Resistance in Buchenwald concentration camp

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The resistance in the Buchenwald concentration camp consisted of the diverse actions of inmates of the Buchenwald concentration camp against the measures of National Socialism for the suppression and murder of the prisoners up to the assumption of the camp management in April 1945. It was part of the resistance against National Socialism .

Forms of resistance

In the concentration camps , the SS delegated the internal organization to so-called prison functionaries . Both the communists and criminal prisoners tried with all their might in Buchenwald as well as elsewhere to take over the "self-administration" by "prisoner functionaries". This led to fierce conflicts, especially between political prisoners and criminals. In Buchenwald, both sides did not shy away from denunciations and murders. After the camp was established, these tasks were initially assigned to criminal prisoners. From 1939 the political prisoners, mainly communists, gradually succeeded in ousting the criminals preferred by the SS from these positions. Until the liberation , political prisoners took on important posts among the prisoner functionaries. A first, fundamental account of self-government and the resistance in the concentration camps of the SS was written by HG Adler in 1960 .

Since the conclusion of the German-Soviet non-aggression pact , the ideological contradiction seemed to have temporarily disappeared and the SS knew that communists could organize people. In addition, the communist parties were internationally networked, which was important from the camp management's point of view, because prisoners from all over Europe had been interned in Buchenwald since the beginning of the Second World War . With the attack on the Soviet Union , the communist prisoners initially lost their position, but they managed to regain these positions later. The communist kapos made sure that functional positions were filled with prisoners from all countries in order to strengthen the cohesion in the camp. In addition, they worked not only with members of their own party, but also with social democrats and with bourgeois politicians, thus implementing the popular front policy of the Communist International (Comintern) since 1937.

Naturally, the “Red Kapos” had little room for maneuver. They were always threatened with being deposed and killed by the camp administration. But they used this room for maneuver to keep the lives of the other prisoners as bearable as possible. The main focus of the activities of the red kapos were the departments of so-called labor statistics, prisoner infirmary and camp protection .

The prisoners' office, in which all prisoners were recorded, was of particular importance for anti-fascist underground work. Here lists were written for the daily roll calls. Above all, it was important to prevent informers and traitors from entering the illegal anti-fascist organizations. Here, as in the small camp to which the mass transports were first brought, the prisoners checked the new arrivals in order to protect themselves from informers. In order to be able to do this effectively, the German prisoners, especially Kapo Hans Neumeister , wrested permission from the SS to allow foreign comrades to work in the office. In the last years of the concentration camp, the prisoners' office was composed internationally.

In the labor statistics , the labor deployment of the inmates was planned, but lists were also made there of which inmates should go to which subcamp. For example, reliable resistance members could be smuggled into the most notorious Dora-Mittelbau camp . Hardly any inmate could survive longer than six weeks in the tunnels of the camp. Nevertheless, prisoners like Albert Kuntz managed to set up a resistance organization there that targeted sabotage against the V2 rockets.

In the inmate infirmary , inmates could be briefly hidden from the SS. Sometimes it was even possible to let a prisoner whose life was threatened die for the files and to give him the identity of someone who had really died. Kapo Robert Siewert also convinced the SS to train Polish children to be bricklayers so that the various construction projects could progress more quickly with suitable skilled workers. This saved the boys from certain death.

Before the American army liberated the concentration camp , the camp resistance was able to overwhelm the remaining SS guards and thus prevent further victims. As early as April 8, 1945, prisoners had hindered the evacuation of the camp through boycott and sabotage and called the advancing 3rd US Army by radio for help. In an armed uprising on April 11, 1945, the prisoners finally took over the management of the camp from the withdrawing SS , arrested 125 of the remaining guards, opened the gates and hoisted the white flag.

In his novel Naked Amongst Wolves, Bruno Apitz describes life and death in the camp and the attempt to organize and hide children who were exposed to certain destruction.

Jorge Semprún's novel What a beautiful Sunday! is a reflection and evaluation of the problem of the red kapos under the conditions of the concentration camp, a representation not as heroic resistance fighters, but as men who came to power and then took advantage of it and who nevertheless helped many. He deals with the heroization of the resistance and its use in the later GDR propaganda. It illustrates the closeness to Stalinism and its consequences.

