BRAVO Fortress Europe4 Germany Magazine

BRAVO GERMANY

FORTRESS EUROPE 2

Sachsen, Schleswig-Holstein, Brandenburg, Berlin

The Reichstag The Reichstag building is a historical edifice in Berlin, Germany, constructed to house the Reichstag, parliament of the German Empire. It was opened in 1894 and housed the Reichstag until 1933, when it was severely damaged in a fire supposedly set by Dutch communist Marinus van der Lubbe. During the Nazi era, the few meetings of members of the Reichstag as a group were held in the Kroll Opera House. After the Second World War the Reichstag building fell into disuse as the parliament of the German Democratic Republic met in the Palace of the Republic in East Berlin and the parliament of the Federal Republic of Germany met in the Bundeshaus in Bonn.

The building was made safe against the elements and partially refurbished in the 1960s, but no attempt at full restoration was made until after the reunification of Germany on October 3, 1990, when it underwent reconstruction led by internationally renowned architect Norman Foster. After its completion in 1999, it became the meeting place of the modern German parliament, the Bundestag.

The Reichstag as a parliament dates back to the Holy Roman Empire and ceased to act as a true parliament in the years of the Nazi regime (1933– 1945). In today’s usage, the German term Reichstag or Reichstagsgebäude (Reichstag building) refers to the building, while the term Bundestag refers to the institution.

Jüdisches Museum Berlin Lindenstraße 9–14 10969 Berlin Tel: +49 (0)30 259 93 300

North Rhine-Westphalia is the westernmost, province of Germany and includes the entire Ruhr Valley. The capital city is Düsseldorf, and the largest city is Cologne (Köln).

The following cities/towns have WW2 attractions/museums; Bonn/Bad Godesberg, Vossenack, Losheim, Wesel, Soest, Essen, Warburg, Dortmund, Siegen, Buren/Wewelsburg, Schleiden.

Rhineland-Palatinate WWII venues are located in AbteiHerneskeil, Hinzert-Polert, Irrel, Koblenz, Osthofen, Remagen am Rhein, Speyer.

Saarland is the smallest German state.The capital is Saarbrücken.

The state borders France and did not exist before WWI. In 1933, a considerable number of communists and other political opponents of National Socialism fled to the Saar, as it was the only part of Germany that remained under foreign occupation following the First World War. see Dillingen Saar, Sinz and Schwalbach.

Hessen WW2 attractions are located Edersee, Guxhagen and Frankfurt am Main.

Baden-Württemberg is in the southwestern part of the country and WW2 sites to see are in Bietigheim/Bissingen, Gomadingen, Hadamar, Hartheim, Leonberg,

Kiel Kiel

Schleswig-Hols Schleswig-Hol

Ham Ham

Bremen Bremen

Niedersachsen Niedersachsen Hanover Hanover

Nordrhein-Westfalen Nordrhein-Westfalen Dusseldorf Dusseldorf

Koln Koln

Bonn Hessen Hessen Frankfurt Frankfurt Wiesbaden Wiesbaden Mainz Mainz

Rhineland-Pfalz Rhineland-Pfalz Saarland Saarland Saarbrucken Saarbrucken

Stuttgart Stuttgart

Baden-Wurttemberg Baden-Wurttemberg

lstein stein

Mecklenburg-Vorpommern Mecklenburg-Vorpommern Schwerin Schwerin

mburg mburg

Berlin Potsdam Potsdam

Brandenburg Brandenburg

Magdeburg Magdeburg

Saxony-Anhalt Saxony-Anhalt

Leipzig Leipzig Dresden Dresden Erfurt Erfurt

Sachsen Sachsen

Thuringia Thuringia

Nurnberg Nurnberg

Bayern Bayern

Munich Munich

Heidelberg, Kochendorf, Dettenheim, Rastatt, Sinsheim, Stuttgart and Schwabisch Hall.

Bavaria is located in the southeast of the country. The capital is Munich. Munich and Nuremberg became Nazi strongholds under the Third Reich. Thuringia is known as the “green heart of Germany”, due to the dense forest that covers the area; visit Arnstadt, Ohrdruf, Kahla, Merkers Kieselbach, Nordhausen and Weimar.

In Sachsen see Dresden, Pirna, Augustusberg, Bautzen, Hohnstein and Colditz.

Sachsen-Anhalt has three towns with WWII tourism, they are Bernburg, Langenstein and Prettin.

In Niedersachsen visit Bremmerhaven, Emden, Guxhaven, Altenbruch, Sandbostel, Rekum, Munster, Oerbke, Lohheide, laatzen, Moringen and Wolfsburg.

Schleswig-Holstein see Hamburg, Laboe and Ahrensbok.

Mecklenburg is where Peenemunde is located.Brandenburg includes Berlin, Ravensbruck, Sachsenhausen, Wunsdorf and Carin Hall.

CONTENTS Thuringia Arnstadt 17

Merkers-Kieselbach 23

Ohrdruf 19

Nordhausen 25

Kahla 21

Weimar 27

Sachsen Dresden 35

Bautzen 39

Pirna 37

Hohnstein 40

Augustusberg 38

Colditz 41

Saxony-Anhalt Berburg 45 Langstein 47 Prettin 48

Niedersachsen Bremmerhaven 53

Munster 61

Emden 55

Oerbke 62

Cuxhaven 56

Lohheide 63

Altenbruch 57

Laatzen 65

Sandbostel 58

Moringen 66

Rekum 59

Wolfsburg 67

Schleswig-Holstein Hamburg 73

Ahrensbok 76

Laboe 75

Mecklenburg-Vorpommern Peenemunde 81

Prora 83

Wobbelin 82

Brandenburg Berlin 89

Wunsdorf 103

Waansee 99

Ehrenhain 104

Seelow 100

Bandenburg an der Havel 105

Gorgast 101

Oranienburg 107

Reitwein 102

Ferstenberg/Havel 107

TOPOGRAPHIE DES TERRORS

Dokumentationszentrum Topographie des Terrors Niederkirchnerstraße 8 10963 Berlin Telefon 030 254509-50

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FORTRESS EUROPE GERMANY (2) GUIDE 2024

Kiel

Schleswig-Holstein

Mecklenburg-Vorpommern Schwerin

Hamburg

Bremen

Niedersachsen

Berlin Potsdam

Hanover

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise,without the prior permission in writing of the copyright holder.

Brandenburg

Magdeburg

Saxony-Anhalt Nordrhein-Westfalen

Leipzig

Dusseldorf

Dresden Koln

Erfurt

Bonn

Sachsen

Thuringia Hessen Frankfurt Wiesbaden Mainz

Rhineland-Pfalz Saarland

Nurnberg

Saarbrucken

Bayern Stuttgart

Baden-Wurttemberg Munich

All efforts have been made to provide updated information regarding businesses included in this publication.

Front Cover Photo:

Best, Christopher ISBN

Published and bound in China www.issuu.com/ metroguides Warfleet Press 1038 East 63rd Ave. Vancouver BC V5X2L1

Dear Readers!

We hope you enjoy your adventure into the past with our Fortress Europe Guide on Germany. The guide is a memorial to all those who died and a reminder for the future, lest we forget. Since the fall of the Iron Curtain, many city museums have opened up across Germany. These museums, Documentation Centres and memorials remember what happened in each locale during the years 1935 through 1945. Walk in the footsteps of the leaders of the Third Reich and follow the victorious Allies as they freed fortress Europe from the horror of the holocaust and the Nazi regime. www.adventure-guides.ca

Rosenthaler Straße 39 Berlin, Germany m.me/annefrankzentrum Call +49 30 288865600

Berlin’s Underworld Museum

Brunnenstraße 105 13355 Berlin +49 30 25 00 23 33

Thuringia Arnstadt 17 Ohrdeuf 19 Kahla 21 Merkers-Kieselbach 23 Nordhausen 25 Weimar 27

ARNSTADT

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Jonastal Underground Complex

In April 1945, more than 100 Russian POW’s were murdered in the camp. The camp was liberated by American Forces in April 1945.

A number of mass graves were discovered.

In Germany a lot of people are searching in the “Jonastal” (ex DDR area) for the laboratories under the earth in which the first atomic bomb should have been built.

LEFT: Hemmingway in uniform

Jonastal Documentation Center

Rehestädter Weg 4 , 99310 Arnstadt

03628-58 90 83 www.gtgj.de

Thuringia

From 6/44 November to the beginning of April 1945, there was a camp in the Jonastal. It was named Schwalbe III and was a satellite camp of concentration camp Buchenwald. From 14 November to 15 January 1945, it was even an independent concentration camp.

Tens of thousands of inmates had to work to build 25 tunnels, with a total length of 2300 metres in the mountains. Many of them died.

18

“First atomic bomb was German?”

There are a number of declassified documents from West German and DDR archives which indicate the importance of the Ohrdruf site in the last months of the war. In particular, it is beyond doubt that it was to be the last Fuhrer HQ. Allied files on Ohrdruf are closed for a minimum of 100 years, which suggests the importance of the location. Colonel Allen, Patton’s adjutant, described the fantastic underground locations in his book “Lucky Forward” published in 1947 - I will quote you the extract if you like - and that is the last we ever hear of them.

According to the DDR documents, it seems clear that some kind of extraordinary explosive substance was tested at Ohrdruf on 4th and 12th March 1945 and that an A9/10 30-metre long rocket was test fired there later that same month.

Eye-witness reports about the effects of this explosive do not encourage one to believe that it was “atomic” although popular writers (and publishers!) (and TV documentary makers!) in Germany and elsewhere have recently climbed aboard the “German atomic device” band-waggon.

Patton’s 3rd Army took the Ohrdruf region around 7th April 1945. Patton was surprised at the level of resistance he encountered, and at the fact that the Germans had put up veteran SS mountain troops to oppose him. This was 6th SS Division “Nord”. These troops were used to gain time to blow up the underground installations at Ohrdruf.

The sudden increase in American weapons-grade uranium stocks in June 1945 has led to speculation that the extra must have come from German arsenals. This is uninformed nonsense. To understand about the American A-bombs one has to bear in mind always the question of the detonation device.

Leading US atomic scientist Oppenheimer had calculated that between 50 kgs and 100 kgs weapons grade uranium was necessary for a Uranium bomb if detonated using the “gun-type trigger”. On the other hand, if an efficient “implosion fuse” were invented, a uranium bomb would only need 14 kgs. weapons-grade uranium. The plutonium bomb could only be detonated at all by implosion. No implosion device was invented until June 1945.

