Gardelegen massacre

Last updated
The barn set on fire in the Gardelegen Massacre Gardelegen Barn.jpg
The barn set on fire in the Gardelegen Massacre
Dead victims SKMBT C22013120717220.jpg
Dead victims
A photograph originally captioned "This victim of Nazi inhumanity still rests in the position in which he died, attempting to rise and escape his horrible death. He was one of 1016 prisoners savagely burned to death by Nazi SS troops. Gardelegen, Germany; 16 April 1945" Buchenwald burned alive ww2-179.jpg
A photograph originally captioned "This victim of Nazi inhumanity still rests in the position in which he died, attempting to rise and escape his horrible death. He was one of 1016 prisoners savagely burned to death by Nazi SS troops. Gardelegen, Germany; 16 April 1945"

The Gardelegen massacre was a massacre perpetrated by the locals (Volkssturm, Hitlerjugend and local firefighters) of the northern German town of Gardelegen, with direction from the SS, near the end of World War II. On April 13, 1945, on the Isenschnibbe estate near the town, the troops forced over 1,000 slave laborers who were part of a transport train evacuated from the Mittelbau-Dora and Hannover-Stöcken concentration camps into a large barn, which was then set on fire.

Contents

One thousand and sixteen people, of whom the largest number were Poles, were burned alive or shot trying to escape. The crime was discovered two days later by Company F, 2nd Battalion, 405th Infantry Regiment, U.S. 102nd Infantry Division, when the U.S. Army occupied the area. Eleven prisoners were found alive – seven Poles, three Russians and a Frenchman. The testimonies of survivors were collected and published by Melchior Wańkowicz in 1969, in the book From Stołpców to Cairo. Gardelegen became a part of the newly established German Democratic Republic in 1947 and is now in Saxony-Anhalt, Germany.

Details

American soldiers view bodies in barn Gardelegen Massacre, Soldiers in barn viewing bodies, Charles Overstreet.jpg
American soldiers view bodies in barn
Political prisoners of the Nazis who met their deaths at the hands of SS troops who set the barn afire. This group... - NARA - 531268.tif
Men who attempted to escape the conflagration
Under the direction of an American soldier, Germans from Gardelegen carry wooden crosses to the site where they were ordered to bury the bodies of concentration camp prisoners killed by the SS in a barn just outside the town Gardelegen crosses 83828.jpg
Under the direction of an American soldier, Germans from Gardelegen carry wooden crosses to the site where they were ordered to bury the bodies of concentration camp prisoners killed by the SS in a barn just outside the town

The discovery of the massacre seems to have been by chance. The consensus account is that American Lieutenant Emerson Hunt, a liaison officer between 102nd Infantry Division headquarters and the 701st Tank Battalion, was captured by German forces on April 14, 1945, and bluffed the German forces defending the town of Gardelegen into believing that American tanks were approaching the city. This induced the German commander to surrender to the American forces. The Americans arrived at the site before the Germans had time to bury all of the bodies. [1]

On April 3–4, following the U.S. Army's crossing of the Rhine River and push into Germany, the SS camp administration at Dora-Mittelbau had ordered the evacuation of prisoners from the main camp and a number of its affiliated subcamps. The goal was to transport the inmates by train or by foot to the other north German concentration camps: Bergen-Belsen, Sachsenhausen, or Neuengamme.

Within days, some 4,000 people held in the Mittelbau-Dora, its satellite camps, and from the Neuengamme subcamp Hannover-Stöcken arrived in the Gardelegen area, where they had to deboard from the freight cars because the trains could not advance any further due to air raid damage to the rail lines. Greatly outnumbered by the prisoners, the SS guards began recruiting auxiliary forces from the local fire department, the air force, the aged home guard, the Hitler Youth, and other organizations to watch over the inmates.

On April 13, more than a thousand prisoners, many of them sick and too weak to march any further, were taken from the town of Gardelegen to a large barn on the Isenschnibbe estate and forced inside the building. The assembled guards then barricaded the doors and set fire to gasoline-soaked straw. Those who escaped the conflagration by digging under the barn's walls were killed by the guards. The next day, the SS and local auxiliaries returned to dispose of the evidence of their crime. They planned to incinerate what remained of the bodies and the barn, and kill any survivors of the blaze. The swift advance of the 102nd Infantry Division, however, prevented the SS and its accomplices from completely carrying out this plan.

