Report
about:
"Das
Aussenkommando Landshut des Konzentrationslagers Dachau"
("The External Kommando Landshut of Concentration Camp Dachau")
Ms. A. B., Germany - With Many Thanks to City Archives Landshut
-
- In Reference to the Author - Thanking for his help - : Prof.
Dr. Georg Spitzlberger, Landshut, Germany
Preface:
This will be a shortened but not a short report - with a number
of examples.
It was not easy for me to get a full picture of this "Aussenkommando
Landshut".
- The report was confusing because of these many different details
inside:
- I am still thinking about a number of at least two camps - because
in the text
you find information about prisoners from KZ Sachsenhausen-Oranienburg,too.
So I asked the author, Prof. Dr.Georg Spitzlberger, how to understand
his description.
It turned out that he himself was a contemporary witness of those
days in Landshut:
- A 14 years old boy.
Prof. Dr. Spitzlberger describes an "OT -Lager" (Organisation Todt - Lager) which was in Landshut from September 1944 to the end of April 1945. There were about 500 prisoners and they came from different concentration camps - from Dachau as well as from Sachsenhausen - Oranienburg....
Summing
Up:
"According
to current definitions it was an extension branch
for work but all in all you get
the repulsive view of a labor camp with people in lack of freedom
and held under inhuman
circumstances which resulted with death for more than 80 prisoners"...
(Spitzlberger, see title, page 151/152).
"There they came again"...... The boy was 14 years old when he met four or six thin prisoners in the street. He had some apples with and he described how he let one apple roll to them - being deeply scared -he watched one prisoner biting into this apple and his fear grew: What would the guard do? Would he shoot?...But nothing happened. Then the boy was able to dare to think:.. That he should have better shared all the apples... ....But what would this guard have done..." (Spitzlberger:"Kindheit unter Kreuz und Sternen" -"Childhood under Cross and Stars")
1.) Camp Areal and Building Conditions
In
December 1944 a building squad of the "Organisation Todt" with
about 60 people came
from Berlin to Landshut. They settled where was
the former "Kleiner
Exerzierplatz"
nearby the railway line Landshut - Plattling. There they built
their baracks:
- A supplying camp for Wehrmacht with an administration barrack
and 24 halls.....
Some time later in winter 1945 a separate Jewish camp was built,
too.
About 500 Jewish people had to live in corrugated iron baracks..
.....there was an SS- Guard barrack, too.
Some prisoners spoke German; others were foreigners....
(Emslander, page 11)
2.)
Continuance of the Slave Camp ( - Different descriptions - )
"This was the so called "Aussenkommando Landshut/ Bayern" -
first mentioned in Sept.1944.
In Dec. 1944 Simon Klapstein arrived with his fellow sufferers
in Landshut...when later
they were transported to Muehldorf am Inn.."
(Report of Simon Klapstein, Isar Post, 8 March 1946)
"Closing - or Evacuating: 22./24 April 1945 - to Wasserburg" (witness report)
"SS - Baubrigade und Eisenbahnkommando (Railway- Kommando) Landshut and Ahrain, Bayern to 27.4.1945" (International Searching Service)
"Concentration Camp Kdo. of Dachau, working for OT Geraetelager Landshut established 20.12.44, 500 prisoners closed 6.2.45" (Dachau transfer books and invoices) ( Weinmann, page 556)
"Concentration Camp Kdo. of Sachsenhausen, starting mid April 44 and split into three details viz., Sachsenhausen, Friedrich Kraus-Ufer in the former Auer factory and Berlin-Lichterfelde ...Berlin-Lichterfelde was soon closed, the prisoners being transferred to Friedrich-Kraus-Ufer, in Oct.44 this Kdo. was reinforced and split into two details: Baubrigade 2a - Baubrigade 2b. A Baubrigade 2c seems to have worked in Ferch..On 25.2.1945, 500 pris. have been gathered from the detail 2a, 2b and 2c and an "Eisenbahnkommando" was established, which went to Nuremberg, Regensburg, Landshut and Ahrain".(Weinmann, page 365)
"In February the camp was closed and they pushed the totally exhausted persons towards direction Geisenhausen ." (Kagerbauer, in Ziegler-Schultes, page 397)
"On the End of War, before the Americans arrived on 1st May 1945, - the prisoners marched over the Weinberg towards direction South into an unknown direction." (Witnesses?L reports, Koenig, from 8 May 1989 and 23 April 1990)