International Buchenwald Camp Committee

The Buchenwald International Camp Committee was a conspiratorial organ of prisoners of the Buchenwald concentration camp.

With the arrival of political prisoners from the countries occupied by Germany in the Buchenwald concentration camp, the German anti-fascists found contact with the respective national groups. This resulted in the International Camp Committee (ILK), which, under the leadership of the German communist Walter Bartel , organized the resistance in the camp as an illegal, conspiratorial center for political opponents of the Nazis. The place where the ILK was founded and where it met was a screened off room in the prisoner infirmary. In the ILK, all major nations were represented in a Romance sector and a Slavic-German sector .

An International Military Organization (IMO) was also formed under their leadership .

Members of the illegal international camp committee 1944/45

Children rescued by illegal camp committee

The names of some of the hundreds of children who have been saved:

Buchenwald Popular Front Committee

In the Buchenwald concentration camp, anti-fascists built a cross-party united front. In 1944 it was possible to create an illegal German Popular Front Committee . This mainly included:

Documents

After the Buchenwald concentration camp was liberated on April 11, 1945, various groups of prisoners worked out resolutions and declarations:

  • a statement by the Popular Front Committee of Social Democrats, Communists and Christians
  • the Buchenwald Manifesto of German-speaking Social Democrats and Socialists
  • a resolution of the CP Buchenwald
  • the declaration of the internationalist communists Buchenwald of the Fourth International
  • Elaboration of a school policy manifesto by the education commission
  • numerous declarations and manifestations by former prisoners who spoke another language
  • the Buchenwald Oath of the International Buchenwald Camp Committee in many languages

Declaration by the Popular Front Committee

On April 19, 1945 at the funeral rally of the International Camp Committee for the Dead of Buchenwald, the Popular Front Committee presented its resolution to 21,000 survivors:

The next tasks of the Popular Front
The democratic forces around the world are facing victory over Nazism. The German anti-Nazis can be proud of having contributed their part to this victory with many victims and suffering. But the terrible enemy is not yet lying shattered on the ground. Rather, the historical hour requires the mobilization of all anti-fascist forces in order to finally overthrow the blood-stained enemy of every culture and to be able to prevent any repetition of its criminal dictatorship. Therefore we demand for the moment:
  1. Immediate formation of anti-fascist people's committees in town and country.
  2. Takeover of public power by the people's committees in agreement with the occupation authorities.
  3. Cleansing the police of Nazi elements, setting up a defense force based on the militia against saboteurs, werewolves and the like.
  4. Cessation of all activity for Hitler, prevention of any further destruction of Germany, prevention of any work, any transport, any transmission of information, any fight for the remnants of the Third Reich by the people's committees and their organs.
  5. Arrest and surveillance of all Nazi elements, their transfer to people's courts.
  6. Confiscation of all Nazi assets and Nazi operations.
  7. Creation of a new democratic order against the Nazis.
  8. Organization of an anti-Nazi imperial committee, formation of a republican people's government.
  9. Resumption of work in town and country, exclusively to support the German people under humane conditions. Germany's re-entry into the world economy soon, immediate establishment of close economic relations with the Soviet Union as the natural economic partner on the European mainland.
  10. Formation of anti-fascist unions .
  11. Publication of new newspapers, magazines, use of the radio news service and all educational institutions to educate the German people about the crimes of Nazism, about the real situation in Germany and to create a democratic public opinion.
Long live freedom! Long live the German People's Republic!

