Special camp "Feste Goeben"

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The special camp “Feste Goeben” (also SS special camp “Feste Goeben” ) in Metz was a German interrogation and detention camp during the German occupation of France , in which mainly French resistance fighters were imprisoned. It existed from October 1943 to August 1944 and was formally subordinate to Anton Dunckern , the commander of the Security Police and SD (BdS) in Lorraine . Responsible for the interrogations, primarily was the Metzer Gestapo boss Hans-Georg Schmidt . The warehouse manager Georg Hempen appointed by Schmidt practiced brutal treatment of prisoners, which became the subject of various judicial proceedings after the war.

Founding history

After the invasion of the Wehrmacht on 17 June 1940 in Metz was under the new civilian administration chief in Lorraine , Gauleiter Josef Bürckel a ruthless German Volkstumspolitik in Nazi operated senses. After around 60,000 people had to leave their homes in Lorraine in the first two years of occupation, resistance activities increased massively in 1943, so that the capacities in the existing Metz prisons were no longer sufficient. In October 1943, at the request of the BdS Dunckern, in consultation with Bürckel, the special camp was set up as an interrogation and detention camp in the fortress section of Fort de Queuleu on the south-eastern outskirts of Metz , which the Germans called “Feste Goeben”.

Warehouse organization

Organizationally, the camp was assigned to the Metz state police station. In fact, three people from the German occupying power took care of the camp: In addition to BdS Anton Dunckern, the Metz chief of Gestapo Hans-Georg Schmidt and the SS non-commissioned officer Georg Hempen, who was appointed by Schmidt as "administrator" of the camp. As the warehouse manager on site, Schmidt granted Hempen extensive freedom of decision-making and forbade the employees of his office to speak to the management on site in his manner. The inmates perceived him as a camp commandant and occasionally referred to him as such in the literature. The camp was guarded by members of the Waffen SS . The camp guard initially comprised 15 and later 32 men. Since the police working in the camp belonged to the SS and the guards also came from the Waffen-SS, after the war, former prisoners and French memorial literature always referred to the "SS special camp". Formally, however, the camp was not an “SS special camp” according to the NS nomenclature, but a special camp of the security police . Like the SS special camp in Hinzert , it was not subject to the inspection of the concentration camps or the SS Economic and Administrative Main Office .

Detainees and prison conditions

The first prisoners were admitted to the camp on October 12, 1943. They were arrested before August 30th, interrogated by the Gestapo with brutal methods and transferred from the Metz Gestapo prison in the building of the seminary to the "Feste Goeben". When they were admitted, they were blindfolded and shackled. The Gestapo used so-called black lists , which were drawn up by companies in the iron and steel industry during the time of the Popular Front in France, for their investigations against resistance workers who were imprisoned . On it was noted who belonged to radical trade union, anti-fascist or pacifist currents before the war. This helped the Gestapo to find out which Lorraine opponents of the Nazi movement from the Saar area or the Palatinate had provided help, who had sought refuge in France after the referendum on the Saar in 1935. Between 1,500 and 1,800 Nazi opponents had been imprisoned there until the camp was closed in August 1944. Most of the prisoners were opponents of the Germanization of the Moselle department, especially communists, trade unionists and pacifists. The proportion of women was just under 20 percent. They were initially housed in one cell with men, and from spring 1944 in two separate cells for women.

Along a corridor of the casemate used as a warehouse , ten rooms were makeshiftly set up as community cells. Their dimensions were 14.30 m long, 6.10 m wide and 3.75 m high. A total of 450 to 500 men and 80 to 100 women were housed in these ten cells. There were also 18 individual cells, each 2 m long, 1.40 m wide and 3 m high, in which leading persons of the resistance were housed in isolation, such as the French resistance fighter Jean Burger and his brother Leon Burger. Jean Burger was head of the Mario resistance group , which organized the communist resistance in the Moselle region. There was also an extensive ban on speaking in the communal cells; if unavoidable, the prisoners had to give their prisoner numbers instead of their names. They were often handcuffed and handcuffed and had to sit with their backs bent and knees pressed together.

As long as the interrogations in the anteroom of the camp commandant were not completed, the prisoners - after the Second World War , for example, the superior of the camp administrator Hempen, the Metz Gestapo chief Hans-Georg Schmidt, in his efforts to justify the inhuman treatment of the prisoners as necessary - “To wear bandages over your eyes that only allowed you to look down so that you couldn't see who else was detained. From a criminalist point of view, this was necessary because there weren't enough cells. For the same reason, each prisoner was given a number with which he only had to identify himself. "

The command of the camp administrator Georg Hempen was decisive for the treatment of the prisoners on site. According to concurring statements, he not only made frequent speeches to the guards in which he stated that "only enemies of the state No. 1, vermin, saboteurs, Amazons and shotgun women" were housed in this camp, and that "no mercy" could be exercised; but "raw grabbing in place" must be. He was also feared because of his own tortures and cruelty in dealing with prisoners. They received brutal treatment from Hempen throughout. Hempen often struck them himself and chastised them with a bull whip . This affected men and women alike. He is said to have killed six of the 36 prisoners who died. When the camp was dissolved in August 1944, Hempen managed to escape.

