Dachau KZ - Satelliite Camps Part 14 Alphabetical Order M

                                         




                                 DACHAU KZ - SATELLITE CAMPS - PART 14

                                                   Alphabetical Order

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MUNICH - LODEN - FREY

The textile factory Lodenfrey had been in Osterholzstrasse 9-10 since 1842. In 1928 Georg Frey joined the management in the field of manufacturing. He had been a party member and of the  SS since 1933: (Civil SS), but in 1937 he left the SS for religious reasons. In 1933, the company produced uniforms for some units of the 'Stahlhelm', and in the years to come delivered coats for the SA, Hitlerjugend, and Reichsarbeitsdienst. Between 1933 and 1940, the family business was able to increase the number of employees and profits, so that in 1934 and after 1942 the factory building was extended. Since the second year of the war economic downturns have been marked for the firm, especially in 1944/45 by two total destruction of the sales outlets in the Maffeistrasse 7 and Kaufingerstrasse 23

                                           
                                                     Pre-war Sales Outlet of LodenFrey

                                                                          Source:
                                                http://www.lodenfrey.eu/history.html

The first data on the existence of a detainee commando at the textile factory dated August 1942. This was a labor  commando, which was brought daily from the KZ-Dachau to Munich. How many prisoners were in this working detail, and what work they had to perform, is not clear. In May 1944, an additional commando of 30 detainees came to Loden-Frey to clean up the premises after a bombing raid. These prisoners were driven by truck, with six SS guards to Munich and returned in the evening to the KZ-Dachau. It was not until June 13, 1944, that a sub-camp at the company, at the Osterwaldstrasse, was established. The prisoners came from Poland, Russia, Yugoslavia, but also from France and Italy. Wilhelm Reissmann was the only German who acted as Kapo.

The 30 prisoners were accommodated in a garage on the factory premises,  where they had beds and bed linen provided for them. The hygienic conditions were good, as there was a shower which could be used daily, on top of that the prisoners were allowed to bathe at the weekend in the swimming pool of the company. There was no fencing in or around their accommodation. They also received their meals from the company kitchen but they sat aside from the civilian employees. In 1944/45 the garage was damaged during another air raid and the prisoners were temporarily quartered in the basement of the factory. There was a radio available to them, with which the prisoners could hear foreign broadcasts. In 1944, the manager of the factory organized for the prisoners a small celebration with festivities in which everyone was given a shirt, fruit and cigarettes. The former prisoner Philipp Busch recalled that Georg Frey often procured additional food and cigarettes for the detainees. The prisoners were given so much bread that they could give some of it to the French POW in the factory.

Six SS guards, among them were at least three Volksdeutsche (Ethnic Germans), were accommodated in the same garage as the prisoners, separated only by a wall from them. They supervised the prisoners at their work assignment, not necessarily their performance, which was done by civilians.
There were no reports of killings or ill-treatment from the sub-camp. About one week before the arrival of the American troops in Munich, the sub-camp was ordered to be dissolved and the prisoners transferred back to the Stammlager Dachau. According to reports of survivors, Georg Frey refused to provide  a company truck to take them there. Instead, he fitted out all prisoners with civilian clothes, helped nine detainees to escape, and hid the rest in his house  or in the homes of company employees. After the SS guard team had left, 19 prisoners experienced their liberation in the factory of Loden-Frey.

Georg Frey resigned from the management in August 1945. In a de-nazifiction trial, he was classified as a 'Nitläufer' (fellow- party runner) in 1948 he had to pay an 'atonement'  sum of DM 2,000 and the costs of thecourt  proceedings of DM 75,000. [The system was introduced only in the American Zone, the OMGB (Office of the Military Government of Bavaria) if a person who had  been a member of the NSDAP, (the Nazi Party), (Sünde-Geld ''atonement-money'  was applied, this by no means changed the political opinion of the individual concerned. Those that were categorized as former Naziis [by that, according to the Occupatio Forces had committed a 'Sin' thus Sühne-Geld and could not pay were detained in concentration type camps with a maximum of four years. This whole scheme was stopped with the cold war heating up 1951 in Korea  sic]
Loden-Frey is still a respected Munich textile company. The former factory site in the Osterwaldstrasse is now a commercial area, which is rented out and managed by Loden-Freypark GmbH. On the place, where the prisoners were accommodated in the Garage, there is now a Car-Park Building. Behind it is still the swimming-poolstill  mentioned in prisoners' reports. In 2003 a statement was commissionedand published by the company  on their role during the time of the National Socialism.
There is no memorial tablet on the site. [Georg Frey died on the 28. August 1976, sic]


Author German Text: Sabine Schalm



MUNICH - SHOE HOUSE MEIER

The shoe house Eduard Meier in Munich, today Residenzstrasse 22, promotes, formerly promoted as a Royal Bavarian Courtier and now the oldest shoe house in Germany. According to the International Search Service, between November 1944 and February 1945 the sub-camp Schuhhaus Meier used up to twelve prisoners. KZ-files, which could give further information about this work commando, are not available.