On April 14, the 102nd entered Gardelegen and, the following day, discovered the atrocity. They found 1,016 corpses in the still-smoldering barn and nearby trenches, where the SS had the charred remains dumped. They also interviewed several of the prisoners who had managed to escape the fire and the shootings. U.S. Army Signal Corps photographers soon arrived to document the Nazi crime and by April 19, 1945, the story of the Gardelegen massacre began appearing in the Western press. On that day, both the New York Times and The Washington Post ran stories on the massacre, quoting one American soldier who stated: [2]

I never was so sure before of exactly what I was fighting for. Before this you would have said those stories were propaganda, but now you know they weren't. There are the bodies and all those guys are dead.

Eleven prisoners survived the burning of the barn and were found alive by U.S. soldiers – seven Poles, three Russians and one severely wounded Frenchman. According to eyewitnesses, 20 men who participated in the massacre were summarily executed by U.S. soldiers after being identified. [3]

On April 21, 1945, the local commander of the 102nd ordered between 200 and 300 men from the town of Gardelegen to give the murdered prisoners a proper burial. Over the next few days, the German civilians exhumed 586 bodies from the trenches and recovered 430 bodies from the barn, placing each in an individual grave. On April 25, the 102nd carried out a ceremony to honor the dead and erected a memorial tablet to the victims, which stated that the townspeople of Gardelegen are charged with the responsibility that the "graves are forever kept as green as the memory of these unfortunates will be kept in the hearts of freedom-loving men everywhere." Also on April 25, Colonel George Lynch addressed German civilians at Gardelegen with the following statement: [4]

The German people have been told that stories of German atrocities were Allied propaganda. Here, you can see for yourself. Some will say that the Nazis were responsible for this crime. Others will point to the Gestapo. The responsibility rests with neither — it is the responsibility of the German people....Your so-called Master Race has demonstrated that it is master only of crime, cruelty and sadism. You have lost the respect of the civilized world.

Investigation

Erhard Brauny [de] Erhard Brauny.jpg
Erhard Brauny  [ de ]

An investigation was undertaken by Lieutenant Colonel Edward E. Cruise, Investigating Officer, Ninth Army War Crimes Branch.

Text of Lieutenant Colonel Cruise's report and text of other exhibits are stored in US Army file 000-12-242.

SS-Untersturmführer Erhard Brauny  [ de ], the transport leader for the prisoners evacuated from the Mittelbau-Dora concentration camp who subsequently wound up in Gardelegen, appeared before the Dachau Military Tribunal in 1947, and was convicted and sentenced to life in prison. He died of leukemia in 1950.

Statements of the survivors were gathered by Polish writer Melchior Wańkowicz and published in 1969.

Memorials

The surviving wall of the barn Mahn- und Gedenkstatte Isenschnibber Feldscheune - Bestehende Feldscheunenfront.jpg
The surviving wall of the barn
The cemetery Mahn- und Gedenkstatte Isenschnibber Feldscheune - Buch der Opfer vor dem Friedhof.JPG
The cemetery

Gardelegen is now a national memorial, which was rearranged by East Germany from 1952 till 1971.

The sign at the cemetery, founded by the U.S. Army, reads:

Gardelegen
Military Cemetery

Here lie 1016 allied prisoners of war who were murdered by their captors.

They were buried by citizens of Gardelegen, who are charged with responsibility that graves are for- ever kept as green as the memory of these unfortunates will be kept in the hearts of freedom-loving men everywhere.

Established under supervision of 102nd Infantry Division, United States Army. Vandalism will be punished by maximum penalties under laws of military government.

Frank A. Keating Major General, U.S.A. Commanding

The sign at the remaining wall of the barn, applied by officials of the German Democratic Republic, reads:

You stand in front of the ruins of a barn, where one of the most cruel crimes of fascism was taking place. In the night of their liberation, a few hours before Allied forces approach, 1016 international fighters of resistance against fascism were brutally and inhumanely burned alive. Whenever you feel apathy or weakness in fighting against fascism and imperialistic threat of war, get new power from our unforgettable dead.

Memorial barn Isenschnibbe Gardelegen

The memorial is located at the historic scene of the massacre of Gardelegen. It is a reminder of the 1016 concentration camp prisoners from many European countries who were murdered there on 13 April 1945 in a field barn near the Hanseatic city of Gardelegen. The site also includes the Memorial Cemetery, where the victims of the massacre are buried.

