DACHAU KZ - SATELLITE CAMPS -
Alphabetical Order
F -G
F -G
Since February 1945, at least one inmate of Dachau KZ was used to perform physical labour in the city. Whether the prisoner remained overnight there or returned daily to Dachau is not known.
Author German Text: Christoph Bacmann
FRIDOLFING
The sub-camp consisted of one male and at least four female prisoners from the KZ-Dachau, [It is more likely that the women came from Ravensbrück, as Dachau was , with a few exceptions, a male camp.sic] who had to work on the agricultural estate and mill operation of Alois Rehrl in Fridolfing ( District of Traunstein). Alois Rehrl (1890-1948) was friendly with Heinrich Himmler, who had in 1920 completed a one year matriculation with an agricultural intern-ship on the farm. Due to this acquaintance Rehrl in 1933 became a member of the NSDAP (Nazi Party), and later joined the civilian SS.
As a substitute for a long-serving and deceased sawyers of Rehrl's operation, Himmler gave Rehrl the carpenter Arno Solomon, born in 1889, who was imprisoned as Jehovah Widnes since 1937. Solomon was taken on 16 November 1943 from Buchenwald to Dachau, where he was registered under the number 8205. From 23 November 1943 until 30 May 1944 Solomon was moved as KZ-prisoner into the sub-camp of Fridolfing. At the request Rehr'ls and presumably intervention from Himmler, made it possible, that Solomon was discharged from the concentration camp Dachau on 30 May 1944, but conscripted (dienstverpflichtet) as a free
individual to work only at Rehrl's enterprises as sawyers until May 1945, which was the end of the war anyway.
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Moreover, Himmler organized on the 16 May 1944, after two sons of Rehrl's were killed in action on the Eastern Front, four female German prisoners of the 'Jehovah's Witnesses' mythology (Martha Knie, Katharina Thoenes, Emma Kirscht and Auguste Wolf) from the KZ Ravensbrück for house-keeping and agricultural work.
All prisoners worked and lived on the estate., A special security was not necessary. [It was an established fact that Jehovah's Witness inmates were considered by the Authorities due to their strong faith absolutely trustworthy, sic] In addition, several forced la borers (Zwangsarbeiter) were engaged on the Estate.
During Legal Proceedings against Rehrl for being a Nazi, all prisoners had been questioned and told of their fair treatment while working for him. he was only classified as 'Less Burdened" (MInderbelasted) and no further action were taken against him. [Although the ID of former Party Members were hole-punched in the upper right corner,sic]
The prisoners remained after the war and liberation which occurred there on May 3rd 1945, for a short time on the estate before returning to their homeland (Heimat)
Author German Text: Friedbert Mühldorfer
FRIEDRICHSHAFEN
The sub-camp of Dachau-KZ Friedrichshafen on Lake Constance was established on 22 June 1943 and closed on September 26 1944. It emerged in the course of development of Aggregate 4, the later V-2 rocket. Technical problems on the test site at Usedom on the Baltic Sea, had led to a lengthily time delay. Therefore Colonel Walter Dornberger took as departmental chef II of the Official Development Group and testing of Army Weapons Department together with Dr. Werner von Braun as Technical Director in September 1941 contacted the Zeppelin GmbH Friedichshafen. The result was that on April 7th 1942, a joint Army-Research was, in conjunction with the Peenemünde establish in Friedrichshafen, the production of Engine-Thruster Holders. Rocket-Thruster fabrication, and, should prepare for the Stern, Centre Part(Mittelwerk) plus the serial assembly of theA4 / V2 Rocket. In early May 1942, work began on the actual allocated surveyed site at Oberraderach near Friedrichshafen, with German construction experts, POW's, Russian forced labourers and later KZ prisoners and build an oxygen plant, three test beds with a Quality Control building, an independently owned power plant and a water pipeline from Immenstaad for their large reservoirs.