As far back in the 1930s as well as in the 1940s, a sales outlet and repair shop, maintained by craftsmen were located in the middle of the NS Party district at Karlstrasse 3-5. During  an air attack on the 17th December 1944 the premises were completely destroyed, so that their own production had to be stopped. At this time, the shoe repair facilities were supposed to have been sent to the KZ-Dachau and taken over by inmates. Civilian employees at the Schuhhaus Meier were regularly taken by truck to Dachau to deliver the shoes needing repair and pick up the finished footwear. In addition, a shoe polisher/grinder was delivered from the Munich shop  to Dachau.

Investigations by the Central Office of the State Justice Administration in 1973 were unable to contact any survivors of this sub-camp. The proceedings were terminated in 1974 without results. Today's company management is not aware that prisoners ever worked in their factory in th Karlstrasse, After the destruction the building the family Meier did not rebuild on the estate in the Karlstrasse, but sold the the building it had stood, after the war to the Oberfinanzdirektion Munich. Today, a new building is used mainly for commercial purposes.

Author German Text: Sabine Schalm



MUNICH - MÖHLSTRASSE

Since 1936, the administrative offices of the SS-Oberabschnitt Süd( Upper Section South) were located at Maria-Theresia-Strasse 17, a parallel street to Möhlstrasse. Prisoners of the KZ-Dachau were assigned to the Upper Section South, but the sub-camp was in the Möhlstrasse. For this reason, various proscriptions appeared in the list of transitions and changes made by Dachau concerning the sub-camp: Möhlstrasse and SS Obedrabschnitt Süd. Both are however one and the same sub-camp.

The first mention of this sub-camp is a report on the death of two prisoners by an air attack on 9 June 1944. It is clear from this. that a commando of Dachau prisoners had already been deployed before this day. An accurate dating is not possible. There is also little concrete information on the number indicated in their actual listed strength. The international search service show ten prisoners, a report of the KZ-Dachau of 3 April 1945 lists eight prisoners and a list from the clothing supply room of Dachau indicates only four prisoners for the sub-camp SS-Upper Section South.
The prisoners, as far as they are known from the lists of transcripts, came from the German Reich and other countries. According to the International Search Service, the prisoners were engaged in building repairs. The construction of an air-raid shelter is mentioned elsewhere.

The sub-camp was last mentioned in the form of the return of two Yugoslavian prisoners held in "custody" back to the Stammlager Dachau on 25 April 1945.
In 1973/74, the Central Office of the District Justice Department (Landesjustizverwaltun)g conducted an investigation into this sub-camp. The procedure was discontinued due to lack of new evidence.
In the buildings at Maria-Theresienstrasse 17, offices of the Bavarian ministries of education for cultus and science, as well as for science, research and art, are now available and taught there.

Author German Text: Sabine Schalm


 
MUNICH - NURSERY ENTERPRISE  - NÜTZL

Since 1928, Franz Nützl has been managing the Nursery and running a wholesale trade in vegetables and fruit at Ludwigsfeld 9 in Munich. As an SA member, he was involved in 1933 until 1938 at Beer-Hall battles in Munich and at the fire of the Munich synagogue. In 1937, he joined the NSDAP and fostered his close contacts with the SS and SD figures in High Command. He was also active for the SD and wrote monthly reports.

Until 1933, the nursery company was on the verge of bankruptcy. With the takeover of power by the  National Socialists, Franz Nützl was able to open up new business partners and became one of the most influential wholesale traders in Munich. Until the end of the war, he was the only fruit and vegetable supplier for Munich and the surrounding SS garrisons, their hospitals, police schools as well as recreational centers of the police, the SS and the SD. He provided the requirements of the canteens in the Contraction Camp Dachau, KZ-Mauthausen, Auschwitz, Flossenbürg, Sachsenhausen, Buchenwwald and Ravensbrück.
Unbelievable the KZ-Dachau supplied Franz not only with goods, but he also profited from their workshops. For example, he had his own shoe-making work for himself and his family done there, and he also received materials for the expansion of his company from Dachau.

In 1940, Franz Nützl benefited from his close ties with the Party(Nazi-Party) and the SS decision-makers by assigning prisoners of war as aid workers for his gardening operation. The first KZ-prisoners worked for him in 1941 at Ludwigsfeld. SS Unterscharführer Bruno Jakusch came in September 1942 as commanding officer with about 24 prisoners and four to five guards to Nützl's company. After an air attack on September 22, 1944, large parts of the nursery were destroyed. Useful and convenient, Franz Nützl also worked as an expert on war damages, was compensated in a very short time and was given an additional 70 prisoners for clearing work on his company premises.

