Berga, Thuringia

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Berga

Coat of arms
Berga
Coordinates: 50°45′N 12°10′E / 50.750°N 12.167°E / 50.750; 12.167Coordinates: 50°45′N 12°10′E / 50.750°N 12.167°E / 50.750; 12.167
Country Germany
State Thuringia
District Greiz
Subdivisions 14
Government
 • Mayor Stephan Büttner
Area
 • Total 43.49 km2 (16.79 sq mi)
Elevation 229 m (751 ft)
Population (2012-12-31)[1]
 • Total 3,526
 • Density 81/km2 (210/sq mi)
Time zone CET/CEST (UTC+1/+2)
Postal codes 07980
Dialling codes 036623
Vehicle registration GRZ
Website Stadt-Berga.de

Berga/Elster is a town in the district of Greiz, in Thuringia, Germany. It is situated on the river Weiße Elster, 14 km southeast of Gera.

Berga Concentration Camp

In World War II a slave labor camp called "Berga an der Elster"[2] was operated here to dig 17 tunnels for an underground ammunition factory. Workers were supplied by Buchenwald concentration camp, and from a POW camp, Stalag IX-B. The latter was in contravention of the provisions of the Third Geneva Convention. Many prisoners died as a result of malnutrition, sickness (including pulmonary disease due to dust inhalation from tunnelling with explosives) and beatings,[3] including 73 American POWs.[4] The labor camp formed part of Germany's secret plan to transform, via hydrogenation, brown coal into usable fuel for tanks, planes, and other military machinery. However, the camp's additional purpose was Vernichtung durch Arbeit (or "extermination through labor"), and prisoners were intentionally worked to death through inhumane working and living conditions and starvation. This secondary purpose of extermination was carried out up till the end of the war, when the prisoners were put on a forced death march to keep ahead of the advancing allied forces.[5]

Berga was run by a fanatical German national guard sergeant named Erwin Metz, who was responsible for the inhumane conditions and who gave the order to take the prisoners on the death march. When the allied forces closed in on the retreating Germans, Metz deserted his post and attempted to escape by bicycle, fearing the consequences of being captured in possession of the remaining Berga prisoners and having to answer for his war crimes. Still, he was captured days after the prisoners were liberated by American forces and was sentenced to death-he had killed a US POW Pvt Morton Goldstein {Battery C/590th Field Artillery/106 US Division} March 14, 1945. However, due to the American political climate and the war department's shifting priorities towards defending against the Soviets in the lead up to the Cold War, many German war criminals' sentences were commuted in exchange for intelligence that the Western allies believed to could be used against the Soviets. Metz was therefore only imprisoned for 5 years before being released back to Germany a free man.[5]

See also

References

  1. ↑ "Bevölkerung der Gemeinden, erfüllenden Gemeinden und Verwaltungsgemeinschaften nach Geschlecht in Thüringen". Thüringer Landesamt für Statistik (in German). 13 July 2013. 
  2. ↑ "After 63 years, vet learns of brother's death in Nazi slave camp". CNN. 2008-11-20. Retrieved 2008-11-20. 
  3. ↑ "New photo: Nazis dig up mass grave of U.S. soldiers". CNN. 2009-04-24. Retrieved 2009-04-24. "Berga an der Elster was a slave labor camp where 350 U.S. soldiers were beaten, starved, and forced to work in tunnels for the German government. The soldiers were singled out for "looking like Jews" or "sounding like Jews," or dubbed as undesirables, according to survivors. More than 100 soldiers perished at the camp or on a forced death march." 
  4. ↑ Reich, Walter (2005-05-01). "Yanks in the Holocaust". The New York Times. Retrieved 2010-04-26. 
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 Hitler's G.I. Death Camp (television documentary). National Geographic. 2012. 
  • Flint Whitlock. Given Up For Dead - American GIs in the Nazi Concentration Camp at Berga, Basic Books (March 2005), ISBN 0-8133-4288-0.

  • An American soldier questions a civilian from a nearby town in the Berga-Elster concentration camp.

External links

Towns and municipalities in Greiz (district)
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