At the end of 1944, the United States had enough weapons grade uranium “for three atom bombs” according to military project head Lt-Gen Groves, but would not be able to explode them until “the end of 1945”. This means that by the end of 1944 they had about 42 kilos of weapons grade uranium, enough for three U-bombs with an implosion device, or half a bomb with a gun-type device. They also

OHRDRUF

19

The Ohrdruf Death Camp

Hiking At The Ohrdruf Military Training Area

Contact the Documentation Center Rehestädter Weg 4 , 99310 Arnstadt

Tel: 03628-58 90 83 www.gtgj.de

Thuringia

The Ohrdruf death camp located here was the first Nazi concentration camp to be liberated by the American Army, on 4 April 1945. According to a book written by the German historian Rainer Karlsch and published in 2005, Ohrdruf was one of two locations where the Nazi Diebner’s team has tested its nuclear energy project. During this process, according to Karlsch, prisoners of war were killed under the supervision of the SS. This claim is not universally accepted, yet, some findings near the town support it: signs of large excavations and blocked tunnels in the nearby Jonas Valley. The remains are located right behind one of the hills next to Ohrdurf, at about the same elevation as the town, which can suggest more tunnels exit at the town side too.

It could be the same site, where the Nazis constructed at the end of World War II, with the help of slave labour, the S III Führer Headquarters, a massive underground complex of long tunnels. This was reputedly to have been a centre for a final stand against the Allies, after a retreat from Berlin. This plan did not come to fruition.

20 (Coninued from page 18)

had plutonium, but could not set the bomb off.

The Manhattan Project was a failure until June 1945 in that it could make material for atomic bombs, but lacked the technical ingenuity to set them off.

In June 1945, the Manhattan Project finally came up with an implosion fuse known as the Electronic Bridging Wire. This was the brainchild of American physicist Alvarez in cooperation with Professor Schlicke, a German expert in electronics who had been aboard the captured submarine U-234.

The US now had the means of testing one, and dropping one, plutonium bomb, and of dropping probably three or four Uranium bombs using the new implosion fuse. It will be seen, therefore, that the large “increase in weapons grade uranium stocks” in June 1945 was due entirely to the discovery of the EBW implosion fuse.

General Beck Since 1935 General Beck was Chief of Staff of the Army. Initially he supported Hitler, but once he realized where Hitler’s expansion politics were going and he received the order for the occupation of the Czech Republic, he realized that this would be the end of Germany. In several memoranda and lectures he warned and attempted to avert the coming catastrophy. Finally he asked the entire General Staff to resign in protest in order to prevent the war. But his appeals went nowhere. Disillusioned he handed in his resignation in 1938. Beck joined the resistance and he participated in the planning of several assasssination attempts. He played a fundamental role in the assassination attempt of July 20, 1944. He led the occupation of the Bentler buildings in Berlin. Had the coup succeeded, he would have had a leading role in the new government. The assassination failed and Beck lost his life that same day.

LEFT: The Merkers area of the municipality is famous for its salt mine, in which large amounts of Nazi gold, and many stolen works of art were discovered by the United States Army in 1945. General Dwight D. Eisenhower himself went into the mine in April 1945 in order to examine the find.

KAHLA 21

“REIMAHG” At Walpersberg Mountain

the Gauleiter of Thuringia, Fritz Sauckel and Hermann Göring, Reichsmarshall of the German air force, the “REIMAHG” is founded.

The “REIMAHG” is part of the National-Socialist industrial organisation. Its “GustloffWerke” is in Weimar. Its purpose is the mass production of the Me262 jet fighter.

Stadtmuseum Kahla (Kahla City Museum)

Margarethenstraße 7, 07768 Kahla www.walpersberg.de

Thuringia

Adolf Hitler orders the transfer of militarily important production into subterranean facilities. The Thuringia area has an important role in the War, due to its location, military infrastructure, and the existing mines and tunnel systems. Of the 41 facilities registered, the Walpersberg had the best conditions for an underground production installation. Expropriation of the Kahlaer and Melzer sand quarry by the Reich ministry for Armament and War production.The sand quarry in Kahla has at this time a total mining surface of 10,000 m². Through the initiative of

22

Messerschmitt Me-262 Schwalbe / Sturmvogel One of the most remarkable advancements made by the German military in World War II was the production of turbine-jet aircraft. The most famous of these was the Messerschmitt Me 262, developed beginning in 1938 and fielded in 1944.

A special production facility was started in 1944, for quicker assembly line manufacture. Due to the setup at the main Messerschmitt factories, fast assembly line production was not possible, and these sites were vulnerable to Allied bombing.

Accordingly, a company called Flugzeugwerke Reichsmarschall Hermann Göring (REIMAHG for short) was formed as a subsidiary of the Gustloff Nazi industrial complex. REIMAHG eventually became concerned only with the Me 262, and its main production facility was located in an old porcelain sand mine in the Walpersberg Hill near Kahla (south of Jena) -- Codename “Lachs” (“Salmon”).

The existing tunnels in the Walpersberg were enlarged and others were dug, and massive concrete bunkers were built outside these tunnels. Subparts were made and partially assembled in the tunnels, then moved outside to the concrete bunkers, where final assembly took place. The assembled jets were then moved to the top of the hill via a platform that moved along a railed ramp by a power winch. The top of the Walpersberg had been leveled off and concreted in a massive construction effort, to form a runway some 3,300 feet long. This was not sufficient for an Me 262 to take off (even with the jet engines, take-off was actually fairly slow), so small rockets assisted take-off. The runway was also too short for the jets to land, so leaving the Walpersberg was an all-or-nothing proposition: there could be no emergency landings. The jets were flown from Kahla to a site some 130 kilometers away to be fitted with weapons and radios, and to undergo final testing.

REIMAHG only managed to produce some twenty-seven Me 262 jet fighters by the end of the war. The work was done mostly by foreign forced laborers, some 991 of whom died during their nine months at “Lachs.” The U.S. Army took the site on 12 April 1945, and before turning Thüringen over to the Soviets in July, they removed enough parts to finish five Me 262s that were found on the production line. Surprisingly, the Kahla area had not been bombed. British Intelligence had photographed Me 262s at the site in March 1945, so the Allies were well aware of “Lachs.” But Kahla was spared the fate of the V-2 works at Nordhausen, which suffered a devastating bombing attack only eight days before the American Army arrived.

MERKERSKIESELBACH

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Gold-Supply Of The German Reichsbank

Erlebnis Bergwerk Merkers / Underground Gold-Supply Merkers

Zufahrtstraße 1 36460 Merkers-Kieselbach

Phone: 0049(0) 175-4018489 www.down-under500.de

Thuringia

In the saltmines of Thüringen, on a depth of about 500 metres, the gold-supply of the German Reichsbank, as well as some works of art from German museums, was stored. It was discovered on 8 April 1945 by American troops, after the tip of a high bank-employee. The American Command decided to move the gold and the works of art to Frankfurt. It was a secret mission because the area belonged to the Russians. The convoy was graded by tanks and aircraft, but some gold disappeared and is still missing. The rooms where the gold was stored, is now part of an under ground event-complex. A small exhibit remembers its use during the Second World War.

24

MAP OF THURINGIA Merkers-Kieselbach

Weimar-Buchenwald

In the saltmines of Thüringen, on a depth of about 500 metres, the gold-supply of the German Reichsbank, as well as some works of art from German museums, was stored.

In 1937, the Nazis constructed the Buchenwald concentration camp, only eight kilometers from Weimar’s city center. The slogan Jedem das Seine (literally “to each his own”, but figuratively “everyone gets what he deserves”) was placed over the camp’s main entrance gate.

4 38

Nordhausen

38

4

Muhlhausen

176

Sommerda 71

Eisenach

4

84 Vacha Bad Merkers Salzungen

7

Gotha

L1054

85 ERFURT Weimar 7

E40 71 247 Ohrdruf Amstadt

4 Kahla 88

Kieselbach

62 Schmakalden

Meiningen

Hmenau Suhl

Rudolfstadt Saalfeld

Sonneberg

Altenburg

Apolda

Greiz

NORDHAUSEN 25

Mittelbau-Dora Concentration Camp

choice but to move the undertaking to regions less exposed to the air. A decision was made in favour of the tunnel system belonging to the Wirtschaftliche Forschungsgesellschaft (Wifo) in the Kohnstein mountain near Nordhausen in Thuringia.(Cont. on page 26)

KZ-Gedenkstätte Mittelbau-Dora, Dora-Nordhausen

Kohnsteinweg 20, 99734 Nordhausen www.dora.de/

Thuringia

The establishment of Mittelbau-Dora Concentration Camp was preceded by the development of the A4 rocket as a weapon of terror (later known by the propaganda designation “V-2”) in the Peenemünde army experimentation plant on the island of Usedom. A heavy air attack by the Royal Air Force on the night of August 18, 1943 brought A4 manufacture in Peenemünde to an abrupt halt. At the other two sites, production had also been at least adversely affected by Allied air raids the same summer. The bombing of Peenemünde gave the authorities no other

26 The Wifo had been in the process of building an oil and lubricant storage facility in the Kohnstein since 1936. By the time the first inmates arrived in August 1943, a large majority of the tunnels had already been completed, and the transport tunnels laid out with rails. The underground chambers were cleared out and altered by inmates to serve as a factory where the assembly of A4 rockets (V-2) began in January 1944.

In late February 1945, the Allied Chiefs of Staff discussed a proposed attack on the Nordhausen plant with a highly flammable petroleum-soap mixture:188 that had been used in the Pacific theatre to deeply penetrate buried strongpoints and scourge them with intense heat... Instead, the nearby city of Nordhausen was attacked with conventional bombs by two RAF Bomber Command night bombings on 2/3 & 3/4 April, the Mittelbau-Dora forced labor was evacuated on 4 April, and scientists evacuated to the Alpenfestung (English: Alpine Fortress). Contrary to Hitler’s order requiring demolitions on Reich Territory, the Nordhausen plant was evacuated without ABOVE: US soldier and captured damage.

Mittelwerk V-2 rocket motor

WEIMAR 27

Buchenwald Concentration Camp

Concentration Camp Buchenwald

lutstrasse, Weimar-Buchenwald

03643/4300 www.buchenwald.de

Thuringia

In 1937, the Nazis constructed the Buchenwald concentration camp, only eight kilometers from Weimar’s city center. The slogan Jedem das Seine (literally “to each his own”, but figuratively “everyone gets what he deserves”) was placed over the camp’s main entrance gate. Between July 1938 and April 1945, some 240,000 people were incarcerated in Buchenwald by the Nazi regime, including 168 Western Allied POWs. The number of deaths at Buchenwald is estimated at 56,545. The Buchenwald concentration camp provided slave labour for local industry (arms industry of Wilhelm-Gustloff-Werk). World War II ended with Nazi Germany’s defeat and division into East and West Germany. From 1945 to 1950, the Soviet Union used the occupied Buchenwald concentration camp to imprison defeated Nazis and other Germans. The camp slogan remained Jedem das Seine. On 6 January 1950, the Soviets handed over Buchenwald to the East German Ministry of Internal Affairs.

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Buchenwald Concentration Camp A visit to Buchenwald starts in Weimar. This lovely city is an inseparable part of the horrible story of the Concentration Camp (KZ). Here the prisoners arrived, just until March 1943. After that time Buchenwald had its own train station. Until 1940 the KZ victims were transported to the city’s crematorium because the Camp did not have one of its own. Many many other factors remind you of national socialism: the Marstall (the seat of the Gestapo), a garden fence in the Bauhausstrasse which has been made out of fence posts of the KZ, the city hall from where Hitler has addressed the inhabitants, etc.