According to a former prisoner, who worked in the writing room (Schreibstubed) of the KZ-Dachau, this Commando was very unpopular until 1943. No one wanted to be assigned to this command. The work there  was exhausting, and commandant Jakusch and Kapo Rohmer were generally known as brutal individuals. Franz Nützl and his wife did not only allow the mistreatment to happen, but also encouraged the guard teams to drive the detainees to higher performances. If an inmate did not work quickly and well enough, Franz Nützl reported back to Böttcher in Dachau, and then ordered the prisoner to be returned to the Stammlager (Main Camp).

In December, 1944, commandant Jakusch was removed from the gardening enterprise Nützl after an epileptic attack. Successor became an SS-member named Uelzhofer. He was also reported to have been beating prisoners he had caught while stealing. According to Uelzhofer, there was at least one other commanding officer, but no details are known.

The prisoners from the Dachau concentration camp brought their own food with them. However, after heavy work, they were given an  extra allowances by the firm of Franz Nützl.
 How and under what circumstances the prisoners working at the nursery had been lodged is not known. Until January 1943 they still slept at the KZ-Dachau. A civilian employee remembers that because of a quarantine at the main camp, the work of the prisoners in the nursery was interrupted for two months. Hans Hornung reported that the prisoners were placed into the sub-camp Munich-Allach at the instigation of Franz Nützl after a period of four years. When the detainee commando was actually accommodated  into the sub-camp is  no longer possible to verify.
 
During September 1944 about 92 prisoners from all German occupied countries of Europe were working for Nützl. Kapo at that time was the Viennese inmate Rohner until September 1944. When the rubble clearing team from Dachau came after the destruction to the nursery utility, Rohmer was on vacation. Karl Poltschek took over his post. After his return, Rohner remained in command for only a short time. His successor was Hans Schneider, who oversaw the working commando as Kapo until January 1945.

From January 1943 the German prisoner Hans Hornung worked in the bookkeeping department. Nützl wanted to use him as a business manager, and he therefore tried to get the Administration of the KZ-Dachau for the release of Hornung. The latter was freed on 7 June 1944 with the obligation of duty of service (Dienstverpflichtung) only at the company of Nüztl. With this, Franz Nützl admittedly had freed Hans Hornung from the Concentration Camp, but at the same time forced him into a personal relationship dependency. Several times, Franz Nützl threatened Hans Hornung to return him to the Concentration Camp-. Nevertheless, Hornung tried to improve the situation of the detainees of the working commando Nütgzl, by repeatedly advocating the award of bonuses to the prisoners which was due to them.
[Mrs Hornung was God-Mother to my wife October 1933 and was named after her: 'Anne-Marie.]

Nothing is known of inmate killings from the work detail ''Nützl', during an air attack some prisoners were injured, and seven died in September 1944. The injured people were taken to the Revier at Camp Dachau.

About two days before the invasion of the American troops into Munich, Franz Nützl fled. How long the prisoners stayed on and had worked in the nursery and what happened to them is not known. Only Hans Hornung remained active in the company, and continued the business under American occupation, until Franz Nützl returned out of his hiding place after two weeks.
To hide profits out of his business with the SS, Franz Nützl, after the war  legally transferred a large part of his business over to his wife, and sold his workshops and vehicles to his nephew Franz Auracher. De facto, he remained head of the company.
In 1949, Franz Nützl was assigned to the group of followers by the Supreme Court Munich, and he had to pay a penalty of DM 100 [which was the lowest penalty the Court could impose,sic] and the costs of the proceedings of DM 59,000. An investigation of the Central Office in Ludwigsburg was discontinued in 1974, since there were no indications for a crime in this sub-camp being committed. The former commandant Bruno Jakusch was condemned in 1947 within the framework of the Dachauer processes to two years and six months penitentiary.

Author German Text: Sabine Schalm

Sources/Acknowledgements:                                                   
Wikipedia
Der Ort des Terrors, Pages 407-
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 15

                                    

DACHAU KZ - SATELLITE CAMPS - PART 13 Alphabetical Order M

                                                                 

                                                          

                     DACHAU KZ - SATELLITE CAMPS - PART 13

                                                   Alphabetical Order

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 MUNICH - EHRENGUT

The company L.Ehrengut was a sawmill with carpentry, located in Thalkirchenstrasse 270 in Munich. Between 7 April 1942 and 11 September 1942 10 prisoners of the KZ-Dachau were used here. Half of the detachment consisted of German prisoners. Two Czech and three Polish prisoners held as Custody Prisoners were added to the sub-camp Ehrengut.

  

The former prisoner Bodeslaw M. recalls that the commando Ehrengut was initially taken  daily from Dachau by truck to work in Munich and only a few months later, a permanent sub-camp was established on the company premises. This means that as early as April 1942, a detainee work team was busy there. All prisoners were employed as machine-operators in the sawmill in the production of military barracks components.

 The prisoners were housed in a barrack on the factory grounds. The food for the prisoners was delivered from the KZ-Dachau and prepared at Ehrengut. On the Sunday off work, prisoners were able to prepare additional food for themselves. Hermann Glinz, the German Schutzhaftling (Custody Detainee), was the Kapo of the sub-camp.
  
