Forced labor camp Möhnewiesen

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The forced labor camp Möhnewiesen in Neheim (today the city of Arnsberg ) was established in 1942. There were mostly forced laborers from Eastern Europe. On May 17, 1943, the camp was completely destroyed by the tidal wave as a result of the destruction of the Möhne dam . Most of the inmates were killed during the Möhne disaster .

camp

Neheim was a center of the metal industry. During the Second World War , the companies produced armaments and other war-essential products. The number of local workers decreased as a result of conscription. Since 1942 in particular, forced laborers have increasingly been used.

Initially, these were housed in private accommodation, in restaurants or directly in the factories. These accommodations were soon no longer sufficient, so that in the so-called Möhnewiesen, i.e. directly on the Möhne River , a large community camp for the forced laborers of a number of companies was built. Many companies were easily accessible from the warehouse. As a joint venture to organize the camp, the companies founded the "Wohn und Verpflegungslager-Gemeinschaft eGmbH."

In the first stage of expansion in mid-1942, the camp consisted of ten barracks. In September 1942 another six barracks were added. The camp complex also included an economic barrack , a delousing barrack , sanitary facilities, places to stand and a splinter trench as protection against air raids.

The barracks were 51 × 10 m. There were four bedrooms, two washrooms, two lounges, a room for supervisory staff and a sickroom. The bedrooms had an area of ​​6.5 × 10 m. In each of these, 25 forced laborers were housed in double bunk beds. The camp was surrounded by barbed wire. At night, people were locked in the barracks to save guards. In the morning, the workers were taken to the factories under guard.

In December 1942, around 1200 female forced laborers were housed in the camp. These were among others at the companies Brökelmann, Jäger und Busse , Cosack, FW Brökelmann , Kaiser , Goeke, Ruhrmetall, Schröder & Co. and some other companies. They were generally referred to as Eastern workers . From February 1943, male workers were also housed there.

Nutritional situation

Former forced laborers reported that the food situation was poor. “... and almost without food - hunger, hunger, an unforgettable hunger all this time: in the morning thin coffee (without anything) browned with beets, for lunch terrible cabbage soup, for dinner pieces of bread (made of cabbage and wet) and again coffee . How did we endure it? ” So-called“ Russian bread ”was given out as a substitute for full-fledged bread. This consisted of rye meal , chopped sugar beet, cell flour , straw meal or leaves.

The food situation was so bad that it reduced the productivity of the workers. The companies therefore asked the authorities to grant the long-time work allowance for women workers who had to work between ten and twelve hours. Buying additional groceries was almost impossible. Attempts were made to do barter deals within the camp, to exchange self-made items with the Germans for food or to work in the house or garden for a meal in addition to normal work for German families. The high number of cases treated and the number of deaths suggest that the diet was completely inadequate.

Möhne disaster

In the night from 16th to May 17th, 1943 aircraft destroyed the Royal Air Force as part of Operation Chastise the dam of Möhnetalsperre . In Neheim, in addition to almost 200 houses and a few factories, the Möhnewiesen forced labor camp was completely destroyed. Joseph Hellmann, the pastor of the parish St. Johannes-Baptist in Neheim , reported: “ In the Möhne Valley, barracks were built for several thousand foreigners, which were swept away by the waves like toy houses. Some of the residents were carried away with the barracks. One of these barracks broke apart and all of the inmates drowned. More than 30 houses - mostly 2-, 3- and multi-storey massive buildings - were swept away by the floods. It was a gruesome sight the next morning to look at the destruction that this terrible water disaster had caused, and it was terrible to see and witness how the man after his wife, the children after their parents, the brother after called the sister. "

The recovered victims of the disaster , both Germans and forced laborers, were mostly buried in mass graves at the Möhnefriedhof in Neheim . The exact number of victims is unclear, among the forced laborers there were at least 526 deaths.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Michael Gosmann: 50 years ago Möhne disaster May 17, 1943. In. 50 years of the Möhne catastrophe May 17, 1943. Arnsberg, 1993 p.16
  2. ^ Siegfried Raschke: The forced labor camp in the Möhnewiesen. In: Forced Labor in Arnsberg 1939–1945. Arnsberg, 2007 p. 124
  3. ↑ Report by Pastor Hellmann about the Möhne disaster
  4. ↑ Ralf Blank : The night of 16./17. May 1943 - "Operation Chastening": The destruction of the Möhne Dam. Online version .

literature

  • Siegfried Raschke: The forced labor camp in the Möhnewiesen. In: Forced Labor in Arnsberg 1939–1945. Arnsberg, 2007 pp. 121-127
  • Siegfried Raschke: The barrack camp for foreign forced laborers. In: 50 years of the Möhne catastrophe May 17, 1943. Arnsberg, 1993 pp. 69–86

Web links

Coordinates: 51 ° 27 '31.2 "  N , 7 ° 58' 22.1"  E