Main camp X Az Heidkaten (Kaltenkirchen)

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The main camp X Az Heidkaten near Kaltenkirchen was a German prisoner-of-war camp and hospital for members of the Soviet Army in Kaltenkirchen , which was also known as the "extended infirmary". The area of ​​the prisoner-of-war camp is located on the western edge of the former WKII operational airport Kaltenkirchen (until 1945). It is the property of the Federal Real Estate Agency .

The camp organization in military district X

The prisoners of war taken into custody in the course of the war were registered in transit camps ("Dulags") and then transferred to the "team master and penal camps" , the Stalags. The Stalags were identified by the Roman number of the respective military district, i.e. the number X ( military district X ) for Schleswig-Holstein , Hamburg and northern Lower Saxony . In the area of ​​the military district, Stalag XB was in Sandbostel , Rotenburg / Wümme, from 1939 on "central reception and distribution camp for military district X. Prisoners were assigned to work assignments to Stalags XA and XC Nienburg ". The Stalags XA and XC were so-called “shadow trunk camps” that only took a few hundred prisoners. Rather, they were responsible for the organization and distribution to the work units.

In the summer of 1941, due to the war against the Soviet Union, the Stalag XD Wietzendorf, intended exclusively for Soviet prisoners, was added. The "Russian camp" Wietzendorf was finally assigned to Stalag XB in December 1941; which subsequently put together the work details and distributed them to the main camps A, B and C. Wietzendorf also served "as a central military hospital in military district X". For prisoners from other nations there were reserve hospitals in Schleswig-Holstein in Rendsburg, Rotenburg and Marne.

The "extended infirmary Heidkaten"

Aerial photo from April 1945
Map with the buildings of the "Extended Heidkaten Hospital".

After an epidemic of dysentery in August 1941 and as a result of the generally inadequate care and accommodation, there was a mass death of Soviet prisoners from October 1941. In January 1942 a typhus epidemic occurred. The death rate in the main camps reached 50 percent of the prison population; the Wietzendorf, Sandbostel and Bergen-Belsen military hospitals were completely overcrowded. That is why the "Extended Heidkaten Sickness Area" was founded in Schleswig-Holstein near Kaltenkirchen and set up in the barracks of a previously existing naval camp. The camp was put into operation in the summer of 1942 and was given the official name Stalag XA z (z = branch camp) Heidkaten. The Stalag X Az remained here until April 1944 and was then relocated to Gudendorf , Dithmarschen .

In research, the Heidkaten camp was long known as the “death camp” and was thus communicated to the public. More recent studies by historians Martin Gietzelt and Thomas Tschirner on the basis of personal cards show a more differentiated picture. Both researchers used personal cards from deceased prisoners, which they received from the German-Russian research and documentation company “Soviet and German Prisoners of War and Internees. Research on the Second World War and the Post-War Period ”had been made available.

In the course of the existence of the "Extended Heidkaten Hospital", 446 prisoners died according to the personal cards. The average survival time of both the one-time and the 36 two-time prisoners of war was 40.3 days. The 354 one-time prisoners of war survived on average for 34.8 days in the hospital. The two Soviet prisoners of war, both stays combined, spent an average of 96.4 days in the hospital. Of the prisoners who were sent to the Heidkaten military hospital once, 30 did not survive the first day after arriving at the hospital. The 36 prisoners who were admitted to the hospital twice spent between 11 and 304 days in the hospital. The personal cards only concern the deceased prisoners. There is no information on the total number of patients treated here. The “sick book” of the successor camp in Gudendorf offers a clue. This book was translated into English by the British military immediately after the war and has been preserved. It records 717 sick people between October 1, 1944 and March 31, 1945, of which 46 died. Similar relationships are likely to have prevailed in the Heidkaten camp, which is also supported by the internal camp organization: The camp was divided into five infirmary areas: Reviere I-III for prisoners with mild, moderate and severe illnesses, Revier IV as a quarantine station. According to Gerhard Hoch, Revier V was a "death camp" and a "special camp".

In addition, there was a so-called “partial main camp” in the “Heidkaten” camp for healthy or healthy prisoners, which is only documented by an entry in a personal card: The prisoner of war Mikhail Afonasiev, born on December 27, 1908 in Leningrad, was on August 14, 1941 Captured in Potetskaya. After working in Friedrichstadt (from November 6, 1941), Hemmingstedt and Büsum , he was admitted to the "Laz. (Arett) Heidkaten" on May 19, 1942. On June 2, 1942, he was apparently assigned to the “Heidkaten sub-main camp” as healthy. On June 18, 1942, he was returned to the Heidkaten military hospital, where he died on July 21, 1942. Presumably, the "partial main camp" provided the work command for the expansion of the Kaltenkirchen airport.

The Moorkaten burial site

The 446 dead of the "extended sick bay Heidkaten" were buried at the burial place "Moorkaten" 800 meters away. The burial site, which is locally designated as a war victims cemetery, is only 900 square meters. Several Italian military internees and the 230 dead concentration camp inmates of the Springhirsch subcamp (Kaltenkirchen) were also buried here. The Soviet victims lie in the western and central cemetery area.