The prisoners were called in for various camp work under Hempen's direction. When the first communal cell was converted into a room with individual cells, the prisoners had to unload and block more than 10,000 frozen bricks from the truck in the winter cold. In the warehouse workshop, locksmith, electrician, carpenter and repair work was carried out from 7 a.m. to 1 a.m. The food was inadequate and consisted largely of turnip soup.

Four prisoners were able to escape from the special camp on April 19, 1944. 36 prisoners died in the camp.

Camp development and prosecution after the war

As the Allied forces moved closer to Metz, the special camp was evacuated on August 17, 1944. The majority of the detainees, a total of 941 prisoners, including 622 members of the resistance group Mario, 262 conscientious objectors and deserters of the Wehrmacht and 57 helpers of prisoners of war, were first into the Natzweiler-Struthof spent and to from there as from September 4, 1944 Dachau concentration camp deported . A small number of the prisoners stayed in Metz and were transferred there to the Wappingen police detention center. In view of the Allied troops standing in front of Metz, the closure of the camp was ordered on August 30, 1944 by the Nazi Gauleitung and the camp personnel fled.

The Metz Gestapo chief Hans-Georg Schmidt and camp administrator Georg Hempen were sentenced to death in absentia by the military tribunal in Metz on April 10, 1951. The military tribunal based the judgment on the fact that Hempen was personally guilty of murder, complicity in murders, ill-treatment and participation in a criminal organization.

Hempen, who had gone into hiding until 1954 and was reported missing by his wife, but had returned to the police service as a detective in the 1950s, was investigated by German law enforcement authorities in 1962 and an arrest warrant was issued in June 1963. He was charged with killing six inmates for low motives. In the indictment of the Oldenburg public prosecutor's office of May 17, 1963, it was stated:

"Detective master Georg Hempen [...] is charged with cruelly killing people in Fort Queuleu (Göben) near Metz in the period from the end of October / beginning of November 1943 to mid-1944 through 6 independent acts for low motives. 1.) At the end of October / beginning of November 1943, the accused ordered two prisoners who had been whispering to one another in their beds […] to do squats until they fell over. When one of the inmates collapsed after about 100 squats, the accused felt him and said: 'You haven't died yet, you dog, continue your sentence.' When the prisoner stopped moving, the accused kicked his head and chest and body with his feet until the prisoner woke up again and then lay rigid. The accused then said to the SS guards present: 'Now he has died. Take him away. '"

The indictment made five other similar murder charges testified by inmates.

In the course of the hearing before the Oldenburg regional court in autumn 1963, the verdict from the Metz trial of 1951 became known. The hearing was initially suspended and finally stopped in 1964, as the court came to the conclusion that the German law of criminal action had become obsolete due to the criminal proceedings conducted in France. Since the prosecution revision lodged, the case was in 1966 by the Federal Court of Justice negotiated (BGH), which held the provisions of the so-called reconciliation agreement which Germany had concluded in 1955 with the Western Allies close in this case the German jurisdiction before Allied courts negotiated Charges off. However, according to the BGH, not all charges from the Oldenburg trial had already been heard by the military court in Metz. These, e.g. B. the allegation of the murder of the inmates Marcel G. and Henry W., had to be retried at the district court. However, the court judged the testimony to be insufficiently conclusive and Hempen was acquitted in this trial in 1969. The court did not consider it to have been proven that the defendant's beatings ultimately aimed at the death of a prisoner. The case was now legally closed and Hempen was no longer prosecuted.

memorial

Since 1977 there has been a memorial at Fort de Queuleu due to the association of alumni of those deported to Fort Queuleu and their families (Amicale des Anciens Déportés du Fort de Queuleu et leurs Familles). It contains an exhibition in the basement of Casemate A, “in the authentic rooms in which the crimes of the SD and the Gestapo took place”. Further planning could not be realized. On the contrary, there have only been limited guided tours since 2009, as existing construction defects in the casemate require special precautionary measures. In 2012, a large part of the exhibition set up by the former prisoners and their relatives was destroyed by vandalism. Since the end of 2012 there have been plans for a redesign, which is to take place in cooperation between the prefecture of Metz and the state center for political education Rhineland-Palatinate as well as the state working group of memorial and remembrance initiatives during the Nazi era in Rhineland-Palatinate.