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| S soldier and captured Mittelwerk V-2 rocket motor |
Peenemünde Test Stand VII
During the dissolution of the camp, the transfer list dated 25 September 1944 from Friedrichshafen to Buchenwald show 762 KZ- prisoners. Among them were in the majority Germans, Russians, and Poles, but also Frenchmen, Czechs, Yugoslavs, Belgians, Spaniards, Luxembourger, Greeks and Italians. The four Kapos were German. A Pole is cited as an inmate doctor. The oldest of the exclusively male prisoners was a 61-year-old German farmer, the youngest prisoner was 17 years old and of Russian origin.
The prisoners carried out construction works while stationed in Friedrichshafen, created a bunker for the SS men and worked in 1944 on a deep mountain tunnelling system together with forced labourers (Zwangsarbeiter). After air strikes they removed debris and defused dud bombs. On the actual test site in Raderach they were involved in the construction work of the oxygen production plant and the engine testing site
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| Dud Bomb |
The security personnel consisted of SS men: German, including ethnic Germans (Volksdeutsche) from Hungary, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Romania and Sudeten Germans. Camp leader was Untersturmführer (2nd Lieutenant) Georg Dietrich Grünberg. His rDeputy was the Sudeten-German Beck, called "Dziadek" (Grandfather). According to the testimony of former prisoners, he behaved decently towards prisoners. Grünberg, born on October 10, 1906 in Freiburg an der Elbe, had fought in the Polish and Western campaign in the SS Totenkopf Division and arrived in April 1941 in Oranienburg. While there, he was transferred In September, and put in charge with the organisation of the training company in Auschwitz. In September 1943 Grünberg came as company and camp leader to Frtiedrichshafen. He remained here until ordered as displacement to the sub-camp Überlingen which took place autumn 1944.
Several of members of the Vorkommandos reported good accommodation and sufficient food while working there in the first few weeks. This changed, however, when the camp was fenced with barbed wire and electrified, with floodlights during night-time and searchlights had been installed.
A contact of two prisoners with two Ukrainian women from an adjoining labour camp was discovered. The two German prisoners received each 20 lashes and were sent on November 12, 1943 to the KZ Buchenwald.
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| Aggregat-4 / Vergeltungswaffe-2 |
On June 1, 1944 two Russians were shot after trying to escape during the air alarm, the certificate signed by the medical officer on the death certificate gives the cause by rifle bullets rupturing the longitudinal and main bronchial arteries.
About the number of other deceased prisoners, there are very few indicator points. Using various death lists, which were maintained and kept in some countries, a fair assessment of causes can be determined. The registry office Friedrichshafen noted the causes of deaths in the main, that were bruising of the upper body and abdomen, rupture of the liver, tuberculosis, skull fractures, internal rupture, cardiac and circulatory failure and death by air strikes. The total death toll were 40, notable is the fact that 31were killed during air raids, 13 of these were German n inmates. The crematorium in Lindau which cremated 26 of the dead including three from sub-camp Bad Saulgau, 25 prisoners urns were buried on the Äschacher cemetery where an obelisk remembers 'In Memory' with twenty-five engraved names of the prisoners.
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| The famous harbour entrance of Lindau |
After the war, in some poorly repaired baracks lived displaced persons and refugees, before the place was taken b the French Military building apartment buildings for their families and relatives. Since the withdrawal of the French military authorities of Friedichshafen uses these buildings as social housing. (Sozialwohnungen)
A memorial to the victims of KZ does not exist in Friedrichshafen. On 29 April 1998, 53 years after the liberation, a little square close the Maybach company was established to commemorate the 1940 in Berlin-Plötzensee executed resistance fighter from Friedrichshafen, Fridolin Endrass, with the following commemorative plaque: 'The victims of Nationalsocialism, locals and strangers from many countries of Europoa. .Your suffering obliges us to be vigilance for human rights and human dignity'.(Den Opfern des Nationalsozialismus , Einheimischen und Fremden aus vielen Ländern Europas. Ihr Leid verpflichtet uns zu Wachsamkeit für Menschenrechte und Menschenwürde.)