A new visitor/documentation centre with a permanent exhibition opened in 2020. [5]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Buchenwald concentration camp</span> Nazi concentration camp in Germany

Buchenwald was a Nazi concentration camp established on Ettersberg hill near Weimar, Germany, in July 1937. It was one of the first and the largest of the concentration camps within Germany's 1937 borders. Many actual or suspected communists were among the first internees.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Neuengamme concentration camp</span> Nazi concentration camp network in northern Germany

Neuengamme was a network of Nazi concentration camps in Northern Germany that consisted of the main camp, Neuengamme, and more than 85 satellite camps. Established in 1938 near the village of Neuengamme in the Bergedorf district of Hamburg, the Neuengamme camp became the largest concentration camp in Northwest Germany. Over 100,000 prisoners came through Neuengamme and its subcamps, 24 of which were for women. The verified death toll is 42,900: 14,000 in the main camp, 12,800 in the subcamps, and 16,100 in the death marches and bombings during the final weeks of World War II. Following Germany's defeat in 1945, the British Army used the site as an internment camp for SS and other Nazi officials. In 1948, the British transferred the land to the Free Hanseatic City of Hamburg, which summarily demolished the camp's wooden barracks and built in its stead a prison cell block, converting the former concentration camp site into two state prisons operated by the Hamburg authorities from 1950 to 2004. Following protests by various groups of survivors and allies, the site now serves as a memorial. It is situated 15 km southeast of the centre of Hamburg.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Female guards in Nazi concentration camps</span> Role of female guards in Nazi concentration camps

Aufseherin was the position title for a female guard in Nazi concentration camps. Of the 50,000 guards who served in the concentration camps, training records indicate that approximately 3,500 were women. In 1942, the first female guards arrived at Auschwitz and Majdanek from Ravensbrück. The year after, the Nazis began conscripting women because of a shortage of male guards. In the context of these camps, the German position title of Aufseherin translates to (female) "overseer" or "attendant". Later female guards were dispersed to Bolzano (1944–1945), Kaiserwald-Riga (1943–44), Mauthausen, Stutthof (1942–1945), Vaivara (1943–1944), Vught (1943–1944), and at Nazi concentration camps, subcamps, work camps, detention camps and other posts.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mittelbau-Dora concentration camp</span> Nazi concentration camp

Mittelbau-Dora was a Nazi concentration camp located near Nordhausen in Thuringia, Germany. It was established in late summer 1943 as a subcamp of Buchenwald concentration camp, supplying slave labour from many Eastern countries occupied by Germany, for extending the nearby tunnels in the Kohnstein and for manufacturing the V-2 rocket and the V-1 flying bomb. In the summer of 1944, Mittelbau became an independent concentration camp with numerous subcamps of its own. In 1945, most of the surviving inmates were sent on death marches or crammed in trains of box-cars by the SS. On 11 April 1945, US troops freed the remaining prisoners.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Richard Baer</span> German SS officer

Richard Baer was a German SS officer who, among other assignments, was the final commandant of Auschwitz I concentration camp from May 1944 to January 1945, and right after, from February to April 1945, commandant of Mittelbau-Dora concentration camp. Following the war, Baer lived under an assumed name to avoid prosecution but was recognized and arrested in December 1960. He died in detention before he could stand trial.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">102nd Infantry Division (United States)</span> US Army training formation

The 102nd Infantry Division ("Ozark") was a unit of the United States Army in World War II. The unit is currently active as the 102nd Training Division (Maneuver Support).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gardelegen</span> Town in Saxony-Anhalt, Germany

Gardelegen is a town in Saxony-Anhalt, Germany. It is situated on the right bank of the Milde, 20 m. W. from Stendal, on the main line of railway Berlin-Hanover.

The Celle massacre was a massacre of concentration camp inmates that took place in Celle, Prussian Hanover, in the last weeks of the Second World War. On 8 April 1945 over 3,000 internees being transported to Bergen-Belsen concentration camp were killed in an Allied air raid and subsequent attacks on survivors by SS guards, Gestapo, and Nazi party officials, as well as members of the public. Some of the perpetrators of the massacre were later tried but all of those convicted for the crime were set free in the early 1950s.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Franz Hössler</span> German SS officer

Franz Hößler, also Franz Hössler was a Nazi German SS-Obersturmführer and Schutzhaftlagerführer at the Auschwitz-Birkenau, Dora-Mittelbau and Bergen-Belsen concentration camps during World War II. Captured by the Allies at the end of the war, Hößler was charged with war crimes in the First Bergen-Belsen Trial, found guilty, and sentenced to death. He was executed by hanging at Hameln Prison in 1945.