Labor input

The Stalag was on the edge of the Air Force's Kaltenkirchen airport , which was to be expanded from 1942 onwards. The prisoners dug the underground inlets and outlets, built the building and leveled and cemented a 2,300 meter long and 60 (!) Meter wide runway of concrete required for the use of jet-propelled aircraft was suitable. A second runway of the same dimension was started in December 1944. Concentration camp prisoners were employed as workers , for whom the Kaltenkirchen subcamp of Neuengamme concentration camp was built 1200 meters north of the Stalag .

Terrain findings

The completely flat area of ​​the former prisoner-of-war camp covers an area of ​​2.3 hectares. To the south of the prisoners' camp, the camp administration section adjoined. The dividing line between the area of ​​the warehouse administration and the adjoining part of a marine warehouse cannot be determined. The area is located directly on Bundesstraße 4 (in front of the R 4). It is mainly used for forestry, only in the middle part, the former access to the camp, is there a meadow used for agriculture.

Former camp street

The former camp road now appears as a forest path; it was the axis of the camp, and all warehouse buildings were based on it. All movements and transports during the storage period took place on the camp street. It runs completely preserved parallel to the B 4 from north to south through the entire area. The former warehouse access from the then R4 to the warehouse area is still available as a route.

Building with a shed roof (detention building?)

Building 19, 2.5 × 1.8 m in size, is located in the south of the warehouse area. The gray plastered brick building is 1.6 m high and has a primitive concrete shed roof. The entrance faces west towards Lagerweg. The door frame is only about 1 m high. A hatch is molded into the roof above the door frame, which could be opened independently of the entrance door. The floor is lower than the surrounding area. Since the interior is filled with garbage, the original depth of the soil cannot be determined. It could be a detention building that can be expected in the area of ​​the entrance guard.

literature

  • Gerhard Hoch, Rolf Schwarz (ed.): Deported to slave labor, prisoners of war and forced labor in Schleswig-Holstein, Alveslohe and Nützen. 1985.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Rolf Kelle, Silke Petry (ed.): Soviet prisoners of war on the job 1941–1945. Documents on living and working conditions in Northern Germany. Göttingen 2013, p. 17.
  2. ↑ Kelle and Petry 2013, 17.
  3. ↑ Thomas Tschirner: "Small Fish" - The fate of Soviet prisoners of war in Schleswig-Holstein. A regional study based on personal cards of the Soviet prisoners of war who died in the "Heidkaten extended infirmary". Exam thesis Kiel 2011, 42. ( zwangsarbeiter-sh.de PDF).
  4. ↑ Tschirner 2011, 33.
  5. ↑ Gerhard Hoch: Extended infirmary Heidkaten. In: Gerhard Hoch, Rolf Schwarz (ed.): Deported to slave labor. Prisoners of war and forced laborers in Schleswig-Holstein. Alveslohe 1985, p. 78.
  6. ↑ Wolfgang Klietz: The forgotten death camp . May 24, 2011 ( abendblatt.de - only possible via login).
  7. ↑ Martin Gietzelt: The Gudendorf Memorial, “Dithmarschen”, New Research Results. Heide, Heft 3/2004, 58–80, Heidkaten: 69–72; Ders .: The camp and the Gudendorf memorial. Study on the state of research. In: Working group for research into National Socialism in Schleswig-Holstein e. V. (AKENS) (ed.). Critical approaches to National Socialism in Northern Germany. Festschrift for Gerhard Hoch on his 80th birthday on March 21, 2003. Information on Schleswig-Holstein Contemporary History 41/42 (2003) 330–353
  8. ↑ Thomas Tschirner: As registered and vaccinated specialists in death. An analysis of personal cards of the Soviet prisoners of war who died in the so-called "death camp" Heidkaten. Information on Schleswig-Holstein contemporary history. AKENS 54, 2013, 30-55
  9. ↑ to the former (until 2014) documentation center of the Dresden project: dokst.de
  10. ↑ Tschirner 2011, 83
  11. ↑ Martin Gietzelt: The Gudendorf Memorial - From the difficulty to remember. In: Katja Köhr, Hauke ​​Petersen, Karl-Heinrich Pohl (eds.): Memorial sites and cultures of remembrance in Schleswig-Holstein. History, present, future. Berlin 2011, 80 fu note 5
  12. ↑ Hoch 1985, 9
  13. ↑ Tschirner 2011, appendix, personal card Michail Afonasiew

Remarks

  1. ↑ Buildings 22–27 probably belong to a naval warehouse. Buildings 10, 11, 13 and 29 had already been removed in 1945; they are entered here from an aerial photograph taken in June 1942. Building 3 is the delousing station. The entrance to the prison camp was between building 16 (guard barracks) and building 14. Building 19 is the only one that still exists today

Coordinates: 53 ° 49 '12 "  N , 9 ° 52' 58"  E