Buchenwald oath

content

Buchenwald oath
Remembrance at the Stralsund Central Cemetery

The core message of Buchenwald's oath is:

“We do not stop the fight until the last guilty party stands before the judges of the people. The destruction of Nazism with its roots is our watchword. Building a new world of peace and freedom is our goal. We owe that to our murdered comrades and their relatives "

After the Buchenwald oath had been read , the prisoners raised their arms and said, “We swear”.

reception

The Buchenwald oath was an important symbol for the communist resistance fighters. The role of the communist prison functionaries is the subject of a controversial debate, also because it was instrumentalized by the GDR and its founding anti-fascist myth : By not only announcing the annihilation of “Nazism”, but also of its “roots”, the oath referred to the im Eastern bloc binding fascism theory of Georgi Dimitrov (" Dimitrov thesis "): According to this, fascism was "the open, terrorist dictatorship of the most reactionary, chauvinistic, most imperialist elements of finance capital ". The Oath of Buchenwald would be therefore only fulfilled when capitalism would be overcome in the Federal Republic. In this respect, the oath refers to the "foundation mythical competition between the two German states". The achievements of the communist resistance fighters in the concentration camp were therefore one-sidedly glorified in the GDR, other resistance fighters and the fate of the Jewish victims were less discussed.

The question of how much the prison functionaries cooperated with the SS and how much they themselves became part of the tyranny in the camp was also discussed a lot.

Buchenwald Manifesto

Content of the Buchenwald Manifesto

The Buchenwald Manifesto for Peace, Freedom, Socialism was adopted on April 16, 1945 after revisions as the “Call and Program of the Democratic Socialists of the Buchenwald”. In the manifesto, the annihilation of fascism through stated measures, the building of a people 's republic , liberation of work (e.g. eight-hour day , admission of trade unions ), socialization of the economy , peace and justice through reparation , humanity ( freedom of education and the arts ) and "socialist unity" called for.

The Buchenwald Manifesto has the following wording:

“We endured prison , prison and concentration camps because we believed we had to work for the ideas and goals of socialism and for the maintenance of peace even under the dictatorship . Despite the daily threat of a miserable death, we continued our conspiratorial activity in prison and concentration camps . Through this struggle it was granted to us to gather human, moral and spiritual experiences that are impossible in normal life forms. In front of the shadowy face of the martyrs of our worldview who died by the Hitlerist executioners, as well as in the special responsibility for the future of our children, we therefore consider ourselves justified and obliged to tell the German people what measures are necessary to protect Germany to save from this historically unprecedented collapse and to restore respect and trust in the Council of Nations.

  1. Destruction of fascism
    As long as fascism and militarism in Germany are not completely destroyed, there will be no peace and quiet here and in the world. Our first efforts must be directed towards removing forever all social manifestations of this bloody suppression of life. [...]
  2. Building the People's Republic
    This gigantic work can only be done if all anti-fascist forces unite in an unbreakable alliance.
    First of all, anti-fascist people's committees are to be formed in all places , which are to be placed on a primordial democratic basis as soon as possible by drawing on anti-fascist organizations .
    From these people's committees, a German people's congress is to be appointed for the entire Reich, which has to set up a people's government and elect a representative body .
    The civil liberties of the person , of faith , of thought, of speech and writing , of the freedom of movement and the right of association are immediately restore.
    The people's committees have local councils , these elected by delegated district and state councils. The administrative boards in town and country are to be reappointed. State commissioners have to take control of the rest of the administration . [...]
  3. Liberation of labor The
    building and leadership of the People's Republic are only possible if the masses of working people in town and country see it as their state , affirm it and are always ready to stand up for this state. They will only do that if the People's Republic frees work from the unheard-of exploitation and disenfranchisement imposed on it by the
    NSDAP's capitalist servants and creates and guarantees a humane existence for all workers. That is why social policy and social insurance are to be designed according to the needs of the workforce . The eight-hour day is to be reintroduced immediately and a further reduction in working hours is to be prepared. A new currency , a public budget that has been cleared of the burdens of the dictatorship and a socialization of the banks and insurance companies under the leadership of the public banks should create the basis for a healthy economic policy. State monopolies for mass consumer goods are to have a fiscal and price-regulating effect. [...]


