DACHAU-KZ - SATELLITE CAMPS - PART 15

                                                                                                


                                               DACHAU-KZ - SATELLITE CAMPS - PART 15

                                                                        Alphabetical Order

                                                                                         M

MUNICH - LORD MAYOR (OBERBÜRGERMEISTER)

The International Search Service reported that for the period from 1 January to 14 April 1945 a sub-camp at the Munich Lord Mayor Karl Fehler premises, existed. Two to nine prisoners had been stationed there. Details about this sub-camp or other details, are not not known.
An investigation  procedure of the Central Office of the JusticeAadministration in the years 1973 and 1974 was discontinued, since no witnesses could be found.


MUNICH -THE PARTY CHANCELLERY
 
The construction of the NSDAP party's chancellery in  the  Gabelsbergerstrasse in Munich began in 1938. The basement had extensive bunker facilities and was completed before the start of the war. The rest of the building remained incomplete until 1945. The offices of the 'Deputy of the 'Führer' Rudolf Hess were accommodated in the 'Braunen Haus' at Briennerstrasse 45 in the Munich party building complex. After Rudolf Hess's flight to England in May 1941, his successor, Martin Bormann, headed the unnamed party management, and moved his Munich office to the "Führerbau" in the Arcisstrasse 12. His employees were distributed in various buildings in the Brennerstrasse, Arcisstrasse and Max-Josefstrasse.


                                           
                                                                    Braunes Haus 1935

 As early as 1942, Erich M., a prominent prisoner, did serve as a deputy Kapo with twelve to fourteen prisoners for about six months to clean up the Party Chancery in Munich. The prisoners removed bombshells after an air attack. They found wine and liquor in the rubbish and drank the alcohol. After this incident the working commando was dissolved in the summer of 1942. Where these prisoners were lodged remains unclear.    In the spring of 1944, a new commando with 30 to 40 prisoners was taken from Dachau initially by trucks, and later by train,  to the Party Quarters (Parteiviertel) in Munich. The commando consisted of Germans, French, Russians, and Poles.


                                                   
                                                        Braunes Haus 1945 - Ruins


About a sub-camp at the  NSDAP-Munich-Party-Chancellry can be spoken of, from September 1944, when the prisoners were accommodated in the rear building of the bombed-out hotel Contienental in the Max-Josefstrasse. The guard team was also quartered in this hotel. In the hotel kitchen the food for the prisoners was prepared. In the middle of December 1944, the hotel Continental was badly damaged again  after an air raid and the sub-camp moved into the basement of the property at the Max-Losef-Strasse. Here the offices of the '[Division III - Legal State-Rights-Questions' of the Party Chancellery were housed.
In the mornings various members of the NS-Party gave orders to the working commando for the day. On the section of the Party Administration in the vicinity of the Karolinenplatz, the prisoners were mainly used for clean-up work after bomb attacks and the construction of air-raid shelters, but also for the repair work on private properties of Party members (Partei-Mitglieder). The sub-camp was guarded by ten SS members and the commanding officer SS-Scharführer Uwer.

Former prisoners reported that the conditions were good. They were not mistreated. And no one was killed. This is confirmed by a letter from SS-Hauptscharführer Hans Moser of April 5, 1945, in which he complained about the lax conditions and, above all, about the lack of mandatory duties (Verpflichtung) of the commanding officer, Uwer. Moser had repeatedly been able to establish that the prisoners were working too little, that there was no way in guarding of their accommodation as these were inaccessible, and that the prisoners had library books and road maps which they had found in bombed-out houses.
In his memoirs, former prisoner Hans Schwarz described the fact that the prisoners organized known shortages and exchanged these for information and  messages. In this way, valuable substances (Stoffe) or wines from the KZ-Dachau supply stores were sent to employees at the Party Chancery, who were paid with these goods in return of internal party reports, snd incoming instructions or orders.
On April 4, 1945, the sub-camp was reduced by eleven prisoners. In the Maax-Josef-Strasse, 15 prisoners with seven guards and the commandant remained. In the following weeks, the commando must have been strengthened once more, because when it was dissolved on April 22, 1945, it consisted of 25 prisoners. These were taken by foot from Munich to kZ-Dachau.
On the site of the former party chancery in the Gabelsbergerstrasse, new buildings of the Technical University were built between 1965 and 1970.