Commander of the sub-camp Ehrengut was SS-UbterscharführerTheodor Stutz-Zenner. The SS security team consisted of five SS members, who came from Romania and Bulgaria. They lived with the prisoners in the same barrack, but in separate rooms, while the commandant was quartered in the Residential house. Ill-treatment and inmate killings are not known.
In the middle of 1942, an inmate fled and the sub-camp Ehrengut was dissolved.
In the framework of the Dachau trial, Theodor Stutz-Zenner was sentenced to life imprisonment for his crimes in various Dachau's sub-camps in 1947.

Author German Text; Sabine Schalm

MUNICH -  GESTAPO

 
At the headquarters of the Secret State Police in Munich, which  housed in the Wittelsbacher Palace at the  Briennerstrasse 50, it was then that in June 1942 the KZ-prisoner Josef Eberl was employed as a caretaker. From 1943 to April, 1945, the work between Eberl and an  additional prisoner Xaver Schroll was divided while living there. Both were kept in prison cells in the basement. Apart from them, other prisoners from Dachau were employed as carpenters, electricians, or painters in the Wittelsbach Palace. There are no further details about these first KZ-prisoners at the Briennerstrasse.

 As a sub-camp proper, 'Munich-Gestapo' for the first time ten Dachau prisoners were taken there, who were transferred to the Briennerstrasse on the 13 June 1944. By April 1945 the sub-camp expanded to 50 prisoners and came from the German Reich, Italy, Yugoslavia, the Netherlands, Poland and Russia. The sub-camp was accommodated within the Wittelsbach Palace in a large hall with multi-storey bunk beds, the hall (Saal) was locked at night. In the cellar there was a kitchen and a bathroom, which were used by the prisoners. The catering was provided by the KZ-Dachau, the preparation had to be taken over by the prisoners themselves. The Gestapo Department was surrounded by a brick wall and fenced in with  barbed wire, controlled day and night by guards.

                                           
                                             Munich Residenz, Königsbau (2014) The former Royal Palace was bombed beyond use and rebuilt    as it is now

 The commando was headed by Kapo Karl Frey, who would strive vigorously for the well-being of his fellow prisoners. The detainees carried out mainly repairs and erected an air raid shelter in the Wittelsbach domain. In part, they were used outside to remove bombs, to extinguish fires, or remove the dead out of the rubble after air raids. A former truck driver  employed by the Gestapo remembers that he picked up prisoners in the courtyard of the Wittelsbach Palace in the mornings, took them to their place of work, and delivered them back again to the Briennerstrasse in the evening. In 1945 smaller groups of prisoners were used for bomb disposals. Several Polish and Russian prisoners were killed in January 1945 during the detonation of a duds, that in fact were fitted with time delays. From this sub-camp further detainees were killed during bomb clearings, but  their losses were replaced   with other prisoners from Dachau.

On 7 January 1945 seven prisoners were hanged in the park of the Wittelsbach Palace because of looting. An inmate had to act as a hangman and the remaining prisoners had to watch the hanging. Further executions and shooting of prisoners on the grounds of food theft or unauthorized absence from the workplace are known; misstatements by the SS security teams were the order of the day. [The looting properly took place after an air raid, warning signs were erected, that the Police would shoot at anyone found at bombed-out premises. this was nothing newsic]
 
The sub-camp Munich-Gestapo was under the command of Adolf Höfer. The guard detachment were composed of foreign SS members, who guarded the prisoners inside and outside the Wittelsbach Palace. Their treatment of detainees was brutal.

 On 25 April 1945 the sub-camp Munich-Gestapo was dissolved, the prisoners were returned to KZ-Dachau on foot. At the Landgericht (District Court) Munich, there were two proceedings dealing with the operations at the sub-camp. During  1963/64 it was claimed that the former prisoners Josef Eberl and Xaver Schroll abused one  of a Gestapo prisoners. The case was closed as no evidence could be provided. In the same way, in the 1976 proceedings against Adolf Höfer, (the former commandant) and other former members of the Gestapo were discontinued for lack of evidence for alleged killings.

Today there is a new building at Briennerstrasse 50, which houses the Volkstheater in addition to the Law Chancery of the, and is not identical with the location of the Wittelsbach Palace. The former address Briennerstrasse 50 is today's house number 20. The Wittelsbach Palace was abgerissen  (torn down) in 1964, where the Landesbank (State Bank) erected a new complex,  on its facade on which a memorial plague is placed, points to the former Gestapo's service building.

Author German Text: Sabine Schalm 


MUNICH - HÖCLSTRASSE

In the Höchlstrasse in the center of Munich, from October to December 1944, a prisoner commando was placed in a private villa. In the files this sub-camp was run under SS-Standort-Verwaltung (Local Administration)) Höchlstrasse. According to a former prisoner Conrad Klug, it consisted of 18 craftsmen, who had to do clean ups after air attacks on Munich.

 The commando consisted of political prisoners of different nationalities and members of the faith community of Jejovas' Witnesses. Details on the accommodation, meals and treatment of the prisoners, as well as details of SS staff, are not known. 

