine gun” by the prisoners, was particularly brutal. He was said to have been responsible for the shooting of at least five prisoners in a forest near Limburg in March 1945, and in a bomb attack in Eschhofen in March 1945 was killed. Penkowski is buried in the Runkel war grave cemetery (grave row 10 / no. 166), not far from the burial site of forced laborers . In March 1945 the “evacuation” of the 13th construction brigade was carried out, whereby many of the prisoners did not survive the death march and transport to the Buchenwald concentration camp. 185 of the 504 men previously interned in Limburg arrived in Buchenwald, some subgroups were liberated on their evacuation march, and others were able to flee. How many prisoners did not survive has not yet been researched. A list with the 504 names of the prisoners has been preserved in full. The public prosecutor's office in Limburg a. d. Lahn's preliminary investigations by the Central Office of the State Justice Administration in Ludwigsburg against those responsible for the crimes committed against the prisoners of the 13th construction brigade were discontinued on March 20, 1974. The political bodies of the city of Limburg are discussing the establishment of a memorial and memorial site for the victims of the 13th SS construction brigade since August 2012. In the meeting on February 1, 2013, the preparatory proposal for the establishment of a memorial on the site of the former Limburg railway was made - Repair shop , today an industrial monument and shopping and leisure center called WERKStadt , unanimously approved.

literature

  • Karola Fings : War, Society and Concentration Camps. Himmler's SS construction brigades , Ferdinand Schöningh, Paderborn 2005, ISBN 3-506-71334-5 .
  • Joachim Hennig: Rolling concentration camp - the 12th SS railway construction brigade in Kamp / Rhein, Bad Kreuznach and elsewhere. In: Yearbook for West German State History 41 (2015), pp. 591–661.
  • Karl Kassenbrock: Concentration Camp on Rails - The History of the 5th SS Railway Construction Brigade , Wallstein (series of publications by the Lower Saxony Memorial Foundation), 2019, ISBN 978-3835334199 .
  • Jan Erik Schulte (Ed.): Concentration camps in the Rhineland and Westphalia 1933–1945. Central control and regional initiative . Verlag Ferdinand Schöningh , Paderborn 2005, ISBN 3-506-71743-X ( Google Books ).

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Karola Fings: War, Society and KZ. Himmler's SS construction brigades . Ferdinand Schöningh, Paderborn 2005, p. 11 f.
  2. ^ Karola Fings: War, Society and KZ. Himmler's SS construction brigades . Ferdinand Schöningh, Paderborn 2005, p. 247 f.
  3. ↑ Karola Fings: Düsseldorf-Stoffeln (SS Building Brigade I) . In: Wolfgang Benz , Barbara Distel (eds.): The place of terror . History of the National Socialist Concentration Camps. Volume 3: Sachsenhausen, Buchenwald. CH Beck, Munich 2006, ISBN 3-406-52963-1 , p. 148 f.
  4. ^ Karola Fings: Alderney (SS Building Brigade I) . In: Wolfgang Benz, Barbara Distel (eds.): The Place of Terror: History of the National Socialist Concentration Camps , Volume 5: Hinzert, Auschwitz, Neuengamme . Beck, Munich 2007, ISBN 978-3-406-52965-8 , p. 347 f.
  5. ↑ Jens-Christian Wagner (Ed.): Mittelbau-Dora Concentration Camp 1943–1945 Accompanying volume for the permanent exhibition in the Mittelbau-Dora Concentration Camp Memorial, Göttingen 2007, p. 191 ff.
  6. ↑ List of satellite camps of Neuengamme concentration camp ( Memento of the original from July 27, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. at www.kz-gedenkstaette-neuengamme.de @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.kz-gedenkstaette-neuengamme.de
  7. ^ Jan Erik Schulte : Concentration camps in the Rhineland and Westphalia 1933–1945 - Central control and regional initiative. , Schöningh GmbH & Co KG, 2005, ISBN 3-506-71743-X ., P. XXXVIII - Annex I - Concentration camps in the Rhineland and Westphalia 1939–1945.
  8. ↑ Jens-Christian Wagner (Ed.): Mittelbau-Dora Concentration Camp 1943–1945 Volume accompanying the permanent exhibition at the Mittelbau-Dora Concentration Camp Memorial, Göttingen 2007, pp. 194 ff., 202.
  9. ^ Jan Erik Schulte : Concentration camps in the Rhineland and Westphalia 1933–1945 - Central control and regional initiative. , Schöningh GmbH & Co KG, 2005, ISBN 3-506-71743-X ., P. XXXIX - Annex I - Concentration camps in the Rhineland and Westphalia 1939–1945
  10. ↑ Jens-Christian Wagner (Ed.): Mittelbau-Dora Concentration Camp 1943–1945 Accompanying volume for the permanent exhibition in the Mittelbau-Dora Concentration Camp Memorial, Göttingen 2007, pp. 187 ff.
  11. ^ Jan Erik Schulte : Concentration camps in the Rhineland and Westphalia 1933–1945 - Central control and regional initiative. , 2005, p. 185.
  12. ^ Jens Christian Wagner: Mittelbau-Dora concentration camp. In: Wolfgang Benz, Barbara Distel (eds.): The place of terror. History of the National Socialist Concentration Camps. Volume 7: Niederhagen / Wewelsburg, Lublin-Majdanek, Arbeitsdorf, Herzogenbusch (Vught), Bergen-Belsen, Mittelbau-Dora. CH Beck, Munich 2008, ISBN 978-3-406-52967-2 , pp. 244, 297.
  13. ^ A b Karola Fings: War, Society and KZ. Himmler's SS construction brigades , Ferdinand Schöningh, Paderborn 2005, p. 254 f.
  14. ↑ The number of deceased prisoners relates to the duration of the camp, not including the deceased / murdered prisoners during the death marches
  15. ↑ Karola Fings: 9th SS Railway Construction Brigade . In: Wolfgang Benz, Barbara Distel (eds.): The place of terror. History of the National Socialist Concentration Camps. Volume 3: Sachsenhausen, Buchenwald. CH Beck, Munich 2006, ISBN 3-406-52963-1 , p. 160 f.
  16. ^ Karola Fings: War, Society and KZ. Himmler's SS construction brigades , Paderborn 2005, p. 258.
  17. ^ Nassauische Neue Presse of January 1, 2013.
  18. ^ Nassauische Neue Presse February 1, 2013.
  19. ↑ Remembered Future. Bring yesterday into tomorrow . Ed. (Among others) Videto u. Evangelical Dean's Office Runkel. (2011), p. 70.
  20. ^ Nassauische Neue Presse of February 1, 2013.
  21. ↑ Wolfgang Benz , Barbara Distel : The place of terror. The history of the Nazi concentration camps , Volume 3, 2009, p. 169 f.
  22. ↑ cf. Lydia Aumüller: Forced laborers in Villmar , 2004. In: Yearbook of the Limburg-Weilburg district , pp. 188–193. Also: Nassauer Tageblatt of October 27, 2010.
  23. ^ Nassauische Neue Presse February 1, 2013.
  24. ↑ B Arch. Ludwigsburg ZStL IV 406 AR-Z 33/74
  25. ^ Limburg paves the way to the Nazi memorial . In: Rhein-Lahn-Zeitung of January 31, 2013.