MUNICH - REICHSBAHN (GERMAN NATIONAL RAILWAYS

)The International Search Service provides the period from January 1945 to April 1945 for the existence of the sub-camp Munich-Reichsbahn. However, an accident report of 22 December 1944 suggests that this sub-camp existed already at the end of 1944, as at the day before two prisoners kept in Protective Custody (Schutzhaft) at the Munich railway station between Donnersberger-Hakenbrücke, had been injured. They had warmed up with a railway policeman on a fire near their workplace, when they were injured by an explosive device. They were French prisoners and  were taken by ambulance brought back to the hospital of Stammlager Dachau.
                                                   


                                                    Emblem of the Deutsche Reichsbahn-

                                            
The commando, which consisted of up to 500 prisoners according to a post-war survey, carried out clearing work for the Reichsbahn. In it's listings are also two Kapos mentioned: Reinfrank and Quad. Only one name is known by the SS staff. Wilhelm Onmacht, a Feldwebel (Sergeant)  of the Wehrmacht, was used as a security guard between 5 March and 25 April 1945. Unfortunately   no sources are available that could clarify one-offs.

Post Script:
The logistics of the Reichsbahn were also an important factor during the Holocaust. Jews were transported like cattle to the concentration and extermination camps by the Deutsche Reichsbahn in trains of covered goods wagons, so-called Holocaust trains. These movements using cattle wagons, for example, from the goods station of the great Frankfurt Market Hall thus played a significant role in the genocide within the extermination machinery of the Holocaust. In 1997, the market erected a memorial plaque in recognition of this dark period of history. Source: Wikipedia.

 MUNICH - REICHSFÜHRER-SS

The departments of the Reichsführer SS Heinrich Himmler and his coworkers in Munich were located since 1935 in the Partyiertel (NSDAP Quarter) in  the Karlstrasse 10 ind were extended to Karlstrasse 8. According to the International Search Service, there was a sub-camp Reichsführer SS for the construction management of the Waffen-SS and the police between 8 November 1943 and 14 April 1945. A strength report to the KZ-Dachau of 23 October 1942, bears witness that seven Prisoners before that date under the designation 'Commando Reichsführer SS Munich' were used. It is still unclear whether these prisoners are already attributable to the sub-camp Reichsfuhrer SS, or whether it is a time-limited commando, which was deployed before the sub-camp was established. Among these prisoners were two German and three Polish prisoners of the group from the police security department. Kapo was the German Alfred Mienik.

Strength reports of April 1945 indicated 13 pr rather 14 prisoners for the external camp. A Serbian prisoner was returned to KZ-Dachau on 6 April 1945 due to illness and a Polish prisoner was requested in exchange on 9 April 1945 from the main camp. Neither for the commando in 1942 for the sub-camp are details as to accommodation, work assignment and SS guard teams known. From 1973 to 1975, the central office of the administration of the judiciary could not ascertain the events at the camp of the Reichsführer SS.
Today, an insurance company is located at Karlstrasse 8 and 10 in a post-war building.

MUNICH - REICHSFÜHRER SS-ADJUTANT

After an air attack on Munich on 7 January 1945 the Reichsführer SS Heinrich Himmler personally ordered the special use of 50 prisoners from the KZ-Dachau for the removal of the damage on the Führer building and administration complex of the NSDAP in the Arcisstrasse. An adjutant of Himmler, SS Hauptscharführer Schitzler, transmitted these orders to the SS barracks at Freimann (in Munich). As to security procedures, a strengthened protective command for the prisoner's use in the Reichs-Administration of the NSDAP should be established and put into place. The guardsmen were to report on 9 January 1945 at ten o'clock in the administration building of the NSDAP in the  Arcisstrasse. Information on the size of this protective command is not known.