Author Germa Text: Christa Tholander
POST SCRIPT
BOMBING OF FRIEDRICHSHAFEN
The German city of Friedrichshafen was bombed during World War II as part of the Allied strategic bombing campaign against German war materiel industry, particularly in the targeting of German fighter aircraft production and long range missile development.
Friedrichshafen lies in the Bodenseekreis district, on Lake Constance in the extreme south of Germany, and at the time it was at the edge of the German nightfighter defences. Targets included the Dornier Flugzeugwerke aircraft works at Manzell, the Maybach tank engine factory, the Luftschiffbau Zeppelin aircraft works and its Oberraderach test facility near Raderach, and the Zahnradfabrik Friedrichshafen (literally "gearwheel factory Friedrichshafen") tank gearbox factory.
In February 1944 an underground factory at Immenstaad near Friedrichshafen was suspected to be a synthetic oil and/or liquid oxygen plant] Near Überlingen,forced labor of KZ-Häftlinge im Goldbacher Stollen KZ Nebenlager Raderach and the Aufkirch subcamp of Dachau concentration camp was used for constructing an underground facility for armament manufacturing (code name "Magnesit" safe from Allied air raids.
A night attack by 322 heavy bombers damaged several factories and destroyed the factory producing tank gearboxes. 1,234 tons of bombs were dropped causing (an estimated) 67 per cent of the town's built-up area to be destroyed.
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| USAAF P-47 Thunderbolt fighters, assigned to protect 8th Air Force bomber formations and to hunt for German fighters |
At the January 1943 Casablanca Conference, the Combined Chiefs of Staff agreed to conduct the Combined Bomber Offensive (CBO), and the British Air Ministry issued the Casablanca directive on 4 February with the object of:
"The progressive destruction and dislocation of the German military, industrial and economic systems and the undermining of the morale of the German people to a point where their capacity for armed resistance is fatally weakened. Every opportunity to be taken to attack Germany by day to destroy objectives that are unsuitable for night attack, to sustain continuous pressure on German morale, to impose heavy losses on German day fighter force and to conserve German fighter force away from the Russian and Mediterranean theatres of war."
GABLINGEN
The KZ sub-camp Gablingen, north of Augsburg was probably built in January or February 1944. The camp was first mentioned in documents as of 21 February 1944th Its original purpose was to provide labour and store outsourced finished aircraft parts at the airbase from the production facility of Messerschmitt AG-Augsburg.
The wooden barracks built at the edge of the air base near the railway station of Gablingen between the railway line Augsburg-Donauwörth and what is today's federal highway 2 and runs near the railway tracks, towards the Gersthofer factory of the former IG Farben (now Clariant). In addition to the wooden barracks, it seems that the airmen's garrison was temporarily cleared by them to accommodate prisoners.
The total number of 362 inmates in January / February 1944, rose rapidly to about 1,000 men. The increase was due to the relocation of 600 survivors after an air raid on the sub-camp Augsburg-Haunstetten [Over 100 prisoners were killed during this air raid,sic] in April 1944 which destroyed the camp.The Gablinger prisoner society was mainly of international mix. They were guarded by SS men, including some former Wehrmacht soldiers who had been incorporated into the SS
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| Gablingen Kaserne and Field Station |
About living conditions within the sub-camp little is known. Eyewitnesses did mention the usual conditions. Apart from other incidents, some prisoners still remember exactly the executions by the SS: The hanging of six prisoners was always coming up, because of foodstuff (Lebensmittel) theft, it was claimed to have been committed even though the execution took place in the camp of Haunstetten, where they did not stay themselves.
