Schirmeck-Vorbruck security camp

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The main gate of the Schirmeck-Vorbruck security camp

The Schirmeck-Vorbruck security camp , known as Camp de Schirmeck in French , was a National Socialist forced camp that was operated in Vorbruck near Schirmeck from August 1940 to November 1944 during the German occupation of Alsace . Schirmeck-Vorbruck served the German police authorities as an “education camp” in the course of the “ Germanization ” of Alsace under Gauleiter Robert Wagner and as a “security camp ” in which preventive and “ protective prisoners ” were held.

designation

The German authorities used different names for the camp, which apparently depended on the reason for the detention: Violations of the work regulations were referred to as “ Arbeitsserziehungslager ” (AEL), “security camps ” for “anti-German demonstrations”, and when resistance fighters were brought in , they were also used Designation "Schirmeck Concentration Camp".

history

Censorship stamp: "Post censorship office K.-L. Natzweiler ", sender:" My address: Name: Protective prisoner ..., prison no. 998, Block 8. ", Addressed:" Mr. Josef Sh ..., Prague XIV.-Mic ..., Pa ... 54, Bohemia ", postmark:" Schirmeck (Els) Rotau, 24.2.44 "

Schirmeck-Vorbruck was one of the numerous compulsory camps that existed in the National Socialist area alongside the system of the actual concentration camps that were subject to the inspection of the concentration camps . In the memory of the prisoners in particular, these forced camps are often perceived as concentration camps, and the conditions there were similar to those in the concentration camps. Because of its proximity to the Natzweiler-Struthof concentration camp located four kilometers to the south-east, the camp is often mistaken for a satellite camp of this main camp .

The security camp was built on the orders of Gauleiter Wagner after consultation with the local commander of the security police and the SD (BdS) Gustav Scheel in an existing barrack complex and opened on August 2, 1940. The site was on the outskirts of the municipality of La Broque (German: Vorbruck), which was merged with Schirmeck to form a large municipality under German administration. The camp was gradually expanded until 1944 and was divided into three areas:

  • The entrance to the forecourt or the forecourt was through the main gate; This was where the canteen, the Gestapo interrogation rooms, dog kennels, workshops, garages, the camp headquarters and the guards' quarters were located.
  • In the main camp there were eleven wooden barracks for male prisoners, the roll call area and several outbuildings such as the kitchen, sanitary facilities and the sick bay.
  • From July 1941, the upper camp consisted of three stone barracks, in which the female prisoners were housed. In 1943 a building called the “ballroom” was built in the upper camp with a hall for 2,000 people, in which the camp commandant gave “speeches” to the prisoners on Sunday morning. On the ground floor of the “ballroom”, 26 single cells were used for the tightened solitary confinement .

The entire camp was double-fenced with barbed wire and provided with four watch towers equipped with machine guns. Guards with service dogs patrolled the camp . It was subordinate to the "penal institutions in Alsace-Lorraine" and served as a place of detention for the police, the SD and the Gestapo . Two functions can be distinguished:

  • "Education camp": Around 60 to 70% of the prisoners were admitted by order of the BdS, because they had opposed the "Germanization" of Alsace-Lorraine. Reasons for admission could include the use of the French language , wearing berets , objections to the Germanization of family names or criticism of the National Socialists. The camp was intended to "re-educate" these inmates, who were held for three to six months and had to sign a declaration upon release in which they pledged to maintain absolute silence about the camp.
  • "Security camp": The Gestapo used Schirmeck-Vorbruck to accommodate preventive prisoners who were held in the camp for between seven and 21 days. Prisoners who had been arrested on the basis of a “ protective custody order ” from the Reich Main Security Office were temporarily detained in Schirmeck-Vorbruck and then transferred to other prisons or concentration camps, in particular to Natzweiler-Struthof or Dachau .

Mostly French were imprisoned in Schirmeck-Vorbruck, but also Americans, Belgians, Germans, English, Poles, Romanians, Russians and Scandinavians. The prisoners included so-called objectors to work, “ professional criminals ”, beggars, escape helpers, clergy, homosexuals , illegal cross-border commuters, opponents of the Nazi regime, prostitutes and conscientious objectors. The total number of those imprisoned in Schirmeck-Vorbruck is estimated at up to 25,000 people; an average of 1,000 men and 250 women were held in separate camp areas. 76 deaths are registered in the registry office Schirmeck; However, it is estimated that up to 500 deaths. After the completion of the crematorium in the Natzweiler concentration camp, the corpses of Schirmeck prisoners were cremated there. 107 members of the "Alliance" resistance network, who had been imprisoned in Schirmeck-Vorbruck since May 1944, were murdered in Natzweiler on the night of September 1st to 2nd, 1944.

The camp commandant was SS-Hauptsturmführer Karl Buck , who had already run other concentration camps. After the war ended, Buck was sentenced to death in two trials before British and French military courts, pardoned to life imprisonment and released from French custody in April 1955. Buck was subordinate as adjutant and camp leader to the chief criminal secretary Robert Wünsch and as leader of the guards to Karl Nussberger. The guards initially consisted of 40 and later up to 95 police officers who were changed every six weeks. A total of 1200 police officers were used as guards in Schirmeck-Vorbruck. The camp administration consisted of about 100 police officers, mostly SS members . For example, you were employed as a purchasing manager, administrative manager, dog handler or manager of the personal property store .

Road roller that had to be pulled by hand.