  4. Peace and Justice
    We confess to the world out of deepest honest conviction that we are obliged under the law of obligations to repair the damage that the German people caused by Hitlerism. Just as we decided to reject contributions and vassal services, we sincerely want to help create a new atmosphere of trust in Germany by paying off a fixed reparation debt . [...]
    We wish to be accepted into the World Organization for Peace and Security as soon as possible and, especially as a judge and party in international jurisdiction, to make a contribution that other peoples should recognize as valuable. [...]
  5. Humanity
    For this we need a new spirit . He should be embodied by the new type of German European . Nobody can re-educate us if we do not do it ourselves in freedom .
    New universities , formed from the most valuable forces of the emigration and the domestic socialist intelligentsia , are to create new teachers for us . [...] "

It ends with the following words:

“Long live the alliance of all anti-fascist forces in Germany!
Long live a free, peaceful, socialist Germany!
Long live revolutionary democratic socialism!
Long live the international of the socialists of the whole world! "

Employees and signatories

The manifesto bears the signatures of the seven members of the editorial committee for the revision of the political program: Heinz Baumeister (Dortmund), Gottlieb Branz (Munich), Hermann Brill (Berlin), Benedikt Kautsky , (Vienna), Karl Mantler (Vienna), Erich Schilling ( Leipzig) and Ernst Thape (Magdeburg).

The Buchenwald Manifesto was signed by a total of 42 German and foreign democratic socialists:

  • Hermann Ahrens (Braunschweig)
  • Johann Bauer (Bendorf / Rhine)
  • Fritz Barth (Gera)
  • Fritz Behr (Weimar)
  • August Bergmann (Vienna)
  • Karl Blumentritt (Pilsen)
  • Curt Böhme (Jena)
  • Ernst Braun (Saarbrücken)
  • Leopold Brünler (Vienna)
  • Josef Cmajrek (Vienna)
  • Pierre Diriken (Tongeren / Belgium)
  • Anton Gelhard (Bendorf / Rhine)
  • Anton Gelhard II (Bendorf / Rhine)
  • Rudi Glaß (Braunschweig)
  • Ed Goldmann (Vienna)
  • Richard Hecht (Alfeld / Leine)
  • Paul Hildebrandt (Meiningen)
  • Rudolf Jungmann (Gera / Thuringia)
  • Paul Kämpf (Waltershausen)
  • Rudolf Kreus (Johanngeorgenstadt)
  • Josef Miltenberger (Saarbrücken)
  • Georg Petersdorff (Düsseldorf)
  • Fritz Pollak (Vienna)
  • Vaclav Pech (Pilsen)
  • Albert Richter (Pössneck)
  • Rudolf Rohte (Leipzig)
  • Karl Schwabacher (Sollin)
  • Fritz Soldmann (Schweinfurt)
  • Josef Sunday (Nuremberg)
  • H. Samowitsch o. Sirnowetsch (Berlin)
  • Arie Treuerniet (Amsterdam)
  • Werner Uckermann (Magdeburg)
  • Armin Walter (Riesa)
  • Karl Wehner (Küstrin)
  • Hermann Windschuh (Zerbst)

Resolution of the CP Buchenwald

The illegal KPD in Buchenwald concentration camp comprised 629 members in 22 district associations when it was liberated. There were also 111 candidates for membership. Membership in 59 prisoners was denied due to failure to comply with party obligations.

The party began to work legally again, and a delegates' meeting took place on April 22, 1945 in the Buchenwald concentration camp, which evaluated the experiences and proclaimed program items for the future.

In the document, fascism and war are seen as an “attempt by German monopoly capital ” to “ overcome the economic crisis by means of a brutal fascist dictatorship and an imperialist war”. This should secure the German monopoly capital a supremacy in the world. This is followed by a description of the initial situation and a derivation for the tasks ahead. The KPD formulates the following sentence here: “We must recognize that the situation in Germany is not yet ready for the struggle for the proletarian dictatorship to be carried out directly, but that our current struggle for a true people's democracy brings us closer to socialism. Our main task today is: mass mobilization of all anti-fascists on the basis of the ' National Committee Free Germany '. "