At first the prisoners were only meant to be used for one or two days. On January 11, 1945, Dr. Kasper Ruoff thanked the Reichsführer-SS for the use of the prisoners. In a letter on behalf of the Adjutant, he mentioned that without the prisoners the provisional re-construction of the destroyed departments would not have been possible. At the same time, Ruoff asked that the detainees be allowed to work for a further 14 days, not only on clean-up work but for the repair of damaged buildings. On the same day, the extension of the prisoners' resolution until 25 January 1945 was confirmed. That the Prisoner commander was also in the Reich's-Administration was there  over January, is evident in a file note of the principal Owander of 27 March 1945. He points out that against the background of the landing of enemy paratroops in the vicinity of Munich, the KZ-prisoners should be removed from the Reich's-Administration grounds  for security reasons and should be taken back into the KZ-Dachau. Yet in this memo, it was handwritten in the margin that the Reichsschatzmeister (Treasurer) still needed the prisoners. Last mentioned was the sub-camp 'Reichsführer-SS Adjutant', according to the International Search Service on 14 April 1945.
Insights to the prisoners, their accommodation and living conditions as well as that of the SS- Wachmannschaft (Guards) are not available.

MUNICH - REICHSFÜHRER-SS MAIN PAYMASTER

The ardent prisoner, Anton S., recalls that on January 31, 1945, he was sent to Munich with nine other prisoners to work on the bombarded Administration Building of the 'Reichsführer SS-Hauptkasse' (Central Paymaster). From Monday's to Saturday's, the prisoners were taken by train from Dacha station to Munich and returned to the KZ-Dachau in the evening. The commando was guarded by  two to three Czech SS members.
In 1973 the International Search Service was able to identify four former prisoners of this commando by name. They came from the German Reich, Poland, Italy and Yugoslavia. On February 7, 1945, the commando was assigned a German Schutzhäftling (Custody Prisoner) who was by profession an Erdarbeiter (Earth Foundation Worker).
Further details on the exact use, the food, the activities, which the prisoners had to carry out, as well as the SS-Guard duties are not known. The commando was closed on 3 March 1945 according to a KZ-file.

MUNICH - REICHSKRIMINALPOLIZEIAMT (Reich-Criminal-Police-Department)

The Reichskriminalpolizeipolizeiamt (RKPA) emerged from the Prussian Landespolizeiamt in 1937 and was integrated into the department 'V' after the founding of the Reichsicherheitshauptamt 1939. A total of 19 criminal police departments were set up, which, under the direction of the RKPA, coordinated the work of several Kripostellen. The sub-camp, called 'Reichskriminalpolizeiamt', is the Criminal Police Office, Munich, which is under the responsibility of the RKPA, at the end of Ettstrasse 2. Between January 1945 and 14 April 1945, a commando of twelve prisoners was deployed there. Apart from these temporal data provided by the International Search Service, no further details on this sub-camp are known. It must remain open whether it was a camp, or if the prisoners were brought daily from Dachau to be employed there.
The District Court was unable to find any former prisoners to be questioned about a place with temporary accommodation of huts, tents, or other structures.
At the Ettstrasse 2 is now the Munich police department

MUNICH - SPRENGKOMMANDO

In the German Reich, KZ-prisoners have been used since 1940 to defuse Blindgänger (dud bombs)  with long-term detonator devices . The prisoners worked in small groups up to six men at changing locations. They were called bomb search or explosive commandos, so today a precise distinction of these individual commandos is difficult. In a letter for the bomb search commander Munich, which was housed in the Stielerschule, the description Bomb-Search-Commando or  Dud-Bomb-Removal-Commando appears.





                                                  
Disposal of a 4,000 pound blockbuster bomb dropped by the RAF during World War II. Found in the Rhine near Koblenz, 4 December 2011. A linear shaped charge has been placed on top of the casing
The disarmed bomb, positioned on the platform of a truck in Cologne, Germany. German authorities evacuated some 20,000 people from the vicinity while dealing with the old explosive device, which weighed in at 2,200 pounds. Credit Rolf  Vennenbernd/DPA, via Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

The international search service does mentioned on 12 July 1944 about a sub camp 'Munich explosive commando'. This was in regard to an inmate of the so called 'Sprengkommando 12.7.194'. The prisoner of the 'explosive commando 12.7.1944' is known by name. The index file indicates,that  the Viennese Friedrich Zeilinger had died on 8 July 1944 while in this commando. Whether it was an independent command, which was only deployed in Munich on 12 July 1944, or whether it was a smaller commando within a larger group of prisoners who had been deployed for the purpose of the unexploited demolition in Munich remains open to question .In November 1944, there were at least eleven bomb disposal commandos in Munich, which were deployed in groups of six. Again it is unclear whether they belonged to the bomb search command at the  Stielerschule or formed an independent commando remains unanswered.

