Stutthof concentration camp

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Stutthof (Sztutowo) was the first concentration camp built by the German Nazi regime outside of Germany, on September 2, 1939. It was located in a secluded, wet, wooded area west of the small town of Sztutowo in Danziger-Land County of Freistadt Danzig, 34 km east of the city of Danzig (Gdansk) in Poland. It was also the last camp liberated by the Allies, on May 9, 1945. As many as 110,000 people were deported to the camp. More than 85,000 people died in the camp.

Contents

[edit] The Camp

Museum of the concentration camp
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Museum of the concentration camp

The Nazi authorities of the Free City of Danzig were compiling material about known Jews as early as 1936, and also reviewing suitable places to build concentration camps in their area.

Originally, Stutthof was a civilian internment camp under the Danzig police chief. In November 1941, it became a "labor education" camp, administered by the German Security Police. Finally, in January 1942, Stutthof became a regular concentration camp.

The original camp (known as the old camp) was surrounded by barbed-wire fences. It comprised eight barracks for the inmates and a "kommandantur" for the SS guards, totalling 120,000 m². In 1943, the camp was enlarged and a new camp was constructed alongside the earlier one. It was surrounded by electrified barbed-wire fences and contained thirty new barracks, raising the total area to 1.2 km².

The camp staff consisted of SS guards and, after 1943, Ukrainian auxiliaries. In 1942 the first female prisoners and SS women arrived in Stutthof, including Herta Bothe. A total of over 130 women served in the Stutthof complex of camps spread across the Baltic coast of Poland. Today we know of thirty-four female guards who served in Stutthof, inluding Gerda Steinhoff, Rosy Suess, Ewa Paradies, and Jenny-Wanda Barkmann. Starting in June 1944, the SS in Stutthof began conscripting women from Danzig and the surrounding cities to come to Stutthof and train as camp guards because of a severe guard shortage.

A crematory and gas chamber were added in 1943, just in time to start mass executions when Stutthof was included on the "Endlösung" on June 1944. Mobile gas wagons were also used to complement the maximum capacity of the gas chamber (150 people per execution) when needed.

[edit] The Prisoners

The first prisoners were 150 Jewish Danzig citizens. The inmate population rose to 6,000 in the following two weeks, on September 15, 1939.

Tens of thousands of people, perhaps as many as 110,000, were deported to the Stutthof camp. The prisoners were mainly non-Jewish Poles. There were also Polish Jews from Warsaw and Białystok, and Jews from forced-labor camps in the occupied Baltic states, which the Germans evacuated in 1944 as Soviet forces approached.

These totals are thought to be conservative, as it is believed that inmates sent for immediate execution were not registered.

The former prisoner of Stutthoff and Lithuanian writer Balys Sruoga later wrote a novel Dievų miškas (The Forest of Gods) describing the everyday life of this camp.

When the Soviet army began its advance through Nazi-occupied Estonia in July and August of 1944, the camp staff of Klooga concentration camp evacuated the majority of the inmates by sea to the Stutthof concentration camp.

[edit] Conditions in the Camp

Conditions in the camp were brutal. Many prisoners died in typhus epidemics that swept the camp in the winter of 1942 and again in 1944. Those whom the SS guards judged too weak or sick to work were gassed in the camp's small gas chamber. Gassing with Zyklon B gas began in June 1944. Camp doctors also killed sick or injured prisoners in the infirmary with lethal injections. More than 60,000 people died in the camp.

The Germans used Stutthof prisoners as forced laborers. Some prisoners worked in SS-owned businesses such as the German Equipment Works (DAW), located near the camp. Others labored in local brickyards, in private industrial enterprises, in agriculture, or in the camp's own workshops. In 1944, as forced labor by concentration camp prisoners became increasingly important in armaments production, a Focke-Wulf airplane factory was constructed at Stutthof. Eventually, the Stutthof camp system became a vast network of forced-labor camps; 105 Stutthof subcamps were established throughout northern and central Poland. The major subcamps were Thorn and Elbing. Another was Russoschin.