Lists of transfers from KZ-Dachau for the months of October and November 1944, indicates that 20 prisoners were gradually assigned to the sub-camp Höchlstrasse, wile from the  main camp, only five prisoners returned during the existence of this camp. It remains unclear whether sub-camp survivors have died and whether they have been  substituted from the main camp or just increased the strength of the commando. Conrad Klug reported that the working detail was dissolved in December 1944, and that part of the prisoners were transferred to the sub-camp Garmisch. According to the International Search Service in Arolsen, the sub-camp Höchlstrasse was last mentioned on 28 December 1944.
In 1973, the Central Office of the District Court Administration in Ludwigsburg initiated investigations into the activities at the  Höchlstrasse camp. Since no violent crimes or killings could be proved, the procedure was terminated in 1974.

Author German Text: Sabine Schalm


  MUNICH - KATASTROPENEINSATZ

 Between the 5th February 1945 and 21st April 1945 consisted the sub-camp 'catastrophic deployment' in Munich. It is not possible to establish the exact locality  of this sub-camp. however, up to 85 prisoners were placed in a cellar of a bombed-out house and used to defuse dud bombs after air raids on the city area. The so called camp consisted of prisoners of different nationalities, mainly Russians, Poles and Czechoslovaks. To keep control and order were the German Custody Prisoners (Schtzhäftlinge) Werner Ascher and Otto Höringer as Kapo and assistant kapo. The prisoners slept in multiple tiered  beds and were guarded by ten SS members and a commanding officer. The work orders for the commando would be conveyed to the commandant personally by Karl Fiehle, the Bürgermeiter (mayor) of Munich at that timer.
 
The high mortality rate of the detainees is known from other operating teams, defusing duds in Munich, because they were sent to their mission without specialist training and adequate safety precautions,
On April 20, 1945, 28 prisoners and one day later further eleven prisoners from the sub-camp were brought back to the KZ-Dachau and the camp was dissolved
In 1973, the Central Office of the District Court in Ludwigsburg initiated a procedural inquiry, which was discontinued in 1976 in the absence of any clear indications.

Author German Text: Sabine Schalm


MUNICH - LEBENSBORN

 In the spring of 1942 the SS 'Lebensborn' consortium acquired from the Reichsvereinigung (State Incorporation) of Jewish property in Germany the former Jewish Old Peoples Residence at Mathildenstrasse 8-9 in Munich. Here, services of the 'Lebensborn'-Administration were established. On June 15, 1942, there was a sub-camp of the KZ-Dachau domiciled, which consisted of 20 prisoners, mostly Polish, Austrians, Czechs and Germans. In September 1942, the commando increased to 40 prisoners. They were housed in a dwelling with the window panes painted over. An SS detachment guarded the building.

]First, the prisoners rebuilt the bomb-damaged building of Mathildenstrasse. Some of the prisoners also worked at different places in the city on other construction sites. Thus a survivor reported that he had been deployed with a small commando in the Hermann-Schmid-Strasse during repair work. In the number 5 estate there was a former Jewish hospital, which Lebensborn had also acquired in 1942 and rebuilt into office departments.. But the prisoners were also used for reconstruction and bunker building work for the private apartment of the Munich Lebensborn, SS leader Max Stollmann. From Monday to Saturday they worked from six o'clock in the morning to seven o'clock in the evening, on Sundays until noon.

 The SS staff consisted of a commanding officer and five SS guards. The first commander was an SS man named Bederlein, his successor was Noll. The last commanding officer, SS Unterscharführer, was the most brutal in relation with the prisoners, who was apparently ordered to go to Munich no later than the autumn of 1943. The head of the Lebensborn, Max Schollmann, gave instructions on the work-assignments to the Commando-Führer and was in return informed about all events in the sub-camp. Contacts between prisoners and employees of the Lebensborn were strictly forbidden. Hans Rohr, the custodian prisoner, was a Kapo. He was described as brutal and cruel by survivors. Piotr K., a former prisoner, reported that Hans Rohr had once pushed him out of a window from the first floor and had beaten him several times. The Red Spain Fighter, Hermann Rathering, since June1943 Kapo did not strike his fellow prisoners. Abuse by SS members for minor offenses were the order of the day. Prisoners weakened as a result of beatings  or being sick were transferred back to the Stammlager Dachau and replaced by new workers.
Killings of prisoners  are are not known to have taken place at the sub-camp 'Lebensborn'.

 After the destruction of the service buildings during air raids between 11 and 13 July 1944, the Enterprise 'Lebensborn' was relocated to Steinhöring in the following weeks. The prisoners also went to Steinhöring and the sub-camp existed there under the designation 'RFSS Personal Staff Office' until shortly before the end of the war.A number of survivors of the sub-camp 'Lebensborn' were interviewed in an investigation by the Central Office in Ludwigsburg between 1973 and 1975. The case is closed. Today, the eye clinic of the university clinic is located in Mathildenstrasse in the Central Bu sines District of Munich. 