MUNICH - SS TEAM HOUSES

In the summer of 1935, these so-called SS-team houses were established as a kind of "Studienstiftung-SS'' (Study Foundation SS). At first, suitable houses were acquired near universities and administered by the Race and Settlement Headquarters. Here lived an average of 30 students , who had previously passed through a vigorous and strict evaluation procedure. They had to become SS members,participate in SS military service, and take part in the political world-view education (politische Weltanschauung). Finally, they should be used as an academic SS elite. One of the first 'SS-Team 1935 -Housing' was built in Munich.
On 1 April 1942, the management of the team-house was transferred to the SS-Administration at Maria-Theresienstrasse. On November 5, 1942, seven prisoners from the KZ-Dachau were taken there, who are known by name. Thus a sub-camp consisting of six people, plus a cook was established, who had come for renovation work in the SS men's building. The prisoners came from the German Reich, Poland and Luxenburg, one of them belonged to the faith community of Jehovah's Witnesses. They were all housed in at the Maria-Theresienstrasse
.Commandant of this sub-camp was an SS-Oberscharführer who's name as well as those of the guards is unknown.

During the existence of a two-week period of this sub-camp, two prisoners were brought back to the Stammlager Dachau and replaced by other prisoners. The sub-camp which was also called Painter-Commando, and was dissolved on November 8, 1942, with the return of the seven prisoners.
Today, the property is home to an investment consulting firm.


MUNICH - SS-LOCAL COMMAND-BUNKER CONSTRUCTION
 
In a non-localizable SS barracks in Munich were since July or August 1944 ten KZ- prisoners deployed in the construction of an air-raid shelter. In 1973 the International Search Service was able to find three prisoners of this sub-camp. One of them remembers that the prisoners were housed in a room in the fourth level of the barracks. The windows of the room were barred, and the prisoners were guarded by SS-guards from the Dachau. The commander beat one prisoner from Warsaw with a piece of board brutally on his head, that the injured inmate fell to the floor, where the commandant continued to kicked him him until the man died. The corpse of the prisoner was later placed in the barracks yard foe all to view. The unknown commandant once mistreated a prisoner so hard that he had to be transferred to the KZ-hospital in Dachau. He returned to the sub-camp after a good recovery.
In April 1945 the commando of the SS barracks was evacuated, and the prisoners were taken back to Dachau on foot.After preliminary investigations by the the state justice administration Munich II in 1976 a procedure against the unknown commandant murder was instigated.
After preliminary investigation details of this sub-camp  as well as of the suspects could not be determined, after which the proceedings were terminated.


MUNICH - THE MEAT-WORKS (GROSSCHLACHTEREI) RUDOLF THOME

The Meat Works of Rudilf Thomae in Munich could not be located for this writing. During 1942 the company engaged prisoners from the KZ-Dachau. The International Search Service first mentions of an individual prisoner on 21 August 1942. But since two Kapo's of this sub-camp are known, and since a  single prisoner was never overseen by one Kapo alone, the camp consisted of more than one prisoner. On 1 November 1942, Wilhelm Binner was replaced by Erwin Hansselmann as Kapo of the sub-camp. The composition of  this working commando was that, according to the documents at hand,  exclusively about skilled workers, who were either engineers and carpenters. Other details could  not to be clarified
The last indication of this camp, is a strength report for the KZ-Dachau of March 12, 1942.
The Central District Court proceeded without results about the existence of a sub-camp Meat Works  Thomae.

Auther German Text: Sabine Schalm 

 


Sources/Acknowledgements:                                                   
Wikipedia
Der Ort des Terrors, Pages 414-
Vol 2 C.H.Beck, München 2005

Translated from German by:
 Stolpmann,Herbert Karl Walter
 von Waldeck

Design:d-stolpmann@gmail.com                                                          Continued under Part 16