Niederhagen concentration camp
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The Niederhagen concentration camp was a German concentration camp on the outskirts of Büren-Wewelsburg since September 1941.
A small predecessor camp existed since May 1939: the outer camp Wewelsburg of the Sachsenhausen concentration camp. The inmates were used as forced laborers for the development of Wewelsburg Castle, which - according to plans of Heinrich Himmler - was to be "center of the world" after the "final victory". The first 100 prisoners came from the Sachsenhausen concentration camp. At first the inmates were accommodated in a tent beneath the castle-mountain then in small hutting on the opposite mountain (the Kuhkampsberg).
A move to a new built camp at the local subdistrict of Wewelsburg Niederhagen followed. In September 1941 when the camp became independent as Niederhagen concentration camp 480 prisoners were interned. Since 1941 more and more prisoners from foreign countries were interned in the camp. The approximately 3,900 prisoners included Jehovah's Witnesses, political prisoners, Sinti and Romani people, Yeniche, homosexuals, Jews, prisoners of war and forced laborers from Poland, the Soviet Union (also prisoners of war), Czechoslovakia, France, the Netherlands and Belgium. Almost a third of them didn't survive the imprisonment. Proved is the death of 1,285 prisoners. They died of hunger, cold, disease and the consequences of ill-treatment. In 1942 a camp-intern crematorium was built. The Gestapo used the camp also as a place for executions. By the command of Heinrich Himmler a total of 56 people, including women and children, from Westphalia-Lippe were executed. In the period from 1 September 1941 to 1 May 1943 camp was independend. Previously, it was under control of the Sachsenhausen concentration camp, then of the Buchenwald concentration camp. Since the year 1943 only 50 people were imprisoned, on 2 April 1945, the detainees were liberated by the American army. Very little is left from the camp. In the former camp kitchen the fire station of the volunteer fire department and apartments are placed, the gatehouse is now a two-family house, on the other area is a residential area.
[edit] See also
[edit] Literature
- Karl Hüser, Wulff E. Brebeck: Wewelsburg 1933-1945. Das Konzentrationslager. Revision: Kirsten John-Stucke. 4th edition. Münster: Westfälisches Landesmedienzentrum 2002. (= Reihe: Dokumente der Zeitgeschichte, Heft 5).
- Andreas Pflock, Gerrit Visser (1894-1942) - Von Hengelo nach Wewelsburg - Van Hengelo naar Wewelsburg, Lebensstationen und Briefe des niederländischen Gewerkschafters aus nationalsozialistischer Gefangenschaft - Levensloop en brieven van de Nederlandse vakbondsman uit het nationaal-socialistische gevangenschap. Niederländisch-Deutsch (2005). 279 Seiten, 67 Photos, fester Einband. ISBN 3-932610-35-0
