Special camp No. 8 and No. 10 Torgau

The special camp No. 8 Torgau (Fort Zinna and Seydlitzkaserne) and the special camp No. 10 Torgau (Fort Zinna) were two special camps of the Soviet occupying forces in Torgau on the Elbe in the then province of Saxony . They existed between September 1945 and October 1948.

history

The Fort Zinna is a largely preserved fort , so a structurally independent part of early modern fortifications of the city of Torgau. Named after the village of Zinna , about three kilometers west of Torgau, the fort is now located within the city limits. From the middle of the 19th century until 1919, the fortress served as a Prussian military prison , was used as a civilian prison until 1936, and in 1936 it became a military prison again, the Torgau Wehrmacht prison .

From September 1945 the NKVD operated special camp No. 8 in Fort Zinna ( ⊙ ).

This camp emerged from the previously existing NKVD special camp No. 8 in Schneidemühl ( Polish: Piła ). On May 26, 1945 there were already 4,385 prisoners in the Schneidemühl camp who were to be deported to the Soviet Union for forced labor.

In the special camp No. 8 in Torgau, mainly members or officials of the NSDAP or National Socialist organizations were interned without a judgment . For the arresting operational groups of the NKVD and other Soviet security organs, mere membership in an organization or a denunciation were sufficient grounds for internment; concrete allegations were rare. Several hundred prisoners of war were among the approximately 7,500 internees. Between March and May 1946, special camp No. 8 was relocated to the nearby Seydlitz barracks ( ⊙ ) and continued to operate there until March 24, 1947. In December 1946 and January 1947, the meanwhile 12,000 inmates of Special Camp No. 8 were brought to Special Camp No. 1 Mühlberg (2,200) and No. 2 Buchenwald (9,900).

On May 14, 1946, the NKVD prison No. 7 was moved from Frankfurt (Oder) to Torgau in the specially cleared Fort Zinna. In June 1946 it was given the designation "Special Camp No. 10" . There were mainly Soviet citizens since the fall of 1946, by S owjetischen M ilitär- T ribunalen (SMT) been convicted and deported to the forced labor camp complexes of the USSR were provided detained prior to their removal. The special camp No. 10 in Fort Zinna was closed in October 1948.

About 800 prisoners died in Torgau in three years. Several thousand internees were deported to the Soviet Union for forced labor.

During the existence of the GDR judiciary , Fort Zinna was used as a penitentiary or prison. After 1990 this was converted into the Torgau correctional facility of the Free State of Saxony.

The Torgau Documentation and Information Center has been running a permanent exhibition on the two Soviet special camps in Hartenfels Castle since 1996 together with the Saxon Memorials Foundation . Due to the multi-layered past of the historic site, there have been repeated controversies in Torgau about the forms of remembrance.

Well-known internees of the Torgau special camp

• Otto Baer (1880–1947), paint manufacturer
• Werner Frauendienst (1901–1966), Nazi historian, archivist
• Ulrich von Fresenius (1888–1962), Mayor of Wernigerode
• Stella Goldschlag (1922–1994), Gestapo collaborator
• Georg Krausz (1894–1973), communist journalist, a concentration camp prisoner during the Nazi era
• Rudolf Schaper (1881–1945), member of the National Socialist Reichstag , † December 22, 1945
• Curt von Ulrich (1876–1946), 1934–1944 Upper President of the Prussian Province of Saxony , † February 2, 1946
• Friedrich Unteutsch (1891–1947), District Administrator of the Eisenach district

Web links

• The Soviet special camps No. 8 and No. 10 in Torgau (1945–1948). Saxon Memorials Foundation / DIZ Torgau , accessed on August 27, 2012 . 

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Peter Reif-Spirek, Bodo Ritscher : Special camp in the SBZ: memorials with a "double past". Ch. Links Verlag, 1999, ISBN 3861531933 , p. 131
2. ↑ ^{a b} Gerhard Finn: The special camps of the Soviet occupying power 1945 to 1950. (PDF; 204 kB) German Bundestag (Ed.): Materials of the Enquete Commission. “Coming to terms with the history and consequences of the SED dictatorship in Germany” (12th electoral term of the German Bundestag). Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft, Frankfurt - Baden-Baden 1995, Vol. IV, pp. 337–397
3. ↑ ^{a b} Brigitte Oleschinski / Bert Pampel "Enemy elements are to be kept in custody". The Soviet special camps No. 8 and No. 10 in Torgau 1945–1948 , 2nd edition Leipzig 2002, ISBN 3-378-01017-7 .
4. ^ The Soviet special camps No. 8 and No. 10 in Torgau (1945–1948). Saxon Memorials Foundation / DIZ Torgau , accessed on August 27, 2012 . 
5. ↑ Christoph Dieckmann : My memory! Wehrmacht deserters and victims of Stalinism fight in Torgau over the memory of their suffering. In: Die Zeit vom May 15, 2010 No. 20, accessed on March 6, 2013
6. ↑ Ludwig Baumann, Manfred Messerschmidt: Statement by the Federal Association of Victims of Nazi Military Justice on the Competition for a Joint Memorial in Torgau Fort Zinna ., Memorial circular 91, pp. 32–34
7. ↑ Norbert Haase: Comments on the article by Ludwig Baumann and Manfred Messerschmidt . , Memorial Circular 91, pp. 35–37

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