Newly admitted prisoners were dressed in old Wehrmacht uniforms. In contrast to the usual identification of prisoners in concentration camps, the identification in this security camp varied. Instead of angles, colored scraps of cloth were given out, for example blue ones for Jews . In everyday life, the prisoners were exposed to the arbitrariness of the guards. Charles Pabst, a pastor arrested because of “anti-German sentiments”, reports slaps in the face and punches in the face. Even on rainy days, newcomers were forced to crawl or hop along the camp paths in the mud. Such harassment was called "Circus Buck" by the guards based on the name of the camp manager, according to Pabst. Pierre Seel , a homosexual prisoner, describes in his autobiography the execution of a prisoner who was torn to pieces by guard dogs in front of his fellow prisoners on the roll call area. The inmates' meal rate was set at 1,200 kcal . Of the RM 1.05 per day available to feed a prisoner, 40 pfennigs were diverted into a black box . According to inmate reports, prisoners lost up to half their body weight within a few weeks. From May 1943, the physician Eugen Haagen carried out typhus tests on around 25 Polish prisoners. Two prisoners died in the attempts that were the subject of negotiation at the Nuremberg doctors' trial after the end of the war .

The inmates had to do forced labor inside and outside the camp . The external commandos included a quarry in Herbach , forest work, the repair of railway tracks and road construction, in which up to ten prisoners had to pull a heavy roller. A field command existed on the site of what is now Strasbourg-Entzheim Airport, 35 kilometers away. Other prisoners were “rented” to companies by the camp commandant. The Daimler-Benz group taught the end of 1943, next to the camp grounds a manufacturing plant one, had to produce the prisoner spare parts.

liberation

From August 1944 the camp was closed and most of the prisoners were deported to the German Reich . Another security camp was built in the Rotenfels district of Gaggenau . The 1,600 prisoners interned there had to do forced labor in the Daimler-Benz factories and other companies. Other prisoners were transferred to the Haslach im Kinzigtal and Sulz am Neckar satellite camps of the Natzweiler-Struthof concentration camp. 700 prisoners were temporarily imprisoned in Bastion XII of the Rastatt fortress as other camps were overcrowded.

On November 22, 1944, the BdS ordered the final dissolution of the Schirmeck-Vorbruck camp. After the guards had fled, around 300 female prisoners remained in the camp, some of whom found refuge with residents of the area. On November 24, 1944 , US Army soldiers liberated the camp that had previously been looted by the local population. Most of the prisoners deported to the German Reich remained imprisoned until April 1945.

French collaborators were interned in the former security camp between January 1945 and December 1949. The plan of the Mayor of La Broque to build a museum and a memorial on the camp site failed in 1952. The camp was demolished in the mid-1950s and the remaining building materials were sold. A housing estate was built on the site; two buildings have been preserved and are still in use today: the former camp commandant's office and a workshop. A plaque on the former camp commandant's office, a memorial stele near the train station and a memorial stone on the Schirmeck cemetery commemorate the victims of Schirmeck. In June 2005, the Mémorial d´Alsace-Moselle (Alsace-Moselle Memorial), which deals with the history of the region , was built on the outskirts of Schirmeck . Part of the exhibition is dedicated to the Schirmeck-Vorbruck camp.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Pflock, Schirmeck-Vorbruck security camp , p. 524.
  2. ↑ Wolfgang Benz, Barbara Distel: Foreword. In: Wolfgang Benz, Barbara Distel (eds.): The place of terror. History of the National Socialist Concentration Camps. (Volume 9: Labor education camps, ghettos, youth protection camps, police detention camps, special camps, gypsy camps, forced labor camps. ) CH Beck, Munich 2009, ISBN 978-3-406-57238-8 , pp. 7–15, here p. 7.
  3. ^ Pflock, Schirmeck-Vorbruck security camp , p. 522 f .; Schematic plan of the camp at Marthe Klinger's. Camp de Vorbruck, Matricule 48, Bâtiment 14 . (Accessed November 16, 2011)
  4. ↑ Pflock, Schirmeck-Vorbruck security camp , p. 525.
  5. ^ Pflock, Schirmeck-Vorbruck security camp , p. 525; See also Institutional Responsibility and Security Teams 2 ( Memento of the original from October 21, 2014 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. at the Documentation Center Oberer Kuhberg eV @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.dzokulm.telebus.de
  6. ↑ Pflock, Schirmeck-Vorbruck security camp , p. 525 f.
  7. ^ Pflock, Schirmeck-Vorbruck security camp , p. 526.
  8. ↑ Pierre Seel: I, Pierre Seel, deported and forgotten. Jackwerth, Cologne 1996, ISBN 3-932117-20-4 , p. 39ff. Quoted in Pflock, Schutzlager Schirmeck-Vorbruck , p. 528.
  9. ↑ Pflock, Schirmeck-Vorbruck security camp , p. 527.
  10. ↑ Pflock, Schirmeck-Vorbruck security camp , p. 530f. Wolfram Fischer: Exodus of Sciences from Berlin: Questions - Results - Desiderata , Walter de Gruyter, Berlin 1994, ISBN 3-11-013945-6 , p. 445.
  11. ↑ Pflock, Schirmeck-Vorbruck security camp , p. 529 f.
  12. ↑ Pflock, Schirmeck-Vorbruck security camp , p. 531.
  13. ↑ Pflock, Schirmeck-Vorbruck security camp , p. 532.

Coordinates: 48 ° 28 ′ 45.4 "  N , 7 ° 12 ′ 33.6"  E