From Weimar the Ettersburg Strasse leads towards Buchenwald. About two kilometers outside the city limits the Blutstrasse (Bloodstreet) commences, which has been constructed by prisoners. The road is partly still in its original state. About three kilometers further on you will find the Mahnmal (Memorial) with an enormous bell tower, the Street of the Nations (with all nationalities listed that have died in the Camp) and the cluster of statues representing the resistance in Buchenwald. This Mahnmal can be seen from far and beyond and serves as a warning against a repetition of what has been happening here. On the densely overgrown terrain nearby formerly the SS-garages were built as well as the Gustloff II arms factory. Thereafter you pass the former railway station of Buchenwald, the place where, from March 1943, thousands and thousands of prisoners arrived.

The stretch of road between the station and the entrance gate was, and still is, called the Carachoweg. Here the camp guards were housed. Still remaining are the refueling station, garages and some parts of the headquarters. The parking lot and the bus stop have been established on the former SS exercise place. A part of the former barracks is now being used as a cafeteria and an information centre.

The Concentration Camp itself has been demolished for the best part in spite of serious objections of the former prisoners. The Camp entrance gate with the block house has been preserved, together with some of the watch towers. The crematorium is still there. The former clothing storages nowadays contain an impressive permanent exhibition. All aspects of KZ Buchenwald are being detailed in clear explanatory wording. Many a lugubrious item can be inspected such as the lamp shade made out of a human skin. A similarly well built up exhibition of the Soviet Intern Camp has been established.

All this is certainly worth your visit. Entry is free of charge.

29

Thuringen When Hitler was in Weimar he stayed in the Haus Elephant Hotel on the Marktplatz, and he often greeted crowds and reviewed marching columns from the front of the hotel.

This photo was probably taken during the 1932 campaign.

RIGHT: Same location today.

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Operation Paperclip Operation Paperclip was the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) program used to recruit the scientists of Nazi Germany for employment by the United States in the aftermath of World War II (1939–45). It was executed by the Joint Intelligence Objectives Agency (JIOA), and in the context of the burgeoning Soviet–American Cold War (1945–91), one purpose of Operation Paperclip was to deny German scientific knowledge and expertise to the USSR and the UK. Although the JIOA’s recruitment of German scientists began after the European Allied victory (8 May 1945), US President Harry Truman did not formally order the execution of Operation Paperclip until August 1945. Truman’s order expressly excluded anyone found “to have been a member of the Nazi Party, and more than a nominal participant in its activities, or an active supporter of Nazi militarism.”

Said restrictions would have rendered ineligible most of the scientists the JIOA had identified for recruitment, among them rocket scientists Wernher von Braun and Arthur Rudolph, and the physician Hubertus Strughold, each earlier classified as a “menace to the security of the Allied Forces”.

To circumvent President Truman’s anti-Nazi order, and the Allied Potsdam and Yalta agreements, the JIOA worked independently to create false employment

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The Osenberg List Having failed to conquer the USSR with Operation Barbarossa (June–December 1941), the Siege of Leningrad (September 1941–January 1944), Operation Nordlicht (August–October 1942), and the Battle of Stalingrad (July 1942–February 1943), Nazi Germany found itself at a logistical disadvantage. The failed conquest had depleted German resources and its military-industrial complex was unprepared to defend the Großdeutsches Reich (Greater German Reich) against the Red Army’s westward counterattack. By early 1943, the German government began recalling from combat a number of scientists, engineers, and technicians; they returned to work in research and development to bolster German defense for a protracted war with the USSR. The recall from frontline combat included 4,000 rocketeers returned to Peenemünde, in north-east coastal Germany, The Nazi government’s recall of their now-useful intellectuals for scientific work first required identifying and locating the scientists, engineers, and technicians, then ascertaining their political and ideological reliability. Werner Osenberg, the engineer-scientist heading the Wehrforschungsgemeinschaft (Military Research Association), recorded the names of the politically-cleared men to the Osenberg List, thus reinstating them to scientific work.

PHOTO on NEXT PAGE: Colditz Castle https://theescapeline.blogspot.com/2016/

Thuringen

and political biographies for the scientists. The JIOA also expunged from the public record the scientists’ Nazi Party memberships and régime affiliations. Once “bleached” of their Nazism, the US Government granted the scientists security clearance to work in the United States. Paperclip, the project’s operational name, derived from the paperclips used to attach the scientists’ new political personæ to their “US Government Scientist” JIOA personnel files.

Sachsen Dresden 35 Pirna 37 Augususburg 38 Bautzen 39 Hohnstein 40 Colditz 41

DRESDEN 35

The Bombing Of Dresden

Militärhistorisches Museum der Bundeswehr

Olbrichtplatz 3, 01099 Dresden

+49 (0)351-8232803

www.militaerhistorisches-museum.bundeswehr.de

Sachsen

The bombing of Dresden by the Royal Air Force and the United States Army Air Force between 13 February and 15 February 1945 remains one of the more controversial Allied actions of the Western European theatre of war. The inner city of Dresden was largely destroyed by 800 RAF and USAF bombers that dropped 650,000 incendiaries and 8,000 pounds (3,600 kg) of high explosives and hundreds of 4,000 pounds (1,800 kg) bombs in three waves of attacks.

Early reports estimated 150,000 to 250,000 deaths, but the German Dresden Historians’ Commission, in an official 2010 report published after five years of research, concluded there were up to 25,000 civilian casualties.

36

MAP OF SACHSEN Augustusburg

Colditz

In this castle, built between 1568 and 1572, where established during the 30’s a concentration camp, refugee camp (1938) and Gauführerschool. Augustusburg concentration camp. (May 1933 - December 1935)

Colditz Castle is a castle in the town of Colditz near Leipzig, Dresden, and Chemnitz in the state of Saxony in Germany. Used as a workhouse for the indigent and a mental institution for over 100 years, it became notorious during World War II as Oflag IV-C, a prisoner-of-war camp for “incorrigible” Allied officers who had repeatedly escaped from other camps.

Hohnstein The castle of Hohnstein held 2 functions during World War 2, namely as concentration camp and POW camp.

Bad Duben Torgau Delitzsch

Lauta

Belgern

Eilenburg Wurzen

13 Ortrand

LEIPZIG Markransstadt

Pegau

Riesa 14 Grimma 107 Meissen Colditz Dobeln Coswig 176 Radebeul Borna Rochlitz Waldheim Mittweida

Greifendorf

Freiberg

4 4

Glauchau

CHEMNITZ

Aue Plauen

Falkenstein

Klingenthal Adorf

72

Zschopau 174 Marienberg Olbernhau Annaberg Buchholz

Schwarzenberg

Hoyerswerda Rothenburg

Bernsdorf

Niesky Kamenz

Pulsnitz

4

Bautzen

Radeberg Neustadt in Sachsen DRESDEN S164 Hohnstein Sebnitz 17 Freital S165 Pirna Konigstein

101 S236 Schmiedeberg Augustusberg

Crimmitschau

ZWICKAU

173

Weisswasser

Gorlitz

Lobau Ebersbach

Zittau

PIRNA 37

Nazi Murder Of Patients

Pirna-Sonnenstein Extermination Institution

Schlosspark 11, Pirna

+49 (0)3501 710960 www.stsg.de

Sachsen

The Nazis murdered between 1940 and 1941, 13, 720 predominantly mentally ill and mentally handicapped people. They were killed in the Nazi murder of patients, the so-called “Action T4”, in a gas chamber. Further, more died at this place in the summer of 1941, more than a thousand prisoners from Nazi concentration camps. Only since 1989, the almost forgotten mass murder penetrated gradually into the public consciousness. Citizens of the town of Pirna, and members of the victims were involved since 1991 in the “Trustees Memorial Sunstone e. V.” for the establishment of a memorial. In June 2000, the memorial at the historic site was opened. Since then to illustrate the memorial area and a permanent exhibition on the history of this place.

AUGUSTUSBERG 38

Gaufuhrer-School (1933 - May 1945) In this castle, built between 1568 and 1572, where established during the 30’s a concentration camp, refugee camp (1938) and Gauführer-school. Augustusburg concentration camp. (May 1933 - December 1935) The 120 prisoners of Augustusburg were forced to work in the road construction and quarries nearby. KZ Augustusburg was operated by the SS. The camp was closed in December 1935.

Gaufuhrer-school (1933 - May 1945) The director of this school was the NSDAP-politician Hans Seifert, who lived in this castle during the 30’s and 40’s. On 4 May the Red Army stood in front of the castle and started to bombard it.

Seifer and his personnel fled in a hurry.

Augustusburg Castle

Schloßstraße, Augustusburg

+49 037291 380-18 www.die-sehenswerten-drei.de

BAUTZEN 39

“Yellow Misery”

Prison Memorial Bautzen

Weigangstrasse 8A, 02625 Bautzen www.stsg.de

Sachsen

Bautzen is the symbol of political imprisonment in Germany. There are two prisons: Bautzen I, which is popularly known as “Yellow Misery” and Bautzen II, called “Stasi-prison” became famous. In both prisons were during the Nazi regime, imprisoned the Soviet occupation and communist dictatorship for political reasons under inhumane conditions. The Nazi dictatorship changed the concept of punishment. It should be hard for those affected and for the rest of societies deterrence.

Crime was seen as a disease in itself a healthy body politic. The prison life was determined by military drill, sparse food and dull work. Added to this was the Nazi racism. For repeat offenders, political prisoners, Jews, Sinti and Roma as well as generally “foreign” prisoners more and more special rules were introduced. Many of them were transferred to concentration camps. In late 1944 the prison was overcrowded with 1,600 inmates by a third. A further 700 prisoners were in four camps of the prison.

HOHNSTEIN 40

Concentration Camp And POW Camp The castle of Hohnstein held 2 functions during World War 2, namely as concentration camp and POW camp. KZ Hohnstein was in service from 14 March 1933 to 25 August 1934. The camp was established in the Hohnstein castle.

The prisoners (mainly communists) were forced to dig in the nearby stone quarry.

Many of them were killed by the SA/SS guards or committed suicide.

Oflag IV-A Hohnstein (1939-1945) Oflag IV-A was opened on 1, October 1939 to hold captured polish generals and staff members. Most of them were transferred on 15 May 1940 to Oflag IV-B Koenigstein. Hohnstein was liberated in April 1945.