Author German Text: Sabine Schalm

 
Sources/Acknowledgements:                                                   
Wikipedia
Der Ort des Terrors, Pages 400-

Vol 2 C.H.Beck, München 2005

Translated from German by:

Herbert Stolpmann von Waldeck

Design:d-stolpmann@gmail.com                                                          Continued under Part 14

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DACHAU KZ - SATELLITE CAMPS - PART 12 Alphabetical Order M

     

DACHAU KZ - SATELLITE CAMPS - PART 12 Alphabetical Order M

                              

                                    

                        DACHAU KZ - SATELLITE CAMPS - PART 12
                                                   Alphabetical Order

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 MUNICH (AGFA KAMERAAWERKE

At Tegernsee Landsdstrasse 61 in Munich, since 1927, the headquarters of the "Aktiengesellschaft Anilun Fabriktion" have been located, for short it was called 'Agfa Kamerawerkre'. The company was founded in Berlun in 1867, taken over by Bayer AG, Leverkusen in 1927, and integrated into the IG Farben, which was associated with Rayer AG. Since 1928, only laboratory instruments have been produced in the Munich camera factory. Over the past few years, the Munich management and research departments have been there it's operation. In November 2004 assets of the company were sold to German and American investors. In 2005, the company announced its insolvency.

                                                                     

                           

                                         1867 - 1904: The Early Years

Both Agfa and Gevaert were established in the nineteenth century. Business boomed and soon the original premises became too small.

 During the second world war, the optical and precision mechanical production of the camera works was converted to  a war economy and produced ignition timing devices for bombs, artillery ammunition and V-1 and V-2 rockets; they used every opportunity to sabotage the production. In January 1945, citing the lack of food, the prisoners conducted a strike, an unheard-of action in a concentration camp. As a result in change of production, the Agfa camera factory was considered a war-time operation and since 1942 more than 800 foreign forced laborers had been working there as a  a prisoner commando from KZ-Dachau. On 13 September 1944, 500 women from the KZ-Ravensbrück were brought to Munich to work. At the end of October 1944, the subcamp changed again, but the number of prisoners remained around 500 inmates. Those kept mainly in this subcamp came from Poland, Holland as well as women from the Ukraine and France.


                            

                           Women prisoners from Ravensbrück that came to Munich

 Their plight in Ravensbrück
About five hundred prisoners from Eastern and Southeastern Europe, mainly Poland, arrived from Ravensbrück concentration camp on 13 September 1944. Little is known about the Polish women except that many of them were taken as slave labor in reprisal for the 1943 Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. Ludwig Eiber mentions a forty-year old Polish women who died on 7 October 1944.^] In December 1944, after a Christmas party, two of these prisoners escaped, dressed as Josef and Maria in some borrowed clothing. According to an unconfirmed account of Leni Leuvenberg, twenty Polish women were killed during a bombing on 25 February 1945.
In October 1944, 250 Polish prisoners were sent back to Ravensbrück, in exchange for 193 Dutch women, ten women from other West European countries and fifty women from Eastern and Southeastern Europe. Among the latter were twenty-one Slovenian political prisoners, mostly (communist) Yugoslav Partisans. The Dutch women arrived on October 15, 1944 from Ravensbrück where they had arrived in September from the Dutch concentration camp Vught. Most had been active in the resistance and had formed bonds already in Vught. They were a cohesive, supportive group; they marched singing into the cattle cars in Vught and walked singing into Ravensbrück concentration camp.
Out of the 193 Dutch women, only two died just before the war's end. In comparison, a third of the Dutch women that stayed behind in Ravensbrück did not survive.

The accommodation of the women was a three-storeyed Wiohnhaus (dwelling), which was not yet completed, located in today's Weissenseestrasse 7-15 in Munich. A survivor of this KZ-sub camp recalled that the house was also home to civilian workers. Apart from the standard two-storey beds, there were only a few wooden tables and stools in the apartments. On the ground floor was a Revier (Hospital) for sick inmates. Next to the house there was a barrack, where the kitchen and the dining room were installed. The camp was fenced-in with barbed wire and four watchtowers.

 Commander of subcamp's Agfa camera works was SS Untersturmführer Kurt Konrad Stirnweis. In February 1945, the Latvian Alexander Djerin came to the Weissenseestrasse as deputy commandant. His predecessor is not known by name. On the one hand, the commanders are portrayed as being  strict and dutifully, on the other hand, several prisoners wrote thanksgiving letters to Kurt Konrad Stirnweis after the war, because he had worked for the women for better conditions. In addition to the two commanding officers, there were ten SS-female Aufseherinnen (Warden) and one Ober-Aufseherin  as the superior over her team and the women in the subcamp.
Above all, an older warden of them with the name Richter beat the women frequently. Yet the entire SS guards were lodged with the prisoners in the sane dwelling-house.

