Behind the Curtain

 

On our recent travels thru Eastern Europe I ticked-off a bucket list item.  A visit to a Nazi concentration camp.  Sachsenhausen to be exact. 

This was an emotionally exhausting visit; I needn't do this again.  Although I would recommend everyone make a similar pilgrimage in their lifetime.

Construction of the camp began in 1936 with its proximity to Berlin making it not only the administrative and training center for the Schutzstaffel (the SS) but a showcase camp for visiting members of the axis powers.  It was at this camp that the most efficient methods of execution were perfected before export to other Nazi death camps.  Himmler called Sachsenhausen a completely new concentration camp for the modern age.

Small scale trials were conducted here that would become larger in scale including the design of gas chambers and crematoria.  It was here that the first use of gas vans was launched.

crematoria ovens

The camp also contributed slave labor to the German war effort including a brick factory and aircraft manufacturer Heinkel for production of the He 177 bomber.  It was at this camp that Operation Bernhard was conducted.  Prison artisans designed and produced forged American and British currency in the largest currency counterfeiting endeavor to date.  Designed to undermine the economies of both countries these notes remained undiscovered as they were introduced into circulation in 1943 and are highly prized by collectors today.  

morgue in the medical experimentation facility

It is estimated that more than 50,00 inmates died at Sachsenhausen from causes that included malnutrition, disease, torture and abuse, medical experimentation and execution. Famously, high value prisoners such as captured allied special operations and commando units, resistance fighters, dissidents from both domestic and occupied territories.  Famous political prisoners included Stalin's oldest son, Yakov Dzhugashvili, assassin Herschel Grynszpan, French Prime Minister Paul Reynaud, Spanish Prime Minister Francisco Largo Caballero, the Bavarian Crown Prince's family and Ukrainian Nationalist Stepan Bandera.

At least 30,000 Russian POWs were executed at this camp. 

execution trench

With the advance of the Red Army in the spring of 1945 Himmler ordered the execution of all of the camp inmates and the camp began to evacuate prisoners by means of a forced march to other camp locations.  Most perished of exhaustion or execution at the hands of the SS.  The remaining 3400 inmates were liberated by Soviet and US Army forces on April 22, 1945. 

In 1947 fourteen of the camp's officials, including former commandant Anton Kaindl and camp doctor Heinz Baumkötter and a couple of Kapos were brought before a Soviet Military Tribunal in Berlin.  All sixteen were found guilty and sentenced to life at hard labor.  They served their time in the harsh conditions of a Siberian camp with six perishing (including Kaindl) within a few months.  In 1956, those who were still alive were repatriated to Germany.

In March 2009 Josias Kumpf, 83 was deported from Wisconsin to Austria after he was identified as an SS guard at Sachsenhausen.  In May of 2022 a trial commenced in Germany against another SS guard, Josef Schütz.  He died in April of this year at the age of 102.

As a consequence of being located in the Soviet occupation zone after the war the Russians used the camp to house upwards of 60,000 German officers, Nazi functionaries and their own political prisoners and dissidents.  With the founding of the German Democratic Republic in 1950 remaining inmates were transported to Russia or other Nazi concentration camps in East Germany.  It is estimated at least 12,000 inmates perished from malnutrition and abuse during this post-war period.

With the fall of communist East Germany it was possible to conduct excavations of Sachsenhausen.  In 1990 the bodies of 12,500 victims of the Soviet period were found in several mass graves.  Most were children, adolescents and elderly.

Today the SS barracks and headquarters buildings remain in use as a training facility for the German national police force and living reminder of the brutality that took place here.

Never again