Hohnstein Castle

Markt 1, 01848 Hohnstein

03597581202 www.burg-hohnstein.info

COLDITZ 41

For “incorrigible” Allied Officers

Museum Schloss Colditz

Tiergartenstraße 1, 04680 Colditz

034381/43777 /www.schloss-colditz.com/

Sachsen

Colditz Castle is a castle in the town of Colditz near Leipzig, Dresden, and Chemnitz in the state of Saxony in Germany. Used as a workhouse for the indigent and a mental institution for over 100 years, it became notorious during World War II as Oflag IV-C, a prisoner-of-war camp for “incorrigible” Allied officers who had repeatedly escaped from other camps. Oflag is a telescoping of the German words Offizier (officer) and Lager (camp). The castle has been renovated and turned into a museum with visits showing some of the escape tunnels built by prisoners of the Oflag during World War II. During 2006 and 2007, the castle continued to undergo a full restoration and refurbishment, sponsored largely by the state of Saxony. In the near future, part of the castle will remain an escape museum, with the former Kommandantur (German quarters) becoming a youth hostel and vacationers’ hotel.

42

Colditz Castle

After the outbreak of World War II the castle was converted into a high security prisoner-of-war camp for officers who had become security or escape risks or who were regarded as particularly dangerous. Since the castle is situated on a rocky outcropping above the Mulde river, the Germans believed it to be an ideal site for a high security prison.

The larger outer courtyard, known as the Kommandantur, had only two exits and housed a large German garrison. The prisoners lived in an adjacent courtyard in a 90 ft (27 m) tall building. Outside, the flat terraces which surrounded the prisoners’ accommodation were constantly watched by armed sentries and surrounded by barbed wire. Although known as Colditz Castle to the locals, its official German designation was Oflag IV-C and it was under Wehrmacht control.

Although it was considered a high security prison, it boasted one of the highest records of successful escape attempts. This could be owing to the general nature of the prisoners that were sent there; most of them had attempted escape previously from other prisons and were transferred to Colditz because the Germans had thought the castle escape-proof. One lavish scheme even included a glider that was kept in a remote portion of the castle’s attic, although it was never used because Germany surrendered to the Allies before the scheduled date of the planned escape.

Saxony-Anhalt Berburg 45 Langerstein 47 Prettin 48

BERNBURG

47

One Of Six “euthanasia” Institutions

Bernburg Extermination Institution

Olga-Benario-Straße 16/18, 06406 Bernburg 03471 - 31 98 16 www.gedenkstaette-bernburg.de

Saxony-Anhalt

Bernburg was in the era of National Socialism, one of six “euthanasia” institutions where sick and disabled people and prisoners were killed in concentration camps. Including the surviving gas chamber the basement today forms the core of the memorial to the victims of these killings.

From 1941 until April 1943 about 5,000 persons were killed in Bernburg, mainly Jews from the concentration camps Buchenwald, Flossenbürg, Groß-Rosen, Neuengamme, Ravensbrück and Sachsenhausen.

The buildings, not leased to T4, continued to operate as a regular mental institution during the whole period!

The site today houses a memorial to commemorate the suffering of more than 14,000 victims.

48

MAP OF SAXONY-ANHALT

Seehausen

Salwedel

Havelberg

Osterburg

Bismark

Klotze

Stendal

Gardelenon

Tangermunde

Haldensleben

Burg Mockem

MAGDEBURG

Schonebeck

Blankenburg

6

Gernrode

Stassfurt 14 Bernburg 185

6

Bosslau

e

Quedlinburg

Elb

Halberstadt

Wernigerode 81 Langenstein

Lutherstadt

DESSAU

Wittenberg 107 100 2 182 107 Grefenhaimichen

Kothen

Aschersleben

Zorbig

Wolfen

Harzgerode

Eisleben Sangerhausen

Coswig

HALLE

Merseburg Weissenfels Naumburg Zeitz

Pretzsch

Prettin

K8901

LANGENSTEIN 49

An Under-Camp Of Buchenwald

The purpose of the camp was for the prisoners to dig tunnels in the the hills of Thekenberge to hide the productions of the Junkers factories which were to build new types of jets and weapons V. Half, and in worst 3/4 of the deportees of Zwieberge did not return.

Concentration Camp Langenstein-Zwieberge

Vor den Zwiebergen 1, 38895 Langenstein

(03941) - 567324 www.sachsen-anhalt.de

Saxony-Anhalt

The Langenstein-Zwieberge concentration camp, an under-camp of Buchenwald concentration camp, existed from April 1944 until April 1945. More than 7,000 prisoners from 23 countries were imprisoned there for this period. The first group of deportees coming from Buchenwald arrived on April 21, 1944. The construction of the camp was completed in August 1944 with the electrified enclosure; 7 blocks plus the appendices (Revier, kitchen, etc….) the inn and the barn replaced. When manpower reached 5,100 prisoners, in February 1945, there were 18 blocks.

PRETTIN 50

Lichtenburgh Castle KZ Lichtenburg was established during the period 1933-1939 in Lichtenburgh Castle.

The camp held 2,000 male prisoners (1933-1937) and female prisoners (1937-1939). KZ Lichtenburg was closed in May 1939, shortly after the Ravensbrück concentration camp for woman was opened.

The camp today: The castle houses a regional museum and exhibit about Lichtenburg during the Nazi period. A couple of memorial places can be found within the castle.

Lichtenburg Concentration Camp

Schloßstraße 1, 06922 Prettin

035386/22382 / 7020 www.lichtenburg.org

Niedersachsen Bremmerhaven 53

Munster 61

Emden 55

Oerbke 62

Cuxhaven 56

Lohheide 63

Altenbruch 57

Laatzen 65

Sandbostel 58

Moringen 66

Rekum 59

Wolfsburg 67

BREMMERHAVEN

55

The U-boat WILHELM BAUER (U 2540)

Technology Museum U-Boot

Hans-Schaloun Platz 1, 27568 Bremerhaven

+49 (0)471 48207-0 www.dsm.museum

Niedersachsen

As a key base of the Kriegsmarine, most of the city was destroyed in the Bombing of Bremen in World War II; however, key parts of the port were deliberately spare by the Allied forces to provide a usable harbour for supplying the Allies after the war. All of Wesermünde, including those parts, which prior did not belong to Bremerhaven, was a postwar enclave run by the United States within the British zone of northern Germany.

The U-boat WILHELM BAUER (U 2540) of the year 1945 in the museum harbour. The U-boat is not used by the German Maritime Museum but by the association “Technikmuseum U-Boot WILHELM BAUER”. The boat is the only remaining preserved example of type XXI which was no longer deployed at the end of the second world war. It attained the feat that a vessel could travel almost as fast under water (15,6 knots) as above it (17,2 knots).

56

MAP OF NIEDERSACHSEN

Cuxhaven Altenbruch 73 Ottendorf

27 Wilhelmshaven

71

Wiesmoor

Brake

28

Berne 74 270 74 Lernwerder

Papenburg

31

27 Osterholz

Wardenburg

Delmenhorst

Eins

R.

Werlte

Meppen

213

1

Lingen(Ems)

Neuenhaus

Freren

Do

Nordhom

.

dR

un rtm

Bramsche

Bad Bentheim

l

ana

dK elan Mitt

Georgemarienhutte

Damme

Wagenfeld

Bohmte

OSNABRUCK Melle

All

en

Lohheide 7 Winsen

Nienburg Neustadt am Rubenberge

Uelzen

D

Lu

Hermannsburg

3

Celle Langenhagen 3

2

Loccum

Wesendorf

Githorn Burgdorf

188

WOLF BURG Leherte 2 Stadthagen Barsing- Laatzen BRAUNSCHWEIG Peine hausen 39 7 6 Helmstadt WolfenSpringe HILDERSHEIM Rintein buttel Hamelin Schoppenste SALZGITTER HANNOVER 65

. eR

Beverungen

HESSEN

Schladen

n Lei

. rR

Bodenwerder Alold

Holzmindel

The U-bootbunker “Valentin” can be found in Rekum, Germany.

The place Renkum can be found north of Bremen, you can follow the direction Bremerhaven/Cuxhaven.

In the place itself you can’t miss the huge bunker.

Munster

Bergen

R.

e es W

Rekum

Hitzac

Bad Bevenson

71

Soltau

Barnstorf Sulingen Diepholz

Elb

Dahlenburg e R

Rottenburg

Vechta

Quakenbruck

Bleckede

Luneburg

Fallingbostel 3 Oerbke Dorverden

Bassum

Lastrup

1 Schneverdingen

Achim Syke

Winsen

Tostedt

Worpswede

BREMEN

29 Ganderkesse 1

Dorpen Esterwegen Sogel

Zeven

Rekum Schambeck

Weener

NETHERLANDS

71

Le in

Leer

Nordenham

29

.

Bunde

Zetel

rR

31

71

.

Aurich Emden

74 Stade Sandbostel Bremervorde Buxtehude Gnarrenburg Buchholz

Bremerhaven

eR

Wittmund

Hemmoor

We se

Norden

7

Goslar Seesen

Bad Harzburg Einbeck 248 Moringen Northeim Braunlage 241 Osterode Bad Lauterberg am Harz Hardegsen

Dassel

Hann Mundeh

GOTTINGEN Friedland

Ilrich Bad Sachsa

EMDEN 57

A Massive Air-Raid Shelter

R.

cker

Dannenburg Schnackenburg

uchow

Das Bunkermuseum in Emden

FSG 2

edt

Holzsägerstraße, 26691 Emden

04921 - 3 22 25 www.bunkermuseum.de

Niedersachsen

Visitors who go through our city are interested by the universal presence of a massive air-raid shelter. The interest in this building has increased in the last few years.

This is why the museum is required to present information which would bring back to life the encounter as well as to compensate with the history and the lives of the people living during National Socialism in World War II. Many visitors decide to visit the Bunkermuseum so they can get an idea of the oppressive atmosphere of the war which is still preserved in the bombshelter.

58

CUXHAVEN

XXVII “Seehund” The museum’s collection consists mainly of wreck pieces found at the coast of Cuxhaven. Parts of U-boat nets and an Uboat of the type XXVII “Seehund” are also displayed in this museum. The museum and the outdoor area offer a unique insight into shipping on our coast. The collection is constantly enriched and expanded. Hundreds of thousands of shipwrecks lie on the ocean floor worldwide. Facing our coast, it may be approximately 3,000 to 4,000. By beach revisions, collisions, storms, but also by the effects of war were vessels of all sizes and nations lost.

Wrackmuseum Cuxhaven Wreck Museum Cuxhaven

Dorfstraße 80, 27476 Cuxhaven

04721-23341

ALTENBRUCH

59

Dress Uniform Of Großadmiral Karl Dönitz

The estate of Großadmiral Karl Dönitz has given the archive the dress uniform and decorations of the famous leader of the U-boat force.

The U-boot archiv itself is located on Lange Straße 1, Cuxhaven.

The SMS Schleswig-Holstein was sent to Altenbruch at the mouth of the Elbe; here she was decommissioned on 2 May.

U-boat Archiv Museum Altenbruch

Altenbrucher Bahnhofstraße 57 27478 Altenbruch

Niedersachsen

Visitors can view uniforms and insignia of the German U-boat service in its different eras, the blueprints of the U-boat designer Christoph Aschmoneit, meticulously crafted models, decorations and qualification badges, flags and pennants, and common articles from cutlery and cups to sextants and sea chests. The museum also contains the complete personal papers of the World War I ace Otto Hersing, a copy of the famous World War II German Enigma encryption machine, and many personal items donated by veterans and their families.