Hans Wilhelm König was a German Schutzstaffel Obersturmführer and a Lagerarzt at the Auschwitz and Neuengamme concentration camps.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hans Möser</span> German SS functionary

Hans Karl Moeser was a German SS functionary during the Nazi era who served at the Neuengamme, Auschwitz and Mittelbau-Dora concentration camps. He was captured at the end of the war and tried by the United States Military Government Court. The only one among 19 defendants at the Dora Trial sentenced to death, Möser was executed at Landsberg Prison in 1948.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dora trial</span> War crimes trial

The Dora Trial, also the "Dora"-Nordhausen or Dachau Dora Proceeding was a war crimes trial conducted by the United States Army in the aftermath of the collapse of the Third Reich. It took place between August 7 and December 30, 1947, on the site of the former Dachau concentration camp, Germany.

Helmut Hermann Wilhelm Bischoff was a German SS-Obersturmbannführer, Gestapo officer and Nazi official. During World War II, he was the leader of Einsatzkommando 1/IV in Poland and later headed the Gestapo offices in Poznań (Posen) and Magdeburg.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Subcamp</span> Outlying Nazi detention center under the command of a main concentration camp

Subcamps, officially Arbeitslager der Waffen-SS, were outlying detention centres (Haftstätten) that came under the command of a main concentration camps run by the SS in Nazi Germany and German-occupied Europe. The Nazis distinguished between the main camps and the subcamps subordinated to them. Survival conditions in the subcamps were, in many cases, poorer for the prisoners than those in the main camps.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Buchenwald trial</span> War crime trial

The Buchenwald trial or United States of America vs. Josias Prince of Waldeck et al. was a war crime trial conducted by the United States Army as a court-martial in Dachau, then part of the American occupation zone. It took place from April 11 to August 14, 1947 in the internment camp of Dachau, where the former Dachau concentration camp had been located until late April 1945. In this trial, 31 people were indicted for war crimes related to the Buchenwald concentration camp and its satellite camps, all of whom were convicted. The Buchenwald trial was part of the Dachau trials, which were held between 1945 and 1948.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gertrud Heise</span>

Gertrud Elli Heise was a female guard and later, SS overseer at several concentration camps during the Second World War. Heise was born in Berlin, Germany. She was tried for war crimes in 1946.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Boelcke-Kaserne concentration camp</span> Sub-camp of Mittelbau-Dora concentration camp (1944–1945)

Boelcke-Kaserne concentration camp was a subcamp of the Mittelbau-Dora concentration camp complex where prisoners were left to die after they became unable to work. It was located inside a former Luftwaffe barracks complex in Nordhausen, Thuringia, Germany, adjacent to several pre-existing forced labor camps. During its three-month existence, about 6,000 prisoners passed through the camp and almost 3,000 died there under "indescribable" conditions. More than a thousand prisoners were killed during the bombing of Nordhausen by the Royal Air Force on 3–4 April 1945. Their corpses were found by the US Army units that liberated the camp on 11 April. Photographs and newsreel footage of the camp were reported internationally and made Nordhausen notorious in many parts of the world.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jens-Christian Wagner</span> German historian

Jens-Christian Wagner is a German historian who specializes in the Nazi era and the politics of memory. Wagner has published multiple academic books about Mittelbau-Dora concentration camp and its subcamps. He was the director of Mittelbau-Dora memorial from 2001, was the chairman of Lower Saxony Memorials Foundation, and became the overseer of Buchenwald and Mittelbau-Dora Memorials Foundation in 2020.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Roter Ochse</span> Prison and memorial in Saxony-Anhalt

Roter Ochse is a prison in Halle (Saale). The name can be traced to the end of the nineteenth century, but its origin is unclear. It is said to be related to the colour of the masonry.

References

  1. ↑ "With the 102d Infantry Division through Germany". Washington, Infantry Journal Press. 1947.
  2. ↑ "Gardelegen". encyclopedia.ushmm.org. Retrieved 2023-09-19.
  3. ↑ Diana Gring: Die Todesmärsche …. S. 33.
  4. ↑ "With the 102d Infantry Division through Germany". Washington, Infantry Journal Press. 1947.
  5. ↑ "Isenschnibbe Barn Memorial Gardelegen" (PDF). Stiftung Gedenkstätten Sachsen-Anhalt. Retrieved 18 December 2022.

Further reading

Notes

This article incorporates text from the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, and has been released under the GFDL.

52°32′16″N11°25′19″E / 52.53778°N 11.42194°E / 52.53778; 11.42194

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.