Nazi forced labor in Bochum and Wattenscheid

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Forced labor in Bochum and Wattenscheid was largely used for war production in the Third Reich . At that time Bochum and Wattenscheid were independent cities.

Forced labor to keep the economy going

Bochum

More than a hundred camps and accommodations for slave labor were operated in Bochum's urban area. A number of around 20,000 camps is assumed for the entire Nazi forced labor .

The International Tracing Service , a tracing service initiated by the Allied authorities based in Arolsen , lists 66 forced labor camps in Bochum and Wattenscheid in its "Catalog of camps and prisons in Germany and German-occupied territories", which appeared in 1950.

The report to the district leader of the NSDAP in Bochum of July 14, 1943 names 100 camps. The report gives 4,525 prisoners of war, 5,519 male and 32 other prisoners as well as 5,515 male and 1,663 female Eastern workers, for a total of 17,254 people.

At the end of February 1944 there were around 30,000 and in April 1945 more than 27,000 forced laborers in Bochum.

In total, over 32,000 people had to do forced labor in Bochum, 40% of them in mining.

Wattenscheid

In Wattenscheid, there were companies in which forced laborers worked: Zeche Centrum-Morgensonne (association of Zeche Centrum and Zeche Fröhliche Morgensonne ), Zeche Holland , Erich Blum KG, Karl Hamacher, Schwarz KG.

working conditions

Viktor Schmitko was abducted at the age of 16 and did forced labor from 1942 to 1945 for the Mönninghoff company. He reported in Bochum in 1992:

“We went to sleep and woke up with the only thought of food. We went to sleep hungry and got up hungry. It was hard to take. I worked in the forge on the hot press with hot metal, it was hard work, on Sundays we also had to work, carry out repairs, unload wagons, that was also difficult. I got a break back then. "

Employees of the Reich Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territories visited the Ruhr area at the end of 1942 to get an idea of ​​the deployment of Soviet civilian workers. There are two passages in the report about forced laborers in Bochum and Wattenscheid:

“Bochum association in Bochum: workers terribly run-down, catastrophic mood, neglected and dirty warehouse. Insufficient food, spanking. Family torn apart. Escape attempts even by women. Food as a bonus - first performance, then care. No understanding whatsoever with the management [...] "
“Colliery Holland in Wattenscheid: the manager and warehouse management have no understanding, even resistance. Revierstube and sickness unpleasant. Barracks and dining room cold, untidy, dirty. Kitchen leased to Italians. The warm food is left standing. The entire camp conditions are under all criticism. [...] "

Relationship to the civilian population

Viktor Schmitko reported in 1992:

“The hurt was that we were depersonalized. Even for those who worked with us, we were just warehouse numbers. At that time we felt the negative attitude of the people on the street towards us, us as the representatives of the Russian people. We were insulted, above all we were insulted by the young people. "

Rolf Abrahamsohn is a German Jew from Marl. He was deported to Vilnius and survived, among other things, the Stutthof and Buchenwald concentration camps. In his memoirs, he tells us that it was almost the worst in the subcamp on Brüllstrasse. In addition to harassment from the guards, he was also insulted by the civilian population.

liberation

As US troops approached, the camps were disbanded and people dragged off on death marches and rail transport.

A few hours before the US troops marched in, the Gestapo shot 20 slave laborers in their headquarters, a confiscated villa at Bergstrasse 76, and buried their bodies in bomb craters in Bochum's city park . The arbitrary shooting of 6 young people, including 5 young women, on April 5, 1945 in the camp of Westfalia Dinnendahl Gröppel AG on the Verkehrsstrasse has been reported.

Some of the liberated prisoners died weeks after the liberation from the health effects of their prison conditions.

camp

Forced labor camp in Bochum as listed on July 14, 1943

A list of camps was sent to Ernst Riemenschneider , head of the NSDAP in the Bochum district, in a letter dated July 14, 1943. It contains 100 locations.