60

SANDBOSTEL

Camp Stalag XB Between 1939 and 1945, several hundred thousand from over 70 nations were in camp Sandbostel (prisoners of war). Among them were figures like the philosopher Louis Althusser, the writer Gaston Aufrère, Leo Malet (his most famous work, the detective stories with Nestor Burma) and Giovanni Guareschi, the creator of the characters in the novel Don Camillo. Even the later Olympic champion Viktor Tschukarin was a prisoner in Sandbostel. Tens of thousands of prisoners who survived their captivity died of starvation, disease or were murdered. The British compared the camp shortly after its liberation to the concentration camp Bergen-Belsen.

They were so horrified that their commander wanted to destroy several villages in the vicinity of the camp but he was stopped by the local Selsingen pastor.

The number of dead in Stalag X-B range from 8,000 to 50,000.

Documentation and Memorial Sandbostel eV

Greftstr. 5, 27446 Sandbostel

Phone: 0049 (0) 4764-810520 www.gedenkstaette-sandbostel.de/

REKUM

61

Largest Surviving Bunker From The Third Reich

U-Boat Bunker Valentin

Rekum Siel 1, 28 777 Bremen Rekum

Niedersachsen

The U-bootbunker “Valentin” can be found in Rekum, Germany. The place Renkum can be found north of Bremen, you can follow the direction Bremerhaven/Cuxhaven. In the place itself you can’t miss the huge bunker. The bunker can’t be visited without permission, the only possibility to visit the bunker is with a special tour. Hitler, concerned that Germany was losing the edge in the war for the sea lanes, ordered the construction of the factory near Bremen with the aim of producing a new U-boat, the sophisticated XXI model, every 56 hours.

The factory, codenamed Valentin, was Hitler’s last chance to stop the Allies ferrying supplies and reinforcements by sea. It was to be shielded from bombing raids by a bunker with a thick pre-stressed concrete roof. The result was a silo with the dimensions of a cathedral: At one end was a diving basin for the last tests on the U-boats before they would slide into the Weser river and head for the North Sea.

By March 1945 the factory, begun 18 months earlier, was 80 per cent complete.

Then a British Bomber Command raid succeeded in penetrating the roof (see next page).

62 Barely a month later, before repairs were complete, the war was over. The initial idea after the war was to blow up Valentin but that would have required at least 500 tonnes of explosives and the blast would have wiped out most of the neighbourhood. So it was taken over by the German Army, which has been using part of it as a storehouse. Blowing it up is now out of the question because it has been officially listed: research in Eastern European archives has shown that at least 4,000 slave labourers, many of them from Poland and Russia, died building Valentin.

Most were undernourished. Some were beaten to death by guards trying to enforce a breakneck speed of construction.

The bunker is for sale. “This bunker should not be sold,” the Mayor of Bremen, Jens Böhrnsen, says, “for both financial and moral reasons.” The new owner would have to commit himself to making at least part of the site into a memorial centre for Nazi slave labour. At least 12,000 concentration camp inmates, forced labourers and prisoners of war were involved in the almost pharaonic project: a million tonnes of gravel and sand had to be dug up and 1,232,000 tonnes of cement was mixed. A British war crimes unit investigated conditions in the nearby work camp at Bremen-Farge and painted a horrific picture of life there: crammed sleeping quarters, back-breaking shifts, sadistic overseers, rations that would barely feed a child. In 1947 12 German guards were charged in a Hamburg court with crimes against humanity committed at Valentin.

MUNSTER

63

Armoured Fighting Vehicle Museum

1917 to the present. Here both the Tiger 1 & 2 and the Panther stands side by side. Furthermore, there is also a Jagdpanther and much more. It originated in 1983 from the instructional collection of the Panzertruppenschule, the Bundeswehr (“German Army”) school for training officers and NCO’s of German armoured units.

Tank Museum Munster

Hans-Kruger Strasse Munster www.deutsches-panzermuseum.de

Niedersachsen

The German Tank Museum (German: Deutsches Panzermuseum) is an armoured fighting vehicle museum in Munster, Germany, the location of the Munster Training Area camp. Its main aim is the documentation of the history of German armoured troops since 1917. The museum shows the emergence and development of the German Tank Troops. A very beautiful museum covering the period from

OERBKE 64

The Fallingbostel POW Camps In 1934 with the introduction of conscription into the German army, the Germans found themselves in need of land to train on. The wide open area of the Luneburger heide seemed the ideal place. Work began on producing a training area-capable of supporting two full divisions of troops at one time. 1935 saw the building of two barrack areas, MUNSTERLAGER/BERGEN to the east and FALLINGBOSTEL to the west of the training area. 11 villages in the area and many farms had to be evacuated-apparently with little argument. (many of these can still be found today-evidence of fruit trees –orchards, stone walls est. can be seen all over the range area). The training area opened in 1938 and by the summer of 1939-12 ranges were in use. (one division requiring 6,weeks to complete its training programme.) By October 1939 fences were built around the workers hutted camp and some of the captured Poles from the invasion of Poland were sent there-STALAG XIB, was born. Stalag XI-B and Stalag XI-D / 357 were two German World War II prisonerof-war camp (Stammlager) located just to the east of the town of Fallingbostel

Fallingbostel Military Museum

Hartemer Weg, Oerbke

01734391864 www.fallingbostelmilitarymuseum.de/

LOHHEIDE

65

50,000 Deaths From 1943 To 1945

Concentration Camp Bergen-Belsen

D-29303 Lohheide

+49 5051475910 www.bergenbelsen.de

Niedersachsen

The Bergen-Belsen Memorial is situated sixty kilometres north-east of Hannover, in the Lüneburg Heath. Located on the grounds of the former P.O.W. (Prisoner of War) and concentration camps, marked graves and monuments hold reminders of the suffering and deaths of its prisoners. A documentation centre illustrates the history of the camp and its victims. The total number of deaths at Bergen-Belsen from 1943 to June 1945 was about 50,000. In October 2007 the redesigned memorial site was opened, including a large new Documentation Centre and permanent exhibition on the edge of the newly redefined camp, whose structure and layout can now be traced. The site is open to the public and includes a monument to the dead, some individual memorial stones and a “House of Silence” for reflection. Nearby, is a war cemetery, in which around 30,000 Soviet prisoners-of-war from the Second World War are buried in mass graves.

66

Bergen-Belsen Concentration Camp

A view of the BergenBelsen concentration camp after the liberation of the camp. Bergen-Belsen, after April 15, 1945.

In September 1939 a prisoner of war camp was established at Fallingbostel, and the nearby Bergen-Belsen site became a Häftlingslager, or “prison camp”, initially housing around 500 prisoners who were used as construction workers for the Fallingbostel project. In June 1940 it became a prisoner of war camp for around 600 French and Belgian soldiers, under the authority of the Wehrmacht, and in May 1941 it was designated prisoner of war camp Stalag XI-C, (Stalag XI-C/311 for the Belgian and French POW’s). Conditions in the camp were very basic, with inadequate food and little shelter. Around 20,000 Soviet prisoners of war were sent to the camp between July 1941 and the spring of 1942, of whom about 18,000 died of hunger, cold and disease.

In 1942, Bergen-Belsen became a concentration camp, and part of it was placed under SS command in April 1943. Having initially been designated Zivilinterniertenlager (“civilian internment camp”), in June 1943 it was redesignated Aufenthaltslager (“holding camp”), since the Geneva Conventions stipulated that the former type of facility must be open to inspection by international committees.

This was the “Star Camp” (so called because the inmates were made to wear the yellow star badge that designated them Jews). The Star Camp held several thousand Jews, mainly Dutch Jews, who were intended to be exchanged for German civilians interned in other countries. Star Camp inmates were made to work, many of them in the “shoe commando” which salvaged usable pieces of leather from shoes collected and brought to the camp from all over Germany and Occupied Europe.

LAATZEN

67

Spitfire, Bf109G2 And Fw190

•30 piston and turbo jet engines on display.

As well as planes we also have pilot’s clothing, books, documents, carriages, vehicles and general day to day items to see and to marvel at. The exhibits are arranged in a chronological order with information in both English and German.

Luftfahrtmuseum Hannover-Laatzen

Ulmer Straße 2, 30880 Laatzen

0511 879-1791 www.luftfahrtmuseum-hannover.de/

Niedersachsen

Explore the history of aviation through more than 4,500 exhibits located in 3,500 m² of exhibition space, both indoors and in the openair. There’s so much to discover. The Museum has: •36 aeroplanes (including Spitfire, Bf109G2 and Fw190) •673 model aeroplanes and

MORINGEN 68

Three Concentration Camps In June 1940 the Youth camp was opened and was called “Camp for Protective Youth Custody”. The internees were aged between 12 and 22 years, and came not only from the German Reich but also from countries occupied by German troops.

Young men because of social, racial or political views or beliefs were subjected to SS terror under inhumane conditions. Many died due to the terrible conditions, some were compulsory sterilised as a result of genetic or criminal biological reports and others were deported to other concentration camps.

From 1941 the Youth Camp was used by the SS for their pseudo medical experiments. So called criminal biologists - under Dr. Ritter - tried to prove their theory, that crime and anti social behaviour were genetic. The camp was initiated by the Chief of the Security Police and the SD Reinhard Heydrich.

Moringen Concentration Camp

Lange Str. 58, D-37186 Moringen

+49 05554-2520 www.gedenkstaette-moringen.de

WOLFSBURG

69

“The People’s Car”

about the price of a small motorcycle (an average income being around 32RM a week). Ferdinand Porsche presented his plans for the Volkswagen to Hitler and it was accepted. His business partner was Albert Speer.

The building of the new factory started 26 May 1938 in the new town of KdF-Stadt, now called Wolfsburg, which had been purpose-built for the factory workers.

Museum Stadtschloss Wolfsburg Located in the 700 year old Wolfsburg Castle Documentation about the Nazi victims with its own exhibition of the slave workers at the Volkswagen factory Schlossstraße 8, 38448 Wolfsburg

Nidersachsen

In 1933 Adolf Hitler declared his intentions for a state-sponsored “Volkswagen” program. Hitler required a basic vehicle capable of transporting two adults and three children at 100 km/h (62 mph). The “People’s Car” would be available to citizens of the Third Reich through a savings scheme at 990 Reichsmark,

70 This factory had only produced a handful of cars by the time war started in 1939.

None was actually delivered to any holder of the completed saving stamp books, though one Type 1 Cabriolet was presented to Hitler on 20 April 1938 (his 49th birthday).

War meant production changed to military vehicles, the Type 82 Kübelwagen (“Bucket car”) utility vehicle (VW’s most common wartime model), and the amphibious Schwimmwagen which were used to equip the German forces..