literature

  • Uwe Bader: Special camp “Feste Goeben” in Metz. 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. 534-547.
  • Uwe Bader: The future is uncertain - The “Special Camp Feste Goeben” memorial in Metz. In: Dachauer Hefte . 25th year 2009, issue 25, pp. 245-254.
  • Uwe Bader: History of justice in memorials - the examples of the memorials in Hinzert and Metz. In: Albrecht Pohle, Martin Stupperich, Wilfried Wiedemann (eds.): Nazi justice and post-war justice. Contributions to school and educational work. Wochenschau Verlag, Schwalbach / Ts. 2014, ISBN 978-3-7344-0003-2 , pp. 201-216.
  • Claudia Moisel: France and the German war criminals. Law Enforcement Policy and Practice after World War II. Wallstein, Göttingen 2004, ISBN 3-89244-749-7 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Uwe Bader: Special camp "Feste Goeben" in Metz. In: Wolfgang Benz u. Barbara Distel: The Place of Terror. Volume 9. Munich 2009, pp. 534-547, here pp. 534 ff.
  2. ↑ For example in the dissertation of Claudia Moisel, which contains a chapter entitled “The case of the camp commandant Georg Hempen”: France and the German war criminals. Law Enforcement Policy and Practice after World War II. Wallstein, Göttingen 2004, pp. 196-210.
  3. ^ Uwe Bader: Special camp "Feste Goeben" in Metz. In: Wolfgang Benz u. Barbara Distel : The Place of Terror . Volume 9. Munich 2009, p. 537 f.
  4. ^ Uwe Bader: Special camp "Feste Goeben" in Metz. In: Wolfgang Benz u. Barbara Distel: The Place of Terror. Volume 9. Munich 2009, p. 538 f.
  5. ^ Uwe Bader: Special camp "Feste Goeben" in Metz. In: Wolfgang Benz u. Barbara Distel: The Place of Terror. Volume 9. Munich 2009, p. 541.
  6. ^ Statement by Hans-Georg Schmidt, Federal Archives Ludwigsburg, B 162/5810, p. 432. Quoted from Uwe Bader: Special camp “Feste Goeben” in Metz. In: Wolfgang Benz u. Barbara Distel: The Place of Terror. Volume 9. Munich 2009, p. 541 f.
  7. ^ A b Uwe Bader: Special camp “Feste Goeben” in Metz. In: Wolfgang Benz and Barbara Distel: The Place of Terror. Volume 9. CH. Beck, Munich 2009, p. 540.
  8. ↑ Uwe Bader: History of Justice in Memorials - The Examples of the Memorials in Hinzert and Metz. In: Albrecht Pohle, Martin Stupperich, Wilfried Wiedemann (eds.): Nazi justice and post-war justice. P. 211.
  9. ^ A b Uwe Bader: Special camp “Feste Goeben” in Metz. In: Wolfgang Benz u. Barbara Distel: The Place of Terror. Volume 9. Munich 2009, p. 542.
  10. ^ Uwe Bader: Special camp "Feste Goeben" in Metz. In: Wolfgang Benz u. Barbara Distel: The Place of Terror. Volume 9. Munich 2009, p. 543.
  11. ↑ Uwe Bader: Uncertain future - the memorial “Special Camp Feste Goeben” in Metz. In: Dachauer Hefte . 25th year 2009, issue 25, pp. 245-254, here p. 248.
  12. ↑ Federal Archives Ludwigsburg, B 162/5810, Bl. 809f. Quoted from: Uwe Bader: Special camp “Feste Goeben” in Metz. In: Wolfgang Benz u. Barbara Distel: The Place of Terror. Volume 9. Munich 2009, p. 540.
  13. ^ Claudia Moisel: France and the German war criminals. Law Enforcement Policy and Practice after World War II. Wallstein, Göttingen 2004, pp. 196–210 (= chapter The case of the camp commandant Georg Hempen), here especially pp. 203–206 (on the first proceedings before the Regional Court of Oldenburg), p. 207 (on the proceedings before the BGH) and P. 208 (on the second case before the Regional Court of Oldenburg).
  14. ↑ Uwe Bader: Uncertain future - the memorial “Special Camp Feste Goeben” in Metz. In: Dachauer Hefte. Volume 25, 2009, issue 25, pp. 245-254, quoted on p. 252.
  15. ↑ Uwe Bader: History of Justice in Memorials - The Examples of the Memorials in Hinzert and Metz. In: Albrecht Pohle, Martin Stupperich, Wilfried Wiedemann (eds.): Nazi justice and post-war justice. Contributions to school and educational work . Wochenschau Verlag, Schwalbach / Ts. 2014, pp. 201–216, here p. 214 f.

Coordinates: 49 ° 5 ′ 44 ″  N , 6 ° 12 ′ 15 ″  E