Various
foreigners 		Eastern workers
# camp location Prisoners of war male Female male Female total Remarks
1 Eickhoff brothers Drusenbergstrasse 164 58 58
2 Eickhoff brothers Drusenbergstrasse 78 60 60
3 Eickhoff brothers very likely water jet. 259 87 269 356
4th Castel Sant'Angelo Engelsburger Strasse 242 49 291
5 Bruchstrasse At the Leithenhaus 92 152 244
6th Robert Müser Limbeckstrasse 16 141 396 15th 522
7th Robert Müser Werner Hellweg 597 597
8th Caroline mine Kornharpener Strasse 56 241 6th 303
9 Constantin Wiescherstraße 10 301 199 (?) 500
10 Constantin Hiltroper Strasse 42 42
11 Constantin Kaiseraue 110 110
12 Hanover-Hannibal At the sewage fountain 21st 726 747
13 Hanover-Hannibal Dorstener Strasse 419 75 75
14th Hanover-Hannibal Kruppstrasse 7b 41 41
15th Hanover-Hannibal Bertastrasse 422 422
16 Hanover-Hannibal Sunshine road 90 90
17th Hanover-Hannibal Riemker Strasse 8 68 68
18th flora At the Kuhlenkamp 49 49
19th St. Mathias colliery Hattinger Strasse 989 19th 11 30th Accommodation in / at the office building in Weitmar .
20th Mansfeld colliery Coloniastrasse 310 310
21st Lothringen colliery Heinrichstrasse 52 52
22nd Mansfeld colliery Kaiserstr. 214 (today Alte Bahnhofstr.) 41 41
23 Lothringen Colliery I / III Cöppencastrop 166 166
24 Lothringen IV Dietrich-Benking-Strasse 264 264
25th Colliery President Gahlensche Strasse 169 157 326
26th Klosterbusch colliery Lottental 44 44
27 Klosterbusch colliery Ruhrlandheim 44 44 The Ruhrlandheim is located on the heights above today's Kemnader See .
28 Hecker Hofsteder Street 234 10 10
29 Lothringen AG Bövinghauser Straße (more likely: warehouse at the Handwerkenstr.) 315 315 Barracks are still preserved here today.
30th Chemical industry Hannibalstrasse 1 25th 31 13 69
31 Mönnighoff brothers Waterway 98 145 97 340
32 Cold store and warehouse Löbkerring (today Ruhrschnellweg A40) 21st 20th 41
33 Fr. from the farm Rauendahlstrasse 51 51
34 K. Korte Waterway 439 100 100
35 Iron and steel works Castroper Street 100 155 12 508 97 872
36 Ms. Müller AG Hiltroper Strasse 50 50
37 Dahlhauser civil engineering Horkenstein 193 160 1 354
38 Bochum Association Hagener Strasse (?) 280 764 1044
39 Bochum Association Baarestrasse 1 487 487
40 Bochum Association On the Holln 52 52
41 Bochum Association Huettenstrasse 148 933 1141
42 Bochum Association Drusenbergstrasse 950 950
43 Bochum Association Gahlensche Strasse 212 212
44 Gröppel Road 39 30th 199 1 230 6 people shot on April 5, 1945.
45 Gröppel Herner Strasse 391 51 51
46 Gröppel Herner Strasse 313 30th 30th
47 Machine and railway requirements Woerthstrasse 3 (today Ursulastr.) 36 31 67
48 EH from Lienen Wittener Strasse 100 5 5
49 Westfalia plant Hermannshöhe 57 57
50 Neu-Iserlohn At Steinhardt 130 102 8th 240
51 Hanover-Hannibal Kruppstrasse 74 36 36
52 Hanover-Hannibal Hillerbachstrasse 64 40 40
53 Hanover-Hannibal Dorstener Strasse 574 42 42
54 Motor vehicle repairs Gahlensche Strasse 157 61 8th 69
55 Karl Brieden and Co. Hermannshöhe 7b 12 12
56 Carpentier and Honefeld (?) Hermannshöhe 7th 1 8th
57 Hochtief AG Wiemelhauser Strasse 70 70
58 IG Farbenindustrie Trades Street (?) 9 9
59 Gerhard Kestermann Friederikastraße 12 22nd 22nd
60 Desert mountain Klosterstrasse 40 19th 55 74
61 Friedrich Müller AG Kassenberger Strasse 4th 4th
62 Reichsbahn depot Langendreer 28 28
63 Bochum Association Essener Strasse 2 122 122
64 Lueg Oskar-Hoffmann-Strasse 64 34 1 31 21st 87
65 Machine factory Mönninghoff Waterway 155 46 74 275
66 Alfons Jahnel Hasenkampstrasse 11 60 60
67 Hanover-Hannibal I Kruppstrasse 27b 74 74
68 Lothringen Colliery I / III Bövinghauser Strasse 98 98
69 A. Schneider Hattinger Strasse 126 2 13 15th
70 Reichsbahn depot north Castroper Street 28 28
71 Reichsbahn depot north (Castroper Strasse) Loading street (?) 24 24
72 High frequency crucible steel Klosterstrasse 40 336 8th 75 419
73 City of Bochum Stockumer Strasse 42 42
74 R. Lauing (?) Blumenfeldstrasse 17th 17th
75 Mönnighoff brothers Wohlfahrtstrasse 32 32
76 Mansfeld colliery Kaiserstrasse 63 63
77 Apparatebau Vogt Stockumerstrasse 8th 8th
78 Bochum Association Gahlensche Strasse 67 67
79 Bochum Association Heinrich-Gustavstrasse 70 40 40
80 City of Bochum At the Landwehr 112 112
81 Bochum-Gelsenkirchener Straßenbahnen AG Hattinger Str. 427 8th 8th
82 Working group Kuhne Königstrasse 19 (today Annastr.) 34 34
83 Bochum Association Heinrich-Gustavstrasse 162 64 64
84 Bochum Association Wattenscheider Strasse 882 882
85 Prince Regent Werkstrasse 272 289 77 366
86 Constantin (Brodherr) 82 82
87 Josef Riester Halfmannswiese (?) 142 142
88 Kestermann Diberstrasse 39 8th 8th
89 Klosterbusch colliery Rüggenberg (?) 33 33
90 Bochum Association Metzstrasse 11 11
91 Dannenbaum Dannenbaumstrasse 58 58
92 Peaceful neighbor Deimkestrasse 40 40
93 Hegerfeld Hattinger Strasse 312 62 62
94 Carolinenglück Von-der-Recke-Strasse 135 135
95 Carolinenglück Oberdiecker Strasse 152 152
96 Dannenbaum Dannenbaumstrasse 100 100
97 Peaceful neighbor Deimkestrasse 111 111
98 Seven planets , Langendreer 253 253
99 Wilhelm Hohmann (?) Umminger Strasse 51 51
100 Wilhelm Hohmann (?) Wittener Strasse 54 54
4525 5519 32 5515 1663 17,254