Ferdinand Porsche

Labor Camp Arbeitsdorf In 1936, a German car engineer named Ferdinand Porche designed a prototype of a car that would be affordable enough for all Germans to buy. He showed his idea to the then dictator of Germany, Adolf Hitler. Hitler liked his idea and ordered the manufacture of the car which was known as the KDF-Wagen or later known as the Volkswagen vehicle. With Hitler’s approval, Porche and his partner Albert Speer set up a factory in Fallersleben, a town 30 miles northeast of the city of Braunschweig, and because of the war, all production from this camp was to be used for military purposes only. In 1942, Porche and Speer started a project to see how to use concentration camp prisoners for the benefit of their industry. So on April 8, 1942, a new camp, Arbeitsdorf, was opened with 800 inmates from the Neuengamme concentration camp. The camp commands of Neuengamme and Arbeitsdorf were united in the person of Martin Weiss, the camp commander of Neuengamme at this time. On April 26, 1942 inmates from the Sachsenhausen concentration camp and on June 23 inmates from Buchenwald arrived. Mid-July 1942 camp commander became Wilhelm Schitli, former Schutzhaft-camp commander in Neuengamme.

On October 11, 1942, six months after the camp was first established, production of the vehicles was stopped and the camp was closed. A minimum of 600 prisoners perished at Arbeitsdorf.

PHOTO RIGHT: BDM Girls, https://www.girlmuseum.org/bdm-girls/

Schleswig-Holstein Hamburg 73 Laboe 75 Ahrensbok 76

HAMBURG

75

The Largest Concentration Camp In Northwest Germany

PHOTO LEFT: The ruins of Hamburg and the civilians who paid the price

KZ-Gedenkstätte Neuengamme

Jean Dolidier-Weg 75, 21039 Hamburg

+49-402489603 www.kz-gedenkstaette-neuengamme.de

Schleswig-Holstein

In Nazi Germany Hamburg was at Gau from 1934 until 1945. During World War II Hamburg suffered a series of air raids, which devastated much of the inhabited city as well as harbor areas. On July 23, 1943 a firestorm that came from the Hauptbahnhof and quickly moved south-east completely destroyed entire boroughs like Hammerbrook, Billbrook or Hamm-south. These former densely populated working-class boroughs underwent a dramatic demographic change as a result. Few people live there today. At least 55,000 people were killed in the Neuengamme Nazi concentration camp within the city.

Neuengamme Concentration Camp. A Memorial, located on the historical site of the camp, commemorates the over 100,000 people who were imprisoned in the largest concentration camp in northwest Germany during World War II. Exhibits on the history of the camp have been held at Neuengamme since October 1981.

After expanding to include the grounds of the former prisoners’ barracks, the memorial opened in May 2005 as a centre for exhibitions, international exchanges and historical studies.

76 DENMARK Niebull

Leck

Fohr

MAP OF SCHLESWIGHOLSTEIN

Glucksburg

Flensburg Sorup

Tarp

Bredstedt

Kappelin

7 Schleswig Musum

NORDSEE

Leboe

Gettorf

Westerhever

Rendsburg

Tonning Wesselburen

Burg

Kieler Bucht

Eckernforde

Heiligenhafen

KIEL Raisdorf Bordesholm

Nortorf

Neustadt i. Holst Scharbeulz

Neumunster Ahrensbok

Brunsbuttel

432

Bad Bramstedt

Bad Segeberg

7

21

Itzhoe

LUBECK

Kaltenkirchen

MECKLENBURG VORPOMMERN

1

Barmstedt

Norderstedt Elmshorn Ahrensburg Pinneberg Wedel

G UR

MAP OF MECKLENBURG VORPOMMERN

Ratzeburg

Grosshansdorf

B

M HA

NIEDERSACHSEN

Lubecker Bucht

Gromitz

Eutin

Busum Meldorf

Oldenburg

Lutjenburg

Preetz

21

Heide

Mollin

Geesthact

OSTEE

Dranske Stubbenkammer

Sassnitz

Prora

Bergen 196a Ostseebad Binz auf Rugen 196

Barth Straslund 96

Bad Doberan

Schonberg

Schwaan

Wismar

Neuklostar

Rehna

Laage

R.

am W

20 Bruel

Sternberg

Lubtheen

NIEDERSACHSEN

Demmin

106

Parebim

Penzlin Plau

Grabow

Heningdorf

Peene R

.

Anklam

Neubrandenburg

Malchow Robel

Strasburg

Burg Stargard

Bouk

24

Ludwigslust

Domoitz

Lubz

Elde Kanal

111

Friedland

Goldberg

Neustrelitz Mirow

Wesenberg

Zinnowitz

Gutzkow

Malchin

Waren

14 Wobbelin

5

Dargun

Karlshagen

Wolgast

Altentreptow

Wittenburg

Hagenow

20

Loitz Jarmen

Krakow Crivitz

L262

Greifswald

10

SCHWERIN 24

Teterow

Gustrow

Gadebusch

Ratzeburg

Boizenburg

ow

Tribsees

c Re Tessin

Neubukow Dassow

.

zR

it kn

Peenemunde

Feldberg

Uecker munde Torgulow

Eggesin R.

ROSTOCK

Lubmin

Grimmen

ck er

Lubecker Buckt

Greifswalder Bodden

Ribnitz Damgarten

Ostseebad Kuhlungsburn

L29 Putbus

Ue

Mecklemburger Buckt

Pampow Pasewalk

LABOE 77

U-995 And A Naval Memorial

Naval Memorial and U-995

Strandstrasse 92, 24235 Laboe

(0)4242 42700 www.deutscher-marinebund.de

Schleswig-Holstein

On 13 March 1972 U-995 was transferred to Laboe and sold as a technical museum on the beach, at the Navy Memorial. The boat was commissioned on 16 September 1943 from the Blohm & Voss in Hamburg and put in service. It belonged to the type VII C, which completed by 1945 a total of 693 missions. Until its withdrawal at the eighth position May 1945 in Trondheim, Norway U-995 was used mainly in the North Sea against convoys and outgoing convoys and security forces. In 1947, U-995 along with two other VII-C-boats were taken over by the Royal Norwegian Navy. From December 1952 it went as “Kaura” - NATO designation “S-309” - under the Norwegian flag. With a crew strength of 45 men it was used in coastal defense and as a training boat and took in the following years, participated in numerous NATO naval exercises. It was decided in 1965, by the Norwegian Navy, to give the boat to the German Navy as a sign of reconciliation to the present. U-995 is the world’s only remaining Type VII U-boat. It sits at the base of the Laboe Naval Memorial along with a hall of remembrance.

AHRENSBOK 78

Fürstengrube Death March The Ahrensbök concentration camp was one of the first concentration camps established by Nazi-Germany. The camp was in service between October 1933 and May 1934.

KZ Ahrensbök was established in an abandoned factory. The camp held 300 prisoners who were used for road construction. In December 1933, many prisoners were transferred to a building at Plöner Straße in the centre of Ahrensbök. The camp was closed on 9 May 1934.

The camp today: A documentation centre (Gedenkstätte Ahrensbök) is established in the main camp building of KZ Ahrensbök.

PHOTO PAGE 80: German civilians exhuming bodies from a mass grave near the Wöbbelin concentration camp

Ahrensbök Concentration Camp

Flachsröste 16, 23623 Ahrensbök

04525-493060 www.gedenkstaetteahrensboek.de

MecklenburgVorpommern Peenemunde 81 Wobbelin 82 Prora 83

PEENEMUNDE

83

V-1 Flying Bomb And V-2 Rocket Base

PHOTO LEFT: V2 Rocket Peenemunde

Historical and Technical Museum Peenemünde

Im Kraftwerk, 17449 Peenemünde

+49-38371-505-0 www.peenemuende.de

Mecklenburg-Vorpmmern

Peenemünde is a village in the northeast of the German (Western) part of Usedom island. It stands near the mouth(s) of the Peene river (the name translates as Penne-mouth), on the westmost edge of a long sand-spit on the German Baltic coast. The area includes the 1992 Heeresversuchsanstalt Peenemünde, an Anchor Point of the European Route of Industrial Heritage. Special show-pieces are reproductions of the V-1 flying bomb and V-2 rocket, which were produced and tested in the area during World War II. On April 2, 1936, the Reich Air Ministry paid 750,000 reichsmarks to the town of Wolgast for the whole Northern peninsula of Usedom.:17 By the middle of 1938, the Peenemünde facility was nearly complete.The Army Research Center (Peenemünde Ost) consisted of Werk Ost and Werk Süd, while Werk West (Peenemünde West) was the Luftwaffe Test Site. Dr Wernher von Braun was the HVP technical director (Dr Walter Thiel was deputy director) and there were nine major departments:

WOBBELIN 84

In Honor Of Theodor Körner In September 1944 a small camp was built—called aerie of egret (German: Reiherhorst)— for US prisoners of war. On 12 February 1945 a group of inmates were transported to build a larger camp, now called KZ Wöbbelin. The SS-physician Alfred Trzebinski stated during his trial, that 648 people were held at Wöbbelin camp until the end of March 1945. In mid-April several transports from subcamps of Neuengamme and Ravensbrück concentration camp with more than 4,000 inmates arrived. On May 2, 1945, the 8th Infantry Division and the 82nd Airborne Division encountered Wöbbelin. Living conditions in the camp when the U.S. 8th Infantry and the 82nd Airborne arrived were deplorable. There was little food or water.

Museum Concentration Camp Wöbbelin

Ludwigsluster Straße Wöbbelin www.kz-woebbelin.de

PRORA

85

Colossal Nazi-Planned Touristic Structure

Documentation Center Prora

Objektstraße, Gebäude 1, 18609 Prora

+49-38393-13991 www.dokumentationszentrum-prora.de

Mecklenburg-Vorpmmern

Prora is a beach resort on the island of Rügen, Germany, known especially for its colossal Nazi-planned touristic structures. The massive building complex was built between 1936 and 1939 as a Kraft durch Freude (KdF) project. The eight buildings are identical, and while they were planned as a holiday locale, they were never used for this purpose. The complex has a formal heritage listing as a particularly striking example of Third Reich architecture. Hitler’s plans for Prora were much more ambitious. He wanted a gigantic sea resort, the “most mighty and large one to ever have existed”, holding 20,000 beds. In the middle, a massive building was to be erected. At the same time, Hitler wanted it to be convertible into a military hospital in case of war. Hitler insisted that the plans of a massive indoor arena by architect Erich Putlitz be included. Putlitz’s Festival Hall was intended to be able to accommodate all 20,000 guests at the same time. His plans included two wave-swimming pools and a theatre. A large dock for passenger ships was also planned. Pictured on page 85 is all that remained of the German 9th Army after the final push to evacuate the civilians and soldiers and the surrender to the US.