On 24 April 1944, the camp was destroyed by an air raid in which there were at least two deaths.The destroyed camp was never rebuilt. The survivors then had to stay in spite of the still cool weather in a gravel pit near the railway line Augsburg-Donauwörth. After several days, the prisoners were transferred to various other camps. A portion was taken by truck or train into the camp at Leonberg to work in the tunnel factory of Messerschmitt AG. Another large contingent was brought by the SS to the Air Force [Luftwaffe] News-casting [Nachrichten] barracks in Aigsburg-Pfersee, where quickly a new sub-camp was built to accommodate the loaned KZ-prisoners at Messerschmitt AG in Augsburg again. From Pfersee some of the former prisoners from Gablinger and Haunstetter were transferred to other camps, mainly to Kotten, all sites near Messerschmitt AG factories.
It never came to any trials as to the killings in Haunstetten, neither those that took place in Gablingen. Investigations of the Central Office in Ludwigsburg were conducted as late as 1973 and discontinued without results. In Gablingen there are no signs of any type of remembrance that camps ever existed..
Authoe German Text: Wolfgang Kucera
Post Script:
One of the most interesting aspects of the history of Gablingen is the complex tunnel system beneath the old aerodrome, which may have been used to conceal the existence of a Messerschmitt test facility located there prior to, and during, the Second World War. The Messerschmitt plant used labourers from the Dachau concentration camp as mentioned above. Messerschmitt's rocket-powered3 Messerschmitt Me 16were tested at this facility as early as 1941[370 were built,sic].
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| Messerscmitt Me 163 Komet |
The former military facilities were closed in 1998. Its primary use was signals intelligence collection during the Cold War.
GARMISCH-PARTENKIRCHEN
In Garmisch-Partenkirchen during 1944 hospitals for members of the SS were set up towards the end of the war. These were three hotels, namely 'Haus Wittelsbach', Haus Partenkirchen' and 'Sonnenbichl' were confiscated by the SS. Since the beginning of the war all hotels in Garmisch served as reserve hospitals (although not necessarily used) were under the administration of the locally stationed Lazaret Department. Probably around the 10th December 1944, about 14 prisoners from Dachau were used in these hospitals, documents indicate that some of them stayed in the hotel 'Sonnenbichl' where seven of the prisoners worked. The latest transfer of prisoners to Garmisch-Partebkirchen took place on 23 March 1945. Two of the prisoners were originally detained for political reasons in Dachau. All existing statements refer exclusively to the military hospital in hotel 'Sonnenbichl'. The prisoners were in a room of the former servants' quarters, were they were housed and slept in in two-storey single bunk beds. They were in the main only supervised by three SS orderlies and and watched by one commando leader who lived right in the room next to them. The prisoners were neither mistreated nor were any killings committed. About the working and living conditions as well as the hygienic conditions there is no particular information available.
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Garmisch-Partenkirchen. In the background, the peaks of the Alpspitze and Zugspitze.
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Author German Text: Barbara Hutzelmann
GENDORF
The sub-camp Gendorf an der Alz in the district of Altötting was in existence from October 1943 to April 1945. Approximately 200 to 250 male prisoners worked in the Anorgana Factory, a subsidiary of IG Farben, which produced raw materials for artillery ammunition. At the request of the head of some IG Farben and chairman of several committees of the Four-Year Plan and Armament Department, Otto Ambros, requited the head of the SS WVHA, Oswald Pohl, to transfer skilled workers from the KZ-Dachau to Gendorf. In fact, they had only about half of the prisoners with the desired qualifications as metal workers and welders. Yet the prisoners worked in various departments of the factory. In addition, they carried out earthworks. The KZ-inmates worked 56 hours per week, on top of that, on weekends, they were forced to look for mines and eliminate dud bombs which Allied planes had dropped and carry out loading trucks with finished material, plus receiving deliveries. For unskilled workers the company Anorgana paid 4 RM. for skilled workers 6 RM to the SS. [It is not clear if this was a daily rate,sic]
As camp commander acted initially Hauptscharführer Simon Kiern, who led the construction, later it was Hauptscharführer Josef Neuner, Oberscharführer Österle, Hauptscharführer Albert Binder and lastly SS Sturmscharführer Otto Stolle. At first 29, later 40 members of the SS took over guarding the KZ-prisoners. Detainees reported repeated mistreatment by the camp leader Kiern and Binder. Also Kapos participated on the orders of SS members in the assaults. The commander also imposed prison sentences that had to be currently served in a concrete bunker. Executions did not take place, although this was threatened with to some KZ-prisoners who had smuggled a radio set into the camp.