literature

  • Walter Bartel (Red.): Buchenwald. Reminder and obligation. Published on behalf of the Fédération Internationale des Résistants, des Victimes et des Prisonniers du Fascisme (FIR) by the International Buchenwald Committee and the Committee of Antifascist Resistance Fighters in the GDR. Röderberg, Frankfurt am Main 1960.
  • Klaus Drobisch : Resistance in Buchenwald . Dietz, Berlin 1989, ISBN 3-320-00860-9 .
  • Rüdiger Griepenburg: The popular front tactics in the social democratic resistance against the Third Reich. Depicted at the German Popular Front Group and the Popular Front Committee in the Buchenwald concentration camp. Chemoprint, Giessen 1969 (Marburg, Univ., Diss., May 14, 1969).
  • Rüdiger Griepenburg: Popular Front and German Social Democracy. On the effects of the popular front tactics in the socialist resistance against National Socialism. Oberlahnpresse, Marburg 1971 ( materials on the history of the German resistance 3, ZDB -ID 2599138-3 ) (also: Marburg, Univ., Diss., May 14, 1969).
  • International Buchenwald camp committee: Report of the international camp committee of Buchenwald concentration camp (1949). 2nd Edition. Verlag Olga Benario and Herbert Baum, Offenbach 2004, ISBN 3-932636-26-0 ( texts on Germany and German imperialism ).
  • Ulrich Peters: Whoever loses hope has lost everything. Communist resistance in Buchenwald. PapyRossa-Verlag, Cologne 2003, ISBN 3-89438-274-0 ( PapyRossa Hochschulschriften 47).
  • Ulrich Peters: Resistance in the Buchenwald concentration camp. In: Year Book for Research on the History of the Labor Movement , Issue 2/2012.
  • Wolfgang Röll: Social Democrats in the Buchenwald concentration camp. 1937-1945. Including biographical sketches. Wallstein-Verlag, Göttingen 2000, ISBN 3-89244-417-X .
  • Philipp Neumann-Thein: Party discipline and self-will. The International Buchenwald-Dora and Commands Committee , Wallstein-Verlag, Göttingen, 2014, ISBN 978-3-8353-1303-3 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. Lutz Niethammer (ed.): The "cleaned" anti-fascism. The SED and the red Kapos von Buchenwald , Berlin 1994.
  2. ^ HG Adler: Self-administration and resistance in the concentration camps of the SS. In: Fourth year books for contemporary history. Hans Rothfels and Theodor Eschenburg, Deutsche Verlagsanstalt Stuttgart, July 1960, accessed on March 19, 1960 (German).
  3. Benno Biebel in Buchenwald, I can't forget you , Eds. Rosa Luxemburg Foundation Peter Hochmuth and Gerhard Hoffmann. Pictures of Life, Karl Dietz Verlag Berlin, 2007 and 2015 ISBN 978-3-320-02100-9 , p. 47
  4. Udo Dietmar: Inmate X ... in hell on earth. Published by the State of Thuringia, State Office for Labor and Social Welfare, Thüringer Volksverlag, 1945; sa ( infopartisan.net ).
  5. Beatrix Hasse: The liberation of the Buchenwald concentration camp. ( Memento from April 28, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) kriegsende.ARD.de.
  6. Volker Müller: The Welcome Hero's Song . In: Berliner Zeitung , April 28, 2000.
  7. ^ Concentration camp survivor defends himself against the term "victim exchange" Süddeutsche Zeitung , February 26, 2012
  8. ^ Declaration by Buchenwald's internationalist communists ( memento of August 7, 2011 in the Internet Archive ). The Trotskyists in Buchenwald. inprekorr.de, accessed on February 16, 2019.
  9. The Oath of Buchenwald ( Memento from March 6, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) In: Association of those persecuted by the Nazi regime - Bund der Antifaschisteninnen and Antifaschisten .
  10. Herfried Münkler : The Germans and their myths . Rowohlt, Berlin 2009, p. 435.
  11. The "Oath of Buchenwald" . ( Memento from September 22, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) In: Deutsches Rundfunkarchiv (DRA), April 2005.
  12. ^ A b Wolfgang Röll: Social Democrats in the Buchenwald Concentration Camp 1937–1945 . Wallstein-Verlag, 2000, p. 245 ff.
  13. Wolfgang Benz: Self-assertion and resistance of the persecuted. In: Federal Center for Political Education (Ed.): Information on Political Education, Issue 243, April 30, 2003 ( Memento from March 4, 2016 in the Internet Archive )