86

MAP OF BRANDENBURG

24

Prenzlau

Gransee

24

Wittenberge

Joachimsthal Zehdenick

Neuruppin 96

Kyritz

Schwedt Angermunde

11

Ruins of Carinhall

Liebernwalde

Hav el

Fehrbellin

r Ode Klosterfelde

Oranienburg

Eberswalde

Bad Freienwalde

Bernau Zenernick

10 Nauen

Rathenow Premnitz

Brandenburg

el Hav

Wannsee

Furstenwalde Frankfurt/Odet

Belzig

113

Konigs Rangsdorf Zossen Wuster Hausen

Treuenbrietzen

Wunsdorf

112

12

10

Bruck

Reitwein

BERLIN 115

1

POTSDAM Lehnin

Gorgast

Muncheberg Seelow

Falkensee

Elbe-Havel-Kana

er

Strausberg

10 1

Od

Wriezen

Birkenwerder

Ode

Storkow Mullrose

Waldstadt

Booskow

96

r

Eisenhuttenstadt

Luckenwalde

Guben

13

Juterbog

e

Perieberg

Wittstock

Lubben

Dahme

Ne iss

Pritzwalk

Lychen Furstenberg/ Havel Rheinsberg Templin

Lubbenau Vetschau

Luckau

Calau

15

Peitz

COTTBUS

Herzberg Drebkau Kirchhair Finsterwalde Doberlug Spremberg Bad Senftenberg Lauch Liebenwerda Hammer Elb

e

Elsterwerda

13 Ruhland Ortrand

Forst

Dobern Bad Muskau

Brandenburg Berlin 89

Wunsdorf 103

Waansee 99

Ehrenhain 104

Seelow 100

Brandenburg am Havel 105

Gorgast 101

Oranienburg 106

Reitwein 102

Furstenberg/Havel 107

BERLIN

91

Destoyed In Air Raids Of 1943–45

PHOTO on PAGE 87, https://imgur.com/gallery/KjCTF PHOTO on PAGE 88: https://www.overgrownpath.com/2006/01/berlin-philharmonics-darkest-hour.html PHOTO LEFT: The Battle of Berlin, Russian tanks and artillery

Anti-Kriegs-Museum

Brüsseler Strasse 21, 13353 Berlin

+49 3045440286 www.anti-kriegs-museum.de

Brandenburg

On 30 January 1933 (Machtergreifung), Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party came to power. Nazi rule destroyed Berlin’s Jewish community, which had numbered 170,000 before 1933. After the Kristallnacht program in 1938, thousands of the city’s German Jews were imprisoned in the nearby Sachsenhausen concentration camp or, in early 1943, were shipped to death camps, such as Auschwitz. During the Second World War, large parts of Berlin were destroyed in the 1943–45 air raids and during the Battle of Berlin. Among the hundreds of thousands who died during the Battle for Berlin, an estimated 125,000 were civilians. After the end of the war in Europe in 1945, Berlin received large numbers of refugees from the Eastern provinces. The victorious powers divided the city into four sectors, analogous to the occupation zones into which Germany was divided. The sectors of the Western Allies (the United States, the United Kingdom and France) formed West Berlin, while the Soviet sector formed East Berlin.

92

ABOVE: The destruction of Berlin in 1945.

Anne Frank Centre

Rosenthaler Straße 39, Berlin, +49 30 2888656-00 www.annefrank.de

93

Brandenburg

ABOVE: This building is the former headquarters of the Wehrmacht where on the night of 20 July 1944 von Stauffenberg and three other officers were executed after the failed bomb-attack on Hitler. (German Resistance Exposition on 1st floor)

The Berlin Underworlds Museum

030 - 49 91 05 17 www.berliner-unterwelten.de

94

The Bebelplatz (formerly known as the Opernplatz) is mainly known for the burning of books on 10 May 1933 by members of the S.A. and the Hitlerjugend. About

20,000 books were burned, amongst others books of Thomas Mann, Erich Maria Remarque, Heinrich Heine, Karl Marx and many other well-known authors. In the deep many bookcases can be seen, with space for about 20,000 books. There is also a citation of Heinrich Heine, already written in the 19th century: “Wo man Bücher verbrennt, verbrennt man am Ende auch Menschen (He who burns books, will in the end also burn people)”.

Deutches Technikmuseum

Trebbiner Straße 9, Berlin

030 / 90 254-0 www.sdtb.de

95

Deutsch-Russisches Museum Berlin-Karlshorst

Zwieseler Straße 4, D-10318 Berlin

+49 (0)30-50 15 08 10 www.museum-karlshorst.de

Brandenburg

On May 8, 1945, World War II was brought to an end with the surrender of the German Wehrmacht at Berlin-Karlshorst. The bloodiest conflict of modern history to date claimed a death toll of at least 50 million people. The attempt for world domination by the German National Socialists under the leadership of Adolf Hitler ended with vast destructions in Germany and abroad. Particularly brutal battles were fought between the German and Soviet troops as a result of the National Socialist ideology, aiming at the enslavement and eventual extinction of the Slavic people.

In 1967, the Soviet troops stationed in the GDR founded the Museum der bedingungslosen Kapitulation des faschistischen Deutschlandim Großen Vaterländischen Krieg 1941 - 1945 (“Museum of the Unconditional Surrender of Fascist Germany in the ‘Great Patriotic War’ of 1941 - 1945”). The museum was located in the same building where the signing of the capitulation took place in 1945. Initially, the museum was open only to members of the Soviet Army; however, soon afterwards, it opened to the general public.

After the fall of communism a broad concept of the continuation and re-evaluation of the museum Berlin-Karlshorst was drawn up in 1992. The present museum opened its doors to the public on May 10, 1995 in the same building.

96

G e r t r u d - K o l m a rStraße

Nothing can be found of the bunker of Adolf Hitler, which was situated behind the government-buildings of the Nazis. The remains of the bunker are several meters under the ground. For a long time there was not even a sign that the bunker had existed. Because lots of tourists were looking for the Führerbunker the decision was made to erect an information panel on the location of the bunker,

Deutsche Historische Museum

Unter den Linden 2, 10117 Berlin

+49 - (0)30 - 20304 - 0 www.dhm.de

97

Jewish Museum Berlin Brandenburg

Lindenstraße 9-14, 10969 Berlin

+49 (0)3025993300 www.juedisches-museum-berlin.de

Holocaust-Memorial

Ebertstrasse, Berlin

+49 (0) 30 / 200766-0 www.holocaust-mahnmal.de

98

On this location the office of Adolf Eichmann, Bureau IV B4 of the Reichs Central Office for Jewish Emigration and Relocation, was established. This office was responsible for the deportation of and murder of millions of Jews in the Second World War. The building was demolished in 1961. In the bus shelter of line 100 are information plates in memory.

Luftwaffenmuseum der Bundeswehr

Am Flugplatz Gatow, 12172 Berlin

030 – 8 11 07 69 www.luftwaffenmuseum.com

99

Reichstag Brandenburg

The Reichstag was the German Parliament.

After the NSDAP and Adolf Hitler took power the parliament only had a symbolic meaning under the dictatorial regime.

In this building the members of parliament met, until it was set on fire. After that the meetings were held in the Kroll Oper. During the Nazi-regime the parliament met for the last time in 1942, under the presidency of Hermann Goering.

Otto Weidt’s Workshop for the Blind It tells the story of Otto Weidt’s Workshop for the Blind. During the Second World War the brush manufacturer Otto Weidt employed mainly blind and deaf Jews who produced brooms and brushes here.

Rosenthaler Straße 39, Berlin

030 285 99 407 www.blindes-vertrauen.de

100 Between 1933 and 1945, the central institutions responsible for the repressive and criminal policies of National Socialism were located on the terrain of the Topography of Terror, situated between Prinz-Albrecht-Strasse (today Niederkirchnerstrasse), Wilhelmstrasse and Anhalter Strasse. Here, in close proximity to the traditional government district, the Secret State Police, the SS leadership and the Reich Security Main Office set up their offices: the administrative headquarters of the Secret State Police and the notorious Gestapo “house prison” were located at Prinz-Albrecht-Strasse 8; the neighbouring Hotel Prinz Albrecht housed the offices of the SS Reich leadership; and the Security Service (SD) of the SS Reich leadership was established at Wilhelmstrasse 102. As of 1939, Prinz-Albrecht-Strasse 8 was also the address of the newly founded Reich Security Main Office.

With the concentration of these institutions at one site, this area in effect became the government district of the National Socialist SS and Police State. This is where Himmler, Heydrich, Kaltenbrunner and their assistants had their desks.

At this “site of the perpetrators”, important decisions were made concerning the persecution of political opponents, the “Germanisation” of occupied territories in Poland and the Soviet Union.

Topography of Terror

Niederkirchnerstrasse 8, 10963 Berlin

+49 3025486703 www.topographie.de/

WANNSEE 101

The Wannsee Conference

As the decision to murder the European Jews had been made earlier the »Wannsee Conference« was concerned with the organisation and implementation of “The Final Solution”, the decision to deport the Jews of Europe to the East and to murder them. The meeting has become known as the “Wannsee Conference”. In 1947 the minutes of the Conference recorded by Adolf Eichmann were found in the files of the German Foreign Office.

Villa of the Wannsee Conference

Am Grossen Wannsee 56-58, Wannsee

+49(0)308050010 /www.ghwk.de/

Brandenburg

On January 20th, 1942 Reinhard Heydrich, Head of the Reich Security Main Office (Reichssicherheitshauptamt), chaired a meeting of high-ranking civil servants and SS-officers in this mansion.

SEELOW 102

“Operation Berlin” On April 16th, 1945, the last massive attack by the Soviet Armies in the European theatre started. The offensive with its codename “Operation Berlin” was aimed to destroy the German defences for once and for all and to end the war in Berlin. The memorial Seelöwer Höhen commemorates this battle. In the spring of 1945 in Oderbruch and on the hilly area of Höhenzug hundreds of thousands of soldiers were facing each other supported by 14.000 pieces of artillery, 5.000 armoured vehicles and as many airplanes.

The Museum: The museum provides a very good impression of the battle for Berlin by means of showcases, movies, slide presentations, uniforms, arms and other equipment. Some very rare and original pieces have been exposed.

Memorial and Museum Seelöwer Höhen

Küstriner Straße 28a, 15306 Seelow

+49 (0)3346 597 www.gedenkstaette-seelower-hoehen.de/

GORGAST 103

Turned Into A Field Hospital

Fort Gorgast

Gorgast

033472 - 51632 www.fort-gorgast.de/

Brandenburg

The Soviet advance in the spring of 1945 left the fort relatively unscathed, although the central stairwell was blown up and there are bullet marks on the fabric.

In the Cold War period it was used by East Germany as a police barracks, possibly as a breaking-down centre for the ammunition that littered the area after the war, and then as an ammunition store by the Nationale Volksarmee (NVA). Since the fall of the Berlin Wall the fort has been taken over by the Küstriner Vorland region and has been well restored by volunteers. There is an interesting exhibition in the barrack casemates of the history of the Küstrin fortifications. The fort, easily reached by train from Berlin, is open weekdays, all the year round, and at weekends from May to October, 10am to 4 pm.