Further warehouse in Bochum

Name / location description
Acid meadow Bochum Association. Located on Essener Strasse. 1943 occupied with 765 so-called "Eastern workers" and 290 "various foreigners".
Brüllstrasse warehouse Bochum Association, external command of the Buchenwald concentration camp from mid-1944 to March 1945, more than 1,600 prisoners.
Warehouse at Eisen- und Hüttenwerke AG Eisen- und Hüttenwerke AG . Bochum external command of the Buchenwald concentration camp, established in August 1944, dissolved on March 21, 1945, with around 600 to 700 prisoners.

Camp in Wattenscheid

Name / location description
Mariannenplatz Forced labor camp on the site of the former United Maria Anna Steinbank colliery . Several hundred inmates. Shootings took place on April 5, 1945.

Work-up

In 1720 forced laborers rest in the central cemetery in Bochum , among others they come from Poland , the Soviet Union , Yugoslavia , Belgium and France . On the three grave fields, memorial stones and an iron memorial book commemorate the dead. 54 graves are located in the Jewish cemetery Wasserstraße in Bochum .

A plaque commemorating the use of forced labor is in the courtyard of the Bochum police headquarters . With regard to end- phase crimes, there are memorial plaques at the entrance to the city park on Bergstrasse, Talstrasse in Eppendorf and at the Ruhrmühle in Dahlhausen. On May 8, 2012, a memorial was opened for the Saure Wiesen camp in Castel Sant'Angelo.

Against the bearing conductor Hermann Grossmann the satellite concentration commands to the howler road was in the Buchwald main process negotiated. He was sentenced to death and executed in 1948. In 1945, over the erection of a memorial stone for the victims, a dispute arose over the joint responsibility of the Bochum association .

In 1992 a small group of former forced laborers was invited to Bochum. In the following years, small groups of forced laborers were invited to visit Bochum. Employees of the city archives conducted interviews with them during their time as forced laborers.

In 2000 the Bochum City Council passed a resolution for compensation.

Former barracks are in two places:

There are only a few structural traces at the other sites.

See also

literature

In chronological order:

  • Gustav-Hermann Seebold : A steel company in the Third Reich. The Bochum Association 1927–1945. Wuppertal, 1981.
  • Association of those persecuted by the Nazi regime - Bund der Antifaschisten, Kreisvereinigung Bochum (Hrsg.): Forced labor in Bochum. The history of foreign workers and concentration camp prisoners 1939–1945. Series of publications on the anti-fascist history of Bochum, Volume 2. Bochum, 1986.
  • Manfred Grieger: “The supervisor must be the gentleman recognized by the foreigners.” The Bochum population and the foreign workers, prisoners of war and concentration camp prisoners 1939–1945. In: Bochum Archive for the History of Resistance and Work, Issue 8, Bochum 1987, pp. 155–164.
  • Ursula Jennemann-Henke: Stages in the corporate history of Bergbau AG Lothringen. In: Bochum Kulturrat eV (Ed.): The three great gentlemen and the others. The rise and fall of the Lorraine colliery and the history of immigration in the north of Bochum . Text and photo book for the exhibition of the same name by Ursula Jennemann-Henke and Wolfgang Grubert, Bochum 1996, pp. 50–163.
  • Manfred Grieger: The forgotten victims of the Bochum “home front”. Foreign forced laborers, prisoners of war and concentration camp prisoners in the domestic armaments industry 1939–1945. Bochum, 1991.
  • Martin Weinmann (ed.), Anne Kaiser, Ursula Krause-Schmitt: The National Socialist Camp System. Frankfurt am Main: Two thousand and one, 3rd edition 1999.
  • Waltraud Jachnow (Ed.): And we have memories in our hearts. Letters from former forced laborers Bochum 1942–1945. Bochum, 2002.
  • Working group of NS memorials in NRW (ed.): Concentration camps in the Rhineland and in Westphalia 1933-1945: central control and regional initiative. Verlag Ferdinand Schöningh GmbH & Co KG, 2005. ( Google Books ).
  • Wolfgang Benz , Barbara Distel (ed.): The place of terror . History of the National Socialist Concentration Camps. Volume 3: Sachsenhausen, Buchenwald. CH Beck, Munich 2006, ISBN 3-406-52963-1 .
  • What do we do when the war is over ?, Stations in life 1925–2010, Rolf Abrahamsohn / Bochum Center for City History / Jewish Museum Westphalia, Klartext-Verlag, ISBN 978-3-8375-0334-0 .

Individual evidence

The following titles have been cited or referred to:

  1. ↑ Bochum in the time of National Socialism. Timeline. City of Bochum. ( online ( Memento of the original from April 26, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this note. ) @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.bochum.de
  2. ^ A b Ingrid Wölk: Bochum (Bochum Association). In: Wolfgang Benz , Barbara Distel : The Place of Terror. History of the National Socialist Concentration Camps. Volume 3: Sachsenhausen, Buchenwald. Verlag CH Beck, Munich 2006, ISBN 978-3-406-52963-4 , p. 395 ff.
  3. ↑ List of companies that profited from forced labor under National Socialism. ( Memento from January 21, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) (PDF; 1.5 MB, preceded by an English summary), accessed on July 26, 2017.
  4. ↑ a b Letter of July 14, 1943 to the district leader of the NSDAP Bochum, Riemenschneider. In: Forced Laborers in Bochum. VVN / BdA Bochum. List contained in the letter made available on Bochum Alternativ ( online )
  5. ↑ a b c d e HBV WAT ( online ( memento of the original from February 24, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this note .; PDF; 1.54 MB) @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.hbv-wat.de
  6. ^ A b c d e Speech on November 9, 1999 (Pogrom Night) by Waltraud Jachnow. ( online )
  7. ^ Copy of copy in the Bergbau-Archiv Bochum 8/383.
  8. ↑ What do we do when the war is over ?, Stations in life 1925–2010, Rolf Abrahamsohn / Bochum Center for City History / Jewish Museum Westphalia, Klartext-Verlag, ISBN 978-3-8375-0334-0 .
  9. ↑ a b Suppressed, forgotten, recalled. The crimes of the Nazis at the end of the war. In: End and Beginning - The Liberation from Fascism and War A Chronology of Events. Series of publications on the anti-fascist history of Bochum, issue 8. Bochum, 2005. ( online ; PDF; 1.34 MB).
  10. ↑ Remember the suffering of the slave laborers. In: WAZ , Bochum local section, March 9, 2007 ( online ; PDF; 2.01 MB).
  11. ^ Ingrid Wölk: Bochum (Eisen- und Hüttenwerke AG). In: Wolfgang Benz , Barbara Distel : The Place of Terror. History of the National Socialist Concentration Camps. Volume 3: Sachsenhausen, Buchenwald. Verlag CH Beck, Munich 2006, ISBN 978-3-406-52963-4 , p. 399 ff. ( Online )
  12. ↑ Forced laborers in the Nazi state and their fate in Bochum. City of Bochum. ( online )
  13. ↑ Bochum Paths of Sorrows. ( online )
  14. ^ Document in the archive of the DKP Bochum ( online ; PDF; 85 kB).
  15. ^ Resolution of the Council of the City of Bochum of January 27, 2000 "Humanitarian aid for forced laborers in the former cities of Bochum and Wattenscheid". ( online ; PDF; 10 kB).