Dr. Rudolf Spanner designed a process to produce soap from human fat in 1944. A limited quantity of the soap was produced in Danzig, partially from Stutthof victims' bodies.

Many of the claims are disputable, no sources are given. About the soap production, this is fiction. Himself, the great Nzi hunter Simon Wiesenthal classifies it as fiction. Further more, Professor Yehuda Bauer, head of the Hebrew University's Holocaust history department has stated, that "... technical possibilities for transforming human fat into soap were not known at that time" and also "The Nazis did enough horrible things during the Holocaust. We do not have to go on believing untrue stories". There are "human flesh soaps" on display in various camp museums, but these are piecess of home made soap, used to illistrate what is acaually an urban legend - the "human flesh soap production".

[edit] Death March

The evacuation of prisoners from the Stutthof camp system in northern Poland began in January 1945. When the final evacuation began, there were nearly 50,000 prisoners, the overwhelming majority of them Jews, in the Stutthof camp system. About 5,000 prisoners from Stutthof subcamps were marched to the Baltic Sea coast, forced into the water, and machine gunned. The rest of the prisoners were marched in the direction of Lauenburg in eastern Germany. They were cut off by advancing Soviet forces. The Germans forced the surviving prisoners back to Stutthof. Marching in severe winter conditions and treated brutally by SS guards, thousands died during the march.

In late April 1945, the remaining prisoners were removed from Stutthof by sea, since Stutthof was completely encircled by Soviet forces. Again, hundreds of prisoners were forced into the sea and shot. Over 4,000 were sent by small boat to Germany, some to the Neuengamme concentration camp near Hamburg, and some to camps along the Baltic coast. Many drowned along the way. Shortly before the German surrender, some prisoners were transferred to Malmo, Sweden, and released to the care of that neutral country. It has been estimated that over 25,000 prisoners, one in two, died during the evacuation from Stutthof and its subcamps.

[edit] Liberation

Soviet forces liberated Stutthof on May 9, 1945, and liberated about 100 prisoners who had managed to hide during the final evacuation of the camp.

[edit] The Stutthof Trials

After the war, the Soviets and Polish held four trials against former guards and kapos of Stutthof, charging them with crimes of war and crimes against humanity. The First trial was held against 30 ex-officials and kapos of the camp, at Gdansk, from April 25, 1946, to May 31, 1946. The Soviet/Polish Special Criminal Court found all of them guilty of the charges. Eleven of them, including the former commander, Johann Pauls, were sentenced to death. The rest were sentenced to various terms of imprisonment.

Some of the sentences of the First trial:

The Second trial was held from January 8, 1947, to January 31, 1947, at Gdansk, before a Polish Special Criminal Court. Twenty-four ex-officials and guards of the Stutthof concentration camp were judged and found guilty. Ten were sentenced to death.

The sentences of the Second trial:

  • Theodor Meyer: Death Sentence (Executed on October 10, 1947)
  • Ewald Foth: The Death Sentence (Executed on October 10, 1947)
  • Karl Reger: 8 Years Imprisonment
  • Eduard Zerlin: 12 Years Imprisonment
  • Emil Wenzel: 10 Years Imprisonment
  • Adalbert Wolter: 8 Years Imprisonment
  • Karl Eggert: Death Sentence (Executed on October 10, 1947)
  • Wilhelm Vogler: 15 Years Imprisonment
  • Paul Wellnitz: Death Sentence (Executed on October 10, 1947)
  • Kapo Alfred Nikolaysen: Death Sentence (Executed on October 10, 1947)
  • Hans Rach: Death Sentence (Executed on October 10, 1947)
  • Adolf Grams: 10 Years Imprisonment
  • Josef Wennhardt: 8 Years Imprisonment
  • Fritz Peters: Death Sentence (Executed on October 10, 1947)
  • Kurt Dietrich: Death Sentence (Executed on October 10, 1947)
  • Hugo Ziehm: 3 Years Imprisonment
  • Erich Thun: Life Imprisonment
  • Albert Paulitz: Death Sentence (Executed on October 10, 1947)
  • Werner Wöllnitz: 10 Years Imprisonment
  • Martin Stage: 8 Years Imprisonment
  • Oskar Gottchau: 10 Years Imprisonment
  • Karl Zurell: Death Sentence (Executed on October 10, 1947)
  • Walter Englert: 3 Years Imprisonment
  • Johannes Görtz: 8 Years Imprisonment