The camp, which was located within the plant fence, consisted of four barracks, a kitchen and a g barrack for the guards. The KZ- overseers monitored with two towers equipped with machine guns the camp premises. Though the actual factory cpmplex was about one kilometre away. The hygienic conditions assessed by former prisoners in retrospect, claimed to be satisfactory,
According to official sources, the food rations totalled for each inmate 480 grams of meat, 4,600 g of bread, 80 g margarine per week.The prisoners thus had sufficient rations. As a premium they allegedly received beer and cigarettes. That they actually received these meals, however, is highly questionable, because of the number of sick inmates which was comparatively high. The company physician Dr. Arthur Hartung, stated after the war that the detainees were transferred only back to Dachau if their medical condition had already advanced to to a critical stage. In 1944 the Administration directed work and provide an infirmary, in which a Polish nurse was on duty. During this time in 1944 within the first six months, 47 sick prisoners were sent back to the main camp of Dachau. After their recovery, a portion went back to Gendorf, few remained in main camp, others the SS deported to Buchenwald, Flossenburg and Mauthausen. Three prisoners one Pole GankoMirrofan and the Russians Wasyl Gusow and Ivan Mironenko - died of poisoning after they had drunk methyl alcohol.
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| Industrial Park Werk Gendorf |
On 19 May 1944, a delegation from Dachau visited the sub-camp Gendorf. The camp commander of the KZ-Dachau Eduard Weiter, the second camp physician Dr. Franz Behind Meyer and Walter Langleisst, commander of Mühldorfer sub-camp complexes,, went there to gather information and conditions of the camp and asses the work performance which was treated as war important operation and thereby received preferences in the allocation of prisoners. The management of Anorgana had submitted a request for a further 60 prisoners from Dachau and also insisted that the unskilled labourers should be replaced by qualified-skilled manpower, in particular pipe fitters and welders. Both requests were accepted. Engineer Wurzler would select young prisoners in the main camp. The plan was, to train those prisoners in the apprentice workshop as locksmiths and pipe fitters and also to give them German lessons, however, this plan never materialised. Obersturmführer Weiter demanded that the prisoners had to be separated both, the skilled labour force from other individuals remaining within the camp. He also demanded a stricter surveillance and a death strip in the camp as an essential factor of security. [Weiter did not face trial as he fled Dachau immediately before its liberation and made it to Austria where he died in mysterious circumstances, possibly being killed by a fellow SS member angry at his lack of ideological conviction,sic]
After the dissolution of the camp in April 1945 the prisoners were transferred to Máhldorf. Thus their life and working conditions deteriorated dramatically. The majority of the prisoners worked on construction projects in the building of an underground bunkers. Some of the prisoners went to Mittergars where they built accommodation for refugees and bombed-out families. There were escapes, seven prisoners from Ljubljana were successful. When at the end of April the American Army approached the Mühldorfer sub-camp, the prisoners were evacuated in railway wagons, going in a south westerly direction, they were liberated in Seehaupt and Tutzing at Lake Starnberg. The ones left behind in the Waldlager, mainly the sick and lame inmates celebrated their freedom on May 2nd 1945.
After the war American Military Courts, charged SS members who had served in Gendorf. Former camp commandant Simon Kern was convicted in Dachau Process and executed on 28 May 1946.
There is no memorial stone, reminiscent of the plight of concentration camp prisoners on the former site
Author German Text: Christa Tholander
Acknowledgements:/Sources:
Wikipedia,
Der Ort des Terrors, Vol.:2-page:333-
Verlag C.H.BeckMünchen 2005
Translated from German by:
Herbert Stolpmann von Waldeck
Editing/Design:
d_stolpmann@hotmail.com
Continued under Part 5