REITWEIN 104

Field Headquarters Of Marshal Zhukov During the battle of Seelöwer Höhen in 1945, the field headquarters of the Russian Marshal Georgy Zhukov stood on this hill. It is currently renovated to its original condition and can be visited. Marshal of the Soviet Union Georgy Konstantinovich Zhukov (Russian: Гео́ргий Константи́нович Жу́ков; December 1 [O.S. November 19] 1896 – June 18, 1974) was a Russian career officer in the Red Army who, in the course of World War II, played a pivotal role in leading the Red Army through much of Eastern Europe to liberate the Soviet Union and other nations from the Axis Powers’ occupation and conquer Germany’s capital, Berlin. He is the most decorated general in the history of both Russia and the Soviet Union. A combined strength of 2.2 million troops and more than 4,500 tanks were unleashed against the battered and bruised German Army Group Center.

Field Headquarters Marshal Zhukov

Hathenower Weg Reitwein

WUNSDORF 105

Largest And Most Advanced Army Headquarters

Bunker Complex Wünsdorf “Zeppelin”

Zeppelinstraße, Wünsdorf

033702/9600 www.buecherstadt.com

Brandenburg

This underground bunker complex was built between 1937 and 1939 to serve as Oberkommando des Heeres (OKH) headquarters. “Zeppelin” was the largest and most advanced army headquarters of Nazi-Germany during the Second World War. It was modernised and expanded after the war by the Soviet occupation force.

Maybach I and II were a series of above and underground bunkers built 20 kilometres south of Berlin in Wünsdorf.

Today, it can all be visited as a museum.

EHRENHAIN 106

Zeithain Memorial Grove The memorial commemorates the victims of the prisoner of war camp at Zeithain near Riesa between 1941 and 1945. The camp was established in April 1941, prior to National Socialist Germany’s invasion of the Soviet Union. Beginning in October 1943, Italian, Serbian, British, French and Polish prisoners were also interned in the camp. A total of approximately 25,000 to 30,000 Soviet prisoners of war and over 900 POWs from other countries, at least 862 of them Italians, died in Zeithain. The primary reasons for these deaths were malnourishment and disastrous health conditions.

The camp’s victims are buried in four cemeteries in the vicinity of what were once the grounds of the camp at the Jacobsthal railway station. A permanent exhibition depicts the history of the camp. The exhibition is located in the document building of the Zeithain Memorial Grove and in a former camp hut. The memorial is intended to be a meeting place for relatives of the former prisoners of war and as an information and education centre.

Stalag 304 (Stalag IV-H) Zeithain

Ehrenhain, Ehrenhain

+-49-3525-760392 en.stsg.de

BRANDENBURG an der HAVEL 107

To Imprison ‘dangerous elements’

New Brandenburg Prison

Anton-Saefkow-Allee 22 D-14772 Brandenburg an der Havel

03301-810912 www.stiftung-bg.de

Brandenburg

The Nazi’s used it from 1933 till 1945, to imprison ‘dangerous elements’. The prison population mainly consisted of criminals, political prisoners, draft resisters and POW’s. The execution room was established in 1940. From August 1940 till April 1945, some 1,722 prisoners were executed here. 652 other prisoners perished due to sickness and 6 committed suicide. The prison was liberated on 27 April 1945 by the Red Army.

After the war, the prison was used by the NKVD till 1947 for detention of collaborators and high-ranking members of the ‘Russian Liberation Army’ (ROA). In 1949/1950, the GDR took over the prison.

The complex today: Since 1988 a documentation centre and museum is now loctaed inside the prison.

One of the exhibition rooms is the former execution room with guillotine. c1931 Old Prison

ORANIENBURG 108

“ the town of the SS” As concentration camp and model and training camp for the SS situated nearby the capital of the Reich it took a special position in the national socialist system.

This was emphasised when in 1938 the headquarters of the inspector of the concentration camp was moved from Berlin to Oranienburg close to the concentration camp Sachsenhausen. In total 388 hectares of land belonged to the SS complex in Oranienburg. It included large living areas for SS officers and their families. Much can still be seen today such as: The Kommandatur, brought back in its original state. Oranienburg, was the location of a secret Nazi nuclear test facility which was annihilated when the allies dropped over 10,000 bombs on it.

•The original entrance of the camp as it was in 1936.

•The casino for SS-troops who were quartered here.

•Some exhibitions, for example an barrack brought back in its original state.

•A block of prison cells.

•The crematorium and extermination centre “Z” •Cemeteries for prisoners, German soldiers and soldiers of the Red Army.

•The original weapon depot of the German troops.

Concentration Camp Sachsenhausen

Straße der Nationen 22, 16515 Oranienburg

+49 3301200200 www.stiftung-bg.de

FURSTENBERG/ HAVEL 109

Largest Single National Group In Camp Were Polish Women

The company Siemens & Haskell had 20 workshops constructed outside the camps perimeter where the female inmates were forced to work. Between 1939 and 1945, over 130,000 female prisoners passed through the Ravensbrück camp system; only 40,000 survived.

Ravensbrück Concentration Camp

Straße der Nationen 16798 Fürstenberg / Havel

03301-200 200 www.ravensbrueck.de

Brandenburg

Ravensbrück was a notorious women’s concentration camp during World War II, located in northern Germany, 90 km north of Berlin at a site near the Prussian village of Ravensbrück not far from Furstenberg a health resort. Construction of the camp began in November 1938 by SS leader Heinrich Himmler and was unusual in that it was a camp primarily for women. The camp opened in May 1939.

In the spring of 1941, the SS authorities established a small men’s camp adjacent to the main camp. In 1942 a juvenile protective custody camp was added.

110

Carinhall

Carinhall was the country residence of Hermann Göring, built on a large hunting estate northeast of Berlin in the Schorfheide forest between the Großdöllner See and the Wuckersee in the north of Brandenburg.

Named in honour of his Swedish first wife Carin Göring (1888–1931), it was constructed in stages from 1933 on a large scale, but in the manner of a hunting lodge. The main architect was Werner March, designer of the Olympic stadium in Berlin.

On 10 April 1935, Carinhall was the venue for Göring’s wedding banquet with his second wife, Emmy Sonnemann.

Carinhall became the destination for many of the art treasures that Göring looted from across the Reich.

It was decided that Carinhall would be enlarged to become a “Haus des Reiches”, an official state residence. With a government decree the Schorfheide-area, including Göring’s Carinhall, was put into a foundation owned by the Prussian State, but Carinhall was to be at Göring’s disposal as long as he was alive.

Operating Carinhall in 1942 alone cost the Prussian State government 475,000 Reichsmarks ($190,000).

There were many famous names in the Carinhall guestbook: former American President Herbert Hoover, the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, aviator Charles Lindbergh, Benito Mussolini, the kings of Bulgaria, Romania and Yugoslavia, Willi Messerschmitt, Heinkel, etc. (see www.usmbooks.com)

111

Index AHRENSBOK 78 Ahrensbök Concentration Camp 78 ALTENBRUCH 59 Anne Frank Centre 92 Anti-Kriegs-Museum 91 AUGUSTUSBERG 38 Augustusburg Castle 38

B BAUTZEN 39 Bergen-Belsen Concentration Camp 66 BERLIN 91 Berlin’sUnderworldMuseum 12 BERNBURG 47 Bernburg Extermination Institution 47 Brandenburg 89 BRANDENBURG an der HAVEL 107 BREMMERHAVEN 55 Buchenwald Concentration Camp 28 Bunker Complex Wünsdorf “Zeppelin” 105

C Camp Stalag XB 60 Carinhall 110 COLDITZ 41 Colditz Castle 42 Concentration Camp Bergen-Belsen 65 Concentration Camp Buchenwald 27 Concentration Camp Langenstein-Zwieberge 49 Concentration Camp Sachsenhausen 108 CUXHAVEN 58

D Das Bunkermuseum in Emden 57 Deutches Technikmuseum 94 Deutsch-Russisches Museum BerlinKarlshorst 95 Deutsche Historische Museum 96 Documentation and Memorial Sandbostel eV 60

E EHRENHAIN 106 EMDEN 57 Erlebnis Bergwerk Merkers /Underground Gold-Supply Merkers 23

F Fallingbostel Military Museum 64 Field Headquarters Marshal Zhukov 104 First atomic bomb was German? 18 Fort Gorgast 103 FURSTENBERG/HAVEL 109

G GORGAST 103 Großadmiral Karl Dönitz 59

H HAMBURG 75 Haus Elephant Hotel 29 Historical and Technical Museum Peenemünde 83 HOHNSTEIN 40 Hohnstein Castle 40 Holocaust-Memorial 97

J Jewish Museum Berlin 97 Jonastal Documentation Center 17 Jüdisches Museum Berlin 3

K KAHLA 21 KZ-Gedenkstätte Mittelbau-Dora, Dora-Nordhausen 25 KZ-Gedenkstätte Neuengamme 75

L LAATZEN 67 LABOE 77 Labor Camp Arbeitsdorf 70

Index

A

Documentation Center Prora 85 DRESDEN 35

112 LANGENSTEIN 49 Lichtenburg Concentration Camp 50 Lichtenburgh Castle 50 LOHHEIDE 65 Luftfahrtmuseum Hannover-Laatzen 67 Luftwaffenmuseum der Bundeswehr 98

M Marshal Zhukov 104 Mecklenburg-Vorpommern 81 Memorial and Museum Seelöwer Höhen 102 MERKERS-KIESELBACH 23 Messerschmitt Me-262 Schwalbe / Sturmvogel 22 Militärhistorisches Museum der Bundeswehr 35 MORINGEN 68 Moringen Concentration Camp 68 MUNSTER 63 Museum Concentration Camp Wöbbelin 84 Museum Schloss Colditz 41 Museum Stadtschloss Wolfsburg 69

N Naval Memorial and U-995 77 New Brandenburg Prison 107 Niedersachsen 53 NORDHAUSEN 25

REITWEIN 104 REKUM 61

S Sachsen 33 SANDBOSTEL 60 Saxony-Anhalt 45 Schleswig-Holstein 73 SEELOW 102 Stadtmuseum Kahla 21 Stalag 304 (Stalag IV-H) Zeithain 106

T Tank Museum Munster 63 Technology Museum U-Boot 55 The Berlin Underworlds Museum 93 The Ohrdruf Military Training Area 19 The Osenberg List 31 The Reichstag 2 The U-boat WILHELM BAUER 55 Thuringia 15 Topographie des Terrors 8 Topography of Terror 100

U U-boat Archiv Museum Altenbruch 59 U-Boat Bunker Valentin 61

O

V

OERBKE 64 Operation Paperclip 30 ORANIENBURG 108 Otto Weidt’s Workshop for the Blind 99

Villa of the Wannsee Conference 101

P PEENEMUNDE 83 PIRNA 37 Pirna-Sonnenstein Extermination Institution 37 PRETTIN 50 Prison Memorial Bautzen 39 PRORA 85

R Ravensbrück Concentration Camp 109 Reichstag 99

W WANNSEE 101 WEIMAR 27 WOBBELIN 84 WOLFSBURG 69 Wrackmuseum Cuxhaven 58 WUNSDORF 105