"Some days before the American invasion the guard companies left the camp on foot with the Jewish people. How far they came up to the American invasion is not known. (Emslander, page 12)
3.) Guarding Staff and Working Deployments
"The
Jews were taken for works under strictest
SS-guarding in the OT-camp. There was built
a works siding to the rail network of the Reichsbahn, streets were
built, the region was
levelled off and buildings were put up." (Emslander, page
11)
"In December 1944 Simon Klapstein arrived with his fellow sufferers in Landshut. They came from Landsberg am Lech, 500 men, all of them Jews, 60 SS men accompanied them." (Isar Post Nr. 16, 8 March1946)
"Bad was camp leader, SS-Hauptscharfuehrer Stoller, who was hanged meanwhile in Dachau, worse was his deputy, SS-Unterscharfuehrer Henschel...(Isar Post, Nr. 16, 8 March 1946)
..."They had to load in and out cement, produce cement, had to do clearing up operations after the air raids." (Isar Post Nr.16, 8 March 1946
"When leaving from the front, I visited the devasted Central Station Landshut and watched the KL- prisoners from Berlin-Oranienburg who were brought daily from Furth by train." (H. Trautmann, report from 17.4.1982)
4.) Prisoners
"The
Jews were accomodated in corrugated iron
baracks. Where they came from
has not become public. A majority spoke German. But there were
foreigners, too.
There were about 500 Jews in the camp." (Emslander, page 11)
Out of the "Henschel - records" known Prisoners of the Aussenkommando Landshut:
William W. Wermuth came to the NL(sub camp) Landshut in January 1945. He had taken Henschel to court from Hartfort USA, on 7 May 1968. Hugo Kozen died in Landshut, January or Feb. 1945 (tortured by Henschel) Walter Baer died after a transfer to Dachau on 22 Feb. 1945 (tortured by Henschel)
Former Prisoners of Camp Landshut who are listed as Witnesses in the "Henschel- records"
Louis Borgh from Marietta/ Georgia Michael Braitberg from North Balwyn/ Australia Dr. Meir Basler from Holon/ Israel Hans Peritz from Pittsburgh /USA Josef Gordom from Silverspring /USA Paul Abramowitz from Chicago / USA Josef Abir from Ramat Gan /Israel Simon Klapstein from Monsey /USA Nahama Alfandary - residence unknown Motek Brajtberg, - residence unknown Henrik Deutsch, - residence unknown David Azy - residence unknown Gustav Mass, deceased Michel Borkowsky, deceased
5.) Living Conditions in the Camp
"The
Jews were in a bad state of health. In
those few months, many of them died
because of diseases and exhaustion." (Emslander,
page 12)
"Baracks with walls, thin like paper, a sort of dog huts, through whose the wind whistled and in whose the coldness entered directly. Heaters were there, but it was not allowed to use them. ..Food they got only one three-pound bread for 15 men a day, one pound margarine for 34 men; in the morning and evening you got a cup of coffee, at midday a thin water soup.The prisoners did not get meat, at least sometimes stinking horses meat on which they got a bad stomach. Sometimes they got black pudding for 500 men - for ten days 22 and a half pound...... .....many many of them were very sick.....they could not get medical treatment, because the two camp doctors, prisoners themselves, had neither material nor medicine...." (Isar Post, Nr. 16. 8 March 1946- interview-report with Simon Klapstein)
6.) The Dead
"The
dying rate through hunger, diseases
and hard work was very high as well as
in most of the sub camps." (Puvogel,
page 84)
"In these few months many persons died of diseases and exhaustion. Always early in the mornings at 4 .00 the dead were driven by the prisoners with a so called "panje- cart" to the cemetery Achdorf and buried there outside at the cemetery wall outside of the former areal." (Emslander, page 11)
"It was frightening, every day in the early morning the barrage was opened and coming out was a hand-cart full of deads...in front two prisoners tugged the cart and at the back four prisoners had to shove to move it at all. The bodies were transported to the Achdorf cemetery where they were buried in mass-graves." (Kagerbauer, in: Ziegler-Schultes, page 396)
Four former prisoners reported about killing and torturing the prisoners - five others declared they had not noticed any murder delicts in the sub camp Landshut; the proceedings were abandoned because the defendand could not be identified anymore.