 The hygienic conditions in the camp were inadequate, only once a week the women received warm water. In the prisoners' revier (hospital) the women were able to recover temporarily when the prison doctor Ella Lingens issued a bed card and they did not have to go to work. But there were also serious diseases such as stomach-typhus, scarlet fever, tuberculosis, and most important scabies. The women, who fell ill for a longer period, were transferred back to the KZ-Dachau.
[ Ella Lingens was a doctor who was in Auschwitz as a political prisoner and spent several months in the Agfa-Commando, she died November 2002 in Vienna.sic].

 Most of the women suffered under the deficient food and the cold. They had no coats in the winter, only a few blankets and almost no fire wood. They were particularly cold because the windows of the dwelling-house were destroyed after air raids, and they were no longer protected from wind and cold. Frequently, the sleeping mattresses were covered with snow. Because of the lack of food, the thieving from the potato cellar in the basement of the Wohnhaus became a habit and  was due to the lack of food. The portions became even less after X-mass 1944 and condition became worse on a daily basis ever since, so that the Dutch women protested against the lack of food.They stopped the assembly line in Agfawek and refused to work. The commandant was very angry, had the names of the strikers listed,and wrote a report to Berlin. As a 'ringleader' the Dutch Johanna Maria Vaders was suspended and in January 11945 sentenced for seven weeks in the Dachau bunker.

THE STRIKE

In January, 1945 the 14-mile (23 km) road from the main camp in Dachau had become impassable as a result of the Allied bombings. The meals now became the responsibility of the Agfa management. The soup deteriorated by the day, and few women were spared digestive problems and complications from undernourishment. Disease was rampant: there were outbreaks of typhoid fever, scarlet fever and tuberculosis. Conditions at the main camp were no better; as the war drew to a close, Dachau became increasingly overcrowded with prisoners evacuated from other concentration camps. Consequently, transfer from the Agfa sub camp to the to the main camp's dispensary was close to a death sentence.
When the factory took over the distribution of the soup and started watering it down, while at the same time trying to raise the production quotas, the Dutch women spontaneously crossed their arms and stopped their work^] The other women joined the protest. Strikes were unheard of in the concentration camps, so this would lead to severe punishments. In the end the women made their point that they just could not work under the conditions of a starvation diet and constant bombing raids. The chief Gestapo agent Willy Bach came down from the headquarters in Dachau and tried to find the instigators, but no one came forward. In the end, Mary Vaders, who had arrived from Ravensbrück on October 15, 1944, was selected at random and incarcerated in the Dachau bunker cell for seven weeks of solitary confinement. She came back damaged but unbroken. The remaining Dutch and and other women were punished with hours standing in formation in the court yard.

The sub camp had two Polish Kapos and one camp-Elderly. Camp-Elderly was initially the Dutch Winni De Winter and later a young Dutchwoman. For the working session the women were taken by their SS-guards on foot to the Agfa camera factory in the Tegernseer Landstrasse about 20 minutes on foot. Civilian workers assigned to  them had to monitor the women during work hours, [mainly to check for sabotages,sic] . The prison women were employed in the production of aircraft parts for the Luftwaffe. Kazimiera St. had to produce capsules and rinse them with a corrosive liquid. Most women worked at least twelve hours, if they did not reach the given standard even longer.

 There was no abuse of  prisoners in the camera factory. As an  armaments company it was often a target of air raids, while the Germans' fellow members of the Luftwaffe stayed in the security of shelters, the prisoners were locked up in the factory halls. They could not protect themselves from collapsing wood or sheet metal parts and bursting window panes. Many of them were injured in air raids in the Camera plant. Although some of them did stay in the basement of the factory,  They also used their stay in the basement of the factory during the bombing to urinate into the oil and thus make the machines break down. [It was not feasible to provide shelters for KZ inmates or for that matter for  POW's either.sic]

 An Ukrainian woman tried to flee once, but was quickly caught again. Before she was transferred to the Stammlager (Main Camp) Dachau after a few days, she was held as a punishment without food, right beside the food distribution. Then a young Russian girl broke out of the camp, but returned after a few days, because she could find nothing edible and no support in keeping her hidden.
On 27 April 1945 the camp Agfa camera works was evacuated. Commander-in-chief, with approximately 500 women and  his deputy Djerin and ten SS-female wardens led them in a  southerly direction. In Wolfratshausen the women refused to carry on, and sought shelter in a barn. On the following night, the guards fled, and the next morning, May 1, 1945, the women were liberated by American troops.
THE EVENTS LEADING TO FREEDOM 
 As the war drew to a close and American TROOPSl began to encircle the region, production at the factory halted on 23 April 1945. The Allied bombings and the advance of the Allied forces had cut off the supplies of raw material and distribution of the products. The camp commander was ordered to evacuate the prisoners and begin their death march in a southerly direction The women were given a small sausage and a piece of bread for the journey, with their standard bowl of soup for their previous evening meal. Against his SS-superiors' orders, Stirnweis halted the march on 28 April just outside the town of Wolfratshausen and further persuaded a farmer named Walser to shelter the five hundred remaining prisoners in his hayloft. Despite specific orders to the contrary, he did not resume the march, but let the women shelter in place until the American troops drew closer.
 On 1 May 1945 Stirnweis surrendered to the 12th Infantry Regiment of the 4th Infantry Division of the US Army and asked for protection of the prisoners. After about a week on the farmFöhrenwald. This was the largest and longest-lived resettlement camp in post-war Europe. From Föhrenwald, the women were repatriated by the Red Cross.

