Shoe runner command

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Instruction of a homosexual in the Sachsenhausen concentration camp and assignment to the "Schuhläufer penal company"

The shoe runner command was a punishment company in the Sachsenhausen concentration camp , where prisoners had to test shoes on the shoe test track. From June 1940 customers were civilian shoe companies, manufacturers of leather substitutes and shoe last manufacturers, and from November 1943 also the Wehrmacht . The shoe test track, which consisted of gravel , sand , stones and asphalt , was in operation for almost five years, until spring 1945.

The endurance runs in the penal company were de facto death marches , as the runners were shot if they collapsed due to fatigue .

backgrounds

The military economy increasingly had to resort to substitutes. Novel street shoes for women and men and later lace-up boots for the Wehrmacht with rubber soles and other leather substitutes should be tested for durability in a practical manner. Some manufacturers and suppliers had set up a test track on their premises for this purpose or carried out carrying tests with new products on their own premises in another way. The use of concentration camp prisoners, for whom only six Reichsmarks had to be paid daily, seemed more cost-effective . From May 1940, the Reich Office for Economic Development set up a test track in the Sachsenhausen concentration camp around the roll call square , which had seven different road surfaces and was around 700 meters long.

To be assigned to the shoe runner detachment was a punishment because the prisoners were poorly fed. The daily distance of up to 40 to 48 kilometers to be run for each prisoner corresponded to the length of a marathon . Some prisoners in the punishment unit , which at times comprised 170 men, also had to lug heavy rucksacks . According to conservative estimates and witness reports, 10 to 20 prisoners are said to have died every day in these material tests. In addition to members of the Schutzstaffel (SS) , supervision was carried out by a civil servant from the Reich Ministry of Economics .

The shoe and material stress tests were carried out on behalf of Salamander , the Freudenberg tannery , Fagus , UHU , Deutsche Linoleum-Werke , Rieker and IG Farben , among others . , Westland Gummiwerke and for a subsidiary of Continental-Gummi-Werke at the time. Some of the materials developed with the help of tests "on the 'shoe test track' are still in use today as plastics."

Attempts to wear shoes were also introduced in the United States towards the end of World War II. Until the late 1960s, they were considered superior to mechanical tests.

literature

  • Joachim Müller: "Like the movement, so the food". The shoe runner punishment company. In: Homosexual men in Sachsenhausen concentration camp. Published by the Schwules Museum Berlin. Joachim Müller; Andreas Sternweiler. Verlag rosa Winkel, Berlin 2000, ISBN 3-86149-097-8 , pp. 181-189.
  • Anne Sudrow: From leather to plastic: Material research on the “shoe test track” in the Sachsenhausen concentration camp 1940–1945. In: Helmut Maier (Ed.): Armaments research in National Socialism. Wallstein, Göttingen 2002, ISBN 3-89244-497-8 , pp. 214–249.
  • Anne Sudrow: The Shoe in National Socialism. A product story in a German-British-American comparison. Wallstein, Göttingen 2010, ISBN 978-3-8353-0793-3 (also dissertation, Technical University of Munich 2009).

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b c Anne-Sophie Lang: Experiments in the concentration camp: blood in the shoe. November 13, 2014, accessed August 27, 2020 .
  2. ^ A b Jürgen Dahlkamp, ​​DER SPIEGEL: Auto supplier Continental in the Nazi era: "The real backbone of the armaments and war economy" - DER SPIEGEL - history. Retrieved August 27, 2020 .
  3. ^ A b c d Rob Savelberg: Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp: Whoever stopped was shot . In: THE WORLD . May 8, 2014 ( welt.de [accessed August 27, 2020]).
  4. ↑ Claudia Gottfried: Consumption and crime - the shoe test track in Sachsenhausen concentration camp . In: LVR-Industriemuseum Ratingen : Shine and gray: Mode in the "Third Reich" , Ratingen 2012, ISBN 978-3-9813700-2-7 , p. 46f.
  5. ↑ Claudia Gottfried: Consumption and crime - the shoe test track in Sachsenhausen concentration camp . In: LVR-Industriemuseum Ratingen: Shine and Gray: Fashion in the "Third Reich" , Ratingen 2012, ISBN 978-3-9813700-2-7 , p. 46.
  6. ↑ Claudia Gottfried: Consumption and crime - the shoe test track in Sachsenhausen concentration camp . In: LVR-Industriemuseum Ratingen: Shine and Gray: Mode in the "Third Reich" , Ratingen 2012, ISBN 978-3-9813700-2-7 , p. 48.
  7. ^ Anne Sudrow: From leather to plastic: Material research on the "shoe test track" in the Sachsenhausen concentration camp 1940–1945. In: Helmut Maier (Ed.): Armaments research in National Socialism . Wallstein, Göttingen 2002, p. 235, note 88.
  8. ^ Anne Sudrow: From leather to plastic: Material research on the "shoe test track" in the Sachsenhausen concentration camp 1940–1945. In: Helmut Maier (Ed.): Armaments research in National Socialism . Wallstein, Göttingen 2002, p. 248.
  9. ↑ Christof Dipper : Review of: Sudrow, Anne: The shoe in National Socialism. A product story in a German-British-American comparison. Göttingen 2010 . In: H-Soz-u-Kult , May 4, 2011, accessed May 18, 2011.

Coordinates: 52 ° 45 ′ 57.5 "  N , 13 ° 15 ′ 46.1"  E