"In Winter 1944/ 45 the NS- Organisation Todt Set up a supplying camp of Wehrmacht At the "Kleiner Exerzierplatz"..... Here up to May 1945 83 Jews died due to the inhuman imprisonment. They were buried at this place, Outside of the former North wall of the cemetery Achdorf, They were exhumed in November 1961 And buried in the KZ- Honor - Cemetery Flossenbuerg. The deads' names are not known."( - Text of the plaque at Cemetery Achdorf - )
Sources and Literature:
-Akt "Henschel" SS-OSCHA im KL Dachau" der
zentralen Stelle der Landesjustizverwaltung
Ludwigsburg (TV 410 AR 1371/68)
- Auerbach, Hellmuth, Institut fu?Nr Zeitgeschichte Muenchen: Brief
vom 19.12.1989
- Emslander, Hans: Gedenktafel im Friedhof Achdorf fuer KZ-Angehoerige,
Landshut 1981
- Internationaler Suchdienst (Hrsg.) Vorlaeufiges Verzeichnis der
Konzentrationslager
und deren Aussenkommandos sowie anderer Haftanstalten unter dem
Reichsfuehrer-SS
in Deutschland und deutsch besetzten Gebieten(1933-1945), Arolson,
Februar 1969.
- Isar-Post Nr. 16, 8. Maerz 1946 (Interview Simon Klapstein)
- Kagerbauer, Max (Erlebnisbericht) in : Ziegler-Schultes, Seite
396-397
- Kimmel, Guenther: Das Konzentrationslager Dachau, in Bayern in
der NS-Zeit, Teil 2
- Klapstein, Simon (Interview), in Isar Post Nr. 16, 8. Maerz 1946
- Kloppert, Wilhelm (Bericht), in Emslander, H. Gedenktafeln, S.
10-11
- Koenig, Maria, muendliche Berichte vom 8.5.1989 und 23.4.1990.
- Spitzlberger, Georg: Das Aussenkommando Landshut des Konzentrationslagers
Dachau,
Verhandlungen des Historischen Vereins fuer Niederbayern 114-115,1988-1989,151-162
- Puvogel, Ulrike: Gedenkstaetten fuer die Opfer des Nationalsozialismus,
Schriftenreihe
der Bundeszentrale fuer politische Bildung, Bd. 245, Bonn 1987.
- Trautmann, Heinz: Bericht vom 17.4.1982
- Trautmann, Heinz: LZ Juli 1990, Seite 42.
- Verzeichnis der Konzentrationslager und ihrer Aussenkommandos
gemaess ??42Abs. 2 BEG, Bundesgesetzblatt Nr. 64 vom 24. September
1977, S. 42
- Weinmann, Martin: Das nationalsozialistische Lagersystem, Frankfurt/Main
1990
- Ziegler-Schultes, Hildegard: Entweder - oder, Arbeiterbewegung
in Landshut 1933-1949,
Bd. 2, Landshut 1987.
Address of city municple office:
Street location:
Stadt Landshut
Altstadt 315
84028 Landshut
Post office address:
Stadt Landshut
Postfach
84026 Landshut
Email: hauptamt@landshut.de
City
web site :
http://www.landshut.de
http://www.landkreis-landshut.de
Gerta's
story:
http://www.ushmm.org/museum
For photos of old town Landshut, see http://www.deutsche-schutzgebiete.de