The Third trial was held from November 5, 1947, to November 10, 1947, at Gdansk, before a Polish Special Criminal Court. Twenty ex-officials and guards were judged. Nineteen were found guilty, and one was acquitted.

The sentences of the Third trial:

  • Karl Meinck: 12 Years Imprisonment
  • Gustav Eberle: 10 Years Imprisonment
  • Harry Müller: 4 Years Imprisonment
  • Alfred Tissler: 5 Years Imprisonment
  • Otto Schneider: 10 Years Imprisonment
  • Johann Lichtner: 5 Years Imprisonment
  • Ernst Thulke: 5 Years Imprisonment
  • Otto Welke: 10 Years Imprisonment
  • Willy Witt: 10 Years Imprisonment
  • Heinz Löwen: 5 Years Imprisonment
  • Erich Stampniok: 5 Years Imprisonment
  • Richard Timm: 4 Years Imprisonment
  • Adolf Klaffke: 10 Years Imprisonment
  • Hans Möhrke: 4 Years Imprisonment
  • Hans Tolksdorf: Acquitted & Released
  • Nikolaus Dirnberger: 4 Years Imprisonment
  • Friedrich Tessmer: 4 Years Imprisonment
  • Erich Jassen: 10 Years Imprisonment
  • Johann Sporer: 4 Years Imprisonment
  • Nikolai Klawan: 3 Years Imprisonment

The Fourth and last trial was also held at Gdansk before a Polish Special Criminal Court, from November 19, 1947, to November 29, 1947. Twenty-seven ex-officials and guards were judged, 26 found guilty and one acquitted.

Sentences of the Fourth trial:

  • Christof Schwarz: 3 Years Imprisonment
  • Albert Weckmüller: 15 Years Imprisonment
  • Kurt Reduhn: 10 Years Imprisonment
  • Walter Ringewald: 7 Months Imprisonment
  • Hermann Link: 5 Years Imprisonment
  • Richard Wohlfeil: 7 Months Imprisonment
  • Waldemar Henke: 5 Years Imprisonment
  • Anton Kniffke: 3 Years Imprisonment
  • Kapo Franz Spillmann: Acquitted & Released
  • Gustav Brodowski: 7 Months Imprisonment
  • Johann Wrobel: 7 Months Imprisonment
  • Ernst Knappert: 7 Months Imprisonment
  • Martin Pentz: 5 Years Imprisonment
  • Horst Köpke: 10 Years Imprisonment
  • Bernard Eckermann: 7 Months Imprisonment
  • Rudolf Berg: 10 Years Imprisonment
  • Josef Stahl: 10 Years Imprisonment
  • Johann Pfister: 5 Years Imprisonment
  • Johannes Wall: 5 Years Imprisonment
  • Leopold Baumgartner: 7 Months Imprisonment
  • Willi Buth: Life Imprisonment
  • Richard Akolt: 3 Years Imprisonment
  • Fritz Glawe: 10 Years Imprisonment
  • Emil Lascheit: 10 Years Imprisonment
  • Gustav Kautz: 5 Years Imprisonment
  • Emil Paul: 7 Months Imprisonment
  • Erich Mertens: 5 Years Imprisonment

[edit] See also

[edit] External links

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