Trial of the camp commander 

Initially, and based on cursory evidence, Stirnweis was accused of participating in cruelties and criminal usage of prisoners of war and civilians and sentenced to two years of labor after the war. However, the testimony of many of the women revealed no evidence of atrocities committed at the work detail at Agfa Camera works. According to former prisoners' testimony, sub-camp commander Lieutenant Kurt Konrad Stirnweis was a reasonable man. His sentence was abrogated upon the testimony of his former charges.

His deputy, a 29-year-old Latvian named Alexander Djerin,was sentenced to six years imprisonment for his cruel treatment of the prisoners, commencing 9 May 1945. Although there was no suggestion in the trial records that Sergeant Djerin had mistreated the women, he was convicted of mistreatment of prisoners during his work at Dachau.

Author German Text: Sabine Schalm

MUNICH - BOMB DISPOSAL COMMANDO

                                                                              

In October 1940, Adolf  Hitler ordered to  use inmates of concentration camps and prisoners of all kinds to remove  Allied bombs, duds, and long-term detonating devices. Above all in the last two years of  the war, prisoners from the KZ-Dachau were used to retrieve duds or those having ignitions with long-term detonators installed.
In July 11944, a bomb search commando of 100 prisoners was used for this purpose and taken to the   the gymnasium of the Stielerschule in Munich on the  Bavaria-Ring / Stielerstrasse 6. The prisoners had been selected by the camp management in Dachau and had been dressed before their transport to Munich with new prisoner suits. On leaving  the prisoners were not aware of their task. They were told that it was a clearing - up commando, which was to be used for debris removal or damaged building safety

                                    
                                      
.                                           The Bavaria with the Ruhmeshalle, opened in 1850


 When they arrived at the Stielerschule, they were promised to be relieved of intensive punishment (Erleichterung), or even to be  released from their internment, but they were threatened with execution for theft, attempted escape or contact with the civilian population. Then they were taken to the Roman Road, a reporting office for bomb locations for a brief intensive instruction and divided into smaller six groupings. Then the prisoners divided themselves again into individual teams, and were driven by Feuerwerker (Disposal Experts)  of the Wehrmacht to their assignments in the urban area, to defuse bombs without knowing how.Yet an inmate remembers that he defused 246 bombs.

    

  Flying Fortresses of the 303rd bomber group (Hell’s Angels) drop a heavy load on industrial      targets in Germany.

Reports by the Luftschutzkommando Süd (South) show that a Feuerwerker of the Wehrmacht was in charge and was supported by an SS post to guard the prisoners. Sometimes members of the  police were employed as guards.
                                                                       
                                                         

                                 
                                                    Dud bombs unearthed by Disposal Teams

 Hitler and Mussolini before one of the Honor Temples at Königsplat


Most detainees died while removing the detonators of the bombs or during the explosions of the duds, which detonated without the assistance of the Feuerwerker, as the detonator was set to a certain time limit had run out and explosion took place. Up to 15 prisoners were killed daily in their work. The KZ-Dachau replaced these casualty's always with new prisoners. Because of the high losses, the prisoners themselves gave this assignment the name 'Hinnelfahrtskommando'. How many inmates had to defuse bombs in this while staying in this sub camp between July 1944 and April 1945, and how many of them were killed can not be reconciled. That it was very grave to be classified for the bomb search commando, it  was well known as to the dangers among the prisoners in the Stammlager of Dachau



   
 

 Destroyed Siegestor 1945

 Because of the work outside fixed camp limits, the danger of escape was great. From an escape attempt of Hans Busche, who was kept in Protective Custody,  on 16 September 1944 a report by the  Schutzpolizei Section Ccommand South indicates that Busche could not be found even after an extensive search. His remaining whereabouts is unknown.

 There are no indications on the closure of the sub camp at the Stielerschule. It is, however, certain that, up to the end of the war, that the bomb disposal within the greater area of Munich was carried out by prison inmates from Dachau.
The investigations of the office of the Landesjutiz Administration in Ludwigsburg during the years 1973/74 remained unsuccessful. In 1989, a commemorative plaque for the detainees of the Bombensuchkommando was installed at the Stielerschule.

Author German Text: Sabine Schalm 


Sources/Acknowledgements:                                                   
Wikipedia
Der Ort des Terrors, Pages 389-

Vol 2 C.H.Beck, München 2005

Translated from German by:

Herbert Stolpmann von Waldeck

Design:d-stolpmann@gmail.com                                                                                                     Continued under Part 13